JustDoingMe

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Cargo Bay

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Carla began the tedious process of sorting through the deliveries made to the Retribution before she left Persephone. Last minute medical supplies, a laundry list of office supplies and maintenance equipment, and nothing of note. She turned and made a survey of the cargo bay. Everything was stowed securely and she couldn't eliminate based off of size. She eyed the giant black box, made a puzzled expression, and shook her head. It's never that obvious. More than a good portion of these boxes could hide a man and an arsenal's worth of gear. Checking each and every box sounded menial and the thought exhausted her. Maybe I'm just paranoid?

Well, yes. But idle hands. She then re-checked the terminal and looked for Harper's name. Personal gear and effects all checked into his quarters. Nothing else of note. Or you're not as good as you think you are. She sighed, rolled her eyes at her own frustrations, then noticed a name she hadn't seen before right after Harper's check in. Jahosafat Moreau checked on board with a clearance level reserved for Alliance royalty. "What did you check on board, stranger?" An image came to her mind: the stranger who dismissed her and treated Quinn like his errand boy and didn't give a name. Carla still had to hazard that these two were one and the same. Or else Foy is up to using false aliases again. Carla made a mental note to check Foy's deliveries later. He always got the best contraband.

As she examined the terminal, she made note of the notes of a yeoman attached to a very large crate received and taken into the custody of Jahosafat Moreau. Carla blinked. This man can get a huge black crate put on a ship with no one checking what it is? She started to dissect the yeoman's sparse notes and see what the description of the cargo was. The large black box loomed over her.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

@Sigil I see what you're saying. I'm gonna shoot ya a PM to not clutter OOC and clarify OOC terms and IC intents and motivations.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: En route to Conference Room -> Cargo Bay

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Carla noticed the pilot slipping behind her and continued walking. She let the footsteps of leather soles on hard floors echo out into the distance widening between the two. She turned at the sound of his voice and measured the man. She examined his annoyance, reviewed the defenses he set up, and tuned out of his explanation mid-speech. Instead she focused on his eyes and mouth. On the way his lithe form shifted in place.

He's performing. Whether it was for his own benefit or hers she couldn't reason yet. Pilot's been hiding a backbone. He's decided I either can't or won't act. She blinked. The pilot was talking about a Food Chain. Does he mean a chain of command? Carla paused to wonder at the authenticity of his mannerisms while the image of military superiors devouring each other was contemplated. They almost seem like what a civilian might think military men act like.

Carla learned a long time ago people decide and believe what they are inclined to fairly early on. You fly spaceships and come up with the reasons after. You murder people for a living and sort out the why later. As Harper walked away, Carla made no attempt to stop him. She already decided. Guilty. The why and the circumstances would come later.

She waited as he left her for the mid level. Carla then made her way down to the Cargo Bay. Harper might be the cover to distract and deter. She reminded herself of the useful nature of distractions as she contemplated Foy's presence on the ship. Carla began with a cursory view of the cargo bay's various stowed containers. She remembered the last time she sneaked onto a ship in a crate. Not nearly enough reading material. Afterwards, she pulled up the ship's cargo manifest on the nearest bulkhead terminal and began to sort through the various lists. Carla became visibly annoyed at the information slamming her eyes and sorted it by the time it was loaded. She then used the terminal to pull up the log detailing the transfer of all personnel deemed non-essential. She double checked the time-frame and then verified all the last minute supplies that were checked on board the Retribution. It's a start.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Harper's Quarters -> Outside Lounge -> En route to Conference Room

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"Carla." The terse statement interrupted the pilot's strangling of her surname. She involuntarily shivered at the use of the word ma'am. I'll take opportunists with blackened hearts over polite military sycophants any day. She made an aside glance to the offer of fruit and shook her head. Breaking her fast on strawberries put her off fruit for the day. "I'm fine. Grab a cuppa if it suits you." They turned a corner as Harper cut through the pleasantries and asked what was on his mind. Carla took a moment to ponder.

Espionage often broke itself down to the right gamble at the right place. Less blackjack and more Russian Roulette. Proper preparations removed bullets. The wrong word to the wrong person added frustrating unknowns. Or it could turn a light to the obscured. "I wanted to speak about your record. Specifically what Conduct Unbecoming of an Officer entails. I noticed they didn't include gentleman. Oversight? Is that still a thing?" She asked the last question to herself, almost. She cast a side long glance at him as they entered the lounge. Carla considered herself an amateur study of the eye. Guilt and innocence were frames of mind that let themselves known if one studied close enough. The record was sparse and Carla hand't given it a thorough look. She wanted to do so with the man in question. It saved time.

She stepped up to a shut door, made a puzzled expression, and waved at the scanner to accept her entrance. The buzzer sounded off in annoyance and continued to glare out red. Carla sighed and shut her eyes. "We can do this at the conference room. Quinn never uses it anyway." She didn't acknowledge his request for a quid pro quo. Carla briefly wondered at why it was secured but pushed the question out of her mind. One thing at a time.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Harper's Quarters

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Carla gazed at the pilot emerging from his chambers. She silently dropped her eyes to his boots and ran over his uniform. She quirked a brow at the wrench hanging off his belt and paused to take in it's detail. She then continued her inspection. Thin. Caucasian. Vitamin D deficiency? Working man's hands. Is that a padded jacket? Nothing noteworthy aside from this man's arrival coinciding with most of the crew being re-assigned off the Retribution. "Lieutenant Harper," she said as she tasted the words.

Her brown eyes met his green hues. She let the silence hang in the air a moment longer. "No, he's busy." She said dismissively to his question. The assassin began contemplating the series of events that led to Harper being assigned here. He was an officer who reported directly to Quinn. No special permissions were on his file. Alliance spook would have been briefed on me. Playing dumb? Lucky Browncoat? Carla had a brief flash of Whitefall. Sun. Sky. Blood pooling in the dirt. She blinked. "I'm Carla. Carla Lobo. Do you mind helping me figure something out?" She asked, motioning for him to step out of his quarters and walk alongside her to the crew's lounge.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

@Sigil Nah. I just want to throw in "SWEAR TO ME!" in a convo with the pilot for obvious reasons.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Bridge -> Harper's Quarters

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The Black faded away as the woman with her face pressed up to glass focused on the fog of perspiration collecting just outside of her peripherals. She pushed herself off the glass with one hand and wiped the fragile barrier clean with the other. Her heel spun her around to one crew member on the bridge. Quinn had that meeting with the dandy and Foy. Carla took a deep breath and adjusted the fit of her gloves. "Not dead. So it could be something else." Do I wanna know?

An uneasiness crept up on Carla as she exited the bridge and made her usual rounds to find empty hallways and empty tables. Where were the regulars? Where were the soldiers prepping to relief the crew on the bridge--well, crew member now. One of the most dangerous men she knew was in a meeting with the captain and a stranger who had higher clearance than her. The crew wasn't substantial to start but the manpower had been gutted close to the point that the passageways felt empty.

"Quinn...Alliance...Nose trimmers..." she muttered under her breath as she turned a corner.

Carla had an intense disdain for plots and scheming. She was usually at the end of such machinations and cut through them easily. They ended hilariously pointless more often than not. Being owned by the Alliance brought scheming and pointless need-to-know intel to her daily routine to the point that she found herself in a meeting to killing ratio of 15 to 1.

She made note of the shift as she passed the dining room and the crew that were usually eating or getting ready to relieve the ghosts that should be on board the bridge. She counted two regulars and six missing crew members. Re-trace your steps. She replayed the day in her head. From waking, to checking onboard, to the delays, to a brand new pilot--No. A Wu Ming Shao Jwu. Hard to notice among a crew. So why make him so obviously new and out of place? She briefly thought of Quinn being in danger but reasoned against it. She wagered Foy would have tried to kill her first.

Carla made a 180 mid-stride and found a bulkhead terminal. She made no effort to hide her steps and made a cursory view of the now vacant quarters of the crew. Empty within seconds of each other. An order was given and all non-essential personnel were cleared out. Only the crew needed to pilot and keep this ship from blowing out of the sky were left. "Right after you checked onboard. Harper." She said aloud to a sparse personnel file of the pilot that just checked on board. She logged out of the public terminal and made her way to the crew quarters. To Harper's assigned cabin.

She knocked three times, took a step back, and tucked her thumbs into her belt. A healthy cynicism of everything around her was one of the reasons she was still alive. Carla made it a personal policy to disregard the machinations around her, but this routine mission was turning more and more into a sloppily put together cover-up. The hasty nature of it was unusual enough to spur her into action. He deserved her attention.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

@Morose I love you for knowing what a bezoar is.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Bridge

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Folks will line up to shout out the downfall of the 'Verse. Reavers. Alliance. Independents. Bureaucrats. The Assassin had looked each face of the supposed great enemy in the eye, measured them, and found them wanting. The real enemy was the mundane. The routine that set in people's minds the controlled explosion that set them off into the vast nothingness was so because it could be no other way. Everybody knows that everyone dies. People still plan out their days as if they were the exception. Carla reached out and rested a gloved hand on the thin stretch of glass that separated her from the nothing that would rip her inside-out before she could finish a thought. Not being in the pilot chair made her antsy. On rare cases, a nihilist. She had stopped counting and was focusing on her breathing.

A serious study of Carla's face may notice the slightly widened pupils. The lips parted just so. Most everyone else would see a woman who could make a statue seem lifelike in comparison. Carla shut her eyes. She let her forehead rest on the glass. The world I leave behind is small and lonely. The 'Verse is empty. The ship is--Phokas. Carla's eyes opened and she stared into the void. She had made note of the skeleton crew when she had come aboard the bridge and through the few shadowy reflections they cast. The ship was blasting through stars and space to it's destination. A distraction to be addressed in time. Meanwhile, Carla stood still.

She was good at that.

🦄 After Miranda - A Firefly Rp - Season 1 (Completed)

Carla Lobo

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Location: Conference Room -> Bridge

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The hum of the controlled explosion lifting the ship out of the planet's atmosphere echoed through the trembling metal. Carla took the slightest of deeper breaths and counted from one hundred. Ninety nine. Ninety eight. Isn't blasting off great? Quinn wasn't secured and walked with the quiet confidence of a seasoned veteran of many ship launches. Her arm still reached out slightly to catch him if he'd fall.

They walked onto the bridge and Carla began continued to count. Twenty five. Twenty four. The pilot isn't a bore. She fished her gloves out of her jacket pocket and deftly slipped them onto her hands. The ship was out of the bosom of Persephone and into the Black. I'll never get used to someone else flying.

Carla regarded the dandy on the bridge directly addressing Quinn with the same disinterested look she had on her face when she was told her superiors were killed, jailed, or Alliance dogs. Death would have been cleaner. Carla took a step back from Quinn's side and found a home leaning against one of the ship's navigation monitors. She turned her back to the assorted personnel on the bridge and studied the deck. A brief thought ran across her mind: Death. She was going to be set up for a suicide mission or strangled in her quarters. She shrugged at it and lifted her eyes to gaze out of the ship.

Carla stared into the space of nothing that made up most the 'Verse.