The armory wasn’t anything particularly special. The customary shoulder-mounted AT missile launchers, automatic grenade launchers, recoil-less rifles, and mines all spanned the rightmost rack, while an assortment of assault rifles, battle rifles, designated marksmen rifles, service pistols, sniper rifles, and mixed array of infantry-portable machine guns took up residence upon the leftmost rack. 

A few direct-energy weapons of numerous models and dimensions had been attentively stacked against areas of free space. Spare power modules and batteries accompanied them. 

Personally, Turner didn’t mess with those too much; from his own experience, they weren’t reliable or particularly effective when wielded in his twin hands. 

[i]No, I came aboard the station about thirty minutes ago. I missed the briefing and opening meet-and-greet; elements of the station’s security detachment gave me a hard time with how much ordinance and hardware I was strolling about with. I’ll get the gist of what’s going on and where we’re headed once I settle in and speak to whoever’s in charge around here.[/i]

[i]What section of the ship are you in?[/i]

[i]Armory,[/i] Maxwell hefted the massive military-issued storage case off from his armored shoulder. It landed on the metal surface of the moderately-sized room with an audible thud. The faint sounds of the contents shifting about within echoed slightly. [i]I need to drop off my gear—or at least some of it. I’m not carrying this locker around any longer than I have to. The last thing I need is someone else throwing complaints and false-accusations at me. I don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with that shit. Talk to you soon.[/i]

Maxwell and his sister, Caria, had always been close, but despite the trust both siblings had for one another, he had declined to speak to her of his past troubles with the ESC military court system—the Raqh War and his heinous deeds and less-than-stellar actions during it. As far as he knew, she was completely ignorant of the entire ordeal—unless Aeon had notified her of what happened and what he had planned to do about it. 

He was going to miss her terribly. 

The soldier cut the radio link, removed his helmet and then set it upon the olive-colored container, the hydraulics and servomechanisms of his powered exoskeleton hissing and whirring with the subtle body motion. He retrieved a bundle of white-colored wiring from one of his chest pouches, manipulated a small electronic device fixed to his right wrist and, without warning, his left ear was suddenly subjected to a series of overwhelming bass lines and pronounced drum patterns, the voracious noise edging out into the open air. The right ear bud dangled uselessly in front of his frontal ballistic plate. 

Maxwell turned and, out of the corner of his now unrestricted vision, he noticed what appeared to be—

“A massive snake,” Turner said aloud. The potentially-offensive words slipped out unannounced. He had seen a member of the Kaarme-ihmisen species milling about earlier when he was making his way towards the Durendal, though he had never seen one of them this up close before until now. This one had taken it upon itself to frantically arrange anything and everything within the armory into flawless order.

No wonder everything was so neat. 

"...And who might you be?" Maxwell inquired, addressing the reptilian creature with a stern yet nonthreatening voice.