played 4/13/08 as recorded by Joe (Dirk)

 

All is eerily quiet after the ferocious shootout near the Falarucci freighter. Aleth, obviously shaken up from his several injuries, begins to move from one to the other of the fallen thugs, scanning ident chips and taking DNA samples. Turk quickly moves back to the van to grab Neal (who had been under the care of the also seriously injured Val) and hauls him into the Achilles.  Dirk runs out of the Falarucci freighter, holstering his pearl-handled plasma pistol and wearing a hard expression (and a little bit of spleen) on his face. Reaching the Achilles just ahead of Turk, Dirk lowers the ramp and goes inside to start the power-up cycle. Turk quickly moves Neal to the sick bay and only then realized that he has no idea how to operate the Auto-Doc™. With luck and a lot of persistence, Turk successfully hooks Neal up to the sick bay equipment and saves his life with under a minute to spare.

 

Aleth and Simon move into the ship as well, leaving Val to guard the still-open ramp. Simon still shows signs of the great strain that managing the crowd had caused him and sits down heavily in sick bay. Aleth hears a laser fire and watches Val crumple in the doorway. Noticing the approach of a large security Mech, he quickly shuts the door and runs to the communications suite. As Dirk frantically works towards getting the ship powered up, the Mech stations itself in front of the Achilles, pointing its arm-mounted Mk.20 blaster cannon at the bridge and announcing over its loudspeakers, “Achilles, do not attempt to power up your engines. All crew must exit the ship with their hands over their heads.” The MIRC (Manned Interface Robotic Comboid) kicks on all it's search lights and trains them on the cockpit windows.

 

Aleth jumps into action by connecting his neural jack to his cyberdeck and establishing a Tachyon Beam Dictor connection to Tara while also contacting the Mech through the comm channel saying, “Request permission to power up our ship. We have a severely wounded crewmember that will die without power.” Dirk calls the starport asking for permission to leave the planet to save Neal – a request that was quickly denied. Dirk becomes a flurry of activity as he quickly restores power to the ship but does not start the engines so as to not antagonize the Mech. The Falarucci freighter powers up its engines but does not take off. Simon goes down the ramp with his hands up and attempts to influence the Mech pilot to back off.

 

The Mech gives another ultimatum and points the cannon directly at the Achilles’ bridge while turning its head-mounted lasers toward the Falarucci freighter. Dirk’s eyes narrow at the threat towards his parents, and he casually aims the ship’s laser cannons at the MIRC.  After aiming, he puts his hands up and backs out of the bridge, but runs to engineering and mans the emergency bridge station there and begins a sensor sweep of the area. Meanwhile, Aleth and Tara team up to set up a microfreq link to the local network and penetrate a reasonably unsecure food service link in the network. Tara and Aleth split up and Aleth slams into the heavy security of the control center. After what seems like forever in net-time, Aleth breaks through and penetrates into the command network. 

 

 

Just then, a Guardian Troop Transport speeds up and parks between the two freighters, disgorging a squad of anti-aircraft troops. Once they take positions outside their vehicle, the squad leader announces over his loudspeakers, “Falarucci freighter and Achilles, immediately power down and come out with your hands up. You have 30 seconds to comply or you will be fired upon.” As the Mech prepares to jam all transmissions from the Achilles, the pilot suddenly forgets how to do it. Simon smiles and begins to focus his attention on the squad. 

 

Dirk mutters, “Boring conversation anyway” and fires the ship’s twin Mk. 10 lasers into the Mech at point blank range. One beam passes disappointingly under the MIRC's "armpit", but other penetrates just to the side of the main chest armor, striking the main reactor and causing a spectacular explosion and the complete destruction of the Mech, which weaves back and forth slightly then crashes loudly to the ground in ruin. The infantry squad outside begins firing at the Achilles’ engines, but their weapons are ineffective against the armor plates. They then move over to the Falarucci freighter and start attaching bombs to the outside of the ship, threatening to blow the ship up if it takes off. Turk shuts the ramp of the Achilles, yelling out to Simon as the ramp closes, “Don’t worry, Simon. We’ve got the box and we’ll get it to safety!” Aleth, who was planning on infiltrating the Mech’s systems until its unexpected destruction, shifts his attention to the hacking the comm system and sends out a message to all of the security forces, “Attention, rioters have acquired an armored vehicle and are attacking the southern gate. All units report to the south gate to repel the attack.” Unfortunately, Aleth did not sound like the dispatcher and the security forces knew this was a hoax.

 

Unexpectedly, two starships from other pads suddenly take off straight up. A Stinger Air Defense vehicle immediately fires a torpedo at the nearest one and then speeds towards the Achilles and Falarucci ships, taking up a position in front of the Achilles. The torpedo strikes the freighter but does not do much. Dirk, meanwhile, has started the engines. Bypassing the normal safety protocols, he is able to spin them up in 14 seconds.  Simon begins to panic just a little and tries to convince the crew of the Achilles that they wanted to take him along. Unfortunately for him, the exertions of the day made his attempt ineffective. Dirk fires at the oncoming Stinger as it comes into his forward arc, but does not do enough to disable it. Tara yells out, “Get out of there! I launched those freighters as cover.” Aleth quickly moves into the Air Defense protocols, defeats security, and uploads a vicious Solitaire program – which prevents anyone from viewing the radar until a reboot or the game is beat.  He then pulls out of the network and severs his neural connection.

 

 

 

 The Stinger launches its largest torpedo at the Achilles, but Dirk is able to quickly lift off and with a brilliant maneuver, get behind the torpedo, causing it to lose tracking and self destruct. Dirk then slaps the throttles all the way forward and accelerates to maximum speed, flying barely above the ground and away from the starport. The Stinger launches its remaining 7 torpedoes and then follows the Achilles, ineffectively firing at it with its laser. The Achilles quickly outruns the Stinger, but the torpedoes begin to slowly gain on the fleeing ship. Dirk pushes the Achilles to the maximum safe speed inside the atmosphere and, still flying low, remembers (this is his home planet after all) that there is a lake just north of the starport and veers the Achilles toward it. Tara assists the crew with attempting to use the electronic warfare suite to destroy the oncoming torpedoes but is unable due to the range.  Aleths shifts all shields to the rear.   It's a drag race to see if the Achilles will make it to the lake before the torpedoes start knocking on their back door. 

 

As the Achilles nears the lake, Dirk has to slow down to be able to enter the water without destroying the ship. The torpedoes, under no such restriction, quickly close the distance. Tara is able to knock out one torpedo, but the remaining six continue their inexorable advance. With the torpedoes almost upon them, Dirk skips the remaining slowdown protocols, sounds the collision alarm and hits the water at three times the rated speed. The ship is capable of hydrographic maneuvering, if it only holds together upon impact.  With a sickening lurch the crew and anything not tied down is thrown forward.  The ship groans with sounds of buckling and crunching and every antenna is stripped from the hull as the Achilles plunges under the water of the lake. The torpedoes strike the water just seconds behind the Achilles, exploding in a six-part blast of fire and water.  Back at HQ, Tara's screens suddenly go blank.

 

After the crew catches its collective breath, they run a bug sweep of the Achilles.  For the first time they are truely alone.  Turk, recognizing the oportunity, surprises the crew with the news that the organization that we all thought was the ISI is actually the Dia Khovaria secret police and that he is actually a Justicar of the IID, the Imperial Intelligence Directorate.  As the Achilles floats just under the murky waters of the lake, Aleth, Dirk, and Turk begin to ponder that news and what their next step should be.