TES FRIGATE PHOENIX

ENROUTE ILMNOS, IALESSA SYSTEM

MIDNIGHT, NOVEMBER 14th, 2188

"ARE YOU DELIBERATELY trying to disrupt my ship and this mission?"

Miranda had pulled the three N7's back into her office off the main conference room after Shizuka's rather dramatic announcement, leaving Asha'Rhaal to brief her crew. She was seated at her desk, fingers steepled, face stern and composed. Shizuka stood nearest the desk, with Black off to one side and Flynn by the door.

"No' this again," Flynn muttered.

"There is no mission as long as he's here," Shizuka glared. "You are letting whatever past you had with him cloud your judgement."

"Then I'm certainly not the only one," Miranda reminded her to Shizuka's hardening glare. "You're here as an Alliance-sanctioned consultant through the personal request of Councillor Hackett. Are you invoking your 'option' to leave, 'Hackett be damned,' I believe you said?"

Shizuka bit back a retort and opened her mouth to speak but Miranda wasn't finished.

"Also, instead of bringing this to me privately you blurt it out in front of my crew, an obviously personal vendetta that you should have left off my ship!"

Shizuka blinked at the vehemence in Lawson's voice. Behind her Flynn's face began to smile but Miranda was having none of that, either.

"Well?" she demanded of him, voice carrying a tone of knowing he did something. He wasn't sure he liked it. Wasn't sure he didn't. There was no doubt she was in charge. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"You expect him to tell you the truth?" Shizuka shot back. Miranda turned her baleful gaze back to the furious soldier.

"Yes," she said simply and directly. The gaze went to Flynn. "Yes, I do."

"There's nothin' ta tell." He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "We had ta clear a major bunker an' it were a complete debacle. I hadda make decisions I didn' loike an' tha' got people kilt. Kinda the same story all over Torfan." He looked away from the ceiling and back to Miranda with a slight smile. "I live wi' it. End 'o feckin' story, roight?"

"That's hardly all, now, is it?" Miranda asked Flynn. "She wouldn't be this adamant you're the devil otherwise. 'Mass murderer' isn't a pejorative you just fling out there as hyperbole."

"Ye don' know her too well, do ye?" Flynn replied.

"We'll take everyone's particular bias' into account, shall we? So," Miranda directed at Shizuka arching an eyebrow at her, "again - 'mass murderer'? That's quite an accusation."

"It's a relevant one." Shizuka insisted.

"For Torfan." Miranda's voice was edging into incredulity.

"There's a difference between necessity and outright murd-" Shizuka began.

"Enough o' this shite!" Flynn barged forward as he had had enough. "I did me fookin' job. I took the fookin' consequences. I got demoted, official'y reprimanded fer conflict o' innerest then discharged for 'psychological questions' and left to rot. It's fooked me whole life! What more do ye want?"

"You deliberately let him die!" Shizuka rounded on him. "Deny it!"

"I don' fookin' deny it! A'roight? I fookin' di' it an' I'd do it again! Is tha' wha' ye wanna hear?" Flynn exploded.

Shizuka cocked a fist but alarms suddenly blasted into the room.

"Alert!" Juneau broke in. "Multiple spacecraft on an intercept trajectory, vector 101. Tactical appraisal indicates hostile intent. Five minutes to engagement!" Miranda stood immediately.

"We'll deal with this later! Battle stations!"

They'd not gotten far when the Phoenix was hit very hard from multiple directions.