Beach Planet

Scott's probably around here somewhere, trying to recover from James.

The water's pretty nice.

Perfect place to dump slavers.

Matthew stood up as he felt the ship pull downwards with a force of gravity. A planet. So, they had finally landed. He couldn't help but feel a bit smug as a smirk rested on his lips, departing the ship along with his crew. Lai stood right beside him, and as they made a Head Count, Matthew made sure he had his trusted rapier on his side, while another hand held a small briefcase of sorts. His trench coat flared as he suddenly went back into captain mode, giving orders proudly for his squadrons to fall into line. He assigned each of them a task to swiftly and efficiently prepare to purchase, upgrade and supply a new ship. "And, after that's all done..."

He hesitated for a moment and looked down at his men, and grinned broadly, "For the evening, get a drink, relax and enjoy the sweet taste of fresh air, men!" There was a cheer that erupted through the organized crowd as they were dismissed, Matthew's charisma and leadership picking up their spirits after several days of anxiety.

As they began to leave, Matthew glanced in one direction and frowned slightly, squinting as if looking for something. Lai noticed this. "What? What is it?"

Ellie decided that hey, she could catch up with her drinking buddies later. She put on a hat covered in fake flowers, and headed out the airlock. Which of course meant she basically bumped into the departing slavers. She glared at them. Stupid slavers not running away as fast as possible. What was their problem, anyway? "Move it," she snapped.

Lai glared at her and was about to speak but Matthew held up a hand for silence, before stepping forward, adjacent to the two women, grinned, and unsheathed his rapier. Just in time too, because that tiny dust cloud he had watched suddenly leaped through the air and hurtled straight towards him.

He swept his blade up above him to parry, and the animatronic legs that were a sharpened but bent point and could be used as both blades and feet pushed off of the rapier. The android fell back, and landed cat-like, and slowly straightened.

The android's body was something admirable, lean and lithe, but powerful and built well. It's material seemed to be some form of light metal with a white opalescent tinge to it. The face seemed almost expressionless, with highly carved cheekbones without a nose or mouth, like a mask. However, it had very expressive blue eyes that looked as if were screened on rather than socketed. They were widened lightly with excitement. Suddenly there was a small whirr, and one could see something release from the waistline, like a vent, and the robot was floating. It didn't seem to be all mechanical either.

If the android would grin it could, "Matthew Alistair Cobalt! What the Hell is my favorite Private doing here?"

Matthew chuckled, "It's Captain Matthew Alistair Cobalt, now."

The robot froze, calculating this for a second. "Wha-a-at? So that means...?"

"Yes," Matthew gritted his teeth suddenly, "That bastard is dead."

"Good riddance!" The faceless android suddenly looked at Ellie and Lai, "Oh! Who's this?"

Ellie glared at the android. It seemed way too friendly with the slaver for her taste, and she reached into her pocket for her pepper spray, despite how little good that would do against a machine. At least it felt comforting in her hand. "Ellie." She watched the robot with distrust, "You're a buddy of Matthew's, then?"

"You could say that." The android said, before bowing extravagantly to the woman, "I am a, er, coworker, technically serving bot, to his brother." His straightened again, studying her for a bit, "Her adrenaline and noradrenaline levels are through the roof, Matty. What'd you do?"

"We aren't exactly acquaintances." Matthew said, glancing at the woman in question.

"... It's because of your profession, isn't it?"

"It might be!"

"It might be, my arcane-inbued-metal ass!" The robot scoffed, "Look, not even your brother likes you doing this. So why do you do it?"

Matthew fell silent, before looking away. This set off a look of confusion for Lai.

"And this lady?" The bot referred to Lai.

"This is my wife."

"Really? Matty, I didn't think you of being any more than a bachelor!"

"He's gotten us captured twice now! First time he was gonna toss me in a brothel and used me as a bargaining chip against my friends," they hadn't been her friends at the time, but it simplified things immensely to not go into the nitpicky details.
"Second time he gave us to some jerks who liked embroidering people. And when I say that, I don't mean they embroidered pictures of people, I mean they took one of our buddies and stuck needles in him!" Ellie snapped. "This guy is a jerk."

Matthew and the android froze, and slowly turned to stare at Ellie. "Matthew," the robot said softly, "We're you-?!"

"No, I wasn't!" The man said sharply, staring at Ellie in genuine dumbfoundedness, which soon turned to a calm rage, "Terran, can you repeat what you said the first time I caught you?" Something in her words had enraged him, and he wanted to make sure he had heard it right.

"You were going to send me to a brothel, and you used my life as a way to control my friends," Ellie repeated coldly, tightening her fingers on the pepper spray.

He stared at her before turning away and placing his hand up to the mic in his ear, "I want every man who was stationed at Temporary cells fourteen through eighteen on this log date," he gave the date of the first time he had captured them, "NOW!"

Within a few minutes, several men returned to the area, nervously glancing up at Matthew. Three of them recognized Ellie, and she'd recognize them to be the three that had taunted her with the idea of an illhouse.

"I think you all know why I called you here." He said, his voice dangerously calm. He glanced sideways at Ellie, "Which were the ones that performed this insurgence? The rule allowing contract with mass brothels were outlawed on my ship twenty years ago."

Ellie looked from Matthew to the men, then back to Matthew, giving him a look of skepticism and distaste. "Yeah, are you actually telling the truth? Or are you just trying to convince your wife and buddy that you're a good person, by claiming that this happened without your knowledge? Because if I was a slaver with a wife I wanted to impress, I'd totally scapegoat a few guys to hide what an asshole I was, too."

Matthew turned fully to Ellie and towered over her, "Don't underestimate me, Terran. Twenty years ago I slaughtered the previous Captain of the ship and imposed new rules and regulations. One of those new rules was a ban on whore-house selling. I don't want rule-breakers on my ship, Terran, and those men must be tossed from my crew, understand? Now, which one, Miss Ellie?" He asked, actually using her name and a title for it.

"Prove it. I'm not helping you out if you're scapegoating someone to make yourself look better!" Ellie snarled back, taking a step closer and glaring up at him.

Matthew nodded, "A reasonable woman... For once." He turned to the briefcase and pressed something, and suddenly the case hovered. He opened it, its contents revealing to be files, blood vials, and a small tablet. He took the tablet out and closed the case again. He handed the tablet to the Terran and it flickered to life to reveal a document. A long document. "Section Two , Part C, dictates that under the new leadership of Captain Matthew Alistair Cobalt, contracts made with brothels or any other facility that sells alien appearance for sexual pleasure is strictly forbidden and punishment will be immediate relief of duty and any transgressor will be held at the brig until planetary landing. Any affiliates will be dealt with in accordance to the highest available supervisor. IS that suitable?"

Ellie considered that thoughtfully. "I barely know you, man. It looks legal and stuff, but it's not like I know if you're the sort of person who actually keeps promises, or just makes them to look good."
She folded her arms, still holding onto the pepper spray. "Okay, here's my idea. How about you don't toss anyone under the bus. You take your guys, and give them all a lecture about not saying slimy stuff to your captives. If you're actually the rad slaver you claim to be, you'll keep them under control better next time, and they won't repeat their mistakes for fear of losing their job."
She added quietly, "If you really do secretly sell people into the sex trade, then you're a terrible person, and your mooks don't deserve to be punished for your crimes. Because if you're part of this, it's all on you."

"They should be losing their jobs now." He glared across the small group. "But, if you insist. Not that it would really do anything, would it? Dismissed."

As the guards left with relieved looks on their faces, Matthew turned back to Ellie, "You think of me as a terrible person, crime or not. Why would you care about of I'm a terrible person or not if you've already decided me as such?" He looked at her expectantly.

Ellie shrugged. "There are different levels of evil. 'Shoot your boyfriend', 'sell slaves', 'sell sex slaves', et cetera. I can believe you're a terrible person, and still give you the benefit of the doubt about the really bad stuff. Maybe you really are decent enough to not sell to brothels. And if that's the case, then you should scare your guys into behaving, instead of dumping them."

Matthew blinked on that, shaking his head and muttering something in his native tongue that caused the android to snicker. "Right... Well, I'll think on that, then. I'll consider your idea... Meanwhile..." He turned back to the android, "Why are you here?"

"Well, that's a long story, Master Alistair." The bot bowed slightly, "You see, your brother got in a bit of a mishap when he decided to try and take the blood of something that did not volunteer the act."

Matthew raised an eyebrow, "And that would be?..."

"A shamanic ork, Sir. Also tried to steal one of their totems for research as well, Sir."

"Of course." Matthew groaned, rubbing his face with his hands as he felt another headache coming on.

"I'm sure you can work it out for him, Sir. Anyway, speaking of blood samples, I think I saw~"

"Yes, you did. Here," He opened the briefcase and handed out two vials, "These were the two he requesting, right?"

The robot took the vials and stared, suddenly gasping, "I may not agree with your profession but does it get the job done! Not only did you manage to contain a pure-bred star dragon blood sample, but a lycanthrope diseased one, too?! It doesn't seem to be the purest of species though..."

"He isn't, but he said the species didn't matter as long as he had the sample of the infected bloodstream, right?"

"Quite right, Sir."

"Star Dragon?" Ellie asked suspiciously. She didn't know about Kay's condition, so the lycanthrope comment was lost on her. "Are you stealing my friends' blood, you jerk?"

He glanced back at Ellie, "Technically yes, but it isn't as nefarious as you'd think, and I'm not doing it for money this time. Now I would show you what for, but you'd rather call me names." Matthew couldn't help but playfully stick his tongue out at the woman before beginning to pack up as the android stored away the blood vials. "Well, I suppose that's the end here. My apologies for the words of my crew, Miss Ellie, now, if you'll excuse me..."

"Does she know you're stealing her blood?" Ellie asked. She couldn't possibly hope to fight him for it, not when she was so hopelessly outnumbered, but she wasn't just letting him walk away with Starr's genetic material for who knew what purpose if she could help it.

"Well, no, but I highly doubt I would have gotten it if I asked any of you anyway. Treat me like a jerk and I'll act like one." He shrugged, before thinking a moment, "Actually, the Family stole it from her, so I stole it from them, and since my brother has been requesting the genetic material, I saved it." Matthew sighed, "Anything else?"

"It's her genetic material, you should be asking her for permission, especially since she's part of a species that everyone wants to use," Ellie said.

"Right, and when I ask her, she'll say no." He turned to stare at the woman again before he sighed miserably, "You're not going to drop this, are you?..."

Mourn headed out, sniffing the air warily. Hmm.. salt... sand... he wrinkled his nose, slavers.
He edged over to Ellie, standing beside her protectively. She was crew, alone, unarmed. It was his duty to make sure she was okay.
He rested one hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Genetic material?" He asked, eying Matthew suspiciously.