I'm almost too amused by Gippal hitting on Elma to respond properly to anything else in this chapter, but I'll try. ;) First, the part that you knew I would react to: this is a great role for Paine/Juno, and I really like how you set up the former members of the Crimson Squad in opposition to each other (Baralai and Paine vs. Gippal and Nooj). I also think that suspicious Baralai works very well.

Also the way Rikku gets them out of the scrape is more than appropriate. :)

Very nice moving along of the story and fleshing out the back in one scene of mostly dialogue!