Paul was sweating, a biological response that belied his otherwise wholly cool demeanour. More than a day had passed since the job had ended, and given how it went the Lieutenant was confident in switching the "AWOL" to "Deceased" of the team members. All that was left insofar as he knew were him and the ghost woman. At least he wouldn't feel bad about having pawned of that damned adjutant. The contractor was also dead, neither of the mercenaries saw the body but between the broken signal and the rumours the duo heard upon landing at Deadman's Port it was the only conclusion possible once applying Occam's Razor. They had no friends really. Having picked up many contracts here at most Paul had working acquaintances, and he assumed it was no different for his counterpart.

The officer took a momentary look at Maya. He could of course blow her brains out and take the money for himself, but given she was a Ghost and very well might be listening to his thoughts he reckoned it was an incredibly stupid idea. Nevertheless he loosened the holster of his pistol lest the Ghost had a similar train of thought with a different destination. All they had to their name was their equipment, that dropship, the truck they carried the adjutant on and enough credits to make their life expectancy about a day long given the people around them.

He looked to his colleague, and then in the rear view mirror. One of them had suggested that they get their own ship and leave this forsaken rock and while the thought was born of fear it slowly made more and more sense to the Lieutenant. "Let's go." he said, igniting the vehicle's engine and getting it moving. "I know a place." he explained, loading up a map of the locale on his display. A few turns and maybe twenty minutes through a tunnel had them come out in something of a junkyard. Yeah, the ships there were all old, battered, and full of other words with a negative inflection. But they worked, and they'd mean they wouldn't have no credits left to fuel them up. From small fry like valkyries and wraiths to a whole Battle Cruiser in the distance one could find anything here. Slowing down and eventually parking Paul rubbed his forehead, tightening his mask to help with the barely breathable air as he stepped out of the truck. Motioning for Maya to follow, he took out his and did a quick check before putting it back in the holster.

"A ship. That's what we need." the Lieutenant stated. There wasn't a need to say much more because he assumed that Maya agreed with him. After all, they could both see this was the only way out. "Keep an eye out for something you like and keep your eyes away from the people." It was a vile place with the colour palette alone sickening the soldier. But hey, on the bright side they wouldn't be here very long with just a little bit of luck. "I'm thinking a science vessel. Yeah we won't really be armed, but its not like just the two of us are going into any proper dogfights." the man reasoned. He stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose. Lt. Nordlund didn't know if he could trust the Ghost, but its not like he had a choice. Thus, the proposition: "We've worked well before. We'll take something we can do a few jobs in before we've got the money to part ways, alright? Maybe then some transport ship would be better, that way we can do some gigs... well, transporting shit." Paul looked at the woman before him, waiting for some input. Knowing the shit ghosts had jammed into their brains he had not doubt she'd suggest an armed ship. Of course as an experienced Lieutenant Paul knew he could pilot a good chunk of the ships out here and give any OPFOR a run for their money in a fight. But he didn't want to take that risk, especially since the only thing he could really pilot with only a single crew member helping him would be a small guncutter — at that point it wouldn't be as if their weapons mattered much against anything more than a few small flyers.

So much for a smooth operation. All they had to do was deliver the adjujant to the buyer and that was it. The hardest part was mostly the securing of the adjujant itself as it was quite guarded, but wasn't a match for Maya. Between her cloaking and her sniping prowess, securing the thing and delivering it was a piece of cake. But it ended up not being the case. Between losing the prize as well as the buyer being killed, it wasn't exactly a successful job well done, more like a failure.

When her acquaintance Paul Nordlund took a look at her, she could tell from reading his mind that he considered killing her off and taking all the money for himself. But he didn't. He could of, but he wouldn't exactly have a fighting chance against a Ghost of all characters. All was left was the dropshop, the vehicle used to deliver the adjujant, and enough money for roughly a day's worth of life expectancy which was to be expected. When someone recommended for them to buy a spacecraft and get off Deadman's Rock, she couldn't agree more; the place was vile enough let alone all the potential back-stabbing mercenaries who could easily capture her and sell her off to the Terran Dominion for a quick sum of creds. Following Paul onto the vehicle, he mentioned knowing a place.

"For a former UED Lieutenant, you somehow know your way around here."

After the journey and arriving at Deadman's Port, the colour scheme stayed the same. Wasteland Junkyard with characters that could easily, if they wanted to, take them out and sell their equipment for a price. Loads of parked ships of varying designs and features; from Valkyries and Dropships, to Wraiths and even Battlecruisers. However at a time like this, subtlety was key. Most space-worthy craft was a single pilot cockpit, not much for a duo or even larger. However she eyed a Wraith in the distance.

"We'll take that Wraith over there. If you pilot and we get attacked, I can cover our backs from the front door. Alongside the cloaking technology, we can avoid unnecessary attention. As much as I'd love a Battlecruiser for storage and practically retrofit it to be an mobile home, it's size could provoke unwanted attention from perhaps entire fleets."

Paul could only shrug at the ghost's observation. "When we were routed, when it all went to shit, this was the place I first ended up in. Hitched a ride with some bribed dominion boys when I got left behind and that was that. It's not pretty, but it's almost a second home to me now. Surely with you it wasn't too different. Maybe not here but I would bet for most people like us, when the war ended the first spot we came to was the one we stayed between jobs." Then again, Ghosts were a funny people compounded with the fact Ms. Ruby was a Terran one rather than the slick creeps from back home, and a Confederate one no less.

Looking on through the ships Paul wasn't particularly surprised at the suggestion provided, and almost felt ashamed he hadn't anticipated it from the woman. A wraith was… well it was a suggestion with former Ghost operative written all over it. The romance of a fighter, along with the stealth of it and smooth armaments oh it must have been irresistible. But the Lieutenant had to rear in this fantasy, shaking his head. "No, unless you think this system is good enough to stay for months then I think the fact a Wraith cannot carry much cargo and - more importantly - cannot warp jump between solar systems doesn't make it a good plan. Besides, it would be awfully cramped for the two of us." he joked, walking on.

Now, Paul wasn't psychic but his skills let him deceive many to believe he was. One was reading people, and he didn't particularly like the almost predatory gaze that Maya was giving the junkyard folk. But until she actually drew a weapon there wasn't anything he could do, and so he decided not to press the subject even if he reckoned it would at this point be suicidal to drop a few of the buggers. The officer's musings were interrupted by a somewhat overenthusiastic junker coming into vision.



"Top of the morning to ya! Well, it isn't really, but I'm Garrett and if you need any help browsing I'm here for you!"

Paul was about to tell him to piss off, but then he decided against it as realization dawned that indeed some help was needed. "Actually, Mr. Garrett, I could use some advice. Me and my… friend here need a small, cheap, discrete vessel, it should be warp-capable. Preferably fast, with some cargo space, and at least armed enough to shoot down feral scourges coming our way."

The local scratched his head momentarily, before smiling. "Aye there be such here!"

Annoyed at the undetailed response, Lieutenant Nordlund continued. "Good, can you point us to any? We have discounted the science vessels and gun cutters for now."

The man shrugged this time, gesturing for the duo to follow him. "We got a galleon here, but that doesn't quite fit discrete does it hehehe. There's a few wanderers, maybe just what you're looking for. Also some gutted Destroyers, a few more elderly Frigates and a Valkyrie here and there. A System Runner could be your poison."

The Lieutenant kept quiet for now, pondering the choices. The Wanderer seemed like the easy choice, but there was the old saying:" no pain, no gain." a system runner would be prudent especially for their little duo, but it had little resale value along with its armament meaning even wraiths were on equal footing in the arms race.

Turning to Maya, Paul shrugged. "I think we should go for one of the cut up destroyers. Sure for now it's just a deck, cargo bay and some small laser batteries. But it's enough to sell back eventually, and all the missing parts mean we can toy around with it, furnish it to be a real beauty all adding back to a final resale price. Thoughts?"

"Hmm. You make a good point. Alright."

Maya stated with her arms crossed, following him around until someone from the dockyard approached them, talking about what was available. Perhaps a Destroyer wouldn't be so bad. It's certainly a bit bigger than a Wraith but does have better cargo potential, and the ability of system-jumps.

"Alright, sounds good. But I'll be using my personal money to salvage the Wraith's cloaking generator. Better safe than sorry, and I know how to work around them."

She turned towards the man that was escorting them around.

"We'll take a Destroyer but I will personally buy a Wraith for it's cloaking generator. How much just to salvage that one part?"

The local fellow was leading them deeper and deeper into the scrapyard, and every so often Paul had to make sure to mark where they had gone on his HUD because quite frankly he was getting very, very lost. He was just glad for his mask and helmet, otherwise he'd be disoriented to all hell and probably would just fall and give up without guidance. Really, he wondered how all these junker people hadn't yet dropped dead from all the nastiness of the area; smoke and smog, debris, crime.

Looking to Maya, the junker shrugged. "Depends, depends, depends. Cutting the cloaking unit from the wraith is just a few credits nothing hard. Installing it on a destroyer though? Now that's tricky business. For example we could make it simply cover the active decks, and if you seal and deactivate all other parts of the vessel to remove their signature it'll work perfectly against most standard scanners outside of the heavy duty buggers on science vessels and such, but the parts of the ship not covered are going to be still technically visible to the naked eye. Of course with the zerg not a big deal any more you don't have to worry much about visual report, but its still a bit of a threat." The fellow turned into a junction of several gutted ships.



"You can also have the cloaking field cover your whole vessel, that'll be mighty expensive of course depending on exactly how big of a destroyer you pick." to demonstrate, he pointed out two of said vessels side by side: one was very small, little more than an engine, a single laser battery, a cargo bay and a command deck with all the other parts of the ship cut off. Beside it was almost a pristine ship covered in all sorts of different armaments, with many cargo holds, reinforced plating, scanners, and many more accessories & upgrades. "But regardless of how big, there's a problem with powering the whole surface area. A wraith's cloaking system is designed for something the size and shape of a wraith. To cloak a whole ship that isn't a wraith will mean you exhaust it very fast if you do it completely. You can try to save some energy but that will incur the risk of little flickers in the cloak. Statistically improbable and all that, but you won't be happy when it happens."

Sitting down on a pile off rubbish the junker crossed his arms. "Of course, you can chop out the cloak module from a dozen wraiths and then be sure any ship is wholly cloaked, although then comes the problem that at a certain point of a ship's size cloaking is useless, they can see the shimmer of the field. With a destroyer you won't run into that, but anything bigger and you certainly will."

It was a long monologue, but the local bastard sold each option very enticingly. "I think just having one to apply to the command deck and engines will work, all other systems can be sealed and shut off if we don't want to be detected. Stealth is better used to avoid fights than to win them."

Maya listened intently to the junker, taking mental notes. Of course a Wraith's cloaking generator wouldn't coat an entire ship but at least it'd be able to coat the Command Deck and the Engines. She wouldn't be too happy about not having a fully cloaked ship but it was better than nothing for now.

"Fine then. I'll buy two cloaking generators, and we'll take the smaller destroyer. Unless of course my associate,"

Maya turned over to Paul for a few seconds then back to the Junker.

"has any other ideas?"

Paul only nodded in affirmation, a good compromise of many different features reached. "Good, good, good." the fellow said while steepling his fingers on his improvised seat. "It is agreed then! Your vessel will be very soon." The man removed a surprisingly pristine PDA from his pocket, entering some commands into the thing before whistling loudly.

"The boys will get right on it, they cut fast with the SCVs we got recently. Your ride will be ready in oh...." the man paused, looking to the sky. "Twenty, thirty minutes. Depends what model of wraith we get, the ones from before the brood war have very funny cables, a bitch to cut."

The man scratched his elbow thoughtfully, before standing up and turning the PDA around after entering a few more inputs. "While they work though, we'll need you to cough up the credits." He looked to Maya to join the Lieutenant as he started entering the payment for the duo's new vessel.