The War for an Abbey's Ruins RP

[pacificmaelstrom]

BIC:
On the bridge of the Refuge, Xavier was anxiously watching his readouts as Natalia attemped to contact the other ship.

His console flashed. Ridge and his team had reached the base. That was good news. He pushed a button to aknowledge their message had been recieved.

[pacificmaelstrom]

OOC: here are some visual references. Done on paper, sorry about the lines


Big: http://i.imgur.com/GNIkCBf.jpg

[Izeroth]

 "I am Natalia Kosovo, captain of the SS Refuge carrying survivors from Earth. Please state your intentions."

Millard expanded the screen so he could better see Natalia. "I am Captain Gregory Millard, Captain of the Coalition warship U.S.S. Magnanimous. I have been sent to apprehend you for crimes against humanity. Please do not attempt resistance."

[pacificmaelstrom]

The reply came as a shock to Natalia. She had not been expecting anything like that. A flush of anger rose within her, but she did not show it.

Who was this, and how dare he accuse her of crimes against humanity. It was a ludicrous idea. She had stopped the outbreak. Her. When all the governments of the world had failed, she had saved them all. And she had sacrificed so much. Surely this was not how her sacrifices would be re-payed?

And yet as the daughter of Ivan Kosova she was no stranger to the pompous, self righteous accusations of those who envied or feared her. Back during the initial explorations of Alterra there had been frequent protests by "Friends of ET" groups and even vandalism of Kosova Corp property and occasional violence against employees. They saw Kosova Corp as the paragon of immoral capitalism, and her father had an army of lawyers to deal with an endless flood of misguided lawsuits.

This was no different, she thought. The ship before her was no doubt powerful and well armed, but she had no intention of risking herself in a fight. Clearly this "coalition" was misinformed and things would soon be set right. She took a slow breath and did her best to appear non-threatening.

"Clearly you are clearly mistaken," She began. She lightly emphasized the feminine qualities of her whispered voice to invoke the man's sympathies, ignoring the pain it brought her. "I have committed no crimes. I developed the cure which saved Humanity from the outbreak. What charges do you have against me, and under whose authority do you act. I am not familiar with your coalition but I am not in violation of any laws. Kosovo Corp--"

The pain became too much and she stopped, closing her eyes for a few moments until it subsided. Then she continued on: "Kosovo Corp holds the development title for this planet under Article 3 of the Space Colonization Summit of 2342."

[Izeroth]

 Millard sighed heavily. He had been hoping that a history lesson would not be necessary.

"Kosovo," Millard said, "I am quite sure that you are well aware of what you did. You developed the cure, yes, but you also started the infection. If you had adhered to spaceship sanitation article 12, the disease could easily have been contained. As for the Coalition, that's a worldwide union of governments that was formed after the infection died down. Contrary to what you believe, large population centers, namely Chicago and London, did survive the plague."

Millard pressed a button on a steel file cabinet, revealing a holographic document display. "Also, your development title was made irrelevant by a recent conference."

[pacificmaelstrom]

Natalia began to have difficulty containing her indignation. Thinking back, she remembered hearing rumors that places on the other side of the globe were making progress in subduing the vermin hordes, but she had mostly dismissed them as exaggeration.

So the other surviving groups fancied themselves heir to the old government. Typical Western arrogance.

In fact that was one of the reasons she had decided to leave: to avoid the inevitably hostile political climate that would make demands on her as soon as it had the power to do so.

But she had not expected so much power so quickly. It was a bad break. Apparently the Chicago military spaceport had not been as damaged as she thought. At least one of the capital ships had survived looting and chaos of the plague.

The Refuge had a powerful rail gun... If she had made a more thorough survey of the planet before she left, perhaps she could have--but such speculation would not help her now.

"As I said. You are misinformed. I was in no way responsible for the outbreak, I even did what I could to prevent it, but my father and brother were the ones in authority over those operations. They both paid for their indiscretion with their lives. Even then, the biology and virulence of the pathogen was without precedent, and we were unprepared. Even with proper precautions, it almost certainly would have reached Earth eventually. "

"Since the outbreak began, I have devoted all Kosova resources into stopping it and saving lives, up to and including my current efforts to colonize this planet." She paused, looking at Miller hard, and continued: "I'm sure your coalition has passed all sorts of reactionary laws, and I understand why you may feel that interstellar colonization is no longer a good idea.... but I assure you, your coalition has no authority to revoke my rights to this planet, or to my personal liberty."

Then she added, with an icy edge: "My father almost got you killed, yes. But I saved your life. Now you come here and make threats and accusations. Your lack of gratitude does not instill in me much respect for the supposed authority of your "coalition"."

[Izeroth]

 Millard was quite irritated by Natalia's indignant attitude. If anything, she should have thanked the Coalition for restoring order on Earth.

"If you had any brains about you, you would have contacted the department for alien pandemic control as soon as you became aware of the disease. Naturally, in true corporation form, you covered it up. You claim that it was the fault of your father and brother, but I highly doubt they were the only ones who knew. Even then, you had a high-up position in the company."

Millard sat back in his chair. "But, the past is the past. Let's focus on the present. Unless I've entirely misjudged the situation, what you are presently doing is engaging in illegal colonization activity on this planet. If you don't want to follow the laws of this Coalition, whose laws are you going to follow?"

[Skyblade]

"Not if I can help it, friend," Spero said as she bandaged Mystery's wounds with herbs, then turned to help Ashenlance.

OOC: are snakes evil in this RP?

"Thank you..." Mystery whispered, as she had little strength to speak. She closed her eyes as if trying to fall asleep. "Wha...is going on? Where's the humans?"

[LT Sandpaw]

OOC: Wahoo I'm just here being carried off by a fox thing, Eul are you going to post again?

[pacificmaelstrom]

Natalie could see his irritation. She was letting her emotions cloud her judgement. Silently she counted to ten. Then she struck a conciliatory tone:

"You are right, naturally. I didnt do nearly enough. I should have defied my father and gone public with the information. But there were so many unknowns...." her voice trailed off as she looked like she might cry, but she steeled herself and continued.

"Not a day goes by that I dont regret it." She clenched her jaw and unzipped her jumpsuit, pulling it down to reveal the sleveless shirt underneath. All visible skin was criscrossed with scars. "I have paid dearly for my mistake, and I have done all I can to make it right... as for this colonization charge... I have done nothing more than land a team to inspect old Kosova facilities. And while I intended to establish a presence on the surface, I was, to my knoledge, well within the law. You can hardly expect me to be able to follow laws that I am unaware of."

[Izeroth]

 Millard opened up a holographic display of a factory. "While civilian colonization of the planet would be technically illegal, I might be able to forgive it. What you are doing here, however, is nothing less than military colonization. We've investigated your facilities; we've seen the massive weapon and vehicle factories you built. Don't pretend that this is just a little recon project."

[pacificmaelstrom]

OOC: hold up.... what factories are you refering to... they just landed a team for the first time today... she has One tank and a security force of 180...

[pacificmaelstrom]

OOC: ok im assuming you are refering to factories back on earth.


BIC:

Natalie could see his display.

"Those factories were used to manufacture weapons to fight the vermin on earth. As well as to manufacture the cure. I have plenty of weapons on board, nessisary for colony security. I'm not sure how you think 180 security personnel, 5 armored trucks and one tank could be considered a "Millitary Colonization", whatever that is supposed to mean..."

[pacificmaelstrom]

As  the two captians continued to talk, Natalia's salvage team had sucessfully docked on the derilict Kosova yacht. Donning their space suits, they went inside.

Part of the interior of the ship had been vented into space, apparently in an attempt to stop the spread of the disease. But it had not worked. Farther in, they found numerous gruesomely tumoured corpses mummified and preserved by the ship's climate control system.

Reaching the bridge, they found that all systems were still operational, and the reactor was still online. As the leader stayed to power up the propulsion system, the others proceded to rid the ship of the corpses. Then they made a discovery none of then had expected.

The door to the main suite was locked and they had to cut it open. Inside, they found Natalia's brother Alexander, preserved in a hibernation unit. Alive.

[Eulaliaaa!]

OOC: so sorry, I had school...

BIC: Stashi flew higher, far above the forest so that the humans would find it nearly impossible to shoot her without shooting Ridge. She hovered in place, grabbing Ridge' s arms tightly, "I've told you to leave, you didn't listen. This is your last chance, call off your men and find another place far from here, or I'll drop you. You wouldn't survive the fall, you'd die if I let go. Now call them off and find a new place!" She snarled viciously, hoping to scare the human into doing as she said.