Deidre watched quietly as Captain Lambert, flanked by his marines, departed the bay and boarded their Gunship. Truth be told, her calm temperament during the inspection had hidden her underlying fear, particularly when Lambert had inspected some of the repairs, with discarded empty duct tape rolled strewn about. But nothing had obviously linked the base to the Xeno Alliance, or if it had, the Captain had not mentioned it. As the docking arm retracted, she allowed herself a smile and a sigh of relief. Her comms unit vibrated.
"Deidre here" "Well done, babe. We have what we need - time." "I was worried..." "Don't be. You were perfect."
In the dark command centre, Jimmy had watched the entire inspection on the internal video feeds. He had also been panicing somewhat - the Serpentis.Maximus was due to arrive any time, and he wasn't about to risk a communication to Harold to ward him off. The Navy boat that had been floating out there was near state-of-the-art hardware, and quite possibly been capable of intercepting such a signal, even in the mess the Negra threw out.
Soon he found his apprehension had been well placed - less than 30 minutes after the departure of the inspection team, the train loomed into view, large snake insignia and Alliance slogan plastered all over it. There would have been no doubt that this vessel was tied to the Xeno Alliance.
With the danger seemingly passed, Jimmy made a decision. As Deidre entered the nerve centre of Oyster Creek, he gazed at his wife and said quietly.
"I'm leaving you in charge here at the Creek. I need to get the word out to everyone, full operations will resume. We have bought some time, every minute will count. I'll go with Harold home to Alabama and see if I can get more men. We need to fortify Oyster, to the point where they would need the whole Liberty Navy to tear it down".
