Episode 2: Catch a Tiger By The Toe

[Izak Archer]

Melody's disposition was as sunny as ever, and Holger was...well...more like a teddy bear than an actual one at that point, but nevertheless he was still just as imposing.

It was Melody's aggravation that brought everyone to the bridge however. Something so simple seemed to piss her off, or maybe she was just more hungover than he realized. He still had little desire to talk to her about it. But if Isa put it in the computer, he guessed he had to, especially now that Jo took an interest. Of course Isa putting it in the computer was only conjecture, he was enjoying his first full night of sleep in a few days.

He sighed. This was probably going to become a fight, but he had to say it. No need to say good morning he figured.

"Isa set it before she left I think. Its a simple set of coordinates, about two hours off at full burn," he said. "If you're reacting to the message of 'High risk, high reward' I got one on my console too.  Little more cryptic than necessary I say."

[Rashy Pete]

Pete bent over in a vulgar, uncomfortable display for anyone in the galley as he retrieved the cooking wares he'd stored away after being forced to clean up his first day aboard The Revenge. Retrieving a waffle iron, sauce pot, and a deep frying pan, Pete promptly lost the load with a chorus of clattering clangs as Rasputin yowled at him for disturbing his slumber. "NO! HOW!? WHY!? ... HOW!?" Rasputin scowled, licked himself, then scowled at Pete again as the unfortunate son showed a disturbing amount of pale, hairy skin as the short shorts climbed up the backs of his legs as he recollected the designated meal preparation equipment. Pete seemed to sense he was being watched, his head snapping around and an eyebrow cocked in question in response to Rasputin's hissing criticism. "What do you mean, I'm not pulling this off? I'm sexy!"

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

After Pete finished a traditional morning feast and noticed no one yet joined him, he piled all the foodstuffs onto one plate and almost tripped over a purring and now very inconveniently affectionate Rasputin on his way to the bridge. "Ladies and germs, breakfast is served. Now you're all in for a real treat - my babushka's recipe! Whole fried cod - eyes in of course - with buttermilk cornmeal waffles, habenero syrup, and garlic-caper meringue. So! Whooooooo's hungry!?" Pete looked around expectantly, genuinely excited to share a proper meal with his new pirate family.

[Melody]

"Is everything alright, Mel...Is that our target? It all looks fine to me."

Melody let out a slow breath, almost feeling guilty about having snapped, which was a strange sensation for her. Why would she need to feel guilty? The pilot studied Jo out of the corner of her eye, brows furrowed in confusion at her own feelings. "Mmm," she began in a gruff mumble, "Everything's peachy. Sort of...sorry..." She looked away from him and eyed the console, arms crossed over her chest. Holger entered the room, then, and Mel craned her neck around to watch him watching her.

"Are we ready for the fight?...Where is it? What is it? I would like to do the fighting now, Melody."

"I don't actually know where or what it is," she told him honestly, not having seen any console message between being drunk last night and having just entered the cockpit. For all she knew, they were on a direct course for a gorram sun.

"Isa set it before she left I think. Its a simple set of coordinates, about two hours off at full burn. If you're reacting to the message of 'High risk, high reward' I got one on my console too.  Little more cryptic than necessary I say."

The pilot paused, further turning in her seat to stare blankly at Izak. She was mad. Furious, even. Maybe because Isa had left her again, possibly because Izak knew more information than she did, but more than likely because she was treating him poorly when he'd just proven why he was a boon to have aboard. He'd been the only one to see this message, because he'd been the only one not hammered and laying in a cuddle puddle all night. "Gorramit," she thought again, this time out loud and under her breath.

"Ladies and germs, breakfast is served. Now you're all in for a real treat - my babushka's recipe! Whole fried cod - eyes in of course - with buttermilk cornmeal waffles, habenero syrup, and garlic-caper meringue. So! Whooooooo's hungry!?"

Standing, Melody took a deep breath and fought not to attempt to rip her pilot's seat out of the ground. She lifted her hands, rubbed her face, and tried not to scream. Finally, her fingers parted and she eyed Pete through the slit. He was still there. Gorramit.

"Okay, okay. I need everyone's attention," she muttered, lowering her hands and setting them angrily on her hips. Where was their wayward doctor? Probably primping or making doilies somewhere in the ship. She rolled her eyes. Moving from the pilot's controls, carefully walking around Jo to do so, she leaned over Izak's shoulder to eye his console and the message left there. "Truth be told, I don't know what I'm doing here, so I'll lay it all out plain," she began, standing straight and looking them all over.

"Isa left. Again. Don't much care why. But she left us this job before she left, I guess. Says we wait at these coordinates for further instructions. And some nonsense poetry after that. So, I guess we get there, see what it's all about, and we'll decide from there if this gorram job is one we even want. Since no one thought to ask the crew what we wanted..." she trailed off, still bitter about losing her friend, clearly. "Well, in any case, that's how it is," she finished, glancing over at Jo, then turning her head to stare at Pete, grimacing a little. "I guess the pancakes don't sound awful..." she said in a softer mutter, frowning as she accepted some of that breakfast offer...

[Missy Etheridge]

Apart from Izak, Missy was quite possibly the only crew member present who had managed to escape the dreaded hangover, if only by virtue of paranoid teetotalling. She certainly had no intention of lowering her defenses around this lot a single inch, not after everything that had happened stationside.

And so, though she was up well before the rest of the remaining crew, she stayed cozily tucked into her own little bunk, enjoying the peace and quiet (minus a few wall-rattling snores from sources she dared not guess) and reading trashy romances from a directory she kept very well hidden in her otherwise-academic DataBook.

"Revenge, it is morning!"

Well, all good things must come to an end.

Missy sighed, turned off the DataBook, and got ready to face the day. She took a few minutes to neaten up, making sure every hair was in place, every button perfectly aligned, the wings of her eyeliner clinically symmetrical, before emerging with the rest of the groaning lot to cluster around Melody in the bridge.

Isa, it seemed, had abandoned them once more. Missy couldn't really bring herself to care -- she had only known the woman all of about ten seconds, after all -- but it obviously meant a lot more to the (once again) de facto captain despite her own claims of indifference, so Missy made the right sympathetic noises. If it had been anyone else, she might have patted Melody's shoulder and said something vaguely comforting, but she didn't want to lose a hand.

That left the matter of breakfast. After having heard the morning's proposed menu, Missy was actually beginning to think fondly of the Alliance cook abandoned with the rest of the Cornwolf's legitimate crew, no matter how tasteless his provisions had been. Clearly, there was a reason that most ships didn't have their mechanics pull double duty as chefs. Props to Melody for expressing lukewarm interest in any part of the meal, even seemingly the least offensive, but Missy wasn't that brave.

Wrinkling her nose delicately, she said, "I think I'll just have part of a protein brick, thanks."

[HumanHyperbole]

As the crew gathered the information they'd been able to acquire, got their head's around their captain's cryptic departure, and had some breakfast the Revenge burned along towards their target.

The ship's proximity alert began to blare as they were now in clear visual range of the vessel and the asteroid it was orbiting. Only seconds later, they were being hailed. Once brought up on screen, they were greeted by a rather exasperated looking man in his early forties. He tapped on the camera.

"Where in the name of baby Jesus in a blanket have you guys been?!"

A loud bang could be heard. Then another, and another. Their contact, the pilot of the retrofitted personnel carrier gritted his teeth and put on a very sarcastic fake smile.

"Well in any case it's such a pleasure to see you Captain Romero... oh wait... WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Metal grinding could now be heard, and the pilot got the idea the people on the other end of the transmission might not be completely read in on things. He paced away from the camera's view for a second, audibly swearing in Chinese in some particularly creative and disgusting ways. He walked back into view holding a pistol as he checked the chamber.

Taking a breath, he introduced himself.

"Hooo... okay. Hi, I'm William Breene. I was the pilot of this vessel and had arranged with a broker to have Isa and the Revenge meet me here to arrange a clandestine handover of our cargo. Unfortunately, some BASKET FULL OF MARITAL AIDES decided they could get a better offer to offload our employers cargo. So we're embroiled in a bit of a light mutiny. I already accepted Isa's offer, and since the rest of the crew is trying to cut through the door and will then probably through some very dear parts of me soon. You guys bust in her and rescue me, I'm willing to throw in the shares of any of these butt munches you dispatch to the hereafter in the process. Dong ma?"

Breene cut the feed and let his offer stand.

[Holger Heyerdahl]

Holger, like everyone else, stared at the computer screen while the handsome man yelled at them. He did not know who this handsome man, William Breene, was but he knew who they were. Or at least who Isa was. Isa not being there might have complicated things, but Melody was there, and Holger was pretty sure that she would be able to figure it out. And if not, there were more of The Revenge than there was of him and so what they said would be how it went. That Holger knew for certain.

And then the man disappeared. "Where did the handsome man go?" Holger said, his question barely above a murmur. He looked around at those gathered, worry writ wide. "We should help William Breene." He decided. "Or the mutiny." That was certainly the easier option. Holger weighed them both, as if each were in an opposite hand. "The man." There was likely a better shot at them getting paid if they helped the man, as they had a prearrangement with him. Or Isa did. He was getting confused.

Holger had hoped the drinking and the sleeping would help reset his brain. Even Stinky Pete's fried fish hadn't done the trick. His speech was better, but his thought processes were still all misarranged. "Isa told William Breene we would help him. But this was before she left. And before he was under mutiny." Reasoning it out aloud was helping. He scratched at his beard. "Hm. I don't know. What does Revenge think?" He looked at Melody. "You are Captain, now, again. You tell us where to go."

[Izak Archer]

Izak was more than content to let things play out. After all, what options did he have anyway?

But speaking up at this point would prove more entertaining to him anyway. He had his doubts that he would be in agreement with Holger on anything again in the near future.

"I'm with the browncoat," he began. "William is our client, but ultimately its your call."

[Joakim Soong]

So Isa was gone, and the inmates were once again running the asylum. The fact that this was the second time they'd lost their captain within a very short period of time somehow didn't make it any less of a blow. Jo would miss having someone level-headed in charge, but he would adapt, not having known the woman personally. Melody, on the other hand, took the loss harder than the rest of them. He wanted to ask her how she was holding up, but between the crew having breakfast together and then getting straight to business, he didn't get a moment alone with her. Melody struck him as someone who would get angry at him for making her look weak in front of her crew if he didn't approach her in private, so he held his peace and focused on the mission at hand.

"Of course we help the guy we already have an agreement with!" Jo gave Holger and Izak a disapproving side-eye for even daring to suggest otherwise. "What I'm interested in is whether there's a way to resolve this peacefully. I can't say I have much experience with mutinies."

He already had a sinking feeling that his vision of a peaceful resolution was just a pipe dream, but hey, one could hope...

[Melody]

During breakfast, Mel noticed Jo staring at her, but chose to try her darndest to ignore it, although she was unable to hold back a couple frustrated glances in his direction. She still felt bad about having snapped at him and felt even more annoyed that she felt bad. All in all, this made her quite the sullen meal companion, although that was pretty typical. The moment she'd finished shoveling the food into her mouth in the most efficient way possible, Mel had recused herself to sit mostly alone on the bridge while everyone else finished eating.

She took the time to stare blankly out at the stars before them, her breathing slow and her shoulders relaxing incrementally over time. She was stressed, she was hurt, and she was mad. But...her crew hadn't done anything to cause this and perhaps she was being too rough with them. Her head tilted back; neck supported by the headrest of the pilot's seat.

Izak made her grumpy, but he did have extensive knowledge of how the Alliance worked and thus made a great asset in predicting how their shipping lines and boats would behave. Jo was a whiz with technology and for a reason that eluded her entirely, chose to stay around after his job had been fulfilled, which was lucky on their part. Holger was the only person on the ship she actually trusted, and she knew he was more than useful in any kind of pinch. Their time in the war together, both as enemies and during her visits to him when he'd been detained, had built a bond between them that she'd do anything to maintain. Their blonde doctor was a surprise she hadn't anticipated, but it had been a fortuitous accident. She'd been able to mend up their giant when they'd needed it and had so far been unable to escape successfully. Plus, an entire evening had gone by and she hadn't killed any of them in their sleep, which was awfully polite of her. And finally, Pete... Melody rolled her eyes and sat up, looking down as his cat coiled its way around her chair. At least his pet was cute...

While she was lost in thought, the proximity alarms began to scream through the ship and she sat up straight, instinctively running her hands over the console to bring them to a slow crawl as they neared the vessel and its asteroid. The sound seemed to pull the rest of the crew into the bridge just as the comms flared to life and an image came up on their screen. Melody sighed heavily.

"Where in the name of baby Jesus in a blanket have you guys been?! Well in any case it's such a pleasure to see you Captain Romero... oh wait... WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Mel looked over at Holger, raised a brow, then returned her attention to the screen. She was very interested in what the hell was going on here, as she seemed to be just in the dark as this loud newcomer was. Still, her arms crossed over her chest and she leaned back in her chair, watching the screen with an unamused frown.

"...You guys bust in her and rescue me, I'm willing to throw in the shares of any of these butt munches you dispatch to the hereafter in the process. Dong ma?"

The screen went black. Melody remained silent.

"Isa told William Breene we would help him. But this was before she left. And before he was under mutiny. Hm. I don't know. What does Revenge think? You are Captain, now, again. You tell us where to go," Holger decided. Mel slowly turned her chair about to stare at the members of the crew that had been watching the video, still silent, her brows knit.

"I'm with the browncoat, William is our client, but ultimately it's your call," Izak added.

"Of course we help the guy we already have an agreement with! What I'm interested in is whether there's a way to resolve this peacefully. I can't say I have much experience with mutinies," Jo queried.

Melody nodded her chin down a little and looked back toward the ship out past their front view port. She uncrossed her arms, set her hands idly on the console, made a soft "mmm" noise of thought, and crossed her arms again.

"Jo, do you think you can get your way into their system? Maybe deploy the fire suppressant system in all the rooms but their bridge? Might buy us some time to get in there if they're all choking for air..." she muttered, glancing back at their tech specialist. Her hands lifted, running over her head and she took a deep breath.

"Izak, Holger, head down to the cargo bay and get ready to breach. Only use deadly force if they attack you first, dong ma?" she asked, trying to cater to Jo's request at least a little. The pilot leaned forward and began moving the ship forward, her hands gliding over the controls as she started initiating the ship's docking procedures.

"Jo, a blueprint of their ship would be great, if you can manage. To guide them through to where this idiot has himself locked up," she added.

"Doctor..." She realized she'd forgotten the doctor's name... "...I need you to be ready in the med bay, in case one of our own or the Breene fool gets injured during all this," she told the other woman.

[Holger Heyerdahl]

Holger, although initially disappointed that Melody did not want him to kill the mutineers of the handsome man, decided that Melody had meant that he could kill them, they just had to attack him first. And if he and the handsome man were allies, and they had attacked the handsome man, well... Holger left the bridge to go get his guns, dragging Izak along with him whether the gunnery mate wanted to or not.

"Come, skinny Izak. I have some guns in my bunk. Do Purple Bellies have guns? If you do we will grab those as well." In his hurry to show off his meager bag of guns (surprisingly, Holger was not one to collect or fetishize weapons. They were a tool to be used, nothing more) he completely bypassed the ship's armory.  Whether it was carelessness, empty headedness, or even just that Holger didn't know it was there, he kept on walking and talking. "I only have three guns. A big one - a rifle- and two little pistols."

[Missy Etheridge]

"Doctor..."

There was a loaded pause, during which Missy realized she was holding her breath. What fresh new insanity would be asked of her now? Whatever it was, Missy wanted no part of it. Breene was certainly a colorful enough character and she'd had more than enough of those to last a lifetime. She was not by any means going to be provoked into sticking her neck out for him by going off on some ludicrous rescue mission, or breaking into another ship, or fighting off mutineers, or, or...

"I need you to be ready in the med bay."

Or... doing her actual job? Missy blinked once, and tried to look neither surprised nor relieved.

"I can do that," she agreed readily enough. She almost accompanied it with a little salute, but decided that the gesture would probably be interpreted (not entirely incorrectly) as a sarcastic one, and set off instead to clean her appointed post for approximately the sixth time since it had last been used.

[Joakim Soong]

"Jo, do you think you can get your way into their system? Maybe deploy the fire suppressant system in all the rooms but their bridge? Might buy us some time to get in there if they're all choking for air..."

"Not at this proximity," he mused, leaning back in his chair and scratching the wispy stubble on his chin. "But if you can stall a little during docking, give me a few minutes to work, I'll see if I can hijack their system, maybe trip their fire detectors."

"Jo, a blueprint of their ship would be great, if you can manage. To guide them through to where this idiot has himself locked up."

"Now that, I can do." Jo got right to work, pulling up a database of the ship models favored by the Alliance. While he scanned it for a blueprint matching the vessel they were approaching, the other crew member left to perform their own roles in the plan, and soon Jo looked up to find that Melody and him were alone on the bridge.

Well, now was as good a time as any.

"Um... Mel?" He tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible, wanting to sound neither confrontational or patronizing. "How are you holding up? I mean, with Isa leaving and all. I know you two were close. And before you go all sulky on me, yes, I know you can take care of yourself, but anybody would be upset if they were you. I know I'd be."

He'd come up with a perfectly coherent, short and sweet speech in his head, but now that he was supposed to let it out, he seemed to be losing half of the words, and the rest were coming out in the wrong order. He sighed and decided to just go with it. "The point is, if you ever want to talk about it -- not right now, obviously, but, you know, in general... Well, I've been told I'm a good listener. Clearly not a good talker, but hey, nobody's perfect..."

Jo was relieved when a sound indicating that his scan for blueprints was done gave him an excuse to turn his attention back to the screen in front of him. "This should be it, I'm sending it to your console. Good to see phallic worship is alive and well in the Alliance..."

[Izak Archer]

Well, for once Izak and Holger was on the same page. If that ever happened with Melody simultaneously, hell would certainly freeze over. He put his attention back towards his consoles when Holger grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Wait a bloody - ", Holger did not give him a chance to finish his thought. Izak found himself dragged down the corridor, past the armory, intot he crew quarters to see and excited giant discuss his gun collection. Izak fought the urge to stare mouth agape at the bear of a man before he starting displaying - with parent like pride - his collection of weapons.

"We do," he said, before heading to his room. He fished into his duffle bag for a moment before pulling out his shotgun and sliding the action open, and held it out before him.

"We sailors though don't use weapons that require as much, well, finesse."

[Melody]

Location: Bridge

"Come, skinny Izak. I have some guns in my bunk. Do Purple Bellies have guns? If you do we will grab those as well," Holger exclaimed happily and Mel couldn't stop the smile that tugged stubbornly at one corner of her lips. He'd been remarkably patient and well behaved and supportive through the whole process of acquiring the ship, all for this moment. She was glad that she could give him what he wanted and needed now. She'd been starting to feel selfish...

"... if you can stall a little during docking, give me a few minutes to work, I'll see if I can hijack their system, maybe trip their fire detectors," Jo countered and Mel nodded to herself, making a mental note to keep the whole docking procedure smooth enough to give him time to work his magic. The doctor left with much less sass than she'd been expecting, which earned her a suspicious squint but nothing further. Then, she was alone with Jo on the bridge and for a moment, Melody let herself become absorbed in her work, apparently feeling the tech specialist wasn't a threat she needed to keep her attention on.

"Um... Mel?" he began, and she sighed heavily, her hands pausing over the controls so she could look up through the front viewport to indicate she was listening. "How are you holding up? I mean, with Isa leaving and all. I know you two were close." The pilot felt her expression sour, but she stopped halfway through turning her seat around when he continued, her body visibly freezing at his accurate preemptive statement, "And before you go all sulky on me, yes, I know you can take care of yourself, but anybody would be upset if they were you. I know I'd be." A barely audible grunt lifted and lowered her shoulders, but she remained still and silent. She hadn't bitten his head off, yet.

"The point is, if you ever want to talk about it -- not right now, obviously, but, you know, in general... Well, I've been told I'm a good listener. Clearly not a good talker, but hey, nobody's perfect..." Melody turned her head enough to eye him as he returned his attention to his own station. "This should be it; I'm sending it to your console. Good to see phallic worship is alive and well in the Alliance..."

She inhaled, held the breath in her chest, frowning and clenching her jaw until it hurt. Then, she turned away and let the air out in a heavy, weighty, sigh. "Thanks," she muttered, looking down at the blueprints he'd sent her. "You know, for the..." she paused, idly tapping the tip of her boot against the underside of the pilot's station. "...emotional go se, or whatever..." Mel continued, her voice barely a mutter and her shoulders up near her ears. The pilot cleared her throat and shook her head.

Warily, Melody moved the Revenge along the other ship's broadside, getting them parallel in order to facilitate a neat coupling. The ship rocked slightly as its airlock extended and contacted the external door of the other ship, pumping oxygen into the space with a hiss. She reached up to the comms, flipping them on inside the Revenge, "Docking initialized, get to the airlock. I'll ask the moron inside to let us in, if he can. Otherwise, I'll let one of you blast a hole in their door..." she told them, shutting off the mic. Again, she cleared her throat loudly."Jo, you're up. See about that fire system."

Then, she hailed the ship.

[Holger Heyerdahl]

A pocketful of ammunition, a pistol in one hand (the other stuffed into his pants) and his LaRue Battle Rifle with a customized stock (engraved with "DICKEY"; the name of the former owner) Holger was ready for a bit of light shooting. "Sailor? On the big ships?" Holger made a face. He was a ground pounding grunt at heart, his expertise was entirely wasted on the likes of cruisers. There was a sense of camaraderie with those that served in a similar fashion, enemy or ally alike. Izak serving in the sky made a lot of sense to Holger and confirmed his biases towards the former Alliance gunner.

Melody's voice interrupted his thoughts and preceded any jabs the giant might have thrown Izak's way. That would have to wait, for now. It was time to get to work.

Arriving at the airlock, Holger lamented silently that they were so poorly equipped. His rifle was a good one, though it hadn't helped Dickey much. But still, Holger was only one man. A navy man with a scatter gun would be little help, he reckoned, but they didn't have much choice. Ah well. He looked at the comm link by the door and remembered the last time he tried to use it. "You, Izak, tell Melody we are ready." A second though. "You are ready, yes?" Serious now. "You go first, I will cover you. You have done corners, yes? Leapfrog?" He mimed the act with his fingers, Izak going first, finding cover, Holger repeating the process.

[HumanHyperbole]

======================
Target Vessel

Will Breene paced back and forth, the grinding at the door was chipping away at his patience and sanity. He wasn't sure if they had the right tools to get through the door. He walked up to the 3 inch thick reinforced window on the door to the bridge. It was a handy feature of being an Alliance surplus was that it had countermeasures built in for boarders. One of the mutineers pounded on that clear composite material separating them.

"We're gonna get in there soon, Breene!! You're gonna pay for what you did!"

The helmsman and XO looked over to the Captain's chair, where their former Captain sat, a bullet wound square in the middle of his forehead, lifeless eyes staring off into space. His jumpsuit bearing the same corporate insignia as Breene. Through his salt and pepper stubble he fretted slightly and then shrugged.

"Things have gotten... testy I can see that now. But here's the deal: I told the Captain if we suddenly sell this merchandise to somebody else, we've got our old employer and some pissed of pirates to deal with. But noo......"

He pointed his pistol at the now deceased Captain, felled in their earlier unseen power struggle.

"He went and decided we should leverage our offer and get ruttin' greedy! Now you've got your own batch of pirates ready to kill you if you don't follow through on the deal, and I've got mine!"

He ripped the ATLAS SHIPPING logo off his shoulder and threw it on the floor in a symbol of the dissolution of their union as a crew.

"Now let's just cut the go-seh talk and kill each other like we were going to do anyway."

Breene's ship "The Atkinson" rocked slightly from the Revenge docking. A fiendish grin washed over his face.

"Uh ohhh..... Looks like my pirates got here first..."

======================

The Revenge
Anyone already in the cargo could hear the panicked and angry shouting inside the vessel they meant to board. Their ships now pressed up against each other, their hulls could conduct sound between each other. Including Breene getting on his ship's PA system, albeit a little muffled.

"I've handed docking bay control over to the over to the Revenge's docking control but clench up! They - "

BANG!

"Shut up Breene! You're next!"

One of the mutineers, or counter-mutineers depending on your definition shot out the speaker in their cargo bay. From the sound of the clattering on the other side, the crew was abandoning their effort to get at their old XO and pilot and focus their efforts on stalling a siege of the ship. For those who heard the warning to prepare for a fight, the Revenge's armory still carried a small but respectable stock for its original security team.

Stacked vertically in a row of five, there were some newer model Alliance SMGs, and right next to them were two non-lethal pulse weapons. Stacked similarly below was a row of five side-arms. None of the previous weapons being remarkable beyond their ability to fire in zero-g. But then, in a glass case just to the left of the main weapon locker, was a glass case. A note atop it read:

Prototype - Use Caution
Laying inside was the prize jewel of the Alliance's close quarter weaponry: The Geneva. 300 rounds per minute of shotgun horror.

[Izak Archer]

Izak thought for a moment about addressing the whole army-navy rivalry issue, but he thought it best to let it go for now. There was a lot of ground to cover if the old Browncoat did not know about that he was Navy. Or if he did not know about Melody's service either. No point in dredging up all that horse manure when they had a job to do. One that got a lot more complicated.

He moved onto his next question. "It's been a while, but yes," Izak said. "So I'm not totally clueless, but don't expect the flawless execution of some of your brothers in arms from the service, I cannae aspire to that." There was the accent slipping out again.

He listened as the ships docked. It was showtime.

"Let's go, I want to grab one of those stun weapons form the armory just in case," Izak said as he reached for his communicator. "Boarding party stands ready." Some olds habits died hard. That was way to formal.

[Melody]

Location: Revenge Bridge

Mel's foot tapped against the metal ground with dull, rhythmic pattern. Her fingers gripped at her biceps hard enough to turn the tips white as she sat with her arms crossed, eyeing the console before her. She could feel the two ships pressed against each other as though it had been her body it was pressed against. She could hear the echoing of sound transferred between the vessels and her brows furrowed all the deeper.

A green light blipped to life on the docking array before her.

"Finally," she nearly snarled, hands running over the controls to double and triple check that when she opened that door, her people wouldn't be sucked out into space or met with a lack of air. "How's it going over there?" she asked Jo, seeing he was hard at work doing something at his own console.

"Boarding party stands ready."

Her hand reached up to tap on the comms button, a few flips switched to get the message sent to the speaker next to where Holger and Izak stood ready, wanting to avoid her voice thundering through the ship and alerting their new neighbor to the goings on inside. "Doors will open on my mark. Get ready. Watch your corners. If you get injured, or you can't see a way through, retreat to the Revenge to re-strategize. Holger, call me in if you need me. Watch out for the suppressant system, if that worked."

"Three... Two... One... Mark."

Another green light lit up next to their own airlock door before it opened with a hiss, the air inside the Revenge and the air that had been pumped into the little corridor between the ships stabilizing and mixing together into a healthily breathable concoction.

[HumanHyperbole]

One teeny bit of code can make a lot of difference. Changing simple value from zero, to one can make all the difference in the world. But getting that bit of malicious script to launch, or not be deactivated was a whole 'nother story.

fire suppression = 0

Joakim's digital attack activated just as the door's hissed open. They'd only have a split second to observe four crew-members guarding their airlock. Two crouched at the far side of the docking bay doors, and then two more, each taking cover at the entrance to their airlock.

fire suppression = 1

Small nozzles popped out of the ceiling every couple of feet and started pumping a mixture of foam meant to suppress fire. One of the Atkinson's mutineers let out a burst of panic fire that snapped over Holger's orange tipped head. This caused a small error in the script running through the Atkinson's fire suppression system. The fire suppression system detected the spike in heat from the muzzle flash, and automatically went to engage the fire suppression systems already engaged, the momentary torrent of foam ended, but not before slicking just about every surface in the ship in a soapy substance that smelled oddly reminiscent of popcorn.

The crew of the Revenge only had a couple of seconds to capitalize on the element of surprise the foam had afforded them as they tried to get the foam off their faces. Unfortunately traversing the ship was going to be a bit interesting once they'd pacified these crew-members, never mind any more that were laying in wait. 

Meanwhile on the bridge:

William Breene wiped the soapy foam suppressant off his lightly bearded face and smacked the comms to his ship, hailing the Revenge.

"Which one of you assholes just slimed me?"

[Holger Heyerdahl]

His body tense and ready, Holger steadied himself against the bulkhead, rifle to shoulder, his aim focused squarely on the door and he waited for it to open. It seemed to take forever and he mentally urged Jo-a-kim and Melody to hurry up with their button pushings. He was ready to deal out some death and the only thing holding him back was-

HISSHH

The doors opened. Holger saw four enemy combatants awaiting them. He grinned. A part of Holger wished to rush forward and rip their throats out with his teeth. Though they were not in Alliance uniforms, it didn't take much for Holger to imagine them as such, and really, a uniform was a uniform wasn't it? Either way, he was only allowed a moment to fantasize before-

SHHLPP

Nozzles rained foam down upon the mutineers, covering them and everything around them. Like a snow storm, but stickier and with more squirting, it took a moment to determine who was more surprised. At least one of the mutineers, an easily startled amateur by Holger's guess, quickly responded with-

BRRTBRRT

Bullets pinged off the wall behind him, Holger kept his calm. He didn't rush into the heat of battle. He didn't duck for cover. He didn't shoot wildly in an attempt to suppress his enemy's fire. No. He took a breath. Made sure that his rifle was set to single-fire and -

POPPOP

Two shots. One for each of the men nearest him, crouching for cover at the airlock but distracted by the foam. Holger supposed he could forgive Mattie and Jo-a-kim's delay if it afforded Izak and him this advantage. If he'd thought about it harder, he might have been amused that this fight would be on a slick surface just as the previous Alliance-owned ship they had taken had been. "Izak. I will cover. You go now."