Cake. She was... interesting, to say the least? Nick couldn't quite understand why she wanted to look like a hovering light. Couldn't she be a person, if she wanted to? A holographic one, anyway. Or a floating piece of cake?

Nick shook his head again, only to himself again. He needs to stop going off on these mental tangents. The crew had questions, and there is work to be done.

"Yes, yes, good points all around. Well done. I approve of Gue'rach's and Faust's modified version of the [i]Moray[/i] plan, and of Cake commandering the ship's controls. I hadn't thought about the communications array..." Nick half-closes his eyes for a moment, thinking over far too many factors in his mind, "...but I believe it's still doable. At least, it will be if the Navigation Array can really be fixed.

"Beta Team, that means that when you step aboard the [i]Moray[/i], you're gonna have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. So I think maybe me and Francesca can buy you some space."

Nick presses a button on his datapad. A holographic image flickers to life over the gray steel table of the Situation Room. It wasn't a particularly flattering picture. The creature displayed was [b]vaguely[/b] humanoid in shape- but gigantic, with arms that came to a tentacle-like curl instead of fingers. It's bald head, too, was covered in tentacles where the mouth should be. It puts one in the mind of a Davy Jones or a Cthulhu figure.

"[b]This[/b] is Captain Du-Vos. You'll notice that he is a Fithagian. Most Fithagians are not pirates, but this one is. That makes martial combat something we want to stay away from- even the 'short' ones are over 2 meters tall, putting them above everyone here except Gue'rach. Du-Vos is not short." The Captain frowns. "He's also an accomplished tactical commander, ex-military in fact, and he keeps his crew loyal. But he has a weakness." 

Now the Captain is- well, not smirking, but grimacing in a way that's almost a smirk. "He's not altogether a monster. He has some tragic story for how he became a pirate, but the gist of it is that he doesn't really want to kill an innocent." Various police and navy reports appear. They detail him raiding merchant caravans, but always leaving enough supplies for his victims to get home safely. "In fact, by all records, he's never even been near that slave auction.

"I'm betting he has a good heart, somewhere deep down. And I'm betting that if he thinks we might really pay the ransom- if we keep him talking- then he'll keep the hostages alive and well. With some luck, me or Ambassador Lunarius can have him 'negotiating' with us for hours. That will buy Team Beta plenty of repair time while Du-Vos is distracted. That wouldn't work with any other pirate that I've met." After a moment, and in a quiter voice, he adds "Poor old man is in the wrong line of work."

He lets the plan settle across the room for a moment, and then looks to Lt. Faust. "As for your question, Lieutenant: we don't have an exact list of names or ages. Luckily, a station worker who saw the boarding said it had approximately 20 humans. The largest of our shuttles should just barely hold them all, if they stand shoulder to shoulder. And maybe don't breathe too hard."