Matters opened with the crew of the Old Speckled Hen considering how best to apprehend the various criminals they had agreed to help bring to justice. Deciding that there was more chance of the smugglers learning of their taking out the terrorists than of the terrorists hearing of the smugglers being arrested, they decided to start with the smugglers in the hope of avoiding the terrorists realising that the crew was cooperating with the loca authorities.

Consulting with Security chief Veronica Gibernau and local police officer Joseca Garzon, the crew came slowly to realise that local production capabilities meant that almost every technological aide they had hoped to utilise was unavailable, leaving the team to manufacture a carbon dioxide cannister in their own hydroponics bay and meaning that no surveillance equipment or non-lethal weaponry was available on planet. This being so, the group settled on an old fashioned sting operation.

Meeting again with the smugglers, Captain Chavez agreed terms with Raul Baiano for the carrying of their illicit cargo, with new crewman Ugo Sardini raising the more difficult aspects of the deal such as an insistence on inspecting the cargo before it showed up on ship and on meeting the smugglers' local contact. Raul reluctantly agreed to all terms, and it was arranged that two days later the Captain, the Marquis and Ugo would accompany the three smugglers to the site where the cargo was presently being held.

Flying on a locally chartered plane, the crew got to know the smugglers better. Raul, who had proved effusively polite and made every effort to be charming, Paolo Rivaldo who was a huge ex-marine and who on Ugo's estimation was capable of great violence with little thought, and the urbane and polished Ignacio Caldera who seemed born to a higher station than that he now occupied. Although the smugglers had clearly arranged for the plane to take a circuitious route, making difficult any tracking of where it was going, Captain Chavez easily used his navigation skills to work out where they were and which island they had reached, as on landing it became apparent that the local contact's home was a large farmstead at the edge of an indigent settlement it would be easy to locate again in future.

On landing, Toni Manzo, a tall and rangy man of obvious intelligence but who clearly had found that his life had not turned out as well as he had hoped, met with the crew and smugglers. Revealing himself to be an Indigene Installations Technician, it was discovered that his job was repairing native mud structures as part of a local outreach program. Toni had arranged local transportation in the form of horses, a mode of transport none of the spacers had previously encountered (although unfortunately the Marquis had spent the flight telling an invented tale of riding as a boy with family). After some persuasion, the crew were helped on to their horses and proceeded at a slow walking pace to Toni's farm. The journey was enlivened by Paolo slapping the haunch of Ugo's ride, so causing it to gallop off with Ugo sliding from the saddle and coming close to death as he barely hung on while his horse galloped through darkness with trees and rocks on all sides. Paolo appeared to find this incident more amusing than Ugo. Following this, the group proceeded at a trot, with Captain Chavez and the Marquis managing to keep on without overly embarassing themselves and Ugo making references to faulty autopilot mechanisms and the lack of good suspension for passenger comfort.

On arrival at Toni's farm, the cargo was seen to be held in a large environmental habitat module kept within his barn. On inspection the habitat was found to contain a number of natives in hibernation (induced by setting the habitat to a cold internal temperature) and to contain both interior and exterior hidden panels concealing weapons. The weapons were all placed in the internal compartment, the habitat sealed and Ugo applied ship seals to it so that they could be sure it was not reopened before any transit.

Arrangements were made for the cargo to be brought to the ship in two days (the earliest time the starport cargo plane was available for hire), and the crew returned to await its arrival. After some discussion with local security, the decision was made for Captain Chavez to wait inside the ship with Veronica Gibernau, police officer Joseca Garzon and two local Vargr. The Marquis and Ugo waited outside, to greet the smugglers on their arrival. A short while later, the cargo plane landed and the obviously armed smugglers, together rather unexpectedly with Toni their local contact, started wheeling their cargo module down and towards the ship. As they neared the ship, it lowered its landing ramp to reveal Captain Chavez and the local security team. The smugglers immediately reached for weapons, and Chavez and the police opened fire but at too great a range to be effective. The Marquis had by this time approached the smugglers, and drew his foil on the shotgun wielding Paolo seriously injuring that man, who was also shot by Ugo but who despite these injuries remained standing. A firefight developed, Toni (who was unarmed) was shot by Veronica Gibernau and taken down by a Vargr, alive but unconscious. Ignacio was immobilised by the other Vargr. Raul showed surprising accuracy with his handgun, managing to shoot Captain Chavez in the chest, causing his immediate collapse from the severity of his injuries. The Marquis and Paolo struggled, a struggle which ended with Paolo firing his shotgun into the Marquis's stomach at point blank range - killing him instantly but then being killed in turn by shots from Ugo. Seeing that he was outnumbered, Raul surrendered, though as he raised his hands Ugo (apparently not understanding that Raul was surrendering) shot him also injuring him severely. With Paolo dead and Raul, Ignacio and Toni in custody, the group gathered to mourn the fallen Marquis, with Veronica Gibernau swearing that his sacrifice for Triffid would not be forgotten. Medical attention was called for Captain Chavez, and for the prisoners.

Over the next week, as Captain Chavez recovered from his injuries, word reached the Old Speckled Hen that the Marquis was to receive a state funeral with the Crown Prince (ruler of Triffid) being among those intending, that a statue to the Marquis would be erected and that the starport would be renamed in his honour. The Marquis was to be given a traditional local funeral, in which the body is fed to a carrion plant, and Toni the local contact was to be punished for his part in events by being sentenced to public execution by carrion plant - a procedure that involved being strapped down, provided with water to avoid death from dehydration and then being slowly nibbled to death by carnivorous plants over the course of a week or so. Raul and Ignacio were each sentenced to 40 years' indentured service, repairing native mud walls damaged by storms on an island regularly battered by such storms.

During these events, Captain Chavez was approached by Juan Marquez, a young soldier attached to the crew of the Dandelion who had tired of that ship, which he revealed to be crewed by an extremely religious group of Gaians (albeit Imperial citizens still). Feeling the need of additional security, Captain Chavez immediately signed the young man on to the Old Speckled Hen's books.

Chastened by their experience, the group took extra care for the apprehension of the terrorist group, found to be three strong and consisting of medic Cleto Rozana, mechanic and brawler Juanma Blanco and the elegant ship's gunner Dahlia Zuaza . A local plane was retrofitted to put in a bullet proof shield between the crew and passenger areas, to put the CO2 cannister under the seats without being obvious and to provide for appropriate venting mechanisms. With this in place, Juan Marquez and Ugo flew to the native contact zone where the terrorists were hiding, met with them and pretended to accept them as new crew of the Old Speckled Hen. On the return, Ugo went into the passenger compartment with the terrorists, while Private Marquez rode up front with the pilot. As the plane approached landing, the pilot had been briefed to simulate some turbulence to cover the noise of the gas cannister opening, overegging his role somewhat he raised the suspicions of the terrorists who began producing guns from their bags, pistols, an assault rifle and a submachine gun to Ugo's discomfort. As the gas took effect, their impulse control suffered, with Juanma Blanco firing a submachine gun toward the pilot's compartment resulting in richochets as bullets hit the bullet proof screen installed. Dahlia Zuaza sought to bring the assault rifle to bear and Cleto made threatening comments and waved her pistol about. Fortunately, the gas took increasing effect with Blanco passing out, Zuaza being unable to use the assault rifle before passing out in turn and then Cleto Rozana also lapsing into unconsciousness. Ugo was last to pass out, and as the plane landed the door was pulled open, oxygen administered and the terrorists were taken out, disarmed and arrested.

Interrogation followed, with Binta establishing that the terrorists were Vehements, intent on causing as much death as they could, and were criminal psychotics and sociopaths. The crew of the Old Speckled Hen were given honorary citizenship of Triffid in thanks for their part in helping fight highly dangerous criminals, given the environment habitat module and the arms stored within it and were given a significant discount on the purchase price of the arms shipment currently held at the starport.

Some days passed, Ugo entered negotiations with the local government and between local demand, his trading skills and the huge goodwill toward the crew as a result of their actions sold the cargo of nanotools for 400% of their retail value, a total price of Cr.9 million. In turn, he bought the discounted arms, local woods and grain, local speciality fruits and a ton of local indigene artworks including a local statue, all of which he hoped to sell at profit on arrival at Slough. Captain Chavez, showing great generosity and an absolute lack of commercial acumen, gave Cr.1 million to each member of the crew, making them all millionaires and causing Private Marquez to comment that moving ship had been the best decision he had ever made. Ugo had the three terrorists locked in a sealed 6' tall 6' wide 18" deep iron cage and had that placed in the hold, keeping them absolutely imprisoned until they could be handed over to an Imperial Navy ship for sentencing.

Dr Myriam Querido, mourning the loss of her lover but relishing the prospect to finally put her training in xenolinguistics to real use, decided to settle on Triffid and help further the project to establish meaningful communication with the natives.

Rich, feted but mourning the death of the Marquis, the crew settled in to prepare for the journey to Slough, with only minor legal and commercial arrangements to settle locally before their departure for that unhappy planet...