Strangely but you find out a lot about him

"Thanks, but might I ask what we're toasting." The man says in a calm tone, his face taking a relaxed look like someone lounging by a pool or relaxing at a spa. He casually reaches back without even looking and deftly opens his bottle of water without looking at the bottle, his gaze keeping politely on your face despite what you had on show.

"Challenges I guess, and to solving problems." You reply with a smile as you gesture with your free hand to the room around you.

"Ah sounds good to me, cheers...miss..." The man says his face changing into a wry smile as he raises his bottle aloft towards your cell.

"Val." You reply seeing no point keeping things formal with the man, after all, you might need each other's help.

"Val, my now that's very nice of you, normally only your close friends and allies get to call you that." The man says his wry smile growing slightly as your eyes widen. "Also yes I agree working together might be more beneficial to both of our escapes." The man continues as you feel the pressure in your skull come creeping back as you press the cool bottle to your head.

"How.... how did you." You begin before the man raises a hand and smiles.

"I believe you already suspect, but in the spirit of being open and casual I shall introduce myself." The man says as he slowly gets to to his feet. "I am a possess fairly potent physic abilities, which has branded me a dangerous entity and an invaluable asset by many, and not mutually exclusive groups." The man says with a smile. "You may call me John, pleased to meet you, Val, although the circumstances are somewhat regrettable," John says raising his bottle towards you and smiling.

"I'm going to go on a limb and assume that not your real name." You reply rubbing your head starting to wonder about your prospective breakout partner.

"Naturally, I'd like to tell you my real name and title, but that is a secret that stays with me for now." John replies with a smile. "Apologies I can't be more open with you, but you'll have to take my word that it's better this way." John continues with a curious shrug as he slowly approaches the wall to his cell.

"So if your powers are that good, how did you get captured." You ask as you look over John, as he takes off his jacket and folds into a make shift bit of padding before placing it on his more spartan looking bunk, with a very generous definition in bunk, as slab of cold metal welded to the wall was the correct term.

"Captured? .....oh yes I suppose the bounty hunter was under the same assumption." John says with a grin as he makes himself comfortable on his bunk.

"So what would you call being locked in a cell by someone trying to turn you in for large sums of money?" You ask flatly as you continue to watch John almost mesmerised by how calm and collected he was being about this whole affair.

"Secure passage out of system on an off the books hauler." John says as he lays back with a big grin on his face.

"So wait you allowed yourself to be captured to smuggle yourself out of the system." You ask quickly as suddenly you think you begin to work out why John was as dangerous and sought after as Garth made him sound.

"And it didn't cost me a single credit either, try getting that kind of passage without working as a deck hand, or using you body." John says with a smile.

"That's that's...... I'm not sure if it's genius or sheer stupidity, but judging how much you wound up Garth earlier I'm going to go with inspired." You say a hint of awe in your voice. You've always had to keep your head down, as being a wanted person, but here John was using his wanted status to his own advantage.

"Thank you, although I must admit I didn't plan to have such pleasant company on this journey." John says as he continues to stare at the ceiling.

"Well I wasn't exactly expecting to get captured, but someone sold me out." You say dejectedly as you feel a hint of anger rising about being betrayed, and wondering what Viper or the rest of the crew might wonder about you.

"Their loss, you don't look like a wanted criminal, so if I had to guess run away, I mean I'm sure your very talented but it's not like you'd be worth huge amounts, and judging by how you're dressed you had planned for a much more pleasurable exchange." John says lying still, his voice soft and still sounding even calmer.

"Thanks...I think." You reply not sure how to properly process what john had just said in one sentence.

"Well I'm sure you were curious, why I wasn't ogling you like our esteemed captor was given your unfortunate state of undress." John says craning his neck slightly and reaching for the water bottle he had deposited on the floor.

"Well now you bring it up." You offer as you wait for Johns explanation.

"Well for starters I like to imagine I'm slightly better than that, not that I don't find you very attractive, but I feel like I should try and get to know you first before staring at you." John begins as he takes a long swig of his water as you smile and nod at Johns rather strange approach to your situation. "Then there's the fact that I had to get a feel for the ship and the people on it, before relaxing." John continues as he sits up and screws the cap back on his water bottle and Yong back on the bunk.

"Oh like when you stared right through me earlier?" You offer trying to pry more information about the terrifying experience you had earlier.

"Yeah sorry about that, but as far as I knew you were a dangerous criminal or working with Garth, so had to physically size you up." Johnsays appolgetically. "Oh you might want to hold onto your water by the way." John adds quickly.

You were about to question his warning, but decided to just follow his advise for now, and remember how he reattached the cap on his, you did likewise. No sooner do you do this do you feel the vibrations in the floor and walls and with a ear rending scream of creaking metal the ship lurches as it powers up its engines and goes from a full stop to maximum thrust as you can practically imagine the strain that would put on the engines, as your water bottle flies across the cell and lands on the floor. "Huh, thanks for that guess I might of gone thirsty if you hadn't warned me." You say with a smile as you retirieve your bottle. "So what did you get from me when you psychically sized me up?" You ask as you lie back on your own bed, trying to focus on anything other than the stomach churning feeling of space flight as the unease feeling you have intensifies.

"Well I got a feel for your surface thoughts and the fear you felt, so knew you had been recently captured, and taken from a crew you toyed with the idea of joining if they'd of had you. I also got a sense that you just want to be free to explore and see the world, even for all its bad, and that while some might brand you a thief you habor a generosity and look out for those less fortunate than yourself where you can." John muses as he sits upright and glances at you.

"You got all that in that short amount of time?" You ask unsure of what to make of having your personality and life exposed like that.

"Yes, it's a fairly invasive process, one that I'm sorry for, but an unfortunate necessity for me. So allow me to repay you in some small way in the hopes it begins to make things up to you." John begins as his face takes on a serious and yet neutral tone. "Firstly I will help you escape, although not until we're in a new system. I believe between us we should have the tools and skills to overpower that brute of a bounty hunter, and take over this ship in order to escape. Secondly If you will allow it, I can use a small part of my powers to help still your mind and body in order to help with your void sickness." John continues as you nod along.

"That would actually be very helpful." You say rubbing the back of your neck nervously as you do your best to ignore the creeping anxiety of you fear of space travel as it slowly takes hold.

"Finally, I can reward you for your assistance with helping me escape, although this might require your to travel with me until I can get to one of my bolt holes I have dotted through out the systems." John concludes as he nods towards you, as you feel a tingling sensation spread through your head, and suddenly your worries and fear are passified as a calm normally only reached when your busy working on a project takes hold.

"Sounds good to me, well then John here's to our new partnership." You say with a smile as you lift your bottle in the toast like fashion as before.

"Yes to talented strangers locked in a joint battle for freedom." John replies with a smile.

"How do you know I have any talents, by the way? I could just be a girl who's slept her way through the galaxy." You say as you lie back with a smile being glad that someone is praising your talents rather than your physical form.

"You carry yourself with a confidence that only comes with having something to fall back on, and you've also got some very high quality thieves tools secreted in that impressive outfit masquerading as a sexy outfit." John replies in a calm manner.

"Did you read that from my mind too?" You ask shaking your head as you lie back enjoying the feeling of being relaxed.

"No but I recognize the outfit material, and you keep glancing to areas of your body as if something's there. I'd be interested to know where you got the outfit, but that can wait for now, we should have a few hours to rest before our captor gets bored and comes down to torment us, so may as well get some rest." John offers as he lies back blinks a few times and seems to almost instantly drift off to sleep.

You decide to take Johns advice and grab some proper sleep while you can, and thanks to whatever mental mojo John had done on you, your mind was calm and still. As you wonder how long you'll be travelling on this ship before you'll be in a new system, typically that would take a few days but you weren't sure how good Garth's ship was or even how close to the various sectors you might of been, as you'd assume a space station might be built in a central hub between a good number. In any case all you could do now was rest and hope that John or whatever his real name was was as honest as he seemed, and that you'd be able to trust him enough to escape. There was no way to tell and with his psychic abilities you were already at a disadvantage, so all you could do was trust him for now, and hope that if he does turn on you, that you can escape, as you don't fancy your odds in a fight with him.