"Hen hao, Captain. We'll need to relocate the wounded to an airlock that works..." Harmony says, "I'll send them shuttle docking procedures for the cargo bay maintenance hatch, sir. That will provide a decent bottleneck, and we can just open the cargo bay doors if they try anything. I can't recommend using our shuttles: it's not bì bù ka shao za chéng and they're too easy to capture. And they should have their own, the qingwa cào de liúmáng..." That kind of language is extremely unusual from Harmony...
"One of many business ventures," Phillip says. "Scrapping nice ships for profit. And you just got in his way. I would be awful nice to me if I were you... but I can't guarantee that it'll make anything easier for y'all."
-
"Sure enough," Kelly says. He clicks the radio again.
"Do you all have a shuttle?" Kelly asks. "We're willin' to talk 'bout your prisoners if y'all are."
"Negative," comes the response.
"Dammit," Kelly curses to you, Harmony. "What do you think?"
"Zhen daomei... Give me a minute, sir." Harmony says, trying to pull up specs on the enemy ship. "...I think we should get all the wounded we intend to hand over in the cargo hold, handcuffed, unsuited, and unarmed. Then, we let them do another ship-to-ship, this time with three men, and unarmed. Anything more, anything less, and we vent the entire cargo hold through the bay doors: they'll bring another gun on this ship chufei wo sile. To keep the situation under control, we should have every gun on this ship, in a suit, secured in the catwalks. And we can move the cargo somewhere else in the meantime."
Harmony starts checking that the bottom maintenance hatch is still viable: who knows what other systems their hacker had tampered with? "But do we really have to give them anything, sir? We've got a boatful of pirates and an Alliance cruiser two hours out, tops. If we stash the goods, we could lure their ship into range and hand them all over to the jing in no time for a nice bounty."
Shaftoe is a bit peeved at being stopped.
"What the hell do you think you are doing? We don't owe these men anything except maybe a long drift out in the black. And if their story is correct, we arn't gonna be handing them back to a man who wants to hunt us down. Seein as they know our ship, its bearing and probably more. If we wanna survive, we don't take prisoners. We extract what we can and move on. This ain't no goddamn mercy trip were on, so don't make it into one."
Marina frowns at Shaftoe.
"Hey, I just think we don't need to make their boss madder than he is already going to be," Marina says. "Let him deal with their sorry hides. He's way worse than we are! Maybe we should prod the Captain, see what he thinks we should do."
Marina is not against executing these guys for storming our boat, but it seems different to her when she's not in the fight.
The hijackers-turned-hostages are watching fearfully as it is debated what their fate will be.
-
"Alliance are not something I want to deal with today," Kelly responds to Harmony. "Ship-to-ship will have to do. Find 'em a spot to link up. I don't think they're after our goods."
Then he responds to the infirmary. "What's up, Doc?" Kelly asks.
"We're not monsters and we're not heartless individuals. I will not stand by and allow you to kill them without reason. If this man is so dangerous then do you not think that killing his men in cold blood would be spitting in his face? I put my life on the line back there and I took the extra effort to spare their lives. Please sir, do not make my generous efforts be in vain."
"Alright, sir..." Harmony says, reluctantly. She may not agree with the Captain's decision, but she'll follow his orders. She hits the ship-wide page, and says "All crew, bring the prisoners to the cargo hold: remove their space suits, secure them and their weapons, then suit up and ready for a boarding action in the cargo bay. The Captain wants them off his ship." Niska or no, she's acting on the Captain's previous request...
There is a moment of silence from Kelly.
"THE Niska?" Kelly says. "Pìhuà! Are you sure he's not pullin' your leg, Doc? Dealing with Niska's goons' a whole 'nother barrel of bullets than some ship-jumping dunderheads."
-
Harmony's utterance of the Captain's request makes Shaftoe's bloodlust moot. The prisoners are unarmed- their guns were sucked into space with everything else- but that leaves Marina and Toki and Shaftoe to get them to strip down and get to the hold.
"Kinda hard to put it anywhere else," Kelly replies to Alan. "Big nondescript crates. No big deal."
"...Captain, you sure you don't wanna hand them over to the feds? It would look a lot better for us in Niska's eyes if his ship got nicked by the Alliance than if a mark beat them back..." Harmony says, still working on docking preparations. As an afterthought, she comms the entire crew again, and adds, "All civilians who want to avoid a firefight, meet by the cockpit."
"The know nothing more about the ship than the pilots back on their ship. I will not stand by how you torture and kill these men for information. There is such a thing as decency, my friend. And if you still think they should be executed, isn't that your Captain's call anyways?" Gabriel says looking from Shaftoe to Marina, letting Shaftoe's arm go.