Elizabeth smiled. It seemed to her like it was working. Nonetheless she still expected defiance. In the end Ambre was still but a gallic pilot and in the wrong end of the barricade.
"Your Roi is no longer with you capitane. He could not and cannot save you. Here youre stuck with just me and captain Mayer."
The spinning planet, the humming sound of the ships reactor, the occasional beep of th aparatuses, it was all almost the same as a ticking clock. A pretty loud one. The once cosy and comforting bright milky walls of the room were now giving her more of a sense of isolation and captivity.
Looking at ambre still being confused she wasted no time to take advantage of her disorientation, fear and sense of isolation. She leaned closer to her bed, to the sight of a traumatised young pilot.
"I dont think you have properly introduced yourself yet. For us to get along, we must first get to know each other, don't you think?" She smirked, to make her understand that if she were not to cooperate a far worse fate would await her. "I am sure you would rather not prefer homeland security to be invloved." Her face held up a smile which Ambre could not tell if it was indeed friendly or just because of the sitation she was in.
Lachance stared as she listened to the woman, her blue eyes betraying her state. Elizabeth was enigmatic - she was hard to read through. Her expressions had multiple meanings to Ambre, and she wasn't sure which was the case. Neither she nor Mayer were making it easy to be in that room. Especially Mayer, who seemed to be more serious than the other one.
"You already know who I am. You've mentioned my rank. What else?" she asked dismissively. She couldn't help but think of what she'd do in case they would try to take it one step further. Ambre was taking occasional glances at their weapons - Elizabeth's was particularly within arm's reach if it were possible to drag her closer and lock her arm. Unfortunately, she wasn't prepared for this at all, having just woken up and sore all over. She was stuck between a reaper and a cliff, and that made it very difficult to act.
"I'm not afraid of your "homeland security", and I don't even have much to offer! I should be already dead at this point if what you're saying is true, and something makes me doubt that I'll be living for long if I cooperate with you either way." The fear of betraying her birthplace and invoking the Roi's wrath was something that helped her hold her ground in the end. She didn't want to betray the Navy, her family, and the Roi himself. Being branded a traitor was the same as a death sentence for Gallics, and it would affect everyone she was related to as well. Especially if it were to these Sirians. They would just toss her to the sharks once they're done regardless - at the very least, she could at least pass away without hurting the Kingdom and her family back home if it came to that.
"We do not know much about you. We only know your Name, Rank and that you are part of the Gallic Royal Navy." John clearly understood DeGrange's plan to not act hostile towards the prisoner. Even though he didn't like the idea at first, he made peace with it. As soon as they entered the room and started talking he completely changed his mind and started to like the idea, as a result of that he was smirking most of the time.
"I don't think we need to get to a certain topic this day. We just want to know more about you. Tell us something about you, about your life or your family." His smirk from earlier turned into a friendly smile as he walked closer to Ambre's bed, positioning his chair closer to it. "Miss, we don't want to harm you. Here let me show it to you." John reached for his weapon and hold it up, in front of Ambre, pointing the barrel towards the window.
He held it for a bit without stopping to smile. "You see my weapon? It is armed but as a sign of my good will, I'll not carry it around anymore for the time I'm in this room." Standing up he inspected the weapon a bit more closely. It was the standard sidearm of libertonian Personnel, a decent pistol that saved a lot of men who carried one of them. It was branded with the emblem of the First Fleet and had something engraved into it, "Ever vigilant, never fearing, and always ready!" on one side and a name on the other one. "John Mayer".
Though this time it won't make a sound when the trigger is pulled. Only a silent click will be heard, the sound of an empty magazine. John placed the pistol on a shelf that could be easily accessed by either Ambre or John. It just depended who had the quicker hands. "See, we are not hostile towards you, neither do we want to harm you." Still smiling at Ambre he sat down again. With a quick look to DeGrange he checked if she still knew what he had planned with his weapon.
"Now, tell us something about you. You must have had an interesting life so far." He leaned back and stopped to smile. He didn't want to overdo it with the smiling and still wanted to resemble a serious person.
As the gun was placed on the shelf, Lachance was left baffled. It was left tantalisingly close, a small lean and she would be holding it - they were just messing with her, weren't they?!
"I don't see why you'd want to know more about me. My history isn't important, interesting or special. I'm from a commoner family from the Core Worlds. I went to the Royal Military Academy and I'm here to do my duty of serving the Kingdom and its people. I'm glad I did join the Navy, I don't want to see Sirians like you anywhere near where my family and home is. I've had the chance to sample your "hospitality" - thievery, abuse, exploitation, corruption runs everywhere you touch. You deserve everything that happened to you, including your station that we made sure to turn into a silent coffin!" Ambre shifted slightly, feeling uncomfortable.
Right, the San Diego Border Station was in the system she was in. Ambre, a Lieutenant at the time, was one of the awarded heroes of the assault of the station. She was part of a bomber wing that made precision strikes the hull, its convoys and defensive forces. It was the hallmark of her career something that she hoped would garner the attention of someone higher, and, to and extent, did. A sense of pride came every time she remembered receiving the medal honours, but that was dwarfed by the realisation of being stuck in the wrong capital ship in the very same system.
"You threatened to shoot my ship after I've been assaulted by... something unimaginable, destroyed it instead of letting me reach actual safety! What are you planning now? Is this some sort of sick joke you're trying to pull? Rubbing salt on a wound? Is this that funny to you?!" her tone rose, clearly losing her cool. She couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer.
At that instant all Elizabeth could think of was the first announcement by the fleet admiral when the Gallics had their first incursion into California. "San Diego station has been destroyed and i regret to tell you that many libertonian lives have been lost." That followed with flashbacks of her deployment against the Gallics when she was still a Commander.
By the short moment she shook that off, she stopped caring about her moderate interrogation technique and strategy. She simply chuckled a bit.
A second later Ambre would find herself in a very difficult moment as Elizabeth was over her face, griping on her throat.
"Listen here you bittch."
She moved in a bit closer and got a better and tighter grip on her neck.
"Many good men died that day. Now you can say whatever you want, but never ever fail to respect their sacrifice and valor."
Lizabeth took a deep breath still holding her grip on Ambre. She knew what she was doing was wrong and out of protocol, but it was perhaps the way to make Ambre accept her fate of being a POW and understand the officers authority.
"If theres any reason why you are alive it is because it was my choice. If you think I should have done differently, then you might want to think about what you had to lose."
Elizabeth started pushing down in a choking motion. Just enough for Ambre to have her vision starting to blur and blacken, before she released her. She did not want to harm Ambre in any way, but that was a good way to show her authority.
As she sat down again, leaning on her chair she continued as Ambre grasped. "My advice to you would be to cooperate dear captain. I'm not here to harm you and I don't want to either."
Briefly glancing at Mayer, Elizabeth took a deep long sigh. All the momentum was quite intense and it didn't feel right at all.
Ambre gasped for air, panicking from the assault. Her line of thought was one curse word repeating over and over again. The sudden change in attitude was something she didn't expect - she was just about to start believing they were friendly after all.
"The Roi will have you for this, you cretin!" she tries to speak out, coughing in the process. She couldn't have cared less for the Sirians she shot during the siege, thinking they were a pure, bloodthirsty and dishonourable enemy.
Normally, she would have retorted to rub it in further and retaliated outright, but the woman was already indecisive due to the chaos in her mind. Deciding not to say anything else, she focused on recovering from being strangled. The situation was really affecting her, not to mention the sore neck.
John looked over to DeGrange, trying to get a glance at her reaction. It seemed she acted out of instinct judging by her sigh. He closed his eyes for a moment before he turned his head to Ambre. "I'm sorry for what Miss DeGrange just did, she doesn't take the fall of San Diego lightly due to the losses she suffered that day. Losing your family in such an attack is not the amusing and can't be taken lightly." Those were the first words that came to his mind when he saw DeGrange's reaction. He didn't even knew about the family of DeGrange and he didn't even knew if she lost friends that day. But in fact he did understand her action moments ago. John had the urge desire to just shout at her, though he kept calm and tried to follow the plan, though as a matter of that he wasn't able to pull DeGrange back to not let her harm Ambre.
"Is there anything we can get you? Maybe some libertonian specialties or just something to drink?" Taking a quick peak at the clock that hangs in the room he turned his head to DeGrange again. " Miss DeGrange, shall we call for the meals that were prepared? I think our guest might be hungry. We don't want to be any worse than we already were."
John stood up again and walked to the window, waiting for someone to say anything. Looking out of the window, he saw a fighter wing flying past the ship and tried to place himself in Ambre's situation. He wouldn't have had the courage to act the way Ambre did, he'd probably just lie in the bed and tried to stay alive. It seemed Ambre had no fear of dying, ripping open wounds, acting aggressive. This behavior takes a good amount of courage and said courage is at no shortage within Ambre.
Elizabeth had lost no family. Her old people were on Planet Houston and she was generally disconnected from them for most of the time. She had seen some of the younger officers being deployed and taking up in the fight for the first time. Something that changes a man forever. None the less she admired Mayer stepping in and trying to make do of things again. "Please do Mayer. I think she's been through enough as it is."
Leaning on Ambre's bed again she tried calming her down again. "Is there anything specific you would like?" Well that wasn't going to be too effective after what just happened. "I understand this is tough. But I am trying to make this easier for both of us. What I just did was.. wrong, but let's start this over okay?" She rubbed on her sore neck to try and relieve her pain faster. A moment later she paused and just shortly after leaned back in her chair. Looking at Mayer as he was reaching for the medical service cross-talk to call for the prepared lunch.
"So, is there somethign specific you would like?" Elizabeth asked again. Not sure whether to expect an answer or not after what happened.
Mayer walked away. DeGrange was close with her guard let down and thinking she's almighty and victorious. Panic was still pumping in Lachance's mind, slowly winding down - it was still fight or flight for her. The noisy beeping of the apparatus paced to match, her heart pumping much faster than normal. Without much thought, she decided that now was the time to seize the opportunity and get back at Elizabeth for the treatment she gave, and to try to get away from this mess.
Ambre quickly angled herself to get ready to strike. She used all of her anger to shove the bed sheet she was under on Elizabeth with a kick, effectively throwing it on her and making the chair tumble backwards from the impact. The adrenaline rush helped - despite her muscles being sore, she could still use them to give a decent kick. God, that felt satisfying - her arrogant expression probably turned into shock.
While Mayer was busy trying to realise what's happening with a bed sheet flying in the room, Ambre quickly pulled out the cord that was monitoring her vitals, causing the room to be enveloped by high pitched tone from the apparatus. She lunged for the gun that was near her on the nearby shelf, rolling out of bed onto her feet and quickly nabbing it. Strange, it was really light - much more than she would have expected - maybe the Libertonians make light weapons. All the while, the weight just made it much easier to quickly take aim with the pistol towards Elizabeth, who had just recovered from the kick.
I'll make this easier for you, you stuck-up mongrel! You'll get to rejoin your family and maybe I'll be nice enough to leave the other one to just questioning if he begs hard enough." she spoke as she tried to set any safeties off in case it had any. The battered woman gave a couple of seconds before pulling the trigger.
As soon as John realized what Ambre did he pushed her hands down. "A shame that the gun is empty, right? I understand your anger but try to calm down. We don't want to..." He paused for a moment and let out a sigh. "Why am I even trying, you made your stance clear. Can I get my gun back now?" Reaching with one hand to the gun he looked Ambre in the eyes. "You do know that you would't have made it far, since the battleship is crawling with guards." John now tried as hard as he could to keep a cool head, trying not to attack Ambre.
As soon as John pulled the gun out of Ambre's hands he walked over to DeGrange, extending his arm to help her get up again. "I think it is best if we leave now. We will talk again if the situation has calmed down again." Moving his head in a way to indicate DeGrange that they should leave, he opened the door. "Shall we send in a doc to look after your wounds? Or do you still want that food?" John didn't even look at Ambre this time, he stood at the edge of the room, facing towards the door with a slightly tilted head. He stood there, waiting for either Ambre to say something or DeGrange to leave the room.