Where was she? An order to provide consultation on an impending plan of action was made weeks ago, and regardless of how Angelina felt about Ramsey, Morreti didn't label her as the type to skip out on obligations. No surprise visits to poke at his handling of situations, no idle banter intended to rile him up and frustrate him. She'd been absolutely nowhere and that was out of character for her. A trip to Ouray didn't take long, and it wasn't as if the hangar crews were surprised to see the Alliance Marshal's Prosecutor pulling in for a landing. With it seeming like he was in a hurry, the people that walked over to attend to his parked ship didn't bother him with conversation and nor did Morreti have anything to say to them. He had a singular purpose for coming here.
One place at a time, checking the bar first - not there. Requisition center for basic goods? Not there either. This list of places to check was running out of items, there was only one other place he could go in the event that she wasn't anywhere to be found. Her quarters weren't far from where he last checked, but they also happened to be located on the most cramped, poorly lit and coldest part of the base. For the sake of being polite, he knocked a few times but all that gesture elicited was dead air. A twist of the handle revealed that the door was locked, but upon closer inspection of the door it became clear that it had been locked from the outside. Now, Morreti had a master card to every door across every station the Xenos occupied. There wasn't a door he couldn't open, but he didn't have the card with him and didn't feel like taking the hours necessary to fetch it from Ramsey. No, the gun would suffice. She had her chance to answer the door or even respond, loud music or a great shower wasn't an excuse to be rude.
And so he blew the door open, aiming at where the lock met with the wall and indenting the steel enough to cause the frame to buckle. It was cheap enough to bend for the inch required to swing it open, but as soon as the door groaned opened the plot only seemed to thicken. She wasn't here, and hadn't been here for a while now. The air was frigid, it was common practice to open up the door every few hours to let the warmth of the base reactor eventually pass through. It wasn't an exact science or a particularly reliable process, but it did serve as a subtle statement to express how long she'd been gone. At this point he's angry and leaving seems like the best option, but curiosity's a powerful thing. And despite sentiment not being his preferred mindset, he wanted to see what was the last book she read. But by doing so, he'd discovered that a note had been left behind, addressed to him. It was definitely her handwriting, albeit with a more erratic degree of pressure than usual. Stress, maybe? Regardless of her frame of mind might have been while writing it, Morreti picked up the plain piece of paper and read silently.
This.. struck a chord, no that wasn't quite the right expression. This took a razor to a harp and gutted the strings. Now there was something to be said, even if there was nobody around to hear it, because not only did she have no right to leave like this, she did it anyway and didn't see the need to talk to him first. Morreti intended to express how incredibly f-ing wonderful this was, but the words did not come out, and trying only evoked a horrible feeling that wound his gut up like a deflated balloon. If the Xenos were the sort to attract disgruntled psychologists, then this would be a remarkable development to be documented for the field of study relating to the human mind. A notorious sociopath standing there with his throat squeezed under the strain of what seemed like sincere disappointment and remorse.
This just wasn't acceptable for him though, feeling nothing at all would have been far preferable, that's how it should be. He wasn't given a choice in the matter of how to feel and that only served to make him try to talk again and the sound of his own saddened mumbling made him resort to screaming instead. It was likely he woke the dead, or gave some of the more elderly Knights of Labor a swift end to their struggle by way of spontaneous cardiac arrest from the sudden noise. Though it was also just as likely that the base being as noisy as a retrofit transport running around with a wrench in the engine shaft served to drown it out. The latter seemed like the most likely outcome, given that nobody came to investigate who had died and if they could have their stuff.
He kept the note and sat down on the edge of her bed. Going out there like this wasn't the sort of thing he was going to allow to happen, but all the same it seemed like he needed a moment. The bigger dilemma was having to replace the lock, a creative excuse was going to be necessary when talking to the supply vendor. Maybe the gun would suffice in that situation as well, it didn't really matter.
Eventually he mustered the strength to leave, jamming the door back into place so that nobody felt compelled by curiosity to look around, it would have to be cut down off its frame and entirely replaced in the future. With everything being as uncertain as it was, Morreti decided to check on her ship as requested. It was still there, untouched. Perhaps a little dirty from not being cared for over the past few days, or more likely was the fact that Ouray was just riddled with filth. With nowhere else to be for the next several hours, he climbed into the pilot's seat and leaned back, trying not to think. A dose of what he needed to take and roughly an hour of bitter euphoria later, he'd find some respite in sleep.
A sudden noise woke Morreti up with a sharp exhale, somebody had climbed up a ladder outside the ship and thrown open the canopy, not expecting to see him there but looking over him anyway. When his eyes finally adjusted and he could coordinate himself well enough to turn and see, he noticed Angelina was just standing on the ladder beside him and watching. With her head slightly titled she had her hands folded and placed on the frame where the Prosecutor's canopy was meant to slot into.
His mind couldn't quite process the fact that she was standing there, especially after leaving him that note. He looked down to find it but the note wasn't there anymore, it had simply just vanished from his lap where it should have been resting when he first climbed into the ship. It didn't really matter, so he returned his gaze to her and just continued to think of what he was supposed to say, in order to either explain why he was sleeping in her ship or perhaps more appropriately demand to know where she'd been. "My beloved Morreti. Didn't expect to see me, did you?" The woman said in a very soft voice after a while of only glancing, with a slight irritation in her sight, at him. She waited for his confusion to vanish, and couldn't exactly comprehend, why it's been there in the first place.
"No, not after you made such a dramatic and silent exit." He frowned, partly in frustration and partly because his eyes were getting used to the light, something felt off-kilter, the hangar wasn't supposed to be arranged the way it currently was, but maybe a raiding party just got back and combat damage made proper space allocation difficult.
"As self-determined and efficient like you got to know and love me. You wouldn't understand." The voice sounded a little softer than he remembers her voice. But it fairly had been a while since the last time they've talked to each other in person. She's lifting her head back into an upright position. "But what are you doing in my ship? That's an interesting way to take care of it." A slight tone of irony mixed into her voice.
"Bold word you used there, who's to say I'm not immensely upset with the fact that you just abandoned your post without even talking to me?" It most certainly sounded as if he was mad, but it wasn't for the fact that she had left without actually seeing him about it first, it's because he didn't like the fact that she'd been correct in her assertion and for whatever reason it seemed to somewhat infuriate him.
"I'd be disappointed if you weren't upset at all. I never hid it'd be hard for you and for anyone else to control me." She replies in all honesty. Angie obviously knows she did wrong when she vanished, but so far it also doesn't seem like she'd be up for excusing it. "Abandoning my post was the thing that hurts and annoys you the least. You wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have broken into my quarter and searched for clues. You wouldn't do like I told you in my note, which burned itself deep into your mind. You were afraid you lost a part of yourself. And maybe you did." While saying her very last sentence, she'd put her left hand right onto his cheek.
All of this feels a little too surreal and perfect, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's still comforting. He indulges the gesture and presses his cheek into the palm of her hand. "It's because I had no way of knowing if you'd ever come back, and I didn't want to miss you or need you, but I did anyway. I'm still trying to tell myself that, that I don't need.." His sentence seemed to trail off and remain incomplete despite how simple filling that blank would have been.
She chuckles in a familiar way as she caresses his cheek. "You need me as much I need you. But I'm afraid our time has come. You need to wake up. Now." She'd remove her hand, while leaning far back. It seems unnatural, almost as if she was levitating. As she talks more, her voice starts to continuously get a deeper and deeper pitch, until she sounds like a man. That's absolutely unfitting for her. "Boss? Boss!" He feels a returning pressure against his upper arm, as if he was poked over and over again, but there is nothing there.
Morreti wakes with a violent jolt, it feels as if it's for the second time. One of the first things he takes notice of is the piece of paper he's clenching in his left hand and nearly flails about upon being woken. He seemed genuinely startled and unnerved, taking a moment to catch his hasty breath and bringing it under control. "What do you want?" He asks quite sternly, not appreciative of the stranger waking him up at all.
"Wow. Keep calm boss, for a moment I thought we would've lost you in there. Seeing that note in your hand." It's unclear whether that man had a chance to read certain parts with his glance. It doesn't seem as if he'd care. "Let one almost think you were offing yourself and leaving a last message. It's just bad luck that I found you in here. Anyway. This ship. The, uh." He takes a thoughtful look at the datapad in his hands and raises a brow. For a brief moment he seems a bit irritated. "Latrodectus? Please. Leave it, so I can do my job without interruption. My supervisor and I would really appreciate that." After bringing up his thoughts on the situation he obviously tries to stay as professional and cool as he could possibly be, knowing he's talking to the head of the Xeno Alliance, probably the supervisor of his supervisor's supervisor.
"Your job?" He almost snarls, finding the situation to be quite ironic given some context that he soon reveals. "It doesn't seem like you've been doing your job, because this ship is filthy despite belonging to our best pilot. So what exactly have you come here to do besides pretend to be working?" Morreti wasn't known for being particularly aggressive with people in the movement, but this appeared to be an exceptional case, even if there wasn't quite anything remarkable about it.
"It's not my job to keep the dirt of the ship. Some days I'm here to make sure it's still able to unfold its wings while some other days, like today, I'm here to manage the logistics." That man reacts in a sharp tone himself, before seeing this as a mistake. He brings both his arms behind his back, getting himself into a stricter pose. "Apologies. But with our limited resources within our personal we don't have the time to polish every damn piece of metal. If you don't like it, we make sure our ships are only capable of moving and shooting without having pink flowers on their hull, please hand in a complaint for my supervisor. All I can tell you right now is, I don't care who or what was the pilot of this ship. That person is gone. The last check-in of the... Latrodectus... has been quite some time ago. The ship is marked for a change of signature and redistribution to a pilot without a ship." He doesn't seem to get over his confusion for that ship's name and even struggles with its proper pronunciation. A deep inhale breaks the brief silence of the room, before he'd attempt to explain further reasons, regulations and personal orders.
Morreti smiles at this response and carefully folds up and stuffs the piece of paper into a pocket. For a moment it seems like he's getting up to get out of the ship, but then he just pushes the worker off the ladder, throwing him down and onto his back with quite a thud. "No you won't be doing any of that." He asserts himself while climbing back down the ladder carefully, waiting until he's in a position to stare down at his subordinate before proceeding. "And if I find out that you gave this ship to somebody else, then I'll kill you. And somebody like you isn't going to need a goodbye note, nobody will miss you." For a moment he seems to dust himself off, letting the bits of filth freely fall onto the man he'd just pushed, it also served to give him a good glimpse of the gun Morreti had holstered to his hip. There wasn't anything else left to be said, he'd already been here long enough, it was time to leave.
"H... Hey!" A loud yell echoes through the hangar. People look, no one cares. They keep following their own businesses in Hangar 63-C, while that man just sits, halfway lying and starring in unbelief right at his boss, as he climbs down the ladder. He only hears Morreti's words through a big wall. That didn't just happen, right? He stutters. "Y-Y-Youuuu will hear of my supervisor! I'm go..going to complain about this!" Just like Damian starts to dust himself off, that poor worker starts to dust off his clothes. Unfortunately he held his arms and his pad behind his back, so fortunately he was able to cushion the fall with his hands, but the piece of technology broke in the process. He'd grab it quickly and run off. Of course he heard the threat, but couldn't process them in his shock.
Months went by since that last uncharacteristic altercation. And it seemed as though this issue of ship redistribution had solved itself. At least until Morreti's most recent visit to Ouray. He'd come here every other day of the week to attend to this Prosecutor since nobody else would. It was difficult, exhausting and at times sickening to keep the ship clean and well prepared for combat. It was also the sort of task that felt hollow, nobody would ever fly this ship, not the way she did. It made this chore of looking after the ship quite painful, a sensation Morreti was quick to bury and ignore. Typically, he tried to be quick about his reason for being here, but today did not allow for such a luxury.
In truth, the issue hadn't solved itself. It had just gotten worse, there was now a queue of three fairly accomplished pilots, all of whom had placed requisition orders for a Prosecutor-series fighter, of which two had been entitled to those flight-worthy units still in storage, while one was left ignored. This had caused quite the racket, hence why somebody was now forced to confront Morreti.
Tyra Morris was a well known and well liked pilot among the Xeno movement, she had no affiliations with the Alliance anymore, owed to a semi-recent decision she'd made to become part of Ouray's hangar crew. People knew her well for being the pilot of a dual chain-gun toting osprey, a ship with a notorious history of turning all its pilots deaf. Her decision to give up her wings and instead become the wind beneath them for others had therefore likely saved her hearing. She didn't really want to be doing this, talking to Morreti was strange enough, let alone confronting him. But this wasn't a cause that had the kind of money to operate like this, the Commander's sentiments could not come at the cost of efficiency, and he needed to be firmly reminded of that. "Commander, I hate to be the one doing this. But we're short of ships again. We can't be grounding combat capable pilots if the ships they need are being hoarded by people who won't use them." Firm bold words to get his attention, even if he was currently preoccupied with hosing the ship down and ridding it of muck.
Slowly, he'd set aside what he was doing and then give Morris the courtesy of turning around to face her. He was less than pleased that this was being brought up again, but he was smart enough to have expected this to eventually happen. It was also beyond evident to him that any prolonged defiance of this issue was going to start having consequences. "I made it clear the last time that a ship as significant as this one is, couldn't just be reassigned to people that won't put it to good use." It was a less than satisfactory answer for Morris to be met with.
"Look, either buck up and stop hoarding ships when we're short of wings, or cough up the money we all know that we don't have, so that at least we can restore one of the more broken up birds for the guy to use. I'm not going back just to explain how the Commander doesn't care, so come up with something because I'm not leaving till you do." Firmness, again. An uncompromising level of honesty. There was no intimidating a person like that, nothing to stop them short of a bullet to the brains. And that would have been an ill advised solution to a problem that he was causing.
When Morreti reached for his belt, Morris put a hand to the piece she had holstered. Only to exhale a sigh of relief when it became clear that he was actually pulling out an access card. He didn't have much of a choice, and thus opted to silently toss the card over to his peer. Morris almost didn't catch it when it came at her, fumbling a few times before getting it firmly between the fingers. But that's when it struck her that the card she'd been given didn't go the ship Morreti was attending to. It went to his own ship, a Prosecutor just like this one. Anyone that knew Morreti also knew that he had developed a strong connection to his ship. He had spent countless hours tuning and then re-tuning the machine till it was exactly how he wanted it. And his exploits with it had made the image of a Prosecutor something people related with the Xenos over the Legion. And now he was just giving it to her? Just like that? No, that didn't seem right. "Commander that's-." Morreti interjected at the perfect timing to assert his own words.
"My ship. Yes, you're right. It's my ship, so I'll do whatever I want with it. That solves this problem we seem to keep having, so you can stop barking at me now and go process the requisition order." Quick and curt, he really didn't want to have to talk about this, or get into why he was acting out. Unlike the previous deck worker, Morris had heard the rumors. She knew that despite whatever Morreti said, that this was personal. That it wasn't so simple as the mere intention of not letting an iconic ship be misused. He just couldn't bring himself to let go of the one thing he had left of her - the Spider. Morris opened her mouth as if to speak, to perhaps offer some kind of reassuring comment, but Morreti's eyes very much suggested that she not do so.
Smart enough to take the hint, Morris simply nodded, there was no longer an issue to confront him about. She promptly left, feeling the best thing she could do was respect the fact that he wanted to be left alone.