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.
On first impulse, Blake could tell that the ships present were not at all in great shape. They weren’t even in half-decent shape. Of the two, she could barely tell which was in better or worse shape. The Archer looked slapdash, broken apart and moved and put back together, and that sort of process was something that normally took so very, very long with so many, many specific personnel working in a dedicated yard to make happen. That the Xenos had done it screamed improper connections, screamed electrical and piping problems, and could more than likely scream structural problems in the future should the ship ever come under fire. The Judicator, in contrast, looked as conventionally beat-all-to-hell as one might imagine. Her outer hull had been breached in several segments, cracked open by concentrated fire, though the damage had been limited to just a few sections and indeed seemed to be just enough to break open that hull. The rest of the Bristol team seemed to have the same reaction, some tensing up a little, some cocking their heads, but by and large the reaction was not unmitigated glee.
As pairs broke off to inspect different sections, it seemed like the first impulse had been the best. The Libertonian had fished a PDA from one of her cargo pockets, tapping away on it to go over sensor scans, high-fidelity images of damaged sections here, there, and other portions of the inspection. With more and more pieces, the total problem began to emerge in her eyes. There were largely internal problems with the Archer, largely external problems with the Judicator, though the apparent thievery of the former and the boarding of the latter had certainly created some overlap. The Siege Cruiser’s hull would require reinforcement, that much was certain, and several spaces would need to be overhauled in the Judicator before it could be made serviceable. All told, they were difficult problems and ones Blake didn’t look forward to tackling in a way.
“Your Archer”, she said, looking up from the PDA to Damien, ”Will take a good while,, but all I’d need to move here is manpower. Electricians and the like, for all the problems inside. The hull needs reinforcement at the joints, but I don’t think you’d need much help with that. The other…needs a good bit of repairs, externally speaking. Has a full inspection been made of her? Tests for fuel tanks and other possible damage?”
A shake of the head, twice — a gesture that carried grave implications about the Judicator's current state.
"Recent acquisition — but that’s what you’re here for."
He smiled somewhat fiendishly, aware they had their work cut out for them — even if they would be duly compensated for the effort and time.
"Boarding action. AAR says it was brutal. The malnourished ingrates onboard put up a spirited, but ultimately futile, last stand to keep their colors. Things had to get dirty to achieve intact recovery. Well, mostly intact, as you can see."
For a moment, he grew quiet and perfectly still, as though the mind behind those unnaturally blue eyes was processing several things at once. But then, just as suddenly, he snapped back to perfect composure and posture to pose a simple question.
"Do you need the details? Might give you a better understanding of the extent of damage dealt. Oh, and if there are bodies left behind in Legion orange — flush them. Traitors don't deserve burials or last rites."
Blake fixed him with a look for a good, long moment as her mind picked through exactly how she wanted to respond in such a moment of life. Of course, in some way or another the idea of snapping back appealed, but then…Legion orange. They weren’t Commonwealth, not really, and hadn’t gone over to Bristol or LFR. No, they’d kept on sailing on their own and, in doing so, they’d probably been more or less pirates. And yet, some part of her still grated against the idea of the stateless and bereft being treated like no more than common criminals. In some way they’d had a choice, but in other ways the choice had been just taken away.
In the end though, she chose the other option, the one of pragmatism. The ship had been boarded, and boarded over a long enough time. That meant any sort of traps would likely be either already sprung or never set, though it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious of the issue. Things like liner shavings being spalled out into the fuel tanks, however, that could generally be ignored as a possibility. Things like pipe shavings down-flow, however…that was still a possibility. It’d need to be looked into.
”The after action report would be appreciated, yes. We’ll need more personnel for the full inspection, in that case. I trust this won’t be a problem?”
"Not a problem at all. Bring as many people as you need, but if you need some of our own specialists then let me know. I'll have to requisition them from wherever they are."
The long stare was something he registered and considered the potential meaning of. But he made no comment, perhaps assuming that his comment touched a nerve for some reason. The prospect of that was mildly amusing and he would no doubt figure it out in time.
"I'll have a copy of the AAR forwarded to you. Might take a while, need to clear it with the steel boys first since it's not in my hands."
He gestured around the room, primarily at the soldiers, and by this he meant that they were not part of his Alliance but rather their own unit and in charge here. This explained quite a few things about the difference in attitude that was already obvious but it likely also gave rise to questions. He was expecting a few, but if there were none then he was going to turn to leave.
She’d make the call for more personnel, discreetly enough that they arrived in batches of ten, twenty here and there on a number of light transports. Some, most even, moved up to Colorado and Denver under the look of vacationers before taking a short jaunt past Hinsdale and into the Copperton field. In the meantime, the team and she took a look over the finally-provided AAR. There were a number of pauses scattered throughout, brief periods of preparation for assaults or standing by for another team to EVA around a barricade or strongpoint, but all told the damage seemed largely superficial. At least, that’s how she read into it. Lots of holes here and there in the hull by boarding action, as well as a few blasts that had initially disabled the cruiser’s propulsion systems, but things that could theoretically be replaced without too much of an issue. Theoretically.
Of course, that could have been a lie and there was some couplings or another with the reactor systems that could blow the whole issue away the moment a speed order was given, but they’d need to look over that wiring anyways so the point was generally moot. As more personnel found themselves at Ramsay, though, Blake found herself in that same room with that same man. It was an interesting time to say the least.
She’d gone over the calculations with a few of the more trusted engineers, as far as what it would take to bring alive the two cruisers. They’d barely touched the idea of resurrecting the Liberty Rose, battleship as it was. Now though, the woman would need to talk it over. What a pain.
”I’ll be blunt. For the Archer, we estimate two million to bring it into full service. For the Judicator, we figure at least that to fix up the engines, hull, and inspect the whole of the thing to ensure no problems. I can’t speak to how the previous owners fixed it up, after all.” She fixed the man with a look, in some way asking thoughts, in some way denying that anything other than acceptance of those numbers as fact would be incorrect to the universe.
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