An Introduction And A Broken Ship
Posted on Sat Jul 8th, 2023 @ 6:45am by Alden Loxley & Danielle Loxley & Jonas Bailey & Kindra Graham & Spencer Wainwright & Jacy Wright & Morgan Martin & Whit
Mission:
Oh, Give Me a Home on The Range
Location: Blue Cloud Ranch, Ezra
Timeline: 18 November, 2517 - Late Afternoon
He'd only been gone half an hour or so, but that had been enough time for the others to scatter some which meant gathering them all together was Alden's first action once he and Morgan reached the house. Seeing no sense in disturbing a quiet meeting of those three souls currently enjoying his mother's herb garden, Alden left Daiyu, Arca and Cooper where they were and skillfully extricated everyone else to a meeting of minds out by Echo itself.
Lopsided on account of its missing engine casing on the starboard side, Fortune's Echo sat uncomfortably broken in the range immediately outside the ranchhouse's generously large, fenced space. Two ranch-hands with rifles guarded the Firefly's position, and each in turn acknowledged both Alden and Jonas with a broad grin and a sarcastically friendly greeting. They moved out a little wider then to allow the crew some privacy while still maintaining a vigil, and went back to their quiet, slow but constant to-and-fro conversation across the walkie-talkies they each carried.
First order of business now was to introduce the newcomer, which Alden did from the top of the cargo ramp accompanied by a warm smile and a comradely arm rested upon Morgan Martin's shoulder. "This here is our new pilot," Echo's Captain announced. "I'll let him speak for himself, but just wanted to be real clear on where he's coming from first. He and I share a mutual and reliable ally from back during the war, and far as I'm concerned that makes him trustworthy. Morgan," Alden continued, brightly looking out at the others standing ever so slightly below them, standing on or around the ramp. "Care to say hello to those who'll introduce themselves right back at ya?"
"Why, hello!" Morgan gave a wide smile - smiling as much with his eyes, as with his mouth - as he waved to the crew. "As you all already heard, I'm Morgan. Your new pilot. It's a pleasure to meet you all!" The man spoke with a cheerful tone, with just the slightest core world accent, hidden behind near a decade of disuse.
Spence regarded the man for a moment, and wondered how often this little Firefly rotated its crew. "Spence," he introduced himself with a nod. "Current mechanic. You any good with not losing engines?"
Although Alison had been gone for only a few days, it felt like a year. This was a step forward for Alden, hiring a pilot. It meant he'd accepted Alison's departure. It also meant he could get more rest when the 'Echo flew the black. Though, considering the ship's current condition, that might be a while. Kindra bowed her head in greeting. "Welcome Morgan. I'm Kindra, I rent the port shuttle."
"Name's Jonas," said the big guy. "First Mate of this here...fine...ship, lopsided as she is. Come to think of it, she kinda matches us when we get to drinkin'. Or sniffin' incense...." He let that one quickly fade away.
Alden's sister chuckled and laced her fingers between Jonas' chunkier ones in silent support. "I'm Elle," she said, gifting Morgan an upward nod and a wave of blond hair. "This is home for me, I run the ranch with our momma."
"Morgan Martin," repeated Whit with a thoughtful stroke against his chin. "Pleasure to meet you." The Shepherd had been appraising the new pilot for some time. There was nothing familiar about his face or gait, but nevertheless Whit couldn't shake the feeling of something familiar about the soul behind those eyes. "I'm called Whit, and I do my best to be a guiding light for souls wandering the black."
“It’s,” she had to pause to clear her throat, or maybe it was her head?, “it’s nice to meet you, Morgan..” But she was able to plaster a bright, welcoming smile onto her face, though it probably hadn’t reached her eyes. She was still nervous, still waiting for the shoe to drop. Especially after what she’d done. What she’d had to do. But at least Arlo was nowhere to be found. “I’m Jacy, the one that gets to do all the patching up.”
Morgan gave the two of them an honest smile back - if he did notice anything unusual about their responses, he didn't let it get to him and paid it no second thought. He was no stranger to the fact that people had their own opinions, their own little lives and secrets, and those weren't his place to pry. "Jacy. Whit." He grinned. "The pleasure is all mine."
Once everyone that wanted to had spoken their words, Elle took up a position between Alden and Jonas and addressed the others as a group. Shoulders back, tone confident she cast her gaze outward, picking up the others' own in turn.
"So," she began. "Whit, Jonas and I followed the trail outwards across our lands and up into the hills. We found a campsite, looked like two or three folks - one who smoked cigars and wore lipstick - spent a bit of time watching the place from up there. And we found evidence that they fired a single use rocket launcher at y'alls Firefly. Now I don't personally know anyone who has a gripe that big against Blue Cloud or our family in general, so figure this has something to do with y'all and Echo." Elle looked to the Shepherd as she gave Jonas' hand a firm squeeze to imply he could choose his own time to speak up too. "Anything you want to add, Whit??"
"On account of how careful these folk were to clean up in some ways while leavin' behind a right mess in others, I reckon they're professional types fixin' real hard to look not." Whit scratched the tip of his nose. "That, or they conscripted a local idjit to play guide and couldn't be bothered to make up for the shortfall in common sense. Either way, I expect you got your down-world collaborators and your offworlders with both being naught but employees."
Kindra did not miss the way Jonas and Elle's hands were intertwined and smiled indulgently at the two of them despite the topic of conversation. "There would be a fair bit of platinum in play to pull off a trick like that. I can check my Guild contacts. Likely to be at least a couple other Companions on Ezra or the Skyplex who might have heard something." Possibly even one of my past clients, she thought.
"I'd reckon any hypothetical mystery employer is liable to have passed through there one way or another," Whit agreed with a nod. "Professional operators know not to cross Adlai Niska."
Spence agreed with that last statement, though he made no attempt to verbally acknowledge it. "As far as I know, we're not here today because of Niska. I reckon someone's got a score to settle with a Loxley. So... who'd you cross?"
Jonas chuckled. "Kid, that list might keep us here longer than we plan. Speakin' of a Loxley," he turned to Alden, "if Drake pealin' out had something to do with it...."
"Already had someone try to take a hit our on me," Alden noted with a wry smile to Jonas, but the smile faded fast as he considered his friend's suspicion. Did Drake have something to do with this?
"Like I said, whoever did this woulda' got permission from Niska." Whit gave Alden a side eye. "Not sayin' you should be your brother's keeper, but you got any notion what he's up to up there?"
A loaded look passed between Elle and Alden and took its time in the trading. Family business was family business until it dragged its muddy feet into the house and done rolled a ship down into the dirt. If, they were both thinking, that was indeed what had happened. In the silence of their mutually shared eye contact was a little thinking, a little hoping and a moment of independently shared consideration. While the nod from younger sister to elder brother was almost imperceptible, the squishing of Jonas' fingers was not. Elle let Alden take the questions, but the big fella could tell she'd wanted to say her piece too.
"Agree with ya, that Niska would have to be aware of the hit," Alden agreed, with a readiness to be open partnered up with a protective optimism he kept internal. Drake, he was certain, would not be intentionally involved in shooting him down, or wounding their mother. Not directly. Not on purpose. But he also wasn't sure enough of that opinon to start crowing his fraternal trust to all and sundry. No, he and Elle would discuss that later. "But Niska being aware and allowing it, that ain't the same as Drake being involved." Alden traded another moment of eye contact with his sister and sighed. He hated saying this, but he needed to.
"Drake's always been an employee of Niska's," the Echo's captain stated. He knew it, Elle knew it, Jonas knew it. "But not like that, not like y'all might be thinking. When our father was alive, he had to run jobs for Niska - a trade-off for safe passage and a consequence of living on and travelling to and from Ezra. When our father died, Drake and I had to run jobs to pay Niska back for that failed cargo run and for the broken ship." But their mother's family had funded Jericho Loxley's funeral, and Alden remembered that separation well. He sighed and cast his gaze briefly skyward. Whatever the hell Drake was doing up there now, though, it couldn't be this. It made no sense to be this.
"Setting up on Three Hills, Drake had some help and an ongoing business interest from Niska. His position, his job, it's... inextricably linked... back to Niska. Always will be." As long as their family resided on Ezra, there was a built-in incentive. "But makes no sense for Niska to be involved in this, he has what he wants from us, from our family." Alden had considered this on the journey over, racked his brain for reasons anyone would shoot their mother and he'd come up with nothing obvious besides what others had already stated.
"So it's down to you," said Elle, voice loud and clear as she landed an accusatory glare at her older brother. "They wanted you here. They wanted you to be stuck here." She crushed Jonas' fingers as she considered the danger her family had been put into. "Why?"
"Well, I ain't rich," Alden returned, his words and his expression both deadly serious. "And so far anyways, no one's turned up to make any other threats or demands or ransoms. Not to me, and not to any of us here, right? So then, if it's not any of us, I guess only thing I can figure is it maybe has something to do with Echo?"
Whit turned his head back toward the garden area where Cooper and Daiyu were, but looked back to Alden without saying a word.
And that look from the Shepherd froze the blood in Loxley's veins for a second or two. Where 'they' coming here? To his mother's home? Somehow he expected if they were then the situation would already be far more oppressive and dangerous, but that didn't count it out as an option.
Kindra followed Whit's gaze and took in Alden's reaction. She saw in it an echo of the reason Alison left, and a sad reminder of how Alden continued to withhold the truth from her.
"Let's investigate what we know we've found," Alden said. "In the absence of anyone actively trying to end us."
"If Kindra checks her contacts, and we check town," confirmed Elle, her light frown suggesting she needed to have a deeper conversation with her brother about whatever the hell that eye-acting exchange of loaded looks was about. "Mebbe we can find out something. Wouldn't be the first time professionals hired idjits to do their... well, whatever the hell kinda work this is." She shot Kindra an intrigued look. "They really have Companions up there?" Elle asked, shifting her gaze from the visiting young woman to the distant glint of the orbital Skyplex above.
With a nod, Kindra replied to Elle. "It's only a guess. Wealth and power tend to create a desire to maintain civilized appearances. Plus large-scale illicit operations usually require political bribes or blackmail. Never was my personal choice of clientele, but there's likely to be at least a few Companions on the Skyplex."
"If we split up, there oughta be a couple of somebody's in each group what can handle themselves in a fight," said Jonas. "Especially on the Skyplex. I don't reckon they'd let too many weapons get by unless they want 'em inside for some reason."
Whit slowly pivoted his head and stared at Jonas with a furrowed brow, clearly struggling to believe what he had heard was correct. Nope, he heard right. He just shook his head and looked away with a light scoff. Everybody knew there was no getting within spitting distance of Niska's Skyplex without an invitation.
"Any guild contacts I might discover on the Skyplex, I'd be visiting them only by cortex for now," said Kindra with a smile. It was easy enough to guess that Jonas might be feeling protective and distracted around Elle, even though Alden's sister clearly could take care of herself. "I'll do that whilst you-all are in town."
Not missing Whit's look, Elle pushed herself firmly against Jonas' side in literal support of the big guy. She loved that Jonas would consider going directly into the lion's den to save someone, to investigate, but she also had to agree with the others - that wasn't necessary. Yet. And hopefully never. Just the mere thought of Jonas or Alden being up there in the same space as Niska sent chills down Elle's spine.
"Thanks!" Elle stated, her gaze landing firmly on Kindra. "I think if we're going to get anything from Niska, that'll come from Drake," she continued. For reasons based on his historic and continued survival, she felt less concerned by her little brother's presence in that awful place. "I never can decide if I like it that he gets to go up there," she added, shivering deliberately.
"I hate it," said Alden, openly. "But there's nothing we can do about it. Drake will do Drake whether we like it or not." He brushed aside any thoughts of Kindra or Jonas being physically present on the Skyplex with a body shiver of his own. "I'll stay here, help Spence with Echo, keep a lookout for anyone coming hunting..." Again something he sincerely hoped wouldn't happen. "Elle, if you take Jonas and Whit with you, maybe Coop too?" Alden looked to Whit for that decision. "Jacy, Morgan, I'd be grateful for your help here, but if either of you want to head into town, I won't stop you," he then added with a wry smile. "Entirely your choice."
"What about Daiyu?" Whit asked, a double meaning clear in his tone. Typically someone kept after her at all times, but if recent troubles had anything to do with her as at the clinic...
"You're right," Alden assumed, rightly or wrongly, that Whit's concern was people able to defend and protect being present. "Coop better stay here with us. Obviously we're not totally alone," he noted. They had his mother's ranch-hands, all of whom were armed and able. "But we'll keep Daiyu close. Probably better you guys have a small group anyways, and we're only a shuttle ride away if you need a rescue. Or if we do," he said with a wry, worried smile. "Keep a channel open though, alright?" He looked from his sister to Jonas to Whit and back again.
Whit nodded in agreement without saying anything, instead giving a look of deferment to Elle. This wasn't his rodeo. He was only along for the ride.
Morgan gave his own small nod, from his quiet place at the edge of the group. He had to be here - he was crew - but he was still new blood. He had no context, and nothing to add, but he still had to sense to keep his presence slim. Just distant enough to remain unobtrusive but interested enough to not make it feel like they were leaving him out. He was here as a pilot. Nothing more.
The way Alden looked at the gathered group standing out in the open ground of his mother's ranch was familial, concerned and a litte bit just ready to get things investigated and fixed. But that last glance he gave Kindra as she turned to look at someone besides him? That look held more nuance and worry than he could ever infuse into words. Time was fleeting, the Verse was dangerous and he couldn't protect everyone. Or sometimes it seemed, anyone at all.
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