Hugh unshoulders his heavy backpack and sets it on the ground.

"Honey, I'm home!" he shouts in English, then looks around the cargo bay. Suspiciously empty.

"Where's my goddamn gravsled?"

"Yeah, they should be here soon if they're not here already. Hopefully, we'll be getting off the ground soon. We could use you and One-Ton when we start making plans. Are you busy?"

Luis ignores the commotion created by their return. He's got two goals on his mind: a shower, at least six hours of sleep, and a cup of coffee, preferably in that order. He notes the captain's hissy fit over the missing sled, but the urge to find out what's up is slapped down by the siren song of his bunk. Unless the end of the world comes calling in the next four hours, he's answering that call.

Semo looks at Ngawai curiously. "Well, at least that's direct," he says. "I thought you were a warrior, Ngawai. Any warrior worth their salt knows that any battle they enter into may be their last; that's the reality of the business.

"And may I remind you, you attacked us. I'm sorry your friend got killed, Ngawai, but if you weren't ready for that possibility, you should never have started a firefight - especially with an unknown foe."

(more to come when I understand the situation better)

Ngawai seems about to say something back to Semo when Luis plods into the barracks. She holds her tongue as the tired Stanhill heads for the recycler and his bunk, instead opting to give Semo an "all right, then" shrug and head down to the cargo bay.

Quote:

"Yeah, they should be here soon if they're not here already. Hopefully, we'll be getting off the ground soon. We could use you and One-Ton when we start making plans. Are you busy?"

"No, not particularly," Swims answers.

---

Back at the spaceport, the primary Gateroom tech looks at Max like he's a drooling idiot.

"I said, why are you here? I've been giving my reports on time. Everything is fine. That said, if you're taking orders for food that'd be great, we're all pretty hungry," the tech says.

"Good," Davis says. "By the sound of things downstairs, they're already here. Whenever you're ready." Davis heads off down to the cargo bay to meet up with their new friends in the resistance.

Hugh spots Davis climbing down into the cargo bay. He's not sure exactly what happened, but his gut tells him that the spook's in on it.

"Davis, please tell me you didn't fence the gravsled for beer money."

"Been busy talking to our captives upstairs," Davis says, then switches to English and leans in close to Hugh. "Max isn't here either, and I doubt these two facts are unrelated. I figure he's off doing something ill-advised, and either he'll get killed or captured, or he'll pull off whatever he's trying to do. Either way, time is of the essence, don't you agree, Captain?"

Hugh rolls his eyes. He mutters a resigned "Civilians..." under his breath, then turns back to the resistance fighters.

"This is Davis, one of my men. He'll help you get settled in. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Order of priorities: Water on face, fresh clothes, a quick snack. The fatigue is starting to set in and he needs a few minutes to think through the current situation by himself.

Davis smiles and walks over to the group of resistance fighters. "Name's Garrett Davis, actually. I'm the intelligence and interrogation specialist on the mission. If you have any questions, I'll answer what I can, but I think you'll agree that time is short and we should work on finding a way to get both ships to safety as soon as possible."

Semo looks at the Captain non-plussed for a moment. "It was in the cargo bay last time I looked, Cap." An unsettled feeling comes over the big Samoan as his spirit sinks into his toes.

Leaping up, he races over an follows Davis down into the cargo bay. A loud string of cursing in English, peppered with occasional words in a language none of the others recognise, can be heard from that direction in what sounds to be Semo's voice. Those who know the Master Sargeant well may have noticed that he sometimes switches to Samoan when he's really angry.

"I am Onas," the big soldier answers. "This is Brinai, and these are the Bashakrans Jonnoperest, Haj, and Swalni, of the Atea." Onas looks askance at Semo's ranting. "Is there a problem? Other than being marked for death by every government agent on the planet?"

The three Bashakrans don't seem to pay Semo any attention, instead babbling amongst themselves in their own language. They seem to be discussing something to do with the dimensions or capabilities of the Morningstar.

Onas' question pulls Semo up short. He looks at the alien soldier for a moment, then say, "Ah... sorry about that. Seems I lost something. I'm sure it will show up." Semo shrugs and then makes a show of looking in, under and around the other stuff in the bay.

Even Semo's savvy enough to realize that it wouldn't be good to alarm their alien friends.

Angel strolls in, clearly alert although its obvious he's just woken up.

"Hey Captain. 'Dr. Max'," Angel's favorite new name for the troublesome action scientist ", has gone for a drive apparently."

Davis turns to listen to Semo's excuse, and watches as he moves to search the cargo bay. He thinks for a second, sighs, then turns back to the assembled resistance members. "Actually, there is a problem, and in the interest of cooperation and honesty between us, you should know about it. One of the people on our team, Max Kilgore, you might have seen him on the bulletins, has seen fit to vanish on us, taking our sled with him. We have reason to believe that he's doing something inadvisable and highly dangerous as we speak. He's a trusted member of this team and has been one longer than I have, but unfortunately, he has a history of making rash decisions and this, it seems, is one of them. Now, I have no doubt that he has his own reasons for what he's doing right now, but all we know is that we very likely don't have much time before things start to get much more exciting around here. Whether or not this will work for us or against us is yet to be seen, but for right now, we have to deal with what's in front of us and come up with a plan for getting all of us out of here safely. Any questions?"

Davis makes Semo look like a schmuck, so he turns and heads back up to the galley and the autochef. Perhaps a little grub will help his stomach settle.

Semo catches Hugh just as he's extracting some sludge from the autochef. It smells vaguely edible, and that's all a soldier can really ask for.

"Steaks and hookers," he says. "When we get back to Earth from this, I'm taking two weeks off. One for angus, one for girls. And I'm gonna book that as mission expenses and the fucking US Army is going to pick up the tab. That's what I want. You know, instead of weighing down my chest with some bullshit 'Aikoro Campaign' medal they made up to describe the shit we're pulling out here. How about you, Sarge?"

Onas and the rebels listen to Davis' explanation. Brinai replies, "We need to assume that your friend has been captured and the Imperium knows this location."

"I agree," Onas agrees. "They might have called off the search given enough time - if they know you're still here they will redouble their efforts. We need to make a move now - hopefully he's taking his time in giving up intel. Jonn, get them some jammers and the torcs."

"On it," Jonnoperest says. Haj and Swalni dig into their gear and come up with a handful of widgets and some collars. "The torcs blur your face on the cortex; it'll keep drones from matching your face but if an operator's watching the feed they'll see the distortion. The jammers, well, I told your guy Hugh. They can't call backup but they'll know something's up."

"They can't move this ship, Onas," Brinai says softly. "This is the one from Gran's Hope, they'll be on us like marmalopes."

"Then perhaps we can use this as our distraction. Let them find the freighter, leave just enough people to put up a fight or just one pilot to give them a merry chase. The rest of us use the confusion - and that licensed flitcraft - to make it out of here, get to one of the other gates. Get to Atea."

"Anyone who stays here, though..." Brinai seems taken aback.

"Then we need to ensure the Imperium takes no prisoners." Onas looks at Davis. "One pilot or a handful of soldiers, Davis. Their sacrifice gets the rest of us to safety."

---

Max considers the layout of the Gate Control Room. The primary console seems to be manned by the mouthy tech, as luck would have it.

Leeroy Jenkins, Max thinks to himself as he draws his silenced pistol.

"Hey, I was just messing wi-" *pwip*

The tech's face ruptures and blood sprays across the console. Max immediately shifts to the nearest tech and plugs him. The jumpsuited Imperial falls backward through the holographics at the center of the room, shifting the control room into a blurred static pattern.

"The next person who speaks eats the next one!" Max says, gesticulating with the russian sidearm.

None of them speak. Two cower behind their consoles. One pushes a button on a console. The fourth tech runs for the door, trying to dodge past Max.

*pwip*

Max fires a shot at the fleeing tech. Turning the pistol back on the guy who just pressed the (presumably) silent alarm button.

"Tell me you didn't just do what I think you just did." says Max, pulling his Stinger from his belt and aiming both weapons at the remaining techs.

"Hm..." Davis says. "Hold that thought."

Davis runs back up the stairs and stops when he finds Swims. "Swims-the-Black, we have a situation. Max has gone off and done something stupid, probably gotten himself captured or killed, and now the Turai are about to come down on us, hard. I've got a plan, but you're not going to like it."