How Do You Thank Someone For Taking One For The Team?

WHO: Rick, Nika

Once the ship lifts off from Osiris en route to Londinium to pick up the cargo, Nika sets the beacons to alert bridge and engineering (she knows Rina will be down there for a while) and disappears from the bridge. She has taken to sitting in Tony's hydroponics garden sometimes -- since she was helping water the plants there while he was off the ship -- when she doesn't want to be bothered. It's nicer than sitting in her quarters, though not quite as soothing as the bridge .... but people bug her on the bridge. In this case, though, she's slipped into the garden area because she's somewhat expecting to find Rick there and she wants to talk to him -- and since he's not in medbay and he's not in his room, this seems like the logical place to look. The occasions they've spoken on before have generally been kept to pretty casual conversation.. this time she has an agenda.

"Hey, Rick?" she calls as she closes the door behind her.

After the recent encounter with Blue Sun rick realized that it could be very helpful to make a more potent version of his tranquilizer round. It this worked he might even be able to adapt it to a cartage that could be fired from a hand gun. the first step in this process would require ,more of the plants that produced the tranquilizer toxin. He had tried in the past to modify the concentration of the toxin but with little effect. This time he would try to breed a series of plants that produced a more potent form of the toxin. He knew that it wouldn't be that hard to produce a series of random mutants and screen for the ones he wanted. These would then be used in cross breeding. "How exciting" Rick though to himself "Maybe we can knock a Blue Hand out next time." While deep in though Rick noticed his name being called out by Nika from the door.

"Hows it going?" Rick asks as he walks over to the door.

With a faint grin, the pilot looks him over. Blue eyes take in how he's looking and moving as well as his color. "Not too bad," Nika replies mildly. "Came to check in on you. Considering everything you've been through this run, I wanted to.... I don't know. Apologize that you got caught up in our crap, maybe? Make sure you were holding up all right? A little of all of the above?" She shrugs a bit, shoving her hands into her pockets while she looks at him. "And tell you that no matter what you may have told them, Rick.... no one will be upset. It might be good, though, if we could talk a little about what specifically they wanted. If you're up for that."

I knew you all were trouble," Rick said with a big smile. Closing his eyes to think back on the interrogation Rick recalled most of the questions and his answers.

"For the most part I told the Blue Sun agents the truth to all of their questions. I have tried to not ask you all too much about what has gone on in the past and that definitely payed off. I had no specifics for them just were we had come from and that we were heading to pick up more cargo. To tell you the truth they were very interested in Arden and realized pretty quickly that I had no answers of value for them. I have had training in how to resist torture to some extent. I feel confident in telling you that I gave them no damaging information and no travel information that could not be found out throuhg scheduled logs."

Letting out a chuckle Rick added, "The agents seem like normal humans besides their advanced armor and equipment. While I was interrogated I asked several questions back that seemed to visibly shock the female agent and evoke a response from the male agent." Rick couldnt help but wonder if there were any simple DNA modifications that could be performed to enhance a person, that would not have a noticable phenotypic change.

Looking into Nika's eyes Rick waited for her reaction.

There's a soft chuckle when he comments that he knew the crew was trouble. And Nika gives him her full attention while he speaks, and then nods slightly. "Then we owe you a bigger thanks than I realized," she says quietly. "For thinking ahead to keep yourself somewhat in the dark, though it could have gotten you killed because you didn't have what they wanted, and for being willing to even come back aboard once all of it played out. I'm sorry you got hurt, Rick," she says sincerely.

"It wasn't that bad," Rick chuckles. "You all are my friends so I couldn't abandon you in the middle of this. Plus I am pretty interested in these Blue Hand operatives now. I hope we can knock one out and get a look at their tech and maybe get a sample of DNA."

"So how are you doing? Are you even more worried after this incident? I bet Rina is twice as paranoid, if that is possible."

Moving to walk around the room that houses the garden, Nika touches leaves on some of the plants as she moves. "I'm more worried, yeah... about a lot of things." She glances at him. "Arden and his 'brother' are a huge question mark, and his 'brother's' agenda concerns me a lot. I get the feeling that we're basically playing right into his hands, but it's not like we had a lot of options there anyway. But the fact that this ties back into my old shipmates, and that they've been off the grid so long...." She trails off. "It's not like we haven't run silent for months on end before, but ... it's weird. I wanted out. I signed up with Potemkin because it was a job and I needed to fly and eat, not necessarily in that order. I always expected to hook back up with /Harbinger/ at some point. But the coincidences in this case just kinda boggle my mind, you know?" She smiles at Rick. "Now I've got two crews of people to stress about."

"At the moment there is not much we can do about the operative. I would say that the only thing we can really do is try to be prepared for whats next. How long will the journey to the Blue Sun system take? I hope to have a surprise for the Blue Hand agents the next time we meet. I will have to buy other components before its ready." Rick says as he points to some seedlings and his note pad with lists of various mutagenic treatments performed on the plants.

Tilting her head to skim over his notepad, which makes little sense to her anyway, Nika asks, "So you really think you can come up with something to neutralize these guys? Why do you think a dart will get through their armor when bullets don't? Or are you thinking some other method of delivery?"

"I think we have a few options for delivery. If the main group distracts the operatives and one of us can get a clear neck shot that would work. We may also be able to carry some in syringes and deliver it to the neck during melee. We will see though. I have to grow a series of increasingly toxic plants before I can reach the potency we will need."

Blowing out a breath, Nika asks, "The toxicity won't impact the edible plants in here, will they? Or be something that'll hurt anyone on the crew if they accidently pick it or something?" She sounds a bit worried -- there *are* plants out there that kill by touch.

"Nothing to worry about from these plants. The toxin derived from these plants have to be extracted by crushing the leaves and extracting the oils. So simple touch will not cause the effects, you would need to eat the leaves. Also, based on the way the toxin works even when the plants are more potent you would have to eat several plants worth of leave to die. These traits cant be passed to the other plants just through the same species. I think when I mention this plan to Rina it should be over a nice salad," Rick said with a laugh. "She would probably throw it at me and start shooting. I picked on her a little while we were scouting out the clinic neighborhood." Realizing that there was time to prepare and it may be best to relax Rick had a plan. "Have you ever seen the episode of my show were we examine a 7 foot tall Fire Ant hill? I have the bloopers from that."

Nika facepalms when he mentions the salad thing with Rina. "Oh God.... can you see it? I'd have to restrain her from going over the table at you..... except she doesn't eat rabbit food much anyway, I don't think." She laughs and looks at him. "And I should probably be ashamed to admit it to your face, but seriously... I haven't got much interest in that kind of programming, Rick. I didn't have a clue who you were."

"No need to feel bad, my show was only moderately popular. Well if you ever want to watch humorous bloopers let me know. Our camera man was a great guy but ran away screaming a lot of the time, so everything took multiple takes. I guess I cant blame him though, he was always getting into trouble." Rick said with a smile remembering his old friends who had died in an attack on there camp. Rick was certain that it was the work of the company responsible for his show. "Well Nika, I'm going to try to do a bit more here and then mess around with the fish in my feeder tank for Evil Tick and Smudge."

Nika laughs at the description of the camera guy, she can't help it. Noting the moment of nostalgia. She opens her mouth to ask and then says quietly, "You know.... you ever wanna bend someone's ear, I've got two." It's not in her to pry into his business if he doesn't want to talk about it, but if he wants to, she's more than happy to be there. "I'll leave you to your work," she tells him easily, making a mental note to just keep an eye on him in case he's not as easygoing about being tortured as he's letting on. "Glad you're back, Rick."

"Good to be back."Rick says as he walks back over to his note book and refocuses on his new task. Tranquilizing a Blue Hand operative for study.