RP: Space Pirates [Valaad] The Inferno Wind

Taking a moment to dismiss the guests on behalf of his crew, Terry turned to smile at Kirio. "I know you just got off it but I need you and Emily to go back to the ship, get the cargo bay ready. Lucien, why don't you and this guy here," he patted a tall, lanky man dressed in black and green with slicked-back white hair, "go to the loading site, make sure that we're getting everything they said they wanted to send along. He'll help you out, but it's a good time to learn that we all fill multiple roles on the ship."

Kirio, now with a new sense of purpose got up from the chair he had been languishing in for the last few minutes and followed his newest crewmate out the door. He looked around as he left the bar; he hadn't noticed the surroundings while sprinting from the ship. There weren't too many people around, which lent itself nicely to the feeling unease that was building up inside of him. I have a bad feeling about this place. I hope that I am mistaken though.

Luicen quickly finished his pint, gave Terry a nod of acknowledgement and said: "Aye sir."
With that, Luicen stood up and gestured the lankey man towards him as he made his way out of the pub and through the sandstorm to the warehouse where the next shipment was being held. The warehouse supervisor had things all ready to go, so about they only thing they needed to do was make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and loaded onto a truck to take to the ship.

Emily smirked down at Kirio, walking through the streets back to the Osiris. "You have a good set of eyes on you, kid. They come in handy for flying, or are they just pretty?" Teasing him, most likely.

The journey back was a short one, and Emily gave the new recruit a walkthrough about how to prep a bay for loading. "It's real simple, actually. You unseal the inner airlock, drop the ramp, open the outer doors and disengage the locking clamps. At least for an atmospheric load. Soon enough you'll get to see how to do a vac-transfer.

"I just hope you don't get spacesick. I tell you, it ain't fun cleaning chunks out of a helmet."

Kirio laughed, "I sure hope not!"
He took in all of the things that Emily was saying with rapt attention; they were obviously important. With that, he started to prep the ship.

Together the two of them used the overhead trolleys to move empty crates and containers out of the way, in the process Emily showing him where all the food supplies were stored. The food arrived in dehydrated format; water was added from the ship's stores and then reclaimed from leftovers.

Halfway through the task, Emily showed him a special container. It was marked with a triangle with two squares around it. "This container has a false bottom in it. We have several more like it; we use them for smuggling. They're scan-shielded, if anyone gets suspicious they can crack the case and find sensitive electronics. Which, by the way, we do use to fix the ship up. Stuff overloads, burns out."

She smirked and turned to look at him, hands on her hips. "Got all that?"

Kirio smiled back and said, "I think so. These 'totally innocent' crates are for parts storage, nothing else." He grinned. "We pretty much ready to go then?"

Emily nodded. "Yep, we just gotta wait for the shipment to get here."

Elsewhere, in a warehouse laden with goods both legal and contraband, Marcus was showing Lucien how to check the contents against the manifest.

"It's a simple enough deal. You can count without really having to unpack the container. They know not to shortchange us or we'll charge them double next time."

The storm was beginning to let up, revealing as it did the sky and streams of ships coming and going once more. With every passing moment the skies cleared further, the storm moving off to the southeast following the rotation of the planet. Gate City came alive as the sandstorm died to mere whispers on the wind, and Marcus smirked to Lucien, peering outside. "Looks like we get a break, get to leave early."

Luicen smiled as he looked at the calming storm, "I'll be glad once we get off the ground, I'll get to sit at mah weapons console again."

"I heard there are huge beasties here on Vlaad, the kind which make yer bones go crunch," Luicen looked out at the firmament "I guess that lass Emily must go huntin' the buggers."

Marcus nodded, Lucien must have seen the massive (by some standards) rifle that Emily carried around without assistance from a power armor. "It's her own personal gauss rifle. She built it herself according to specifications handed down through her family. I've got one, too, but I don't carry it everywhere."

Marcus noted to Lucien that probably one out of every eighty people on Valaad had such a weapon, of varying size and reliability. He told the junior crewman that Emily was trying to get her family's design submitted to a major arms maker like Gillian or NovaCorp, but that the demand for such weapons in military roles was small at best and it wasn't likely to happen.

"Still, if I had to put my money on a family design, the Knight family's would be the one I'd go with. In ten years her rifle hasn't broken once. Of course the meticulous care she maintains it with is also part of that."

Galar was impressed, the weapon looked dangerous. He was getting more and more impatient as he waited for the shipment to arrive so they could leave this dust-bin. Finally he said aloud, "Where are they!" And with that, he sat down and started taking his shotgun apart and cleaning it; the dust certainly wasn't going to do it wonders.

As things were calming down one particular docking bay was heating up in a more figurative sense than a literal one. The security forces were having a standoff with the rogue Randy; on the one hand they could blow him out of the sky, potentially damaging hundreds of buildings and docking bays, or they could let him escape and follow him to his hideout. Well within their authority to do so.


Elsewhere, Marcus had secured a trolley and was getting Lucien's help in loading the containers onto it; once fully laden he'd hook it up to a tractor and take everything over to the Osiris. And not long after that they'd be leaving the system for awhile yet again.

Heated Debate

With the calming of the storm Randy could make a get away without worry now, but that also meant the storm wouldn't be covering him. The security forces didn't seem to want to come in and get him, which hindered his plan.

<i>Damnit, gotta hide my gun from myself better when I go drinking. Well my chance has come, let's make this quick.</i>

"I give up!"

While not exactly a crack counterinsurgency force with a hundred campaigns under its belt, Gate City Port Authority wasn't stupid either, and they demanded his immediate and unconditional surrender. Meaning open up your ship and power down your systems, we're coming to cuff you and lock you up for a few days while we decide what to do with you.

If nothing else they could lock him up on charges of attempted looting and attempted destruction of government property, not to mention resisting arrest!

Randy had a little luck, perhaps good and perhaps very bad; the Gate City Port Authority, at that moment, heard that the Mishhuvurthyar had just entered the system, and would be near Valaad in a few minutes. The aliens appeared to be quite hostile.

Options in a half shell

Randy knew they would want him to come out, but he still didn't like the thought of leaving his ship. A few extra days here would not be pleasant, and even worse when spent in custody. Now that he had their attention without exposing himself he tried to make the best of his sticky situation.

"How about we get this over with nice and quickly. Just issue a fine or some shit, and I'll pay and be on my way."

At that point, the port authority started issuing orters to all combat-capable ships within range. The power armors turned and took off, as well as the gunboats that were orbiting the city at high altitude. Coordination with the military would begin immediately, and they were going to do their best to evacuate as many people as could be flown from the planet. It so happened that the dust storm had obscured many of the long-range sensors in the hemisphere, and the arrival came unnoticed until they were notified.



With the order to take flight and coordinate for planetary defense, ships started streaming towards a rendezvous set up by the port authority. The Osiris itself rushed through loading and securing of its cargo, all hands to return to the ship. Terry had never been in a large scale battle before, but he intended to jump to lightspeed as soon as he could, as soon as he thought the odds were in favor of Valaad falling to the enemy.

He would do everything he could to cover the evacuation, but he wasn't on any mission to die in a blaze of glory. That was the military's job.

Broadcasting on open comm he marked a prime exit vector, and requested an evacuation countdown. Valaad was sparsely populated; perhaps everyone would get to safety.

Valaad = bad

Hearing the port authorities command came as a lovely surprise to Randy.

"Tough luck boys, seems I'm needed elsewhere."

Randy launched his ship and headed to check out the force that would fight for Valaad. There could be some money made in this, but the chance of death seemed ridiculously high in his ronin with a lone railgun. He atleast wanted to check out the odds first, then he'd decide to stick around or not.

That didn't stop a few of the younger security officers from taking potshots at him anyway; up in orbit a massive amalgamation of starships was forming up according to no real strategy but the star control office did their best of assigning one capital ship to every five that wasn't really designed for combat but had weapons anyway.

And they were also sending their heaviest ships to cover the escape route of the refugee ships. Some were headed to Yamatai, some headed to Pisces Station, still under construction.

Down on the ground, however, Terry refused to take off until his smuggling compartments were loaded. There was something that he needed to deliver to a very important customer.