Believing herself surely dead, Maria was shaken, laying on the ground for a few moments she collected her thoughts, pushing herself up, grabbing onto anything to stabilize herself within the cargo bay of the Xeno's Eagle, her armored flight suit and helmet surprisingly still intact despite the intense blaster fire, she awaited what was to come. Though her resignation to a sure death had faded, only questions remained, if they had planned to kill her, they would've already done so.
A cursory glance to the front-end of the Eagle, just beyond the small division that separates the pilot from the ship's cargo bay, appears to be the ever approaching silhouette of a desolate and quite arid moon. Upon noticing the movements out of the corner of his eye, the pilot turns his head ever so slightly to get a better look while speaking, though never taking his eyes off the approach vector. Re-entry without the use of a docking ring was always a tumultuous affair, but he seemed relatively unphased by it. "To your left, small knob, pull it firmly, it'll give you a secure place to sit. Make sure it clicks and locks into place before you strap in, you've got a minute or two before this gets a little hairy." Apparently his Eagle came with what must have been an improvised modification to accommodate a passenger, useful given the situation, but it wasn't clear how cooperative she'd be.
Maria said nothing, as if the experience was surreal to her, looking to her left after a brief silent stare at the pilot, she knew full well her aim wasn't good enough to pull off what he did, and the fact someone like that was a Xeno surprised her. So many questions. She firmly grabbed the knob pulling it firmly just as instructed, making sure the seat was securely in place after hearing the click before quickly strapping herself in and making sure her flight helmet was still properly sealed, she had a few training exercises for planetary entry, taking place on Susquehanna, Bruin's Moon, this would be fairly similar given a few changes in degree due to the planet's composition and thickness of atmosphere.
He visibly braces for a moment, facing forwards and deeply absorbed into the process of tearing this Eagle through the thin atmosphere, the buffeting is far from mild despite this fact and it puts the ship's resistances to the test, one that it passes albeit with a blackened belly and scorch marks across the wings. It was right about that point that her NeuralNet link would just crash without explanation, she was off the grid now and truly cut off from everything. "Camp Gore control, this is XA-P.6, requesting clearance and hangar space. Inductee aboard." For a moment it must have been confusing how he was able to communicate with a control tower despite the absence of the NeuralNet communications network here, but then it became apparent that a relatively short-range radio system was being used to enable localized clearances. She wouldn't hear a response, only a few crackles and a garbled echo from the corners of his helmet.
Rapidly approaching, yet in the distance nonetheless was what must have originally been a surface-side campsite for a DSE Expeditionary effort mounted years ago to prospect this backwater of a world, the prospectors had no doubt been evicted with lethal force, but the camp remained and had been expanded upon in crude fashion, sealed off from the searing temperature and unforgiving terrain, it didn't look the slightest bit inviting and seemed more like a prison than a base of operations.
Maria still remained deathly silent, staring forward blankly as she recalled being thrown around like a rag doll in the back of a liberator escaping the LPI Sugarland, certainly not a fond thought but she remained calm. As the eagle made it through the moon's atmosphere without being torn to shreds as she expected of a Xeno ship, she turned her vision towards the cockpit to look upon the makeshift building that much resembled a prison, she wasn't sure if she should be intrigued by the project, or fearful of what was to come. Xenos being entirely unrestricted by the law as they were, horrible things could await, and for all she knew this trust exercise could easily be a cruel game played on the prey. Though the hope of gaining what she had so desired upon reaching out to the Xeno Alliance in desperation served to only further calm her worry.
The Eagle swoops it's way in for a set of crudely reinforced bay doors, it had a generous clearance in terms of size and must have been built with larger cargo ships in mind to make supply runs to this camp, now it served the means of a radical militia in the Alliance. As large as life on holographic displays that only barely clung to life was a peculiar flag which flanked two rows of parked fighter-craft of various kinds.
"End of the line, thanks for being cooperative. Two have resisted in the past, so their deaths were more.. literal." He set the ship down and seemed to wait for a moment since the bay doors hadn't yet closed, they would only begin to do so after a bloody orange streak threw itself across the threshold and settled down quite aggressively just across from where the Eagle had landed. The new entry was a strange looking ship, a blade seemed to have been affixed to the bottom of it's rather elongated nose.
Maria unstrapped from the makeshift seat, being courteous enough to return it to its natural resting state within the wall of the cargo bay. She gave a simple nod in response to his words, as the bay door opened up, she walked from the bay and out into the hanger, looking up to the strange flag she had never born witness to before. Maria kept her flight helmet upon her head, tapping the side to display its inner UI so she checked the oxygen levels of her surroundings before tapping the side of her flight helmet once more to turn the UI off and turn her attention to the other ship that had landed so rapidly she had little time to get a proper figure in her head, for now, without purpose, she idly approached the ship at a slow pace, assuming the pilot within was to meet her.
The pilot of the ship across from her seemed to have hopped out and climbed down a ladder to get to the deck quite quickly and upon noticing the approaching woman he pointed to his right, which revealed the fact that a group of three people were on approach to her while she had decided to walk towards him. "Miss Wilhelm, with us please." Despite how polite that sounded it didn't seem like the woman who just said that, dressed in what must have been somewhat outdated Liberty combat-gear with the emblem scratched off, was actually giving her an option.
Maria stopped in her tracks upon noticing the group approaching her, she stared at them for a few moments before taking another solid glance at the pilot she had approached, before turning to follow as she was so politely ordered. She noted the outdated standard issue combat gear, a sense of dread washed over her as the possibility she had simply walked right back into the grip of the people she had escaped entered her mind. There was no point of fear of such a thing now, be it the case or not, the only thing bothering her at this specific moment was the fact she had no idea what was going on, a sheep wandering aimlessly in a lion's den. it hadn't occurred to her until this moment that felt near inches away from a fatal slip that her rifle and sidearm had been destroyed in the explosion and she was entirely unarmed. She finally spoke, nearly revealing the dread as she powered through a near choke, her tone stern and direct."As you wish."
The constant echo of distant voices seemed to suggest that she was being escorted through a series of bland and dimly lit hallways that must have shared a wall or a floor with a residential section of the camp. This was the blender for fresh inductees, they were brought here for testing, refinement and then placement. Eventually they took her down a series of stairs that dragged on for quite a while, terminating abruptly and met by a set of automated sliding doors. Passing through would put them in a large hall that must have been used for meetings to coordinate the prospecting efforts here, except this room was full of people somewhat clueless like her, at least thirty and only one man stood near a podium at the furthest end of the room. "Take a seat, somebody will assign you a room after orientation. Pay attention and good luck." The effectively masked woman wished her well but soon retreated with her other compatriots, leaving Wilhelm to find an empty seat herself.
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