<Snipped quote by Nucleep>
The group took hold of these plasma guns and looked at them for a bit, while the other man looked at the merchant. "We have more of these gold chests, this is our currency though we also have other precious stones we could give in return for the machinery.
The Yahupi try to figure out how this ship works and they look at everything, meanwhile a few soldiers attach ropes and chains to the ship and have horses, yaks, and other soldiers try to drag these ships to a more secure location.
The Yahupi find a lot of buttons, levers, knobs, dials and touchscreens on the bridge of the ship, as well as a large joystick prominently placed in the center, and two keyholes, with a mollyguard on top of them, on each side of the ship (with the keys coincidentally hanging nearby). It also seems to be powered by coal.
In Federation territory:
"Hmm, could we inspect these precious stones by any chance?" the lead merchant asks. "They may be of value..."
The various merchants grin with delight at the coins. While the coins in themselves have no value to the merchants, there is plenty of gold in the coins that could be turned into useful wire, among other contraptions.
Meanwhile, the robots stop loading goods out of the ship, whether it is because they were ordered to stop or there are no goods left to deliver is impossible to tell.
Meanwhile that man demands the Shupoli merchants to describe to him how the airships operate, he writes down whatever they say on a piece of paper.
The various merchants keep their silence, some even spitting in the man's face and calling them unintelligible slurs. The lead merchant softly but sternly replies, "I think I speak for our whole delegation when I say we will not kowtow to you barbarians."
<Snipped quote by Nucleep>
The soldiers and engineers are bewildered by the sudden disco and ask the robot to turn it off, luckily it remembers how it turned it on.
The guns deploy on the ship and sirens start going of on the base, as the anti-aircraft turrets unfold and swing 180 towards the ship instantly, their motors can be heard from inside the ship spirring up...
The explosion detonated the ship, the turrets and the watchtower.
The ammunition store in the basement lit up and a massive mound of earth is flung into the air.
Meanwhile at home...
An alarm is sounded signalling the loss of one of the treasure ships, specifically the 'lost' one that went into Trogo airspace. As the figure plugged into cyberspace, they went through the logs of the downed ship, finding out that it wasn't an internal problem, but that the weapons were inexplicably activated shortly before its demise. Gaining access to the internal and external camera feeds, the figure found that the Trogo had broken into the bridge and activated the weapons, before the external cameras revealed that their AA guns automatically dealt with the situation. At this point they could not help but laugh at the humans' stupidity.
<Well, it seems like they have dealt with the situation for me. How... primitive. Oh well, one less thing to worry about.>
The figures go back to dealing to the day-to-day workings of the colony. Several fly-sized and invisible drones are sent to the Trogo and Yahupi lands, to observe their every movement.
Nearby, the shadow dramatically opens the doors into a meeting room, where he is met by the board of executives. Every executive is agitated, as they have heard rumors of the lost ships. The shadow sighs, already knowing that this was going to be a long day.
"As many of you may have heard," the shadow announced, "earlier today we lost contact with two of the treasure envoys sent out. It is believed that their host nations have taken the merchants hostage and confiscated the goods inside."
The room, already boiling with tension, suddenly erupted in a fireball of rage, as all the executives and military brass started arguing with each other about how to deal with the situation.
"Silence!" the shadow yelled, in vain. The crowd was already spiraling out of control. "I SAID SILENCE!" Again, the ruckus continued.
It was getting too hard to individually discern what anyone was saying, so the shadow simply activated the electroplasma function on their bionic arm, and fired it into the ceiling with a satisfying thunderclap. All fell silent at that moment, as order was restored. A hole was left above the shadow, as the shot went right up into the sky before dissipating a few thousand meters up. The echo was heard throughout the reconverted ship.
"Now, I know it seems bad," the shadow continued.
"Bad?" demanded a stockbroker. "This is terrible! The markets will crash when they hear about this!"
"Who said they needed to hear about it?" replied the shadow.
"Nuke 'em now!" screeched a general. "These barbarians deserve what they get!"
"Not yet! That will jeopardize our survival! The other nations could be fielding WMDs, we don't have enough intel! And even if they don't, we still haven't fully activated our Orbital Defense System!"
"Then what do
you suggest we do?" inquired another.
"We lie low," the shadow explained. "As we speak, several stealth drones will head for the nations, and hopefully find a weakness in their power structures that we can exploit, as well as recover the stolen cargo. That is all for now."
The shadow left, leaving many unsatisfied executives and military leaders in the meeting room to argue among themselves.
