<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/08/Mrinka_Pirate_avatar.jpg)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Character name:</strong></td><td>Harrin Ffrrit</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong> </td><td>Near the mine entrance, standing by the wagon sidings.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>With:</strong> </td><td>Two other shift leaders, the Imperial mining engineer (employee), two Imperial Marines and an Imperial Marine Sergeant (all NPCs)</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Doing:</strong> </td><td>Trying to "escape"</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/>The daylight made her blink as harrin emerged from the mine entrance (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=175028.msg8286709#msg8286709). The sky was overcast, as usual, the clouds threatening snow, possibly a CO<sub>2</sub>snow later in the night. The Carbon snow was nasty stuff, but it evaporated by morning, usually. You didn't wasn to be out in it though. Harrin watched as the other two newly promoted shift leaders headed towards the settlement and the engineer joined his crew of construction engineers, who were waiting by the military shuttle, surrounded by a cordon of marines. She shook her head wistfully and scratched at her crotch throuth the transparent nanotech plastic. Of all the things she had needed to get used to, the only one that still bothered her was the way the smartex pressed her fur flat against her skin.<br/><br/>The Marines were hurrying back to their squad and Harrin saw a chance to cause trouble. She ran a hand along the top edge of one of the Duraplaz wagons, and gathered a handful of snow.<br/><br/>The snowball flew true and landed Harmlessly on the marine sergeant's back, just on the joint between the back plate and the left shoulder. The sergeant had left off the joint covers from the armour, gaining increased mobility at the expense of the extra protection the extra plates afforded.<br/><br/>The sergeant straightened as the suit's sensors registered the impact then turned, gun coming up to point menacingly at Harrin. Ther Mrinka convict smirked, tail waving gracefully behind her. "Bang", she said softly, the fingers of her right hand forming the shape of a hand gun. "In another place and time, you'd be dead!"<br/><br/><em>Shoot me</em>, her arrogant stance said,<em>I dare you! Or just once get close enough to let me grab that fucking gun!</em><br/><br/>The gun lined up, but instead of the hoped-for muzzle-flash, there was a small blue light, and Harrin felt her suit harden around her. "Bastard!" She hissed. "Hnahagrrr Droob! Fight me fairly!"<br/><br/>The marine strode forward, the name "Shelton" stencilled just below the lefty shoulder of the armour. "Shut it bitch!" The voice that issued from the speakers was female. Sergeant Shelton clipped her weapon to her armour, swung back a power-arboured fist and smashed it into the convict's midriff. Harrin flew backward helplessly, fetching up against the side of an ore wagon, the breath driven from her.<br/><br/>"In another place and time, you would have the right to a fair fight. But the war ended a hundred years ago, and you aren't a soldier, you're a pirate and a terrorist. You are the one without hnahag!"<br/><br/>The Marine opened her face plate, revealing, to Harrin's surprise, the features of a Hrumkan - the strange, hybrid species bred from a single Human and Mrinka (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=168800.0) on a world that had somehow warped the DNA of both. Shelton spat in the snow near Harrin, turned her back and walked away, releasing Harrin's suit as she did so.<br/><br/>Harrin lay, gasping for breath, watching as the military shuttle loaded and lifted, and vanished into orbit.<br/><br/>She scrambled to her feet and headed for the settlement. The supply shuttle was due in soon and she had been promised a bunch of new arrivals - the principal reason for opening the new shaft.