[center][h2]”Phone a Friend”[/h2][/center]
 
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/yrrfAV2.jpg[/img]
[/center]
 
 
JP/Collab from [@wanderingwolf] and [@sail3695]  
 
 
What Rex had to tell him wasn’t comforting at all.
 
These bikers…these Headhunters.  They’d been doing this business for years, making regular runs to Osiris with a hold full of drops.  Doc had all the scientific names for the chemicals she’d found hidden in harmless looking little bottles, but whatever they were called, truth was plain as day that he’d been played by Hafez Nadal.  He’d been made an unwitting poacher, and for a fraction of the price.
 
Tough enough predicament to conjure one’s way clear of.  The fact this same bike gang now had a blood feud going with China Doll was gonna make it nigh on impossible to steer him and his clear without bloodshed.  Though the crew, and even their lone passenger were all one hundred percent behind facing the gang to get Abigail back, the lonely calculus of their captain had him more’n a bit worried that good people were gonna wind up on the ground.  When they came, they’d come in numbers.  He was out of options.  With a silent curse for his efforts, Cal accessed the cortex.
 
The image on screen flipped, rolled, and then eventually locked upon the one person he’d thought to avoid.    Badger, the lower tier crime lord from Persephone, fixed the captain with the grin of an amused predator.  “Well, well, well,” he began, “Captain Strand finally chooses to return my message.  Have to admit to feeling a bit like your old mum.  ‘You never call!  You never write!” he teased.
 
“Oh c'mon Badger, it ain't like that. If I'd got a wave from you I'd've replied out of respect, sure as the mail." He could feel his thin smile slip ever so slightly.
 
“Didn’t receive it, you say?” The little man slipped two fingers beneath his bowler hat.  As he scratched his head, he offered, “I hired two blokes on New Melbourne with instructions to deliver a personal invitation.  I was told they gave said invite to a member of your crew in the street.  Never made it back to you, then?”   He chuckled.  “Sounds as if one of us needs to reexamine our hires. So,” he continued, “let’s discuss what prompts you to call on such a bright day.  How might I be of service to the great Captain Strand?”
 
"You could say that again," Strand thought aloud, considering who might have failed to pass along the message. Now that he thought of it, might be the same crew who landed them in this mess in the first place... "See, I'm headin' into a colorful sort o' situation," Strand paused to scratch his chin, "The sort that might suggest a gang of bikers whom I seem to have slighted by doin' a run as a favor--you know how it is."
 
Badger raised an eyebrow.  “Bikers?  Mmmm.  Quite the cockup,” he responded in a condescending tone.  “So what’s it you’re looking for?  Even the odds, perhaps?  Gun hands start at five hundred a pop, but if you’re skint and hiring that cheaply, you might’s well put the coin into coffins.  Add to that the eleventh hour nature of this request, and I’d conjure you’re looking at…hmmm,” his smile transformed into the toothy grin of a viper, “twenty thousand for ten.  Have you got twenty thousand, Calvin?”
 
Cal sobered a mite as the serpent played with his food. Removing his hat, he ran a hand through his hair. "[i]Bai Lih Mohn[/i] there Badger, if I had that scratch lyin' 'round I wouldn't be flyin' into this ruddin' mess." His back was against he wall, sure, but he had one card yet to play. (trans: wishful thinking)
 
"They took the kid; the one what got tangled up with your 'passenger' on Persephone. They did a number on 'er, too. All shades of black and blue." He watched Badger's face in the beat that followed.
 
“One of the more colorful aspects of business as usual.  So perhaps a more…symbiotic…solution might be in order?”  Badger’s eyes danced merrily as he toyed with his words.  “Just so happens that I’ve an acquaintance in Capital City…the very one whose affairs I’ve been hoping to discuss with you.   Promises have been made, and now they must be kept.  I’ll make a call,” he spoke as if delivering salvation, “and then, old chum, it’ll be your honor to keep my promise.  How’s that, then?”  Badger’s grin broadened.  “Seem a better fit for the old coin purse, does it?”
 
The Captain chewed his cheek a moment before acquiescing, "Fine." There was that feeling of falling again; falling into another open-ended deal with a ship that couldn't fly on promises.
 
“Splendid,” the aspiring criminal don answered.  “Send me your landing coords and ETA.  I’ll have my associate pay a visit.  Mind you, you still might be walking into a Serenity Valley of your own making, but I can’t fix all of your faux pas, now can I?  Do call if you haven’t been ventilated, will you?”
 
Cal's smile didn't quite touch his eyes as he raised a finger to kill the wave. Badger might just come through, but his incessant prattling was a price to pay in itself. And in the end, could a man ever really rely on anyone besides hisself?
 
Badger lifted an imperious finger.  “Final thought for an old mate.  Next time you find yourself considering business dealings with some overtly friendly sort, do come and discuss it with old Badger?  My expertise comes at a price,” the ever present grin tightened a bit, “but it just might keep you and your crew out of the O.K. Corral.  Best of luck.”  With a tip of his hat,  the little man’s image winked into blackness.
 
The Captain stood from the pilot chair, alone on the bridge in the black of space. The cigarette was in his mouth of its own volition. Somewhere, out there, Osiris's blue dot was growing toward the China Doll. Maybe too fast for him to think his way out of this one.