[color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color][hr]

"If we live through this, Ansgar, remind me to give you a raise," the captain remarked as she jerked the ship upwards and sideways, trying to break free of the docking clamps which were slowly starting to give way thanks to their new friend firing on them. This rough flying caused a few objects to tumble off shelves, but they didn't exactly have time for elegance and smooth flying at the moment. Their situation was desperate. Maria's only hope was in the little fighter helping them out, but if they lost her, then... Well... They were as good as dead. The captain could hear shots being fired down the hall, no doubt by scumbags invading her ship, trying to steal her cargo. Trying to take her ship. Trying to hurt her crew.  She wanted nothing more than to storm out of the engine room and start ripping people's throats out, but she was sure that Teg had it handled. Besides, the Veritas needed a pilot right now more than it did an avenger. 

"Veritas, this is the Bygul. I've almost got the docking clamps off, keep doing what you're doing!" 

Maria did as she was asked, continuing to try and jerk the Veritas away from the pirates, doing her best to rip it away from the invaders that would butcher and scavenge everything inside. They would definitely lose a bit of hull plating, but Maria was confident they could take it. A [s][/s]hull was no good if they were all dead anyway. [hr] 


[color=FF0070][h1][center]Persephone[/center][/h1][hr][/color]

"No, no no. Azra, sweetie you've got it all wrong. See if Gol really wanted to be with you, would he really be running around bars stalking this Naka chick?"... "Yeah well I know you didn't [i]say[/i] he was stalking her, but finding out her name, ID chip number, and then proceeding to randomly 'show up' wherever she is definitely sounds like stalking to me."... "Listen, you know I love you, but you gotta stop with all this nonsense. The guy is obviously trash, and if you want my advice I say to drop him like a bad of Gloaian-" 

[i][color=ed1c24][b]beep beep beep beep[/b][/color][/i]

A flashing red light in the cockpit of her small fighter made Persephone stop talking mid sentence, her mouth hanging open as she leaned forward in her seat, squinting at the little red light before flipping her comms back on. 

"Yeah, Azra, hold on just a sec will you? I'm getting some sort of alert on the network." 

There was a slightly muffled, upset voice coming from the other end of her headset, but Perse ignored it as she tapped on her controls, bringing up the settings and switching her comms over to the universal frequency. Things were a bit staticky at first, and she spent a good three or four minutes tweaking the channels to try and match up with what was going on. Whatever was happening, it was almost out of range. 

[i]"This is-....-tas -ux Mea-...-ostile-... sky."[/i] 

Perse continued to mess with the settings, and also set her ship on auto-pilot in the direction of the transmission, going slowly so that she could get in range but still go without being detected. She kept replaying the message as they drew closer, and eventually after quite a bit of tweaking (and a little bit of hitting the screen), she finally understood everything. 

[i]"This is captain Maria Thorne of the cargo vessel Veritas Lux Mea. Please identify yourself immediately or we will be forced to assume you are hostile, and blow you out of the sky.”[/i]

The Veritas Lux Mea? The cyborg stared at her screen for a moment, replaying the words over and over again in her head. She'd heard little tales and whispers of the ship. Stories of a mysterious cargo vessel that was secretly running arms for the human rebellion, and had plans for great adventures. Supposedly it was filled with a heroic crew, dashing and bold, and was going to change the fate of the galaxy!... Supposedly. Persephone had her doubts, but it still sounded like fun. After checking her sensors, Perse found that the ship was in trouble from an unmarked vessel- pirates, no doubt -and jumped into action to help.

[hr]

"Veritas, this is the Bygul. I've almost got the docking clamps off, keep doing what you're doing!" Persephone shouted over the comms, yanking her fighter towards one side as a turret fired at them. She had almost melted the last docking clamp, and if the Veritas could hold on for just a little longer, she'd have them free. During the majority of the battle Persephone had stayed out of it, trying to pinpoint the weak spots on the pirate's vessel before jumping in with her rickety bucket of bolts. Strategy over bravery, right? It seemed to be paying off. Things had been looking pretty grim a few minutes before she showed up, but now they were on the winning side, and if the pirates were smart they'd disengage and get the hell out of dodge before the Veritas got their feet back under them. 

Which they did. When the Veritas gave one last pull, the last docking clamp gave way and the two ships were instantly separated, and the pirate ship started to retreat. Through the dust and debris, Persephone could swear she saw a few bodies sucked into space. She prayed none of the Veritas' crew was among them. Hopefully their ship had an automatic airlock and would have sealed it off as soon as the air pressure started dropping, but there was only one way to find out.

"This is the Bygul. How are things?"[hr] 

[color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color][hr]

There were alerts blaring across the screens, angry red lights flashing on multiple different systems, and the ship herself seemed to be groaning from the strain of the battle. There was debris from various large and small explosions littering the floor, and pipes with god knew what kind of substances leaking from them, but the pirate ship was retreating. They had survived. 

When the Veritas had finally managed to get free of the enemy ship, there had been a slight problem with the airlock closing, but Maria had quickly fixed it from her end and hopefully got it closed before anyone she liked had been sucked out. But they still weren't quite out of the woods. There were probably some pirates still on board (which Teg and the Judge could take care of), and if nothing else they had a hell of a clean up job waiting for them, and then of course there was their little friend the Bygul. 

"This is the Bygul. How are things?" Speak of the devil. 

Maria took a deep breath. Now that the biggest battle was over, she was starting to feel her own nerves, and her hands shook as she flipped on the comms to the Bygul. "We're still alive... As far as I know yet. What about you?" 

"I'm okay over here, but... I hate to ask this, but my ship got damaged a bit in the fight- not as much as you guys obviously, but still -and if I could come on board to make some repairs, that'd be great."

Maria hesitated. She didn't exactly trust this chick, but she [i]had[/i] helped them out, and they probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her. On the other hand, letting her on board would put them at risk, and it would give them yet another mouth to feed and another person to patch up. They weren't exactly thriving on resources, but she supposed they could also stock up on them when they got to the glao port. They did kind of owe the Bygul. Although her next problem was getting the cargo and everything stowed away in the cargo bay so that they could actually let her board the ship, which might take a while. Not to mention Maria needed to fix the airlock. They did have a place where she could just clamp onto the Veritas and come aboard, but that wouldn't allow her to make many of the repairs her ship would probably need, so the only other option was for her to bring her fighter into the cargo bay. 

"Give us a few minutes to get our bearings over here and I'll see what we can do for you," She replied finally, and without waiting for a reply she opened the ship-wide comms, one of the few systems that was still working. "Attention all hands. The pirate ship is gone, so we're out of danger from them for now. Who isn't dead? Please check in immediately." 

She turned and added to Ansgar. "What's broken and what's still working?"