[quote=@Aceofreality] One of the officers nodded and looked to 2 other soldiers. "Bring some things here." he said to them. A few minutes later they returned with some chests of gold coins, some muskets, and some important items. "We would like to buy weaponry, preferably more advanced weaponry to fight against the barbarians of the Yahupi to the south. Aswell as we would like to buy advanced machinery to improve our country. We have many more things to offer you." he said. [/quote] "I think those gold chests are perfect. You can have these plasma guns in return for those," a merchant replied, as a wheeled robot brought a few crates of plasma weapons to the group. "As for the machinery, what are these many other things you tell us about?" [quote=@Apple] The door barges open, it's poor stainless steel handle smashes against the concrete wall. You could hear the hinges aching. This was instigated by a big black boot belonging to a soldier in grey uniform. He is wearing a small PDW on his chest. He marches to the other side of the room and shouts at the top of his lungs "COURTROOM NOW." The hallway is a drab affair but that's just a blip in one's memory compared to the court. Democratic is not a relevant word. One well decorated looking officer sits at the top of a very high desk. You would swear by the amount of multicoloured badges she had she saved the world or something. The room is dead silent. "10 years solitary detention. Over." "YES SIR" The guards in the room handle the crew to an elevator which brings them to the ground floor again. They are walked at gunpooint to a section of the prison and are given individual cells. The cells are 5m^2. Again, all concrete with no windows. The wall facing the corridor is some sort of strengthened transparent plastic with tiny holes in it for sound to travel. There is no toilet or bed or chair. In fact its just an empty room, your only friend is the light bulb! After a few minutes, one by one, they are visited by two people in white lab coats and a guard detail. They're forced to put this small gadget above their left and right ear. The guards make it clear attempting to remove it will result in a beating and punishment. Besides it somehow sticks to their heads. It turns on and the crews visions are filled with blackness. That's it, for now at least. The scientist says the exact same message to each crew member. "We'll be performing some experiments with you." As the scientists and guards leave each crews individual cell, the blackness turns into lightness, they can see again but they've been brought somewhere different. They're each in a wood shed, out the window is the vast Trogo hinterland with rabbits jumping about and birds singing in the distance. There's a door! However if one tries to open the door, a red cross is painted across it temporarily, and the feel of stone cold concrete can be felt. This is the start of something bad.[/quote] "Darnit," each say, "simulation technology." They start pounding on the 'walls' demanding to be released. [quote=@Uncle Spanky] [color=598527]"We request to see what you have to trade, as well as what we must pay to acquire your goods."[/color] The other alien has not moved much at all except for movement of it's tentacles. The humans that notice this would probably find it strange and creepy that it has just been staring into space for the last few minutes. [/quote] "Well, what you must pay depends on what you have. As to what we can supply..." The lead merchant presses a button on his arm, and robots start unloading various pieces of advanced technology onto the deck, as well as rare metals and precious gems. "Does any of this interest you... fellas?" [quote=@Aceofreality] The Yahupi confiscate these goods and they take everything of value or interest from these airships. A few other soldiers proceed to start cutting down the doors to the bridge and the captain's quarters with handsaws aswell as they try to kick these doors down. [/quote] They eventually get to the bridge and quarters, as these are merchant ships, not military. As with the Trogo Kingdom, the navigational data seems to have been corrupted. There is no way to find where the merchants' headquarters are. [quote=@Apple] The soldiers make their way to the bridge, they dash to the computers as they see it doing something as soon as they enter. But this process seems to have finished before they reached the terminal. They seem the flight instruments and apparatus are working as they dab on the throttle and they hear the ship making noises. They radio HQ for a specialist robot. It arrives after a few hours after one was found in a barracks in the next state. The engineers familiar with this rarely used robot set it up in the center of the bridge. It's a large cuboid that stands upwards with its wheels on its base. Thin slender arms extend from all 4 sides across the bridge. About two dozen of them slither about and find their resting spot on different dials and controls. The operator is on the robot's terminal on its back side typing away different instructions and code and such. The projector on the top of the box projects blue question marks on all the buttons its resting on. They flicker like a poorly tuned television, in sequence. Slowly but at a consistent rate the robot presses different dials and sticks. It's trying to learn how to operate this treasure ship. But what about fuel?[/quote] It seems that the airship was propelled by good old coal, but unfortunately the fuel levels are at critical levels, and cannot fly. Despite all the advanced technology, how was it that they used coal to fly this thing?!? And why didn't they fuel nearly enough to return home, wherever that was? One of the buttons turns the bridge area into a full-blown party, complete with loud music, a disco ball, and confetti streamers. Another of the buttons the robot presses starts to activate the weapons on the ship... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile at home... the figures announced in unison. "Good, good," the shadow darkly chuckled. "Yes, that would be perfect." He waved the figures away. "But now I have a board of directors to attend to, sister. They won't be happy about the loss." Most of the figures, except the one holding the hologram, glided away from the shadow, into the hallway. The one remaining tilted its head to one side; as if anticipating something. The globe hologram suddenly spat out a number of orbits surrounding the planet: [hider=orbits] [img]https://i.imgur.com/ZyEz4sc.png[/img] [/hider] "No, sister. That will come into play later. For now we must prepare to make an alliance against the upstarts." The figure turned off the hologram and left the room. The shadow quickly followed, and the room was left in darkness.