They're anti-slavers. S+$~. Nilan calls out, now understanding the predicament he's in.
We aren't the slagging good guys here. I bet that bumhole Slivvy is getting us to pick up illegally made Android slaves.
Nilan sends to 5-AM.
What's the cargo. Is is Androids?
5-AM does not deign to text you back, but you do get an answer of sorts as he neatly loops around the Starhopper and fires a missle at the starboard arc. One of the other fighters is still within range and manages to get off a torpedo shot as well.
5-AM's missile misses, presumably because he's too close for missles and should have switched to guns - but the shot from the port side connects resoundingly. It looks like it would have done some real damage to the exhaust vents and engines if the shields hadn't held.
"I guess we'll need a new ship soon." Glitch tells not yet really worried about the state of it.
Caloo! Patch me into their Comms if you can! Nilan shouts at the fast moving Bantrid.
If Caloo, or anyone else, can do that Nilan will send a message out to the AAF fighters...but only on their frequencies, he doesn't want the cargo ship to get the message.
If none of the other more sciency guys can or will do that, Nilan will give it a shot.
Attention Early Bird. We know the cargo. We suggest a ceasefire. I think we can come to an arrangement. We will power down weapons.
Guys. We can't deliver a bunch of slaves. We just can't. Nilan pleads with the crew once he realizes he's acted a bit unilaterally.
Caloo sets up communications to the fighters, as Nilan asks.
"You argue that with Slivy then?" Glitch inquires.
"If you don't deliver this cargo, whatver it is, my life is forfeit." Jink turns and says to Nilan, anger lacing his words
Nilan, Slivvy will kill us both if this cargo ain’t delivered. What’s your plan for her?! You gonna take her and her pet Android down?, Bask lets out in a snarl.
"Perhaps these members of the AAF would have an interest in taking out Slivvy," Caloo chimes in. "It might be nice to no longer have her holding so much over your heads, wouldn't it, Blask? Jink?"
"This could be an evolutionary moment for us--a gift from Oras. How will we adapt?"
"Great. So we're caught between a rock and a hard place." Glitch comments.
Caloo's transmission is accepted, and 5-AM comes up on the video screens. When Nilan had crossed paths with him a few days ago, the android was garrulous and charming, but now, the cold glare makes Early Bird look like a whole different 'droid.
"Suddenly getting cold feet, huh? Why the sudden acquisition of a heart?"
Nilan says to the others, and specifically not 5-AM Yeah. Gimme a minute here. We can come out of this smelling like Thirgbuds. Trust me. famous last words Nilan thinks to himself
Nilan then flips over to 5AM's channel.
5-AM. It's not about that. We have a problem, you can help. We weren't exactly..asked nicely...to retrieve this cargo. Now that you and your pals are here...we can do a swap. We can turn the cargo over to you...no shots fired. BUT. Your pals gotta help us with a certain...minor, issue. The "owner" of the cargo. It's a win-win. Trust me.
Nobody gets the better of Nilan Milarne you scumsucking slag heap Slivvy.
"Do you really want to piss off an interplanetary corporation?" Jink asks, aghast at what Nilan is suggesting.
Slivvy ain't the corp. The corp won't want slaving to come out, nobody wants that.
If you right, they’ll silence us too!
"You don't think the corp knows whats happening? And you think they wont take offence when we shut down what I assume is a very lucrative business operation?" Jink retorts
Nilan mutes 5-AM again so he can't hear this next bit
Yeah, except why would the Corp be mad at us...when they could be mad at the AAF? We get Slivvy out from over us, the AAF gets their Androids. Win-Win. Trust me.
Glitch starts banging his head on the console.
5-AM listens to the conversation back and forth through the comms - what he can hear of it, anyways. "You have our attention," the android says cooly. "What's your plan, and how do we play into it?"
Nilan keys up the AAF fighters and says
We were supposed to gather the cargo. We do that. Exactly on our mark, once the cargo is loaded onto our ship, you attack. Destroy the hauler...but let them get a mayday message out. We need Slivvy to think we were all attacked and killed. Once that happens, we go down to the surface and discuss how you get us out from under Slivvy.
"F***." Jink curses under his breath.
"Sorry, mate, these are one-seat operations here - and no matter how many shots we've knocked back, I think the engineering limits alone will keep you from riding on my lap. But we may have something better."
He holds up a mess of wires and plating. "P-105 here has some know-how and rigged us up a signal jammer - might be that we can stop them from sending a signal out. That can give us time to get to the bridge and send some messages of our own, telling your handler whatever we want - if we can make sure that no one is sending out signals of their own to cock up our story. Up for a little shipboard subterfuge?"
Going under cover from such despicables like Slivy sounds at least like a plan to Glitch. But he leaves the negotiations to those directly involved.
If it were up to Jink he would have kept shooting. "F***" he says again, head against the control panel
Let's do it. Nilan keys over to Early Bird.
To Glitch Nilan says Can you hack comms and make some calls if I get you on board?
Blask growls, sure this “plan” is gotta get his scaly a** killed.
Ifvthis backfires I may kill Nilan myself to save my own hide!
"I can hack some system. But you have to make sure I'm left alone while doing so. My skill depends heavily on not having a knife in my back." Glitch replies.
Early Bird expresses some concern about blowing all the ships up. "I don't think we have a way to get all of you off of there without using your ship - unless we find something on their ship. Worst case - the slavers on the ground don't know whether you got the cargo off and got away, or whether you showed up to an empty ship."
"Yeah, like only dead people, the cargo stolen and the AA... whatever your club is called jumping into the rift. How did you plan on getting the freed androids away?" Glitch asks.
"Disable and steal the pick-up ship," Early Bird says without a trace of embarrassment. "Wasn't expecting quite the resistance we ran into - or the openness to discussion."
After the planning is done, Early Bird and his fighters peel off, with Early Bird assuring you that he will buzz the freighter with the signal jammer after you've confirmed your identity with the delivery ship.
You fly to the designated coordinates and in short order are able to pull up sensor readings of a Verces-built Ringworks Sentinel. You exchange transmissions verifying identity and are given the clear to approach.
You dock with the the Sentinel and are brought through the cycling airlocks into a cargo bay. A large vesk woman (for those of you who can tell such things) stands at the cargo bay door, casually holding her rifle. "Hello, lads," she says. "You're to come along this way." She opens the door and gestures to you.
Wonderful Glitch thinks. Walking into our doom.
The Ysoki got a little pessimistic with this turn of events.
"Nice ship," Caloo comments.
The vesk woman snorts at Caloo's remark. "I'd think so, given the money flowin' round it." She signals you to move along with her rifle, then steps in front to lead you. "Boss didn't say there'd be so many of you," she states, though she doesn't sound particularly worried.
She leads you through the halls of the ship, over a turret access port, and over to a door on the starboard side of the ship. Glitch and Caloo are both familiar enough with the Sentinels to know that this is typically where guest quarters are, but in this model, it's been reconfigured and is left empty for storage - you can even see the decorative paneling and beds for the quarters stacked in one corner. A trox takes up most of the space, the large insectoid giant holding one of the big storage crates intended for you. "Ready," the giant alien says in a gravelly baritone.
Blaak looks at the Vesk woman.
Hmm, I guess my race is all about that credstick after all if I had to believe the stereotypes
Blask walk along, making note of the heavily weaponized ship he’s strolling in/on.
Blask raises an eyebrow at the question.
Yeah so. What's in the crates? Nilan asks innocently sounding enough
Nilan takes a look around
Nilan percepts nothing of interest in the room - though he can't help but notice how big troxes are. Maybe it's the grafted armor he'd never noticed before? But damn are those big bugs.
Nilan's comms ding with an incoming message:
They sent the all clear - initializing comms shutdown now.
Alright then. Let's get ta loading. Nilan says
Nilan motions his head to the Ysoki. He gives them eyes that say "go check the rest of this place"
and then Nilan begins coughing so hard he thinks he might rupture a lung. He's trying to get the Vesk to look at him, and he'll try and turn the Vesk so her back is to the Ysoki.
Glitch looks around where to try to get access to something as stealthy as possible. But this half assed distraction, with that armed vesk around is not helping his concentration.
The trox unhurriedly follows Nilan's instructions and squeezes it's way through the door, hauling it's container easily. The vesk helps out, grabbing a container with someone else's help. You all trudge with your burdens to the storage room and the airlocks.
The vesk is completely duped by the ruse, and swings her gun towards Nilan, a look of utter concern across her face. "What the hell is that?? You don't got the stardust plague, do you?" She squints at Nilan suspiciously.
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In the chaos of everyone partnering up for an android-crate buddy, Glitch and Kitty make themselves scarce, slipping through the halls unnoticed. When everyone else comes out carrying their storage crates, Glitch and Kitty duck unseen into what is apparently a storage unit - it opens into the hallway, what is apparently a simple brig (the cells empty), and an even smaller storage unit.
Nilan doubles over in fake pain and bites his lip until it bleeds. He then covers his mouth, fake coughing heavily and smears some blood on his lips and mouth.
Oh. Gods. I don't feel so well. Nilan steps towards the Vesk with the gun. He's trying to get her to back up into a corner or flee into their ship. He reaches out and staggers.
Glitch moves along that standard type of freighter, trying to stay undetected, to get somewhere near the powercore.
The rest of the party is a little concerned about how hard Nilan is hamming up his "illness," but the two mercenaries are a perfect audience - they believe everything the operative is throwing at them. "Brap doesn't wanna die from the sickness!" keens the trox, dropping his container and moving into the corner of the ship away from Nilan.
"We're gonna be fine, Brap," says the vesk in a soft but strained voice. "You! Stay back! The rest of you, drop your crates and get against that wall!" she yells at everyone else, sweeping her gun at all of you.
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Glitch moves, well... not stealthily, but still unseen, to the aft of the ship into the engine room . The power core hums pleasantly. There's no one in here at the moment.
A number of engineering consoles sit wrapped around the entrance you walked in through.
Hoping they put up no extra security in the engine room Glitch tries to get access.