This is why I can't have nice things, thinks Moyamedsev. Because humans walk a fine line between stupid and crazy. I wonder if I could knock them all out by venting the ship's atmosphere? Wait. Do humans need more air than droyne or less? Meh. I wonder how much red dust I have left?
He wanders after his crew, sullen and silent.
Jenni follows Poole and Bloodtalon's engineers down to the engine room, and Poole begins configuring the hyperdrive capacitors and coils. What he does violates every single safety reg that Jenni has ever learned about her engines, but once he's done, it begins to make sense to her. Basically he's setting up multiple failure overloads that make a lot of noise and release a LOT of energy, but that basically cancel each other out. It's obviously going to be hard on the components, especially for a civilian ship like this one. But it would be safer on a military rated engine system, which is usually hardened. However, it should be safe enough if you understand Poole correctly. That is, assuming he's balanced the competing overloads correctly so they cancel each other out and flush the excess energy out through the dampening coils. The maneuver will likely take a decade of use off the coils, and almost as much off the hyperdrive and capacitors, but the ship should be able to jump to hyperdrive after a few hours of maintenance after the fireworks show.
Meanwhile, the marines that Bloodtalon brought along, along with Skip (and any crew rated for demolitions who wants to go along) rig explosives on the hull of the ship, near the venting coils. This will weld the airlock doors so that the ship can't be boarded in space without some hefty yard work, ensuring that the pirates don't try to board the ship before they get it to their base. The marines not working on the demo charges ready their boarding armor and weapons in the hold.
Bloodtalon informs the ship's crew that they can wait on the ship during the boarding action at the pirate base, or they can form a raiding party, as they prefer. If they choose to assist in helping raid the base, things might go faster/safer, but they also could get injured. There is a bounty if they help out, and a larger one if they find the Prince first.
Poole & Skip take the Knight up on her offer, and outfit themselves with some old but very lethal looking boarding armor and some newer and much more deadly looking weapons. They decline to work with anyone else, claiming that they work much much better as a team of two, as they're linked at the hind brain. While first thinking this is a joke, they find out that the two are literally linked at the hind brain, with cybernetics that allow them to communicate over anything under a light second with each other via a quantum entanglement comm rig. Bloodtalon is quick to glare at them, and inform the crew that the device does not exist, and if it does exist, it's an official State Secret, and talking about it would ensure Bad Things happened to someone.
By the time all the prep is done, there's only a few days wait in hyperspace. At the appointed time, the ship exits hyperspace, in a very non-optimal location for the system it's jumping into, and at a very non-standard trajectory. Just before exit, the sensors are turned off by actually having an engineer disengage the main leads, to ensure they aren't damaged.
The explosion and light show are spectacular to say the least, for a minute, the Red Dawn becomes a supernova within the star system. Rad counters on the ship jump up sharply and then die down again, as everyone on the ship gains a dozen rads from the backblow from the explosion. Nothing immediately dangerous, but enough to be advised to take some anti-rad pills within the next week or two.
Bloodtalon is sitting in the captain's chair, with her hair died a different color, her eyes altered by nannites, and her facial features also altered. Makeup and fake 'wounds' are scattered around on her face and scalp, and her clothes have strategic tears and blood stains on them.
She keeps an eye on the clock on the wall, and 8 minutes and 47 seconds after emergence, she nods. "Cut the lights, engage emergency lighting." The ship's lights go down, and lurid yellow emergency lighting comes on, making her face look more haggard. "Cue the corpses..." Two of her people who are made up with horrible burn wounds drape themselves over consoles in the background which have had paint put on them to make it look like they shorted out, along with some panels and controls taken out and replaced with burned out and shattered replicas. "Cue smoke..." Several boxes on the floor begin to churn out acrid smoke, making everyone's eyes water, and their faces scrunch up. "Cue the communications override software." Software added to the comm system comes on line to randomly add glitches to the transmission.
"Mayday, mayday! SOS! This is Acting Captain Jenni Everson of the independent freighter Red Dawn! I repeat, mayday! We've had a total failure in the hyperdrive!" She looks terrified, and coughs, with flecks of blood spray from her mouth. "Our bridge crew, including Captain Vorn are dead! We need assistance! Can anyone hear us? Computer, put this on loop and keep playing." She orders, and the ship's computer slurs an acknowledgement.
As soon as it does, the Knight sits up straight, and nods. "Cut the smoke, corpses get back to work, Demo, blow the charges on the airlocks, I don't want them offering to come on board to help with the medical situations. Passive sensors only until my order. Lights off, emergency only until I give the order. Thank you everyone, Doctor, if you'd pass out some anti-rads please? I think Mr. Poole may have surpassed himself with that particular nova blast."
Warren smiles as Bloodtalon mentions the work Mr. Poole did and says "That is a very good idea. We're all going to need some." With that he take pills to all of the crew. As he gets to Poole he gives him a big smile, "You have much bigger assets in the movies!"
Poole takes out a cigar after popping his pill, eschewing the offer of water to wash it down. "You ever see what happens when you slip methotalmathorazine and benzocalifansitate into someone's food?" He asks, lighting his cigar with a big fat grin. Taking a puff, he blows the smoke into Warren's face. "I have..."
Skip makes a whining sound. "I've seen it, and smelled it.. multiple times..."
That particular combination would result in projectile vomiting and projectile rectal discharge, off and on, for a period of time depending on the amount of the two drugs, the food they were in, and the ratio of the two.
Warren laughs "I've a very good idea and get your drift. I'll leave it at that but there are more creative things to do as well." Warren winks and moves on.
“Flak Jacket, check. Easy to use blade, check. Pistol, check. Grenades I’ll probably kill myself with, check. If I knew we were going to be doing something this dangerous so soon I would have got some combat armor and a few firearm training manuals.” Elrick turns to Bloodtalon “So, acting captain, any inspirational words for your crew? Or those of us in the raiding party”
"Kill the pirates, don't get shot, don't blow yourself up, and we have fine doctors for anything in between."
Jenni pulls on her ballistic cloth, readies her blade, and holsters her laser pistol. "Don't get shot... really. No kidding," she mutters, taking her place. And I noticed that you didn't ask before usurping my name, either, she thinks.
“I know what you’re thinking Jenni, and I agree, she is a real mood lifter”
Warren goes to his room and gets his gear together, "Armor? Check. Medical supplies? Check. Weapon? Check? Sanity?...Now that's the question." He looks around the room, eyes falling on his drone scout. "You might come in useful too." I hope we all make it out of this in one piece and alive.