The Arrest

[Reid]

The badly damaged Coalition fighter entered the docking bay of Bethlehem station. It was obvious to everybody that the ship had just been in heavy combat. The fighter's missing body panels, badly erased emblems, and general look of disrepair only added to the severity of the ship's damage. The tone of the docking bay was tense, none of the workers knew what to do with a possibly hostile Coalition pilot. They stood in silence as the fighter shut down, but no pilot exited the ship.

[Petitioner]

Shortly thereafter, a brusque, muscular, slightly-short man in a slate grey flightsuit came rushing into the docking bay that the Coalition ship had just settled down in. Before any of the station personnel were able to stop him, he grabbed onto a singed, loosely-hanging hull panel on the left wing of the damaged fighter, pulling himself up by it. Withdrawing from a most decidedly non-regulation holster on his hip an exceedingly-bulky pistol that a lesser man might have held with two hands and prying the cockpit open, he aggressively pointed the custom Detroit blaster at the tiny Chinese woman in the cockpit, apparently oblivious to her tears and obvious fright.

"Alright, pinko, let's go. Out of the chair, hands on your head now!"

[Reid]

The pilot stared up at the man with fear filled eyes. She seemed frozen, still wondering if she could flee. But she remembered the two Navy pilots still in space, and the second time they might not be as forgiving. She took her pistol out of its holder and dropped it on the floor of her cockpit before opening the canopy and stepping out with her hands up. She seemed young and somewhat unkempt, her face gaunt. Despite this, her flight suit, which was a standard outfit for an SCRA pilot, seemed to bulk her up to hide the malnourishment.

[Petitioner]

"I said hands on your head, come on! That's right, back there, lock those fingers tight."

In the midst of all this, finally, one of the dock workers piped up. "I, uh, don't think you should be, uhh-"
The man in the flightsuit turned to him with a scowl.

"Look here, friendo, this filthy red terrorist was caught tryin' to espionage on Liberty military property! This is a legal arrest performed under auspices of the Liberty Navy, and this woman is an illegal prisoner of war immigrant no rights no habeas corpus nothin' not a god damn citizen foreign infriltrator-"

The torrent of official-sounding buzzwords was halted by another dock worker with more of a backbone, who raised a taser, his voice, and a point: "Hey, are you even with the Navy? 'Cuz that flightsuit don't look too official to me. What are you doin', wavin' around a gun in that poor girl's face like that on a Zoner base, huh? Are you lookin' to cause another Freeport 2 incident?"
The man in the flightsuit paused, obviously confused, or perhaps just not used to having his authority challenged. He frowned deeply, keeping his gun pointed direct at the Coalitioner's face, but wordlessly raised his other arm up, in a strange gesture of surrender that was contradicted by every other aspect of his body at that moment.

[Skorak]

MacLeod let the docking computer handle getting on the station and quickly checked if he still had his gun. Had it really been a good idea to let both civilians dock first? The Guardian was slowing down and then lowered itself to be held by the dock. He quickly opened the canopy and got out of the cockpit. Checking the position of his gun by touching it briefly again and trying to orientate himself."Damn lets try that way."

He ran down towards one door to get to the other hangar bay. There he saw a man, most likely the proud civilian, aiming a gun at the cockpit of the battered coalition fighter.

"Hey! What are you doing?! Don't shoot!" He shouted down the bay and ran towards them, shortly noticing the concerned dock workers. He drew his own gun and removed the safety. To his advantage he was indeed wearing the flight suit of the Navy unlike the Detroit Munitions pilot standing on the fighter.

[Petitioner]

Seeing the Navy officer rush in, the man in the flightsuit moved to lower his gun arm, stepping back away from the canopy.
"I'm just keepin' her under control, sir. No shots fired, but you can't be too careful with these treacherous pieces of shit."
This last line was punctuated by a particularly heavy sob on the scraggly Coalitioner's part, with which the man still seemed entirely unconcerned.
"But now that you're here, I guess you'll be takin' over the situation?" He still maintained his grip on his weapon, shifting slightly for balance as he finished speaking.

[Reid]

As the Naval pilot entered the hangar bay, the girl started to become visibly panicked. She tried whispering aside to the man still standing on the fighter, but her fear caused it to come out at normal volume. "Please, convince him to let me go, you'll never hear from me again. I'll never come back to Liberty ever. My friends can get you whatever you want, please. They'll kill me if they knew I was captured!" As she spoke, she tried stepping back towards the fighter's cockpit, assuming he would agree.

[Petitioner]

The Detroit man tightened his grip on his weapon, raising it again slightly.
"Don't even move, toots. It's up to the Law now what happens to you, but I can sure as shoot guarantee it ain't-" He paused for a moment, then chuckled to himself. "Heh. Heheh. Sure as shoot. Oh man, that's a good one. No, but really, you try and close that canopy and there'll be hell to pay." He turned back to the Navy man on the far end of the hangar bay. "Y'hear that? She wants ta' rescind her surrender!"

[Skorak]

"There is no need to be so threatening. She surrendered and what should she do in this hangar?" He asked when he arrived at the fighter and catched his breath before looking up.

"Okay. So. Let her get out with her hands over her head. Then we can talk without anyone needing any guns." He told the Detroit pilot hoping to calm the situation and hopefully achieve a peaceful solution. Although his gun was drawn he wasn't aiming but rather keeping it ready just in case, shaking a little.

[Reid]

She looked back and forth at the two men, her hands still above her head. She seemed to still be trying to figure out an escape route before her attitude turned to one of defeat, finally accepting that she was really caught. "I wont try to run, I'll cooperate." The Detroit man motioned for her to step down, gun still in hand. She met the Naval on the hangar bay, standing significantly shorter than him and her hands still locked onto her head.