Metal Militia

[Reeves]

He smiled at her appreciation of the old name, enough that his characteristic intensity eased if only a little.

"I guess it does have a certain something to it, but I suppose it's for the best. At least I'm still pretty."

It appeared that he did not take himself so seriously that he couldn't crack a somewhat self deprecating joke. And in a way, his demeanor that could almost comes across as affable was starting to harshly contrast the general atmosphere of this place and its people. Perhaps there was something to that.

"There's scans, yes. But I figured you would appreciate seeing for yourself and going from there."

He gestured for the entourage to follow along so that they might finally get to brass tacks. The way ahead felt like a shift in atmosphere yet again but in a way that felt definitive and as if they were reaching where they truly need to be. Here, the geometry collapsed into sprawling repair decks and scaffold-choked gulfs that radiated heat and sound like a beating engine heart.

The corridor ahead was tall, narrow, and rattled underfoot - a service artery retrofitted into a sort of maintenance promenade, lit by jury-rigged floodlamps bolted into old cargo rails. Wiring sagged from conduits overhead, occasionally crackling. The air was heavy with ozone and thermal grease, flavored faintly by the polymer stench of insulation melting under industrial tools. What passed for ventilation was sluggish, funneled through rust-framed ducts groaning with effort.

Through an uneven bulkhead frame, the mooring bay unfurled like the inside of a broken lung. Towering gantries leaned in toward the hulls of two cruisers secured side-by-side - their flanks pocked with weld scars, and boarding seal prints in some places. The metal underfoot hummed with vibration from active power couplings, and every few seconds came the muffled thunder of some internal test: a reactor spin-up, a pressure cycle, a comms relay bursting to life with static before settling into silence again.

The silhouettes were distinct and immediately betrayed that these two projects would not be equal in scope. One of these vessels was a siege cruiser and appeared relatively intact and in decent condition. Almost as if it had been acquired without too much of a struggle at all. It looked to have been assembled in sections and was likely handed over to the Xenos in pieces, this of course begged questions. The second was a Judicator that had clearly fallen prey to a boarding action. It was in horrible condition and the struggle to forcibly acquire it certainly did it no favours

The team was now free to get to work, clearly evidenced by the fact that Damien now stood aside and gave them free reign to get a sense of either vessel.