"Echo team actual to Durango actual. Package is secured and awaiting extraction."
"Copy that, ESRD. Delta protocol, deactivate. Initiating docking protocol."
"We'll have to do this manually. Proceed with care-"
Crash landing, sparks and fires. An explosion makes for a wrecked Lynx blocking the Hangar bay. Fire control crew and medical teams rushing in the scene.
A few hours later.
Room 14, Medical Bay, Battleship Durango
California System, LA orbit.
23/06/825AS
A bright white room, obviously well lit. As the eyes would get used to the brightness, the vision would be filled with all the objects in the room. The rough simple bed, the apparatuses checking on her condition, a table with fake flowers and most noticeable, the big window with a view on the slowly spinning Planet LA. At first it was all surreal compared to what had happened earlier on. Being shot at by unidentified hostiles, getting captured and barely holding up in a burning ship. All of that passing in a blur and a loss of conscience. But now everything was calm and peaceful. Whether she was still alive or whether she was already going for a walk in Elysium, was divided by a fine line. Though still in an unknown place.
For now her only companion was any sound that the apparatuses would make now and then and the constant humming of the ship's reactor parked in space.
Ambre relived the few moments that were imprinted into her mind as she was trying to gather what happened. Her ship was on fire, the console panel was alight with warning signs and danger notifications. Smoke had started slowly pouring into the cockpit, illuminated by the red lights of the display. The ship's alarms still echoed in her imagination, the monotonous tone appearing and disappearing every second. The air was very thin. The only thing that disturbed the alarms was the glaring engine noise. She had never heard it sound so loud and volatile, but then again, she had never flown the ship at full efficiency for so long while it was burning. Everything ended as the hulking mass of a battleship's hangar slowly enveloped the view. That's where her mind went completely blank. What happened?
Moving her head to the side, the vibrant planet painted a beautiful picture on the window, where the dreadnought appeared. Inspecting the environment further, it seemed too good to be true. Flowers, a clean room with a view to space, utterly devoid of people? The thought of already being in the afterlife danced in her mind. Inspecting the machines that enveloped the entire room with constant beeping, the only active one being a heart rate monitor that latched onto her arm.
Ambre started lifting herself up from the bed, bearing through sore muscles to pull herself up into a sitting position. One of her forearms had a bandage covering it, upon closer look appearing to be a scratch wound. She felt like a corpse more than anything, taking a long moment to calm down and figure out her next course of action.
"Room 14. Here we are. Ready to check on our new guest?" Elizabeth looked at Mayer as they reached the room Ambre was being held in. "Wake up call." She said as she slid her card on the door's security lock.
Calm and peaceful lasted long enough. All the stillness was now interrupted by the beeping sound of the security confirmation on the door, especially when the two navy officers "broke in". "Good morning." Elizabeth smirked as she picked up one of the chairs from the table and moved it closer to her bed. Mayer followed inside, but he was rather more reserved. He was, compred to Elizabeth, a calmer person and kept more to himself.
As she sat next to Ambre's bed, she did not hesitate to get back in touch.
"So, how did you sleep?"
The sound of beeping doors smashed her head out of the clouds. Ambre's doubts shattered right in front of her as the door slid open and two unfamiliar figures walked in - Liberty Navy insignias showing on their uniforms. "Merde..." she muttered silently as the figures came closer. A tint of despair lit up on her face as she started slowly understanding the correct situation she's in. She tensed herself and prepared herself for trouble, as painful as it was already.
As the uniformed figure sat near the bed, the only thing that came to the pilot's mind was confusion. She expected them to be trouble from the get-go, not be asked questions like this as if someone was visiting a patient. The woman's voice was definitely familiar - it was, for certain, one of the pilots that were there to intercept as Ambre tried to flee to Leeds with her ship held together with nothing but prayers. Thinking up on how to act, a quick look at their weapon holsters dissipated most plans that she could think of. They'd just shoot her if she would have done something, not to mention that she's wounded too.
"I haven't." she answered her question, trying to buy time to figure out on how to get out of this mess.
Elizabeth chuckled at her response. No wonder. A gallic unifom, up in the belly of the beast. Durago was one of the most fearsome dreadnoughts ever devised. "Isn't that humble indeed? Welcome back to the land of the living." No matter how much Ambre could wonder about it or try to shake it off, reality was just that. She was caught and there was no helping it. She just needed to realize it. No matter how high she held her hopes or how optimistic she could be, nothing was going to change. And that's what Elizabeth forged her plan out of. It seemed a lot better, compared to the classic, "old" methods. Achieving her objectives without having to use brutality as a path to information and submission seemed like the best alternative.
Elizabeth looked at Mayer. As a sign that he'd be up to do some questioning on the "guest" soon enough. "Well, how are you feeling?" Keeping "friendly" was a good strategy for starters. Elizabeth wanted her to be comply. Either way, If it wasn't going to be the easy way she was prepared.
She took a closer look, figuring out where Ambre had been hurt. She grabbed her arm looking at the bandaged scratch wound and then taking a closer look at her face, a few superficial scratches as well, but nothing too serious. "You are looking good. For now." Taking a look at the apparatuses, Ambre was looking pretty stable. Truth be told Elizabeth was a little excited. It was if not the first, one of the few Gallic pilots to ever be captured. But what was truly sticking to her mind was how they referred to the rest of sirius as "barbarians". She felt a need to prove her wrong, and perhaps force was not going to be the answer. In the end her primary objective was to extract information, but Elizabeth was always into alternative methods.
The pilot let the woman inspect her arm, but not without disdain. What was even more puzzling is the fact that they chose to imitate being friendly rather than just getting to the point. Why are they imitating being friendly? It didn't make sense to her.
Everything that could happen from here on was constantly circling in Ambre's thoughts. Escape was in her mind, but the chances weren't very motivating, to say the least. She could play along, but that would probably end in eventually being killed, left to rot in their prisons for the rest of her life, or something even worse. Given her experience with the Bretonians, she'd much rather be shot than go through that hell again. Sirians didn't have the technology nor the skills to beat Gallic ships, so they'd naturally take the advantage to get revenge once she was vulnerable. They'd obviously want information, as she remembers the exchange from before. Feigning ignorant was an option, but the captain's insignia on her uniform didn't help too much. Spilling secrets, on the other hand, would lead absolutely nowhere. The fact of being stuck in a enemy dreadnought was constantly weighing down her mind, her subconscious planting a sense of hopelessness.
"What happened? Why am I here?" she asked, ignoring the questions and comments Elizabeth made. Her Gallic accent was quite strong, the words sounded very foreign to native Libertonians. Ambre decided to redirect the conversation to answer the mysteries on her mind, hopefully delaying and learning of what they were planning to do with her.
John was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed looking at Ambre. "First of all welcome to Liberty, you're on board of the LNS-Durango. The name's John Mayer, Captain of the first fleet. Pleased to meet you nonetheless Miss Lachance" Feeling the need to introduce himself properly he took a few steps towards the bed of Ambre. Carefully examining her to make sure she's not able to charge at either of them. "I don't know what you still remember but we escorted you to Liberty. Unfortunately your ship was damaged and the manual docking procedure had proven to be a bit more difficult than we expected." John briefly pauses for a moment looking at Ambre's reaction.
After he cleared his throat, John continues. "Difficult as in your ship exploded during the process. It seemed that some of your ships internals were way to damaged to attempt proper docking maneuver. With some minor warnings our pilots continued with the process and well, your ship didn't make it. As for you on the other hand, you were badly wounded, at least that's what I heard when they sent me further informations." Leaning back against the wall John started to look out of the window. He started to smirk and crosses his arms again. Los Angeles had something calming with its slow rotation and blue oceans, it was the perfect place for a welcome in hostile territory.
Still looking out of the window he rubbed his chin. "Naturally you were brought to a medbay. One with a beautiful sight if I may say so." He turns towards Ambre again and starts to look more serious now, as he clearly knew what he had to say. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a moment. Before he opend them he started talking. "I think the question 'why am I here?' is not necessary. Not for now at least. Consider yourself our guest. A guest that is here to talk with us. We're civilized human beings. Am I correct in that assumption?" As soon as John finished his sentence he opened his eyes again.
His expression was turning towards a slight smirking again as he started to inspect the room more closely. He grabbed the water bottle that was previous to his arrival placed on one of the Tables. Preparing three glasses he poured water in each of them. Handing one of the glasses to Elizabeth he grabbed the other two and extends his left arm towards Ambre, offering her the glass while he takes a sip from the other one. "Here, you might be thirsty."
Ambre's heart sank as she heard those words. Her Lynx is completely gone, her main escape option just flew out of the window. There wasn't any choice left - she didn't know how to fly any Sirian craft, even if she did somehow manage to get to the hangars.
"You've destroyed my ship instead of letting me flee after being assaulted by something unimaginable, causing wounds like these? Non, you're certainly not even remotely civilised or honourable." she spoke as he was filling the glasses.
As he offered, she looked at the glass Mayer was holding - the water was tantalisingly waving from one side to the other. Normally, she would have just tossed it away or at the captain, but she was both thirsty and didn't want to make the situation worse. The woman agonisingly stretched out her hand, taking the glass and taking a few gulps, despite her heart's protests. That was something that she really needed, but the punch to her pride was staggering. Taking a look back at the first fleet captain, his expression was hard to not notice - Mayer's smirk agitated her greatly. He was clearly enjoying this - and all she could do was play along with their show.
The pilot put the now-empty glass on the small table beside her bed, taking all of her willpower not to do something very brash. "So, what's going to happen to me, then? Execution? Torture? I'm not going to tell you anything useful that you don't already know, nor do I want to be your "guest" at all."
"You wouldn't have made it to Leeds." Elizabeth noded to Mayer as he gave her the glass of water. "Thank you Mayer." She moved her attention back to LaChance.
"Commodore Dagon. She knows no mercy. And even then, if you had made it to Leeds. The Liberty Marine Raiders were on their way to an attack. You would've been caught in it as a target of opportunity." She drank the water on the glass, now holding but an empty glass in her hands. "So, if you are still alive and in one piece, taken good care of. It is because of me, because of my order."
In the end I doubt you have any other better alternatives. Maybe you don't like being our "guest", but I doubt space would've a better option. So if I were on you I'd be a bit more appreciative on being.. rescued. Go figure if thats not honorable."
Elizabeth got up up from her chair. As she moved on to put her glass back on the small table, she was thinking. Abmre seemed still shocked from what had happened and where she found herself. Not just Elizabeth but pretty much anyone knew that getting captured is nothing anyone would wish for themselves.
Planet Los Angles caught her stare as she was moving back to the chair next to the bed. Liberty. Home. All in the name of that.
Ambre's resistance showed that it was not going to be easy. Still she had to try and make it work without having to resort to other methods that crossed her mind after hearing words like execution or torture. Brutality was a crooked path to information and rather more effective for weaker minds.
As she was approaching her bed she continued. "Execution? Thats for psychos and murderers. Not a way to treat a soldier. Torture?" She paused for a moment. "Rather not. Perhaps not. Thats for spies and assassins." Truth was that they needed to extract information from her and anything was acceptable. But Elizabeth had other plans.
As she sat down she made the situation clearer.
"You are here because we need you. It's quite simple simple capitane. We will ask and you will answer."
Ambre knew they would simply try to dispose of her once their questions ran out. How could she drag this out into something that would benefit her? While her rank wasn't that big in the grand scheme of things, she did know her part and general information about the Bretonian front. It wasn't something she intended to share just like that, however.
"The Roi will make you pay for this..." The woman clenched her fists, looking at the vibrant planet through the window - she was so far away from home. It only helped add more to the feeling of helplessness.
"Go ahead, I'll play your game, Sirian." she spoke, trying to remain steadfast. Yet, it was probably obvious that she was confused and struggling emotionally to the keen eye.