Carolina walked into the shooting range just as it appeared that North and Emma were done testing it. Ally was standing near Emma watching what she was doing while North was just lowering his rifle.
"Now will this suit your purpose or not?" Emma huffed at him.
"Yes dear. Thank you," he replied before Carolina approaching caught his eyesight. "Hey Carolina."
"Momma!"
"Hey," Carolina chuckled as Ally ran over and attached herself around Carolina. "Figured since I haven't seen this one here all day, I'd come and see what you guys were up to."
"Uncle North and I practiced with my sling shot!" Ally informed her.
"Practice is always good," Carolina nodded. "I hope you let him get work done first though."
"Yup and I helped."
"Yes she did," North chuckled.
"Didn't get in the way at all?"
"Course not."
"Good," Carolina smiled. She looked down at Ally, "Want to go back to the house for dinner? Then we can hang out for a little since I probably won't be back until you're asleep."
"What about daddy?"
"Your dad is working on some stuff and then he'll home in a little while."
"Ok," Ally nodded. "Bye Aunty Emma and Uncle North!"
"Bye Ally," Emma replied.
"See ya kid," North chuckled.
"Oh, Emma," Carolina paused at the door, "We'll need you tomorrow morning then."
"I'll be there with bells on," Emma nodded. The two left. Ally could be heard telling Carolina in explicit detail about her day as the door closed behind them. Emma looked at North, "Do you need anything else while I'm standing here?"
"Well…"
"Work wise," Emma huffed.
"Nope. Should work great," North smirked at her.
"Good. I have you registered in the system so it'll recognize you," Emma replied turning to look back at the set up screen she had. "Is there anyone else you want having access to it when you're not available?"
"You could probably set up everyone. They're all going to want to use it themselves at some point."
"I have that part set up," Emma sighed. "Is there anyone else besides you and myself that you want to have access to making changes or anything?"
"Is there a difference?"
"One is for basic use and function, the other is for more detailed things like system functionality and set-up or troubleshooting," Emma explained.
"Sounds the same to me," North replied.
"They're not."
"Then use your judgement," North shrugged as he walked his rifle in to his office.
"You are so helpful," Emma grumbled quietly as she finished inputting a few more things before shutting it down. North had walked back out at that point.
"Hey, I think I helped you out pretty well this morning."
"How so?" Emma raised an eyebrow at him.
"I kept Sarge busy so you could actually get some work done today," he smirked.
"Oh."
"Yea, so a little less annoyance towards me on your end would be lovely."
"I'm not annoyed with you." He raised an eyebrow at her. She stammered at him before finding her reasoning. "I'm in work mode. I get short with everyone."
"Even your husband?"
"Especially my husband," she rolled her eyes before getting up and walking over to him. He put an arm around her when she got close enough and kissed the top of her head. "Thank you for keeping him busy. It was a huge help and yes, I got what I wanted done today."
"Good. How about we head back for some food and relaxing? You haven't had a night off since this whole thing started."
"I want it to be perfect," Emma shrugged. "And I don't want any hiccups when this starts that I could've prevented prior. Everything needs to be smooth and easy."
"There's going to be bugs though. Any new venture has some sort of bug."
"With the UNSC keeping a close eye on everything though, I don't want to give them any excuse. You married a perfectionist."
"Damn…guess I'll have to find myself a good divorce lawyer then," he smirked. She rolled her eyes and went to move out of his embrace. He tightened his arm around her waist, "I'm kidding."
"I know," she chuckled before giving a sigh. "I guess I can take the night off."
"That's what I like to hear," North grinned. "Do you have everything?"
"Just need to stop by my office and get my bag," Emma answered.
York walked in to the house to find Ally and Carolina curled up on the couch and watching some sort of cartoon. He smiled at the scene before walking up behind the back of it and draping his arms over them both, kissing the side of Carolina's head as Ally giggled.
"How are my two favorite gals?"
"Hi daddy!"
"There's a plate of food for you in the microwave," Carolina informed him.
"Perfect. I'm starved," York stood up and headed out to their kitchen.
"How's your dad?" Carolina called after him.
"Not bad. Working on checking out some of the armor enhancements so that he could replicate them," York replied back as he waited for his food to reheat. "He and Mum want the three of us for dinner sometime over the weekend."
"Shouldn't be a problem," Carolina nodded as she heard the microwave beep.
"Did you get finished what you need to?" York asked as he came back out and sat in the arm chair.
"Have to go back and finish. Figured Ally and I would come have dinner and when you got back, I'd head back over."
"What are you finishing momma?" Ally asked sitting up to look at Carolina.
"Working on what the recruits are going to be tested with on Monday and then trying to draw up some form of schedule for training," Carolina replied. "Speaking of, I'll need you to come by for that meeting at some point."
"What meeting?" York asked between mouthfuls.
"The meeting that's going to happen with everyone who is going to be running some form of class."
"I'm running a class?"
"Why wouldn't you be?" Carolina narrowed her eyes at him.
"I just thought you wanted me around for my good looks," he smirked making Ally giggle. "Yea, yea. Just tell me when I have to be there and what you want me doing though I'm sure it's going to be the whole show them how to look good in armor type of deal, right?"
"You are so full of yourself."
"So you keep saying," York grinned at her. "Yet you never actually disagree with me."
"Do I get to come to the classes too?" Ally asked looking between the two of them.
"You're going to get a different sort of class schedule," Carolina answered.
"With you guys?"
"Not exactly," Carolina shook her head. She looked at York, "That was the other thing Kimball mentioned today. The UNSC is opening up the option for non-military to relocate here."
"Really?" York asked slightly shocked. "I thought they wanted all the alien artifact stuff figured out before they would allow any of that."
"Apparently not. The next few supply ships will have everything needed to start setting up a normal society of sorts here instead of just a mainly military one. So they'll be families and such coming in at some point."
"What's their reasoning behind this? Or didn't they say?"
"They don't want a repeat of what happened here already. They figure it they start trying to turn things less military and more normal, that it'll hopefully avoid it," Carolina sighed. "Other than that, I don't know what they're thinking."
"Sounds like they're trying to put even more pressure on not just Kimball, but this new program of yours."
"That's what it sounds like," Carolina agreed. "So that means, they're going to be setting up schooling for the children that come with their parents. Ally will get to go once it's set up."
"Will I get to learn fun things like the recruits?" Ally asked.
"The important thing is that you will be learning," Carolina answered.
"But I want to learn what they're learning. I don't want to learn what other kids are learning," Ally whined.
"Hey," York spoke up placing his empty plate on the side table next to the chair, "Let's give it a chance. You might like it and you'll be around kids your age. When you're older, we'll see about teaching you the stuff they're learning."
"That's so far away," she huffed leaning back in the chair.
"It's not like you won't be hanging around the facility," Carolina pointed out. "You'll still be able to learn a few things, but you still need a proper education if it's going to be offered here. And it's not happening anytime soon yet."
"Why can't Aunty Emma just keep teaching me then?"
"Your Aunt is going to be busy enough without having to worry about teaching you what a school could. Like your dad said, give it a chance. You might like it," Carolina replied before standing up. "I should get back over. Wash'll be waiting to go over things. Don't let her stay up too late."
"Then I better cancel the party we were going to have," York joked as Carolina bent down for a goodnight hug from Ally. "Don't you be out all night either. I know how you get when it comes to being perfect. There's no one here to compete with, so don't feel like you have to push yourself to exhaustion."
"Yes York," Carolina huffed before leaning down to kiss him.
"Alright so what did you need me for?" Emma asked walking into Carolina's office the following morning, North behind her. Wash was sitting in one of the chairs nearby.
"I figured I would give you the list of names Kimball brought over last night so you could start inputting them into the system," Carolina answered.
"Easy enough," Emma nodded as North took the other chair next to Wash. "I'm going to work on the access drives as well today."
"Access drives?" North asked.
"It's a safety protocol we're implementing in order to have access to the facility," Wash answered. "With how the UNSC has been treating Kimball towards the situation of the planet, we feel its best that only ourselves and whoever gets recruited has access to the facility just in case the need arises that we need to keep something from the UNSC. If they want access to it, they have to go through us."
"So it's a trust thing then?" North nodded.
"Would you trust anyone of power after what Hargrove did to this planet?" Carolina asked from the desk. North nodded in agreement. "Why are you even here?"
"Got nothing better to do," North shrugged.
"You could go bug York," Carolina suggested.
"Didn't even realize he was here," North replied.
"He's down the first hall with Ally playing around in his office."
"Don't have too much fun without me," North chuckled getting up. He paused to kiss Emma on the cheek before leaving the room.
Emma walked over and sat next to Wash, "Did George finish making the drives yet?"
"I'll go check before the recruits get here," Carolina replied. "York didn't mention anything last night."
Emma nodded. "And the drives are what's going to activate the armor once we get that software working?"
"Yes. You'll be able to hard-wire it back to here so there's always a link?"
"Yup. I'll need Church's help for that," Emma replied.
"I'm sure he won't have a problem doing that."
"Are we really securing the armor as well?" Wash asked.
"You want someone else like Hargrove using the enhancements to their advantage?" Carolina asked.
"I guess not. I just feel like we're getting sneaky here."
"We're covering our asses is what we're doing. And it's not like they're going to be in the dark," Caroline reminded him. "You know they're sending someone here once a month to follow up and report in, yes?"
"Well yea, but we make this as secure as you're saying you want it," Wash continued, "What's to stop them from pulling the plug?"
"If they want access, then we can give them limited access. We still have Hargrove out there and I don't want him getting his hands on things," Carolina pointed out. "Once I know he's behind bars and that there's no one else to do what he did, then maybe I'll consider letting our guard down."
"Whatever you say boss," Wash nodded. "I just don't want this turning into Freelancer all over again."
"Which is why you and I are running this together," Carolina sighed. "Emma's got our technological behinds and you have our conscience. I trust you to call us out on shit when we start toeing that line."
"Great," Wash scoffed smirking at her. "Guess I can manage that."
"Good," Carolina chuckled. She checked the time, "Kimball said the recruits would be over by nine. We have twenty minutes or so."
"Let me go get started on this then," Emma replied getting up. "Just make sure to bring them all by my office so I can get their profiles set up."
"We'll do that after we give them the basic tour," Carolina nodded before looking at Wash. "You still need them to help finish outside then?"
"Yea," Wash nodded as Emma left the room. "There isn't much. We got a lot of it done yesterday. Just a few more spots to clear out."
"Ok," Carolina replied grabbing her data pad and looking at notes she made. "So quick tour, take them to Emma, assign them their dorms and then we'll see what time it is. Depending if we break them for lunch or not, you can have them for the afternoon. Then they can have the evening to get settled, the weekend to get used to how some things work, and then Monday we start skill testing and go from there."
"Are we still including the Lieutenants in the skill testing? I know most of theirs already from running drill with them."
"We should. Some of them could've picked up some things since you trained with them," Carolina replied. "Oh and you're still sure Caboose will be ok being in charge of the dorms by himself?"
"I'll be keeping an eye on him, but yea. I think it'll be good for him," Wash nodded.
"I'm glad you have faith in him," Carolina chuckled.
"It's not like it will be hard," Wash shrugged. "Of course, its Caboose…he might make it hard, but this is why I'll be overseeing him and making sure things aren't too awful for them. Besides, when they all need counseling for whatever stupid crap he does, it'll give Doc something to do."
"So you're relying on that trickle-down effect?" Carolina smirked as she stood up.
"I suppose. You said you wanted everyone to be useful, so I found something for him to do."
"That you did," Carolina agreed.
