Vaelin Darklight

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Vaelin should have been happy with the outcome, Sarah's exile from the VWA served his purpose in having her as an engineer on his ship. What manifested instead was irritation, this was not what Sarah had wanted and he doubted that Sarah wished to have her time with the VWA end in this manner. He showed none of this externally, the same expression and tone being present. "I doubt you both lack any sincerity that this is an 'unfortunate' in regards to either of you." His attention turned to Freya. "You have completely misread the purpose of why I have conducted myself as I have." It was Freya's smile and last words that only confirmed his suspicion about what was going on, how they had dismissed what he had said, he suspected Jana dismissed far more then just his words. His hand moved out to touch Sarah's shoulder as she tried to edge her way out of the room hoping to hold her in place.

As Jana had spoken he gained the idea that she thought him ignorant and the with what she had said, he turned that into believing that not only did she think he was ignorant, he viewed her as such. He would seek to hold his gaze with Sarah if she looked at him as his hand dropped from her shoulder, his eyes darted towards the door way for a moment, it was no subtle gesture. His gaze shifted to Jana. "A Fortiori. There will be no need for compensation nor will I accept it." As he had done in the bar his thumb tapped against his leg softly, relaying a command to the data-pad. "As long as we aren't provided with reasons to pull stunts, I do believe that me and Sarah would seek to leave."

He leaned across to Sparks to whisper in her ear, his tone hushed so that the other two wouldn't pick out the words. "This kind of makes my gift redundant, its yours to do with as you wish and sorry." He had no doubt as to what would have been done with his gift, the group was precious to her, it was also because where she would go now it would serve little purpose. He would seek to move to the door way, if it was to open he would stand within the frame looking down the hall way. He would seek to observe how well equipped the guards would be.

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Sparks

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She didn't even blink. Freya ripped into her life without a heartbeat's worth of hesitation, without a moment's pause. The Vorsitzende found the one reliable constant in her life, the one good thing she had done. The Bundschuh had been a chance to be something more. To actually, honestly, try for something worth having, something that could last. Then, with no more regard than a toddler frying ants beneath a lens, she ripped that future out from underneath Sparks.

The world seemed to spin for a moment, and Sparks was only faintly aware that she was backing out of the room. Vaelin's hand on her shoulder may as well have belonged to a ghost for all the heed she paid it. This wasn't real. The Widerstand didn't just exile people. Not now, not when they had so few, not when they needed her to keep their ships flying. Not for little things like this, not for trespassing. "This isn't happening." The words slipped from her like a madwoman's mantra.

It was.

The soldiers arrived in two pairs, the white and green fist of the Widerstand the only uniform symbol across a motley array of personal equipment. Antiquated sub-machine guns hung loose across their chests, hands resting on the weapons. Subach HL2s, the small part of her consciousness that still noticed such things reported. Pre-Nomad war tech. Good old fashioned sub-sonic kinetics. Almost unbearably slow by the standards of anyone who wanted to fight a ground war, but nice when you wanted to avoid the recoil pushing you halfway across the station and creating a few new windows on the way. The marines kept their fingers well away from the triggers. Not even expecting a fight. Somehow, that hurt almost as much the exile.

"This kind of makes my gift redundant, it’s yours to do with as you wish and sorry.” Vaelin's voice was in her ear.

"Oh. Huh?" She turned and forced a smile that she hoped seemed genuine. "It's okay, V. It's not-." She paused, took a breath, straightened a little, like a balloon inflating. That seemed to help. "It's not your fault."

But it is. Something inside her whispered. It is, and you know it is. Hadn't he wanted a crew? An engineer? He'd spoken to her, asked her to fly aboard Anubis. She'd turned him down to remain with the Bundschuh. Uncharacteristically, he had let it pass without comment. It had seemed strange at the time. This was a man who defied the Order to get what he wanted. Who took what he needed. Anubis herself was testament to that. Did you think, really, that you were any different? He needed an engineer and, oh, would you look at that. You need somewhere to go. How convenient.

She shook her head, started walking towards the approaching guards. As if she could clear her suspicions if she only moved fast enough. Chris wasn't like that. He'd looked after her in the Rouges, kept her out of sight when she wanted to be and out of reach when she had to be. This was a man who had watched over her in the terrifying hours she was alone and adrift in the Badlands. No. No it's not. That was Chris. This is Vaelin, now. She tried to ignore the whisper, but it coiled in her gut like a serpent and, when she glanced up at the man walking beside her, she couldn't help but wonder...

"Sparks?" Damn. One of the guards stopped, recognition surfacing in his eyes. Cameron let his hand for away from his weapon altogether, frowned at the closed door behind her. Of course Cameron would pull guard today. Anything else would have been borderline merciful. "Any idea what's going on in there? Achen called us up to escort someone off-station..."

Cameron trailed off, the Bretonian noticing Vaelin for the first time.

"Yeah. That would be me." Sparks jumped in, before any more awkward questions took advantage of the silence.

"Pull the other one." Cameron tugged at the strap slung over his shoulder. The man had been needle-slim to start with, and living in low-G hadn't done a thing to help the situation. Viewed from certain angles, he had more in common with a hologram than a human being - it looked as though he would fade away altogether. Training with the rifle had chafed his shoulder something fierce. Something he'd made the mistake of telling Sparks and, consequently, had never been given a chance to forget. "Really, what's going on?"

"No, really. It is me." Sparks nodded back towards the door. "You can go in and ask if you really want, but I'd prefer you didn't."

"Right." Silence threatened to re-establish its reign. "If this is a joke, it's a really bad one."

"I know." Sparks slumped a little. "It's not a joke. I'm not that funny. Look, can we just go? Please?"

"Hold on a second." Cameron tugged at another guard, and vanished into Freya's office. A moment later, he re-emerged, face stony. "You know, I thought... Never mind. Come on."

Sparks did. The walk to her quarters passed in the familiar haze of corridors and airlock lights, though the proximity of the firearms behind her was never far from her mind. No-one spoke during the walk down. Sparks, because she had nothing to say and Cameron, she suspected, because he had everything to say and didn't know how.

The guards allowed her to enter her room alone, at least. The door slid closed behind her with the same hiss, but the familiar walls seemed a little colder, a little sharper. A little less like home. Good, then, that she had precious little worth packing. She tugged a rumpled duffel bag, Widerstand eagle stencilled roughly on the side, from beneath the still-unmade bed, and began shovelling items in with the mindless attention of an assembly line.

“Not much to pack. Most of this is theirs, you know.” She didn’t bother turning to look for Vaelin. He would be there, behind her, lingering like her own personal angel of death. ”Uniforms” She tugged a grey and khaki jumpsuit from its hangar, balled it and tossed it to the ground. It drifted like a snowflake in the low gravity. “Tools.” A bundle of well worn view screens and cabling joined it on the floor. “Ship.” She tugged an access pad from the sparse wardrobe, curled her fingers to throw it before she caught herself and lowered it gently next to the bag instead, alongside the freshly-minted pad for Vaelin’s repair ship.

“Everything’s theirs, Vaelin. I practically built that ship!” She jabbed a finger at the access pad, Nostalgia for Infinity scratched along the side. “But, no, they’re just going to throw me out like... Like some sort of garbage.” It was a terrible simile. She didn’t care. Sparks aimed a punch at the wall, hit it, and came away swearing and wiping her knuckles on her shirt. “Everything I’ve done here, and she’s just going to throw it away! I thought this place counted for something, I really did. She didn’t even say anything!” Somehow, that was the worst part of it. Freya had barely addressed her. Jana had flat-out ignored her. They hadn’t even had the decency to make it personal. She’d just been an inconvenient piece on the board. It was one thing to be used by the rogues. They were pirates. She’d almost expected it. To be used by the Widerstand, though, felt like someone had wrapped a hand around her chest and squeezed.

Sparks threw another punch. This time she was cautious enough to aim for the bed.

Vaelin Darklight

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Vaelin lingered behind after sparks had made her exit, with her talking to the guards he saw no reason to quickly leave. His gaze turned towards Jana lingering there for a moment and then to Freya.

“This will not be forgotten.” His words, although devoid of emotion had a small infestation of condemnation, like an iceberg there was more below the surface. The thought of reaping the two had come to mind. He had not been searched for weapons and the two concealed pistols called his name, quickly this was dismissed. This was no feeling for justice, rather it was his discontent and he was quite sure it didn’t warrant the ultimatum of a barrel.He exited the room as the two guards chose to enter it.

His gaze now lingered on Sarah’s and he assumed he knew just how much this tore her up, this was part of the reason why he was seething under the surface.

“Maybe next time instead of entertaining your idea of ‘lets go meet the owners of this base you broke into Vaelin.’ ill just go with my plan of just letting them remain ignorant, pretty flashing warning labels or no.” thankfully his tone came out lightly. this was the last way Vaelin had wished for Sarah to become part of his crew, choice was important and this was no way to be assured of her loyalty or devotion.

Vaelin had acted to catch her hand when she sought to punch the bed, he had figured that the punch to the wall might hurt some sense in her, apparently it had worked. He turned her toward him and his hands placed on her shoulders.

“Listen, I know what its like. Throwing a fit here will not help anything, we have your friend to look for, although they threw you out, that doesn’t mean you need their permission to help the Widerstand. Two people do not speak for one group, I would have preferred you had the choice rather than this made for ultimatum.” He released her shoulders and looked towards the doorway before picking up the device that held the information about the ship he had given to her as a Christmas present. “There’s Junker stations in Rheinland, you can move the McFarlen to one of those bases and provide repairs to any of your friends that go there.”

Coming up with a compromise for someone else was not easy. Vaelin knew what he would and wouldn’t do, when it came to Sarah he didn’t have much of a clue and only had small indications. He moved away from her slightly as he slid his sleeve up and his hand interacted with the PDA that was on his forearm. A Freelancer Gunboat made its way towards the station, requesting docking to pick up two occupants listed as Vaelin and Sarah. It was also in this that the ship he had arrived on sought to exit the station., seeking to fly out into the abyss of space. He moved out the door way wishing to leave Sarah to have a few private moments, though in truth he wished to speak to the guards, they seemed to know her, then again it was a small station.

“Hello.” He said in a friendly manner, He chose to lean against the wall opposite from the two. “If you two could enlighten me, why is it that Sparks is being let go of? I am curious as to their reasoning behind it, because in truth its not something I understand at the moment.” He in turn wanted to see if what they had been told was something that could be contradicted.

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Sparks

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