[I]Stolen Corvette, Somewhere in the Eagle Nebula…[/I]

“And we lost ‘em.” Saseen announced after the Corvette had slipped out of FTL travel after making a pair of Mass Relay jumps from the Nemean Abyss. Tanya slumped back in her captain’s chair, exhaling a sigh of relief. The mess on Cartagena Station was behind them, the light Corvette they had stolen from Siame Industries was now safely in the team’s possession. All that remained was to reprogram the ship’s IFF signature and keep monitoring Siame Industries’ communications to keep off of their radar until it was time to strike. A lot of the team was injured escaping the hanger, the C-Pat response much swifter and more violent than anticipated, and there were casualties from all parties involved. Valok and Kesik, the two batarians, died in the hanger after being caught in the open by C-Pat’s response team. Sleuth was a bigger blow; the hacker’s skills were a vital part of the operations moving forward, and the malformed turian had been taken down when C-Pat’s response team breached the Administrator’s office. The rest of the team had managed to escape more or less intact, save Henrik, and if all went well, the information left behind, such as lodging records and security footage, would have been erased. There wasn’t much Tanya could have done about meeting Administrator Var’uuk in person, but she had used an alias and a secured account to secure the funds for The Jalopy. While she didn’t doubt the batarian was fuming and would stop at no ends to discover her and Kosso’s identities, there wasn’t much an isolated station like Cartagena could do; it didn’t share databanks with anywhere else in the galaxy, and that’s precisely why Tanya had picked it to launch this escapade. Crime happened there all the time; a few gunfights weren’t going to draw the attention from the Council.

It would barely register in the minds of the people Tanya [I]wanted[/I] to get the attention from. They would be changing that in due time, all uprisings took time to gain momentum. For now, being alive was enough.

“Well, that crazy shit’s behind us.” Tanya said to the crew assembled around the CIC and cockpit. The SI crewmembers that they had cornered here had been released instead of executed. There wasn’t much they could say that the rest of Siame Industries didn’t already know, which is that one of their ships had been stolen. After skillfully dodging the larger, heavier ships that were acting as escorts for the corvette, Saseen had skillfully piloted the ship to the Mass Relay and raced to the next relay with Iosef acting as a navigator. All the others could do were monitor the ship’s already excellently maintained systems and hope they made a clean break-away, which thankfully happened. “You all did damn fine work, and now we’re out of the fire, we can take some time to breathe and make our next plan. I propose we scour the ship’s systems and find what juicy information we can find about Siame Industries and start hitting them where it hurts; take out key personnel, supply depots, headquarters, you name it. The more Siame bleeds, the more people will rally to our cause. I also want each of you guys to see if you can’t dig up some contacts who will be willing it to stick it to these wankers, because as much as I love the romantic notions of a lone ship taking on the Evil Empire, that’s a great way to get us all killed in the most embarrassingly pointless way possible.” She said, looking at the gathered faces. She couldn’t get a read off of most of them; her people skills still were fairly hopeless. “We all joined up for this knowing there’s a chance we could all die, and we’ve already seen the truth in that. I never thought I’d feel bad about seeing dead batarians, but Kesik and Valok both believed in this enough to have given their lives so we could carry on the mission. After we get settled and somebody scrounges up something to drink, we’ll have a bit of a memorial service for them and Sleuth. Nobody who signed on for this is going to be forgotten, I promise you all that. We can’t change what happened or ever make up for the loss, but we can honour our comrades in arms. Let’s not let their sacrifice mean nothing. Siame Industries will pay for that and for forcing us into doing this in the first place.” She said, rising up from her seat. 

“Alright, this shit’s getting heavy.” She said with an apologetic smile. “We’re still all strangers here, and I aim to change that. Let’s settle in our new home and figure out where the hell everything is. The way I see it, there’s about twenty sleeping compartments, ten per side of the deck, so we at least get to pick which tiny and crammed hole in the wall we want to call home. I’ll take an end one close to the hanger, where I’ll be working when duties up here don’t require my attention.” She said, looking around the CIC. “Oh, and I have no idea what the fuck this ship’s called, so if any of you can come up with something better than the first vulgar thing that comes to my mind, we’ll rechristen it after getting utterly shitfaced tonight.” She said as a way of dismissal and she made her way to the lower deck where everyone’s containers and the sleeping quarters were located. 

After dragging her equipment to the hanger to set up a workshop for later, Tanya took her personal effects to an end cabin on the Port side of the hallway and took a few minutes to check to see if there were any security systems in place for each of the room. Finding none, it became quickly apparent that a simple sliding door without locks was the only privacy any of them were going to have. Each of the sleeping cabins was quite crammed and Spartan, a small desk and chair were attached at the end of the single bed, a standing locker was at the back wall where a crewmember could store his or her armour, up to four weapons, and other equipment in the primary compartment. The three drawers at the bottom were for clothing and other personal effects. It was about shoulder and a half width between the wall and the bed, as space was at a premium. It was hardly the comparatively luxurious room she had on the Tyrus, where she had her own personal shower and room to set up a painting easel. Military vessels ever took consideration for personal expression. Going through the drawers of her new room, she was suddenly presented with the condensed life of a salarian crew member. The personal effects would find their way to the airlock soon enough. 

Having peeled herself out of her armour, Tanya had set to work unpacking her equipment in the hanger near the gunship, more as a relaxing exercise than one of necessity. Back on Tyrus, her workshop and digging into the guts of some piece of machinery had been her refuge from the troubles of the day, of which there were always many. For nearly a solid month after joining Nova, Tanya had barely spoken to anyone on the team past work related issues. After missions, she’d either retreat wordlessly to her cabin or her workshop and bury herself in something to keep everyone at arm’s length. She had always been mechanically inclined, ever since she was a teenager. Even in military service, she enlisted as a combat marine instead of a mechanic or combat engineer and still somehow found a way to gravitate towards repairing war materials. In some ways, it was the only thing that kept her mind intact and moving forward when the world seemed to be falling apart around her. [I]Christ, Mindoir feels like a lifetime ago… I probably should have seen a therapist.[/I] she thought, smiling as she pulled up a box filled with upgrades and components for Shithead, her combat drone, recalling the close call she had on Kahje when her, Kosso, and the rest of Nova were attempting a daring information heist on a hanar crime lord that ended up sinking his entire damn ship. It was the only time, so far, her IFF signatures gave out and her combat drone tried to kill her. She resolved to not overwork her omnitool to the point of failure again after that.

Her thoughts moved to the team Kosso and her had assembled, a bunch of criminals through and through. It was an odd sensation, starting fresh again with all new people. She had barely gotten to really know and accept Nova before deciding to jump ship to stay ahead of the law. She paused her work, deep in thought as a realization hit her. She was falling back into old habits, isolating herself. How the hell was she going to lead these people or even have them trust her if she shied away from talking to them? She was going to have to make changes, or she was going to get everyone aboard killed for being a shitty example. 

“Ah, fuck.” She muttered, setting down the parts box and looking towards the gunship. She’d do a quick look-over to figure out exactly what they had on their hands before trying to see what SI had squirrelled away in their onboard systems. Taking the ship was the easy part.

Talking to people was going to be the hard part.