Little Gideon had a concussion, eh? Lionel had suffered one of those before when certain business deals ended up going less than smoothly. Funnily enough, he couldn't remember exactly what caused that concussion or what he did while out of sorts. In fact, the only reason he knew about the concussion was because Marsha had told him about it after waking up after the fact. That he remembered because it was one of the rare times she wasn't being a total nuxing gou. She had a big plate of breakfast and a great big smile on her face that seemed to fade when she saw him get out of bed.

Wait a shuǐdào dǎjiāng minute.

Distracted by the internal outrage thoughts about his ex-wife usually brought up, Lionel nodded his head in assention when Dorothy told him to stay with Gideon. He followed behind Gideon and Dorothy as they left the engine room, not because he had any particularly powerful urge to avoid the now inevitable Alliance reaming that was en route for the crew, nor because he may have shared Dorothy's altruistic urge to catch the engineer if he fell (although if Gideon did fall backwards, Lionel would probably try to catch him), must for the far simpler fact that he had just recovered from a back injury and the aches from this most recent ship crash did not leave him in the mood to walk any faster than absolutely necessary.

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The rush of planetary air caressing his face seemed like a luxury, until the relative heat of the local climate took hold. Optimistic sarcasm prompted comment, naturally. "I say, when someone writes the ballad of this little endeavor, they mayhap would note that the extremely well outfitted gentleman from Farraday was seen to perspire. I do hope future music aficionados do not take it as a sign of momentary weakness."

On the surface, Foy unslung his Callahan and checked its scope, doing a quick read for distance and sweeping the exterior of the vessel(s) ahead of them. From this distance, pistols would be of little use. A good shot with a rifle, even a shorter barreled one like the one in Foy's manicured hands, might be the deciding factor in a conflict until they closed the gap. Unless, of course, they had the capacity to fire ship-to-ship armament. The thought caused that Gentleman Barber to glance over his shoulder, back at the Retribution. "I have, at this moment, a question and a pressing suggestion, fellows. I shall start with the suggestion, as it might be the more immediate of the two: It appears that our esteemed Pilot colleague has pointed us directly at the damaged ship we hope to intercept on foot, I must assume to keep weapons vigorously fixed upon it. To that end, I suggest we amble a few paces to the side of a direct line, perhaps?"

"And as to question: One of us has a clear line of communication with the ship, yes? I should hate to be out of touch for too long."

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Good suggestion but too late, seems we are expected," Quinn said in a flat tone as he eyes Anisa with her hand on Camilla and watched her draw her side arm and stick the barrel of the the gun into Camilla's side. "Don't do anything stupid Captain Crowe," he warned as a flash of worry went through his features before they were buried back down in him and his face went as cold and stoic as ever.

"Shut yer trap Quinn. I know your ship can blow us out of the waters but this little tart here means something to ya, don't think I wouldn't put a bullet in to her pretty back side just to spite you if you did anything to harm my crew," Anisa hissed as she stood there and jabbed Camilla so hard in the side that she caused the woman to flinch in pain.

"Now, let us all take a deep breath, this is most unbecoming for all of us," Dr. Moreau said as he stepped out between the two groups. His hands out towards each of them with a broad smile on his lips. "We are all on the same side here," he added, to which both Quinn and Anisa scoffed openly at.

Hardly."

"Like hell."

"Of course we are. Are we not all against being raped to death by Reavers? Of course we are. Tis a horrid and unmentionable way to go."

"Then why bring it up..." Camilla piped in and Jahosafat laughed, shrugging.

"As charming as ever beautiful," Jahosafat said with a coy smile.

Over in the engine room of the Vengeance, Gideon stood up slowly, wobbly in the knees as he tried to put on a brave face. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Nothing more than what feels like a hangover," he teased but leaned against the wall as he tried to take a few steps.

"Come with us and you will be treated fairly until your trials are finished."

"Go to hell Quinn, I wouldn't bring my crew with you unless your head was on a pike."

"Now let's be reasonable here. We have bigger problems than what just transpired and your ship doesn't look like it is in any condition to fly anytime soon.

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Have you ever gone for days without drinking any kind of fluids? Imagine the inside of your throat: cracked, hot and tender. Your skin feels like a desiccated husk: the discarded remains of corn skins left out in the sun; now brittle and colorless. The inside of your mouth is not so much the entrance to the body's digestive system, but a biological reconstruction of a desert: sandy with nary a drop of water to be found. Through the haze of delirium you find a pool of water just a few second's walk away, your entire body screams to just run for it, but you know you have to hold yourself back.

This was about the same level of restraint Carla had to maintain to just not shoot somebody right there, let alone maintain a cool facade. Of course, while most people didn't have much experience denying their body's craving when it was sending signals that strong Carla was a professional who had been trained for most of her life to have the mental fortitude to handle much greater stresses than being backed up.

Wait, was that? No it couldn't be. But it was, if there was one person Carla would never, ever mistake for somebody else, it was Genevieve. What was she doing here? What would she think if she saw her here with the Alliance, presumably about to arrest and/or kill everyone she lived with? The cold expression on Carla's face cracked with doubt and nervousness. The assassin averted her eyes to anywhere else in the hopes that Gene wouldn't notice her gaze. Jahosafat if you intentionally set this meeting up like this, I will rip out your toenails while you sleep and jam them into your esophagus.

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Gene stood there with the others while the conversation grew heated. It was obvious that neither side was going to have it easy. She half expected to hear gun shots, but nothing. The Alliance wanted them and especially Camilla and they wanted to leave quickly, maybe taking out the Alliance ship while they were at it. Things were going to get weird.

Gene met Quinn's gaze, albeit briefly. She remembered him and wondered if he remembered the same. It was only a passing thing, but she couldn't forget a face. Or his eyes. It seemed he wanted Camilla and would go to great lengths to get her. Was it love or something else? She couldn't be sure. Oh, if only she could delve into his conscious and find out. That would be quite the session.

As she looked around, her eyes also fell on another familiar figure. Why, it was a small universe after all. Carla. She spent many a night with the woman and she enjoyed her company. The truth was almost out, it seemed. Here she was with an Alliance ship, standing ready to help arrest and/or fight them if it came down to it. She could feel her trying to avoid her eyes. She felt a twinge of pain. She wasn't ready to fight people she cared about, but she had to stand with her crew. She was prepared for that. So she stood defiantly as Anisa and Quinn exchanged a blow of words, preparing for anything to happen.

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Although Lionel walked behind Gideon, they hadn't even managed to leave the engine room without Dorothy feeling extremely worried for the boy. His knees were wobbling and he leaned against the wall as he walked. With her lips pursed, Dorothy knew that Gideon wasn't going to be in good enough shape to get anywhere. And as a doctor, it was her duty to tend to him until he got better. They didn't need any casualties that day.

"Must be some hangovers you have," Dorothy murmured, having a natural reaction against alcohol. It reminded her too much of her father and the life she had escaped on Boros. Alcohol, in any shape of form, was generally abhorrent to her. Too many memories. "Here, take my arm," Dorothy offered, stepping to the side of Gideon. She offered him her non dominant arm, with her sidearm in her other hand.

"Can't have you hit your head again," Dorothy teased, a small twinkle in her eyes. "We don't have the time for you to crack it open and then stitch it back together again."

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Daphne could hear the voices coming from outside of the ship. She didn't want to interrupt, especially since the lives of everyone on Vengeance were probably being talked about right then. The group who was outside of the ship were pretty loud, and it made her edge away from the large opening in the Cargo Bay. She started heading away and back towards the main part of the ship. However, she stopped herself, wondering what would happen if they needed her outside. Daphne figured she would cause more of a hindrance to her sister and those in the Engine Room, and would probably cause more problems if she went outside of the ship.

She had no idea what she was going to do. The only thing she could think of was staying put, and waiting to see what would happen. Daphne knew that she wasn't the best person to have in these types of situations, though she could hold her own quite well in a fire fight. Some members of the crew were just better suited for these types of things then she was, and she was okay with that. The thing she wasn't okay with was having to wait and see what happened. She hated having to sit around doing nothing, just waiting.

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Harper sat in the pilot's seat, feeling an odd mixture of apprehension and boredom. It was like waiting for something terrible to fall upon them; he wished dearly that whatever was going to occur in this next phase of whatever plan Quinn or Dr. Moreau (or whomever was really in charge of this Black Ship fiasco) would just happen, so that he could put these new variables into his master plan to NOT DIE. Harper was very keen on this, the not dying part.

While he waited for something Lovecraftian to be dropped upon them, the Pilot used his free time keeping his eyes upon the surroundings and ears waiting for any feedback from the ship's sensors or the proximity alarm. He wished that he could hear what was being said out there, in front of the ship, but without an audio relay the people in parlay toward the other ship may as well have been telling knock-knock jokes in Hindi or discussing the finer points of slug ranching for bachelorette parties. The most he could accomplish was to enhance the fore imaging and attempt to interpret hand gestures and the like.

At least no one else had tried to crash the party yet. It was one of the benefits to being this far out from the Core: No one seemed to pay you much mind, sitting on an unused piece of landscape off in terraformed creation. Still, for all of Harper's retirement plans, Whitefall was not foremost in the mix.

He really should have insisted upon someone from the crew bringing along a comm. But with broadcast, there was the likelihood, however remote, of someone listening in or recording. At least that's what he hoped the Captain was thinking.

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The presence of a gun in the hands of one the crew of the Vengeance was expected. According to his contract with the Alliance, it was precisely one of the reasons he had been asked aboard. What surprised him, and only mildly, was that the Lady Captain chose to point the barrel at one of her own people. Between this and their earlier conversation, Foy could not help but surmise a more than passing familiarity between Quinn and this woman, now apparently between the gunpoint attentions of both sides of this tiny chunk of drama.

It seemed that the broader talking points had already been established. Anything after this threatened to be more in the style of posturing repetition, a thing which if handled by persons of wit and vocabulary can be a pleasurable experience of tete-a-tete negotiation, but in this instance wasted time and invoked the vanguard of grinding boredom in the face of certain conflict.

Foy raised his hand away from his firearm briefly, tipping his very fine bowler hat to the women opposite him in this meeting. It quickly found its way back to the gentleman's readied Callahan. "Captain, Captain, Ma'am," he began, addressing Quinn, Anisa, and Camilla in turn. "This is all very lovely banter, and I take no small amount of levity at our predicament, but if we are going to start shooting at each other, might we please commence? I take my preferences in catching a bullet or distributing several others to you fine persons well over the raspy affections of the bulk of the Reaver force hurtling toward this vicinity at present."

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Camilla cocked a brow towards Jahosafat, he was acting like he was trying to avoid a fight which was completely unlike him. She had heard of the times Foy and he had fought it out tumbling behind tumbleweeds, shooting out bars, the shenanigans the two would get into. They both, from what she could tell loved to get into a fight and Foys words only cemented that thought in her mind. Then why was Jahosafat standing between the two captains tying to diffuse the situation?

"Come no, let there be no bloodshed here this day. We have had more than our fair share. We are all gods creations."

"Speak for yourself Padre, this fucker is demon spawn," Anisa spat as Jackson came up behind her. Quinn gritted his teeth as his fingers curled around the side piece in its holster.

"As much as I would like for us to have a ripping good time with fisticuffs and more I dare say it would not be wise at this junction. We have bigger problems," Jahosafat stated looking over at Quinn and placing his hand over Quinns which threatened to draw on the others.

"Could you tell us just what that is before this bitch shoots me?" Camilla finally chimed in.

Over on the Retribution Harper would hear alarms. More ships were coming in, it would be around twenty minutes before a fleet of Reavers were on their asses. Sadly over on the Vengeance nothing was heard, the ship was too damaged and Gideon was in no condition to repair shit right then. He just smiled goofily towards Dorothy. "I feel drunk," he said. Seemed he had hit his head a little worse than originally thought. The infirmary was in a mess, things everywhere and even broken. He needed scans they couldn't do on the Vengeance but Dorothy would know that the Alliance ship would have everything she needed.

"When you've got a drunk hangover is when you finally reckon that you're 在一个十英尺深的坑的底部与一个五英尺高的梯子." Lionel stepped forward and grabbed Gideon to support his walking. He wasn't about to let the crew's only engineer accidentally ruin himself. The doctor was offering support, but in situations like these, you had to be more forceful, else shit just wasn't going to end up getting done. But from the looks of things, she wouldn't be able to help much of anyone with the state her office was in.

"Is there anything in here you absolutely require right now? Because if you don't need anything here, all we'll end up getting done is putting ourselves in a prim and proper place for the Alliance goons outside to come 扩大黑洞." The med bay was such an enclosed space that if the Alliance did end up getting in there, the only place to retreat would be back in the Engine Room, which carried all sorts of problems just existing at the moment. Of course close quarters is where he worked best, but he also had to worry about the might-as-well-be-dead weight that was Gideon. Today managed to find more and more way to cóng xiāngyān hé zhōng xīchū xiāngcháng.

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Once the ragtag trio managed to stumble their way into the medical bay, Dorothy's heart sank. Her organized workplace was an epicenter of chaos. Anything in there that could have been useable was either broken or lost amidst the sea of medical supplies. She tried to keep the crestfallen look from her face, but it was easier for her to simply look away from Lionel and Gideon.

Problem was, Gideon's condition seemed to be worse than she initially suspected. Dorothy hated it, sure, but the engineer had become almost entirely worthless. Without access to medical equipment she'd need to take scans, she wouldn't be able to do anything for Gideon. A dark thought entered her mind: Gideon could die. She didn't doubt that Lionel would abandon Gideon to save himself, and in her days with the Alliance, that decision would not have been unheard of. War required tough decisions.

"We need to get him to a proper facility," Dorothy explained, pursing her lips. "Without properly working equipment..." She didn't feel the need to finish that thought. Gideon might be feeling like a happy drunk, but she didn't want to give him any reason to worry. The Vengeance was in no condition to fly, and had the comms been on, Dorothy would have radioed it over to Anisa. "Best be if Gideon gets on the Alliance vessel. They have the supplies I need there."

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It seemed they were at a crossroads. Both sides really didn't want to give in to the demands of the other. They were in no position to sit here and wait for anything to come. The Reavers could come back, for all they knew. It seemed that they would have to work together, at least for now.

The question then was, how would that work? Would the Alliance willingly let them on board with no worry? Would they be locked up and only used when it suited them? She couldn't see that going down well with Anisa or any of them, for that matter. They needed to get Gideon help, they needed their ship fixed. Like it or not, they needed the Alliance.

She was prepared to step forward as the Diplomat in this interaction. She felt confident she could work with everyone to come up with a solution that benefited them both. However, she needed to wait until they heard what needed to be said. Especially if there were, in fact, bigger problems ahead.

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That wait for something terrible to happen had come to a swift end, in a manner most horrifying and predictable. Harper's hands danced across the ship's control panels, issuing unspoken commands to the onboard systems to specify and clarify the nature of the alarm filling his senses. PROXIMITY ALERT blared across his screens, it being the priority alert he wished to scan. If the local Powers-That-Be wanted to come in force, he would make damned sure that the I.A.V. Retribution was ready to fight or fly. Of course, the second obvious difficulty (and the one that was steadily convincing him to deposit a crabcake in his shorts from earlier) was the presence of Reavers. If that one ship was merely a scouting vessel, they had problems.

They had problems. Harper addressed the skeleton crew over the PA. To his credit, his voice only cracked once. "Atten... <ahem>. Attention, this is First Lieutenant William Harper. We have incoming hostiles. Prepare for takeoff the second our crew is onboard." He peered at the fore visuals for a second. "They may be bringing guests, hostile status unknown. That is all."

Of course, the Captain, the Agent, the Doctor, and that foppish Barber were still outside and had absolutely zero idea what was about to rain down upon them all. In a relatively tense fashion, Harper flipped the PA to external audio and held the switch open, allowing the full noise of the alarm to be heard outside of the vessel. Harper's voice accompanied the electronic klaxon, giving it a greater sense of urgency with the dispassionate tone of his words. "We have multiple ships incoming, all with compromised reactor shielding. ETA is less than twenty minutes. Firing engines now, Captain."

Harper breezed through the pre-flight checklist, most of which were moot points considering that they had landed atop bare soil without another functional ship in sight in open airspace. Open for the moment, anyway. William aimed to be long gone by the time the air became cluttered. He engaged the engines, ran basic diagnostics, and prepared to fire the antigrav propulsion to lift them skyward, hopefully with a full crew.

Though if he were honest with himself, the concept of "full crew" was very fluid right then.

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"My, oh my. Captain, Miss Lobo, and my esteemed Doctor Moreau, it appears that our junior pilot is feeling a little antsy. began Foy, still maintaining his rifle's position in the general direction of the crew from the Vengeance. "It appears that we have been caught within the uncheery grasp of an extenuating circumstance, you see."

In his heart of hearts, Foy was rightly nervous about the possibility of being out in the open with an armada of Reaver ships on their way. But he and his had a fast, armed, and most importantly mobile ship not too horribly far back behind them from which to sip fine champagne and make flippant comments about the fate of those who did not.

"Ladies, if you would be as kind as to excuse, I believe we have an egress to attend. I should wish you a positive and amazing last few moments of inhaling and exhaling - which I advise you enjoy in the interim - else you petition the good Captain here for a spot in Cargo. Now, be there a person of business or standing among you, I would absolutely adore the opportunity to parlay post-emergency. But for now, I have somewhere to be. Captain, Josie? What say you?"

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She listened in on the conversation outside, trying to figure out what was going on. They kept talking, and Daphne was surprised that it hadn't turned into a shoot out yet. With both Captains clearly itching for an excuse to pull the trigger, made her curious about the fact as to what was preventing them from shooting. She didn't really know anything about the Alliance Captain, but she figured that Anisa was probably trying to scare him into letting them go or something like that. This made Daphne smile, since she had no intention of going with the Alliance anywhere.

She headed out of the Cargo Bay, deciding to see if the others on board needed anything. She heard voices coming from inside of the Med Bay, and figured she'd head there. Daphne figured that Dorothy was doing the best that she could to patch people up, but who knew what was going on. She remembered passing by it earlier, and wondered what Dorothy thought about the mess. She walked over to the entrance and saw her sister with Lionel and Gideon, who wasn't looking the best. "Hey, how you guys doing back here. So far this has yet to turn into a shoot out, but it still might by the end," she said, looking at the three.

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Well the shit was hitting the proverbial fan and Quinn seemed almost joyous about the turn of events. Granted he was not one to jump around and fist pump in mid air but the slightest break of cold exterior cracked when a curl of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Seems you all can come with us or you can face them," he quipped coldly, holding his hand out to Camilla as his other rested on his side arm. A glint of steel in his eyes showed he didn't care what happened to anyone on the Vengeance besides Camilla and it seemed he was ready to kill to take her along with them.

Camilla bit her bottom lip as she felt Anisa's grip tighten on her arm. Placing the captain in this type of position was not something that ever went down well. Yes, there were Reavers coming but Camilla felt that Anisa would rather die with her ship than set foot on the Retribution. She was right but Anisa was a captain and took her duties seriously. Her crew came first.

Jahosafat saw the stalling and took a deep breath. "We have a much larger conundrum than Reavers my good lady," he started out before giving as quick of an explanation as he could about the Alliances plans to basically turn this rock in the sky into another Shadow where everyone would die so the Reavers could not add to their numbers.

The color threatened to drain from Anisa's features, it did drain from Atticus's. Jackson was spouting hatred from his mouth until Anisa held her hand up and released Camilla, gritting her teeth hard. "Get everyone and everything we need on the Retribution within five minutes." The command was cold, and hate filed, feeling like acid as it slipped over her tongue.

"Now!" she added as she grabbed Camilla's arm and shoved her pistol back into Camila's ribs. "She's my insurance. Anyone gets hurt or you turn us over and this pretty little thing will get a bullet to the base of her skull while you watch," she said with some amount of satisfaction towards Quinn causing anger to fare in his eyes.

Atticus didn't need to be told twice and was already headed into the ship to start gathering everyone. Jackson stood there for a moment before reluctantly turning and heading into the Vengeance to grab what he could. Time was limited and they needed to move, now. Between the Alliance, the incoming Reavers, and Gideon acting drunk - it was definitely time to blow.

"Well ain't that a capital prospect that we're about to endeavor upon. Come on, sweetheart we're burning daylight. You stay awake too, kid." Lionel shook Gideon a bit before he carry-walked the engineer out of the Med Bay. Make sure he didn't get too complacent and start nodding off in his drunken stupor.

The Alliance crew he walked out to see sure did not match what he had expected to find: two men in dress he expected for high-class parties among the social elite on the Rim, a woman dressed to kill (in the literal sense of the words) and somebody actually wearing the uniform of an Alliance Officer with eyes that burned like Mercury. He was presumably the Captain of the ship just over yonder with its guns pointed at the Vengeance and engines roaring. And on this side of the field was Atticus with a look of shock and horror on his face, and Captain Crowe holding a pistol right up to Camilla's guts, presumably using her as a bargaining token. Peachy keen.

"Pardon my intrusion, but this lovely doctor and I have an injured man," Lionel shook Gideon both to indicate who he was talking about and to keep him in-check, "in dire need of a right 'n' proper medical facility. This ain't the time to be askin' such a question, but we'd really appreciate it if'n you would be kind enough to lend use of your ship's Med Bay for this just and cocksuckin' noble purpose."

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She half expected it really, but it seemed like they would be going on the Alliance vessel. She didn't picture it being a smooth ride either. The Captain had her gun on Camilla and Gene was sure she would use it given the chance. However, they had other pressing matters. Gene quickly ran inside to grab what she could to meet them on board the ship. She also made a stop at her personal shuttle to grab some of her own essentials. She had a feeling she wouldn't be seeing it anytime soon.

She made a mental note to talk to Carla when things blew over. It was good to see her, though the circumstances could be better. She also needed to talk to Quinn. And Anisa. And Camilla for that matter. This was definitely cause for a therapy session. Tensions were high. Feelings were rampant. She followed the others as they made their way on to the Alliance vessel. It wasn't her first time, but now wasn't the time to dwell on that. By all accounts, she was a member of the Vengeance and she expected to be treated as such. She wondered if they would lock them up. She half expected it. If that were the case, she'd make every argument against it. She was sure Anisa would capitalize on her threat and Camilla would suffer. They didn't want that.

Things were getting interesting, to say the least.

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Dorothy nodded grimly at Daphne. The prospect of a shootout, on top of the injuries Gideon had already sustained, didn't seem to give them good odds. It was a big leap of faith to assume that the Alliance would allow them to use the Retribution's medical bay, and an even bigger one to assume that she wouldn't be arrested and tried in a military tribunal for desertion and aiding the browncoat cause. But with Gideon's drunkenly state, she decided to put her patient before herself.

"Nice and easy now," Dorothy instructed, assisting Lionel in getting Gideon out of the medical bay and to the landing site. The mechanic hadn't lost consciousness yet, and for that, Dorothy was grateful. "Gideon, need you to keep talking." The slight drawl of Boros almost bled into her voice from the stress of the situation, and Dorothy had to stop herself from asking Gideon to run his mouth like water from a spicket.

Once they were outside, she couldn't help but be a bit surprised by the situation--namely, the people present. It had been years since Dorothy had last seen Quinn. Her eyes widened ever so slightly. During the war, they had been in the same unit together--she might have even patched him up once or twice. They had been friends. Once Dorothy understood what was happening, with Atticus gathering everyone from the Vengeance and instructing them to head to the Retribution, Dorothy turned her attention to her patient.

"He banged his head up real good," Dorothy grimaced. "I need to treat him properly--take a few scans, if you'd be so kind as to let me use your med bay."

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The minutes ticked by with unerring surety. Harper was unsure as to whether time was moving faster or the people on the ground were intentionally dragging their feet. He suspected that his personal anxiety about the situation was coloring his judgement. In fact, he was certain of it. But that certainty did absolutely nothing to assuage his pressing need to get off of this godforsaken rock before the armada of Reavers got close enough to track his intended destination upon takeoff.

Naturally, he tried very hard to keep any of his pant-darkening tension from showing externally. Unless they were looking very hard, all anyone could see of the new Pilot was quiet readiness, coupled with a high state of alert. On the inside, he was a Battle Royale of howler monkeys, locked in a steel cage with a sack of uncut cocaine and a single running chainsaw to pass the eye gouging, testicle rupturing next twenty minutes.

Well, to absolute Hóuzi Qiángjiān Hell with that. Harper keyed in a coordinate inquiry into the onboard navigation computer, plotted a near midway point, and calculated another possible route from said point. He didn't want those people-gnawing bastards following them, but if they did manage to pick up their trail, Harper wanted them to travel someplace with a decent population and formidable defenses.

"Move your ass, Captain..." he muttered quietly, tapping his fingers on his console. He was really itching to seal up the Retribution and break atmo. Eighteen minutes left. He figured he would need at least a five minute head start.

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"Well, isn’t THAT a fine How-Do-You-Do? marveled Foy aloud. He rested his Callahan over his shoulder, a more relaxed look clearly asserting itself over his features, like a slow wave of smugness settling in for an afternoon visit. "This situation has progressed to a most inopportune landscape for most parties concerned, ladies and gentlemen. Why, the very mention of exchanging munitions and other such acrimonious objets de discours seems positively unnecessary, given the looming spectre of potential violation and dismemberment. I should surmise, Captain, that negotiations have come to speedy conclusion - denoting the full reach of the terms of my contract, sir. Or more simply: Unless you wish to compensate the terms of my presence, I shall see you inside." Guns were of no use here. Disaster visited upon the Retribution or her crew would damn them to an unfortunate and dramatic demise, if their man Harper was correct.

Foy turned to one side and began a meandering walk back toward the Retribution. He was whistling a jaunty parlor tune, moving his hand as a conductor might direct a symphony. He stopped for a second, and looked to his closest friend in the 'Verse, Jahosafat. "I say, as we have a few minutes before possible phallus aeration and eventual consumption, can you not think of a more fitting time to discuss the forthcoming Haberdashery, hmm?"

Hoping his conversation would carry for the short walk back to his temporary home, Foy entered the open Cargo Bay, taking position at the top of the ramp leading to the further interior of the vessel. No sense in getting stupid at this juncture.

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Life is strange but sometimes life is exactly what you are waiting for to happen. This was one of those it was bound to happen times. Jackson had been harboring hate for so long, seeing Quinn about to get his little Lady back when his wife was dead and buried was too much. Before Anisa or anyone else could stop it the bullets were flying but it was only three.

Jackson fired and Camilla dropped, the back of her skull split open from the close range impact, splattering Anisa with blood and brain matter. Quinn snapped, firing at Jackson, who in turn dropped. The last bullet came from the Preacher. Right through Quinns heart. Then the bullets stopped. Anisa standing there in shock.

Jahosafat was the one that spoke, seeing very calm about the entire ordeal. "Well I will be a monkey's uncle. Don't see that every day but Quinn was a very disturbed man I dare say. Now, let us not do anything rash, it seems we have had enough of the thrilling heroics for today. Captain Crowe, seems you are without a working ship and just by happenstance, we are without a working Captain," he said kicking the leg of the now departed Quinn.

"So let us make this short and sweet. You take our ship, we who remain come with you and we all get off this rock before we get a craving for meat so rare it is still screaming."

Granted the hand off was not as easy as all that but in the end that was what happened. Anisa was now the captain of a stolen Alliance vessel and her crew was on the Retribution. She was intending to come back to this wasteland, she wasn't just going to abandon her ship but after some quick talking by Jahosafat it became clear that their biggest worry right then was the Reavers and not each other. As much as Anisa hated it, it had to be done for her crew.

Her crew was ordered to get everything they could off the Vengeance and onto the Retribution. Bodies were piled in the Firefly Vessel for now and Anisa put her crew into place. All injured were taken to the Medical Bay, Dorothy put in charge over Jahosafat. He didn't care. He main reason for being there wasn't as a doctor in a traditional sense anyways. Daphne was placed in second to Harper since he knew the Alliance vessel better.

While injured were being taken care of and they were off world, cutting through the black to get out of range of the incoming Reavers, some things needed to be handled. Everyone was still armed, no one wanting to give up anything and Anisa was not going to argue. They needed a meeting and once things were clam and there were on the dark side of a moon near Whitefall Anisa called a meeting for everyone.

"All personnel, report to the conference room that is able. Now."