Welcome to Gaia! ::

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"Lots of things do, doc. Lots of things do." Jaden nodded in response to Fayra's cryptic comment. Suddenly, the ship's muscle straightened and strode out the door, pausing most of the way over the threshold. "I wouldn't bet on it, doc. Might get more interesting work though."

With that, Jaden was gone, returning a few moments after Jas' voice came in over the intercom. Jaden worked with a wordless efficiency, bringing in the last of the boxes and bags. Ten minutes before the ship broke atmo ze had finished moving the boxes and was helping Fayra stash the contents. Ze had tried to stack the boxes and bags so nothing would fall on them during take off, but short of tying things down that was impossible.

Shortly after they broke atmo a particularly violent jolt sent a crate sliding off the counter at Fayra. Out of the corner of hir eye, Jaden saw it start to slide and turned. Then, faster and quieter than someone of hir size would be expected to move, Jaden stepped across the infirmary. Simply by interposing hirself in the narrow space between the heavy crate and Fayra, Jaden prevented it from striking the ship's new doctor. Instead it thumped heavily into the androgynous figure's back and Jaden let out a soft grunt of pain before reaching back to shove it back onto the counter.

"Shoulda tied that down. Sorry 'bout that, doc."

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"I'm fine." Jaden grunted, answering all the questions at once as ze stepped away from Fayra.

Shoulders hunched slightly, the ship's muscle watched the doctor for a moment from narrowed eyes before stepping out of the infirmary. Jaden's boots rang against the metal of the deck as ze walked out into the cargo bay. A moment later ze returned with a fist sized lump of a dirty grayish material. Wordlessly, Jaden tore off a piece and began kneading it into softness. Ze slapped the material down on the counter under the front edge of the crate after lifting it slightly and paused to tug it forward slightly. Seemingly satisfied when it didn't move, Jaden nodded to hirself.

"That should fix it." ze grunted.

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Captain Jas Sturm

A beep from the console signaling an incoming transmission woke Jas from her light doze. The tall blonde blinked sleepily at the lights and frowned at the blanket someone had draped a blanket over her. She had just managed to set it aside when the ship finally completed the connection and a man in an Alliance officer's uniform appeared on the tiny screen.

"This is Lieutenant Chang of the I.A.V. Wuzhou. We have reason to believe you are harboring known fugitives." The man announced gravely.

"This is Captain Sturm." Jas said after a moment before pausing to clear her throat. "There's some sort of mistake. We haven't got passengers."

"You are ordered to change course to the vector I'm sending you now and prepare for docking." the Lieutenant continued with a touch of uncertainty in his voice, his eyes darting to something behind the camera then down to his console and back to the camera.

A moment later the vector popped up on the ship's console and Jas nodded slightly. "Right. Changing vectors now, Lieutenant, but this is a waste of everyone's time."

Jas' adjusted the ship's course as she spoke. The man seemed to be satisfied as he cut the connection and the moment the screen blanked out, she reached for the comm. This was going to be fun an interesting.

"This is Jas. We've been hailed by a patrol cruiser." She sighed. "Jaden, if you've got something you're not supposed to have, you might want to put it somewhere. They say we've got fugitives aboard."

The white-blonde stood and carefully folded the blanket before putting it in the locker. They had about an hour before anything would happen other than a pair of escort vehicles showing up. She hated to leave the bridge while they were out in the Black, but a quick trip to her quarters for her nice shirt wouldn't hurt. Particularly if the Captain of the Wuzhou was who she thought it was. Jaden hadn't kept particularly good track of her peers from the war, but a year ago she had received an update from one of her friends in the service with news of who had stayed, who had left, and who had gotten assigned where. And with any luck, Jaden wouldn't go and make it worse.

With any luck.

An hour later, Jaden had carefully docked with the Longbow-class ship and was standing in the cargo bay. She had changed to her one good shirt and put a tie and vest on, making sure to leave her pistols in her bunk. There was no point in getting them temporarily confiscated, which they inevitably would be. The airlock doors slid open and a squad of soldiers piled through. After they declared the cargo bay clear a trio of officers stepped through, looking officious. Without waiting for further orders, half the squad continued methodically searching and clearing the ship while the other half stepped forward to check the crew for weapons.

"Captain Sturm." The man wearing a captain's bar nodded politely.

"Captain." She nodded politely back. "Congratulations on your promotion. It was...unexpected. By many of us, I hear."

He colored and turned to the Ensign beside him. "Be sure to be through. If the fugitives are here, we cannot afford to let them go."

"If you don't mind, Captain, I have a shipment of melons for Sinhon that needs to be there sooner than later. They're ripe now and my client wants them there yesterday." Jas interrupted before the Ensign could answer. Then without looking, she snapped, "Jaden! Let them do their job."

When Jaden's sullen grumble turned into an angry growl, Jas turned to find Jaden standing between Fayra and a pair of soldiers, who were now yelling and pointing their rifles at hir. Jas pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache she knew was coming. A moment later, predictably, Jaden had laid one of the soldiers out with a punch and was turning on the other. Almost immediately, the other soldiers in the room turned and attempted to dog pile the now very irate Chu.

"Jaden! Behave!" Jas bellowed as a pair of soldiers went flying away from the dust up. A moment later, Jaden was face down on the ground as a pair of soldiers cuffed hir warily. "Just...let them ask their questions. Captain unpronounceable here thinks we're harboring fugitives. Which we're not. And the sooner they're done, the sooner we can get gone."

"Huh choo-shung tza-jiao duh tzang-huo." Jaden spat as the soldiers hauled hir to hir feet. "Chur ni-duh--"

"Jaden..." Jas sighed in frustration, passing a hand over her face before turning to the ensign as the Captain of the Wuzhou left. "Alright. Let's get this over and done with."

"If you will follow me..." The ensign nodded before turning to the squad of soldiers. "Sergeant, keep searching this ship. She's a Firefly and you know the kinds of nooks and crannies folk can hide in."

With that, he turned and led the way through the airlock where another squad waited. A pair of men took over for the pair guiding the handcuffed Jaden while the rest boxed them as they walked through the passageways of the ship. Before long, each was put into a separate room. The rooms were small and cramped despite being mostly bare of...everything except for a small table and pair of chairs. Once in her room, Jas sat down and prepared to wait.

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Jaden was roughly shoved into one of the chairs before the two soldiers stepped away warily. Hir nose was swelling up into an interesting shape that indicated that it was most likely broken and blood dribbled down hir face to drip on hir shirt. Despite this several minutes passed as ze glared at the soldiers and they pretended not to notice while guarding the door. After a while an ensign entered the room with a clipboard in hand and sat across from the glaring Chu. The ensign attempted to look superior, failed to impress Jaden or the two soldiers and cleared his throat.

"You are Jaden Chu, correct?" He asked and waited for an answer. A couple of minutes passed and the only answer he got was a steady glare from Jaden. "Look. You can either answer my questions or we can just sit here."

Wordlessly, Jaden arched an eyebrow and settled back into hir chair to wait. Eventually the ensign would get bored and that would certainly happen before Jaden did. Soon the only sound in the room was the soft clicking of stone beads on stone beads as the room's four occupants stared at eachother and Jaden toyed with the beads around hir wrist.

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Captain Jas Sturm

Jas could still hear her new medic's scream in her mind as she sat in the interrogation room waiting for whomever was coming to question her. There had been something odd about the medic, but there was something odd about every one of her crew. It had been a bit of a surprise when Jaden had stepped between Fayra and the soldiers to keep them from getting too close to the medic, but she didn't pretend to understand how her crew thought. The tall blonde was contemplating the possible reasons for Fayra's reaction when the door to the room suddenly opened and a familiar figure walked in.

"Captain." She nodded politely as he sat.

"Captain Jaswinder Sturm." He nodded in return.

"I would like to formally protest the treatment of my crew. Doctor Gardiner did nothing to warrant such treatment and probably would have been willing to cooperate had she been treated appropriately." Jas said coldly as she watched him look over the contents of something on his clipboard. "I know that such is standard procedure, but it was clear that the good doctor has had some past trauma and that should have been taken into account. Men who have done less than yours did have been labeled thugs and the soldiers of the Alliance cannot afford to be labeled as such." There was a brief pause as she seemed to contemplate something. "I suppose they are not to blame for they are most likely only following the lead of their Captain. You should look to that, Ap Ieuan."

"This coming from you?" he said, arching an eyebrow and trying not to sneer.

"I would have made Captain during the war, but you? The list must have been short for you to get this command." Jas laughed. "I distinctly remember one of our instructors saying that you couldn't lead a squadron into a strip club."

"You were a glory hound." Ap Ieuan growled, leaning forward.

"I did my job." Jas shot back. "It's not my fault that our commander felt that the better pilot should do the riskier flights."

"You went AWOL!" he sneered, shooting to his feet and leaning across the table.

"To save lives." Jas snapped, standing and crossing her arms. "You can't fly except by the numbers and wouldn't have the common sense to see that the no-fly was only because of politics."

"And now you're harboring a fugitive!"

"Oh, get stuffed. The only thing the doctor's a fugitive from is whatever's in her head." Jas snorted. "There's only one warrant out that I've seen that could possibly be her, but that one is supposed to be travelling with her brother. Now, unless Jaden managed to break someone out of an Alliance facility on a Core planet while we were working out on the Border, there's no one on my gorram ship that could even possibly be the other fugitive. You have no grounds for holding us and if you hold us any longer, I'm going to demand medical treatment for my crew for the damages your men caused."

Silence filled the room as the two Captains watched eachother, looking for some sign of weakness or bluffing. Finally, Ap Ieuan stepped back and tucked his clipboard under his arm. Wordlessly he stalked to the door and opened it.

"I have some questions for your doctor. If I'm satisfied by her answers, you and your crew will be free to go once my men are finished searching your ship for contraband." he said over his shoulder before stepping out into the hall and closing the door.

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Just as the Ensign thought he would go mad from the repetitive noise, the door slid open again and a private slipped in to murmur something into the Ensign's ear. The Ensign nodded and rose as the private slipped out the door. As he rose to his feet, the two guards shifted and grabbed Jaden by the elbows and 'helped' the bloody figure to hir feet.

"It seems as though we will be letting you and the rest of your friends go, Mis---er...Chu." The Ensign announced with a sigh. "Thank you for...well...Oh, just get hi--he---...Gorram it. Get Chu out of here and back on the ship."

The two soldiers did just that, roughly pushing Jaden through the airlock and into the cargo bay ahead of themselves. Once on the ship, Jaden gave them an evaluating look before calmly spitting a gob of bloody snot on each of their chests. Both turned red with fury and were just about to take a swing at the ship's muscle when the noise of approaching boots rang through the cargo bay. Sneering, they turned and left just as another soldier led Jas and the man in the Captain's uniform into the ship.

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Captain Jas Sturm

Ap Ieuan returned after a few hours had passed with another soldier and jerked his head at Jas, indicating that she could leave. He seemed to resent the idea and the fact that he couldn't really hold onto Jas, her crew and the melons for a longer period of time.

"You can go, Sturm. Your doctor isn't who we were looking for, but you should be aware that she hasn't exactly got a good history flying on ships." he said coldly before escorting her through the corridors and back to where the ship was docked. "I've given orders to have your crew escorted back to the ship and thought I'd see you off myself."

As they walked through the air lock they passed a pair of soldiers who had a glistening gob of something reddish dripping down the front of their uniforms. A faint smile tugged the corners of Jas' lips upwards as she chuckled softly. It wasn't hard to guess how that had happened.

Captain Jas Sturm

"Aside from Ap Ieuan's grudge? I'll tell you later." Jas nodded slightly, absently patting one of Aria's hands with her own.

The tall blonde was just about to pull away from the companion when Fayra and her reluctant escort appeared. A glance told her that Jaden was preoccupied with the soldier unlocking her handcuffs, but before she could turn to the other captain and tell him to get off her ship she heard Jaden growl something in Chinese and shove past the poor soldier.

"Jaden." the blonde captain's voice cracked across the cargo bay, bringing the ship's muscle to a sudden halt. "Take the good doctor to the infirmary and get yourself cleaned up. And reset your gorram nose before it heals that way."

For a moment pale blue eyes watched as the battered figure hesitated then reluctantly turned and gestured for Fayra to follow. Jaden took a few steps toward the infirmary before pausing and turning to make sure that Fayra was going with hir. Once she was sure that Jaden wasn't going to go try to take on an entire ship of Alliance soldiers as revenge, Jas turned to look at Ap Ieuan.

"I should have demanded medical care for my crew, seeing the way your men have treated them." Jas said clearly, addressing Ap Ieuan. "It's within our rights...but I won't if you let us get on with our business and stop harassing us. The Admiralty has had complaints of you in the past, Captain. I suspect it wouldn't take too many more before they move you to a different command. Perhaps making sure that the Alliance has enough toilet paper?"

The other captain did a remarkably good job of not turning completely red with rage and embarrassment even if his body language shouted it. He abruptly gestured for the soldier to leave the cargo bay before following him most of the way out.

"Have a good flight, Captain Sturm. I hope you get what you deserve one of these days." He bit out before shutting the airlock door and storming through the corridor.

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At Fayra's comment, Jaden's hand automatically rose to touch hir nose. The movement started out as a normal one and very quickly turned ginger as the androgynous figure remembered why hir face hurt like hell.

"Thanks, doc, but it stopped bleeding a while ago. Just gotta pop it back into place." Jaden said, waving off the handkerchief. "But I think we're both gunna need a cold pack. I don't particularly want to look like a raccoon...Whatever a raccoon is. You want me to get Cap to check you for concussion?"

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Captain Jas Sturm

"I don't want that either, Aria." Jas snorted. "As folk would have it, it'd be too much pomp and circumstance for my tastes. And you know my father would pop out of the woodwork to claim the great big war hero as his daughter, saying that he had always encouraged me or something like that."

Once free of Aria's grip, Jas strode over to the control panel in the cargo bay and shut the doors before someone got the brilliant idea of giving them only a moment's notice and cutting the connection between her ship and the patrol ship. They slid into place smoothly and closed with a final clang before Jas turned back to Aria to see her looking in the direction the rest of the crew had gone.

"Let's get going before Ap Ieuan changes his mind. He seems to think that our doctor was one of the fugitives whose warrant went out recently. One of the Tams, I think." the tall blonde nodded as she climbed the stairs to the catwalk toward the bridge. "The idea was completely daft, but Ap Ieuan's got a grudge from OCS and flight school that's just never gone away. Man goes out of his way to cause me trouble when he can without risking his career."