Yero and Kemba take larger strides as they pass, quickly entering their own airlock and cycling the outer door. Arketta cycles the Morningstar's doors while Davis finally lets himself mentally shake off the last 30 minutes. Semo and Angel's AT-4s are both comfort and grim reminder that those rockets are the last of their kind in Imperial space.

Luis, Swims and Max get the assault ship's response over the vox. *Our people are secure, locks are sealed. Disengaging... now.* There's a higher-pitched wa-tang as the docking clamps disengage. *We're leaving; don't follow us, don't contact us. Get within 2 light-seconds of us after this and we open fire.*

The Morningstar shudders as the Solitary Hunter's impellers buffet the freighter. The Imperial assault ship lifts up into the Z-axis and arcs around for a steep intercept towards the Jang-xur Gateway. Thermal sensors alone pinpoint at least a dozen ships doing the same, all spread out in a ragged line between the shadowport and the Gateway in its lonely orbit around the dwarf star.

Davis waits for the show to be over, and then follows Arketta out of the airlock. He takes his helmet off and turns to her. "You mentioned something back on the Hunter, that the worst is not yet over. What were you talking about?" he says, a bit of concern in his voice.

Now that they're away from potentially hostile people, Davis sees Arketta's eyes narrow in anger. She speaks slowly - Davis can see her choosing her English carefully.

"I understand the need to convert Ngawai to our cause," Arketta says. "She obviously possesses some skill, and she would be a valuably ally, but you left me - us - your team - to chase her. The worst part is that Captain Verrill left us as well - and we were already without Dr. Kilgore and Stanhill. Our center collapsed and Mellish and I almost died. We WOULD have died!" - she pushes Davis up against the bulkhead now - "If Semo wasn't lucky enough to have looted a kauka!"

"The worst is yet to come, Ash-Giver," she growls, using Davis' pseudo-Imperial title, "because those were six uncloaked Turai on foot with no backup and you thought a handful of shadowport fodder would be their betters."

Semo's frankly stunned at Arketta's outburst. He can't say Davis' choice was right or wrong - he's not under his command, nor is he above him - but Arketta's open criticism of the Captain draws a reflexive frown from Putupu.

The object of Arketta's criticism is up on the bridge, watching the turai ship fade into the distance, first with his eyes and then on the scanners. He turns to Swims-the-Black.

"Know any other shadowports?"

Noting Swims's reaction - or lack thereof -, Hugh backpedals slightly.

"It's called 'black humor' on the homeworld."

Gatac wrote:

The object of Arketta's criticism is up on the bridge, watching the turai ship fade into the distance, first with his eyes and then on the scanners. He turns to Swims-the-Black.

"Know any other shadowports?"

Noting Swims's reaction - or lack thereof -, Hugh backpedals slightly.

"It's called 'black humor' on the homeworld."

Max gives out a needed laugh to break the tension on the bridge.

"Captain, I believe Arketta would just like to know we normally don't go against the odds without good reason and that her considerable knowledge of Turai military operations should hold some weight in deciding future engagements. Strangers in a strange land and all...we need as many friends as we can get and keep the ones we have."

Davis doesn't skip a beat, even when pinned against the wall by a 6 foot plus armed woman. "You're right," he says, bouncing that same steely gaze right back at her. He pauses for a second, then continues. "I left the rest of the team behind, and I put Mellish and you at risk. I thought that the port security would hold long enough for us to return and help the fight, and I was wrong. I was given two bad choices, and even though everything turned out alright, I have no illusions that I still made a bad decision."

He pushes her off of him, and continues. "Ngawai is not a member of our team, and you are, and as you just proved, a very important one, and I was wrong for leaving you behind. It was a failure of intelligence, both information-wise and in thinking, and I apologize, not just for leaving you and the team behind, but for breaking the promise I made to you back on Earth. Whatever punishment you want to exact from me, go ahead. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness for this massive fuck-up, learn as much as I can from both this experience and your knowledge, and promise that I will never leave you behind again. It's up to you to accept it, but there it is."

Climbing down to the shout-fest, Hugh waits for Davis to say his piece, then coughs until Arketta acknowledges him.

"If you're done manhandling Davis, I'd like a word with you."

(assuming she lets me speak to her)

"I don't have all the answers and I don't always make the right call. But when things move quickly, we react and the only thing that keeps us alive is trusting each other. I trusted you to hang on in the hangar firefight, and you did that. I'm thankful for that, good job. But catching Ngawai was important, too. You think we should've killed her beforehand, and I can't fault you for that. Might've saved us the trouble of splitting our team in a firefight, might've screwed us out of her convincing Leno that we're trustworthy and taking the on-camera fall for starting the fight. I don't know."

His expression intensifies.

"But this is special ops, I'm in charge of this mission and you're a soldier under my command. We're in hostile territory and I absolutely cannot let any of my men stand under the impression that this is some sort of therapy session where we all share our feelings and talk about the evils of the Imperium in between the group hugs. You got a problem with how we work, you say it to my face instead of Agent Whipping Boy."

Semo stands back as the tensions spill over. He's ready to act if necessary, but won't otherwise. The big Samoan has confidence in the captain's ability to resolve the situation.

While the approach was more confrontational than necessary, Semo cannot fault Arketta's claims. Mistakes were made, and Davis earns a bit of respect by standing up and admitting it.

Top steps forward and reminds everyone that this is a military mission and COC still applies. Due to her inexperience, it's understandable that Arketta doesn't quite get that yet, but she needs to learn and this is as good a time as any to reinforce that lesson.

Too late, Swims-the-Black makes a gruff snuffling noise, drawing strange looks from Luis and Max. "Yes, I get it now," the Whiirr says.

---

Arketta listens to Hugh, and he can see the same shame in her expression as when Hethna Varos manipulated her into a rage back on Earth.

"Davis asked, and I answered, sir," she says in response. "You are right, I should have told you. Captain," she adds, "If you had to kill Americans to save Earth, civilians and soldiers alike, you would, but it would not be an easy thing. I will accomplish my mission, but it is not easy. And I never said you should kill the bounty hunter. She's hated by everyone who knows her - does that not make her valuable to us and increase our worth to her?"

(OOC: I might be wrong, but I don't remember Arketta being in the "let's kill our prisoners" camp)

Hugh nods.

"I appreciate that this isn't easy for you. We'll try to keep a lower profile from now on. Davis, I want something useful from Ngawai."

Back in the cockpit...

"If everything checks out, we should lay in a course to Aikoro, skipper. After that, we'll make a short resupply run."

Davis nods, and walks down to the crashers. "You and I have to talk," he says to Ngawai, and helps her out of the couch she's in.

It's simple for Luis to pull up the projected position of the Jang-xur Gateway and set an intercept for it. The Morningstar starts its impellers up, building up speed, and then Luis gently throttles up the cruise engines. The steady drone of ship's systems fills the freighter with reassuring noise. Luis estimates 6 hours to the Gate.

Ngawai offers no physical resistance as Davis fetches her from the crashers. "Have I been bad, boss?" she snarks.

Davis smiles. "Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?"

He helps her off into the bunks. He sits her down into a chair, and he pulls up another one next to her. "Here's the ground rules. I'll ask you questions, you answer them. You tell the truth, you'll get more trust. The more trust you get, the more freedom you get. You can ask questions as well, but I can't guarantee I'll answer them, especially if they're about our mission. You go first."

Ngawai thinks for a second, then asks, "What do you want with me?"

Davis smiles at her. "That one's fairly simple. You certainly know how to handle yourself, and for reasons I'm not going to go into right now, you know significantly more about what's going on out there than we do. If nothing else, I'd like to see what I can learn from you, but we could certainly use someone with your considerable talents."

He thinks for a second, then speaks again. "My turn. Tell me about yourself. I want to know what makes you tick, Ngawai Lea Holoni. What did you do before bodyguarding Malenko?"

She smirks at her full name. "You can get data outta anyone, can't you? I was - still am - a Grand Apprehender of Brigands, licensed for Accords three through seven. Since it appears you might really be from Narsai and probably don't know what I'm talking about, that's a license to pacify and/or retrieve offenders within certain types of local governments. Bureaucracies and Stewardships, I can just bundle you up and take you off-planet. Fiefdoms and military and all the others, I gotta get permits or apply for extradition. None of that applies to shadowports, of course."

"Before that, I was with Kansat on Sambasan. But that was a long time ago. Bunch of murdering bastards killed my partner and put me in medicae for months. I tracked them down, took them out, and left Sambasan."

Davis nods. "Tell me about working for the Kansat. What was it like working for the cops? Why did you join up in the first place?"

Angel carefully deposits one of the last of their remaining AT-4s in the makeshift 'armory' aboard the ship, frowning at their rapidly dwindling supply of human ammunition. Which means the rapidly dwindling ability to refuse to play by the Imperium's game.

'Hey Arketta, come with me...' he nods to the side and, assuming the woman follows him, heads back to the rudimentary barracks the Deltas have built.

'Jesus we need a stereo in this place.' He turns to the ex-Turai, shrugging. 'Doing alright? You took a pretty nasty couple of hit's back there.'

"I am... I am doing better now, Angel," Arketta replies, leaning on one of the metal walls. "I thought we were going to die in a shadowport. We all have to be more careful. If I meet my fate on this mission, I want it to mean more than that." She looks at the lonely two AT-4s for a moment and changes the subject. "What's stopping us from making more of these?" she asks. "Or more of the armor-piercing rounds for the rifles?"

---

"Kansat wasn't bad," Ngawai tells Davis. "On Sambasan, most of it's all drone work. You patrol in a skimmer and manage a host of feeds. Sambasan's still sprawl, though, so you get your gangs and whatnot so there'd be some excitement now and then. Moreso than archaeology or religion, which are the big two on that planet."

"Can you tell me why you're here?"

"You never answered the second part of my question," Davis says. "Why did you join the Kansat? You don't seem like the kind of person who works well under all of those rules and regulations. I've seen how you work, and it's not exactly what I would call orthodox."