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#RedrockAgency – March 21, 2016
Ilyna returns to the office building with a plastic bag in hand bearing the logo of a nearby fast food joint. She would have let Li come with her if she wanted to. The asari is wearing a long gray hooded raincoat over a black t-shirt and simple blue jeans. She enters the lobby.
Jason returned to the agency a few hours after the others that joined him on the mission to retake Siren's Call and immediately headed to the public showers to clean up and get changed. After a nice hot shower, he makes his way through the upper halls in a pair of fatigues, boots and a white t-shirt. The strain of the mission causes him to catch himself favoring his right side again.
He presses his synthetic palm against the healing wound as he makes his way over to the staircase and begins to descend it with a bit of care.
Li is walking alongside the asari, holding her free hand. She's wearing whatever simple rain poncho Ilyna may have found - option's for children's clothing in Freedom Falls is limited. She seems distracted by the rain, no jumping or splashing as one might expect from a kid her age, instead she's staying very close and not saying a word.
Ilyna puts the plastic bag down on the floor before taking off her jacket. After hanging it up, she crouches down beside Li, helping her out of the poncho unless she has already done that herself.
Jason reaches the bottom of the steps and catches sight of Ilyna and Li down the hall. He quickly sticks out his tongue at Li and raises a hand to give a small wave to the pair as he starts down the hallway. "Where are you two coming back from?"
Li is helped out of the poncho, not entirely without complications as she starts waving at Jason just as it's coming off.
Ilyna chuckles as she untangles the poncho from the waving child, but does not give any comments on it. "I went out to get something to eat," she says before hanging it up. "I forget to ask if you wanted something, though." She picks up the bag and turns towards Jason.
Vasquez emerges from Renala's office, having supplied her with the program for the base VI and requested for it to be ready to be brought online the next morning. She has of course had a quick video call conversation with Jason after the mission to make sure nothing went horribly wrong. She's wearing her usual tank top and cargo pants combo. She starts heading for her office but stops
as she notices Jason and Ilyna in the corridor. She doesn't comment on Li's presence, but she looks briefly uncomfortable.
Jason gives a shake of his head as he absently returns his hand to his side. "Nah, I'm fine anyway. Just got in myself. Long day." he says with a sigh. As he reaches the hallway intersection, he cocks a thumb towards Vasquez' office. "Think you can spare a few minutes? Go over a few things?"
Li smiles at Jason, but it fades as Vasquez appears, and she seems to almost hide a little behind Ilyna.
Ilyna nods to Jason before crouching down beside Li. "I need to have a little chat with the others," she says, "do you want to eat dinner now, or do you want to wait for me?"
Jason catches sight of Vasquez out of the corner of his eye and turns his head to glance at her. He closes his hand which is pointing towards her office and uses his opposite hand to point at her instead. "You busy?" he asks.
Jason gives a nod towards Ilyna. "Figured the three of us might wanna have a little sit-down. Figure out where to go from here." He points off in a random direction, "I mean, we've got a ship just sitting in the middle of a big-ass open field right now. Not exactly a long-term option."
Ilyna offers the plastic bag to her. "It's up to you, sweetie," she says with a smile. "If the food is cold, just ask the first person you see to heat it up, okay?"
Li takes the bad and nods, running off towards the stairs while just barely keeping from dropping the food all over the corridor.
Jason steps out of Li's way with a smile, patting her on the top of the head as she storms by. "Be careful!" he instructs.
Vasquez nods at Jason. "Yeah, that's... probably a good idea." She heads past him towards her office after shooting another glance in Li's direction as she heads up the stairs.
Jason steps to the side of the door of Vasquez' office, gesturing for Ilyna to enter. "After you~" he chimes.
Jason follows Ilyna in and frowns at the lack of a second chair. Being the gentleman he is, he goes and stands against the wall off to the side of Vasquez' desk, folding his arms across his chest. "So... The ship is officially under our control now." he announces, although the other parties obviously know that by now, "....So now we need to figure out what in the hell we're going to
do with it. Nathan took stock of the weaponry on board and filed a report, I don't know if either of you have had a chance to look at it but it was a decent haul considering the effort it took."
Ilyna glances at Jason before taking the free chair. "I haven't had a chance to read the reports, yet," she says. "What about the crew?"
Vasquez nods at Jason, having read whatever reports have come in. She leans back in her chair puts an elbow on the armrest, propping her head up with her knuckles as she listens.
Jason gives a slow shrug, lowering his gaze to Vasquez' desk. "I don't know, to be entirely honest. We put quite a few down, but the rest surrendered without a fight." he begins in response to Ilyna, "They seem to be loyal to Austin and Vicky, but it still makes me a bit uneasey. We'll need a crew if we're going to keep this thing running, but I don't know how I feel about keeping
a bunch of pirates on-staff..." He sighs and looks between the two, "Not to mention we would have to pay them. Which means we need to come up with ways of turning that ship into credits."
Vasquez shakes her head. "Hiring a bunch of pirates is a recipe for disaster. Steels is enough trouble on her own." she says with an annoyed grunt.
Jason lets out another deep breath. "You're telling me... She broke formation and charged into enemy fire. Nearly got herself killed... Did get herself stabbed. Didn't seem to be too bad, but still..." he says, shaking his head in turn, "After Ilyna's report during the Tanner job and now this... I think we definitely need to take some disciplinary action before she gets someone
Ilyna frowns. "I was wondering whether you followed up on that," she says. "As for her crew, how about we interview them individually? The non-combatants might have valuable experience specific to that ship."
Vasquez grumbles quietly. "I'm not onboard with hiring the crew into Redrock. Hell, I don't think we could afford that even if we wanted to. I was thinking that maybe... hrm..." She trails off, staring at the wall as she considers the situation.
Jason nods a few times and brings a hand up to his neck, rubbing at it as he thinks over the problem for a few moments. "I was thinking before-..." he begins, giving a nod towards Ilyna as he reiterates their earlier conversation, "...maybe we could use it to haul cargo. Pretty much everything on Aite is shipped here. And that's not cheap. There's a whole lot of local businesses that
we could run cargo for. The main issue would be reaching out and getting contracts. But if we can pull in enough credits just to cover the costs to keep the ship in action, it would cut down on the overhead when we need transport off-world."
Ilyna looks between them while they speak. "Can we at least afford to keep the ship parked at the spaceport until our financial situation improve?" she asks. "I'm afraid I know very little about how a ship is managed."
Vasquez listens to the suggestion in silence, not seeming too enhusiastic about it. "I'd rather not rely on Steels' crew for off-world transport unless we absolutely have to - are there even enough of them left to man the damn ship? But having them run cargo is not a bad idea. I'm sure they could find some other work too. But not as Redrock employees. Don't think they'll be worth the
trouble. I'd rather Steels handle all that on her own, with a cut of their profits going back to Redrock."
Jason gives a couple of nods. "Like I said, most of their crew gave up without a fight. Seemed like we only had to deal with the stragglers who were loyal to the 'new captain'. I guess my worry is that if her crew are affiliated with Redrock, any shit they pull ties back to us. And if we toss them all out and hire our own crew, then we're permanently lasso'd to a ship that we're not
even sure we can afford. I mean, right now they're essentially prisoners. I had Renala change all of the onboard security and restrict them to the lower deck, but to be entirely honest I'm not even sure how to speak to those people. We just killed people they knew..." He sighs and gives Vasquez another shrug, "For better or worse, your plan might be our only play that won't bite us in
Ilyna frowns. "Are you sure you want to leave Steels to run the ship?" she says. "She might have more experience than anyone else in this building, but I still wouldn't trust her to manage one of our assets."
I think it's our best option. Incorporating the crew into Redrock isn't worth the trouble. We'll just have to make very clear that it would be a bad idea to try and run off with the ship without sending us our cut of profits, and that they're not allowed to engage in any piracy bullshit. Cargo hauling, escorting, scavenging, there's a lot they could do with that ship, none of which is
Jason nods a few more times. "I'm not sure how well her crew would go for this sort of thing, but I suppose they don't have many options right now. The arrangement was for Redrock to claim ownership of the ship for 2 years before relinquishing ownership back to Vicky. I figured hopefully we could earn a few credits in that time to make the whole ordeal worth it..." he shrugs, "But
the equipment alone on that ship was worth a few hundred-thousand credits. Even if we cut ties right now, handed the ship over to Vicky with no strings attached, it was still a solid haul. If we can bring in a constant revenue stream for the next two years without having to manage any of it ourself? Even better. I'm supposed to meet with Vicky and her crew later this week. I can
Ilyna listens thoughtfully. "What if we manage the security team on the ship?" she says. "That way, we won't be blind to what they're doing once they leave the planet."
Vasquez nods to Jason, but when Ilyna speaks she looks to the asari. "I'd rather not keep any of our personnel on the ship regularly. I'm hoping Steels can prove herself trustworthy eventually. And, well... I was thinking we'd maintain control of the ship VI, have it report back to us whenever they pass a comm buoy."
That works for me. If they decide to get out of line, we can track the thing down ourselves and sell it for scrap. Knowing that should be enough for Victoria to take a serious interest in keeping them on the straight and narrow.
Ilyna nods. "I understand," she says. "We can also ask her to report back to us regularly, and compare that to information we receive from the VI."
Jason gives a nod and raises his hand to give a thumbs up. "Absolutely. Austin seemed like a good enough guy... Despite the whole, you know, stealing-other-people's-shit-to-make-a-living thing he has going on. Hopefully he'll be interested enough in keeping his crew employed to co-operate." He shrugs, folding his arm back across his chest, "I guess we'll see."
Vasquez doesn't seem to concerned by the possibility as she looks to Ilyna. "As Jason said, we can always scrap the thing if we have to, should be worth a fair bit, but I don't think we have to worry about that. Steels has expected to fly the ship under Redrock fully. This way, they'll have more freedom, if less support. I doubt we'll get too many objections."
Jason sucks in some air and lets out a breath as he pushes away from the wall. "Well... I think that about covers it, then. Unless there's anything else we need to discuss...?" he asks, glancing between Vasquez and Ilyna.
Vasquez shakes her head and leans forward in her chair, activating a holographic screen and taking a quick look. "No, not right now."
Ilyna stands up. "I don't have anything to add," she says, "but I'll be here for another couple of hours should you need me for anything."
Jason absently runs his right palm down his pained side for a moment as he takes a step towards the door. "Alright then. I'll have Jasper take the shuttle over to the ship so they can start bringing our new gear back." He glances over at Ilyna and then straight up, "Might wanna go make sure that lil' monster isn't getting into any trouble." he suggests with a smirk.
Ilyna chuckles. "I haven't gotten any mesages from T'Iavay yet," she says, "that's usually a good sign."
Vasquez once again looks a bit uneasy at the mention of Li, but she says nothing, still reading from her screen.
Jason raises an eyebrow, "Or a sign that she's getting better at covering her tracks!" he teases, "Anyway, I'll let you both get back to work. I've got a lot to do myself, anyway... Big asajura game on tonight. Need beer."
Ilyna chuckles. "I would join you for that, but... you know," she says before she starts walking out of the room.
Jason breaks away down the hall to his right upon exiting the office, heading towards the front door and, most likely, off to pick up some booze. He tosses a hand up without glancing back towards Ilyna to wave. "See ya later." he calls out.