Tyrrazapon and Trychon heard the noise from the next room over. Tyrrazapon got to his feet. "Do you figure...?"
Trychon got up more slowly, clearly not alarmed. "Yeah, the usual I'd bet. Let's go ahead and take a walk."
Sure enough, as they exited their bunk, they saw Raezyr walking calmly down the corridor. They fell into step as though it was a choreographed move. As they walked down the hall, Trychon noticed the number of bunks. It seemed as though there was an unusual amount for a ship this size. Probably converted cargo space for more sleeping room. Explains the size of our bunk, if nothing else.
As though he Trychon had purposefully broadcast his thoughts, Tyrrazapon whispered his own notes. "There's two major types of pirate ships. The more common is set up to store or hide as much stolen or contraband cargo as possible. A bit more rare is the ship set up for raiding and raiding only... without the need for storing much booty in the end. I'll let you guess which we're on."
Trychon didn't think he needed to answer. Raiders.
They didn't walk too far before finding themselves in the common area. There was half a dozen men in the group, a couple playing cards, and a few more talking animatedly about some other heist while gesturing with their knives. They looked up and then went back to their activities without a word. One of the men listening to the story in the corner nodded at Raezyr, but that was it.
Anya walked into the room a moment later, and was clearly about to get more attention from the men when Iago walked back from the cockpit with two men by his sides.
"Alright men, listen up!" Iago bellowed more than loud enough for the noise level in the room. "We don't need to go through pleasantries. I'm not asking anyone to be best buddies, but we're working together on this one. For the benefit of our guests, I'll go over this once. The two men beside me aren't to be questioned. This is our Chief pilot and our Chief Operations Officer." He said, nodding to the man on his left and then the man on his right.
"You listen to any order from the Chiefs as though it came from me direct. They're here with one thing in mind each. For one, the health of my ship. The other, the health of our mission. Do not question them."
He didn't wait for any sort of sign of understanding before carrying on.
"Now, I'm not in the habit of trusting outsiders but my mission was clear that I should test your skill AND your trustworthiness. With that in mind, we'll be taking a different approach on this job. You four will be smuggled on board our target boat. You should be able to... avoid being noticed... yeah? We'll be giving you some programming to help bypass scanners as well. This same package will allow me to disable some of the ship's major functions as well as vape the whole boat if something goes sour, and no fancy sword tricks will save you if you try to cross us. Understood?"
Again, he went on without waiting for even a nod. "Now this is a bigger boat than we usually take on. Their crew likely matches mine in size, and even though we're undoubtedly more skilled... an even numbers game isn't the sort you look forward to when you're the one coming through the hatch. The plan is that when I disable the target's main weapons and engines, the four of you can even out the numbers a bit more and perhaps persuade them to come more peacefully before my men have to even take a shot."
"Any questions?"
No comments:
Post a Comment