[Log]

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Cargo Bay, Grace O'Malley [Ariel]
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Sitting on a crate to one side of the cargo bay, Aradia has a gun balanced on one knee as she fiddles with something near the chamber. Perhaps to the observant, they will be relieved to see that the magazine is out and next to the gun itself. Furrowing her brow, she brings her hand up to rub at her brow, pushing her hair back from her face but missing the feather caught in it that's the tickling source of irritation in the first place. The cargo bay is otherwise as clean and spic and span as a cargo bay gets.


True to her word of the previous day Saienne is, for the most part, as clean and tidy as the cargo bay. Only her hands, currently smeared in thick, dark grease, have broken her promise, and she lopes into the hold scrubbing at the worst of the oil with a dirty rag. Her boots sound at regular intervals as she walks along, indicating that her limp is all-but disappeared. When she sees the captain sitting on the crate she clears her throat gently. "Afternoon," she says, mildly.

Aradia's head remains bowe, hearing the booted footsteps well before the clearing of the throat. "Already?" she asks as her brow creases further and her lips purse. Looking up and over to Saienne, she asks, "Did I miss lunch?"

"Not by much, I reckon," says Saienne, pulling out her PDA to check the time. Too late she realises the fundamentally smeary nature of grease - too late because it's already in her pocket somewhat, and on the surface of the PDA. "Good gorram," she mutters in annoyance, before looking back to Aradia and adding. "An' Josephine's bound to have kept you somethin'." A pause. "I think there were blueberries."

Aradia looks mildly amused as she watches Saienne, all too familiar with the nefarious nature of grease herself. "Yeah, I had some for breakfast at least," she says with a chuckle and then looks down to her gun, going through the motions of reassembly, flicking on the safety. "You never got around to tellin' me about what all happened when we picked you up out on Beaumonde, either," she says as she holsters the gun, tugging her shirt down over the butt protroding just over the waistband of her pants.

"No," says Saienne, simply. "I never did." She attempts to rub some of the grease on the PDA off onto the rag, but the rag being fairly saturated in oil already, this merely smears the stuff further. She stares at the battered gadget for a moment, frowning deeply, and then lets out a short sigh. "Probably time I treated myself to a new one anyhow," she says. "This one's been hangin' on for dear life for a couple of years at least." She smiles lop-sidedly at Aradia, returning to the topic of Beaumonde and her adventures leading there: "Things have been somewhat busy here, ain't that so? An' some of those things - Tasha, for example - are a mite more important than any misadventures I might have ensnared myself in." She frowns again. "But I expect you should know, in case any of it comes back round to haunt me while I'm in your employ." She looks at Ara uncomfortably. "On account of it not just bein' me it would be hauntin'."

"Important's a matter of perspective now, ain't it?" Aradia replies with a chuckle, glancing up to Saienne again. "'n it seems like it's of real importance to you, so if you want to tell me, I'm here 'n willing to listen."

"Ain't that the truth," agrees Saienne with a crooked grin. "But havin' perspective allows folk to decide on priorities an' all. I expect I prioritised my misadventures lower on account of still bein' in one piece." A pause, and she glances down at her foot. "Well, mostly, anyhow." She settles back against the nearby bulkhead, and continues to rub at the spaces between her fingers with the grubby cloth. "But that's all by the by, ain't it? Simplest way of tellin' it is that the job I was runnin' didn't get run. The goods I was deliverin' didn't get delivered." She shrugs. "I don't believe I ever did tell you what I was carryin', or to whom, did I?" She looks down at the deck, frowning. "This all goes back to before I came aboard, see. Goes way back to Persephone an' a lady by the name of Xiao-Chen Smart. She's a lawyer."

Aradia listens quietly during the first part of Saienne's story, not speaking until she's asked a question directly and she shakes her head, "Nope," adding at the end, "Sounds a whole lot like what did happen to Tash minus gettin' shot and swappin' one contact for another." Shifting on her seat on the crate with a quiet grunt, she grits her teeth and pushes herself back a little further, crossing her legs under her.

"I reckon Tasha might have done a little less runnin' around than me," says Saienne, dryly, "But I expect the shootin' more than makes up for that - for you, an' all." She scrubs the back of her head with a long-fingered hand, scritching in the stubble. "Me, I just got strung up like a rabbit in a gorram trap, but that ain't here or there." She pauses, to regain the thread of the story. "Anyhow, I picked up this contract from Xiao-Chen near on a year ago. Ain't never been no urgency to Xiao-Chen's demands, so there ain't no bother with me hangin' on to it that long. Usually she asks me to carry sensitive data, an' I figured that's what this was. Real simple drop - Persephone to Verbena - so while you folks were coolin' your heels on Paquin after the excitement on Haven I decided to trek on out to Verbena like a good little girl scout an' make good on my obligations." She shakes her head. "Should've just dropped the piece of go se into the singularity when I had the chance." She eyes Aradia carefully. "Don't go trustin' lawyers, Captain. No matter how well you think you know them."

From where she's sitting on top of a crate with a feather still stuck, unbeknownst to her, in her hair, Aradia's sitting and listening to Saienne speaking. Her head is cocked and her expression watchful as she nods a little, breaking into a small grin at Saienne's last statement. "Thanks for the word o' warning, even if it ain't the first time I've ever heard it. So what happened from there?"

"Best I can figure it," Saienne replies to Ara's question, as she leans against the bulkhead. She seems content to leave the Captain in blissful feather-related ignorance - but perhaps her mind is on other things. "Someone else wants to get their grubby mits on the data - although I ain't sure who." She frowns. "Contact on Verbena sent me scurryin' off to Newhall - an' about the only good thing to come out of that was Josephine's teacup - an' that's where I got myself strung up. An' the more I think on Verbena, the more I think it were entirely wonky." She points down at her foot. "Buildin' on Newhall where I was called to make the drop was booby trapped." She shakes her head, looking a little angry even. "Only got let down when the caretaker came to do his mornin' rounds. Most ignominious an' embarrassin' night of my gorram life!" A beat. "An' I've had some honest to God terrible nights." She grins crookedly, somewhat triumphant, as she adds: "Didn't get what they was lookin' for, mind." She pats her coat pocket. "Which is why I wonder if they won't come lookin' again, if you catch my meanin'." She rubs her still-slightly greasy fingers together. "I wonder if I might ask Ronnie to take a look at the data," she ponders, "Or someone else good with such things. Mayhap shed some light."

Clambering back onto the Grace from outside where apparently Bishop was yet again, for the second day in a row, the pilot stumbles in. Pausing, he looks around the Cargo Bay having heard voices and begins to drift in that direction.

Clambering back onto the Grace from outside where apparently Bishop was yet again, for the second day in a row, the pilot stumbles in. Pausing, he looks around the Cargo Bay having heard voices and begins to drift in that direction.

Aradia can't help but bite at her lower lip in a vain attempt to stifle a grin at some of the more amusing points in Saienne's retelling, amusing at least to the outside observer. Clearing her throat as Saienne pats her coat pocket, she glances down to it and then up as she says, "Ronnie might be able to. Suji, Cap'n on the Chaos Theory's a whole lot better with that kind o' thing though if you really want to look. 'n I trust him."

Hatch remains where he has been, lingeirng off to the side near the single alley of the shooting range cleaning one of his pistols as he idly listens in on the conversation. Well what snatches he can hear of it, he'd of suggested Suji himself but he's really not involved at the moment. With a mild grin Hatch rotates the chamber of his pistol peering down each cylinder to see that it meets his standards before moving onto the next.

It is amusing, really, in abstraction, and Saienne's own retrospective description of her predicament is as full of dry humour as might be expected. "If I really want to look?" Saienne asks, repeating Aradia's comment. "Well, I surely do. I still got to deliver the gorram thing." A beat. "An' there's a few ... words, I reckon, I'd like to be havin' with those goons on Newhall an' that huon dahn on Verbena." She is counting the people she'd like to have words with off on one finger as she speaks. "An' Xiao-Chen, for that matter. Ain't been able to wave her for a good long while now..." She looks up as Bishop stumbles back up into the belly of the Grace - and then looks beyond him out to the world. "Sujiko, then." A lop-sided smile. "If we have time."

Opting against the girl talk as it seems to involve technical devices Bishop doesn't even want to contemplate, he wanders instead towards Hatch. Nodding his head towards the gun cleaner, he smiles. "Whatcha up to?"

"Well, they're docked right along outside and trailing us to Paquin so's I can take Matty shoppin' for a wedding dress so I figure that makes for ample time." Seeing as Aradia's been sitting on a crate near the shooting alley fiddling about with her own gun before Saienne turns up and she's remained completely oblivious to anyone else being in the cargo bay, when Bishop waltzes past to address someone behind her, she looks mildly confused before looking back over her shoulder to spot Hatch. Quirking a brow, she says, "Ain't polite to eavesdrop y'know? How gorram long you been standing there?"

Lifting the pistol and closing the chamber with a sharp twist of his wrist, and the clack of the metal locking in place. "Only so many places a fella can get in some targets, been here not to long. Cleaning em out before making use of em." He offers a bit of a nod to Bishop, hoping the explanation covers his question as well.

"Well, although sneakin' ain't generally a trait I admire," Sai says, grinning crookedly between Ara and Bishop at Hatch, "I ain't bothered who hears about this story." Her expression is set somewhere between a grimace and a smirk, "Because although the whole sorry mess might damage my reputation as a reliable business-woman for the present, the memory of it's only goin' to enhance it once I get to the bottom of things." She speaks with her usual light tone - but there's ice at the core of it, for once. Getting to the bottom of things is as misleading a euphemism as 'having words'. She nods at Aradia - "Plenty of time, then," she says, agreeing - and then steps forward from the bulkhead to be a little closer to the other three.

Bish nods his head and smirks, "And you're going to.. er.. use it? You know, shoot? Things?" The pilot looks completely lost and fascinated, apparently the whole aspect of guns isn't one he's overtly familiar with.

"So much for comin' here to get some peace and quiet," Aradia says with a mutter at the prospect of shooting, uncrossing her legs and pushing herself slowly off the crate. "I should go and get something to eat anyway. Been sittin' here since before lunchtime," she says, glancing back to Saienne as she says, "I'll talk to Suji for you, 'n if there's anything else I...any of us can do to help you out you let me know, 'k?"

Hatch with a glance from Bishop to Ara as he starts to load the pistol in his hand, his fingers doing the trick of silding the ammunition home even though his attention is elsewhere. "He ain't been trained has he?" He asks of Ara as she slips down from the crate, "Sorry Sai, was hardly paying attention till I heard Suji's name.. most of that was none of my beeswax, yah know?"

"Ain't nowhere real peaceful on a ship this size, Captain," Saienne says, with an easy smile. "One of the benefits an' the drawbacks of this life, ain't it so." She nods as Ara sets off for the commons. "Thank you. I surely do appreciate it." She gestures up the stairs with a still-grubby hand. "An' like I said - I'm sure Josephine'll have kept you somethin' back." She shakes her head at Hatch. "I ain't got no objections to folk knowin'. Y'all might figure somethin' out of it that I've missed, anyhow." She muses, frowning. "I reckon the truth of it's on Verbena - or mayhap back on Persephone where Xiao-Chen blatantly ain't."

"Hey, just because I wet the bed don't mean I ain't trained. I had had too much to drink that night, aight?" Bishop grumbles towards Hatch with a playful grin on his lips that would hint at him teasin'.

To say that Aradia's had more than enough of guns and shooting and has about as much enthusiasm for sticking around to have any part in it would be an understatement and it's hardly disguised as she glances from Bishop to Hatch and says, "He don't piss on the floor no more, if that counts," before she turns away and starts across the cargo bay toward the stairs.

Hatch shakes his head and looks over Bishop slowly, setting aside both statements to ask the man directly. "You ever used a firearm before?"

"A bit when I was a youngin'." Bishop responds, actually having a serious tone to his voice. "Was never no good at it though so sorta... never stuck with it. Mostly just used small ones on birds out in fields."

Saienne holds up her grubby oil-smeared hands in front of her, frowning. "I got to clean my fingers," she says, slightly disgruntled. "I'm gettin' this stuff all over the gorram place." And it's true, there are smears on her face and a few places on her clothes. She lopes off into the depths of the hold in search of a cleaner rag than the one she's been using until now.

Hatch glances up at Ara's leaving, and settles into work as it were. He walks over to the arms locker, thumbs in the code and cracks it on open. "Well Mister Bishop, we have at the moment standing orders that all crew of the Grace need to have at least a basic understanding of firearms and have one in posession in case of emergency. Are you armed?" He glances back to Bishop for a moment, then to Sai. "Don't worry about it Sai, it will match the rest of the oil stains quite well." There is a hint of a grin there before the man starts digging in the locker.

At the given moment, Hatch is standing near the arms locker talking to Bish... Sai on the other hand is going off to wash her hands. (I hope thats right)

"Armed? " Bishop grins, "You know it, got two of them... oh wait... you meant with a gun, right?"

Outside the air is stirred with the incoming engines of a small white shuttle with a blue symbol painted on the side. A staff with intertwined snakes. It appears to be a private craft, however, as the name of the Hospital or organization it services has declined to adverstise on its side. Barely a moment passes before the side hatch is opening to form its own little ramp and down it comes a gurney with the unconscious form of Tasha strapped atop it steered by a pair of nurses who could be twins. Not but a pace behind comes the stony faced Dr. Lucinda Delray and Kael, however his face may be.

Saienne is gone some moments, and when she returns it is with a significantly cleaner towel. The smears on her face and hands are gone and she appears to be juggling her battered silver PDA in between the folds her towel. "Gets everywhere, don't it?" Saienne replies to Hatch, cheerfully. She hoists herself up onto the crate Aradia has recently vacated in order to watch the lightshow. The sound of the shuttle arriving and the arrival of Lucinda, Kael and Tasha causes Sai to look up, somewhat apprehensively if truth be told.

Kael is relatively easy going, he's no where near as stony faced as the doctor next to him. He even looks over to her and gives her a bit of a smile before looking towards the Grace again. He holds up his hand as if in greeting and calls ahead, "Hey.. We bring Tasha."