Vasquez once more donned the Meliina outfit, and added the journalist accessories that went with the persona. The holocamera she unpacked from its' case, and handed to Victor, who would be posing as her cameradroid. A change of clothes for Jermemiah went into the case. Jeremiah searched the wardrobe and found Scott's uniform; he put it on with mild difficulty (he was a bit taller and broader across the shoulder than the deceased). A pistol in a flap holster came with the outfit; Jeremiah discarded the gun and replaced it with his own. The pair's energy blades went into Victor's secret pouch in its' place.

Thus prepared, they boarded the MagLev and returned to Factory KV-98. As they travelled, Victor did some more research into the Combine files they'd managed to secure, and came up with the name of the Manager of the HazMat facility for which Viator Milan had been Cargo Admin Clerk; Orson Berg.

The platform of the station was quiet, as befitted the midst of the night shift; it was around 9pm standard time. The trio disembarked and headed for the Admin building, where 'Brant' remembered seeing a door marked "Visitor Pass Unit" through a glass partition on their last visit.

With the experienced abilities of trained secret agents, the pair slipped seamlesly into their roles of visiting-gushing-curious-journalist and slightly-stiff-officious-escorting-guard. Nonetheless, a faint sweat touched 'Brant's' brow as he approached the inner door leading from the public enquiry area of the Admin office and into the internal corridors. Gritting his teeth, he took a breath and swiped Scott's card.

With a bleep and hiss, the door slid open. They were in!

Relaxing slightly the pair walked through the corridors, Victor trailing behind, talking as they went; 'Meliina' pointing things out and asking questions, 'Brant' answering as a nervous guard would in these conditions. Every so often 'Meliina' would have Victor take a picture, and sometimes 'Brant' would stop him.

Arriving at the pass office, 'Brant' successfully signed his companion in for a visitor's badge, giving her the right to be escorted anywhere in the factory. Stepping out of the pass office, they took a chance on Viator Milan's map being incomplete and pressed on through the Admin offices rather than going back out to the platform and heading for the employee entrance.

Luck was with them, and a corridor not marked on Milan's brief sketch took them into the employee corridor. Following this, they found themselves in the main warehouse, where 'Meliina' asked questions, took copious notes, had Victor holograph some crates, and was 'refused permission' to take them of the stacked military-issue hand computers waiting for shipment.

Finally, they exited the far side of the warehouse, following the corridor down ro the HazMat facility. This took them to a door marked

HazMat Cargo Administration
Aikusi Edarini

This would be what had once been Viator Milan's office. They listened at the door, and heard what sounded like typing at a keyboard. Fair enough. 'Meliina' opened the door and went in.

Inside, they found a small square office, with a large picture window overlooking the main HazMat cargo warehouse below.

There was only one desk, a larged curved affair, and seated at it was a man of Vilani appearance. He'd turned at the opening of his door and was frowning at the intruders in an impatient but not alarmed manner.

As they entered, 'Meliina' and 'Brant' continued their patter, 'Brant' explaining what the office was in very general terms, and introducing the woman to the clearly unhappy occupant. Edarini was apparently quite impervious to 'Meliina's' charms, and demanded to know what was happening, what they wanted, and who had authorized this? '

Brant' very nearly dropped the ball here by declarinfg he didn't know who had approved the visit, but 'Meliina' caught the slip and provided the name of Orson Berg, which seemed to placate Edarini slightly. She worked her role, asking him questions about his job designed to flatter, and wandering around the office as she did so, surreptitiously checking for cameras. She asked Victor to holograph Edarini at his desk, which he submitted to without much enthusiasm, and tried to have him image the warehouse below. 'Brant' moved to prevent this, a good judgement of the rules as Edarini also did the same thing. 'Meliina' submitted meekly, having already gathered the information she needed; the personnel below in the HazMat warehouse were far too busy - and paying far too much attention to what were clearly very dangerous tasks - to be watching the office above.

'Brant' went to the refreshment station, and drew himself a cup of coffee, taking the moment to click Viator Milan's talisman watch in the hopes of another clue. Nothing happened. He turned to the others, asking if they wanted coffee also. 'Meliina' said yes, but Edarini demurred. Shame, thought Jeremiah, tucking the sleep pill back into his pocket, that would have saved his life. He left his coffee on the unit.

As he walked back across the office, he quietly unholstered his gausspistol, and as he came up behind Edarini he smacked him hard on the back of the neck with the battery-heavy butt. Edarini's knees buckled, and he sagged, stunned but not knocked out. Vasquez launched a dismayingly heavy punch for a petite lass from the front, striking Edarini in the eye and making him stagger back into Jeremiah's grip. While the tall agent held the clerk still, Vasquez whipped the garrotte out of her bracelet and flicked it around his neck. A few seconds' tightening was enough to finish the matter.

Lugging the corpse to the side away from the window, Jeremiah opened the HazMat suit standing in an alcove against the wall and manhandled the body inside. He flipped down the blast visor and examined the result. No-one was going to notice that until the room was thoroughly searched or he started to smell. He joined Vasquez in searching the office for their objective.

In the next ten minutes they combed the office in detail, finding nothing, and were just about to give up when they noticed a small, tatty cardboard box tucked in behind the door. This turned out to hold Viator Milan's personal possessions; a coffee mug, a mousemat, some pens and pencils, a book - and a dataslug. Bingo!

Or was it? While Jeremiah cleared up signs of their presence, Vasquez jacked the slug into the side of her Cray 6523 hand computer. At first it displayed just a mundane collection of report documents, but after several seconds' processing the view changed and a single file was listed. One look at the contents was enough; this was it. She pocketed both items and gathered her possessions.

Tensely, the intruders reversed their progress, turning in the visitor ID and exiting the building, waiting on the platform, boarding the MagLev back to Versqel city central station. Once on the train, 'Meliina' shed her blonde wig and makeup, and added a topcoat, and 'Brant' visited the bathroom and returned dressed in Jeremiah's anonymous clothes, the uniform tucked into the camera case, and his disguise makeup removed.

They changed trains at Versquel, and began the journey to Transom. Vasquez radioed ahead to Fox, giving nothing away; "Ready to roll," was all she said. "Check," responded Fox, adding, "your cargo's arrived." While the train whistled across the barren surface, Fox unpacked the hidden Zucchai crystal and reinstalled it in the jump drives, restoring the Nemesis to full functionality.

On arrival at the starport, Jeremiah and Vasquez boarded the ship and Fox took her up straight away, heading for the Jump point, before asking the question, "where are we going?"

While Victor attended to vaporizing Brant Scott's uniform and pass, and Meliina's blonde wig, the agents examined the file on the dataslip to see what they'd gained.

The slug did indeed contain a secure dataslip created by Viator Milan. Stored on it were the backdoor codes for the hand computer manufactured at Factory KV98 especially for the Imperial diplomat Torvald Shimuusha. Some additional notes indicated that Shimuusha was connected with the Imperial Naval Strategic Planning Office and should know where that is located.

Victor linked into the planetary datanet through the ship's comm system, and pulled up a passenger manifest for a liner containing the name Torvald Shimuusha. He took a High Passage ticket from Mimiis to Ariel on 013/989. Maybe he'd be there, and maybe not; but their orders said to follow this up, and the next move for that was to go to Ariel.

Ariel was more than three parsecs away, so they'd have to stop en route. Considering the options, they examined the library data for Rild and Nisinasha, and discarded both as a bit risky. Newcomb, however, sounded rather quieter as a refuelling stop, and so Fox set course for there. They had a couple of crates of cvilian hand computers picked up on Mimiis which should fetch a good price on a low-tech world like Newcomb, and make a good cover.

Peyindur Gas Giant, Newcomb/Banasdan, 072/989

Newcomb D-441443-6 Im

Newcomb is a backwater, an undeveloped world with little to encourage anyone to invest in it. Fifty thousand people live there, in a remarkable fair and well-structured culture with a democratic government; but there is little for the governement to preside over, as the world produces little and earns less. Crime and delinquency are serious problems on Newcomb, as the younger generations discover just how poor their prospects are. Imperial services have a tendency to use Newcomb as a liberty world, descending to party and blow off steam just outside the starport and leaving again. Even this doesn't generate much income.
- Solomani Travel Services library data..

Their flight plan took them to a hundred diamters' of the outermost of Newcomb's two small gas giants, astrographically Newcomb VI and locally known as Peyindur. Here they planned to scoop for methane atmosphere which their fuel purfiers could convert to clean hydrogen fuel in a few hours.

Their sensors picked up several starships in the process of doing the same thing, but none much bigger than the Nemesis and none of an overtly military nature. There were two Imperial cruisers in orbit over the mainworld, but that was days away by even high-g normal space drives. Fox commenced the scooping run, and the ship dived into the upper reaches of the thick atmosphere.

Scooping is always a bit unnerving; it's such a standard thing that no-one really thinks about it, but it's noisy (an unusual thing in a starship) and bumpy (visually only unless the inertial compensators have failed), and the exterior hull heats up to a mild glow. Radiation, fluctuating magnetic fields, and powerful radio waves bathe the outer surfaces. The external gravity field can be anything between 5g and 10g; instant death if the grav plates fail. Static charges build up and are discharged from a special probe on the hull, which results in the ship being wreathed in regular lightning strikes as the process continues. These are harmless, but add to the impression of mighty natural forces kept at bay from devouring ship and crew only by flimsy technology and hope.

Midway through this process, the Nemesis was hailed. "Heave to and prepare to be boarded!" was the rather unexpected message. It emanated from a 400 dton Systems Defence Boat, clearly operating as an Imperial privateer. Letters of Marque were commonly being issues by both "sides" as the probability of war increased. It was one occasion that being disguised as a quietly succesful Solomani trader was somewhat of a disadvantage!

While Vasquez responded to the call, declaring surrender in her best "helpless female" tones, Fox handed the controls over to Victor and the computer (the latter of which he trusted more to keep the vessel level) and the human crew climbed into their battledress. With some glee they unpacked their seriously military equipment from the hidden lockers, and awaited the pirates at the docking airlock.

A series of heavy scrapes and bumps indicated that the SDB had latched on to their hatch. Quickly, Victor over-rode the safety settings and opened both valves of the airlock, revealing the SDB's external hatch outside. The wheel spun, and the hatch creaked open.

Instantly, Jeremiah launched a RAM grenade through the aperture. There was an extremely compressed explosion from the other side, and Vasquez immediately dived for the hatch.

Her twin gauss pistols were ready as she rolled through the gravity interface and onto the new "floor", but there was no-one to shoot. The area around the airlock hatch was devastated, the two small staterooms at the nose of the ship demolished, and the smeared remains of two humans in combat armour decorating the walls.

Jeremiah joined her, and as he did so, Victor came on the intercom. "Hull integrity breach! We have intruders on the cargo deck!" he reported. The pirates had attacked on two fronts, sending attackers to break into the ship from the outer hull. Fox and Hum turned and headed off, dropping through the floor hatch to the lower deck and running forward towards the intruders.

Jeremiah and Vasquez progressed carefully down the central corridor of the SDB, checking the staterooms and galley for danger, and finding nothing. Passing through a hatch, they saw the heaviliy armoured doors of the massive missile magazines coming up, and an evil grin touched Vasquez' face behind the visor as she remembered the lump of plastique she'd dropped into a pouch before the attack. Jeremiah remained at the beginning of the armoured passage to provide cover, while Vasquez moved inside, heading for the magazine hatches.

Jeremiah, however, had noticed something else. At the end of the corridor was an open hatch, and framed in it was a stubby cylinder. Two muzzles protruded ominously from this device, and a faint "click" had sounded from it.

Vasquez hurled herself to the deck, her gauss pistols whining as their magnetic mechanisms hurled eight rounds of 4mm needles at the robot sentry. Some bounced off the armour, but some pentrated, reducing the machine to sparking scrap.