Aftermath (Post Job, Horizon/Orlando Crews)

[kyliegrasan]

Kylie didn't have much time to see Grishenko get carried off. The ship that was coming in was now within earrange and the sound of it revealed that it would be touching down any minute now.

She looked up and started looking through the thick snow. The ship was right above them now and Kylie tried making something of the silhouet.
She then saw that the ship was in fact an orange rusty color, yet she didn't know what type it was. For this sorta thing she used to carry a booklet that had all the types of ships in the 'Verse, but she lost that during the Reaver attack.

She then waited for the ship to touch down, and then started running towards it, with her assault rifle in hand.

"Marines, on me!" Kylie ordered. "Set up by the door, and be ready for anything!"

The marines formed up by the door, making a sort of U-shape near the door, and waited for what was going to happen next. Kylie aimed down the sight of the assault rifle, and waited for the door to open. Her hands were shaking, not from the cold but from the thought of having to shoot at another human being. She knew that killing Reavers was one thing, but killing another human was another.

She sure hoped she wouldn't have to shoot anyone in the next few minutes.

[amaia]

"Captain, if I may," Amaia said when Gordon entered. "It looks like our Alliance friends here have been attacked, and they're jumpy, which also may be bad news for us and our guest-to-be." She started to walk towards the cargo bay.

"I honestly have little clue what to expect, but since they are Alliance, it shouldn't be too horrible. They're still trained soldiers."

Amaia stopped in the cargo bay and started to press a couple of buttons on the console that controlled the hatch. A screen popped to life, and showed the scene outside. "Oh look, a welcoming party. I guess no sudden movements." Amaia hit the button to open the hatch, and after the sounds of the airlocks releasing, the large cargo bay doors slid open.

Amaia started to walk out, keeping her hands outstretched. "Easy, boys," she said with a sly smile. The cold wind and snow bit at Amaia's skin, but she ignored it as she walked a few steps out of the Horizon and into the snow. "Two more are coming out," Amaia said. "Who's in charge here?"

[kyliegrasan]

A Chinese woman came out the door, and started acting like she owned the place already. As if the law of the Alliance didn't apply to her. The way she was acting made Kylie wonder whether or not she would be reaching for a gun anytime soon. There weren't any visible, but that didn't mean she didn't have any on her. She even had the nerve to ask who was in charge, and that was still up for debate actually.

But right now it came up to Kylie. If Tom Wright wanted to chime in he should just do so. But the Reaver attack had left the Esteem crew a bit disoriented when it came to the hierarchy, so right now Kylie was in command, although she wasn't going to tell the woman that. At least not before they had everyone from the unknown vessel in cuffs.

"That's far enough!" Kylie said. "Now all of you, turn around, put your hands above your head and walk backwards slowly! Failure to comply will result in the use of force!"

Kylie looked through the sight of her assault rifle. It was aimed at the Chinese woman's chest. The marines were there, so she probably didn't have to shoot herself, although she knew that when it would come to that, she'd have to give the order for them to fire.

"Please comply..." Kylie thought, hoping everything could go smoothly for a change.

[amaia]

Amaia cocked her head, her black hair falling slightly in front of her face. The girl was barking commands, which meant that she was at least a little ways up on the totem pole, and her uniform painted her as a Lieutenant; some brass on the collar was enough. But the girl was also very jumpy, and her voice belied a worried, nervous nature. It was only slight, but to Amaia, it was obvious enough.

What was odd was that it wasn't the kind of nervousness that makes people quick on the trigger. Quite the opposite; Amaia wondered if she could walk up to the girl without getting punched in the chest with a few rounds, although looking around, the girl's guard dogs smelled of anger and and fear, and they looked like the type that would gladly shoot the Alliance spy for looking at them funny.

Amaia slowly turned around. "Like I said, easy goes, Lieutenant. No one needs to get perforated." She put her hands on her head and started to walk backwards slowly, keeping an eye on the marines around her. If any of them were going to shoot her, Amaia wanted to at least know before the fact. "We're all friends here, or so I would like to think. Isn't that right, Lieutenant," Amaia paused for a second; the girl's nametag hadn't been visible with her leveling her hardware at Amaia's chest, "...you'll excuse me, but I didn't catch your name, ma'am. It would be...?"

[robertborden]

Borden let Amaia handle things for a minute while he went in to his quarters to grab his lightweight bulletproof vest. He then put on his best suit and proceeded downstairs with his hands up.

"Hello," I'm the Captain here and we have business with the commander of the St. Alban's outpost." He proceeded down the stairs with his hand up. He kept himself calm while still calculating the best way to kill the soldiers aiming their weapons at him and his first mate. The easiest was to turn on the Gatling weapons hidden in the ceiling that would open and begin firing at noncrew if he said the right password. He could also, lift the emergency airlock and set off the explosives implanted in the ramp. It would only require some minor repairs to fix.

He saw the Lieutenant who was most likely in charge. "So where's your Captain, Lieutenant," he said this acting concerned, compassionate and with a slightly softer voice.

[gordonmiller]

At the sight of the armed marines who were waiting for them outside, he quickly ran to the still knocked out Arabella, picked her up and put her in one of the hidden compartiments of the ship. The risk of those marines setting her free was just too great. And it wasn't like she would wake up anytime soon either. They'd have enough time to sort things out.

Gordon was more or less assured of the situation. Once those marines would found out who they were, all would be solved and they could just get on their way to Londinium.

When the cargobay doors opened a young lieutenant, who appeared to be in charge, ordered them to come out with their hands on their heads. Like Sang, Gordon complied, yet he didn't like the way she kept talking to the marines who had their weapons pointed at them.

"Sang, quit stirring the pot and do as they say!" Gordon said. "We'll have this sorted out soon enough."

It was then that Gordon noticed the name of their ship on one of the sleeves of the marines.

"Captain, I think this would be the proper time to hand over that letter from admiral Atherton to them." Gordon said.

[kyliegrasan]

Kylie was more or less baffled by the situation. Were these people stupid? Acting the way they did in front of an entire squad of heavily armed, disgruntled marines? Seemed like pure madness. The only one with a bit common sense was the man in the same wintercamosuit as them. She wondered where the man would've acquired it.

Maybe they had a trick up their sleeve, but Kylie wasn't about to let them use it. Only two of them seemed to be complying, although the Chinese woman didn't keep her mouth shut. Maybe a little force would be in order, to show these guys who was boss.

"Marines, move in and cuff them." Kylie ordered.

Six marines moved forward, two of them cuffed Amaia, another two cuffed Gordon and the last two cuffed Robert Borden.

Gordon's dog started barking. Gordon had thought him not to attack anyone in an Alliance uniform, yet seeing the men taking down his master made the animal confused.

"Raxo, stay!" Gordon yelled, hoping one of the marines wouldn't shoot his dog. "It's okay boy."

The dog listened to his master, stopped barking and layed down on the cargoramp.

Kylie stopped aiming at the intruders. These three were secure now, but she knew that there were probably more inside.

"Denton, secure that ship." Kylie ordered. "I don't think these three are the only ones aboard."

She then walked over to the man who introduced himself as the captain, to inform him why him and his crew were going to be detained.

"Captain, I'm first lieutenant Kylandra Grasan of the Alliance cruiser Esteem." Kylie introduced herself. "This installation was attacked, and considering you claim to have business with its commander, you and your crew will be detained until we rule you out as possible suspects. Do you understand?"

[robertborden]

Borden held his right thumb in his left hand after he had been handcuffed. He hoped it wouldn't need to happen, but he just needed some torsional pressure on his thumb to break it. Then he could slip out of the cuffs.

"Lieutenant Grasan...I understand that you should check my front coat pocket for a very informative letter and then you would do best to stop your men from searching my ship and letting my crew go," Borden explained. He really didn't want to break his own thumb.

The letter from Admiral Atherton was one that explained to whomever read it what the mission was about. "So where's your captain?" he asked nicely.

[kyliegrasan]

Kylie was a bit baffled. What exactly where they dealing with here? She decided she might as well indulge the guy, he was in cuffs after all and figured he would be smart enough not to try anything. Not with entire squad of marines guarding her back.

She reached for the supposed captain's inner pocket and retrieved a letter from it. She was a bit surprised when she saw the seal of the Admiralty on it. The front of the letter said formally: 'Captain Conrad Garrett'. But considering he was dead, Kylie figured it would be okay to open it. The formality and rules on the Esteem had gone a bit lost since the Reaver attack. All attention had gone to keeping the ship running with only 1/3 of the original crew to keep it running. There wasn't any time anymore for formalities. The only thing that mattered was getting the ship back to drydock. Until they were called to St. Albans that was.

As she started reading the letter, she started realizing that maybe she was in over her head here. Apparently these guys were spooks, and the Admiralty wanted the commander of the Esteem to form a group of officers and enlisted to aid them in their mission. Maybe Tom had experience with these sort of things.

Kylie handed the letter over to Tom Wright, he was the highest ranking officer after all, maybe he could make sense out of it.

"Tom, I think you should take a look at this." Kylie said as she handed it over.

She then turned back to captain Borden. If what the letter said was true, then he needed to be released, but not before they had confirmed his identity.

"Captain Borden, we'll need to verify your identity." Kylie said. "I don't suppose you have your ID handy?"

[robertborden]

"My ID is in my breast pocket," said Borden nodding toward the pocket on the front of his suit. It was good that she was thorough, especially if she was leading this group. He also wanted to get things over with so that he and his crew could get their 'passenger' to Londinium.

"So, did anyone survive the attack on the installation or should we be on our way," he figured that the attack was pretty severe or else there wouldn't be this much security involved and people wouldn't be this nervous. With the limited look he got of their camp, it appeared as if there were far too few of them to fill a ship like the Esteem. It held about 900 crewmen and there couldn't be more than a third of that walking around.

Aaron

Legran finally showed up at the command tent just in time to see that no one was there. He grabbed his gun from his side holster and proceeded to follow some footprints.

Finally he arrived at a ship. Haven't seen a dragonfly in a while he thought. He then walked up to the ramp but still kept his distance so as not to spook any of the already-on-edge marines and start a shooting match.

[kyliegrasan]

Kylie carefully reached for captain Borden's breastpocket and took the ID out of it.

"Darala, verify this ID." Kylie said.

The petty officer took the ID from Kylie and ran back to the tent. She came back a minute later with a worried look on her face and walked over to Kylie and got close to Kylie's ear.

"Lieutenant, this man is one of ours." She whispered. "Everything checks out. His name's Robert Borden, the rest of his file is classified."

Things just got weirder on St. Albans and for the Esteem crew. First that weird engineer guy and now this. Kylie couldn't help but wonder what the hell was going on.

"Okay, let them go." Kylie said to the marines.

"Lieutenant...?" One of the marines asked. He was baffled as well.

"It's okay marine." Kylie answered. "Cut them loose. They're on our side."

She then turned to captain Borden, an apology was in order perhaps.

"I'm sorry about that, sir." Kylie said. "But this installation was attacked and we don't know who was involved. And as far as admiral Atherton's letter goes, looks like we're the help he requested for you. The rest of the crew is on our ship making sure she doesn't come crashing down on our heads. We were attacked by Reavers last week, they killed 400 of us, included captain Garrett and we've got 200 wounded. We're badly outmanned sir, and frankly it's a miracle our ship is still flying."

[robertborden]

He was surprised to hear that an Alliance cruiser had been attacked by Reavers. They were getting bolder every day. The fact that any of them survived showed what Alliance training could do.

"So first you get attacked and lose half your crew, including your captain, and then they send you to the farthest corners of the verse," he repeated. It seemed ridiculous but the Alliance had to work with what it had available.

"So, what can you tell me about the outpost and about the attacks? Also, did a Boris Grishenko, the installation's head mechanic, survive?" He asked the questions worried slightly that they were here in vain. "I also need you to choose a select group of officers and have the rest of your men stay outside."

Robert felt sorry for these men and women of the Alliance. It was because of this that he decided to request for them a temporary drydock on Londinium for repairs.

[amaia]

Amaia waited for the lieutenant to identify Borden before dropping her arms. She quickly took her place at Borden's side, keeping an eye on everyone; watching for any suspicious activity.

This was all very...odd. Not only was the attack ballsy, but the fact that the Horizon arrived a short time later. In a way, she was happy to have avoided the trouble: after all, look at the damage done to this properly-guarded facility, but in the same vein, she was a bit disappointed at missing the action of the battle.

As the Captain was briefed, Amaia took the time to turn away, as to not interrupt the conversation between Grasan and Borden. "Horizon, Amaia. Keep alert, there was some serious trouble earlier, and I don't want any of it stowing away once we depart." She then turned back to the conversation, interjecting herself as gently as she could after Borden asked for some details.

"Specifically, if you have any ship designations or classes, or any names. We're going to need that kind of information for any reports."

[kyliegrasan]

"We have that Grishenko guy in custody as well." Kylie replied. "Denton here found him sneaking around the perimeter, so the conditions we found him in were suspicious to say the least. We don't know whether or not he has something to do with the destruction of this facility."

And was captain Borden making a joke? Didn't he see that huge wreck that used to be the Esteem when he flew in? A select group of officers? The only officers they could spare were Kylie, Tom and Aaron, which is why they were the ones on the ground. All the rest was either dead or necessary to keep the wrecked Esteem in the air.

"With all due respect sir." Kylie said. "But that Reaver attack decimated us. The officers that weren't killed in the attack are too busy keeping our ship in the air and can't be spared. So the men that are on the ground are pretty much the only ones we can spare for now."

[robertborden]

He understood the predicament that the lieutenant was in. They were undermanned, under resourced, and under extreme stress. However, there were a few things that he found that should have been done much better.

"Tell me, when you detained Boris Grishenko, did you bother to run any sort of background check, and before you say you didn't have time...don't." He didn't feel like hearing an excuse at the moment, so he stopped her before she had the chance to try. He also knew that she should have had one of her men, check his record. "If you had checked his record you would have realized that taking week long hikes in the woods is something he does regularly. Also, if you remember the engine on that ship you were on that one time when you went to that one place," he was speaking generally for effect, "there is about a 72.483% chance that Grishenko designed it...so release him, have him meet me here now and show the man a little respect." He said the previous and the following with a very authoritative tone, mixed with the slightest tinge of anger for effect. He wanted everyone in the area to know that he was in charge.

"Also," he said while pulling out a few small papers from his other inner coat pocket, "I want you to pick a few of your most trusted officers...and I don't care if you just pick ones stationed on the ground...and have them meet me here in less than five minutes. If you don't...then Admiral Atherton, General Legran and key members of Parliament," he said each of these while laying a paper on to a crate (Each paper had signatures verifying his claims), "give me permission to court martial everyone be they living, dead or wounded. Or...I could get the Esteem drydocked on Londinium for repairs and we could all go on happily ever after...take your pick." Borden was happy with his speech hoping it would have the effects he wanted.

In the back of the group, Legran heard the mention of his father and knew that something was going on, he just couldn't hear exactly what. It was the cocktail party effect. He could hear the name Legran but he was too far away to hear the speech. A few men in front did start to look a little nervous however.