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]