[I]"I'll have to politely decline Valko, I have no interest in women, I'm very much married to my work." Loire replied pleasantly, "Once you're back on your feet, and not staggering around, you can eat and drink to your hearts content."[/i]
"Oh man you are missing out," Valko said his attention once again distracted from his quest to raid the cupboards, "But hey it's your loss Doc, just mean's there's more for us. I know some damn fine women who could show you a thing or two... I can totally hook you up if ya change your mind. Or a lad, if that's the way you swing." 

Valko waggled his eyebrows lewdly as he squirmed his way into a comfortable spot on the cot. Reclining because sitting up was too much work, as he let the Doctor do his stuff... maybe it was the drugs talking but this guy wasn't too bad. He was dreadfully fun to tease- almost as fun as Viva.   

[I]"You gave us quite a scare you know." Loire said as he worked. "I'd be lying if I told you you weren't at death's door when Viva brought me in."[/i]

"Ah shit doc," Valko cackled again at that, although this was a much different laugh from the one before- colder and much more sober from his previous giggling, "This was nothing. Just a lil disagreement is all- A difference of opinion if ya will... Guy had the opinion that he had the rights to do some unmentionable things to Vee. Made the grave mistake of letting me know and I let him know how [b]grave[/b] that mistake was, Ha Ha!"  

Valko's eyes had an almost fevered intensity to his dazed gaze as he looked at Loire, a wide toothy smile on his face that looked more than a little demented. Underlying the playful loopiness there was something vicious in that vindictive pleasure that now crossed the young man's face, "If you think I'd let anybody fuck with my family you got another thing coming."

<VoV>

[I]
"You can't peg this all on me Viva, your brother was there too and it was because of him that this deal went south, if he hadn't caused such a scene we wouldn't have attracted so much attention and we'd probably have already made the drop off by now if he'd just followed the plan."
"Vee don't dare think that I'd ever harm Valko. He's my best friend ... heck he's more than that, he's like a brother to me and I would die without him. Do you think you're the only one who was scared out of your freaking mind when he was bleeding out? Because you're not. You can hate me all you want, but don't for one second think that I don't love Valko, anything I do, I do with all of our best interests in mind." [/i]


Viva just growled in frustration, stopping just short of rolling her eyes. Of course she was well aware of their "brotherhood" they'd been harping on her about that same shit all since childhood- you'd think they'd realize she had gotten the picture by now. Best interests though? She highly doubted that Nth could ever be in Anyone's best interest. And she was getting real fucking tired of how Noah was trying to shift the blame onto her brother. Yeah Val could have been in on this goddamned stupid idea of a job- but Noah was their Captain goddamnit! He was responsible. Was it too much to ask for him to fucking act like it? 

[I]"Fuckin' Patches" he cursed. "Mal Sullivan, he's ... He's not good news, but we can just get to Paradiso and get rid of the cargo quick. Are we refuelled and ready to go or what?"[/i]

"Not yet," She said wiping the last of the blood from her nose that had thankfully stopped bleeding a short while ago, "I was a bit busy being mugged for fucks sake. We should be almost topped off by now though, it's a manual pump so we gotta disengage it from the outside. Come on, the sooner we ditch this frozen rock the better..."

Viva lead the way back out through the hall only to stop short- coming to an abrupt halt at the doorway to the cargo hold- the door that she'd closed but hadn't locked now stood wide open. Horror and alarm screaming through her as she instinctively reached for the plasma pistol in her pocket only to be greeted with the sound of the electronic whine of plasma rifles priming. There were people in the cargo hold. Hostiles.

There was three-no four? Three large heavy brut looking guys- rippled with muscles and matching tattoos moving about the hold amongst the crates, one of which now currently had them covered with a nasty looking rifle on his shoulder. He was standing next to a woman, looking disturbingly at ease in her fancy dress even as she sat upon the filthy crate. She was blond and uncommonly lovely, and currently cooing and petting comfortingly at the matted filthy hair of the wasted soul that had attempted to rob the Lucidae earlier. 

"Ah-ah-ah!" The Woman said chidingly, her voice lilting and cruel, "Reach for a gun and Taggart here will blast a hole through that pretty little head of yours. You too Captain. We wouldn't want this getting messy now would we." 

"Brody, Craven," She continued snapping her fingers, "Do go relieve our two new friends of the temptation would you? It simply won't do if itchy fingers get the better of our negotiations after all."