There would have been no reason for his choice to have changed, for his mind to have been swayed or his conscience appealed to, and yet…while fully aware of these facts, he found himself tied up as he tried to speak those words.
Instead what came out echoed the sentiments that may have been buried far too deep to be heard with any clarity.
'I must be on my way'. I cannot waste anymore time on this matter.' He thought, believing his words would follow suit.
"...Yuri I cannot…" The moment those words left his mouth, her expression arose with bewilderment, while he bore a deeper scowl at the realization. Major Illyanova stepped forward, hoping to move past the error. Offering a hand as she waited for an answer to her request.
"Major." Clearing his throat as he addressed her. With a firm grip of her hand, once again his words were:
"I cannot speak for what the Council will do once we arrive, for I simply act on their command, and theirs alone. If you truly seek to act on your own accord, prepare to be met with the consequences"
"Do you truly mean that? This does not appear to be a reasonable action to take, who knows how the Silver Council approve of" She pressed him, curious to tease out his strange reaction once again
"You are going to share your doubts now?"
"I just want to ensure your resolve. Make no mistake, I may need your help but I still have no reason to trust you or your companions."
"That is quite all right. I have no reason to go against my word." L Eventually turning away from her and ending their exchange after their attention was drawn to the sudden thud that rang from the door that followed after it caved in from the outside.
Pierce's face scrunched up as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at. Another moment of silence passed between them when the dent grew deeper with an even louder thud. Almost breaching completely from the holds into which the doors of the room slide into, he understood that he wouldn't want to be anywhere near it.
In a single fluid motion, he stepped off to the side pulling the Major by her coat when the final thud of the door split it into a shower of fragments as it was torn open.
"Captain Gage, Captain…Oh Captain, are you all right?" Vronica stepped through the hole in the door to greet her Captain, approaching with a sense of concern and relief , with her checking to see if was unharmed.
"Have you been harmed, Captain? Whatever they have done to impede our work, they will answer for, I shall ensure that…"
"What part of sit tight and wait for him don't you understand?" Rayce peeked his head through the hole of the door after catching a whiff of the Major's scent made him snarl as he entered.
"You would not tell why the Captain was not with you so I had to find out for myself"
"Oh my, she's quite the alluring one" Major Illyanova teased after shaking herself free from Pierce's grip.
"It's quite alright." He met her approach.
"Is that so…well then, we should be on our way"
"Yes, we should, right Captain?" This time, she spoke directly to the Pygmy after stepping out from his shadow. Glaring at her with a pierce gaze that she wasn't even aware of, Vronica hesitated for a moment unsure what to make of this stranger that was standing so close to the Captain.
"Eh…"
"Major Illyanova. A pleasure. And you are?" Standing at attention in front of her, waiting for her response.
"Ah…yes. The pleasure is mine. I am Sergeant Vronica 4HM-U02. Am I correct in assuming that you are the one that detained the Lieutenant and the Captain even after the order that you must have received from the Silver Council?"
"Yes, I am the one. And I was willing to keep that criminal in our holds but I'm not looking to start a fight, I only want him to face justice"
"Are we to assume that you will now cooperate?" Her glance shifted over to the Captain, who still possessed his unbothered nature.
"We've come to an agreement, isn't that right Captain" Her words carried a hint of mischief, wondering how he would respond, when he simply called to them to follow him as they were leaving. Walking past Vaun who was waiting near the door, and climbing through the hole.
Leaving Vronica with the Major, he was not ready to deal with Pierce's mess and tried to follow him out, with her grip holding him in place.
"Lieutenant Vaun, what exactly happened while the two of you were here?" Vronica pressed him while Rayce slowly dragged her along to the courtyard.
Who reluctantly explains why she's tagging along, confusing Vronica even more until Pierce explains the rationale and that they would be wasting time arguing about this when the Silver Council has already issued their command.
"Understood, Captain. Still I believe there is no need for us to host her when we are more than capable of returning with the prisoner in hand without the aid of the Menrvanian forces. Their involvement is not required"
"Quite, V. However, the Major has made a compelling case. One that she will present herself to the Council. As for us, we will do what we have been tasked to do. Now let us return." Pierce hailed a cab in the square, managing to get all of them out of the rain, their chauffeur looked quite surprised to witness the Monocerian shaking of the rain in the cabin.
Cruising on its way to the Spaceport, their Captain seemed to be having a conversation over his data slate with the rest of his team while Rayce helped himself to the offerings of assorted snacks provided stored in the cabin.
All the while, Vronica had not shaken her gaze from their passenger who, like their Captain, was hard at work with a data slate completing reports and reconnecting with the Enforcers that suddenly had an order of moving their most recent prisoner for shipment. Panic had ensued in the Enforcer Hall as she was doing her best to quell those fires before flames reached the Administration.
In a frustrated huff she rubbed the bridge of her nose before brushing her golden bangs out of her eyes as he addressed the latest query, managing to ignore every incoming call with the ease of flick of her wrist.
The trip to the Spaceport was a quiet and tense one for Rayce, who wished that Pierce had dragged along someone else on his quest for more work. Now, playing the unfortunate caretaker for the trio, under his breath he whispered that at this point he had put up with enough of his Captain's behavior to request a transfer, perhaps even a chance to lead his own Sword Company.
"You are welcome to share your concerns with the…"
"Yeah yeah, I can raise with the Silver Council. You know, not everything needs to be run by them, I don't think you need their authority to breathe, or eat, or be a pain in my ass" Rayce blurted, as he stretched in his seat.
Pierce merely continued with his work until their eventual arrival.
Expecting the rest of their squad to have been at the ship some time ago, Thella let out a weary yawn while at her console, with panels around her flipping between measurements and charts all informing her of the course she was currently adjusting. Solving calculation after calculation, the ship's computer responded by relaying the course corrections, every so slightly reducing the travel time to their next destination.
While sub-light space travel was less intensive on the ship's computer navigation capabilities compared to traveling beyond the speed of light, it was still a task that required good understanding of their course and an even better planning. Doing so saves a great deal of energy and fuel by going through less turbulent space.
As she continued her work, the rest of the ship's system turned on, with Ridge returning from the Reactor Room into the bridge.
"Sub and superluminal systems are all active and ready to go. The Black Body Reactor calibration was also successful. Seems like she's taking well to the modifications they added, though she may feel a little stiff with the bit of weight she's carrying now."
"Modifications, I'm guessing you went overboard with your request of the shipwrights? Does the Captain know about the modifications?" Thella questioned him, snuffing out his excitement as he stumbled to convince her that he did.
"I have no knowledge of this interaction between Captain Gage and Sergeant Essern. However the alterations made to my systems appear to have improved my energy efficiency." EJ's voice sounded throughout the room.
"Of course they do. The Captain and Rayce couldn't agree on the kind of plating we should get you so I tried to compromise. And add a little extra. Hope you like it?"
"EJ, don't encourage him. What did you do?" Thella turned in her chair to face him.
"Ablative plating is heavy and dense but Resilience plating generates a lot of heat. So I just thought about using a little bit of both and having the Ablative plating's large surface area act as a heat sink to deal with the heating issue. Honestly I'm more surprised that they managed to do the work in such a short time. Though I do still want to keep my eye on their work, if our shielding fails, we're going to have a terrible time." He answered, approaching his console that was a light with the ship's diagnostic data.
"The calibration task has successfully aligned the energy demands. The Reactor is no longer under strain" The A.I announced.
"Great, send me an update of the power supply numbers to the rest of your system every hour, EJ"
"Wow, that's pretty impressive. I just hope that you can be as persuasive with the Captain when he arrives" said Thella, her expression softened despite still being sleepy.
"Sure, but don't you think you can do it instead. I don't want Rayce yelling, or Vronica, or worse, the Captain glaring at me"
"Hmm…yes yes, I could do that or–" Tapping an icon on one of the panels near the door, opened the cargo bay's doors.
"Happy to have you back, Captain. Ridge on his way to meet you" Looking back at him after greeting the rest of the squad over the ship's comms, she found Ridge in frozen silence, hoping that she was mistaken.
"Excellent. Ridge, meet us in the bay, we have a lot to discuss" The Captain responded.
"Why…." Ridge cried in a hushed voice as he kicked his way down to the cargo bay.