"I need Happy!" Alice spins around and bolts towards storage, but at Esme's waving Emmett is quick to scoop her up. "Let me go!"
"Not yet!" Esme hisses, "We need to assure the company everything is alright." She knows the red tape that involved a hostile board would be an absolute nightmare.
"Docking and boarding in two minutes, Captain Platt," Bella's voice informs them again. Edward frowns in slight annoyance. The AI system still sounded off in some way — and it concerned him.
Rosalie looks incredibly annoyed, squatting by the AI control, still dead to the world. "That creepy marionette fucked up our ship!" she declares heatedly.
"What do you mean 'not yet'?" Edward splutters, looking at the rest of them. "We're not going after him!"
"Vote — we go get our Bosun back!" Emmett booms, and raises his hand as he says it. Carlisle raises his hand, as does Esme. Rosalie and Edward look at each other. "Oh, this is the first time the two of you have ever agreed on something." Emmett pointed out with a smile. Esme chuckles — because it isn't, but it's certainly the first public time it had happened.
Edward sighs and throws up one of his hands, just for a moment, "Only because I never cashed in my IOU for swapping rooms," he hisses, glaring at them all. Everyone turned to Rosalie, who doesn't stand up from the control panel.
"Well — I'm out-voted even though he betrayed us," Rosalie says aloud, "because he's such a fool he thought he could protect us, even though it didn't do shit because Edward is disfigured now," Edward clicks his tongue and gives her the finger, "and he sacrificed himself and went back to the life he hated to try and save us — which didn't do shit because we're going to go there and get him back!" She throws up both of her hands like she couldn't do anything about it, but her crew knows what it means and they share a light laugh.
"I want him on latrine duty for a year because we weren't supposed to use the chocolate chips yet," Emmett adds, and that gets another laugh out of most of them. High on the relief that they weren't hostages on their own ship any longer.
"Put him on latrine duty because of my face!" Edward storms, and another laugh goes up. But the only person who had remained silent through it all is Alice. When all concerned eyes turn to her, she sniffles.
Alice clasps both her hands to her chest, blinking her big wet eyes. "Thank you," she says breathlessly.
They're at a semblance of professionalism when the security force arrives. A split second after Esme had lined them up and given each of them a big kiss on the cheek, the doors open.
One incredibly tall figure and one relatively short figure, both suited and helmeted, swagger towards them. Not exactly exuding confidence as they're wearing obviously very new and un-broken-in gear — rendering them a little stiff in their movements, and causes a vague squeaking sound as the unused fabric protested creasing.
The shorter one takes off their helmet first, revealing a young woman with her hair in a severe low ponytail.
"Captain Platt!" she declares in a very familiar voice.
"Bella?" Edward asks incredulously, eyebrows shooting up. His shocked expression is mirrored by her own.
"I — I'm sorry, have we met?" she asks in surprise, but she gets no response from the flabbergasted crew, and continues nervously, "… I'm Officer Swan, with V industries security forces," she waves to the tall man, who de-helmets and flips out his long black hair in a graceful arc. "My partner, Black, and I will be locking down the ship until we can do a full sweep."
"You're just going to let those pirates get away?" Rosalie asks, crossing her arms over her chest.
The woman blushes bright red. "Um, we're a two-person unit — and we don't really have that kind of clearance," she admits quietly with a shy shrug. "This was supposed to be a wellness check."
"You guys had real pirates on board?" Black asks eagerly, "Damn — we should have shot them down," the man says, obviously very put-out. His enthusiasm isn't dampened even when his partner elbows him roughly, whispering 'we're not allowed, Jake!' under her breath but still perfectly audible to everyone else.
Esme is quick to assure them, "No, no — thank you for assessing the situation as you did."
Swan nods, obviously relieved that someone agreed with her, "We'll just start the sweep," she says with growing confidence, "ensure they didn't leave any parting surprises on board."
The officers scan every inch of the ship — Edward is happy to escort Officer Swan throughout the vessel, but by the end of the sweep he seemed noticeably less enthused by her partner. Coming back to the loading dock, Black, who was swinging around a very impressive torch, had asked if Edward was vitamin D deficient. When he received a negative response, Black challenged Edward to prove it by putting his hand up to the light and seeing if it shone through.
"Because there's white," Black says, thumbing back to his quickly reddening partner, "and then there's white-white," he says, gesturing to Edward.
Emmett booms a laugh, "oh — can they stick around?" he whispers to Esme.
Esme is watching Alice. She's taking deep, long breaths, puffing out her skinny chest as far as it could go, before blowing the air out slowly, her eyes tightly closed. Esme silently pulls the little woman into a hug. The Captain closes her eyes as the little woman settles against her, relieved to finally hug someone after their ordeal.
"Thank you," Alice whispers, wrapping her own skinny arms around her Captain. "Happy and I are going to miss you all."
Esme shakes her head, and says nothing as the security force steps up to her.
"All clear. We'll have your AI back online now, Captain," Swan assures her, and with a little fiddle on her hand-held, the lights flicker back on and there's a humming of machinery as the screens light up too.
|CAPTAIN! ALL SYSTEMS ARE BACK ONLINE!| Bella's voice rings out with obvious delight.
Officer Swan gasps loudly. Officer Black begins to laugh in outright shock.
"Oh shit!" Officier Black says, grinning at his dumbstruck partner. "This is one of the models that used your vocab recording!"
"... This system's name is Bella?" The officer asks the nearest crew-member quietly. It's Edward, who nods a little and it's difficult to tell whether he's blushing or not with his bruises.
Officer Black looks around, incredibly pleased, "Dude — this is so cool, you thought you stuttered too much, remember?"
Officer Swan looks a little cowed at everyone's expectant gazes. "In college, V industries had a summer job for some voice modelling work and I was a little broke," she manages.
Alice gasped, "So I did get a reply!" She grins at the chagrined Officer Swan. "Oh — we're going to be very good friends, I can tell," she adds eagerly.
Incredibly flustered and with no small amount of confusion, Officer Swan looks at Esme, seeming to muster up some professionalism and stands a little straighter. "Captain, we're happy to offer you protection if you'd like to return to Earth."
But Esme shakes her head. "Thank you, officer, but we won't be returning to Earth. These pirates have taken a member of our crew — we're going to get him back."