Shu
shylarah
mickilennial
Vesnic
Kaithe Dame
PatientBean
Estylwen
Lildear18
Peik
 | SHUTTLE RETRIEVAL◢ Havana SpaceportEvening, April 9, 2187@KaiserElectric@Bonnie@High Casual@Shu |
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The hangar doors swung wide open to reveal five quarians and a kodiak shuttle inside. Bright white lights, from rows on the ceiling and individual stands on the floor, momentarily blinded those entering from the dark runways.
As Zenobia's eyes adjusted, she could see two quarians doing something to the shuttle (at 20 meters away from the entrance), one quarian using a computer terminal, one carting around mechanical tools and the last one in the middle directing everything.
"Keelah!" The cart pusher literally jumped at the sight of Zenobia. The cart toppled over and the quarian tripped on a mess of spilled tools.
The quarians at the computer and the shuttle all stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the turian intruder. The computer user's omni-tool lit up, the quarian at the shuttle engine stood tensely with a wrench in hand and the one fiddling under the shuttle door came up too quickly, bumped their head and fell back down.
However, their leader was the first to act. Unholstering a carnifex pistol and pointing it toward Zenobia, his tone was not one of welcome.
"Who the hell are you?" The quarian leader barked. "This is a private hangar. Get lost!"
While distracted by the turian, a small door at the rear of the hangar was all but forgotten. And neither was anyone watching the ladder leading up to the maintenance walkway.
"With pleasure, but first..." Zenobia, heedless of the gun pointed at her, cranes her neck to get a better look at the shuttle. "Nice ship. Who does it belong to?"
"Us."
Zenobia could see areas of the shuttle typically marked had been freshly scrubbed.
"That narrows it down succinctly." She takes a few steps forward, barely even acknowledging the weapon pointed at her. "Who's 'us', exactly? Because 'us' looks like they just got done scrubbing the markings off of a shuttle they found." Zenobia's been around the seedier parts of the galaxy long enough to recognize what was going on. Hell, her first job was as a lookout for salvagers trying to claim seemingly abandoned spacecraft at omega for salvage.
"None of your business. What, you never seen people clean their spacecraft before?" The quarian boss grunted.
His finger moved closer to the trigger when Zenobia stepped forward. "That's close enough, any closer and-"
The computer user interrupted. "Boss, truck coming from the control tower!"
"You bosh'tet! Damn snitch!" The boss snarled.
A truck? Zen didn't call for a truck. The boss' choice of words piqued her interest though.
"Oho, what are you up to that can be snitched on, then?"
That was long enough. Nobody had immediately started shooting, and Solveig knew she was still in cover she'd followed Zen slowly around.
The boss was now in a time crunch, and was about to be in another.
Solveig moved silently behind him. Her cybernetic went first, lacing over his shoulder to pin his neck in the elbow.
They had as soon as that truck arrived to get out of here. She knew it. Zen knew it. Solveig hoped the boss knew too.
Her cloak lifted, and fast as lightning she was the ghastly tall form behind him. "It's in your best interest to tell the truth now," she said, momentarily casting a glare to the other Quarians. A warning. "Or..." she tightened her grip just so, "pop."
The wrench wielding quarian was about to charge Solveig.
"Wait, no, wait, everyone!" Boss quarian pleaded. "Please, let's all be reasonable. No pop!"
"Alright, my name is Kenn and we're uh...freelance spacecraft recyclers." He admitted. "But someone hired us to be here; a human called Armistan Banes! Said if we pull the black box for him, we get to keep the shuttle."
Kenn gestured to the computer, where the black box was indeed hooked up to. The computer user's omni-tool shifted nervously between Zenobia and Solveig, but the quarian's real worry seemed to be on the screen.
"Truck's almost here, boss..." Computer quarian warned.
"Hold on, you aren't with the alliance, yeah? Alliance doesn't kick in their own door and hold people at gunpoint. Do they?" Kenn blurted out. "We'll give you the shuttle, if you uh, vouch for us."
"Bad idea." Wrench wielding quarian spat.
"Look, Banes doesn't give a shit about us. He's got those Reds." Kenn tried to reason to both his own crew and the intruders. "We'll quit this job, okay? Do we have a deal?"
"Makes things easy, sure. Get your guys out of here and we'll pretend we never saw you, you won't have to get caught up in...the..."
Zenobia trails off for a moment, then her eyes widen in realization.
"...KENN?" She shouts in surprise. "Holy shit, what are you doing here, dude? It's me, Zenny!"
"Zenny...Zenobia! Lunatic! Wow, small galaxy, huh?" Kenn realized. "Uh yeah so, we were legit contractors, were. Guess now we're unemployed and dextro food's getting expensive, you know?"
"And please tell your scary human pal to let me go?"
Solveig frowned slightly, but did as he asked. Letting the man go but being careful to set her gaze on the jumpier ones of his crew.
"Now, chances of us getting the shuttle, black box, and out of here before this truck arrives is slim..." She furrowed a brow.
"How long before it gets here?"
Now.
An alliance-marked M-080 APC stopped in front of hangar 14. Its blinding headlights poured through the doors Zenobia kicked in. Eight heavily armed military personnel emerged from it, six humans and two turians.
"Back door?" Kenn and his crew were grabbing the black box and whatever else they could carry. They were no doubt seen, and the time to leave was now or never.
But running would also be very suspicious. The military personnel weren't messing around.
"Or maybe you can talk our way out of this?" Kenn hesitated.
“Not likely.”
The eight armed figures strode through the door by two’s, spreading intervals as they entered the hangar. All were fully geared up and ready for action weapons half raised. They wore helmets concealing their faces, including the unit leader who was adorned with a TACC Death Mask. As the seven subordinates maintained a spread between them and remained in a “ready” stance the leader stepped forward to speak, “Captain Riley, I’m here to impound this craft.”
“And while we’re at it,” she added, “you Quarians, you’re all under arrest for looting.” On Riley’s final word the seven other soldiers all raised their weapons to sight, picking a target and holding aim on them. All five of the Quarians were covered as were the two new arrivals.
“Who are you two supposed to be?” Riley demanded of the human and Turian women.
"Damn everyone really wants this thing for themselves, don't they?" Zenobia, again heedless of any weapons pointed at her, steps forward and flashes her identifier. "Well I hate to break it to you Riley Wiley but since this is SRN property I'm here to take it back to SRN."
Things were heating up, that was to be sure, and nobody was getting out of this one easily. Sol took in the details of each of the soldiers, and of the truck. At least they were Alliance. She was Alliance. But she was Alliance now off-duty and at the scene of what they thought was a crime. She took a breath a stepped forward slowly, she knew that name. Riley... Riley...
"Captain Riley... Captain Lee Riley. Commendation for actions on Cyone." She paused, and tried to relax her shoulders, tried to soften her gaze. "Solveig Wistrom, N7 Special Ops. I think there is a misunderstanding here."
Captain Riley hesitated, Solveig Wistrom…, she knew who that was, wholly by word of deed. The Captain glanced at the female Turian noting her ID. Riley Wiley?…
The Quarians were getting fidgety, more than they already were anyway, two of them shuffling their three-toed feet and glancing around. “Everyone stay where you are!” barked one of Riley’s men, voiced warbled by his helmet.
Riley took a few steps closer to Zenobia and Solveig, looking between them and deciding to first address Zenobia, “This shuttle is due for impound, I’m here for it.” Riley looked to Solveig, “No point in tossing around credentials. I have a job to do, two now actually - impound this shuttle and take in these looters.”
“Thanks for tipping me off actually, that elaborate little entrance you made was enough to perk curiosities.”
One quarian wasn't having any of it. The wrench wielder, already on edge before, didn't bother waiting for Kenn's command or obeying Riley's orders.
"Fuck this shit!" The quarian bolted for the back door. "I'm out!"
"And we have the same order to get the shuttle-" Solveig began before the Quarian bolted out. "Jäkla!" She said, turning away from Riley to watch as he escaped.
“Shit!” Riley spat.
One of Riley’s men swiveled around, about to fire his Avenger at the Quarian, “Stop, let him go!” Riley shouted, “Secure everyone else!”
Four of Riley’s men began fast walking towards Kenn and the others, weapons trained directly at their chests. Captain Riley remained where she was as the three others of her squad closed in behind her, keeping their weapons half raised, nervously watching Solveig and Zennobia.
"Damn it," Zenobia muttered, eyes darting between the quarians and the soldiers. "If you're really going to do this you'd better buy me chocolates first," Zenobia says, lowering herself into a combat stance while glaring at the troopers approaching her.
Solveig looked once more to Riley. "We have the same order, there's no danger here Captain. I'm sure we can work this out..." the woman tried to smile, "besides, think of the paperwork we'll both get out of?"
Something clicks and the gears start turning in Zenobia's head. She grabs Solveig by the shoulder. "Hold up, what about the quarians? You're really just going to sell these guys out to save our necks and get the shuttle? Just like that?"
Solveig twitched at the touch and whatever smile she had melted away and made room for a glare. "Who said I'm selling anyone out?" She warned. What was Zenobia thinking? "Back down."
"Oh yes, back down so we can let Stormtrooper Jane over here get to the curbstomping!" Zenobia shouts, playing it up to draw the attention of the soldiers. "Was that your plan the whole time or was fucking me like this a spontaneous decision??"
The Infiltrator scowled. "You're out of line, I'll remind you again to back down, and back off," she glared threateningly toward to Turian, rolling her shoulder slightly before glancing, for but a split second, apologetically toward Captain Riley. "Next warning will be with force."
Kenn was in shock.
He was in shock when Riley's troops showed up. He was in shock when the one of his own took off without a care in the world. Most importantly, he was in shock at how casually Riley let someone fleeing arrest get away, but gave him no leniency when he put up absolutely zero resistance.
Of course, Kenn was in shock when Zenobia and her crude human "ally" were about to turn on one another. His hands started to shake, desperately trying to find something to say. Wait, they said the shuttle was the property of...
"SRN!" Kenn blurted out, loud enough for his words to reverberate around the hangar. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, Captain Lee'Riley vas Wiley! We're all with SRN!"
"There's no looting, just a, uh, sudden maintenance call!" Kenn continued to blabber. "Sorry we didn't notify you, but I'm sure our first-class legal team at SRN will clear up the misunderstanding, and our very well-funded finance department will take care of any outstanding fees!"
"Uh, there's is an SRN legal team, right?" Kenn changed to a whisper for just Solveig and Zenobia. "Hey, we're on the same side,...right?"
Seeing no immediately change in anyone's posture, Kenn lowered his voice to whisper to just Zenobia. "I'm going for the shuttle if shit blows. It's been rigged for snap take off."
Zenobia blinked, a slight smile appearing on her face...
".....yyyeesss....SRN. We're all in SRN. These guys aren't looting anything, we're just overseeing the recovery and repair of our ship." Zenobia slips easily from faux-outrage to faux-professionalism.
"What's an SRN?" Another quarian perked up.
"Enough!" Solveig sighed, too overstimulated and too tired for the hijinks. "I just," she breathed out, closing her eyes, "want to get the shuttle," she said assertively, "and find Katya.
She then dropped down into a low squat, resting her elbows on her knees to place her head in her hands to massage her temples.
"You want to impound the shuttle, let me take the fucking blackbox then. I'll return it to the Alliance." She lifted her head up, her eyes stare as intense as ever in the direction of Riley. "Do we have a deal?"
Captain Riley sighed in exasperation beneath her visor. The lead Quarian was lying in desperation, that was obvious enough to Riley even before his counterpart blurred out their clumsy remark. Between the Quarians and the human-Turian pair before her Riley was at her patience’s end with this whole scenario. Her soldiers kept the Quarians secure, the ones at her back also at the ready. The strange Turian seemed to be the only one that cared about the Quarians while Solveig was more worried about the shuttle, namely the blackbox. Riley was not particularly interested in a heated exchange, much less an outright shoot-out all over a damned shuttle and some scavengers. Not when there were bigger issues to handle these days, to put it lightly.
The Captain shifted her feet, addressing Solveig, “Look, tell you what, just take the shuttle then. With the way things are right now I dare say a shuttle removed late from it’s hangar is at the top of everyone’s worries. But the Quarians are being detained for looting and that’s that. We don’t need vultures picking about right now. That’s my counter offer for you.”
Riley looked to Zenobia, “If you care so much about these five- four… your free to have your ‘SRN legal team’ vouch for them after this.”
Zenobia scowls, dropping any facade she was putting up to try and throw them off. "Fine...we'll take the shuttle," she growls. "But these guys didn't do anything wrong. They got misled and were hired by someone else to take the shuttle."
"What!?" Kenn astonished. "Yeah ok, we'll be released soon, yeah?"
Kenn looked to Zenobia for support, though his focus was also darting between the pistol he dropped earlier and the open shuttle door.
“Don’t even think about it.” Captain Riley snapped at Kenn.
*Zenobia glances back at Kenn with a small smirk.* "Don't worry, I've never left you hanging before."
She then rounds on the Captain, the lightness in her tone vanishing. "We're not done here. I know what you jackboots like to do to 'vultures' like us, and we're not going to leave them rotting in some cell for the crime of trying to survive. So you'd better behave around them or you're going to see me when I get REALLY upset, comprende?" The entire time Zenobia draws uncomfortably close to the captain, though her biotics never spark off once.
"You have my thanks Captain," Solveig said with a relieved smile as she sighed out one more time, standing back up to her full height.
She felt... tense now, around her mission partner. If it wasn't for Katya being missing, she'd have quit SRN on the spot - in saying that, it's not like she couldn't use her own resources to find her cousin...
"Why is the Alliance wanting to impound this anyway? With a whole truckload of soldiers too? Must be important."
“Get out of my face, Turian.” Captain Riley snapped as she stepped to the side. As her men rounded up Kenn and the others, herding them toward the hangar door, Captain Riley looked to Solveig with a shrug, “The shuttle was due for impound, the reason I brought along this whole team was because of all the racket - that and lots of… suspicious and unsavory characters lurking about these days. We have to be careful after all. These Quarians may be illegally scavenging but there is way worse than them to be found around.”
"No kidding."
Kenn was in a mix of relief and resignation. Seeing Zenobia standing up to the captain made him feel a little less helpless. He would not leap for the shuttle or reach for his pistol.
"Alright, Captain vas Wiley, you can take us to, uh, temporary detention." He put up his hands and signaled for his crew to do the same. "Until SRN secures our release, of course."
As he was being led away, the quarian nodded to Zenobia. "Sorry I called you bosh'tet earlier, and thanks for having my back. I appreciate having a friend out here."
"Even if it's only one friend." He added for Solveig.
With the shuttle secured, and the team leaving, Solveig wanted nothing more than to call it and head back. Her stare lingered on the shuttle as the Quarians were taken away; she didn't register the comment.
"Let's get moving too," she eventually sighed out. "The other teams will be waiting on us."
"Sounds good! And uh, sorry about shouting at you earlier. Trying to confuse them and all."
There's a distinctive pause.
"I was never the one in charge of...tactics and stuff." She admits sheepishly.
Solveig thought about biting. About cursing Zenobia for trying to instigate with her in front of Alliance members, but the only thing she bit was her tongue.
After a moments pause, after she really thought about what she wanted to say, she met the gaze of her Turian colleague, "I can try to help them from their detention. I don't know what my word weighs to them, but... maybe I can try something else."
She thought of her mother, of her influence and hold in the Alliance. If there was ever a day to them that the name Wistrom meant something, it was today.
"Hey if you can make it work..." Zenobia says, trailing off as she picks up a bit of junk and looks it over.
"Er...sorry if I caused trouble..." she says after a long pause. "I kinda have a low tolerance for the system that chews folks up and spits them out again, ya know?"
As Zenobia's eyes adjusted, she could see two quarians doing something to the shuttle (at 20 meters away from the entrance), one quarian using a computer terminal, one carting around mechanical tools and the last one in the middle directing everything.
"Keelah!" The cart pusher literally jumped at the sight of Zenobia. The cart toppled over and the quarian tripped on a mess of spilled tools.
The quarians at the computer and the shuttle all stopped whatever they were doing and turned to the turian intruder. The computer user's omni-tool lit up, the quarian at the shuttle engine stood tensely with a wrench in hand and the one fiddling under the shuttle door came up too quickly, bumped their head and fell back down.
However, their leader was the first to act. Unholstering a carnifex pistol and pointing it toward Zenobia, his tone was not one of welcome.
"Who the hell are you?" The quarian leader barked. "This is a private hangar. Get lost!"
While distracted by the turian, a small door at the rear of the hangar was all but forgotten. And neither was anyone watching the ladder leading up to the maintenance walkway.
"With pleasure, but first..." Zenobia, heedless of the gun pointed at her, cranes her neck to get a better look at the shuttle. "Nice ship. Who does it belong to?"
"Us."
Zenobia could see areas of the shuttle typically marked had been freshly scrubbed.
"That narrows it down succinctly." She takes a few steps forward, barely even acknowledging the weapon pointed at her. "Who's 'us', exactly? Because 'us' looks like they just got done scrubbing the markings off of a shuttle they found." Zenobia's been around the seedier parts of the galaxy long enough to recognize what was going on. Hell, her first job was as a lookout for salvagers trying to claim seemingly abandoned spacecraft at omega for salvage.
"None of your business. What, you never seen people clean their spacecraft before?" The quarian boss grunted.
His finger moved closer to the trigger when Zenobia stepped forward. "That's close enough, any closer and-"
The computer user interrupted. "Boss, truck coming from the control tower!"
"You bosh'tet! Damn snitch!" The boss snarled.
A truck? Zen didn't call for a truck. The boss' choice of words piqued her interest though.
"Oho, what are you up to that can be snitched on, then?"
That was long enough. Nobody had immediately started shooting, and Solveig knew she was still in cover she'd followed Zen slowly around.
The boss was now in a time crunch, and was about to be in another.
Solveig moved silently behind him. Her cybernetic went first, lacing over his shoulder to pin his neck in the elbow.
They had as soon as that truck arrived to get out of here. She knew it. Zen knew it. Solveig hoped the boss knew too.
Her cloak lifted, and fast as lightning she was the ghastly tall form behind him. "It's in your best interest to tell the truth now," she said, momentarily casting a glare to the other Quarians. A warning. "Or..." she tightened her grip just so, "pop."
The wrench wielding quarian was about to charge Solveig.
"Wait, no, wait, everyone!" Boss quarian pleaded. "Please, let's all be reasonable. No pop!"
"Alright, my name is Kenn and we're uh...freelance spacecraft recyclers." He admitted. "But someone hired us to be here; a human called Armistan Banes! Said if we pull the black box for him, we get to keep the shuttle."
Kenn gestured to the computer, where the black box was indeed hooked up to. The computer user's omni-tool shifted nervously between Zenobia and Solveig, but the quarian's real worry seemed to be on the screen.
"Truck's almost here, boss..." Computer quarian warned.
"Hold on, you aren't with the alliance, yeah? Alliance doesn't kick in their own door and hold people at gunpoint. Do they?" Kenn blurted out. "We'll give you the shuttle, if you uh, vouch for us."
"Bad idea." Wrench wielding quarian spat.
"Look, Banes doesn't give a shit about us. He's got those Reds." Kenn tried to reason to both his own crew and the intruders. "We'll quit this job, okay? Do we have a deal?"
"Makes things easy, sure. Get your guys out of here and we'll pretend we never saw you, you won't have to get caught up in...the..."
Zenobia trails off for a moment, then her eyes widen in realization.
"...KENN?" She shouts in surprise. "Holy shit, what are you doing here, dude? It's me, Zenny!"
"Zenny...Zenobia! Lunatic! Wow, small galaxy, huh?" Kenn realized. "Uh yeah so, we were legit contractors, were. Guess now we're unemployed and dextro food's getting expensive, you know?"
"And please tell your scary human pal to let me go?"
Solveig frowned slightly, but did as he asked. Letting the man go but being careful to set her gaze on the jumpier ones of his crew.
"Now, chances of us getting the shuttle, black box, and out of here before this truck arrives is slim..." She furrowed a brow.
"How long before it gets here?"
Now.
An alliance-marked M-080 APC stopped in front of hangar 14. Its blinding headlights poured through the doors Zenobia kicked in. Eight heavily armed military personnel emerged from it, six humans and two turians.
"Back door?" Kenn and his crew were grabbing the black box and whatever else they could carry. They were no doubt seen, and the time to leave was now or never.
But running would also be very suspicious. The military personnel weren't messing around.
"Or maybe you can talk our way out of this?" Kenn hesitated.
“Not likely.”
The eight armed figures strode through the door by two’s, spreading intervals as they entered the hangar. All were fully geared up and ready for action weapons half raised. They wore helmets concealing their faces, including the unit leader who was adorned with a TACC Death Mask. As the seven subordinates maintained a spread between them and remained in a “ready” stance the leader stepped forward to speak, “Captain Riley, I’m here to impound this craft.”
“And while we’re at it,” she added, “you Quarians, you’re all under arrest for looting.” On Riley’s final word the seven other soldiers all raised their weapons to sight, picking a target and holding aim on them. All five of the Quarians were covered as were the two new arrivals.
“Who are you two supposed to be?” Riley demanded of the human and Turian women.
"Damn everyone really wants this thing for themselves, don't they?" Zenobia, again heedless of any weapons pointed at her, steps forward and flashes her identifier. "Well I hate to break it to you Riley Wiley but since this is SRN property I'm here to take it back to SRN."
Things were heating up, that was to be sure, and nobody was getting out of this one easily. Sol took in the details of each of the soldiers, and of the truck. At least they were Alliance. She was Alliance. But she was Alliance now off-duty and at the scene of what they thought was a crime. She took a breath a stepped forward slowly, she knew that name. Riley... Riley...
"Captain Riley... Captain Lee Riley. Commendation for actions on Cyone." She paused, and tried to relax her shoulders, tried to soften her gaze. "Solveig Wistrom, N7 Special Ops. I think there is a misunderstanding here."
Captain Riley hesitated, Solveig Wistrom…, she knew who that was, wholly by word of deed. The Captain glanced at the female Turian noting her ID. Riley Wiley?…
The Quarians were getting fidgety, more than they already were anyway, two of them shuffling their three-toed feet and glancing around. “Everyone stay where you are!” barked one of Riley’s men, voiced warbled by his helmet.
Riley took a few steps closer to Zenobia and Solveig, looking between them and deciding to first address Zenobia, “This shuttle is due for impound, I’m here for it.” Riley looked to Solveig, “No point in tossing around credentials. I have a job to do, two now actually - impound this shuttle and take in these looters.”
“Thanks for tipping me off actually, that elaborate little entrance you made was enough to perk curiosities.”
One quarian wasn't having any of it. The wrench wielder, already on edge before, didn't bother waiting for Kenn's command or obeying Riley's orders.
"Fuck this shit!" The quarian bolted for the back door. "I'm out!"
"And we have the same order to get the shuttle-" Solveig began before the Quarian bolted out. "Jäkla!" She said, turning away from Riley to watch as he escaped.
“Shit!” Riley spat.
One of Riley’s men swiveled around, about to fire his Avenger at the Quarian, “Stop, let him go!” Riley shouted, “Secure everyone else!”
Four of Riley’s men began fast walking towards Kenn and the others, weapons trained directly at their chests. Captain Riley remained where she was as the three others of her squad closed in behind her, keeping their weapons half raised, nervously watching Solveig and Zennobia.
"Damn it," Zenobia muttered, eyes darting between the quarians and the soldiers. "If you're really going to do this you'd better buy me chocolates first," Zenobia says, lowering herself into a combat stance while glaring at the troopers approaching her.
Solveig looked once more to Riley. "We have the same order, there's no danger here Captain. I'm sure we can work this out..." the woman tried to smile, "besides, think of the paperwork we'll both get out of?"
Something clicks and the gears start turning in Zenobia's head. She grabs Solveig by the shoulder. "Hold up, what about the quarians? You're really just going to sell these guys out to save our necks and get the shuttle? Just like that?"
Solveig twitched at the touch and whatever smile she had melted away and made room for a glare. "Who said I'm selling anyone out?" She warned. What was Zenobia thinking? "Back down."
"Oh yes, back down so we can let Stormtrooper Jane over here get to the curbstomping!" Zenobia shouts, playing it up to draw the attention of the soldiers. "Was that your plan the whole time or was fucking me like this a spontaneous decision??"
The Infiltrator scowled. "You're out of line, I'll remind you again to back down, and back off," she glared threateningly toward to Turian, rolling her shoulder slightly before glancing, for but a split second, apologetically toward Captain Riley. "Next warning will be with force."
Kenn was in shock.
He was in shock when Riley's troops showed up. He was in shock when the one of his own took off without a care in the world. Most importantly, he was in shock at how casually Riley let someone fleeing arrest get away, but gave him no leniency when he put up absolutely zero resistance.
Of course, Kenn was in shock when Zenobia and her crude human "ally" were about to turn on one another. His hands started to shake, desperately trying to find something to say. Wait, they said the shuttle was the property of...
"SRN!" Kenn blurted out, loud enough for his words to reverberate around the hangar. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, Captain Lee'Riley vas Wiley! We're all with SRN!"
"There's no looting, just a, uh, sudden maintenance call!" Kenn continued to blabber. "Sorry we didn't notify you, but I'm sure our first-class legal team at SRN will clear up the misunderstanding, and our very well-funded finance department will take care of any outstanding fees!"
"Uh, there's is an SRN legal team, right?" Kenn changed to a whisper for just Solveig and Zenobia. "Hey, we're on the same side,...right?"
Seeing no immediately change in anyone's posture, Kenn lowered his voice to whisper to just Zenobia. "I'm going for the shuttle if shit blows. It's been rigged for snap take off."
Zenobia blinked, a slight smile appearing on her face...
".....yyyeesss....SRN. We're all in SRN. These guys aren't looting anything, we're just overseeing the recovery and repair of our ship." Zenobia slips easily from faux-outrage to faux-professionalism.
"What's an SRN?" Another quarian perked up.
"Enough!" Solveig sighed, too overstimulated and too tired for the hijinks. "I just," she breathed out, closing her eyes, "want to get the shuttle," she said assertively, "and find Katya.
She then dropped down into a low squat, resting her elbows on her knees to place her head in her hands to massage her temples.
"You want to impound the shuttle, let me take the fucking blackbox then. I'll return it to the Alliance." She lifted her head up, her eyes stare as intense as ever in the direction of Riley. "Do we have a deal?"
Captain Riley sighed in exasperation beneath her visor. The lead Quarian was lying in desperation, that was obvious enough to Riley even before his counterpart blurred out their clumsy remark. Between the Quarians and the human-Turian pair before her Riley was at her patience’s end with this whole scenario. Her soldiers kept the Quarians secure, the ones at her back also at the ready. The strange Turian seemed to be the only one that cared about the Quarians while Solveig was more worried about the shuttle, namely the blackbox. Riley was not particularly interested in a heated exchange, much less an outright shoot-out all over a damned shuttle and some scavengers. Not when there were bigger issues to handle these days, to put it lightly.
The Captain shifted her feet, addressing Solveig, “Look, tell you what, just take the shuttle then. With the way things are right now I dare say a shuttle removed late from it’s hangar is at the top of everyone’s worries. But the Quarians are being detained for looting and that’s that. We don’t need vultures picking about right now. That’s my counter offer for you.”
Riley looked to Zenobia, “If you care so much about these five- four… your free to have your ‘SRN legal team’ vouch for them after this.”
Zenobia scowls, dropping any facade she was putting up to try and throw them off. "Fine...we'll take the shuttle," she growls. "But these guys didn't do anything wrong. They got misled and were hired by someone else to take the shuttle."
"What!?" Kenn astonished. "Yeah ok, we'll be released soon, yeah?"
Kenn looked to Zenobia for support, though his focus was also darting between the pistol he dropped earlier and the open shuttle door.
“Don’t even think about it.” Captain Riley snapped at Kenn.
*Zenobia glances back at Kenn with a small smirk.* "Don't worry, I've never left you hanging before."
She then rounds on the Captain, the lightness in her tone vanishing. "We're not done here. I know what you jackboots like to do to 'vultures' like us, and we're not going to leave them rotting in some cell for the crime of trying to survive. So you'd better behave around them or you're going to see me when I get REALLY upset, comprende?" The entire time Zenobia draws uncomfortably close to the captain, though her biotics never spark off once.
"You have my thanks Captain," Solveig said with a relieved smile as she sighed out one more time, standing back up to her full height.
She felt... tense now, around her mission partner. If it wasn't for Katya being missing, she'd have quit SRN on the spot - in saying that, it's not like she couldn't use her own resources to find her cousin...
"Why is the Alliance wanting to impound this anyway? With a whole truckload of soldiers too? Must be important."
“Get out of my face, Turian.” Captain Riley snapped as she stepped to the side. As her men rounded up Kenn and the others, herding them toward the hangar door, Captain Riley looked to Solveig with a shrug, “The shuttle was due for impound, the reason I brought along this whole team was because of all the racket - that and lots of… suspicious and unsavory characters lurking about these days. We have to be careful after all. These Quarians may be illegally scavenging but there is way worse than them to be found around.”
"No kidding."
Kenn was in a mix of relief and resignation. Seeing Zenobia standing up to the captain made him feel a little less helpless. He would not leap for the shuttle or reach for his pistol.
"Alright, Captain vas Wiley, you can take us to, uh, temporary detention." He put up his hands and signaled for his crew to do the same. "Until SRN secures our release, of course."
As he was being led away, the quarian nodded to Zenobia. "Sorry I called you bosh'tet earlier, and thanks for having my back. I appreciate having a friend out here."
"Even if it's only one friend." He added for Solveig.
With the shuttle secured, and the team leaving, Solveig wanted nothing more than to call it and head back. Her stare lingered on the shuttle as the Quarians were taken away; she didn't register the comment.
"Let's get moving too," she eventually sighed out. "The other teams will be waiting on us."
"Sounds good! And uh, sorry about shouting at you earlier. Trying to confuse them and all."
There's a distinctive pause.
"I was never the one in charge of...tactics and stuff." She admits sheepishly.
Solveig thought about biting. About cursing Zenobia for trying to instigate with her in front of Alliance members, but the only thing she bit was her tongue.
After a moments pause, after she really thought about what she wanted to say, she met the gaze of her Turian colleague, "I can try to help them from their detention. I don't know what my word weighs to them, but... maybe I can try something else."
She thought of her mother, of her influence and hold in the Alliance. If there was ever a day to them that the name Wistrom meant something, it was today.
"Hey if you can make it work..." Zenobia says, trailing off as she picks up a bit of junk and looks it over.
"Er...sorry if I caused trouble..." she says after a long pause. "I kinda have a low tolerance for the system that chews folks up and spits them out again, ya know?"
