The smell of blood, sharper and more coppery than one found in Terran species was heavy in the air. The locals stepped out and pulled the door shut behind them. Sayeeda opened the door but found two unfriendly looking tibesman standing with spears leveled, the gestured decisively.

"I'm getting the impression they want us to stay in the hut," Junebug commented dryly. Behind her Taya let out a low moan. Turning she found the girl hugging herself tightly and eyes brimming with unshed tears. There was an uncomfortable moment as Junebug tried to figure out what she should say.

"They are going to kill us aren't they!" The girl blurted before the former mercenary could summon up the correct formula open the conversation. Junebug laughed a short mirthful laugh, the sound as unexpected to the young woman as breaking into a hymn might have been. Her face immediately began to color with anger but Junebug held up a hand.

"Sorry Taya, I'm not laughing at you. It is just I have been in the game so long that it never occurs to me to assume that people ARENT trying to kill me." The girl managed a wry smile at that. 

"It really dosen't make that much sense for them to bring us all this way to kill us," she went on in an attempt to comfort the girl. They locals might want them as slaves or sacrifices of course, but there was no point in bringing that up.

Sayeeda felt fairly ridiculous in her sports bra with an air suit wrapped around her waist like a diver taking a few minutes break but there was no help for it. She reached into the medical bag and drew out the sub maghine gun and the one reload of ammunition the girl had brought. She worked the action and caught the ejecting round she kept in the chamber and slipped it into the base of the clip with a quiet click.

"Beside if push comes to shove I guess I've done worse thing than blowing away a bunch of indiges with bones through their noses." She tucked the weapon beneath the fabric of the airsuit and drew out a pistol which she tossed to Neil. Taya hadn't bought a weapon, which was alien to Sayeeda's sensibilities but was probably the right choice given the girls lack of training. A wizard at the data terminal she might be but a gunman she was not.

"They were speaking Zil, or at least an old version of it, you see it sometimes on old colonies that haven't had much contact, I can make out maybe one word in ..."

The door banged open interupting the conversation and an old twisted man stepped through the door flanked by the two spear armed body guards. No, now that she got a closer look he wasnt that old. His body was covered with scar tissue and he had been twisted by massive injuries. His right eye was completely gone replaced by an ugly fleshy patch.

"Are you with the Starmen?!" he demanded in heavily accented but perfectly understandable common.

[@POOHEAD189]