If I had a Million Dollars...

Posted on Sun Jun 19th, 2022 @ 10:31am by Alden Loxley & Drake Loxley & Tristan & Chloe Waltz PhD & Jonas Bailey & Kinmont Armstrong

Mission: Home Sweet Wonderful Home
Location: Three Hills - Cloudwater Port - Drake's Estate
Timeline: November 15 - Pretty much all Afternoon

It always felt worse than being naked and unarmed, seeing his ship stripped down and unable to fly. Even worse still, in this case, as Alden and his Firefly were at the mercy of his little brother's crew, his money and Chloe. Out of those, Alden trusted Ms Waltz the most, and he'd only known her for a month. He couldn't bear to witness the details, so he'd left his engineer in charge for the moment.

Audley and Arlo, under Chloe's watchful gaze, had stripped down the filters, engines and thrusters and were in the process of cleaning dust, grime and who knew what else out of the collective parts that currently surrounded the trio. Alden, meanwhile had taken to tinkering with the Mule out on the ground outside in the patchy sunshine. It was warm today, that sort of blue-sky day where the clouds took the heat hostage every half hour or so for a few minutes and then allowed the heat to flood gratefully back and threaten to tan folks.

Their new fare-paying client was still snoozing (or at least was yet to exit his cabin), Jacy and Tristan were somewhere about the place and Alden had set up an electric cooler in the shade of Echo's ramp so that he and Jonas could sip beers while they put up with Drake's company.

"Does she charge extra?" Drake was asking, his face a mixture of amused innocence. "Or do you give her a free ride around the Verse in exchange? How's it work, exactly?"

"For the hundreth time," replied Alden, waving the bottle of light beer at his brother. "None of your business."

Drake grinned and looked to Jonas, one eyebrow raised impishly. "Do you share her?" he asked, pointedly.

Jonas looked at Drake, his stoic countenance betraying anger at Drake's comment. Drake was Alden's brother. But had he not been, Jonas would've strung him up by his ankles from the catwalk. "Kid, one of these days, you're gonna wind up with your head in a flushing toilet again."

Kinmont had been listening, with growing disgust, to the man who resembled Captain Loxley go on about Kindra. He calmed himself by visualizing the precise position of his fingers and pressure applied to the man's throat required to render him unconscious. Then he adopted the relaxed posture of his cover and strolled down the cargo ramp to join Bailey and the two Loxleys under the blue sky.

With a calculated balance of disapproval and fatherly scolding, Kinmont said, "Son, I know you must be talkin' bout this here firefly, and not a woman. On account o' because a ship is a thing, property that can be owned and shared. A woman is a person, owned by nobody but her own self, and should be treated and spoken of with respect."

"Woa, woa, woa," Drake interjected with mock horror. "I'm not your son to chide," he noted. "And Companions charge for their company, so like a ride on a boat, they're fair game for more than one customer at time. Just good business," he pointed out, with an irritating amiability. This wordy speech and distraction in Kinmont's direction did allow Alden a chance to smack his little brother upside the head with a satisfying - ow, hey! - in response though.

Disapproving paternal frown still showing on his face, Kinmont concluded that discretion was the better part of maintaining his cover. He added black mark on Drake Loxley's Guild membership to his mental to-do list, which cheered him considerably. With a forced shrug and a genuine smile, Kinmont eased himself down to sit on a crate, as though he suffered more joint pain than was actual fact. Then he changed the subject. "Appears as if you're makin' significant repairs and improvements to Fortune's Echo, Captain Loxley. How long ya reckon 'til she's ready to fly?"

Intrigued frown on his face as he watched the interaction between brother and stranger, Alden noted the determinedly careful way 'Armstrong' took his seat. Too many miles on the old clock, he supposed, but there were plenty of grey hairs on the man's head to give testimony to his time served. When he answered the observationally based question, Alden kept his tone amicable enough. "Improvements not so much as necessary upgrades," he admitted. "She's a recent acquisition and she's taken some hard hits even in that small space of time." A tanned and dirty hand waggled its palm in the vertical plane before Alden continued speaking. "She'll be ready sometime tomorrow afternoon, all being well. We have a fine crew on the job," he said. Then added, with significant sarcasm on the last two words. "Only reason I put up with my dear sibling."

"Well, that's just rude," Drake chided, glint in his eyes implying he could care less, which was more truth than acting. "I have other stuff to do, y'know, I don't need to sit around here helping you lot all day," he added as he stood to his feet. "I'll catch up with you all later." True to that word, he headed off towards town without another word from or to him.

Alden somehow managed to imbue a 'goodbye' wave with silent sarcasm, then, turned to his paying passenger. "Y'all in a hurry to be outta here?" He asked the older man. "Cos even if the work was done today, we still gotta wait for our Companion to return 'fore we can leave."

"Our Companion," Kinmont repeated quietly under his breath, mulling over the implications of that possessive phrase. On the surface old Willie Armstrong might be putting the two and two together of his earlier comments on the companion's departure. Though Kinmont's real thoughts centered on what the people of this crew were to Kindra, and what she was to them. He'd hoped to gain some insight from Alison, but damned if the ex-spy hadn't disappeared just before he arrived. "Naw, Captain, I'm in no hurry ta leave. Just don' want ta be left behind ma own self. An' ya know, tryin' ta make friendly conversation. Any chance there's another bottle of that beer as goin' beggin'?"

A frown creased Alden's brow at the older man's mutterings, but he'd missed whatever point Armstrong was making to himself there. "You're a paying customer," he noted out loud. "We ain't in the business of leaving you behind. Deal's a deal." He looked to Jonas then, and grinned. "You okay sharing beers with a stranger?" He asked, seriousness definitely absent from the question, but looking to involve his old friend in the conversation,

Jonas grinned at Alden. "Well I don't see why not. Man's gotta drink something and I'd be willing to bet there's not much more outside this ship that'd satisfy." He reached down and pulled one out for their customer. "Here ya go, Willie."

"Thank you, kindly Jonas," said Kinmont. He opened the bottle and took a swig. Not the best, but nowhere near the worst he'd ever tasted. "Well now, there ain't nuthin' like a good cool brew on a day like this." The old spy wanted to get a read on these people Kindra was associating with, before they knew of his connection to her. He took another, deeper, gulp, and made a forthright query. "If'n I recall rightly, the captain said yer the First Mate. Who else ya got on the crew and ridin' along as passengers like me? Ahm lookin' forward ta meetin' 'em."

Jonas nodded, a cold drink on a warm day was pretty good. "Yep, First Mate," said Jonas. He took a quick sip before continuing. "No doubt about meetin' up with them. Dinner time's most likely your best bet. She ain't a big ship, Fortune's Echo. You ever been on a Firefly?" Jonas hadn't been in the First Mate position long, but he sure wasn't going to start off by listing the ship's roster to a stranger. He knew how to take care of his own, even if he had been a gun-for-hire once.

Kinmont took a sip of his beer. Bailey knew better than to say much about the crew, a practice he approved of in an ally, but was something of a nuisance when trying to gather information. "Ah yes, I've been on more'n one Firefly. Good ships, built to last." He gestured with his bottle toward the ship's engineer and the technician working with her. "With occasional repairs, o' course." Before the conversation devolved into discussing ship models and a fictitious list of favorites he'd have to make up on the spot and then memorize for future small talk, he said, "Dinner, di'ja say? I'm not a bad cook, if'n I do say so my own self. I'd be happy to assist the ship's chef, or step up if'n ya don' have one."

"How bout we see how you work out as a customer 'fore we test your other talents," Alden suggested rather than requested. He gave the Mule a friendly kick and exhaled, cast his beer bottle into the crate currently serving as a recycling container and stretched his arms up to the sky. "I'm gonna need to stretch my legs some," he declared, giving Jonas an undisguised look of impatience. "And we'll be locking the ship down while we're picking up supplies," Alden added, pointedly as he turned his attention back to Armstrong. Maybe he was stressed, maybe he was tired, but he wasn't in the mood for entertaining strangers right now. "Dinner's at 8, local time. Be back by then."

Arlo hefted a quantum turbine, with the help of a vehicle winch, down onto a reinforced trolley over to the Firefly's port side and looked to Chloe. "Might need a new one of these, ma'am," he noted, pointing to some corrosion on the . "How's it look from your side?"

"I think we need a new one of everything," Chloe responded with an apathetic shrug. She was used to working with new, state of the art ships that made any one of Echo's parts look like they were pulled straight from a junkyard. Still. She had enough empirical knowledge about their functionality to know what replacements were more urgent than just her mild disgust. She leaned over and ran her gloved hand against the corrosion. "I mean, we could definitely use a new one of those. I was thinking of cutting out that section and just welding on some new metal there, though. Unless... you all might be able to provide us with an actual new one."

Audley laughed at that. "Might as well buy a new ship, then," he suggested, in good humour and no disrespect to the Echo's engineer. "But, hey, I think we're both just hella impressed you've managed to keep this bucket flying so long. I heard you've been out past the Rim?"

"Thanks," Chloe responded. She couldn't help but admit that the praise felt good, and she gave a slight smile. "I've been a bit of everywhere," she admitted. Though to be fair, most of that time she didn't go very far from the ship, whether it be the Echo or one of the ships she was testing for her job... her old job, that is.

Meanwhile, Arlo had to agree with Chloe's conclusion. "Gonna have to cut and shut," he confirmed. "Parts you see here are all the ones we could get for the moment. I'll keep an eye out though, see what we can do." He looked up and around the little gathering out here on the landing bay, but didn't see Jacy. Maybe she was hiding, he wondered, but he wasn't about to press for any information in that regard. "I need to get around the other side of this to lock it into place," Arlo stated, simply. "You alright if I go on inside or d'ya wanna handle that part?"

"Uh," Chloe thought for a moment. "I can get that side. I can probably reach easier," she offered, adjusting the piece a bit before moving away.

"Sure thing," Arlo agreed, and set about ensuring his side was level, secure and neatly in place. "Ready when you are," he noted, keeping the straps in place until Chloe confirmed her part was completed.

"I'll strip and check the compression throttle," noted Audley. "Tune up the converters and gravity breakers and then maybe me and Arlo here get us some dinner, reconvene in the morning."

Tristan stepped out onto the ramp that lead out of the ship's inner area, glancing around a little. He could hear Alden and Jonas talking before he saw them, but easily made his way over to where they were sitting.

"Good afternoon, Captain," he said to Alden as he walked up. Ever since their last discussion, Tristan had been keeping a wide berth of the man, trying his best to stay out of trouble and out of anyone's way. At this point, the kid felt he was on his last chance, and was doing everything in his power not to screw it up. "Would it be alright if I walked around a little?"

Alden looked to the young man as Tristan wandered over and spoke up. He canted his head to the side as if weighing the measure of the boy (which was exactly what he was doing) and then offered up a wary smile. "Sure," Alden said, his frown light but showing in the seriousness of his gaze. "But don't wander too far. There's a lot of... interesting characters... round here. Some of 'em are likely to aim to take advantage of you, in more ways than one." He raised an eyebrow. "And news travels fast on Three Hills, lot of people looking to trade, barter and make money off of a good deal, if you catch my drift."

While not wanting to mention Tristan's private business in front of strangers, Alden needed to warn the boy before he walked into trouble. Again.

"I don't believe I do, Captain," Tristan said, his head cocked slightly to the side as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Just don't do anything stupid and don't enter into any arrangements with anyone, paid or otherwise, unless you're buying beverages or sustenance," Alden said. "Like I said to our new paying customer, Mr Armstrong here, dinner's at 8 local time. We ain't looking fer any trouble. Be sure no trouble comes back with you."

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