Tucked away in middle space, between Jovian orbit and the Asteroid Belt, there's a ring of small space stations called the Beltway Quarantine Collective, a rotation of safe harbors for starships crossing between the Inner and Outer Belts who discover mid-transit that their vessel is compromised- be it disease or contaminant or unregistered wildlife- where they can take refuge and sort out their problems without carrying that risk to their planned destination. The Beltway Quarantine Collective accepts all starships in distress, but it's not a public service, it's a private business. It's fairly expensive. Today, the Mammoth is docked at Beltway Satellite #5, resting at the end of a very long tunnel arm connecting it to the circular satellite's outer ring. Its crew have been in radio contact with Number Five's resource coordination team. The meter is running.
Humming away in the galley of the Mammoth, B3RRY busies herself preparing a selection of personalized meals for her crewmates in the Platinum Lion Salvage & Discovery Company. B3RRY is the crew's cook, and she's a damn good one at that- unlike Red Raven or Timberwolf, whose cooks serve double-duty in a secondary role, B3RRY's one and only job is to prepare high quality meals that appeal to the myriad individual tastes of the crew. Having formerly served as a caterer and a personal chef for Quasar Galactic executives and their distinguished corporate guests, she's very good at appealing to tastes and preference she had no prior knowledge of and no particular preparation for. Being a Quasar droid herself, she is equipped with a powerful suite of auditory and olfactory sensors, allowing her to hear the crisp freshness of her ingredients and smell the lingering aroma of a past, beloved meal attached to a starfarer's clothing. She loves the blended scents of a kitchenful of beautiful ingredients, but she also really enjoys the coppery smell of blood. Huh? Don't worry about it. The point is, B3RRY is attentive, dedicated and professional. She's prepared a number of dishes while the Mammoth has been docked at the Beltway, and she's loaded them onto a wheely tray cart that's just the right height for her to push through the mess hall and over towards the ship's infirmary. She hums a little tune as the squeak of her cart wheel fills the upper deck of the quiet blue ship. Elsewhere in the ship, a voice murmurs.
Seated in a cushy chair at the front of the infirmary, Tybalt tapped away at an array of holoscreens projected from his prosthetic arm. On one display he had a communications channel open with Beltway Satellite #5 staff, managing the root of his crew's stay in quarantine. In another display, a message from the Pulsar Auction House regretfully rescinding an offer to showcase treasures salvaged from the wreck of the Dromedary, requesting a Platinum Lion representative come and collect them from the site's storage vault at their earliest convenience. In a third window, Tybalt had the Mammoth's security feed playing video of the events of the previous night, switching from one camera angle to another, trying to pinpoint where the violent venture had gone astray. B3RRY wheeled over by Tybalt, lifting a plate with a magnetic bottom onto her thumbless metal paw. She'd prepared a simple meatball sub for him, trying to sneak a peek at his screens as she handed him his dinner. He took the plate in his organic hand, making no effort to dissuade her from her nosiness.
From his examination of the scattered collection of notes, Tybalt believed that Slim's plan to go for the throats of Red Raven and Timberwolf was well-intended but inappropriate for the resources available to them; when Tybalt reviewed the Andromedan's proposal, it emphasized what tools the team shouldn't use, where they shouldn't engage, who shouldn't go, it was too much "shouldn't" and not enough "should". Platinum Lion had the biggest, the best, the most cutting-edge technology at their disposal, and Tybalt knew if they put those resources to good use, rather than ignore them, they could make short work of the two crews who stood between them and the top of the Outer Belt treasure-hunting economy. They shouldn't use less, they should use it all, that's what it's there for. Tybalt's plan followed Slim's idea of cornering the salvage rivals and cutting off their escape route, but he approached it from a different angle: the Mammoth had an enormous cargo hold, large enough to swoop in and swallow up a whole small-sized craft all by itself. If they'd simply capture Red Raven and Timberwolf's boarding parties, not only would their crews' leadership be locked up in Platinum Lion's own cargo hold, but the Jackrabbit and the Ermine would be rudderless to chase them down. Corner them, give them no escape, but do it on Platinum Lion's terms, leveraging Platinum Lion's wealth of resources. Dr. Butcher vehemently opposed the idea. Slim wasn't keen on questioning the Captain, they could do it either way, whatever. B3RRY was all for it. B3RRY was very enthusiastic about the violence happening aboard her ship, where she could see it, instead of aboard one of the other ships where she couldn't go. B3RRY was really, really into that part of the whole salvage takeover operation. It was, after all, the main selling point that got her to leave a cushy job cooking food for board members and stuffy businessmen. She's here for a gory, bloody show.
"You'll get those sons of beets next time," B3RRY would affirm, as she wheeled her food cart next to Duo Jie. He was propped up in his infirmary bed, his broad chest packed with surgical bandages. B3RRY's enthusiastic bloodlust was contrasted by a tendency to self-censor her language; Tybalt figured this was a habit she acquired from her time serving corporate luncheons and official dinners, this practice of avoiding crassness or breaches of decorum, but the rest of the crew hate it. Every member of Platinum Lion knows they signed up for grim, dirty work, and they really wish she'd just say the no-no words instead of substituting them for cutesy soundalikes. "Frick those butter larders up! Break their scones! Fill 'em with bread!" No one likes this, but no one wants to snap at the ship's cook, either. It certainly doesn't help temper the stress of the work they'd committed to doing. Duo Jie accepts a bowl of Venusian "magma stew" from B3RRY and sets it aside on the little tray next to his infirmary bed. He'd get to it later.
The wreck of the Gibbon was a small and remarkably intact bit of starship salvage. Red Raven and Timberwolf were exploring it together- at the time it seemed a bit overkill for the two teams to tackle such a small ship, not even star galleon or a cargo hauler, but all the same it was a moment of good fortune for Platinum Lion to make their move. The Gibbon fit neatly inside the Mammoth's large cargo drum, it was a matter of dropping in with the bay doors open, closing them up, pressurizing the chamber and flying away before either crew's home ship could react. Slim had adapted their original plan to the Captain's new ideas about dividing and conquering. Internal scanners detected six crew aboard the Gibbon, suited up in spacewalking gear and carrying light hardware with them- Slim led their team of Tybalt, Duo Jie, Banger, Mash and Korbo to the lower decks, down the hall leading to the primary airlock and entry hatch for the cargo drum, each man carrying their own bit of iron from the ship's armory. They intended to take up positions around the Gibbon and cut down anyone who tried to make a move to escape it, secure in a confined space that Platinum Lion had complete control over. Before they could reach the airlock door to make their way inside, however, a chilling hiss of air rushed through the Mammoth's corridor; the locked door seemed to open itself.
Banger and Mash sat on the edge of one infirmary bed. They wore matching gowns and had their hair down, for the moment they were indistinguishable, save for the patterns of blaster holes dotting their bodies. They were hearty Venusians, and their wounds were already regenerating on their own. Their shed carapaces were left in a heap by their bedside, their scattered burns and puncture marks painting a picture of the firefight the boys endured. B3RRY couldn't help but rubberneck at the spectacle as she wheeled her food cart over. It was hard for most of the crew to tell Banger from Mash, but B3RRY knew one of them really liked pickles, the other hated them. She could smell the difference between the two of them. She slid a pair of burger plates off her cart, correctly assigning each one to the correct twin. They didn't spare her a word, they just took their plates and dug in. Regenerating blaster wounds works up a mighty appetite.
The skirmish that flushed its way through the belly of the Mammoth was, generously, a learning experience for the Platinum Lion crew. They'd picked up six of the salvage rivals in their bold attempt to divide and conquer, but the six that they got were perhaps the six they least wanted aboard their own ship. Inside a black spacesuit decorated with purple flames, Amy had just as much influence over the internal mechanisms of the Mammoth as she had over the external weapons. She carried a lever-action plasmacaster as part of her exploratory boarding kit, a potent large-bore longarm that left big searing holes throughout the pristine interior of the Mammoth. Bell occupied a teal-blue spacesuit, a Zephyleer-pattern photon cannon strapped to his arm. The ship's cook was also their cannoneer, and despite his missing eye he was able to land his shots while darting from cover to cover on three legs. Slug rounded out the Red Raven boarding crew, brandishing a pneumatic harpoon launcher- a personal favorite of theirs. Slug didn't need a special spacesuit, the Platinum Lion crew could see exactly which one they were, and they could see the smile on their face as their grand hunt commenced.
Dr. Butcher was busy attending to Slim when B3RRY wheeled her cart over to their part of the infirmary. Now that Slim had been detached from the wall where he'd been found, the doctor pushed one bloodied harpoon after another the rest of the way through the Andromedan's carapace, clanking them into a metal tray next to their bed. Dr. Butcher refused to speak to Slim, and Slim felt ashamed enough not to twist the knife about this affair; the silence in the air around them was thick as a humid Venusian summer. The doctor had pleaded with Tybalt not to escalate a fight with these people- with that woman. He really, really insisted on picking someone else to start a fight with. He'd been frazzled ever since the incident with the tow hooks, Tybalt just assumed it was nerves that got to him. Platinum Lion was heavily invested in taking over the salvage game, they'd made their move, they had to follow the rest of the way through or they'd be in the red with no hope of a return on his investment. He took the doctor's pleading under advisement, but he was in too deep to stop now. B3RRY sniffed the air as she pulled up next to the stack of harpoons, producing an individual-sized Llambyrgryst and a Caelian mineral slurry for the pair; Dr. Butcher instructed B3RRY to leave the food and vacate the work site. She lingered a little bit before wheeling herself along.
The Captain's notes pinned Bryce as more of a charmer than a fighter, but underneath his bright orange spacesuit the Venusian captain revealed himself to be pretty mean with a flashcaster. It shouldn't have been so difficult for Platinum Lion's roster of killers to suppress six guys who hated each other with superior firepower, but Bryce knew to bring more than a little sidearm with him when he boarded an unknown space wreck. Jack, Timberwolf's cannoneer, stood just behind his captain in a bright red spacesuit, his own Mercurian influence bending the trajectory of incoming fire away from his crew and his rivals, sizzling them dramatically into the walls around them instead. He carried an automatic leadcaster with him and fired from the hip, his own shots landing exactly where he intended they go. With no fear of incoming fire, the sixth member of the salvage band charged forward at their welcoming party, a bright blue wavecutter glowing in her hand- Emily, Bryce's Martian legbreaker, dimmed her pain receptors and spiked her adrenaline, chasing Platinum Lion out of their own hallway like a junkyard dog. Slim gave the order to fall back before one harpoon thupped into the wall next to his head. And then another, and then another. Tybalt would rewind this part of the security feed a few times, playing it back again and again.
Korbo hadn't woken up since the events of the Gibbon debacle unfolded. He was stable, but Dr. Butcher would come back to him when he was sure everyone else was taken care of. Dylan sat in a chair beside his bed, looking uncharacteristically glum. Dylan appeared unharmed, save for the old burn mark behind his ear. B3RRY's ear units pivoted slightly as she listened in on Korbo's breathing. He sounded rough, those were definitely not normal, clear breaths. They sounded gurgly. No outside blood, though. She lost interest. Bending down, she produced two more plates, handing Dylan a traditional Mercurian ghaanah kabarha- a handheld bowl of rice, greens and beansprouds topped with white-meat cutlet and doused with a spicy green sauce. She left a chocolate protein milkshake on the little table next to Korbo's bed. "You're gonna frick these guys up, right?" B3RRY inquired, eager to hear this wasn't the end of Platinum Lion's ambitions. Dylan's gloomy expression tightened up a bit at B3RRY's question; for a moment, he looked angry. "Yeah. We will."
The Red Raven and Timberwolf crew fought their way through the Mammoth with a ferocity that Platinum Lion, frankly, did not anticipate. Where Tybalt's plan assumed they would be cornered inside the Gibbon, the six captive crew made it look like Platinum Lion were the ones on the backfoot inside their own ship. Tybalt's security feed had captured the audio channels from the mics inside their spacesuits, but the system hadn't finished decoding them yet. What he saw was a group that stayed tight, took ground, covered each other's fire and moved up the decks of the Mammoth as if they knew exactly where they were heading every step of the way. Platinum Lion, on the other hand, appeared to fight as a collective of individuals skittering back and avoiding fire as best they can- only Banger and Mash seemed to cover one another the way the six rivals coordinated their movement. Tybalt noticed that Korbo had split off from the group around the time they were pushed back from the airlock hallway, disappearing from the firefight early on; it was only when Red Raven and Timberwolf converged on Dylan's quarters that Korbo reappeared in the security feed. The Callistan engineer was larger and more spry than any one of the rivals, and he knew the ins and outs of the Mammoth better than anyone. While the rivals were firing down at Platinum Lion from the top of the stairway leading up to the quarters, Korbo had managed to sneak up behind them. Bursting out of a maintenance hatch, he took the six salvagers by surprise, knocking Emily off her feet and nearly over the railing with his broad, quilled shoulder. He twirled a ring-looped knife around his fingertip before tightening his grip, readying a killing blow while he had the Martian at a disadvantage and her companions by surprise. Emily regained her composure just in time to see the towering Callistan bear down on her, her cyberoptic lens highlighting the readied strike of his knife-wielding hand, but also another flash of movement behind him. It was the black spacesuit with the purple flames. That one- who was it? Tybalt would have to rewind and check later. That one hit Korbo right in the flank with a left cross- an unarmed, unassisted blow- that seemed to impact the Callistan like a city bus blowing through a hot dog stand. One frame of the camera feed he was there, the next frame he was a blurry smear vanishing off the side of the viewport. Tybalt had a prosthetic left arm himself, but no man-portable piece of hardware he knew about could produce that much force, not at that size. The purple-flame spacesuit looked down at Emily, pausing a moment before reluctantly reaching a hand down to help her back up to her feet. She gathered up a couple loops of mooring line she'd been carrying, looked back to the crewmate in the orange spacesuit and gave a thumbs up. After a moment, the crew broke their way into Dylan's quarters. Tybalt didn't have cameras in the crew's private rooms, but he didn't need them. He knew exactly how they got off his ship.
As B3RRY wheeled her empty food cart towards the exit of the infirmary, she paused to eavesdrop on a conversation between Tybalt and Skydog407, who had since arrived from the bridge of the Mammoth. Beltway Quarantine said they'd got in contact with a professional, a man named Marrowgrimm, who could help decontaminate their ship. It'd take him a few days to make it out to the Asteroid Belt; he was expensive, but he'd do the job. As the two reviewed their situation, one of Tybalt's holoscreens blipped- the audio from Red Raven and Timberwolf's voice comm channels had been decoded. Tybalt tapped play on the holoscreen, listening in on the other side of the firefight for the first time. Their comms were a cacophony of controlled panic and anxious shouting. They fought their way through the Mammoth with such ferocity not because they had a plan to outmaneuver Platinum Lion, but because they were in a desperate hurry to get away from the Gibbon. "There's a spacecycle three decks up. The room with the big glass window." "One spacecycle? There's six of us. How are we--?" "I dunno-- grab those lines. We'll figure it out. Just go go go!" Tybalt rubbed his forehead.
Six rival salvagers banded together and fought their way through a state-of-the-art ship, pushing over a top-of-the-line crew, to get as far away from the wreck of the Gibbon as they could as fast as possible, piling onto one spacecycle and crashing through the enormous bay window to reunite with their own crews as soon as they possibly could. His million-credit outfit didn't fold to superior tactics, but to a more primal urgency he himself hadn't considered as part of this job. The wreck in his cargo hold, Tybalt learned, was haunted. It was super duper haunted. And now the Mammoth was haunted too. That's why the crews sent such a big away team before kickstarting their salvage operation. That's why you don't just scoop the whole ship up at once. That's why.
B3RRY interrupted Tybalt's moment of reflection, holding up a picturesque slice of strawberry cake on a delicate little plate. A piercing, gutteral howl echoed through the decks of the ship beneath them. She smiled sweetly.
"Dessert?"