Episode2Act2Part2

CAST

• Michi Nom
• Karl
• Dorota Kowal
• Sarah Lee
• Carina Yuzu
• Jin Dong

PLAN #2

Michi listens to Carina explain why physics (thanks, Physics!) won't allow the plan to work. "Damn." She mutters. "Well, if we can get trouble in town to distract the troops on the ground... and a ship zooming around up above to distract them there, we might be able to land, grab the cargo and take off low over the land until we're away from town and then just get the hell out of dodge."

"I wish I could think of something better. Fortunately," Dorota adds, "Our engines are tuned well, so even a heavy cargo shouldn't slow us too much."

"Unless Karl's friend in the Alliance can mess with cargo manifests or scramble sensors..." Michi notes. "Other option, we can just leave. It pisses off a lot of people and destroys our rep so its a bad idea but I'm not going to ask anyone to go up against this much heat."

Dorota shakes her head. "Call me crazy, but I'm in unless outvoted." Sure, it's long odds, but that...just has the adrenalin flowing.

Sarah smiles faintly, "Well, I'm in no matter what, but I'm trying to think of something." She's been quietly contemplating, no doubt thinking of options.

Carina just shakes her head, staying quiet as she listens to Michi trying to plan things out. "You know I'm in. Always." But she doesn't have any more encouraging words.

Michi rubs at his eyes. "And we don't have time to plan. Not if they're going to raid in ten hours. I'll go back into town and talk to our client. Dorota, we need this ship as stealthy as possible. Whatever you can do to keep their sensors off of us, do, but don't turn it on right away. We don't want to raise eyebrows when we leave. Carina, we'll need something that can make lots of smoke. The doctor can help you."

"Karl will come with me. In case things go badly wrong." Michi adds.

"Smoke?" Carina eyes Michi curiously. "You know smoke won't affect space sensors, right?"

"I think we are going to pretend to set something on fire." Dorota stretches. "I should get to engineering for stealth, then."

"It can cause distractions on the ground without actually hurting anyone or damaging anything." Michi notes, in agreement with Dorota.

Sarah arches a brow, "I suspect this is something a bit more planetary... ah, yes, that would be it." She nods over to Dorota, "I can try to rig up something."

Jin Dong meets Michi in a run down office building. The office is small and cramped with lots of paper but no sign of any electronics as if this were the honest to goodness Earth-That-Was stone age. He listens to Michi's requests for help without interrupting, letting him explain fully. Once Michi is done, he says.

"Mr. Nom, I understand your needs and like you, I want you to succeed in this task. Please understand that." He pulls out a map and points to a location at the edge of town. "We will move the cargo here. Drop off your smoke bombs in the dumpster by this building there. If you will note where you want the men to set them off so we are in agreement, I will send them their orders. As for the need for ships, if we had a ship and a crew to fly her, we would not have need of your services. I am sorry but I cannot help you there."

"Gorram." Michi swears. He looks over the map and then says, "We'll just have to hope my mechanic can keep our ship from showing up on Alliance radar for long enough to fly in, load the cargo, and get out. The smoke bombs just need to go off in places they'll attract Alliance attention. Maybe the bar, near where they're bunking, close to the port, too." He goes on to outline a time, based on how long it might take to get the ship into the air, deal with being boarded and inspected by the Alliance, circling around the planet, coming in low, and landing. The smoke bombs should go off close to when they approach the town.

Jin Don nods. "We can do that." He considers and points to the two landing pads next to the entrance to the town. "I am not sure if this will help you, but The Alliance keeps two shuttles to transport her people to the cruiser and back. There is usually one always docked while the other goes back to the cruiser. Our eyes have seen that there are cycles and there is a small window of opportunity when both are docked at the same time. They do not bunk their soldiers in the town."

"Mmmm. That might help." Michi isn't sure how yet, but there's still a few pieces of the puzzle to put into place.

"Oh," Jin Don turns around to open a file cabinet and pulls out a paper. He then transcribes what's on the paper onto another paper and hands it to Michi. "This is the inventory of what ships are currently in port. Again, I'm not sure what you can do with that, but maybe it will help.

Michi takes the papers and looks through them. There's not much he can offer another ship to go play chicken with the Alliance but maybe the others might have an idea. "Thank you. I'll send a brief comm when we leave, let you know the clock's started." He heads out. On his way, he speaks into his own comm. "Karl, entrance of town is where your friend might be."

The bar is as busy as ever. Searching it, shows no sign of the Alliance officer, but the thoughts of the other alliance soldiers there crawl into Karl's mind and slide through his brainpan. They're bad...really bad.

It doesn't take much at the best of times for Karl to become paranoid of Alliance, but a few drinks and with their mission not exactly legal, even a little can push him to a crazy town level of paranoia, and that's where the man is heading. Hearing from Michi as he scans the bar for the Alliance 'officer' in question is a bit of a relief. He would rather be where the guy is suspected of being than where his is obviously not, so off he quickly goes, heading to the town's entrance.

The time it takes Karl to foot it back to the Town's entrance, is the same time Michi makes it back there as well. As Jin Don mentioned, Michi can see one cruiser shuttle docked on one side of the entrance while the other landing pad is empty.

Michi takes himself and Karl back into the ship, then collapses into a chair. More coffee is poured. "No ships on call. I've got a list of every ship in port. Maybe we can hack in and bump up a departure time or something. I've got a spot to leave the bombs. They'll take care of deployment."

Carina comes into the common room with an armload of more devices. And anyone saying they look like outsized perfume spritzers ... would not be wrong. "Smoke bombs, as requested. Each should generate about four-hundred cubic meters of smoke in about nine seconds. It's the best I can do without specialized parts."

"No one could have done better. The Alliance keeps two small ships for transport to and from the cruiser. There's a brief moment when both are on the ground." Michi notes. "Not sure what we can do with that. If we can find a way to keep them on the ground that's two less ships that can chase us."

"What if we put the knockout gas inside the smaller transports?" Carina inquires.

"Hard to do without inside help. Unless you can sweet talk your way onto both." Michi notes to Carina. "If anyone could..."

Sarah enters the common room with some devices as well, "These are smoke bombs, but they are also laced with a mild sedative, so be careful you don't knock yourselves out with them."

Dorota pokes her head out of engineering. "I've got her running as quiet as we can. It won't be perfect, but it should help."

Karl pretty much collapses into a chair, after making sure they weren't followed back to the ship of course. Fingers rub his temples, he is pretty sure the booze didn't help his headache "Our guy was on the one docked." he says as he leans his head back, closing his eyes against the brightness of the ship's lights.