Accusations

Posted on Tue May 24th, 2016 @ 2:05am by Commander Bertrand Cuprum & Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Ishan Satele

Kilbane was a little punch drunk but holding it together when a firm grip landed on his shoulder. He spun to see Bertrand's concerned face.

"We need to move," he muttered to the Intel officer. "Something has spooked the guards. Hopefully 38 hasn't got into trouble with the hostage swap. Where's the Duchess?"

"No idea" Kevin replied.

Standing off to one side, Satele was having a quiet word with a couple of Klingon mercenaries. This was her last stop on her rounds collecting debts she had owed to her. After an affirmative nod from the Klingons, Satele stood up and walked over to where the others were standing "so, has anybody else had a productive evening?"

"Not particularly" Kevin replied "in fact, you might say it's been a tad frustrating!"

Bertrand was looking around with hunted glances. "We need to get back to the ship. NOW."

At the door of the re-mastered Captain's yaht Cor could see what passed for security moving into the hangar just as the away team returned. A group moved over towards him and called out.

"All ship's are impounded. No one in or out."

"What's going on?" Retak, the Cardasian Ambassador called as the guards made to move on.

"Some idiot broke into level 7 and tried to hack the system," the guard called back. "We are locking the station down till we find him."

"It was YOU wasn't it?" Collins exploded at Retak. "You jeopardized everything!"

"Calm down, Collins," Retak spoke calmly aware that the Humans outburst had caught the guard's attention. "I have been here the whole time."

"You planted something on the crates, though, didn't you? Something to hack the system?" Collins insisted.

More guards were gathering now. Retak lowered his voice, "I installed the security system here. If I had wanted to access it I would not have botched the job."

"It's bad enough the Federation talking about rescue attempts and raids, now this?" Collins was near hysterical either unaware, or uncaring that the guards could hear him.

The Thux had closed and secured the hatch to their yacht and made his way towards the rest of the rag-tag crew. "Okay, who's the putz who did what?" Cor, or 38 as he was in his undercover identity, asked in a hushed tone so as to not ... well, so as to not be Collins right now. "Port's on lockdown, gonna make this a tough move out. We have options, but all of them suck."

"I set off the alarm Thux, ohhhhhhh, sorry....thirty eight!" Kevin replied, still holding his head and not caring if he could be heard or not "Anyone can make a mistake, I never said I was perfect at engineering, but I'm sure you'll be able to put me straight on that account, or perhaps not having been stupid enough to get caught in a cave in.....oops, how did that work out for you????"

Thirty-Eight took a breath. In the back of his mind, he started a silent countdown from Ten. Nine. Eight.

"I asked for an answer, not an invitation to your solo pity party." the Thux grumbled through bared teeth. "So shove that 'I made a mistake teach me oh great one' back where you found it." Seven.... Six.... Five....

"As for how getting caught in a cave in worked out for me, bring it up again and I'll damn well show you how it worked out you arrogant little pink skin. I'll knock your teeth so far down the back of your throat that your next dentist is going to have to double major in proctology."

His gaze stayed focused on Kevin for a moment, at least until the ten count passed, before he turned to address Bertrand. "What's the play captain? Lay low or blaze and run?"

Kevin stood up, looked at the Thux and said "You're welcome to try you arrogant jumped up pox ridden excuse for an electrician, otherwise, take your bravado and shove it where you can't scratch it, we're not on the Victory now, we're pirates, remember. If you can't take it, don't dish it out in stupid remarks. This wasn't a 'pity me' statement, it was the truth on what happened."

He looked at Cuprum "I'm not hiding from anyone, but neither am I going to do something so idiotic as that moron's just suggested as 'blaze and run'. This situation can still be saved, it just needs people who have guts, not an instinct to cower away or flee" he added, staring at the Thux and snorting. "I made the mistake, I'll rectify it" he finished, moving off again back towards the turbolift.

The Thux spoke to Kevin's back, "Right now, they know someone did something, but they obviously don't know who cause those guards walked right past you. So, you want to be the solo runner fixing the issue while they're looking for someone who tampered with exactly what you're going to fiddle with? Heh, runner. The one with guts is the only one walking away."

"So what was your plan, then? Fry the system? Undo the hack job? Finish what you started? Or some heroic self-sacrifice bullshit? You'd be better off doctoring any visual data they have on record to pin it on someone else, then alert security forces to their location. Of course, that was probably your plan all along." Thirty-Eight offered in a slightly hushed tone. Perhaps a suggestion? "Course, what the hell do I know, Dog?"

"Actually" Kevin said, turning back to face Cordale "It's nothing to do with self-sacrifice, or a hack job or frying the system. On the sixth floor is a Telarite who thinks I'm part of the team of one of the jokers running this place, one Teagor Madura . My suggestion is for all of us to go back up to level six, help me find that same Telarite and either convince him we're Madura's bodyguard and that he needs to help us get to level eight to let us protect him, or, we find him and convince him otherwise to help get us up to level eight anyway, it's then up to you how you deal with him. Not the best idea, I know, but we're running out of time, and I think it'll work. So, would you all care to join me in the turbolift?" he finished.

"Return to your station, please, Lieutenant," Bertrand said, dropping back into Starfleet protocol. "Pirate or not I am in command of this team and we are in enough of a situation as it is."

He closed his eyes to listen to the guards outside. They were interested in the ship, but only passingly for now.

"We sit tight," he said finally. "Let's not be preemptive. They don't KNOW it was us. We have the hostages safe. We know the Victory is coming. Arm everyone. Keep the engines hot and keep your eyes pinned to the sensors."

Kevin looked at Cuprum, it was an odd phrase to use being as they weren't on any kind of ship, so had no stations to be at. He moved away from the turbolift and as he did so he said "Ah, the old 'do nothing' plan, always a favourite when the going gets tough."

OOC Bert: Note - Cor had specifically said he was sealing the door and moving back inside the ship prior to you addressing him. That would suggest we are on the ship.

"Well, if all we are going to do is sit here, than I'm going back to that bar a few levels below us and getting another drink" Satele said, finding the prospect of doing nothing rather boring, especially after her day of running around the station.

"Mind if I join you, you know the old saying 'Misery loves company', and I think I could do with something to soothe this aching head" Kevin said to Satele, glad that someone else wasn't happy at the prospect of hiding out where they were.

Bertrand flashed them a look, "Now is a really bad time to split up. I know you are both used to being given a lot of attitude and see your self as lone wolves, but at the moment this station is in lock down looking for someone who doesn't belong; a description which fits all of us. If things get too hot and we do need to do a run, I don't want to be chasing over the station looking for my pilot and intel officer."

"So at the risk of repeating myself; Cor arm the crew and our guests; I am sure they will not want to be recaptured. Satele, warm the engines and plot us some emergency escape solutions, assuming the Station will try and stop us. Kevin, you are our eyes and ears so keep yourself glued to those sensors. I want to know if the security detail out there twitches."

Satele sighed, "well this should be interesting, esspecially if we've already been told that we're not going anywhere" she said before making her way towards the cockpit

Kevin laughed out loud at the order Cuprum had given to Cordale. He could see the questioning look on the Cuprum's face and he said "Sorry, I thought you were making a joke out of us there for having our tet-a-tet when you told Commander Corda....sorry, thirty eight, to 'arm' the crew, I thought it was quite funny!"

With that, he sat down at his console and began to make passive scans of the immediate area around the yacht and of the bay and corridors beyond.

Thirty-Eight actually gave a chuckle, "You know, that's the first funny thing you said since I've met you, Dogberry." the Thux mentioned as he went over to the yacht's security locker and gathered up a few of the hand weapons there in. A slight cosmetic job was done on the phasers so they weren't immediately recognized as Federation standard, and the Thux handed one out to everyone on the Bridge, starting with Bertrand. "I've rigged their output polarity so that the station's internal sensors won't immediately detect them in the standard bands of Federation output. Drains the internal charge a bit faster than normal, so try to make any shot count."

He handed Kevin one of the phasers he was carrying. "Sorry I couldn't get around that, on account of being just a shitty electrician and all."

"Good job on handing out all those phasers, they must have been an armful" Kevin said to the Thux, then continued "Ah, I said pox ridden excuse for an electrician, I didn't actually say you 'were' an electrician, but never mind, no 'arm done" Kevin replied, giggling like a child.

Once his task was complete on the Bridge, the Thux turned to Cuprum, "Gonna go see which of our guests brought their own weapons, and arm anyone that didn't. After that, I'll swing by Engineering and make sure they're all ready in case we need to leave in a hurry."

He gave Kevin a dismissive wave with his prosthetic limb, "Yes, I know, now I said 'arm'. The height of comedy."

"If they don't want to co-operate, we'll have to make sure we can protect them so they don't come to any 'arm" Kevin answered, suppressing a smile.

"Kevin, your jokes are worse than Klingon Opera" Satele said, walking back in

"I know, still, you've got to keep a sense of humour" Kevin smiled.

He turned back to his console and began checking the scans. "All their security teams have moved past our ship and are now heading towards the next section of the bay" he reported "As far as I can tell, they're not within three hundred meters of us. The bays scanners appear to have been switched to internal scanners and are now scanning the promenade area....that's a bit of luck!"

He looked round at Cuprum as asked "What's the ETA of the Victory?"

"There isn't one," Bernard admitted. "We were to exchange the hostages and get them safely away before signalling. The fact that we have not made our return rendezvous should tip them off to something being wrong, but this station is big enough to give even the Victory some trouble."

He chuckled suddenly, "You guys aren't used to stake outs, obviously. We wait and see what happens. Monitor coms traffic. When other Captains start to complain, chime in. We don't want to be suspiciously quiet."

"If that's the case and it could give our ship trouble, perhaps we should give the Victory a helping hand" Kevin suggested "A little low key sabotage never hurt anyone, and besides, isn't there a danger we could go a little 'stir crazy' just sitting here doing nothing but monitoring?"

"With the station on full alert looking for a saboteur, then the last thing we want to be doing is more sabotage," Bertrand countered accepting the weapon from Cor. "As for stir crazy, that's not something I struggle with. I suggest you find yourself a task to do to keep you busy but alert. Run diagnostics, calibrate sensors, review tactical information, read a book. There will be more than enough to keep us busy soon enough."