🔫 Get the Governor!

"Oh, I'm sure I am invited. Don't you see it there on the big screen? Aren't I a celebrity?" she asks the man as she suggestively slides her hand up along his arm, pausing on his shoulder. "No checking is necessary. I am a bona fide invitee. How would you like a ride in my ship tomorrow, yeah?"

Grego spends a few minutes to dislodge the bucket from his foot, finally just frustratingly tearing it in half with his cybernetic arm.

"Pants...Pants... Damn pants and the bloke that deemed them necessary.." mumbled Rhugo to himself.
"And this is probably the slowest fly-through shrimp joint in the quadrant. Come ooooon!" he grumbled as he was struggling to put on his pants whilst trying to avoiding getting seen by the shrimp joint staff.

"I'm going to be SO late..." he said to no one in particular - beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Crouched next to Grego at the ambush site, Ash spots Tanau confronting Damak. He exchanges a look with Grego as the Sergeant begins to push the speed racer towards their hidden spot in the neighboring hallway.

"If you and Damak can draw him down the hallway, I'll close the door behind him and then it'll be 3 on 1," he whispers to the big cyborg before stepping into the shadows on the other side of the doorway.

He sifts through the bag of weapons they had picked up from the cache. Pulling out Damak's rifle, he gets ready to toss it to her once she's in the hallway.

In order to lure the Sergeant down the hallway, Grego simply steps into the doorway and beckons to him.

Mina can't help but smile as Rik excitedly jabbers on about the music. She listens to him gush about MJ and the Smooth Criminals, but when he declares that he wants an autograph, she hesitates. This flies right in the face of Roog's plan. But Rik looks so excited about this. Ah hell, we'll improvise. "You should meet MJ, I heard they're a real peach," Minda says as she walks with Rik towards the band. Her eyes scan the crowd, watching for opportunities as they move.

Damak holds up her hands in mock surrender and backs into the hallway.

"Ok, ok, don't get your knickers in a twist, geez. It's not every day that I offer random people rides in my ship. What a downer you are."
Damak really was disappointed. She thought she was a popular celebrity but her charms were wasted on this sergeant.

Once Ash has closed the door, isolating the Sergeant from the livening party, he presses his rifle against the security chief's back, right between the shoulder blades and says with an air of satisfaction, "At last, Mr. Tanau, we meet again, but this time the tables have turned!"

It would be surprising if Tanau didn't immediately recognize the voice by itself, but combined with the distinctive clink of Ash's magnetic boots, the venting sounds of his environmental suit and the eerie residual green glow of his targeting googles, it's unmistakable who has him at gunpoint from behind.

Ash tosses Damak her weapon before continuing.

"How I would have loved to finish you right here for all the troubles you've caused me with the Slugs ..." There's a long pause as the rifle presses harder into Tanau's back, before easing slightly, "... but you know how much I like a worthy opponent. Frankly, I'm surprised how easily you fell into our little trap," Ash says, his tone changing to disappointment.

"So instead of dying, why don't you give us the low-down on the security measures you've put in place here tonight and maybe we'll consider letting you survive with the shame of a job poorly done."

Damak catches the rifle and points it at the sergeant. She is loving this turn of the tables and wears an extremely gloating expression. How could he resist her charms and her fame? She would definitely be holding that against him, her pride feeling a little battered.

Grego wordlessly activates his laser sword and holds it to the sergeant's throat.

A moment of silence passes by, but gets cut short by the slam of a side door opening; enter Rhugo cradling an enormous bucket of fried shrimp in one hand and a bunch of shrimp in the other.

He freezes in place, torn between letting the bucket go or not - the former winning by a small margin. He drops the bucket, the shrimps dramatically spilling from the bucket in slow motion as Rhugo takes out his blaster rifle.

"Frighmph! *cough* I mean, freeze!" growls Rhugo, swallowing a mouthful of half-chewed shrimps.

When the foreman gives Mina a look and the music picks up, a wild grin spreads across her face. She yanks Rik's hand towards a spot where they have a little room, "C'mon, let's jump jive an wail!" She tries to pull him into some jump-hop excitement, pulling eyes towards them both.

Rik gladly obliges when Mina offers to jive. Clearly the others have not started executing the plan yet, as they would surely have noticed a ruckus. And besides that, they're supposed to be blending in, right? He takes her hands and gets in the groove to the tunes of MJ and the Smooth Criminals. It doesn't take long for them to get some attention from the crowd.

Rik notices the eyes that are on them. Is this the moment? He thinks. Is this where I bust out the double somersault into a fell leg split? It had been years since he last tried it. But if this wasn't the opportunity he had waited for, it likely would never present itself. I'll do it! "Have you ever heard of a dance move called 'The Suicide Split'?" He asks Mina. "Watch this." He winks at her before taking a few steps back. With smoothness, he does a twirl and bends his knees into the position he needs to gain the height for this move.

"Ha!" Ash scoffs at the sergeant's remark and replies, "That's only because people like you serve the industrial magnates and their fellow politicians who shit all over the outer systems to get rich at the expense of the locals. You're the reasons my system got turned into a shithole and that's why it gives me such pleasure to get revenge against people like you and the despots you serve. And hey, if the Slugs want to pay me for it, well that's a bonus!"

"Now stop delaying and spill the security sitch or you're of no use to us and we might as well end you now," Ash urges, pressing his disintegrator rifle into Tanau's back even harder to punctuate his point. Tanau knows Ulrand well enough to know he isn't shy of leaving a dead body in his wake.