Good news? You're Alive. Bad News? Tied to a chair and not in the fun way.

Consciousness eventually comes back to you, slowly and gradually. The first thing that comes along with it is pain as your head pounds with a sharp ache that radiates from the back of your skull. You can feel something there, probably a bandage, and you can imagine you'd probably bled from that wound pretty well. Well, at least whoever hit you had had the decency to slap a bandage on there to keep you from leaking out any more of your precious fluids. Yeah, that was nice of them. Not enough to forgive the whole concussion thing, but still.

The next thing you become aware of is the fact that you're sitting up and can feel that your body is bound by something. It feels like rope from the roughness of it against your bare skin (as you've also realized that you're still stripped bare to the waist even now). The rope is tight against your body and holds your arms down against your sides and you doubt you could wriggle free even if you tried. Not that you're gonna try just yet as you're too ignorant of your situation to risk moving overly much and letting anybody who might be around know that you're awake now, which is one of the reasons you're keeping your eyes closed throughout this slow awakening.

Your ears, however, are unblocked and so, while you can't see, you can hear very well and what you hear are two familiar voices arguing somewhere in front of you.

"What do you mean you can't get the ship started? That was the whole point of this! We needed a ship!", comes Farrah's voice from somewhere in front and to the right of you.

"No, we needed transport and didn't have the credits to pay for it. It was your idea to steal a ship. I still think we could have talked something out!", Teesha's retort comes from in front and to the left of you, "Now we're going to have a hard time doing that because you knocked out the only person here who can get this ship going!"

"What? Why is he the only one that can get it going? You always say you can get anything with an engine and thrusters to go! Make it go then, Teesha!", Farrah says, her derision when she refers to you (or you assume the "he" in question is you anyway) a far cry from the purring and cooing flirtation she'd been showering you with before this.

"He's smarter than the average spacer, Farrah. He's got this whole thing locked to his DNA and, on top of that, he seems to have some ignition sequence programmed into this that only he'll know. Even if I could bypass one of those things, I couldn't get both.", Teesha's answer comes and you have to admit you feel a little proud to know you're being looked at as smarter than the average person they'd knockout and try and rob, "And I wasn't just giving him lip service when I was talking about his engine. That setup...it would take some sort of engine idiot savant to get all that working together, but he did it. He's...he's something else."

"That why you blew him so eagerly?", Farrah's cutting retort sounds out and you hear the sound of somebody standing up quickly and steps moving from your left to your right suddenly, which you assume is Teesha standing up and getting in Farrah's face.

"Hey! Seducing Halloway was your idea. I just went along with it! I still thought we could have worked something out with the bit of credits we had!", Teesha growls at Farrah and then, after a moment, adds softly, "Besides, he's cute...and he seems nicer than the usual sort you see around here."

"Oh, please! He's just like any crooked spacer! After only one thing!", Farrah says with more derision and you decide to break your silence then.

"Is it not havin' a splittin' headache and two chicks tryin' to hotwire his ship? Because that's what I'd be after right about now.", you say, your voice coming out more shaky than you'd like as you open your eyes and look in front of you. Sure enough, you're in the cockpit and the two women are there in front of you, face to face. Although now they're both looking at you.