[No Dachi]

Marcus sat back quite contentedly in his padded Captain's Chair, swivelling from side to side slightly as he watched the neon blue light show of Hyperspace flicker erratically on the bridge viewscreen of the Fortuna. He ran through the details of the coming battle again in his head. Lorgan Deus had two police cruisers, design unspecified, and one merchant escort class carrier, design unspecified, under his command. Captains Ascares and Solo combined had two destroyers under their command. The odds, then, were currently stacked distinctly in the favour of the freelancers.

"Nav Point 1 coming up...now." Steiner said, eyes fixed on the navigational console adjacent to his helm controls. Sure enough, barely a second later, Marcus felt himself being dragged forwards by the force of the Fortuna's rapid deceleration, feeling it even through the destroyer's powerful interial dampeners. The lightning blue of Hyperspace blurred gradually into white lines which, as the vessel entered its nominal sublight-speed, becade individual stars.

"Aernus, report." Marcus turned to look at Aernus Temenas, the ship's Science Officer, seated at his console to the right of the Captain's Chair.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Lieutenant Commander Solo's ship is still with us and still in formation. We Exitted at the correct location. The nav becon is functioning properly. Fuel reserves at 90%." Aernus replied at length, not looking up from his console. Marcus nodded before turning back to Robert "Red" Steiner.

"Okay, Steiner, take us to the next beacon."

"Yes sir." Acknowledged Steiner, and, seconds later, the stars elongated into lines which in turn fused into the swirling blue vortex of Hyperspace. Marcus watched the display, again letting his mind drift to possible plans for the battle ahead, and to other things. Money. He had a lot of assets lent out at the moment, and a few liabilities as well. Off-hand, Marcus found that he couldn't quite remember how much money the Bank had in reserve - as a rule, he tried to keep half of the total value of his liabilities liquidated. Freelancers were financially volatile people and could suddenly decide to withdraw a lot of their money at short notice. Banking was a business of confidence, and if it appeared that Marcus was unable to supply his savers with their money, he'd be bankrupted in short order. His brothers would likely have been able to figure all of this out a lot better than he could. He'd have to go home some day soon. His father wouldn't be glad of his presence, presumably, but surely his mother and sisters would appreciate the chance to see him...

"Exitting at Nav Point 2 in exactly 10.4 seconds." Reported the Helmsman, cutting across Marcus' train of thought and derailing it smartly. The banker prepared himself for the pull of deceleration again - it still unnerved him slightly, but preparing for it made it easier. 10 seconds later, and Marcus was again staring at the canopy of stars laid out before him - though it was now subtly different from before. He turned to Aernus who, anticipating the question, immediately dropped his eyes to his console.

"We're in the correct position, Lieutenant Commander Solo is still with us and...wait, picking up something. Weapon signatures, shield frequency radiation and fuel emissions. Zero-ing in on the source...two Clan Frigates! They're bearing down on us fast," Aernus' seemingly omnipresent grin was gone, replaced by an expression of anxiety teetering on the brink of fear. "They have weapons armed and shields fully-charged. Putting them on screen." Presently, the image of two frigates, elipsoid shield envelopes translucent around them, appeared on the viewscreen. The light exhaust from their antimatter drive emissions the topography of their hulls into sharp relief from behind. They were moving fast.

"Sir, they're on an attack vector." Said Alanna from his left side, also staring up at the screen. Marcus frowned, his brow furrowed in confusion. He'd always been careful never to cross any of the major factions, and he'd surely never looked askance at the Clan, though he never had quite got the hang of their culture on his travels.

"Coms, radio both ships requesting that they stand off momentarily for negotiation." He ordered, turning to face Lora. The girl, even younger than most of the bridge crew, Marcus included, immediately typed the brief message into the console, hammering the return key quickly.

"Sent, sir." Came the reply. She waited, staring down readily at her console. Marcus turned next to Steiner.

"Red, move to evade their attack run but don't make it look too hostile. Kyrrick, you power up the shields to full but don't bring the guns online yet - have the gunners at their stations though. I don't want it to look like we're going to threaten them."

"Aye sir." Steiner replied, already wrenching the helm controls of the ship around. Kyrrick merely nodded and entered a few commands into his console. Bringing the shields online didn't take a lot of effort.

"Lora, send another message to both ships. Ask them why they're moving to attack." Marcus said, still not entirely sure of what to do. He hadn't given the Clan any reason - that he knew of - to attack him, and nor did he intend to. Destroying two of their ships would surely get him black-marked, if not worse...

Summary
-Shields powered up, weapons on stand-by.
-Helm ordered to evade the Clan vessels' current attack run, but to do no more than that.
-Coms ordered to hail both vessels, request that they abort their attack run, and request a reason as to why they're attacking.