Whatever Junebug had been about to say evaporated when Neil opened the door. Any eyebrow climing she plucked her panties from his head and stuffed them into a pocket without a word. Judging by the sheen of the fresh tattoo on his arm Neil's night had also been memorable. For a moment they stood in awkward silence before she broke in.

"Grab a shower and lets go."

The addition of silvered shooters glasses to her ensemble helped immensely Sayeeda decided as she followed the direction Lonney had downloaded to her hand set. Although not as functional as her helmet they at least kept the bright overhead lighting from boreing into her sensitive brain. They had eaten at Kamala, one of of the more or less respectable places on the edge of the Strip. The cuisine had been of a more or less asiatic flavor although meat and several vegetables were substituted with various types of the local fungus. It was pleasingly familiar to Junebug and the dum sum had proved just the thing to settle her stomach. Now they were trudging down another of the long, massive corridors. Although they appeared fairly straight careful inspection showed them to be slightly curved. That made sense in retrospect as they had to follow the vauge disc shape of the station. Instead of bars they now passed stores selling all sorts of goods and services, some of which were obvious, clothiers, weapons, electornic and some of which were not. After about ten minutes they arrived at the destinatoin Lonney had provided.

The building was nondescript with a plate glass front embossed with a stylized shield logo and the words Eron Banking Services. Pushing through the door revealed that the building was not quite what it appeared. Junebug had expected weapon scanners, cashiers behind armored glass and dozens of customers at automated terminals or waiting in line. Instead the building appeared to be the front of a small office space. A receptionist, a mousey looking brunette with skin paler than snow on some worlds Junebug had visited looked up.

"Ah Captain Cykali, you are expected in the Rose Room," she said, voice bright with artifical cheerfulness. Junebug blinked in surprise. They shouldn't be expected anywhere. This was a routine account issue. Except obviously it wasn't. Beside her she felt Neil shift his stance slightly, spreading his feet and resting his hands nonchalantly on his hips, closer by several centimeters to his weapons.

"Uhh...ok, where..." she began but the receptionist nodded down a short hallway lined with doors. The nearest one had a small plaque that read 'Rose Room' affixed to the door of synthetic wood. Without further comment she crossed the room and pulled the door open offhanded, keeping her right hand free for the grip of her pistol in her shoulder rig. Inside was a thin man with Asian features and a pair of horn rimmed spectacles that must have been an affectation, surgery to correct vision was cheap and effective in all but the most basic cultures. The room also contained a large table of shiny black stone on which coffee supplies and some sort of pastries were set up. It smelled good.

"Ah there is my holo disk thief," the man said in a strange accent, guesturing to Neil.

"Come in, come in, the coffee will get cold."

@POOHEAD189

Neil squinted at the man, eyeing him for a moment with scrutiny. The pilot was certain the man had not seen him when he had taken the holo-disk. At least initially. The crowd was quite large when he stole it, and Neil admitted he didn't hide the holo-disk because he was already getting somewhat inebriated. Maybe the man had seen him holding the disk but the crowd kept him from getting to Neil before he was gone. Either way, it looked like he had some resources on hand.

Neil quickly scanned the room for possible methods of attack. Not for him to attack, but for his own defense. However it seemed a normal, perhaps high class office room with various automated utilities built into the seemingly solid walls, as the Asian man pressed a seemingly smooth section of the drywall and it opened up to reveal sugar and cream, casually picking both up and bringing it over to the stone desk as the wall closed once more.

"Uh sure." Neil said, sarcastically upbeat for this odd situation. He was glad for the extra ingredients for the coffee. It wasn't exactly adult, but he'd been raised on sugar and cream with his coffee. His father used to make the best, putting in the exact right amount of both in every cup. He could never recreate that, but it still was better than the black coffee he assumed Junebug would get. Taya seemed to agree with Neil, and she nervously walked over to the table right behind Neil, asking him to pass the sugar.

"So..." Neil began, stirring his coffee as the Asian man sat down, giving a cordial smile. "I assume if you wanted us arrested you would not be giving us coffee, am I right?"

"That is correct," he said, adjusting his spectacles and clearing his throat. His eyes switched between Neil and Taya, before going to Neil and Junebug, as Neil was the thief and the one speaking, but Junebug held the air of authority he surmised. "I apologize for the inconvenience of your assets, but I needed to find you. Have you actually looked on the disk yet?"

"We..." Neil began, glancing to Sayeeda. "Have not. We were quite busy last night."

"I suppose that is actually fortunate, though that would be the only fortunate aspect of this very unfortunate meeting. You see, on the disk is...a message I received on the kidnapping of my fiance. My name is Kadashi Cheng, and my fiance is named Nia." He said the name with a certain feeling. "She...disappeared a fortnight ago, and the next day I was sent a message she was seen being carried off into the docking station. Yet I have reason to believe that if she is not on the Node, she is within the system. I have a beacon you see-"

Taya had her hand to her mouth, broken up that this man had lost his love and was obviously trying to appear professional while speaking of a subject close to his heart. Neil listened intently as he continued. "-a beacon that represents how close we are. It does not show direction. But it would not work if she was out of system. Its power is not infinite, as you could well guess. You can also guess how I am in dire straits to be speaking to complete strangers, but I did a bit of digging. The Highlander and its crew disappeared from known space for two years and yet, you are not unknown to certain groups..."
@Penny

Junebug sipped at the coffee without enthusiasm. Her head was still a little foggy from the bender the night before and she couldn't quite bring everything into focus. The man seemed well informed about them, which was a neat trick halfway around the galaxy from where they had last been logged. Then again he could just be guessing based on old records and the shape their ship arrived in, the repair crew was bound to talk about something as obvious as the void kraken damage afterall.

"So why not go to the police?" Junebug asked skeptically, tapping the rim of her cup with a fingernail. Chen removed his glasses and drew a rose colored cloth from his pocket and began to polish the lens in a gesture that was clearly habitual.

“There are no police on this station Captain Cykali,” Chen admitted, examining the lenses and slipping the glasses back onto his face.

“And here we were getting all worked up about being arrested.” Cheng smiled tightly at that.

“There are a few gendarmes and of course there the corporate security types, but as you might appreciate, they have limited interest in missing persons,” he replied bitterly, balling his fist before unclenching it and resting his knuckles on the tabletop.

“Look… Mr Cheng, I’m sure there are people better…” Junebug began but before she could finish the sentence Cheng’s face contorted in genuine anger.

“There is no one else!” Cheng screamed hurling his coffee cup against the wall with a clatter and a splash. Taya jumped, startled by the outburst but Neil and Sayeeda remained immobile. Cheng seemed to regret the outburst and turned to pace back towards the rear of the room.

“Look, I can pay, I will pay you if you find her,” Cheng went on. Sayeeda set her own coffee aside and removed her glasses to reveal eyes that were no long bloodshot. Glancing around the room she took the tempreature of her crew. The repairs had eaten up nearly all of their reserve. Theoretically they could convert the credits they had made of Fornax into the local currency but in practice the conversion rate tended to vary indirectly with distance from the system of issue. This far from Fornax, the credits would be nearly worthless. Sayeeda sighed.

“Ok Cheng, lay it out for us.”

The facts as Cheng related them were simple enough. Nia worked for one of the larger corporations. Two weeks ago she had placed a brief panicked call to her husband claiming someone was following her. It was the last he had heard from her. The next day he had recieved a message claiming she was being taken to the one of the smaller privately secure docking bays.

“Weird that there has been no contact since then,” Taya commented when the executive finished.

“If its a ransom then where is the ransom demand?”

“I mean unless its personal somehow?” Junebug mused. Some rival taunting Cheng perhaps.

@POOHEAD189

Neil tilted his body slightly to the side as the coffee cup flew past him to hit the wall. He didn't blame Cheng for blowing up for a moment. The man had been far too calm earlier. Neil had expected an outburst at some point. Thankfully he calmed immediately however, and they received the details.

"It could just be a routine kidnapping. Pretty women are unfortunately taken sometimes..." Neil said, slipping his hands into his pockets as he voiced that uncomfortable fact. Cheng composed himself well enough, but they could see that he was obviously doing his best to appear cool and collected. "Do you have any enemies we should know about, Mr. Cheng?" Neil asked him, gazing upwards at the man. The executive raised his hands as high as his shoulders in defeat.

"I do have some unsatisfied investors...people who owe me money. Those in the mining business that..." He stopped, blinking as he considered an intrusive thought. "I don't think that these people would do this, but there was a business partner I had to cut ties with recently. Kramer Mining and Productions, one of the burgeoning businesses out here that specialize in mining asteroid minerals, though they sometimes go planet side. I just... they're reputable from what my sources tell me. Seems unlikely it's them."

"Well it's a start," Neil said to Sayeeda, giving Taya a wink. "What about the investors? Any of them on the station?"

"All of them are." He said glumly. "If you go to the eastern wing of the Commons, you'll find a Center for Shareholders. We partner up and, recently my bank has been having problems with who we invest with. Pirates attack cargo ships, and we lose capital. But how would that be my fault?" He seemed utterly helpless at the moment, as if asking some higher power. Neil honestly felt for the man, in general.

"Don't worry sir, we'll figure this out for you as best we can." The Pilot declared, clicking his teeth together. "Where's Kramer located?"

"I...about a million kilometers off station on a smaller satellite station."

"By the way, can we have our money back?"
@Penny

"Oh..." Cheng looked a little embarrassed at the question.

"Of course, I cannot actually seize your money merely aquire the account and require you to sign some paperwork before you access it," he explained, clearly more comfortable to be in an area where he did apparently have some expertise. Sayeeda, far more comfortable on a battlefield than at a garden party could understand completely. Cheng produced a data pad and passed it to Junebug. She squirted a copy of it to Lonney who declared it to be free from legal trickery and in common usage on the station before digitally signing.

"We will need any information you have on your wife's disappearance," Sayeeda declared once the paperwork was done. Cheng smiled wanly.

"Everything I have is on the disc your pilot stole captain," he said, "If you need anything further, anything at all you have only to call." Nodding her acceptance Sayeeda stood, a little chagrined by the hope on the mans face.

"We will do what we can sir," she said in a professionally neutral tone.

________________________________

"It has to be this Kramer crew," Taya declared. The girl looked a good deal more human now that Junebug had forced her to drink several liters of water and accept a rehydration pack. By the way the girl kept looking at her and blushing and giggling, the aristocrat remembered more of the previous night than Junebug did.

"Why what have you found?" Junebug asked, looking up from her own fruitless attempts to go through Cheng's many investors.

"Nothing," Taya declared. THey were all sitting around the Highlander's consoles, linked into the local data net and with Lonney's sorting power it was the best place on the station to be. Plus the monitors could be set dim enough not to wake Sayeeda's nascent headache. The moment dragged out before Junebug rose to the bait.

"Nothing?" she asked, turning her chair to face Taya. It wasn't a particularly helpful gesture as the girl had her display set to mono directional so that only someone directly infront could read it.

"Nothing," Taya confirmed, "Name and a reistrey number but no client list, no sales pitch, no stock holder reports."

"Could they just be fairly low key?" Sayeeda asked skeptically.

"Maybe but I ran the profile of every other similar company that operates of this station and it flagged abnormal. Even the little mother and cub operations are screaming their virtues from the asteroid top." Leading troops gave you an ability to judge when a people were confident about something, and when a specialist was confident in her specialty area, it paid to listen.

"Sounds like a lead," Junebug said, eager to be up and away from the data crunching that had filled the last several hours.

"One more thing," Taya said and touched a button to turn her display to omni directional. A holo of Nia Cheng flashed into existence, rotating slowly.

"This has been doctored," Taya declared, clearly proud of the deduction.

"Doctored, you mean like altered with image processors?" Junebug asked. That was strange. SHe cast a glance at Neil.

"Any ideas?"

@POOHEAD189

Neil's face was firmly shoved in his hand, absently listening to the ladies as they spoke to one another. He hadn't looked at the image, but he didn't know who would doctor the holo of Nia. Cheng obviously wouldn't, because it was in his best interest to find her. So who else would have tampered with the image? And why? Cheng would obviously remember what she looked like, or perhaps the fact it was altered was just to show her in a different state than she was in?

"All I could think of is the Node higher ups and their security forces." Neil said aloud, yawning and placing his hands on the table. "If this Kramer Company had the backing of them, they could doctor the image and ghost out of the system too...which means this is a bit more dangerous and complicated than we thought a kidnapping mission would be." His voice trailed off and he lightly bit his tongue, eyes downcast as he considered.

"Well, we could try hacking into some of the security cameras." Taya offered, her face full of energetic mischief at the thought, drawing a somewhat surprised gaze from the Captain and Pilot. Neil had forgotten she was technical savvy in ways he wasn't, and that she was trouble maker enough to go past her overly controlling father and escape Fornax unscathed. He supposed they had been in so many dangerous situations recently that he mostly thought of her as a frightened young woman, but...

"They would show us what really happened, and if the upper Node is not trustworthy, asking them wouldn't be very unbiased."

"Every second we're not out there looking is also another second she might be further from the system, or closer to being trafficked off into some harem." Neil reminded her.

"Which means we better get to it." She replied quickly.

The pilot turned to the Captain. "Want to split up?" He asked, referring to he and Lonney flying out to check on the Kramer station while the two women checked the cameras. Of course if the Captain thought it was unwise, he wouldn't be mad.
@Penny

Junebug considered the proposition for a moment turning the problem over in her mind.

"No," she said after a long moment of reflection. According to the reports the shipyard engineers had provided her the Highlander wouldn't be fully space worthy for another few days. In fact, several of them had reacted with a kind of fascinated horror to the fact that the ship had been in hard vacumn, let alone the RIP only a few days ago.

"Taya you are best suited to chasing down the footage and the data streams, and the Highlander shouldn't lift till the repairs are finished." As if summoned by the words the sound of a power tool slicing into metal reverberated through the hull. Neil cast a gaze out the viewport clearly wishing he could be there to oversee the work.

"Cheng gave us an expense account so hit the shops and...." the girls eyes lit up to an unreasonable degree... "Get what equipment you think will be useful. Don't go to crazy because Cheng's geneorisity isn't unlimited despreate though he might be if we bankrupt him it wont do us any favors." Taya nodded her agreement clearly happy to remain behind at the saftey of a console.

"And what will we be doing?" Neil asked skeptically. A slow smile spread across Junebugs face.

_______________________________

"For the record, this is a galaxy class piece of shit," Neil said, repeating the theme of the last few minutes as he looked up at the small mining barge Junebug had chartered after a quick call to Cheng. The thing looked like an ugly tick compared to the Highlander's majestic greyhound as it squatted in the small docking bay. Its panels were covered with rust and coolant stained the paper thing hull plating in a hundred different places. It was basically a twenty meter long metallic box, with the vast bulk of the thing being given over to six massive thrusters arranged in a rectangular bank,and a pair of large gripping pincers. The ship, techincally it was a tug, was designed for the task of accelerating small asteroids along fixed trajectories for recovery. Hundreds like it were at work in the asteroid belt even now.

"Let the record show," Junebug replied as she stepped under the nose of the thing to pull at an unyielding ladder. Painted across the left side of the nose cone, in peeling glory was an improbably busty woman astride an asteroid with the name Hakim's Whore written underneath it in barely legible Imperial. Unwilling to trust the ships atmosphere system Junebug was in her airsuit with her breastplate and helmet fastened awkwardly atop it. Custom fit airsuits might not be a bad thing to spring for after this job was done because even the generic suit she was wearing was tight in places and too loose in others. A mass of equipment was carried in her duffel bag, more than she should realy need, but, she might as well admit it, she had really wished for her gear back on the unnamed jungleworld when things had dropped in the fire.

"There are plenty like her Neil," she explained, and then smiled impishly.

"Besides I'm sure a hotshot pilot can get us aboard this Kramer Station no problems right?"
@POOHEAD189

"Well," Neil sighed, running a hand through his hair and placing his hands on his hips as the bay door opened. "She runs hard and jiggles when you hit the thrusters. But that pretty much describes the substitute university instructor I lost my virginity to. I think I can handle it." Within a minute they were inside the cramped ship, dark and nearly too short to walk through. Multiple levers of unknown purpose jutted out of the wall at random intervals. There were only four seats at the helm, and each were sunken into the floor to allow a normal sized human a full area to sit.

He placed his hands on the steering levers, and noted even those had a ragged, sandpaper-like quality to them, bits of leather peeling off from frequent use. He'd driven enough stolen vehicles to know if he lifted his hands up he'd see dark smears on his palms. "If she blows up halfway there, just remember this wasn't my idea." He quipped, though he was just trying to lighten the mood. He wouldn't have gotten in it if it didn't look safe enough. Granted, safe enough for me is hazardous for most.

He saw her raised eyebrow and he returned a smile.

"We got luck on our side. The babe on the side reminds me of Zalli..." He said affectionately, and pulling the 3rd lever to the left, the junker began to jiggle and shake, before wafts of smoke suddenly billowed outwards from an unseen porthole. Yanking the rudder and keel thrusters, it slowly began to lift upwards as Neil entered the exiting codes. "By the way, do you remember anything that happened last night? Felt like I was hit by a Kerminian BulGor," he said, referring to those legendary horned animals that could send small tanks flying from their charges.

Soon the rectangular mining junker was out in open space, moving at its fastest pace, which was still about a thousand kilometers per hour slower than the Highlander's cruising sublight speed.

@Penny

"I have a vague recollection of dancing on a table and taking of my top," Junebug replied, her voice slightly disapproving of the memory. It wasn't the wildest thing she had ever done at a party by any stretch of the imagination but she had been a little more staid since she was promoted to command her own company. Troopers, even officers, learned to get through anyway they could but you couldn't let discipline erode too much. It had been a hard few weeks, subjective time, since they had gotten the Highlander but she still shouldn't let herself go so far.

"I suppose we all needed to let loose a little and I guess the local is no joke," she concluded as the engines kicked online, jolting her forward slightly. There was a slight breeze as atmosphere leaked through cracks or started seams in the hull and a second later the ancient weezing atmosphere reprocessor rumbled to life. It was a good thing they had their own bottled air if they needed it. The copilot seat was affixed to the rear of the pilots couch so Junebug and Neil were back to back as the little ship got up to speed.

Experimentally she touched one of the controls on the yellowish console in front of her. The ship groaned slightly as one of its hydraulic arms shivered at the input.

"If these guys are our kidnappers then we need to approach stealthily, I cant imagine they have much sensor range in all this asteroid hash," she pondered. Expensive millitary sensor packages used the RF vibrations of individual motors as well as radar and lidar returns to synthesize accurate positioning. They only one to avoid advanced tech like that was to shut down completely but such technology was incredibly expensive. A warships sensor equipment accounted for a significant portion of the price tag of even the largest vessels. Smaller commercial outfits usually made do with basic radar systems. Even under power a row boat like this would read the same as any other piece of small ferric space junk, unless they were supremely unlucky and got picked up by a visible scan.

____________________

Taya scooped the pile of circuit boards and electronics into her satchel and swiped the card across the holographic reader. It chirruped with silicone enthusiasm as Cheng’s charge card cleared. The bulk electronic stores sole attendant a tall pinch faced woman with red hair far to bright to be anything by a synth job, nodded her head and went back to watching whatever it was she had been viewing on her data screen before Taya entered the store.

Stepping out into the street she took a quick inventory of her mornings work, mostly stocking up on electronics, rations and other essentials for the Highlander. It seemed unlikely to her that Cheng intended them to use his charge card this way but Junebug knew what she was doing. Taya found the other womans confidence very appealing, even exciting at times. Of course it could be equally terrifying in those moments when the woman’s eyes were dead and glassy and she had a weapon in her hand. She shivered and as she did so caught a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye. The man, of medium build and dressed in a gray smock appeared to be looking through a catalogue of medical supplies several shops down. He was no different from a dozen other pedestrians. Except for the fact she had seen him before. He had been at the opposite counter when she had eaten her brief lunch, he had been at the infochant before that. Her mind suggested that he or someone very much like him had been present at a couple of other locations she had visited as well. Fear spiked inside of her, the man was following her.

What would Junebug do in a situation like this? Probably lure the fellow into an alley and beat some answers out of him. Taya was less than confident about her own abilities in that area. Try to lose him? Unless he was a complete idiot he would already know what ship she was from. Half a dozen shipments of rations and supplies having already been sent. Could it be something to do with her father and the Duke’s attempted coup? Unlikely. She had checked for news from Fornax as soon as they docked and received nothing but an ominous blank where data should have been. Perhaps the people who had abducted Nia were interested in them? Possibly, but they could just as easily be ship jackers or kidnappers. Unconsciously her hand slipped into her pocket to where the heavy flechette pistol Junebug had given her was concealed. She only barely knew how to use the thing. Sayeeda had promised some instruction but there hadn’t been any time as of yet. Best just to get somewhere safe. Trying not to appear to hurry, she headed back towards the Highlander as quickly as she could.

@POOHEAD189

"Yeah I remember that." Neil said nonchalantly when she relayed what she remembered. He was glad they weren't facing each other, but Sayeeda could almost feel the mischief in his barely suppressed grin, not that she needed to because she'd hear his amused laugh a moment later. "But I agree. It felt good not caring what happened next after having to be so serious the past few months or years or, what-the-fuck ever."

As they trucked along in the junker, Neil was satisfied the groans and sudden breezes of compressed air didn't startle Sayeeda. She was a hard woman under fire and in rickety ships like this one. Anyone else he'd need to calm them down every few bumpy minutes. All in all, they made good time. A lucky asteroid cluster moved on the ship's left, and Neil decided to sway the rig a bit and approach behind that to make the going extra safe. There was no way in hell even an AI could pick them up now.

At first it was just a loud, incessant beep that penetrated their ears every few odd seconds, but about a minute or two later he could see the outline of the Kramer satellite around the big asteroid known as XL4-D556. A tall structure, with three circular platforms connected along a tower/cone-like design, spinning idly in the void of space. "Alright, Captain." Neil said, slowing the rig down, causing it to shudder almost uncontrollably for a moment until it calmed down. "What's the plan then? I can probably dock this thing near an exhaust port and get us in but they might spot us at some point. The other option, of course, is we can always bullshit our way in too."

---

Nondescript. Late 40's, balding. Clothing unremarkable but functional, and a bionic eye that allowed him to keep track of notable individuals. Lars didn't even look at Taya as she walked away, confident he could follow her trail as long as he stayed within 500 feet of her. The agent bit into his sandwich, casually drinking in the bustling sight of the Node, the tingle of exhaust ever in the air.

He counted down from twenty, slowly and methodically, and then turned. Immediately his right eye would see a soft red glow at the edge of the Commons, indicating Taya's fading image and last whereabouts. Even without his eye, he knew that corridor led to the hanger. What the boss wanted of the Highlander crew he wasn't entirely certain of the details. But it all hinged on seeing Cheng removed, and Lars guessed his new 'friends' were causing needless complications.

He began to move, slipping past a hulking green xenos. One of the few allowed on the station, fingering the trigger of his laspistol a bit just in case until he made it out of the crowd, and down the corridor Taya had fled into.
@Penny

Junebug had been on Vac-Commando operations before. The academy had offered classes in it that included several zero G operations but it wasn't something you got used to without constant practice. After debating the pros and cons of subterfuge they had opted on stealth. Neil had ghosted them expertly into a small crater on the asteroid surface close enough to the lip, it was hoped, that the shadow it cast would provide the ship at least some cover from optical scanning.

The asteroid had some microgravity from its mass and from its slight spin, but it was a greasy mix of microgravity and zero-g that made it a particular challenge to navigate. Expericened vacum operaters always prefere to work in 'the hard' rather than in microgravity. It could be difficult to know exactly how much force one needed to accomplish a particular task and over reactions could be deadly. The surface of XL4-D556 was covered in a finely distributed rock powder that slipped underfoot as the struggled up the rock face of the crator. Reaching the top Junebug turned to Neil.

"Ready?" she asked. She was using the radio link in his airsuit and her own helmets intergral unit, but powered down as low as it would go. The transmission would only carry a few hundred meters and while there was a theoretical risk of detection the giant grey red swirled ball of the primary, the dominant feture in the star field, threw of enough rads to baffle the transmission beyond a couple of meters.

"Yeah, yeah why not," Neil replied. There was an under tone of excitement to his voice. This was real danger no mistake but if either of them expected to die in bed, they should have picked a different line of work. Junebug checked her air pack reflexively, Neil had assured her it was in working order and she was inclined to trust the pilot. Looking up she saw the sattelite above her in its geosyncronus orbit, nearly five kilometers out it was visible as a pale metallic dot.

"Jump!" she said and ignited her air pack. With a rush that wasn't audible but could be felt as vibration the airpack discharged, breaking the grip of the microgravity and hurling her into space. It was a peculiar feeling, falling across the void. She didn't dare turn to see if Neil had also succesfully lifted, the air pack would allow her to course correct to a degree but she didn't want to push her luck.

"Still with me Neil?" she asked over the radio.

"Right behind you," he responded. Junebug looked at the jump clock on her HUD. Impact in nine minutes and seven seconds.

"I hope we can find a way in when we land on this thing," she obsevered.

"A little late to be worrying about that isn't it?" Neil replied. Falling through space with nothing to direct her save dead reckoning and a pack of compressed air, Junebug laughed. Way too late.

___________________________

They were definately following her. Not just the man in the gray smoch but four or five other inconspicuous looking people. Thinking back to her anti kidnapping training, a real issue on the crowded city streets of Fornax, she ducked through chokepoints and blind turns. Sure enough they always followed her. Beginning to feel panic she tried to radio Junebug but was rewarded with an empty carrier wave. The system boat must already be beyond radio range, although that wasn’t much of a trick at intra system distances for a biologically powered transmitter unit.

Trying to calm her breathing she stepped around another bottleneck, an access tunnel between two of the major hallways and broke into a flat out sprint. Surprised pedestrians gasp and cursed as she bolted past them shoving her way through wherever possible. She didn’t look back for pursuit, just ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Within a minute she reached the hangar where the Highlander sat. Her heart sank as she realised that none of the engineering staff who should have been working on the sleek freighter were anywhere to be seen. A woman in a long black coat stepped out from behind one of the doors. Taya whipped the flechette pistol from her pocket and fired three rounds above the woman's head. Sparks and ricochets filled the air with a weird moaning as the flechette shells burst spraying tiny dartlets everywhere. The woman let out a curse and ducked back into cover by reflex. Taya having intended the shots only as a distraction raced through the doorway and passed the surprised figure. She fired again in the woman’s general direction but missed by a half dozen feet but it didn’t really matter. With a desperate bound she leaped onto the access ramp and scrambled about.

“Lonney lock down the ship!” Taya yelled in a desperate shill. The AI, sensing or computing her panic slammed the emergency airlocks closed. A moment later the deck began to hum as Lonney began retracting the boarding ramps.

“Don’t let anyone aboard Lonney,” she said, leaning back against a bulkhead and gasping for air. With trembling fingers she reached down and clicked her pistol back onto safe as Junebug had shown her.

“Highlander…. Whatever to …. Uh Captain?” she called, unable to remember the proper communication protocol but certain that Lonney would route the call for her.

“I canae estoblish ah kinectiction,” Lonney replied. Stars above the accent was getting worse by the day.

“What why?!” Taya asked pressing herself to her feet and trotting unsteadily towards the bridge.

“Sim sortah jammin, and the hardlins have been cut,” the AI explained. Taya frowned in concern, the hardwired lines connecting the ship to the station had been cut? Reaching her console she pulled up a communication board and saw that it was true. All electro-optical communication was being jammed and there was no way to get a message out. Worse when she pulled up a visual of the hangar she saw that it was no longer empty. A dozen men and women, all armed, had entered the hangar and were surrounding the ship. At their head strode a balding man with a bionic eye.

“Oh shit…”

@POOHEAD189

Seconds turned to minutes, and Neil yet again wished he'd brought his archiac MP3 player to listen to. It always helped him think better anyway. Ahead of them, the station loomed closer, growing exponentially larger. It looked like they were going to hit the station on the neck, between the first and second platforms.

"You know..." Neil said as they floated through the void. "We might need to think of investing in some space suits with thrusters. This is a biiiiiit dangerous." He inflected as if he was joking, but Junebug and he both knew just how terrible any one miscalculation could be out here. Even simple debris could cause a death in the endlass sea of space. He could sense that he brought the mood to a grim level, so he added with "but hey no pressure. So good so far."

"Remind me again why I don't order you to shut up sometimes?" Junebug said, though he only saw the back of her as they streamlined through nothingness.

"I'd like to think it's my insatiable charm." The Pilot replied with a smug attitude. Her next words he expected. "If we were not hurtling out here I would hit you."

"Oh come on. You'd miss me if I was gone." He still spoke as if they were at the drinking table. He would hear her sigh, but before she could utter a reply he felt a small bump on his chest and looked down to see an asteroid the size of a melon trucking along, causing a rupture in his thrusters. Even as close as they were, it would veer him somewhat off course. Turning his head to the left to save Sayeeda the movement, he saw it was merely the vanguard of a larger cluster heading for them. Thankfully it likely wouldn't reach them in time to hit them again, but he had changed trajectory somewhat.

"Ok don't panic" he said out of the blue. "But uh..." A cold sweat began to bead down his forehead and he let out a breath. "I might miss the station." He replied with as little emotion as he could. As they drew nearer, he could see it was the truth unless a miracle happened. The young crack pilot glanced junebug's way. "Just keep going to the destination. If I can, I'll meet you there." Neil tried to talk as if he was not floating toward oblivion. Looking straight ahead, he could see nothing but the impenetrable darkness of the nether.

Mere meters away from the slim base of the station, Junebug caught herself. It would give her the leverage to see Neil floating past the only anchor, and his face was illuminated in the light of the station. There was an acceptance on his face, yet a fear in his eyes. "Good luck, Captain. It was fun."

---

It took more credits than it should have to pay the engineers to cut a few wires, but in the end it worked. Though that wasn't what Lars Aldoon was thinking of at the moment. All he saw was processed prey stuck in a can. Thirty years as an assassin and bounty hunter, this was an easy job. Casually, he lifted his left hand and placed his forefinger and middle finger on his temple, and the eye began to glow as it searched for entrances into the Highlander they could exploit.

Behind him, the hard men Kramer had hired were armed and ready, though somewhat relaxed. They had expected to fight a reputable mercenary commando and a wanted fugitive. Those two were apparently gone and in their place was a scared girl they had with them, locked inside their high class freighter. Lars decided not to keep his entourage waiting, so he stepped forward, confident the girl had her AI turn on the cameras and comm.

"You there." He said. "You have to know there's no way out. If you come out now, you won't be harmed. We just have some questions. Will you comply?" His last words sounded nearly mechanical, as if his voice was amplified by some cybernetic means.
@Penny

You didn't panic. It was the first rule the taught you in command school. The Armored had a somewhat more direct method of dealing with it. Officer who panicked under fire were summarily dismissed if command found out. That was the lucky option. If command didn't find out... well there were a lot of ways inconvenient officers could die in the field. There were two or three 'accidents' out of each intake. Don't panic, work the problem and make a decision. Words to live by.

Sayeeda watched Neil fly out of her field of vision, a fairly narrow one while wearing her space suit, her helmet was always recording, with luck she could figure a bearing from the data and pick him up with the Highlander. Of course the Highlander was thousands of kilometers away and outside radio range. She could jump back down to the asteriod and get back to the asteroid tender, but that rusted bucket didn't have much more of a radio than her mastoid implant. She couldn't fly the thing, she thought she might handle simple manuevers in the Highlander with Lonney's aid but there was no way she would get that cantankerous bucket airborne, much less back to the node.

Work the problem.

The station had to have comms, gone ones too, microwave and laser probably as well as radio. She could get in touch with Taya and bring her out for a pick up, then they could search for Neil. Of course that left the small problem of seizing the communications gear on a probably hostile station with who knew how many bandits inside. Still, it was at least an actionable plan. Feeling resolve flow into her Junebug picked her way down the hull, magnetic boots making each step feel slow and somehow theatrical. She made her way to a large vent about twenty meters down the hull. The primitive gas sensor in her suit registered it as the output for a nitrogen scrubber. She climbed in squeezing herself carefully between metal stripping that covered the two person tall output pipe. About four meters in she found what she was looking for, a large emergency access port, intdended for servicing the scrubber. She pulled a multitool from her belt and got to work.

It took ten minutes to get the door open with the aid of her helmet AI and a quick short of the circuit inside was the second door of the mini airlock and she dutiffully repeated the process trying not to think about Neil floating further out into the void with each passing moment. At last she found herself amidst a wonder. A long corridor big enough for two people to walk abreast stretched in both directions and purple glow strips line the roof. More remarkable by far was the profusion of mushrooms that clung to every surface. The varied dramatically in size, shape and color, running from dark brown to phospherecent green. It was like a farie garden out of ancient stories. Junebug looked down at her oximeter. The green light indicated the air was safe to breath but she didn't want to risk the spores that might be here. It seemed unlikely this was a deliberate planting, more likely stow away spores had taken route here in this marginal environment. Life, amdist the chaos.

Junebug opened her pack and drew out her sub machine gun, pulling the charging handle back and letting the loading springs draw it forward with a metalic snap. Death amidst the chaos as well.

______________________

"Fuck fuck fuck," Taya moaned wracking her brains for something to do. Keep him talking, she decided, stall and see what happened. She touched a plate to enable the external speakers.

"Uhhh, you can ask me questions from out there," she responded trying to sound firm and in charge of the situation. On her monitor she saw the man laugh.

"Oh no, come on out now or it will be the worse for you." It had an ominious finality to it. Time passed. Thirty seconds a minute. Taya tried to resist the urge to chew on her fingernails. What would Junebug do if she were here. If only she could ask the capt....

"Lonney, I need help, what would Captain Sayeeda do in a situation like this," she asked quickly as men began to close in on the ship some holding cutting bars and flame lances. The AI didn't respond immediately, predicting human action involved factoring more variables than were practical and Lonney hand'nt had a chance to gather too much data on the Highlanders Crew. Still he had been asked a question.

"I reckon the capt'm'd open fire with the ventrral cannon. I estimate casulties at better'an ninty five percent," the computer drawled in its obnoxious accent. Taya paled. Firing the ship mounted weapon in a confided space like this would vaporise thousands of credits worth of equipment and might well kill not only the hangers occupants but people in the main station as well. She wondered if Sayeeda would have tried it anyway.

"Ok ok too extreme what would Neil do?"

THe first of the snatch team was within reach of the hull when there was a sudden and penetratingly loud clicking noise. Everyone froze expecting some defensive system to come online. Nothing happened and after a few moments they began to relax. The next sound was so loud it literaally rattled panels. Lonney turned the entire hull of the Highlander into a massive induction speaker and Neil's archaic rock music blasted out at volumes which were literally dangerous to the human ear. The men around the ship fell back, several of them cluthing at bleeding eardrums and screaming, a sound far to puny to sound over the ancient rock ballad. The supervising figure did not flinch from the painful barrage of sound. Lars Aldoon merely watched, planned, and promised himself the girl would suffer.

@POOHEAD189

"This is nooooooooooot good," Neil said, crossing his arms as he floated endlessly. The Kramer station slowly drifted beside him as he began to pass its central line, and he took a steadying breath. He had always imagined he'd die from a fiery explosion, or maybe when he was old and a girl was going down on him. Not like this. He felt like eventually he'll probably just open his space suit helmet and let the endless void kill him, or shoot himse-

"Holy fuck." He said, a chill running through his body as the realization dawned on him, followed by laughter originating from sheer relief and how stupid he felt. He reached down into his holster at the belt and produced his revolver. Thankfully this suit was nearly skintight. He would have been dead if the revolver was inside the suit. But he had an idea. If he did poorly he'd run out of bullets, so he needed to be careful, but he was pretty certain he could get this on the first try if he aimed it correctly...

He couldn't hear the crack of course, and he hardly felt any kickback. But his velocity began to slow from his first shot. He needed more, and placing his off hand on the hammer, his eyes steeled and his lips parted as he counted down to three, before unloading all five shots out of his pistol in rapid succession, causing him to reverse direction very deliberately. A mere turn of his head showed he was drifting toward the station!

Not for the first time was he glad that his piloting background caused him to think on his feet instinctually. He hit the station with more force than he anticipated, but with a rough grab he managed to hold. Less than five minutes later, after having gained a handhold and gripping each crevice and nook like his life depended on it, he made it up to the ship's hanger. The lesser void shield that contained the inner atmosphere glowed softly, and he yanked himself from the 'cliff's edge' feeling his weight almost immediately. A quick scan of the long corridor that a few Highlander sized freighters could land comfortably in showed there were merely two people on the right walkway, with doors that fed into the station proper. And none looked at him at the moment.

"Oh, time to shine."

---

"CLAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUSTROPHOBIC. (Closing in and I'm) CAAAAATASTROHPIC-"

It was somewhat muffled inside the Highlander, but Taya could see the screaming faces and the pain in their eyes as they clutched their heads to vainly stop the noise. She showed her teeth in regret, sad she had to resort to subjecting them to Neil's taste in music. She had been out of options! "Lonney, keep it on his playlist." She ordered, and her small hands were shuddering a bit at the fact she was in such a situation. She had never commanded a freighter before.

As the next song was sent down the line, a stop and start rock song with heavy deliverance Lonney revealed was called 'Click Click Boom,' Taya saw the leader standing unperturbed and unaffected. He simply reached up to his arm and pulled down his sleeve to reveal a wrist mounted device, tapping a few buttons she could not see before she felt a small disturbance in the air, as if the pressure suddenly became heavier.

Her ears popped violently and she fell to her knees as the frequency pierced through the hanger, and the music was suddenly silenced. The young girl gripped the Xarconian floor with her left arm, and reached up to feel her ear. Placing a finger underneath it, she lifted it to her eyes and was relieved there was no blood. The situation swiftly return to the forefront of her mind, and she knew her hearing was the least of her worries if they got aboard the ship.

"Oi, deckhand." Lonney said, a bit too loud for her ears, but it was a sign she could hear.

"Wha-... deckhand!?"

"Aye. Looks like ye got some help ay?"

"What?"

Dimly, she would hear muffled cracks in the background. Disoriented, she almost couldn't stand, slipping twice and holding her head from intense vertifo as she opened up the disply monitor to show armed men across the bay, trading fire with what mercenaries could still fight outside. "Is that Cheng's men?"
@Penny

Working her way along the ventilation tunnel, Junebug finally found an access tunnel that let her drop into the broard corridor of the station proper. She pressed herself immediately into a shadowed recess and took stock. The place seemed very neat and well lit for a bandit hide out and nearby she could hear the burr of voice raised in conversation. The air still read breathable and the risk of spores was probably low so she switched off her bottled air and removed her helmet to pull of the rubberized hood. It was alot more comfortable with just the helmet and if she needed hard vac again she would probably live long enough to get the hood on.

There was a decision to be made now. Either she was a hostile intruder, or she was a poor lost spacer who's shuttle had crashed and had made way aboard. The problem was that the second option might not work, if these were hardcore criminals then the likely hood was they would either shoot her in the neck and put her out the airlock or worse. Pulling open her pack she retrieved her sub-machine gun and checked the readings before loading one of her specially prepared magazines and working the action with a quiet snicker snack. Properly armed she crept forward into the station.

After about ten minutes of exploring Junebug was starting to get a sinking feeling. It must have been a night cycle because there were few people awake and about. She passed a mess hall and what appeared to be a data center of some kind. At both places she had seen occupants but neither that two males or the woman she had seen matched her description of criminals. They seemed clean cut and well dressed and whatever else they were doing it certainly wasn't mining. Fortunately frequent access corridors made remaining hidden a fairly simple task. She waited outside the data center until the woman got up and left, perhaps for a refresher and then slipped inside. The console was a modern high tech model, the sort she had used on the highlander and when she had been forced at gun point to do admin work in the armored, usually when recovering from wounds. The woman hadn't bothered to shut it down completely so she bought it live.

The system wasn't comprehensible to Junebug, though it seemed well ordered, she bought up the search bar and ran a search for outpost floorplan. Several pages flashed passed in quick succession but her helmet captured the images for later examination. There wasn't much time before the consoles owner returned. She entered Nia into the system and to her surprise, recieved a pulsing dot on the map. Switching the terminal back to standby mode she scrambled into the concealment of the access a few moments before the woman returned with a can of a local cola Junebug vaugely remembered mixing with burbon the night before and went back to work.

"The fuck is going on?" she mused and pulled up the data from her helmet. At least she had a location for Nia. With careful stealth she worked her way down another level to where the map data had located Nia. Why would they put the location of a prisoner in the system. Could they be that organised. Corperate crime maybe? Finding the room she was looking for she held her gun back with one hand and pulled the door open, sweeping silently into the room in a classic assault entry.

It as no prison cell. Functional but tasteful furniture dotted the small room and pieces of an abstarct style of art hung on the walls. THere was a personal console and a large bed in one corner with a small refersher station off to one side. A woman turned from behind the console to look at her in shock. It was Nia. Just as the holo depicted her, but instead of loose fiting civilian garb she wore tight trim tactical clothing, not that much different than those Junebug herself frequently wore beneath her armor. It looked like she was wearing a shoulder holster but Junebug didn't see a gun.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the woman snapped, eyes blazing with fury.

"Uh... yeah thats a good question," Junebug admitted, barrel of her weapon sweeping to cover the room.

"I was..." the woman dove at her, crashing into Junebug and sending her staggering back. She was shouting and grabbed at the sub-machine gun trying to wrest it from Sayeeda's hand. People who didn't get much practice at real war often viewed weapons as a semi magical thing. A wand of sorts that solved problems. Junebug let go of the gun and Nia stumbled back at the sudden loss of resistance. Junebug caught her in a flying tackle slamming her into the ground. Nia struck at Junebug's neck but she dropped her chin in time to take it as a stunning blow to the head. Unarmored the match might have been even, but the ceramic body armor not only protected Junebug's vitals from Nia's rabbit punch but gave her an extra thirty pounds to play with. Nia tried to spring to her feet but Sayeeda kicked her ankles out from underneath her. Then she was on top of the woman raining blows down on her face. The moment she slackened Junbug wrapped her body around her opponent and caught her neck in the crook of her arm. She squeezed hard against the carotid artery. Nia struggled for a moment and then went limp. She kept the grip up for a few more seconds and then released, letting the unconcious Nia slither to the ground.

For long moments Junebug lay gasping for air. Outside she could hear yelling but there wasn't much she could do about it right at this moment. Crawling over to the unconcious Nia she picked a badge out of the other woman's tunic pocket.

Captain Nia Travinski - System Gendamarie - 8343A34
A holographic picture of Nia winked in the aperture.

"Well fuck..." Junebug sighed as a wailing alarm siren began to go off.

______________________________

Taya pulled her pistol from her pocket and checked the load then ran for the cockpit door. The hatch banged down violently sealing her inside.

"Lonney the door is malfunctioning!" she yelled pounding at the hatch, eager to get out there and help her new found allies.

"Och, Sorry Lassie, I closed it miself," the AI admitted.

"Well open it again," Taya demanded, confused and irritated at this sudden intransigence.

"That isn't what first officer Neil would be having me do," Lonney said sounding conciliatory.

"I don't care what Neil would have me do open the door," she demanded.

"That isn't what he would do either," the computer repeated. Taya pounded on the door in frustration as the fire fight outside grew much more intense.

Neil made his way to a corridor on the left, both hands around the hilt of his revolver as he checked whether or not the coast was clear. Pressing the touch button, steel doors slid open to reveal an empty hallway. A medical-bay was to the left, a glass wall showing a muscled man on a cot fast asleep. Other than him, a medic stood within, back turned to Neil and writing on a holopad. On the right, three doors were closed. Neil took the second down, finding a small storage facility. The room was utilitarian and small, with various medical supplies and janitorial items stacked upon shelves.

He decided to take this opportunity to strip out of his space suit for the moment. Better to be incognito than have some modest protection, at least at the moment. Folding his suit up, he stuffed it inside of his pack, causing it to bulge uncomfortably at his side. Slipping out of the door, he was unwrapping one of the nutri-bars he had stolen from the closet. He was surprised some backwater station had chocolate chip. He thought they were only made in Kerillian system. Not about to complain about bad luck, he had taken about a dozen and shoved them into his back pocket before sneaking under the medical-bay's glass window and heading into the next corridor.

The door slipped open to reveal an outfitted, off duty mercenary with a sandwich stuffed halfway down his throat. It took them both a moment to react. luckily for Neil, he looked almost close to a nondescript engineer with his casual clothing coupled with the goggles and utility belt at his side, which gave him the first move. The merc only saw Neil's gun as the hilt was already crashing down upon the crown of his head. The merc toppled heavily onto the ground, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Neil leaped back, and he found himself with a limp merc and a guilty situation he needed out of. Thankfully, he was used to winging it with excuses, and the medic in the last hall suddenly found a young engineer dragging a body into his small facility. "Yo," Neil said. "Bit of piping hit him in the head. He's been out cold for a few minutes." The medic placed his holopad down and gave a start. "Who are you?" he asked, blue eyes squinting. "One of the engineers from the east wing. Look, can you look after this guy?"

It took the medic a few moments of consideration, before he helped Neil place the Merc's body on a cot. Neil gave a small salute and left before there could be any more questioning, and luckily this time the next hall was empty. He made it down three more, almost whistling nonchalantly to avoid suspicion by the last hall he found a small console room near the end of it. It was locked, a small numbpad next to the blast doors looked like it was connected to its function. Neil bent backwards to crack his back, before intertwining his fingers and bending them, and then he cracked his neck a few times, before he began to randomly press buttons. Beeps filled the air and he merely hummed as he smacked and smacked, until the doors opened. Not by his button pressing, but by a confused administrator who wondered who the hell was smacking the code console. He found himself staring down a gun barrel, and Neil pushed the surprised man back inside, going from pissed to pissing his pants. Neil had to step over the puddle, and once the blast doors closed behind him, he smacked this one in the head as well.

The room was in the shape of an octagon, small and filled with monitors and console controls. The Pilot pulled up a chair and began the short process it took to find out what coding the facility was using. RBS++ was fairly advanced for a backwater merc compound. In fact most of the items and rooms looked pretty well paid for now that he thought about it. Fortunately, Neil had coded in this language befor-

Gunshots echoed faintly in the distance, and Neil turned his head, blinking. "I think I know who is responsible for that," he deadpanned, and pulled up a floor plan of the station. Finding where his location was, it took him only a short scan to find where the gunshots probably originated, and what room he might be able to use to buy Junebug some time. He set a threat level beta in the mess hall, four corridors away from where he guessed Sayeeda was to have most of the armed mercs go there to find their sudden bullet problem. After that, he set off, making his way out of the control room and passed a patrol of armed mercs heading for the mess hall. It took about three galactic minutes for Neil to make it into what looked like the Captain's room, and he stepped inside with a swagger.

"Guess who the black hole dragged in" he was going to say, before his eyes squinted and his jaw slacked. The woman he recognized as Nia lay sprawled on the ground, for some reason decked out in expensive combat gear. Junebug sweating and breathing heavily atop her. "Something tells me I missed something sexy," he said, a bit too turned on to relish in his plot twisting 'I survived' entrance.

---

Lars felt the bullet wound in his abdomen clearly, having taken refuge behind some the supply stacks along with the rest of his group. Plasma-gun in hand, he used his bionic eye to see any tactical advantage in the surrounding hanger, though on his third scan he conceded the fact that the only good position they had was where they were, because it gave them good cover to escape into the Common's once more.

Damn that girl. He had underestimated her, thinking her easily scared and susceptible to coercion. He supposed the other two mercenary crew members wouldn't have a no-good bumbling girl in such a crew, something he should have foreseen. The AI seemed to be somewhat advanced as well. Too advanced to be legal in this day and age.

Small arms fire and laser bolts rang out across the small no-man's land expanse between the steel supply crates, Lars managing to gun down one last advancing attacker before he had to admit it was time to go. "We leave," he said calmly, the men behind him ornery but seeing the logic in the move, providing some cover fire as they began to make a tactical retreat.

"Lonney, you can let me out now. I think Neil wouldn't mind me thanking some rescuers, right?"

Junebug raised her sub machine gun at the merc filling the doorway and started to take up the pressure on the trigger. Her conscious mind registered Neil at the last instant and she snapped the weapon vertical in an instinctive safe posture. The alarms continued to wail in the background but they seemed further away now and no rush of gunmen materialized.

“How did you…” she trailed off uncertain of where to go with the sentence and a rush of relief evident in her voice. For a moment her mind freewheeled trying to construct a scenario that would result in Neil being here and not floating off into space until her tactical conditioning damped the impulse under the weight of the current situation.

“Just when I thought we had decided to give each other some space,” she quipped and tossed the badge underhanded to the pilot who plucked it from the air reflexively.

“They’re Cops,” she said bitterly hauling the unconcious Nia upright and securing her wrists with cargo tape. The polymer weave had a tensile strength of hundreds of pounds and was backed by a chemical adhesive which could only be disolved with a specialized solvent.

“Uhh…” Neil said eloquently looking at the badge quizzically, “Did you say…” Sayeeda nodded.

“God damn System Gendarmerie,” she confirmed with a sigh. Pieces of data began to organize themselves in her mind, slotting together like puzzle pieces.

“If I had to guess I’d say Cheng is with organized crime of some sort, using us as pattsies to take out the police presence here. He hooked us up with that little intra system tramp, how much you want to bet their is a fusion bomb tucked away in some hidden compartment, probably set to blow once we docked here.” A fusion blast would have destroyed an installation of this size leaving no survivors. Sayeeda silently offered thanks that she had opted for a more covert insertion.

Nia began to stir, moaning softly her hands pulling against the improvised restraints.

“Son of a bitch,” Sayeeda said with dawning comprehension.

“As a bonus he gets to collect the Highlander when we turn up dead, he is the one that owns our debt to the shipyard. Cute, very fucking cute.” Nia’s eyes fluttered open.

“I don’t know who you people are, but you are in a world of trouble,” the police woman declared in a cold threatening voice, a little spoiled by the splitting headache that the chokehold had engendered.

@POOHEAD189

Junebug's snappy retort lightened Neil's face with a grin. Looked like he was rubbing off on her after all. "Nah, we're in for the long haul," he replied back facetiously. He spun his revolver expertly, slipping it back into his sheath with one fluid motion, as if it had been there all along and he had simply rewound time. Of course, his confident visage gradually gave way to befuddled intrigue as Sayeeda began to think aloud.

"So, what you're saying is...is that you just tied up a Captain, and I just knocked out, threatened, and lied to four police personnel?" He voiced. Next he showed his teeth to display how he felt about that, though it was clear he was half poking fun. "I guess this place was too well stocked with nutribars to be anything but government sanctioned. I mean these things aren't cheap." He reached into his back pocket and unwrapped one, biting into it.

“I don’t know who you people are, but you are in a world of trouble,” the police woman declared.

Neil casually pointed to Nia, half chewing. "Doesn't she have the right to remain silent?"

The woman glared daggers at him. At them both. She strained under her restraints, one of her slender hand twisting. Neil's gun was out of its holster and pointed at her before she could blink. "Ah-" he began. He knew she wasn't trying to escape at the moment. Merely making the two mercenaries think she was stupid enough to try and do it. When in fact, she was testing to see if she could slip a wrist out for later. "We're not going to hurt you, as far as I know. Just sit tight babe and let me and her talk this out." When she didn't listen and promised to imprison them for life, Neil rolled her over and set his rump on her back to keep her still.

"You bastard!" Nia growled.

"So...I distracted the base for a moment. But it won't take long for them to know I was fucking with them." The Pilot said, scratching his head with his gun barrel. "We need to get out of here and get the Highlander. And Taya. What do you think, Captain? We could bring her with us but..." He looked down at Nia, a cold threat in her sharp eyes. She looked to be regaining her wits in some fashion past her rage, and from the looks of the sweat and scuff marks on Junebug, he felt as if this woman could be trouble even if restrained. He made sure to plop down on her where her legs couldn't bend back and reach him. "I don't think she likes me very much."

In the distance, a shout echoed down the hallway, followed by another. They were muffled, but whatever it was about, men were drawing closer.

"Your move, Captain."
@Penny

A series of possible futures cascaded through Sayeeda's mind none of them particularly promising. She glanced down at her snarling prisoner and rubbed her chin where the woman's right hook had collected her. Whatever else the Gendarme was she wasn't kidding about hand to hand.

"Ok, Captain ... whatever your name is, I know this looks bad but we were sent her under false pretenses," Sayeeda tried. Fire kindled up in Nia's eyes.

"Listen Bitch, I don't care who you are, or why you came here but I swear by the stars Ill see that you both spend the rest of your miserable lives in a small black box!" The two mercenaries exhanged glances. The thundering of feet were coming closer and there wasn't any more time to discuss the matter.

"Do you hear me! You will break rocks till your old and gray and if any of my men have been UMPPH!" Nia's worlds choked off as Junebug affixed a piece of tape over the other womans mouth. Nia's eyes bulged with fury but there was nothing she could do. With a professional jerk Junebug pulled the police captain to her feet.

"For the record," she said to Neil, "This isn't a great plan." She hefted her sub machine gun in one hand and gathered her wits.

"Captain, you don't have to beleive me but this isn't personal, some asshole calling himself Cheng sent me here claiming you were his kidnapped wife. My guess is he hoped I would take you out, but that isn't going to happen." The submachine gun stuttered a short defening burst through the door, splintering the plastic in a shower of plastic fragments. Out in the hallway she heard yells of alarm.

"I don't want to kill any of your men, ok, this isn't our fight, but if you force my hand I'll do what I have to."

Pushing Nia in front of her she stepped out into the hallway. A half dozen men, half dressed in battle armor and all carying pistols looked at her in shock.

"Put the weapon down and get on the floor!" a grizzled looking cop shouted. Junebug reached down and pulled a grenade from her belt and thumbed the activation switch. A spiteful red led ignited but she didn't release the arming toggle. The police shouted for a few moments more but there was an undertone of panic now. Nia, with a live grenade now a few inches from her head, stilled noticeably. Sayeeda stood still and said nothing until the threats and demands petered out, an awkward standoff developing between the two parties.

"Ok," she said pleasantly.

"I don't have any desire to blow myself, your boss, my friend and an indterminate number of you into paste," she explained, waggling the grenade for empahasis.

"But I am going to need you to back off, I promise I will let your boss go as soon as my friend and I get clear of the station." Sayeeda risked a glance back at Neil.

"Any chance you know your way to whatever they are using as a hangar, Stars save us if there aren't any ships."

@POOHEAD189