”While he, his crew and most of my friends were gathering outside, Sodoby and I paid the Gothar proprietor. I was in no particular hurry, exchanged ... few words with the avian being, when the sharp crack of a Line blaster echoed through the doors. Loud voices and yelling followed. I ran as fast as I could, Narth told me.”Shipmaster Winthers has been shot. Hans and TheOther are after the shooter.”With drawn weapon, I joined the group outside.The pleasant and professional Porsthir lay on the. The next thing I knew, I was waking up from what felt like a nap. I was confused and couldn't remember where I was or what I was doing there. Joe was on top of me with his hand around my neck and everything that had happened over the course of the night flooded my memory. I tried to fight against his grip by twisting from side to side, but it was no use. He laughed at me as he was clearly the one in control here. Joe proceeded to choke me out three more times, from which the last was the. .. secured and not readily available. Consequently, I will have to ... improvise before it will be released. This may take time to compile enough preliminary data even to begin to approach your desired outcome.”After a few hours, the First Officer tried scanning over some of the names on the multi-page documents the Alliance President’s staff had sent. The problem was that there were twenty star systems involved with ships that ranged from a dozen crew or so to a small passenger liner with a. .please...." Trudy quickly stepped closerand signaled Jakob to be ready on the crank. Anticipating a request toloosen the corset she was surprised when Linda managed to complete hersentence... "Please take me down to 20. I want to surprise mymistress.." Trudy chuckled and said, "You brides are all alike. Allright, we'll try and if we are able to get there I will keep it asurprise."With that Jakob fastened Linda's ankles to a single leather cuff andanchored it to a ring in the floor. He.