Episode2Act4

CAST

• Michi Nom
• Karl
• Dorota Kowal
• Sarah Lee
• Carina Yuzu
• Felix Gary
• Gordon

EPILOGUE

Another 16 hours later and the Kobukson arrives back at Kuan Lo to see Felix Gary in Jie Jie. Gary has his men offload his cargo while he takes a look at the /other/ cargo taking up the rest of the space.

"I won't lie. Rumor of the stolen engine has preceded you. Quite a sweet piece o' machinery, it is." Then Gary shakes his head. "And too hot. I ain't got the resources to take it off'n your hands."

"Can your people help us disassemble it?" Carina inquires, as she makes her way to her cabin to start gathering the shattered, scattered remnants of Beary.

"Shin Ma Chou didn't say much about sellin' it. Just gettin' the gorram thing off planet so he wasn't sittin' on Alliance property." Michi says. He nods in agreement with Carina. "Honestly, we intend to pull it apart, take what's useful and space the rest. You're welcome to whatever you want off of it that we don't need 'fore we do." Poor Beary. "The question is who *could* take it." Can anyone? Breaking it down into scrap...Dorota isn't sure she could bring herself to do THAT.

Sarah normally looks like a harmless doctor. It's a role she's pretty good at these days. She normally doesn't radiate any sort of menace.

But then, she normally doesn't get shot on alleged milk runs either. Twice. So she's looking very quiet, and more than a little scary as she flickers her eyes between Gary and his men.

The workers offloading the crates from the Kobukson Cargo hold give Sarah a wide berth. Even Gordon, who has oft gone to Sarah for mendin of sprains and bones seems to know not to approach her.

Meanwhile, Gary rubs the 5 o'clock shadow on his chin. "I could use a new magnetic actuator. You let me have that and I'll have my men help you disassemble it. Heavens above, I do hate to do it, such a beauty she is."

Michi glances away. "If I had a bigger ship, I'd say install it but..." He offers his best shrug. "No one's gonna buy it. Not with the Alliance bein' willin' to shut down an entire spaceport just to get it back."

Carina wonders aloud - already knowing the answer - "Are you sure we can't just build you a new bike built around the thing? You'd win, right?"

Michi snorts and doesn't answer silly questions.

"You're right. I just hate the idea of taking something that beautiful apart." Dorota...well...any decent mechanic would see the beauty in the prototype.

Sarah glares. She's good at it. She might also be overdue for some pain meds. But she's not going to /say/ that until everything is clear and done.

Carina takes the time to extract bullets from the pillows of her bed, then re-emerges and walks over to hand the slugs to Karl. "I believe you left these in my room. Beary says you can have them back." And yes. She's grabbing up every scrap of the bear's stuffing, and his outer form. Almost as if she has intentions to reassemble the bear.

While everyone else was attending to other business, Karl was hard at work trying to salvage waterlogged stores. The outer shell of the ship may be water tight, not so much the inside. Surely water got places it wasn't supposed to go. Hopefully not to much of the food was ruined. Taking the empty shell cases he looks at them a moment "I think you might have missed a few." he then tosses them into a jar for reloading latter before getting back to drying things out.

After his cargo is offloaded, Gary puts his men to help dissassemble the engine as quickly as possible. Everyone knows the Alliance could drop in at any moment so Gary wants the Kobukson gone as soon as they can lift off. The crew and Gary's workers are efficient and determined and around 3AM, the work is finally done leaving a few hours of sleep before it's time to leave.

The next morning at breakfast, before liftoff, the crew has a little time to regroup an discuss.

Breakfast. Which means some more soy, since that's what the crew can afford at the moment. The ship's ready to take off.

"Last job didn't go as planned but it went. We got out. Everyone's still alive. Good work. Carina will handle handing out your share, as much of it as there is." She leans forward, both hands wrapped around her coffee mug.

"Here's where we stand. We've got fuel. We've got food of a sort. We've got priorities."

The co-captain begins counting them off.

"First, that engine needs to be stripped down. Once it is we pulse a ways and then space it. Second, we've got a promise to keep to our friend back on Darcke. We said we'd come back for him so we need to do that. Third, there's a race. We need to enter it. We need to win it. Which means we need a sponsor."

Michi pushes forward a datapad with a list of corporations on it. "Made this up last night. Possible sponsors if we can convince them." The list reads:

Dan Da Enterprises, Blue Sun Corporation, Classic Theater Productions, Manticore Technologies, Kalidasa Shipping, Shamrock Distiller's, Yin Manufacturing, Hugs for Your Feet, Fan Conglomeration, Fisher and Li Incorporated, Border Joe's, Doctors for XingXing.

"So, we're going to race." Dorota, sounding *completely* unsurprised by this fact, and already going through how she can leverage those salvaged parts to make the ship faster.

Sarah wrinkles her nose. "Blue Sun? /Really/?" Okay, she's not trying to be scary, but she sounds decidedly disdainful of the idea. Well, /that/ idea anyway, as she mutters under her breath in Chinese.

"Are we just going to seed the parts out across the Black?" Carina inquires, just to be clear. She eyes the datapad. "No to Blue Sun. My vote is for Shamrock, or Border Joe's." Why? She doesn't say.

"Nope, just dump the whole damn thing. Black is big. Someone else runs across the carcass they're welcome to it." Michi takes a big swallow. "I just made a list of possibles. I'll go with whoever's willin' to pay. I'd prefer they not be horrible. Better we've got contacts." The pilot turns her eye to Carina. "You know someone at those two companies?"

"Not Blue Sun," Dorota agreed. "I don't trust them at all." She doesn't really trust any of the others, but she doesn't know they're 'evil.'

"Hugs For Your Feet?" Karl has been quitely sipping whatever excuse for coffee the ship has..it might even be coffee, but probably not the good stuff, up until then. He isn't quite sure he believes that one is a legitimate business "The theatre one sounds like a cover operation." just his two cents.

Sarah glances at Karl, "Most of them sound like cover operations of one kind or another, honestly." She sits a bit gingerly, shifting slightly to avoid putting pressure on the places where she was shot.

"Border Joe's is a shuttle manufacturer in and all about the Rim worlds. I know the owner. Hugs For Your Feet is actually a sock and leggings manufacturer. They donate a pair to charity for each pair sold. And Classic Theater Productions is a foundation dedicated to keeping alive the performing arts from Earth Back Then." Carina explains. She made some very ugly faces about Don Da, but did not explain anything about them.

"Surprised you didn't mention the theater." Michi mutters into her coffee.

"... course, the Theater's probably not a good fit. They've got other things to spend their money on, after all." Michi mutters into her coffee.

Sarah hmms, "Seems like Border Joes might be a good one then, if they deal with the Rim more than the Core. Depending on what they can offer, I suppose."

"Surprised they aren't sponsering someone already." Karl wonders outloud about that little fact, perhaps he finds that suspicious, and perhaps the paranoia hasn't worn off quite yet. "Anyone have contacts at Border Joes?"

"I do." Carina offers. Then she leans over and hugs Michi firmly.

"Sounds like we should talk to Border Joe's and... the Hugging Feet people. They're not likely to have a horse in the race so maybe they'll be open to sponsoring someone to get their... message out? 'sides, I could use some new socks." Michi says.

"It seems worth a try." Dorota considers. "And...can any of us not use new socks?"

Sarah smiles faintly, "I certainly wouldn't mind some extra socks. Maybe some nylons." She looks a bit amused, glancing at the others.

Carina promises not to even bring up the Theater foundation again. Peace in our time. "Alright. Hugs For Your Feet it is. Do you want me to make a call?"

"I think you make the most sense." Michi nods in agreement. "We can go see then after we go rescue our poor lost lamb of an Alliance deserter."

"We do need to pick that guy up." Dorota's lips quirk.