Penny

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

"I want it clearly understood that if it were up to me none of you would ever be getting out of this system!" Captain Nia Travinski fumed. The woman was a good deal more imposing now that she was in her formal uniform, a black and silver affair that none the less included a holstered pistol. The over all effect was somewhat spoiled by the sunburn like discoloration around her mouth and at her wrists where the industrial strength cargo tape had been removed.

It had all gone fairly much according to plan once they had Cheng in hand. Junebug had been forced to shoot a few of his braver, or his stupider underlings but the rest of them got the impression, especially once she had started tossing the body parts of senior lieutenants out into the hallway by way of encouragement. The System Gendarmerie hadn't exactly been thrilled with them, but once Taya penetrated Cheng's network and sent them a teaser of the files they had it hadn't taken a great deal of convincing. Well not for most people anyway. Nia continued to bluster and threaten until Junebug held up a weary hand.

"Yes, yes consider me properly intimidated or whatever," she declared breezily.

"Trust me Captain you will never see my ship or my crew in this system again." The police escorted her into the hangar where the Highlander sat. The ship was in fighting trim now, its reactor damage fixed and the hull patched. The material used for the hull patches had a slightly red gold tint to it and it gave the ship the impression of tiger stripes.

"See that you dont, you have one hour to leave this station," Nia snapped and sealed the hangar door in Junebug's face.

"...Which will be about 50 minutes more than I need," she grumbled. They had no cargo and the repairs had burned through what remained of their ready reserves of cash but they had a space worth ship, new navigational charts and and up to the minute RIP data. They had even managed to lay in some fresh rations. Still things could have been a great deal worse.

She headed up the ramp and into the Highlander, passing Taya as she fiddled with some minor electronic adjustment or other.

"Alright Neil," she called to the cockpit, "lets blow this popsicle stand."

@POOHEAD189

Spinward from the Marches - Penny x Kylia Quilor

Kade landed in the trash with a graceless thud but rolled to her feet with a haste that would have given even her most dour instructors a momentary smile. She let her new found ally deal with the incoming attackers and instead wrenched at a grate that covered a large opening in the ancient streetway. THe metal was old and brittle but stubbornly refused to budge. With a snarl of frustration she pulled a six inch cutting bar from her belt, thumbed the device to live and slashed the grate open with a shower of sparks and a metallic clatter.

"Going," she snapped to the mercenary and then slid feet first into the opening. Undertown was composed of a network of old tunnels and cabling substations which had been part of the original colony. Over the years though, the expanding needs of the corporations had made the old infrastructure redundant and new conduits for power and other such necessites had been laid, leaving the old to be stripped by scavangers. When their was little left of value it became a haunt for the homeless, for gangs, and for those who for whatever reason didn't want to be found. Tunnels had been added, excavations made, until it became an unmapped warren that coperate security didn't have the faintest notion of how to approach. In short, it was the perfect place to hide out.

After a particularly heated exchange of fire her mercenary ally slipped into the tunnels behind her. Kade hurridedly clamped a laser tripped stun grenade to the inside of the tunnel wall and they were away, twisting and turning through the depths of the city. After a while they came across habitations of sorts. Ragged men and women cooking meat on open fires, slack looking drug addicts slumped in the larger corridors, even a few rudimentary shops. Kade found the shop she was looking for and slipped inside. The room must once have been a hydro station but the rusted pipes had been painted in a variety of strange murals. Junk equipment of all sorts lay scattered around in haphazard piles. Along one wall a shallow bar shelter the proprietor who watched to make sure no one absconded with the trash without payment.

"Thank you for getting me out of there," she said when she was sure they were beyond earshot.

"My name is Kade."

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda breathed a sigh of relief. You got used to putting your life in the hands of specialists, artillery officers came to mind, but it was never a particularly pleasant experience. The crawl had been ardous and even without her armor, left behind as too bulky, she was sweating. The presence of the mine was good news in its way. It meant they were in the right place.

They moved as quietly as they could past the ventelation screens. Sayeeda tried to copy Neil where she could, the pilot had an almost preternatural abillty to move silently. They seemed to be in some sort of extended warehouse area at the back of the offices. Smells of fungus and other less identifiable goods floated up. While she was no expert, Junebug thought she caught the whiff of narcotics on the air.

"Next grate, on your right," Taya's voice sounded in her ear. Junebug gently lay a hand on Neil's calf halting him.

"Say again?" she asked, confused as to what the girl could be talking about.

"I'm running a voice print of the first meeting through your mic pick up," Taya explained, "the matching voice is through that grate."

"The shit you know," Junebug marveled then to Neil: "Cheng is through the next panel on the right." They crept a little further and peered down through the vent. They seemed to be above a large board room, a half dozen men were standing around a boardroom table, made of some sort of highly polished stone. Most of them were armed though not heavily.

"We should wait, we have movement on the Gendarme channels something is up at the station!" One of the men was shouting. Cheng, looking all together more menacing and not at all a concerned husband, pounded his fist on the table.

"There was a tactical nuke on that barge we gave them, there should be nothing on the channel at all! And how did that little bitch fight off our men at the ship, there are cops all over it now."

"What about the two patsies? Surely the are dead or in custody."

"Whatever happens I doubt they will be stupid enough to show their faces around here," Cheng sneered. Sayeeda grineed at Neil.

"Well we wont get a better through line than that.

@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug leaned casually against the wall as if waiting for Neil to pull some routine information from the system. A few of the passers by glanced at her, but her bored expression and the apparently mundane nature of the task were sufficient to ward off the curious. Taya continued to shift with unease.

"Cheng is a gangster of some sort right? Wont have have thought to secure the vents?" she worried. Junebug nodded.

"Obviously, but he wont have any armed guards up there, which means its just a matter of defeating whatever automated systems he has up there," she explained. That might be anything from motion detetors to antipersonell mines. Or both of course. SHe trusted Neil's engineering skills to get them by.

"And hey, if anything goes wrong, there is always plan b," Sayeeda went on cheerily. Taya looked around.

"Plan B?" the girl repeated looking bewildered. Junbug patted the receiver of her sub machine gun and smile wolfishly.

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It was eventually decided that Taya would remain at a nearby cafe and provide technical support as she could. The girl was clearly nervous and Junebug wasn't willing to risk a potentially lethal panic attack in tight quaters. She crawled behind Neil, worming her way deeper into the maze of vents and duct work. FOrtunately a station the size of Beckett's Node had substantial ventilation so it was possible for them to crawl along Neil's torturous path. Suddenly the pilot stopped moving.

"WHat do you see?" Junebug sub-vocalized.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Becketts node didn't have a true day night cycle like man stations effected, it maintained its ambient illumination and ran a sol standard clock but it wasn't much more than a reference. In such a sitatuion there wasn't really a 'off time' but the pub did seem a little less packed than Sayeeda remembered it the night before, to the extent she could remember it in any case. She slid up to the bar and ordered a whiskey sour and a plate of spiced fungus. It had been along time since she had eaten and her body demanded the calories. A few minutes before a second round was necessary Taya slid up to the bar looking a little furtive.

"That took longer than expected," Junebug commented motioning for the girl to sit down. Taya nodded quickly and snatched up the last few pieces of fungus with relish.

"I tried to walk out like you said but just as I was getting to the door one of them shouted for me to stop. I ran for it." The girl sounded scared of having made the wrong move. Which was a foolish thing to be afraid of considering the mess they were in.

"As my old company commander used to say, when in doubt, get the fuck out," Junebug told her with an encouraging smile. Words to live by.

"So what exactly is going on?" Junebug filled Taya in on who the so called rescue had gone of the rails while Taya told the tale of the firefight in the the hanger. Once they had caught up the conversation turned to their next move.

"I don't really see an option other than taking control of the station, a risky bet, or shooting our way through a bunch of renta-cops just doing their jobs," Junebug concluded. She had done worse things than gun down a bunch of would be police in her career but only by accident. Well mostly by accident.

"The Highlander is secured by several heavy duty docking arms, I could probably hack them given enough time," Taya speculated.

"We could just blow them with the demo we have on the ship," Sayeeda agreed, "but it still leaves us killing or incapacitating a bunch of cops."

"Too bad we couldn't go to Cheng for help, if he is some sort of mob boss like you say," Taya said. Cheng clearly had enough drive and enough clout to think he could get away with bombing the system police. A man like that might be able to help them out but the didn't have much leverage they could use to... Sayeeda suddenly sat up straight.

"Fuck asking him for help, lets snatch the prick and sell him to the cops for a ticket off this orbiting poker chip."

@POOHEAD189

Tombs & Treks: An Interest Check!

Literally no idea what you are talking about!

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Sayeeda scowled as she watched the hangar door from the concealment of a busy ship chandler across the way. Several unobtrosive men and women were loitering about in seemingly casual positions but she knew a steak out when she saw one. They had landed safely enough and ditched the fighter as soon as they hit the deck. Neil had obviously been reluctant but they didn't need grand theft astro tacked onto their rapidly growing rap sheet.

"Highlander Six to Highlander Four," Sayeeda subvocalised, triggering the net she had set up between her mastoid implant and Taya's sophisticated implant communicator. A cursory search wouldn't have revealed the hardware.

"Sayeeda," Taya's voice whispered in her ear, "There was some shooting at the hangar but the police came and sorted it out. I'm at the security annex now, they said they wanted to ask me some questions."

"Shit," Junebug sighed.

"What? This is a good thing right?" Taya's voice rose an octave in concern.

"Uhhh... its a little complicated but Neil and I are going to have system wide arrest warrants issued in the next few minutes. There was a long and pregnant pause on the other end of the link.

"I see," Taya said with a flat deadpan that made Sayeeda grin inspite of herself.

"They haven't arrested you or anything right? Any chance you can just walk out of there?" Sayeeda asked hopefully. There was another long pause while Taya considered it.

"Maybe, I'm in an interview room but they aren't securing it, Ill see if I can use a rest room or something and get out." Junebug nodded encouragingly although the girl couldn't see it over the link.

"Good, only use the comms if you have to, rendevous with us at the Hammered Cock once you are clear. Highlander Six Out."

Sayeeda picked up a signal transducer from a shelf and pretended to be examining it.

"Ok Neil, once we grab Taya, how are we going to beat a hangar lockdown?"

@POOHEAD189

Spinward from the Marches - Penny x Kylia Quilor

"We can do full introductions later," Kade said as she checked the load on her pistol. She took two exceedingly deep breaths and then two short ones. Implanted glands triggered at the oxygenation spike and began to flood her system with epinephrine and a cocktail of combat stimulants. Her eyes dilated slightly.

"First we need to get out of here before the Cartel has time co close the noose," she said keyed up and ready for action. Cutting edge genetic implants could work wonders but there was nothing without a price. An hour or two from now she would be crashing hard, but she had to live that long first.

"Go, go, go!" she yelled and threw herself into the alley. There was a momentary hesitation before gunfire lit the confined space from above and in front. Tracer fire skipped off the stone walls and blasted apart random garbage in a spray. Kade had a moment to be glad that her opponents weren't using plasma weapons, the trash and refuse that packed the alley would have been a smoldering firestorm within minutes. She had taken the closest target for herself, a thug in grey black armor on a overlooking walkway. The man was fumbling with a grenade as she fixed him in her sight picture, she went down on one knee in an academy firing stance and fired three shoots in quick succession. The electro-motive pistol cracked loudly, sharper than a chemical round, as the electromagnets ripped the slugs up the bore. The first shot went high, blasting a divot of masonry from the wall above his shoulder. The second and third rounds hit him in the chest. Cheap armor shattered and blood gouted from the thugs mouth before he tumbled into the street, crashing down amongst bags of garbage.

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

@POOHEAD189

Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

Junebug backed slowly into the hangar keeping the sullen but non combative Nia between her and the would be gunmen. Stepping through the blastdoors she slapped the access panel and the heavy powered doors slammed shut with a crunch. There was a shout of chagrin from the other side and several shots rang out against the other side of the door. Throwing down the emergency breach control she locked out the manual operation control on the other side. It was intended for catastrophic decompression but it wouldn't take trained personnel with acess to the stations system more than a few minutes to override.

"Prep the fighter!" she yelled to Neil and manhandled Nia over to a rack of heavy industrial vac suits.

"Really sorry about this," Junebug said as she stuffed the police captain into the suit and sealed the closures. She disconnected the maneuvering jets and activated the emergency beacon on the suit. Then, dragging the struggling Nia to the magnetic containment field, she pitched the suited woman out into space. Nia tumbled end over end out into the void.

"We are not making any friends in official circles," she noted as she raced back to the fighter Neil was busilly prepping. It was a two seater model so she climbed into the copilots seat.

"Uhhh did you just space the leader of the systems police?" Neil asked, glancing towards the magnetic containment field.

"The theory being they will have to spend time retrieving her before they come after us," Junebug explained before pulling the closure lever to seal her transparent pod around her. She pulled the communications set onto her head.

"Taya, are you receiving?"

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