Clearly (I hope) desperate, I offer to bring in Kaetlyn – trade her for Yoren. The words stick in my throat – I cough quietly as he ponders.
Clearly (I hope) desperate, I offer to bring in Kaetlyn – trade her for Yoren. The words stick in my throat – I cough quietly as he ponders.
I’m allowed to visit Deirdre and Jon. She brings me up to speed while Jon sullens in my direction. De might be mad too, but who could tell?
Deidre was the only one on hand for the ‘display’ that put Yoren in solitary. There was biting. Also, chewing and swallowing. Ah. Hmm.
I don’t know if anyone is listening, so I can’t explain OR play it straight and hope they keep up. Jon would, but Deirdre does not lie well.
All I can tell them is ‘trust me’, which goes over… less than well. The Commander meets me in the hall – says we have a deal. Finally..
He tells me that, while he won’t release Yoren, he understands I’ll want to see him, since he’s so important to me. He insists, in fact.
As we walk to his cell, I try to remember the last time I spoke to Yoren directly, instead giving orders via Jon. Nothing springs to mind.
I’ve no idea if Yoren is a good liar; it wasn’t why I hired him. I move in for a hug straight off and just hope he doesn’t throat-punch me.
Looks like he’s too confused to resort to violence. I tell him we’re off to earn his release. Then something explodes. Remote lie detector?
The explosion is followed by howl of hull breach alarms. Yoren whispers he knew I had a plan. He trusts me; Jon and De don’t. I feel ill.
Not possible the explosion is my fault. Concordant Navy craft infringing on Drift’s beloved anarchy? Explosions are inevitable. Right?
…unless the explosion is Burns trying to get his hands on me; then it would have something to do with me, yes. He wouldn’t, though. Right?
Wrong. The door opens to admit the commander and sounds of faint gunfire. The attackers are demanding… me. Yoren jumps him before I reply.
I pry one of Yoren’s hands away and drag him into an arm bar. /This/ time, he throat-punches me. I twist the arm and lean away. Socket pops.
Mostly, dislocating someone’s shoulder encourages reconsideration of bad choices. It’s reliable in that way. Yoren releases the commander.
Forgot this is Yoren; he doesn’t give up on bad ideas – it’s a kind of loyalty. Sometimes, though, he /will/ trade one bad idea for another.
He trades up from ‘kill the commander’ to ‘pop out the Captain’s eye with my thumb’. Starting to suspect hiring Yoren might have been rash.
He can’t quite reach my face, given our position. Unfortunate, that; lacking alternatives, he goes after my soft tissue. Abdomen. Groin.
The grapple/pummel doesn’t go on as long as it feels like. Probably. Yoren’s enthusiasm is prematurely dampened by via a charged stun baton.
The commander, still holding the stun baton, offers a hand up. Takes me a bit to respond – caught part of the baton’s charge through Yoren.
If this were an adventure vid, I’d knock him out with his own baton and leave. In the real world, I like NOT being chased by the navy.
He takes me back to Jon and De, fielding skirmish reports while explaining he’s just decided to accept our deal. Now; to our shuttle. What?
The good: There’s no way he can get us through the station, so we get a free ride to our ship. The bad: He has no idea what happened to Mak.
The commander see me off with “Isabel’s blessing”. He’s keen enough to see the irony, given the situation, but True Navy enough not to care.