The hangar floor still trailed smoke even after the plasma thrusters had been cut off. Though the concrete itself was immune to the fury of the ionized jets, dirt and impurities had been burned away by the sustained blast filling the air with a pungent reek. Stray ions prickled at the skin and tickled at the sinuses as Sayeeda came down the ramp to join the gathering. She had traded the ruined leather bodysuit for her customary fatigues and her full battle rig. It The ceramic chestplate was latched closed and her helmet was visor down and opaque as the crystalline heart of a star. Her webbing was hung with a variety of grenades and magazines for the heavy plasma rifle that she cradled in the crook of her arm. A quick spray of combat sealant, a mix of antiseptic, healing factors and artificial skin had salved the burns on her palms although they still felt tacky. Saxon stiffened when he saw her, clearly realizing that his armor wouldn’t protect him against her new found hardware, even if he was willing to chance it against Neil and Sven.

“Gnarloc has to think we still have the aestimobium,” she declared, cutting into the the silence with a clear authoritative tone.

“That is the reason we only had to deal with his goons, rather than the whole city.” The kingpin couldn’t put out a planet wide bounty on them if he were worried about the hunters realizing the potential fortune they had in their hands.

“But that's done now, if he dosen’t crush us fast and hard every other second rate ganger is going to smell blood in the water.” It made intuitive sense to Junebug, the basic strategy of an Armored unit was to hit hard and fast and keep hitting until the enemy collapsed, their actions had made Gnarloc look weak and he couldn’t tolerate that and hope to survive. Everyone spoke at once, voices gabbeling over each other in a confused mass of plans and objections.

“We need to retake my ship!” Saxon hissed, winning over Taya’s assertion that they should leave and Sven objecting that this wasn’t part of his deal by virtue of the bass his reptilian lungs gave his words. Junebug considered shooting the alien. It really did make alot of sense just to end the threat now with a hail of plasma bolts but if they were going to recover their prize they needed as many bodies as they could get.

“Unless you had some serious security Gnarloc’s men have already captured it,” Junebug said in a neutral ton.

“Even if he hasn’t moved it I doubt we will be able to recover it,” she went on, well aware that if the roles had been reversed she would have attempted to retake the Highlander against nearly any odds. Saxon hissed and cast a baleful glance at Neil, adding one more injustice to his already extensive list.

“Is your ship worth more than 10 million credits?” Sayeeda asked pointedly. Saxon bared his fangs but his posture relaxed slightly.

“There is 40 million worth of aestimobium and we weren’t negotiating very hard. Ten million each,” she said, making a broad gesture to incorporate the three men.

“I should get more of a share seeing my ship has been lost,” Saxon interjected angrily. Sayeeda swung the heavy plasma rifle to her shoulder, the 2cm bore pointed right at the lizards chest.

“What you should get are three million joules to the chest for fucking up our deal in the first place, but I’m feeling all generous like,” Junebug replied icily. 

“I’m a bad enemy to have woman,” the lizard snapped, gums drawing up around his impressive fangs.

“No one is any kind of enemy when they are splattered across half a hangar bay,” Junebug observed in a reasonable tone. Sven laughed, a dry corpse like sound that made Sayeeda’s skin crawl.

“I’ll settle for a larger share if you want to kill him Captain, but we will all be settling for no shares at all if we stand around here for too much longer.” Saxon’s posture relaxed slightly in sullen acquiescence and Junebug lowered the gun to a patrol carry.

“Alright, get the mech into the cargo bay, does it have jump jets?” she asked, casting her eyes over the metal behemoth. Sven shook his head sadly.

“Afraid not,” he said with a bloodless grin, “maybe next upgrade?” Sayeeda nodded, assimilating the information.

“OK, Taya think you can handle a combat drop? We are going to need Neil in the mech. We will go in hard and fast, the Highlander will pull back to orbit and extract us when we have the goods.”  Lifting the debris free with the mech wasn’t the best possible solution, particularly because the second they returned to the ruins of the night club it would be immediately obvious what they were doing, but the longer they delayed the more they risked that some random clean up crew would recover the priceless ore.