Snip

By the light of the warning klaxons, Kelly could see most of the marines were just fine. Some were tussled about and had bruises and bumps. One poor soul had a mild concussion but that was about the worst of it. No one was actually dead. It wasn’t a direct shot and they did have force fields, after all, which took most of the blast. NP (nameless private) Johnson smiled at the LT though and nodded, “Thanks ma’am. Don’t know what we would do without ya. You have a real knack for keeping your head on your shoulders in times like these. If it would have been up to me we would have caused all sorts of commotion!”

Back on the Trinity, the hail came in from the hapless would-be pirates. The first half of the transmission was riddled with a string of expletives insulting everyone from Foley himself, Foley’s mother, the Trinity as a vessel, and some how the quality of material the uniforms were made from. Once the man calmed down he leaned forward, the first time Foley probably got a good look at the scarred and plump and scarred man, =/\= What were ya thinking?! Ya could have gotten us killed for crying out loud!=/\=

The man took a deep breath then waved the second one onto the screen. =/\= Look… Oh… =/\=

Another moment of silence ensued before the second pirate, a thin man with a receding hairline blurted out, =/\=Listen bub! We are a… a… dreadnought! We will blow your measly ship from the sky and not feel bad about it at all!=/\=

Scans, of course, revealed this was an old freighter with barely enough shields to keep the thing afloat. If it had a single torpedo tube that actually worked it was a small miracle. In its heyday the vessel likely relied on speed and agility to avoid conflict directly, but now poor maintenance had left it a lumbering hulk crewed by an incompetent crew.

GM Wombat

Aaron sighed, he was done playing these games. He wanted to get his marines back, and Magellan back in one piece.

=^= Well if you are a dreadnought, then we should respond to the potential threat accordingly. =^= Aaron left the channel open as he turned towards the tactical officer. “Prepare to fire all forward phasers, and a full spread of quantum torpedoes at the ‘dreadnought’, on my mark.”

After a few seconds the tactical officer responded. “Weapons standing by.”

Aaron raised his hand, index finger in the air ready to point at the screen for emphasis.

“And....” he said as he started to lower his hand.

LtCmdr Foley - XO

=/\=Wait! No! Stop!=/\= the weaselly man exclaimed. =/\=There’s no need for violence, is there? Come on guys just let us go eh? We didn’t mean nothing by anything.=/\=

From off screen a fist came in and cuffed the other man on the top of his head. “Ow!” the man exclaimed before looking back to the communication monitor, =/\= What do you want? A piece of the action?=/\=

GM Wombat

Aaron had to work to keep the smirk off of his face. He had figured that they were just bluffing, they didn’t have the fire power to fight them. He stopped lowering his hand and held it upright. “Hold fire.”

Carefully lowering his hand, Aaron looked at the two on the screen. =^= I want to know who is the one running this operation. Who is trying to sabotage the Starbase, and why? =^=

LtCmdr Foley - XO

(OOC: WOO HOO Get ‘em FOLEY!)

=/\= Uh…=/\= the first man said with a little bit of a worried glance to the second person off screen. There was a brief, quiet argument between the two before the first one came back. =/\= We don’t know. We just work for the boss. He, or she, said to be here to get the loot and get outta here as fast as possible. Imma go out on a limb and guess you ain’t in on the job.=/\=

There was a brief silence before some sort of recognition set in, =/\=Ol’ Mord got a Federation Starbase though? Woo wee! That is some gumption right there. Maybe he is good for something. =/\=

GM Wombat

=^= Yes. Gumption indeed. =^=

Aaron was getting tired of this. He signals for them to mute the audio channel before he hit the comm to the marines.

=^= We’ve got them distracted. But we are going to need to take over that ship. I’m going to try and negotiate, but set weapons to stun, and shoot first and we’ll ask the questions back on Magellan. =^=

He turned towards the comm officer, “open the channel to the freighter again.”

=^= Why don’t you instruct your men to stand down, and my marines will make sure we can have a nice calm discussion back at the Starbase. How does that sound? Or we can just end this here if you prefer. =^=

LtCmdr Foley - XO

The man on the other ship made a motion with his hand off ship. Shortly there after the engines of the freighter started to spin up as if it were preparing to jump to warp speed. Of course it would have to get to a clear shot of some place first.

=/\= We, uh, got our loot we can just get out of your hair now. Seems to me to be the best course of action. Uh, yep. =/\=

GM Wombat