[h3]Illyria, Elysium, Four Days Later…[/h3] 

For The Jury Riggers, the voyage back was uneventful and perhaps more than a little tense. Whatever events had transpired on Virmire had left its share of scars, both physical and otherwise, with most of the crew. Each member went around doing their duties, many staying out of each other’s way and actively avoiding conversations with certain individuals. Tanya herself largely kept to her work area, working on routine maintenance to both the Yolac and Kite with her music even louder than usual; it was all but a sign that she didn’t want to be bothered.

For Tanya, coping with things was simply a matter of removing people from the equation and focusing on her work. There were times she wanted to talk to people about serious shit from time to time; she was only human after all, but as a whole when things started to turn into the depressing shit show that had preoccupied most of the crew of the [I]Borealis[/I] since the fuck-up that was their mission on Virmire. Vellios had all but locked himself in his quarters, Serena was ridden with guilt and feeling helpless, Haze was all too aware of Vellios’ anger at him for “abandoning” Serena, Drono was in screeching agony, and Tonka… seemed happy, for whatever reason. He never made it a secret he was along for the ride with the team to see how badly a team could fuck up from the beginning, and with Kasy gone; he acted like he was told he was going to be a father or whatever the krogan equivalent of life goals were. 

She still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her own predicament. Had she overreacted to what Vellios and Iosif did, how they reacted? Perhaps, but she still felt her anger was justified. It was just one of those situations where logic didn’t trump emotions, and she felt like her trust was violated. It was a hideous feeling, especially since deep down, she knew they were both making the best of an unenviable and shitty situation; the cuffs were literally all there were at hand. While she resolved to work past it and try to accept it as a situation come and gone, she knew it wouldn’t be so easy just to drop it from her mind, especially since Serena was now in the now and whatever her issues, one thing she was good for was not letting an issue die if it concerned Vellios. He’d almost certainly be getting an earful about the whole ordeal, which made Tanya groan just thinking about it. Some things just needed to get buried fast, and their spat was one of them. 

She’d just have to carry on like everything was normal, or at least force herself to. It was naïve to think a bunch of strangers weren’t going to have growing pains in the beginning. The important thing was most of them were still alive, with Kasy still a big mystery. She didn’t know the quarian that well, past the fact she seemed to be a bit too intense, but still, it was another person in her life gone in the line of duty. It was worth toasting her in drink, at least. She had passed by Dex through the corridor leading to the cockpit earlier, with a prompt asked, [color=cyan]”Drinks?”[/color]

[color=007236]”Drinks.”[/color] the turian affirmed, and both carried on their respective ways. As far as Tanya was concerned, the encounter was a binding agreement.

The rest of the voyage remained more or less as awkward and tense as it was at the outset, with silent meals, avoided eye contact and conversations among much of the crew, and by the time the [I]Borealis[/I] touched down on Elysium, there was a sense of relief just to be out of the confining steel alloy hull as a bunch of forced acquaintances.  It was only a short shuttle ride to Hecate Base for a debriefing with Donnelly, and the relief was short lived.

The crux of the mission was that the remaining armour and weapons they didn’t manage to sell were returned and the team had to explain why exactly they managed to not only compromise their entire operation, but fail to offload all of their cargo, and there was always a chance that what they did get rid of was going to be handled suspiciously. Unfortunately, because the tracked equipment wasn’t distributed, only a handful of the total gear was providing the data the team was sent to collect, namely where the weapons and armour would have been distributed to lead to further contracts to strike against the operations of the gangs and illicit groups that used the smuggler camp on Virmire. While the mission wasn’t a complete failure, it would have been hilariously inadequate to describe it being remotely close to a success. Donnelly was not happy, to say the least, even going so far as to rebuke himself for giving the up and coming Riggers the benefit of the doubt; it was a job for professionals.

And so, the mission was concluded with a 15,000 credit paycheque, a fraction of what they would have been looking at had the mission been successful, and the team was escorted out of the base. They would have to scour Illyria for potential contracts to take on, but for the time being, it was widely agreed on that shore leave was direly needed. Agreeing to meet back at the Borealis in two days’ time, The Jury Riggers headed back to the ship to make their arrangements for the following days to recharge and to put the unfortunate setback behind them. 

While the mission to Virmire definitely fell apart in the worst way possible, the Riggers did gain two new vehicles which would expand their contract options, and 15,000 credits would certainly get enough fuel and supplies to take them to their next operation.

[center][h3]Mission Complete: Virmire[/h3][/center]