The engines of the single shuttle designated to this bay lit up. Inside were only a handful people, Garrus and his two most trusted engineers were on board as well. The shuttle's destination was the heart of Liberty, the system New York. Garrus was relaxed as he sat in the chair, looking at a message on his Datapad.
"Garrus, a few moments ago my secretary got the approval of our Surplus request. All financial requests have been processed already, therefor I will just give you the number: 25 Million Credits. A fine price for a surplus product. Anyway, the Guardian will be ready for you to be fetched at Norfolk Shipyard by the time you will arrive there. After you brought it back, we will talk again. And do bring it back in one piece, that's a lot of money for spare parts. The shuttle will be leaving the bay Delta in an hour."
Garrus placed the Datapad next to him on the seat. After a few seconds it turned off, hiding the message that was displayed. "Oi Garrus, 'ave you got an idea on the quality of the guardian? Is it a new one?""No Idea, surplus product, can't tell about the quality. But we are going to cannibalize it either way. Ripping out the good stuff, switching the chassis number on them and work on power cell." "Aight, you're the boss. Also, are we getting the IRG cell I suggested?" "Most likely, I yet have to acquire one though." Garrus started to look outside the window, waiting for the shuttle to depart. "Welcome to the shuttle Delta 46 on the flight to New York. Please stay on your seats during the takeoff, landing and during jumps. In the name of the Forlorn Hope we wish you a good flight." The voice was prerecorded, with a synthetic tone. Slowly the shuttle took off, the doors opened and a force pushed the passengers in their seats.
New York, Norfolk Shipyard, Hangar Administration A few hours later
Garrus entered the busy room of the hangar administration to meet with the representative of the requisition center. "Garrus Hendrix, Knight Captain and Division head of the Forlorn Hope." Garrus extended his arm to greet the man in front of him. Reaching after Garrus' hand, the man started to smile. "And now proud owner of a BDR-804 'Guardian'. Well, soon. We first have to deal with some paperwork, nothing major, just some signatures.""Thought so." Pausing for a moment Garrus started to smile. "Well then, let's get down to business." The representative nodded and walked towards the door. Outside the two mechanics started to follow Garrus again. After a short trip through some corridors they arrived in a special hangar. Several Guardians and other models of the shipline stood here, waiting to get a new owner. "Let's see, the guardian should haven been moved to the launchpad. Ah, there it is." The group approached the Guardian. Both of the mechanics walked closer to the guardian while Garrus stood next to the representative.
"The paperwork, where do I have to sign?" The man opened the folder he had carried with him the whole time, revealing a small pencil and some sheets of paper. "First of all, here. With signing this document, you agree to not use the guardian against Liberty forces or it's allies. Then you need to sign here and agree to not use it against any Libertonian cooperations. And last but not least here as a proof that you got the ship." Waiting for Garrus to finish writing, the man pulled some 'keys'
out of his pocket. "Judging by the fact that we mostly work in Liberty and Bretonia, we can't hazard the consequences in acting hostile towards either house.""Looks fine, here are the 'keys'." The man nodded as he gave Garrus the 'keys'. "Well then, since it is all done now, I'll be attending some other business, we got some people collecting weapons that arrive any time. Just let the Hangar control know when you are leaving.""Will do. Farewell." And thus both of them walked away, Garrus towards the Guardian, the representative towards the door.
Taking a closer look at the Guardian, Garrus noticed no difference to the old one he got from Reeves. "How does the Guardian look.""Typical surplus, probably used by rookies that are going to loose a lot of ships. It seems like the ship got weaker plating and well, parts that aren't made for long term use. A 'throwaway' product. We might still be able to make use of it though.""That's what I expected. You guys are the best mechanics I've seen around these parts, I'm sure you can work with it. Get some internal readings and then we're on our way again.""Already a step ahead of ya Garrus. Again not the values we expected but still better than the broken power core. I say we get the thing to Glenn and try to have a closer look at it." Garrus nodded as he moved for the cockpit. "We'll meet at Glenn, Hangar Bay P. The shuttle should wait for you in the hangar."
The engines started to hum as the hangar opened. "Forlorn pilot, you got green lights. Ready to proceed.""Acknowledged, continuing with takeoff." The Guardian took of and flew out of the hangar, leaving it next to Battleship Missouri. A small Navy patrol moved through the sector otherwise it was quiet. Garrus took a quick look at the scanners and proceeded towards the lanes.
Garrus flew through the lanes without anyone even remotely caring about him. Suddenly though as he approached the California gate, a Navy Patrol halted him. They scanned the ship and gave Garrus the green lights to move on. As Garrus passed the gate, he had a quick thought about the ‘incident’ just now. ‘They already got their database updated with the information regarding my ship. Guess they have gone through the whole process beforehand. It might get tricky to forge the chassis number on the other Guardian. At least we have the number and we possibly can also get the scanner ID, although I might have to get help on that one. The Ratpack seems like they might be able to help me find someone or even have the knowledge to do so.’ Garrus had passed the first Lane and arrived at riverside by the time he concluded his thought.
While passing the quiet California system, he was most of the time in the chair and let the autopilot fly the ship through the lanes. The rest of the trip was as quiet as California, the occasional trader that passed him in the lane, the navy rookies that had a test flight with their repaired ships and every now and then a lonely freelancer crossed his path.
Entering Glendalough Orbitals vicinity, Garrus got hailed by the Station, asking who is flying the ship and under which callsign. “This is Garrus Hendrix, I’m requesting permission to dock at Hangar Bay P. I’m transmitting my access codes now.”“Acknowledged Sir, the hangar is already prepared. Welcome home.” Slowly the door opened, and the Guardian moved inside the station.
The mechanics were already waiting in the hangar for Garrus to arrive. He didn’t expect them to be here already although he might have taken his time for the trip. As soon as the Guardian landed, the mechanics moved closer with their tools. Garrus left the cockpit and nodded to the mechanics. “It’s all yours. Just make sure we have all the things intact if we need the whole ship to change the ID-Signature.”“'Aight, got ya Garrus. And ‘bout that ID-Signature-forgery-thingy, ‘ow’re we gonna do that? I mean, it ‘as to be perfect and we don’t know nuffin’.”“That’ll be my problem, although I have a plan already. Ever heard about the Ratpack? The ones leading the Freeport in Bering? They might know how to do that. And if not, they can be paid to find one who can do it. That’s why I asked you to keep the parts intact.”“Gotcha, so we tear it apart, check the parts and rebuild it. That’d be an easy task.”
The lead mechanic turns around and faces the rest of the crew. They were all listening and were already waiting to start. The Guardian was still unharmed, no signs of any damage and no weapons. “Listen up boys, we gotta tear that thing apart, make a plan where everythin’ goes and put it back together. Ya got me? Good, off to work.” He glanced into the faces of the crew and saw some grins here and there and a few even nodded. Turning back to Garrus, he started to laugh. “Guess they will ‘ave their fun.” With a silent nod, Garrus changed his direction and started walking. After a few steps he stopped, not turning around, with his head slightly turned to the side. “Keep it safe, I’ll be sending out a communication. I’ll tell you the details later, when I know what we need.” He now started to walk in a faster pace and left the hangar.
Shortly after Garrus had left the the hangar, the wings were stripped of their armor, that now was placed on the side of the hangar. Now the mechanics could start undoing the rest of the armor plating. Taking off piece by piece and marking them with a number, the pile of plating grew bigger and bigger. They carefully stripped each plating from its mounting points, separating any fixated wires and placed the pieces on a cart. Then moving the plating over to the rest of the parts. It took them a while to have all the plating stripped of the guardian, leaving only the ships internals visible. Because this step had consumed a good amount of time, the mechanics went on their breaks, leaving the ship to rest in the hangar.
After they returned, they continued to draw and craft their plans as this was one of the most important steps since they might have to rebuild the Guardian as well as for replacing internals on ‘Hope’s Guardian’. By the time they had finished the third layer of the plan, Garrus entered the hangar again. He walked straight to the lead mechanic and taped him on the shoulder. “I’ve got news regarding the Guardian.”“That’s good, what ‘ave ya got Garrus. And don’t tell me we ‘ave to get the ship together already, we only ‘ad time to make a plan of the first few layers.”
"We're going to get the IRG cell sometime soon. So I'd want you to see how it can be implemented. Check the connections and such.""Gotcha G. We'll take the thing apart." Garrus left the hangar as fast as he entered it. The mechanics continued to deconstruct the Guardian, removing part by part, carefully inspecting them. They started to mark the quality of the parts in three categories, 'Surplus', 'Standard' and 'Good Quality'. After they were done with the marking, they brought it to a separate location, sorting them after quality.
Several weeks passed with only slow progress due to the low priority of the project and Garrus eventually lost track of the current status. Although at some point they had the ship completely dismantled, each part was taken apart and sorted into one of the three categories. As Garrus came back from one of his test flights, in which he nearly lost 'Hope's Guardian', the project was stopped completely. With the need to replace vital components the mechanics started to use some of the high quality parts from the Surplus-Guardian. Those parts were mostly electronics and life support systems that had to follow a certain standard within Liberty. Getting the call from Garrus to repair 'Hope's Guardian', they only had the possibility to cannibalize the Surplus and keep the good parts. Eventually the pile with the good parts got smaller and smaller and eventually vanished.
They weren't able to fix the ship though and had problems repairing it to a usable standard. The main problems were the lack of replacement parts and the lack of knowledge. As Garrus got note of that, he thought about getting help. Due to the matter that he didn't acquire 'Hope's Guardian' legally, or at least due to the fact that it is not legally registered, he wasn't able to contact any Libertonian organizations. He did however consider jumping in with the Hellfire legion, since they agreed, alongside with Auxesia, to refit the Thanatos cruiser they obtained from the Crayterians. Although giving it a second though he decided to not take this route, since he did not want risk running into the fact that he might end up using tech from Hellfire that might get him into trouble while hunting in Liberty.
After some consideration he decided to contact the Core and it's subdivision the APM to ask if they might be able to help him refit the ship. In addition to that, he asked for a new set of weapons, namely some Reaver MKIIs to be installed on his ship. Additionally he took the risk and asked them if they are able to change the digital serial number of the chassis to reflect the one that is registered. He figured that they might be able to do so, since they're the ons building ships and weapons for the core and might use the same or at least a similar technology themselves.
Reaching out to the Core, they accepted to help Garrus and his crew to overhaul the ship, as long as he brings both Guardians to Dagger Station in Omega 55. Garrus is now going to repair 'Hope's Guardian' alongside the Core, installs the IRG powercell and configures the ship for the usage with the cell and the variety of technology used on the ship. The weapon loadout of two experimental codename pulse guns with four Core weapons mounted on a Libertonian ship is not something you see too often amongst the ranks of a Mercenary organization.
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