Editing Episode 406: Salvage, Part Three

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[[Episode 406: Salvage | Part 1]]<br>
[[Episode 406: Salvage, Part Two| Part 2]]<br><br><br><br>

Which means we really need to get that AWACS package now. By the time Cheng I Sao docks at one of DePollo’s unoccupied umbilicals, grav and atmo have been restored enough to ditch the suits for respirators again and Rina works feverishly on the AWACS package.  Kiera does her best to help.<br><br>

Meanwhile, Captain Morgan hails the Captain of ''Summer’s Gift''.<br><br> 

Morgan: Let’s meet at the bridge.<br>
Nika: Absolutely.<br>
Morgan: We’ll even help put on the power on this thing.<br><br>

And true to his word, the lights go up significantly on DePollo and the hiss of the atmo out the vents gets stronger.  Things feel a little heavier.  Rina looks up, notes the changes and keeps on working.  Nika announces her intention to parlay on the bridge, who wants to go with?  Rina declines, knowing full well her ineptitude in social interactions. Kiera opts to stay behind and help Rina.  Joshua’s tied up with The Fish Head. That leaves Arden to back Nika and that leaves no one aboard our girl to keep her safe.  We’re discussing this on our private comms channel and Rina thumbs hers live.<br><br>

Rina: Do you want Kiera with you?<br>
Nika: Kiera. What’s your piloting?<br>
Kiera: I’ve done a fair bit of piloting.<br>
Nika: Hell, I should have asked you before. I could have taken Joshua with me. (to Rina) Joshua’s watched you enough to help you in engineering at least.<br>
Rina: Yeah.  I say swap them.<br>
Nika: Do we have the time?<br>
Rina: Make the time.<br>
Kiera: I can run.<br><br>

Rina helps Nika nail down the location of the various craft.  Sending Joshua forward to meet Nika on the way to the bridge and sending Kiera forward to take Joshua’s place is a matter of leapfrogging the people aboard equal distances. No one backtracks. Very doable. But Joshua has more engineering under his belt than Arden and has piloting on top of that. Therefore he’s the more logical choice to have guard the Gift.  Nika orders him to swap with Kiera and get aboard. Rina waves goodbye to Kiera and keeps on working.  Nika straps her pistol on in her usual thigh holster and gathers Arden to accompany her to DePollo’s bridge.  He falls in step beside her on the deck as they advance.<br><br>

Nika: God help me.<br>
Arden: (miffed) Hey.<br>
Nika: You did pretty well, though.<br><br>

Arden notices the gun.  Nika notices him noticing.<br><br>

Nika: I might be willing to share, but I’m not stupid.<br>
Arden: One might argue.<br><br>

The two of them work their way to the bridge.  The bridge is very Alliance in consoles and layout and is peopled by four very not-so-Alliance folk.  Captain Morgan has an eye patch. His First Mate is a stunning woman of Asian extraction.  All four on the bridge draw their weapons as Nika and Arden walk on.  Two have pistols—the Captain being one of them, his First Mate the other.  The other woman and man in their group have submachine guns.<br><br>

Arden: (undertone) That ain’t friendly.<br><br>

As Kiera approaches the bay where The Fish Head sits, she hears voices.  she doesn’t recognizes the voices and ducks into the shadows. She peeks around the corner and sees five people moving forward—people not our crew—coming down one umbilical and coming up on ours immediately opposite.  She ducks back, plants her back to the wall and keys her comm to Joshua on the bridge.  She winces at the hiss and dials back on the squelch.<br><br>

Kiera: (husks) Josh.  Josh.  Joshua.<br>
Joshua: Come back. I can’t hear you.<br>
Kiera: (louder) Joshua. There’s people coming up—<br>
Joshua: Say it more clearly.<br>
Kiera: Dammit! You need to get your hearing checked.  There’s people comin’ to get on board.  Lock the airlock.  They’re goin’ come take your ship.<br>
Joshua: (whispering now) Who’s coming? How many?<br>
Kiera: Five.<br><br>

She looks around for something heavy to throw as a distraction.  She finds a wrench lying around loose, pulls back her arm and pitches it as far as she can aft down the umbilical opposite her that is NOT the Gift’s.   The wrench makes a booming echoing clang and Kiera hears one of the boarding party shout, What’s that? Kiera wastes no more time ducking under cover.<br><br>  

Kiera: Five. Five of them comin’ for you, Joshua!<br>
Joshua: I’m on it.<br><br>

Aft of all the action, Rina gets a buzz on her hand comm.  She’s got it clipped to her shoulder and she thumbs it and works on one-handed.<br><br>

Joshua: Rina. This is Joshua.<br>
Rina: (working) Yup.<br>
Joshua: Apparently people are trying to board the ship.<br>
Rina: (working hard) Well, lock the fucking door.<br>
Joshua: I did. I was thinking you would come and help on your end. I just want you to be aware that they’re coming down there. If they can’t get on the ship they might be unhappy. And bring axes or welding torches or something.<br><br>

To be honest, the locks on our airlock have been compromised multiple times and Joshua’s fears aren’t unfounded.  Rina knows that Nika’s on the bridge by now with the other Captain and there’s no way to covertly alert her of this new development.  The structure of DePollo provides too much interference for the earcomms to work and the hand comms are the only ones capable of penetrating the hull at the range we need.  Anything announced by hand comm will be audible to everyone in the room.<br><br>

And on the bridge, Morgan turns to Nika.<br><br>

Morgan: So you’re the Captain? What was your name again?<br>
Nika: Earhart.<br>
Morgan: Earhart?<br>
Nika: Yeah.<br>
Morgan: (genial) Well, all right. It’s a big ship.  We’re looking for fuel, repair parts, maybe some salvage, so .. you know.  I don’t see any real problem with us sharing.  Wanna just break it up section by section or should we just work and not get in each others’ way.  Not fight over things. Maybe have some sort of rules for that?  Whoever gets there first gets it?<br>
Nika: Seems like whoever gets there first gets is perfectly reasonable to me.  My people won’t fight about it.<br>
Morgan: Mm-hm, mm-hm.  Now what about … um, there may be only a few choice items.  We’re going to have to come up with some mechanism for that. Let me think here.  Oh, fuel. Have you tried tapping into those fuel things?<br><br>

Meaning the hydro tanks strung like pearls along DePollo’s spine.<br><br>

Nika: I haven’t, no.  We hadn’t been here long enough to actually work on those.<br>
Morgan: It looked like your ship had some damage. You gonna stick around and try to repair it from this thing? Or land that thing? We might be able to help you, if you … You know, I have a pretty decent sized crew. I might be able to help you repair your ship.  Work together.  Well, since you been here awhile, we could maybe take a look at what you’ve got already. Seems fair, as part of the deal for helpin’ you with your ship.<br><br>

Nika waits a moment before answering.<br><br>

Nika: I haven’t decided if we’re going to repair our vessel here or take it back.  We been here about a day and a half, so you’re more than welcome to take your folks and look around.<br>
Morgan: Lemme think.  Well, let’s see.  I mean, I gotta tell you. I’m used to most of our salvage operations always being under the threat of “You are showing up and causin’ problems.” It’s nice to salvage where we don’t have that hassle but without you and I decidin’ these things …<br>
Nika: It’s a big enough ship.<br>
Morgan: Just a little concerned.  Makin’ sure everything is smooth.  We’re all okay about it, right? You think we should sign a contract or something? Is that too much? Should we be  more casual? A handshake?  I don’t know.<br><br>

And this is coming from a guy with pistols and submachine guns on his side against two people who haven’t drawn weapons yet on theirs.<br><br>

Nika: Again, you’re welcome to take a walk through but it doesn’t sound like what you’re looking for you’re gonna have any trouble findin’ on board.<br>
Arden:  It’s not anything we want.<br><br>

God help us if Morgan knew just what it is we do want. <br><br>

Morgan: What were you folks lookin’ for?<br>
Nika:  We were lookin’ for components an’ … not much.<br>
Morgan: Salvage.<br>
Arden: If you’ve looked at our ship, you’ll’ve noticed she’s a bit old.<br>
Morgan: Well, the Kuipers are workhorses. Nothin’ to be ashamed of.<br> 
Arden: I’m not ashamed of it. Just lookin’ for better parts.<br>
Morgan: (nodding, softly) I see, I see. (louder) Okay.  Well, lemme introduce my crew here.<br>
Arden: Really?  I mean, I don’t think we need to introduce ourselves.<br>
Nika: ''Arden''. <br><br>

One look from Nika and Arden shuts up.  But it doesn’t dispell the vibe Arden’s getting off the man. It doesn’t appear that Morgan is not all that in a hurry to get us off the bridge.  Is the man stalling? If so, why?<br><br>

Arden: I think we need to get back to our ship.  Just to make sure things are going smoothly.<br>
Morgan: Well … we have kinduva ceremony when we make a pact like this.<br><br>

Morgan pulls out a bottle from his coat pocket and holds it up.  With his eyepatch and a name like his, one has to wonder if the bottle holds rum.  He pulls the stopper out with his teeth and takes a sip, then holds it out to Nika.<br><br>

Morgan: Surely you’ll have a drink.<br><br>


Back at the Skyhook’s umbilical, Rina works as fast as she can to get to a hard-to-replace and critical part on the package and getting to it, she yanks it and pockets it.  Anyone finding the package now would have a hard time finding the replacement part to make it worth their while to take it with them. With the AWACS removed from the chess board as a valuable piece, she’s free to move toward the Gift and the people trying to board her.  Her plan—simple if dangerous—is to come up and shoot the boarding party from behind.  She puts her gun in order and checking to see if the coast is clear, she starts loping for the Gift down the concourse.<br><br>

Forward, Kiera’s keeping an eye on the boarding party and unfortunately her distraction doesn’t work for long.  They’re coming back in her direction.  She quickly stretches, leaves her cover and turns around as if coming from the opposite direction.  She’s ready when they round the corner and spot her and she smiles brightly and picks up her step.<br><br>

Kiera: Oh! You  must be from the other ship. Howdy!<br><br>

She’s perky and cheerful and has her hand out in greeting and it’s obvious she’s the last thing the boarding party expected to encounter.  The party’s guns swing and point at her.  They look itching to shoot something.  Kiera itches to look as passive as possible.  She raises her hands and widens her eyes.<br><br>

Kiera: Hi?<br><br>

The leader of the boarding party looks at her keenly and Kiera in turn gets a good long look at him … and her memory shouts in recognition.  The facial scars are subtle but there if you know where to look for them.  And Kiera would know exactly where they are because she put them there.  The man is Hsi Man Kuo, a Tong member who wanted out of the Tong and needed to look like not-himself in order to get free of it.  Kiera was happy to help him with a facial reconstruction and a tattoo removal.  Hsi Man Kuo got free of the Tong and Kiera got paid.  She thought that it would be the last she saw of him.<br><br>

It’s a small Verse, after all.<br><br>

Kiera: Holy Crap! Is that you, Hsi?<br><br>

Hsi looks around at his crew and then at Kiera.<br><br>

Hsi: Ah…no.<br><br>  

Meaning yes, and please don’t blow my cover.  He motions the guns down.<br><br>

Hsi: Hold your fire. (looks toward bridge) I’m going to parlay with your Captain, here.<br>
Kiera: (getting it) I think we oughta parlay.  I think that’d be really good.<br>
Hsi: I’ll go talk to her. What’s your name again?<br>
Kiera: Kiera Sullivan.<br><br>

Hsi draws the two of them aside.<br><br>

Hsi: Sullivan. So. This is a surprise that we meet again.<br>
Kiera: Yeah.  Tellin’ ya.  What moniker are you goin’ by? Instead’a Hsi-iii-it.<br>
Hsi: Courio<br><br>

It comes out soundling like Cool-lio.<br><br>

Kiera: Ah.  Courio.<br>
Hsi: (hooks thumb) This is your ship?<br>
Kiera:  Yeah. I’m part of the crew, yeah.<br>
Hsi: Oh? I thought … You’ve not given up your practice? You were a real doctor.<br>
Kiera: Yeah, I still am.  I just move around like I used to move around.<br><br>

Hsi touches his face in an oddly nostalgic sort of way. <br><br> 

Kiera: I can make you go back if you feel like it.  For a small fee.<br><br>

He thumbs his comm.<br><br>

Hsi: (to comm) Tell the Captain I need to talk.<br><br>


On the bridge, Morgan is passing the bottle around to seal the deal we’ve made.  Nika’s taken her sip already.  Arden’s abstained which makes the guns come up a little bit.  Morgan’s comm buzzes him and he answers before anything else happens.  He walks to the side and speaks softly into it. Nothing concrete besides a “what?” and a “cool” make it back to Nika or Arden’s ears.  Morgan returns and holds the bottle to Arden.<br><br>

Morgan: So have a drink and we’ll be done.<br>
Nika: He doesn’t drink.<br>
Morgan: He doesn’t drink?<br>
Nika: He’s our doctor.  He likes to keep his hand steady.<br>
Morgan: (grinning) Our doctor isn’t steady unless he drinks.<br><br>

Meanwhile, Rina’s coming up on the Gift’s position, her gun drawn and held low in both hands.  She sees a handful of people with guns, but held at ease.  They have torch kits and it’s obvious they’ve come prepared to cut their way onto our ship. None of the kits are on.  One of the party is a Chinese guy and he’s talking to Kiera.  In a split second, Rina sees the body language is not threatening or threatened, but almost friendly. <br><br> 

Oh.<br><br>

Rina hasn’t been seen yet and she immediately tucks her gun in her waistband of her cargos and pulls her shirt over the grip, hiding it.  She pastes a question on her face and walks forward.<br><br>

Rina: Kiera?<br><br>

Six pairs of eyes swing her way, five of which come paired with guns.<br><br>

Kiera: Oh, she’s a friend of mine, it’s all good.<br>
Hsi: Sorry. Misunderstanding.  (motions guns down and away)<br>
Rina: (shrugs) Happens.<br>
Hsi: We’re just here for some salvage.  So you been up and down?<br>
Rina: Yeah.<br>
Hsi: Have you checked the hydrogen tanks.<br>
Rina: No.<br>
Hsi: All right. Let’s go check those. (to Kiera) Doctor, if you’re still around we can … perhaps we’ll … I’ll talk to the Captain.<br>
Kiera: All right.  (smiles)  Like I said, if you—<br><br>

He pulls her aside and says quickly and quietly:<br><br>

Hsi: You may not wish to stay for very long. I’ll do my best to … delay things.<br>
Kiera: (low) Fair enough.<br><br>

And he walks off, taking his party with him. Rina watches him go and when they’re out of earshot she to Kiera.<br><br>

Rina: Is there anyone in this fuckin’ Verse you don’t know? Well, whatever you can, milk it.  He seems to be on our side.  We’ve got five people going up our umbilical—<br>
Kiera: I know and we need to get on outa here. He’s gonna try and hold’em off, so what you got, let’s get.<br>
Rina: All right. How are you at piloting dropship?<br>
Kiera: Fairly good.<br>
Rina: Get it done.  I’ll do what I can here.<br><br>

Kiera calls after Hsi, hooks her thumb at the dropship.<br><br>

Kiera: Mr. Courio, I’m gonna haul this piece’a junk on outa your way, all right? Cuz it was our piece’a crap we brought on board.<br><br>

She gets a sketchy affirmative wave over his shoulder.  Fine.  She gets going.  Kiera boards the dropship and settling in the cockpit, starts flipping switches.  The onboard computer asks for a password. Kiera keys her comm.<br><br>

Kiera: (whispers) Rina!<br>
Rina: (whispers back) Yeah.<br>
Kiera: Password.<br>
Rina: TeeS1xt33n.  Upper case T…<br>

She spells it out.  Kiera plugs it in. The engines spin right up and Kiera thanks the engineer and cuts the channel.  She hopes the people on the bridge won’t notice.  It’s a big ship we’re on and the dropship is small.  With luck, no one on the bridge will be watching the status screens and notice one of the bays is open and the craft inside is moving. Nope.  Not notice at all.<br><br>  

The ship silently prompts her:  Autopilot sequence? <br><br>

Kiera: Please!<br><br> 

She pushes the button to turn it on and the autopilot eases the dropship into the Black. Using the autopilot, Kiera tells it to head for the ''Gift''.<br><br>

The ship prompts again: Landing sequence?<br><br>  

Please, again.  Easy does it.  Easy … <br><br>



Up on the bridge, Morgan’s crew are still insulted that Arden won’t drink with them.  Feelings smooth down when Nika takes a few more swigs from the bottle on Arden’s behalf.<br><br> 

Morgan: Well, all right. We’re going to take a look. If you’re around this evening, we should try to do a pot luck in commissary or something?<br> 
Nika:  That would be wonderful. Our steward makes a mean diner.<br>
Morgan: You got a steward on that thing?<br>
Nika: (grins) I do.<br>
Morgan: Is it the same Kuiper class that I remember? Cramped little metal—<br>
Nika: It’s a Kuiper II, but …<br>
Morgan: Kuiper II’s?<br>
Arden: It’s modified.<br>
Nika: We got lucky to have a Companion on board—not anymore of course, but the modifications the Companion paid for have been reasonably nice for takin’ on passengers every once in a while.<br><br>

Morgan and his crew all smile knowingly at each other.  There’s some ribpoking and whispering, too.  They break up the parlay and say good bye and leave to start their salvage run.<br><br>

Whew!<br><br>

Arden: Well, that gave me the creeps.<br>
Nika: Yeah. Get back. Go now.<br><br>

Well aft of the bridge, Rina’s got her gun in hand and she’s gone down the umbilical to the Gift’s airlock and found it empty of would-be boarders.  She reaches the Gift’s door without incident and she sees it’s failsafed—the controls show there’s no atmo on the other side of the door and it will not open to vacuum.  She buzzes the bridge on her comm.<br><br>

Rina: Joshua. It’s Rina.  Open up.<br>
Joshua: All right. Hold on a second.<br><br>

The airlock pressurizes and opens and Rina jumps inside and closes the door.  She switches channels on her comm.<br><br>

Rina: Kiera.  Where are you exactly?<br>
Kiera: (over comm) I’m a’comin’.<br><br>

At 30 tons, The Fish Head won’t fit through the door of a standard container.<br><br> 

Rina: Dock on top.<br>
Kiera: On top of our ship?<br>
Rina: Yeah. Shuttle dock.<br><br>

The dropship is a specialized shuttle but still mates to our shuttle dock nice and tight.  Kiera latches to our girl as good as you please and it’s not long before she’s skinning down the ladder from the shuttle hatch.  Her boots hit our deck and she’s home.  Rina doesn’t wait beyond listening to the seals clamp shut on the hull and runs up the stairs to the engine room to warm things up for departure.  She figures the AWACS package is gone, but at least with the part yanked, the other crew won’t get to use it either.<br><br>

She finds the strain on our girl’s engines has lessened—the drain has been partially negated by the other ship sharing power.  Rina feels a little more charity toward that crew as a result of it, but she doesn’t stop with the warm up. Kiera’s friend on the inside had told them not to linger and Rina doesn’t intend to ignore his advice.<br><br>


Nika and Arden jog back to the ''Gift'' and find the door to our ship locked.<br><br>

Nika: Somebody open the door. Joshua!<br>
Arden: Now.<br>
Joshua: What’s the password?<br>
Nika: I’m tellin’ you know if the password is “Shepherd”, I’m kickin’ you in the head.<br><br>

Joshua opens the door. Nika glares at him but finds everyone on board alive and well.<br><br>

Nika: Do I want to know? Do I even want to know?<br> 
Arden: About?<br>
Nika:  About what’s going on? <br>
Arden: Um, some pirates have come along and we need to skedaddle before they find out we’ve taken all the good stuff?<br>
Kiera: Yes.<br>
Rina: I’m warming her up. We don’t have the AWACS but we have the dropship. I say we call this a win and walk away.<br>
Arden: There’s an AWACS?<br>
Rina: Uh-hm.<br>
Nika: It’s a beautiful little AWACS. (a beat) So… we got a small problem.<br><br>

We don’t have any sensors.  Nothing we can fly with and it’s a freakin’ obstacle course out there.  Flying without sensors isn’t just stupid.  Some people would call it death.  Other people would call it suicide.  No matter what you call it, we’re effectively grounded until we get something working.  Rina realizes that despite what she’s just said, there’s no walking without the AWACS.<br><br>

Rina: You’re right. We need the sensors.  Can you delay them while I get it? I’m going to need … (does the math) … three hours? If I had to do it alone, more?<br><br>

Nika checks the time. Despite everything that’s happened, it’s still morning of our third day.  Incredible.<br><br> 

Nika: How ’bout we suggest we do brunch and Joshua cooks and while we’re all doin’ that, you see if you can get the AWACS loose.<br>
Rina: If I can get one person to help me it would go a lot faster.<br>
Arden: I’m going with you.<br>
Rina: Okay, fine.<br>
Arden: (to Nika) Don’t be hospitable.  Just let them be.<br>
Nika: Aaannnnnd when they catch her in there … (points to Rina) … because they got ten people walking around this vessel …<br>
Arden: We got there first.<br><br>

He just doesn’t get it.<br><br>

Nika: Yeah.  That’s going to go very poorly.<br>
Rina: I’ll go stake my claim now. <br><br>

She grabs her tools and goes. Arden goes with her. She finds a working hoverpallet on the hangar bay concourse and takes it. It will make a convenient platform for her to stand on and it can carry the AWACS for her when she gets it free.<br><br> 

Kiera asks about getting away to synthesize the drugs. She’s still on the hook to Byshek and while Morgan’s crew are an immediate threat, Byshek is a bigger one. <br><br>

Nika: Can make drugs that perhaps Morgan would be interested in?<br>
Kiera: Of course, I can. Sure.<br>
Nika: Let’s see if the Captain would be interested in parlay a little more.<br>
Kiera: Because the truth is, between what Arden has proposed that he and I make, aside from what I propose he and I make, they might be very interested. The Captain especially, in what he is interested in making. (points to Arden)<br><br>

Kiera calls up her contact with Morgan’s crew, Courio, and tells him we have something they might be interested in. She tells him of the lab and the possibility of making drugs aboard DePollo. She’s very persuasive. To say nothing of doing a very good job on his face.  In exchange for spending more time to extract the AWACS—which they have no interest in—they want pretty much half of whatever she and Arden make.  Since there seems to be no limit to what they can make save for the amount of materials to work with. We get the AWACS and the drugs we need, and Morgan and his crew don’t kill us in our beds because they outnumber us two-to-one.<br><br>

We’re going to want to make at least 300 units of Kiera’s required drugs.  We’ll want to make some Flomixipan for Joshua. Totalling all the drugs for both crews, we’re looking at 600 units. That’s going to take Kiera and Arden a little while to make.  The time gained will be more than enough for Rina to install the sensor array and repair the hull damage to our girl. Morgan is happy with the arrangement because the drugs he’s getting will be more than good enough quality to sell.<br><br>  

While we don’t spend any real time being chummy, we do get to know Morgan’s crew a little better.  They are pirates, but not exclusively pirates. They actually came to the debris field to find salvage to sell, not to attack any ship they found there.  Before we leave, we do a shakedown sensor sweep to test our new package and in doing so, we find out that the Cheng I Sao is equipped on both her gimbaled arms with what appear to be very close range focused EMP generators.  Which would explain how they took out our sensors.<br><br>

Sneaky bastards.<br><br>

But wait, there’s more!  We find out that Morgan’s crew is actually cobbled from two separate crews that merged together.  Arden inquires and finds out that they don’t actually have a bona fide doctor, so Arden promptly offers all of them a medical checkup. Kiera passes out her business cards, no telling when they’ll need a good plastic surgeon. Morgan approaches Nika with the possibility of doing business again with us in the future.  Nika considers carefully what sort of business Morgan is currently doing. What he’s doing, for the most part, is filling in where the law isn’t.  Frequently doing illegal things.  Out on the Rim, the law is all very vague. <br> <br>

How are they able to dock at starports with obvious weapons on their ship? Arden wants to know.  They actually have a way of powering them down so they don’t come up as obvious weapons. Then again, we’ve got concealed weapons too.  Are they regularly salvaging this area, Nika asks them.  They’ve been here a few times before, having known of this area.  Looking for salvage they can sell, mostly.  And they’ve never been to this ship before, however, even though they’ve heard of it. In fact, our being here made it possible for them to find it at all. Since any future business dealings with Morgan will likely hinge on our making drugs for them to sell, is there any way they’d be willing to help us move the lab off DePollo and into one of our containers, Kiera wants to know.  After all, there’s little good to have the knowledge of how to synthesize pharmaceuticals if you don’t have a lab to synthesize in.  Nika counters with the fact that we’re only synthesizing the drugs this one time to meet our obligations.  We’re not in the business of pushing drugs and ruining lives with them. Rina remarks that since we’re already making Flomixipan, there’s nothing from stopping us from making penicillin either.  Nika concedes that point.<br><br> 

Kiera: We can do that too, yes we could.<br>
Arden: What a black little mercenary pitted heart you have.<br>

We all laugh over that one and sober again. Are we going to want to come back to DePollo to salvage and not have problems with Morgan and his crew.  Rina says if Byshek doesn’t ask for the pinger back, why not? Kiera agrees that having the lab or access to it might be a source for evil, but it could also be a source for good.  We’re making Flomixipan, a beneficial drug, for our friend and crewmate. Because it doesn’t have a shelf life longer than a couple of months without degradation of efficacy and Joshua uses the drug on a fairly regular basis, we’d have to make it on a fairly regular basis. Which means we’d have to return on a fairly regular basis because there is no getting that lab onto our vessel. It’s too big. It would take a brick and mortar building dirtside to house it properly.  Even if we did manage to take the lab off DePollo, we’d have to find somewhere dirtside to relocate it to and stay put. It’s just too big to travel aboard the Gift. Our containers won’t cut it.  Besides, we can’t afford the loss of 25 tons of cargo space a synthesis lab-container would cost us.<br><br>

Arden inquires next if anyone on Morgan’s crew was looking for a little amorous action? If so, he’s game. Morgan’s Second Mate seems interested and Arden seems interested in taking it further.  They have their fun together and Arden can’t help noticing that the Second Mate makes Kiera seem like a straight-arrow truth-talker in comparison.  It might have given him some serious pause if he hadn’t already known that it is pretty unlikely he’ll cross paths with her again.  So Arden has a good time, she has a good time, both walk away happy.<br><br>

So bottom line? Do we need to set up a continuing business relationship with Morgan’s crew? No. Well, maybe? We part from Morgan and his crew amicably. We may find ourselves needing Morgan’s contacts and fences and whatnot.  It’s a brave new Verse and the old rules no longer entirely apply. <br><br> 

And Byshek is one aspect of the brave new Verse.  Because we’ve disappointed him with the drug shipment, we will have to sweeten the deal with him by giving him extra when we see him.  Kiera’s already anticipated that and made more than the amount she strictly needed to fulfill that shipment order.  Even so, we may still expect to bring him what amounts to monetary tribute when next we’re on Newhope.<br><br>

And then there’s Kiera’s client base.  As our encounter with Courio amply demonstrated, Kiera’s clients cannot afford to let it be known they didn’t always look the way they  now do or answer to the name they now do. In terms of a who’s who list in her head, Kiera’s list would be very interesting indeed and the need for anonymity isn’t strictly for Kiera’s clients, but for Kiera’s safety, too.  If someone of nefarious intent ever decided they wanted Kiera’s client list, the only way to get it is to get it out of Kiera herself … and their methods might not be too kind or picky as to how.<br><br>

It’s a good reason to keep on the move and as we pull stakes and leave L2 and DePollo, we’re moving again.  We’ve cargo, we’ve salvage, we’ve got working sensors.  Plus a sweet dropship for a shuttle.  And for once, we didn’t have to spill any blood to get any of it.<br><br>   



Jump to: <br>
[[Episode 406: Salvage | Part 1]]<br>
[[Episode 406: Salvage, Part Two| Part 2]]


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