Valhalla Rising

[MB52]

Chapter 7 - Lost

As she entered she shouted "John, will you come to the briefing room"
They both entered the briefing room silent...

"John, I'm promoting you to the position of XO... if I am going to command this ship and get us out of here I'll need your strength"
"Of course"
"Lieutenant Powers, the Chief's apprentice is working on getting power up.. I don't doubt he will get it up..."
"Commander while you were down on E deck we received a transmission from an unknown ship, but we couldn't respond since the transmitter was down"
"Let me see it"
"Here" John tapped a few commands onto the only working computer in the room and the message popped up.



"Damn, that’s an Outcast ship; we must have jumped into their territory..." she said in surprise.
"The good news is they haven't found us yet... bad news without power, we can't detect nor defend ourselves if they do try something”. John stated.

"Our problems just got a WHOLE lot worse..." as she looked out the window she saw something" John look, a station, it almost looks like the design Zoners use for Freeports"

"I see it"
"Regardless, we have other things to deal with, but that might be a place to get supplies later and perhaps spare parts" she turned around... "For now lets get main power back up and solve our outcast problem.."
♠

*3 hours later*

The remaining senior staff sat around the briefing room...

"Give me some good news...." said Jessica

"I'm sorry... But there is no hope in getting that jump drive working again, nor can we get the cloak operational" John mumbled as he read his computer screen. "The only hint of good news is that our conventional systems seem to be ok, we've stabilized the ship but we've lost a lot of our fuel reserves… If we are going to be leaving we'll need to refuel somewhere".

"John, get a team together and have them report to the hangar deck in civilian clothing, I think it is time we visit that station, we'll take that one shuttle that is remaining".

"No offence Jessica but I should go in your place".

"Care to explain" she looked up.

"Jess, you haven't slept in 3 days, you’re exhausted, let John go---" .

"You heard the doctor… I can handle this".

"Alright John... if it is a Freeport, try and arrange for some fuel and maybe some maps of the area"

The briefing ended and the crew split up, John headed for the hangar deck and prepared for a "diplomatic mission"

The shuttle launched, with its transponder and ID system disabled, making it look like a neutral trade vessel. It then headed for the unknown station which would soon be known as Freeport 10. After landing John sent his men off to purchase parts while he headed to the administrative offices to arrange for the more critical fuel transfer. He had to be careful... The Zoners would not like to find a Liberty battleship in their space… This would be a very fragile matter to deal with.

*1 hour later*

Mike Agathon sat at his desk casually scanning the stranger in front of him. As a Zoner council member, Mike knew he had to be careful in any decisions he made, Freeport 10 was balancing on the edge of a knife blade... Any deals he made could easily cause problems. It would be easy to just say no and not help these people, but he also felt as if he owed them something, being from Liberty himself, his brother Karl Agathon still worked for the LPI.

"That’s a lot of fuel you are requesting Mr. Bertrand, it won't come cheap"
"I realize this, and have prepared a list of items we'd be willing to trade with" John replied without pause.
"I'm sure we could come to some sort of agreement; however I'd like to keep this as quiet as possible, Outcasts get agitated quite easily"

They continued the negotiations and eventually agreed upon a fair trade. Of course what the Zoners were getting was worth more than the fuel but John could not complain. He'd even gotten a map of the area from the Zoner, perhaps helping them figure a way home.

It wasn't good though... As far as he knew there was three ways back to Liberty...

1- Through Outcast space
2- Through Bretonia, though that would require passing through the Kusari - Bretonia war zone…
3- Through Kusari… They'd have to be careful not to be detected or Liberty would have quite the diplomatic incident on their hands...