With that, Rook stepped out into the courtyard, with Garry at his heels, like they belonged. Outside now, he glanced around, looking for an entrance.
A lightening flash briefly illuminated the dark clouds, while also reflecting on the dirty windows. At least they weren't smashed in, like the majority of windows on the mainland. The colour they emitted from the source of lighting behind them was oddly warm compared to the cold and foreboding surroundings. Large concrete slabs were used in the courtyard, the occasional sting of grass grew out in between the cracks. The building seemed less bulky from the inside. And more like it's terribly infamous description of a clinic.
Shadows were seen marching on top of the roof surrounding them. Because of the backlight of the spotlights you couldn't really make much sense of them, apart from their general silhouette and something they were holding, a rifle or other such gun most likely.
They quietly looked on and did their rounds, not saying anything to the two scientists below, out in the open.
From here on out, there were multiple doors into the complex, though from a logical stand-point, they'd probably all lead to the same round corridor.
"Shit... They make weapons here too?" Garry whispered, thinking that this was most likely a medical center.
The doors up ahead, looked like French windows. Behind it, a corridor that coiled around the courtyard and a stairwell to the second floor. The walls, ceiling, floor and door design seemed to be the same as in the pre-fab building.
"It wouldn't surprise me. They have the capabilities." Rook replied, locating the door to the stairwell.
"There."
Garry glanced over to the door in question, eventually nodding to acknowledge that he saw it.
"Fuck... Which one of us is more like a scientist?"
"Is that a joke?" Rook replied, heading towards the door.
Inside there was no guide to the office of Doctor Governor, or any other place for that matter.
The lower floors mainly seemed to have mint-coloured swing doors with small round windows to operating rooms and the like.
"Affirmative." Rook replied as he glanced around, peeking into the windows.
The doors were soundproof, just like the first set most of them hid in earlier, but a quick glance through the windows revealed disturbing imagery.
A patient, seemingly alone at the moment. Lay there with tubes and steel jutted into his face. His heart appeared distressed but stable on the monitor.
"Garry. Come look at this." Rook summoned the ex-slaver.
Sadly, in the pre-fab there appeared to be no spare lab-coats.
Garry did as the Android said and stepped over to the nearest incubator, seemingly put out as he saw it.
"The fuck is this shit?"
Footsteps.
Someone was coming back for the patient.
"I have no idea. I have never seen anything like this." Rook replied. "Come on. Let us continue." Footsteps.
Someone was coming back for the patient.
Rook backed away from the door and turned to face Garry, like they had been talking and not looking at the patient. He turned his back to the footsteps.
"Nod like you are agreeing with me." He instructed the slaver.
It appeared to be two doctors, also clad in radioactivity resistant science-uniforms.
"Pardon us" One of them casually excused. desiring to walk into the room, that the two disguised intruders were standing in front of.
Rook backed away from the door and turned to face Garry, like they had been talking and not looking at the patient. He turned his back to the footsteps.
"Nod like you are agreeing with me." He instructed the slaver. "A'ight..." Garry uttered, not having a clue what to say or do on his own anyway. It appeared to be two doctors, also clad in radioactivity resistant science-uniforms.
"Pardon us" One of them casually excused. desiring to walk into the room, that the two disguised intruders were standing in front of. Garry just gave them a respectful nod, doing his best to avoid speaking as his voice may give him away.
Morgan sighed, exiting the pre-fab and taking a walk down the nearest corridor. She looked around nervously, desperate to search for a helmet.
Rook didn't even look at them, like they were incognisant, The instant they entered the room, he took Garry's arm and guided him away.
"Stairs." He instructed quietly. "They will ask questions we do not have answers to."
"Does a fist to the face count as an answer?" Garry asked as he stumbled along.
"No." Was Rook's reply, headed for the stairs.
One of the two doctors opened the door and a horrible scream escaped, a scream that appeared to have been going on for a long time.
When the door shut close, again the room and those within were muted.
The doctors continued their work, seemingly unfazed they put the tube deeper in his mouth, the heart monitor dot seemed to speed up, but with fairly little ethics they continued their "experiment" anyways.
"We need to keep going." Said Rook. "We won't find it here."
Garry nodded and continued to follow him.
"This place is a fuckin' maze..." The Wastelander grumbled, growing frustrated by the fact that they were beyond lost.
The third floor seemed to be the upper floor. The doors no longer seemed to be swing doors, but average wooden doors, though it was noticeable that the years have not been kind of the wood. These looked life offices, only problem now was finding Governor's.
Rook checked to see if the doors checked them all out, opening them and peering in, subtly.
Morgan somehow got passed the guards of the rooftop, perhaps by sticking in the shadows at the edges. Quickly she jumped into the silent corridor, the same one Garry and Rook were in, but because of the round shape and bend, she didn't see them. Just the same doors.
Morgan did indeed keep to the shadows as best she could. She peered into each room, searching for a helmet, only to be horrified at the patients in here.
I knew this place was screwed up...
These "patients" seemed familiar to her. Most of them were once citizens of Sanford. They appeared to be in agony. In one such room with a patient, there was a lab-coat and helmet, hanging on a coat hook.
Morgans eyes widened. She pushed the door open and ducked inside the patient's room quickly. The screams pained her soul, and she looked sympathetically upon them before grabbing the coat and the helmet.
"I'm so sorry..."
The man's eye appeared to be scooped out, metal components lay next to him.
He screamed but didn't even acknowledge Morgan.
Morgan gulped, slowly putting the helmet on to hide her fear. She drew her silenced 10mm, seriously considering putting the guy out of his misery...
It was up to Morgan if she would risk leaving a body.
"I..." Morgan sighed, hanging her head and holstering her pistol. "Can't risk our position...S-sorry..." She murmured, walking out the room, dejectedly closing the door.
"Rogers." A voice called Morgan.
Behind her stood another scientist.
"We're running late. Come on!" He then added with a sense of urgency.
Morgan stiffened.
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!
She turned slowly, nodding quietly and meekly to her new colleague...
"Follow me" The scientist had no time for small-talk, which was a blessing. He briskly turned around and led Morgan down the corridor.
Morgan nodded again, rushing after her associate as calmy as she could.
Oh god. I regret leaving. R-rook. Help!
He then entered a room, which looked like an old library. Holding the door open for "Rogers" to get in.
Morgan looked around the library in awe, trying to hide her amazement.
Woah. Now this is a Sanctuary in a Shitty situation.
The scientist that led Morgan in, who now stood in awe looking around, walked past her and grasped for a particular book. "The Cask Of Amontillado And Other Works Of Edgar Allan Poe"
He pulled the book down and there was a clicking noise, followed with the slow turning of a currently invisible contraption which must've been ages old. From the original structure probably. There was another click and now a brick wall to their right revolved and showed a stone stairwell down into the unknown.
"Come on! Governor's waiting."
Morgan rushed over to the scientist and proceeded nervously down the stairs, into the very depths of hell.
There was no saving her now...
Morgan could hear the fake wall shut close behind her. Now solely led by the atomic cell lamps that had been encrusted in the stone steps. Rather neat and hard to come by. Eventually, these well paved-off stone steps became metal. The clunking noise of her boots on them echoed through the spiral staircase. The scientist was right behind her. So turning around and legging it would be impossible without a fight, moreover, the way was closed shut.
When more light started to fill the small winding stairwell, the sound of radio equipment and other hard to come-by goods could be heard. When they finally got down, there was a large standing lamp beckoning them, hooked up to a carelessly placed power-grid of thick-fat wires that led into a door to the basement proper.
The door led to a large underground archway dating back from the colonial era. But it had been filled to the brim with modern technology, dials and radars did their thing, and the operators behind them wrote and transcribed away on little clipboards. They had uniforms. A black cap and leather boots. They carried Plasma pistols as well...
Above her, large grey banners with a big 'E' surrounded by thirteen stars hung with pride.
Enclave...
"How d'you wanna do this?" Garry asked, leaning against the wall as he looked back and too.
"We enter each office, like we meant to walk in. If it's not Governor, we apologize and back out, saying we thought someone else was in here. We repeat that process until we find him. Once we do find him, I will employ enhanced interrogation tactics."
"Yeah, but won't that get a little... suspicious, after the third or fourth time?" Garry asked, folding his arms and frowning, he didn't want to be caught, after seeing all of those horrors earlier.
"We don't have a choice. We could clear the floor, stepping into an office, silently terminating or incapacitating the occupant, and then continuing on."
"Fine, let's just... Get this shit over with..." Garry grumbled, constantly looking over his shoulder.
With that, Rook selected the closest office, and stepped inside.
Empty. Apart from a desk and musty smelling carpet.
Seemed this building was really short on staff, or they were all having dinner in some canteen. Where was everyone?
It slowly began to dawn on Rook, as he backed out, shut the door, and began to check other offices.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
"There's no one here. The area is clear of occupants." Rook was thoroughly confused. "Do you think they are down on a lower level? Did we miss something?"
Garry simply shrugged, glancing to the already checked rooms as he began to look confused.
"I dunno, I didn't see any other passage ways back there..."
"Let us head back to Morgan, Gabe, and Heather. We can inform them that the upstairs is fruitless. Then we will search level 1 next. Maybe Morgan can figure out what is going on with the patients."
"Yeah, we've left those two alone with Gabriel for long enough..." Garry uttered, truly dreading the prospect.
With that, Rook treaded back downstairs, headed for the second level, then the first, then the courtyard and finally to the first corridor.
Morgan stood still, to attention as she lanced around the room, noting the operators and the Plasma pistols.
I'm dead if they find out my identity...
What if they already know!?
Okay...keep calm. Just stay quiet and play along, until you get out, then find Rook. He'll protect you.
Morgan was escorted by her scientist "buddy" past a man in Advanced Mk II power armour.
The soldier's gaze lingered on Morgan, as if he somehow knew she didn't belong here. But eventually he just remained at his post. And Morgan was led down another flight of metal stairs to transcribers and agents below.
"... PRCT..."
"...Zethos Principle..."
She could hear a few words being tossed around the generally calm looking "office" of spies.
On the left wall a huge holographic map of NYC with red dots. One on Chinatown and one on the Empire State building among others.
She was led past them and to a desk.
After which the scientist that had been escorting her took off his helmet and placed it on his own desk, next to "hers."
Morgan tried to retain as much information as she can about her surroundings.
PRCT. Zethos Principle? The map...
She sighed softly and sat at her desk, keeping her helmet on still.
"Err, Andrea?"
"You can take your helmet off" The scientist eventually said, noticing "Rogers" was just sitting there.
Morgan shook her head slowly. "D-don't feel so good..." She said quietly. "Prefer to keep whatever I have, contained in my suit..."
"You mean to say you contracted something?!" The man she didn't know looked worried all of a sudden.
"You should get to medical! Get yourself checked" He nodded to a doorway leading to a hallway.
"Don't you know protocol!?" He then pressed her on.
"Sorry, I'll go right away!" Morgan gasped, standing up swiftly and quickly walking down the corridor the Scientist nodded to.
Gotta hide!
The corridor Morgan found herself in now was filled with this blue light emitting from these "tubes".
One of which held a monstrosity. It had fangs and claws the size of kitchen knives, it was huge and scaly, and the horns made it look... Demonic.
Luckily it appeared... sedated.
"What on earth is...that?" Morgan whispered to herself, stopping to stare at the almost...imaginary creature. Her hands began to tremble quite noticeably now and she clenched them to stop it.
How am I going to get out? There was only one way in, right?
"Don't stare at it." A voice suggested with a sense of authority, behind her.
"It might be sedated, but they're well awake and can probably smell you. They are apex killers after all" Colonel Governor added.
A man with slicked back silver hair stood behind her He had an angular and clean-shaven face. His face was rather gaunt and the man as a whole quite tall. He had his hands behind his back.
Again, Morgan stiffened, making a possibly stupid choice to spin around and offer a half hearted salute.
"S-sorry sir. I was...just going to m-medical, protocols and all, and it j-just, its so majestic, it draws my gaze every time."
"I don't think so" the middle-aged man beckoned.
And soon, Morgan could feel the two soldiers in power armour looming over her from behind.
"We saw you sneak across the courtyard on the camera footage. You can take your helmet off."
Morgan hung her head in defeat. Slowly, she removed her helmet and stared at her feet. The helmet shook violently in her hands as she clung to it out of pure fear.
"Now, isn't that better?" Governor asked, showing an insincere smile.
The young scientist bit her bottom lip and shook her head. If she was brave enough, she would have said that she preffered having the helmet on.
Alas...
Morgan shook her head again as the trembling spread to her legs. She whimpered once, extremely quietly and instantly got annoyed at herself for it.
What's gonna happen to me?
"Let me tell you, you've been the first to actually have gotten this far." The Colonel, under the impression (and he sort of was, really) he was fully in control here, granted her that little factoid.
"That's probably why you weren't shot on sight." he added, bittersweet as it was.
"So, why are you here?" Governor now asked, or rather, demanded of this intruder. Obviously expecting an answer this time.
"W-work." Morgan stammered, bringing herself to look into the man's eyes. "I... u-used to be at Sanford and I've...always wanted to come here..."
"So you want to be a doctor at "Governor's Clinic" " The man grinned, after he had accentuated the word 'clinic', as if it were a punchline of a joke.
She nodded. "Y-yeah..." Morgan mumbled, ending on a nervous laugh. "L-liz is just too damn a-annoying, y'know?"
"Then I'm afraid I have to dissapoint you, miss."
The colonel was blunt about it.
"There is no clinic."
"I h-had guessed that from one of the...patients I saw when I took this uniform..." Morgan admitted. "B-but I can still work here! I can fix th-things! I'm s-smart, good with A-androids..."
Her voice got meeker and quieter the longer she went on, wondering why she was even keeping this lie up...
"You guessed wrong."
"Governors Island... The infamous clinic... Ghost stories... Fairy tales. To keep Joe and Jane Raider away." He said with smug pride. The kind of pride that established dominance. No matter how smart or tech savvy Morgan could be, he made her feel stupid, and foolish.
"And it works, that and the minefield." He then added.
"Most people we collect from the mainland we just shoot in the head and dump back into the bay at the other side of the island. Were they have a nice view of the statue of liberty? Funny... That old girl used to be what most foreigners saw first when coming to America. Now it's the last..." He drifted off, showing a bit of his poetic side.
"Of course, some of us here are doctors and yes, we perform the odd experiment here and there. But they're limited. Because we can't really spare a lot of equipment, but no, most of us are military personal. I'm not really a doctor. I'm a colonel. Colonel Governor"
"C-colonel." Morgan repeated, saluting again. Her eyes watered and she dropped her helmet onto the floor. "Wh-what's gonna happen to me?"
"You're going to die, of course. Nobody can know of this location; it would endanger the progress of our fair nation." He answered truthfully.
Morgan swallowed before wiping her eyes. "Of c-course." She sniffed.
I c-can't get out. I'm really gonna die...
R-rook...
"Take her away." The Colonel said with indifference.
As Morgan was death-marched off by one of the soldiers in power armor with the heat of a plasma rifle pressed against her back she could hear Governor still:
"I've got another guest I need to attend to. Where's my lab coat?" He seemed to ask the one soldier that had remained with him in the Deathclaw breeding lab.
Morgan sobbed silently to herself as she was forced away. The heat of the pistol was burning into her coat...
Plasma...Even Rook is screwed here. Please, don't come after me. J-just let me die and go look after the Kid for me...
"Heather?" Rook appeared, finding the woman, the boy, and the man. A quick analysis revealed Morgan wasn't there.
"Where is Morgan?"
The Former Slave jumped out of her skin as Rook approached her, rising up from behind cover.
"She left... Went searching on her own, I don't know where she went."
Rook halted.
"What?" He glanced back. "Which direction did she go?" He could track her on very little evidence. He was good at that.
"Th-That way!" Heather informed him, gesturing to the direction that Morgan took, Garry was ready to move.
"Not so rough and tumble, now are you?" The military man now grinned. He seemed pleased with her helplessness.
Rook nodded, heading out the door. He followed each corridor Morgan could have gone down. He was looking for evidence first...
A human female loses 50 to 150 hairs a day.
No breeze in here. Gravity is 9.8 N.
He found his first piece of evidence, a single strand of dark hair, selected by his targeting vision. He knew the path she had gone on.
Morgan did not have a suit. First order of business would have been to acquire one.
Rook glanced through a window to his left, one of the 'incubators.' Suits rested on hooks, for scientists to wear.
Morgan had a lab coat. She needed a helmet.
He searched through windows, until he found one room, with all its suits in place, but one helmet missing.
Here...
He glanced back, now at each direction she could have gone.
She wouldn't have retraced her steps. She would have pushed forward.
Rook went down the rest of the corridor. The rooms ended, until coming to one, lone room. A massive one. A library.
Rook stepped inside, holding the door open for Garry.
The library was massive.
But wrong. No books laid out, everything was kept neat. No one was reading. No one was here.
But Morgan was. Rook was sure of it.
He glanced around, examining the walls, the space. Disproportionate. The room took up more wall space than it needed. He glanced back at the wall, on the other side of which the Wasteland lay. The other wall held the corridor out. It could only be two of the rooms' faces. He approached the bookshelves, looking around. There it was. Creases. Gaps. Space for hinges. It was hidden, but not hidden enough for a trained eye. Or perhaps the Clinic did not expect someone to get this far.
He glanced at the book case that held something behind it. He pulled on it, but it didn't budge. Sealed. He looked over the books.
The tell-tale sign of worn paper and smudged leather. This book had been handled well, above all others. Something by a Poe. Rook pulled it.
The mechanism shot into action, a click the clattering and another click. The wall on the right opened, like it had done just a few minutes earlier.
A hidden passageway by means of bookshelf. How old-fashioned.
Rook proceeded inside, into the spy cave.
It was impressive. He glanced around, looking for more signs of Morgan, but, with so many people, he would never find her through tracking...
Garry followed closely behind, ready to cover Rook if he needed it as they ventured deeper inside, he was amazed at how cryptic this place was...
A man with silver hair and an old-fashioned lab-coat walked past them, and up the stairs. Seems he has business elsewhere.
Because of their disguise, nobody in the enclave hideout batted an eye at them. But standing around gawking would probably be a bad idea. They were right in the lion's den now. A lion armed to the teeth with technology that could turn them to a green gooey paste in seconds if just one of these guards smelled a rat.
Rook glanced around, searching for Morgan's figure. The suits were shapeless, Rook soon realised, but her lab coat was distinct and entirely different material. And he did not see it in this room.
"I don't see her." He muttered to Garry.
"Guys can you move along." Someone seated behind a radio-device spurred them on.
"You're standing in the way."
"Urgh... Keep lookin', we'll need to be quick before that asshole calls security on us." The Wastelander whispered, looking for the source of the voice.
"Ah, there you are." Governor greeted his guest by shaking his hand.
The People's Republic agent shook his hand but did not share a smile or any sense that he liked being here.
"You know why I am here."
"Yes, I do. And it's ready. The connection fuse to the antenna." Governor beckoned a fellow scientist that held a steel briefcase.
"Here it is."
The agent quickly grasped the briefcase and looked back at his own goons in old red Chinese uniforms before opening it up slightly and checking inside.
"Everything appears to be in order." He concluded, flashing his icy blue eyes back to the smiling doctor.
"It should broadcast over the entire Manhattan area now. And... Do give Mother my best"
The thongzi agent did not dignify the light-hearted humour with a response, instead nodding his 'team' off back to the docks, where their boat was.
As they retreated back in the dark night with only their flashlights to guide them, Governor sighed to himself:
"Moron..."
And with that, pulled the coat off again.
Governor now with the itchy coat under his arm walked back into the pre-fab building, ready to get back down to the underground base with his two officers, now bearing their plasma arms, freely.
"These stupid coats..." Governor revealed.
With no coat hook to hang them and a lot of unused rooms in the pre-fab he just pushed open a random door and tossed the white rags in there. But before he moved on something caught his eye.
"Hold on."
Quickly he pushed the door open and saw the bodies of two officers.
"..."
"She's not alone."
Gabriel sighed and then got up. "We can't just stay here and do nothing, why can't we try to find Morgan too?" Gabriel asked quietly. He put on his glasses and crossed his arms.
"Gabriel, there aren't any children here... And I'm dressed in leather armour, if we get seen, even from a distance, we'll get ourselves, Garry and Rook and Morgan caught, all at the same time." The Former Slave pointed out as much as she hated not being able to do anything.
"Fine, but if I find her dead, I'm going to kill everyone in this hospital, every soldier, every doctor, and the Governor himself..." Gabriel whispered and sat back down. He got out a can of meat and gave his pet some.
"Good luck with that..." Heather uttered, peering around the corner to make sure that they hadn't been seen. It was then that she saw the two men investigating the dead scientists, she gasped and pressed herself against the wall, turning to Gabriel and pressing her fingers firmly against her lips.
A shadow gazed into the room they were hiding in, via the door-window, but swiftly moved on. He hadn't noticed Heather sitting right below him.
Gabriel froze, but his hand was on the 37. and Whiskers just laid there, quietly. Gabriel started to sweat a little bit before wiping it off.
Governor got back down, quick-stepping his way past the desks with his escort, a serious look on his face that looked so different from the smug pride he had left with.
The agents on the floor didn't really notice what was going on and just continued their work.
"Look for anyone who still has their helmet on." He ordered the guards.
Rook pressed on, choosing a random corridor.
Garry looked from side to side as he felt like he was being watched, he was growing more and more frustrated with Morgan, just wishing that she'd stayed put, like she was supposed to.
In this room, some guys in engineering uniforms seemed to be tapping away on a large mainframe computer. Wires ran over the stone floor and back into the main office area, they had just left.
This place was a maze.
Rook pressed on, looking for any direction Morgan might have gone, until coming to a stop at the Deathclaw tank. Not because he saw the beast, but because of the discarded helmet at its base.
"Garry..."
"You think it's hers?" Garry asked, all these helmets looked the same to him.
"Undoubtedly." Rook said, kneeling down and retrieving the helmet, and finding the evidence that had led him here once again. A strand of dark brown hair. "They would not drop their helmets. Perhaps they discovered her. Do you think there is a prisoner detention center?"
"Assumin' they take prisoners? Yeah..." Garry replied, looking around frantically.
"But we need to hurry, if they have taken her, she might not have long."
Rook rose to his feet and he looked around for a lone scientist, someone who wouldn't have time to raise the alarm if Rook asked the wrong questions.
It just so happened that a dork with a clipboard walked past Rook and Garry.
Garry decided to remain silent and let Rook do all of the talking.
"Excuse me." Rook's hand wrapped around the man's thin bicep, halting him. "We are needed in prisoner detention. What direction is that in?"
"There's only an interrogating cell, no prisoner cells, excuse me but why?" He answered truthfully, not really seeing anything amiss... yet.
"That is none of your concern." Rook replied. "Where would we find this? I am sorry to trouble you; we are transfers from Washington."
As long as you aren't those other ass holes in power armour. Garry had said it. Rook had pieced things together.
"No... Paul, you're not." The scientist got suspicious, he looked down at the name tag on Rook's suit.
Rook paused, looking quite spooky in his faceless helmet, before speaking.
"Do not make a sound, I will snap your neck. Tell me where you would take an intruder."
"I... They get shot!"
"Guards!" He yelled. He was brave but foolish as well.
"Gua-" There was a swift crack as Rook snatched the life from the man, and caught his broken body.
"Quickly. Forward." Rook glanced up at the Deathclaw tank, getting a crazy idea. "They will have brought Morgan somewhere isolated. That interrogation cell is the likely place."
"Right, let's go!" Garry agreed, turning around as he saw the group of guards approaching.
"Before more of those assholes show up!"
"That's them!"
A voice yelled behind them.
The officer aimed his plasma pistol at the intruders whom were guilty as charged, with the body of the 'just offed' enclave goon near them.
A blast of green energy hurtled between them.
Garry shoved Rook to the side as he threw himself to the floor, desperate to get away from the blast.
"Go! Fall back!" He called, given that he was unnarmed as he had to turn his big guns over to Heather, to keep his disguise.
Morgan was pushed on to a cargo-lift, the lift was a steel cage, one you would see in mines, question now was if this one went up or down.
With his rifle still firmly fixed on the intruder, the soldier walked in after her. The weight of the suit made the lift depress slightly, and the steel cables above strain.
"No sudden movements" The soldier warned Morgan. He then pressed the lift's button and it cage responded by going down.
The agent hopped on the boat, making it wobble a bit. It was a small boat issued by the island itself to pick him up. It was piloted by the slimy 'collector' of Sanford that gave Elizabeth hard times.
"Get us out of here." He ordered the man, who said nothing and merely prompted the engines to start.
The agent didn't trust any of these clowns. Perhaps this was what made him the Thongzi's top agent. He looked on as the island slowly drifted past. They'd be back on Manhattan Island well before sunrise. The men Mother Chao-Xing had sent with him sat down on the small metal boxes of the ship, and were having casual small talk with their assault rifles resting on their lap or next to their jackboots.