Special Delivery

Posted on Sun Apr 12th, 2020 @ 7:14pm by El Plexuco & Security Johannah "Mack" Shepard

Mission: Bright and Shiny things
Location: Marshal's Office - Deck 6
Timeline: ????

OOC: Hi. I'm not sure if Gill is available, or if he has a deputy that can take this guy off of Mack's hands and pay her out, but I thought I'd try. Feel free to make up a laundry list of crimes that are on the warrant, from the serious to the absurd :)

ON

Lots of ex-Browncoats turned to crime. Hell, Mackensie "Mack the Knife" Shepard was no angel herself. Lot's of ex-Browncoats engaged in nefarious deeds. Unless they somehow attracted her attention, either because they aimed to foul up her affairs or because they had their names on a warrant and Mack needed the money, she left most of them alone. But Seamus O’Connor, formerly Sergeant Seamus O'Connor… he’d been no good during the war and he was no different now. So when a warrant for his arrest popped up, Mack grabbed it. The money was right and the Verse would be rid of O’Connor. A win-win as far as Mack was concerned.

“Move it, O’Connor,” she said, giving the manacled ex-Browncoat a shove, guiding him through Skyplex towards the Alliance Marshal’s office. “I’ve spent enough time in your company to last a thousand lifetimes.”

O’Connor scowled at Mack. “I knew you was no good when you showed up saying you wanted to fight for us. I knew you was just there to piss off mommy and daddy. You’re not a Browncoat, you’re just a turncoat. You turned on the Alliance and then you turned on us. I know I ain't the first you brought in!”

“O’Connor,” Mack said. “Spare me. The bounty on you has more to do with you being a sick, sadistic, prick than whose side you were on during the war. Hell, I'd have killed you myself, but the money's better if you're still breathing when I bring you in."

“You better hope they kill me, Captain Shepard,” O’Connor said. “Cuz if they don’t, and I get free…”

The utilitarian cooridor they had been traveling down had a pair of signs, one pointing to the Medical Center and the other to the Marshal's Office and Security center.

Mack ignored the rest of the threat. She took it on faith that whatever O’Connor intended to do to her if he somehow wasn’t executed was not something she’d want done and didn’t feel she needed to know the details. She arrived at the Marshal’s office and entered it.

The reception area of the office was empty except one un-uniformed woman that worked behind the long counter running halfway through the office. The woman stood up and walked to the counter, eyeing Mack and her 'charge'. "What have we got here?" Trish asked.

“You guys would be doing me a powerful favor if you’d take this ugly bastard off my hands and pay out the bounty on him,” Mack said, calling up the warrant on her encyclopedia and showing it to one of the officers she saw present.

Trish looked over the cortex screen the woman presented her with and tapped a button on the counter. A few moments later, a uniformed deputy entered from a door along the opposite wall Mack had entered from. The Deputy looked the pair over and approached. "Bounty Drop?" he asked, already having figured the situation out. He pulled a small stylus from his cortex and gave O'Connor a quick poke in the cheek with it. The big man flinched for a moment but kept his calm staring daggers at the deputy. Information flashed across the deputy's cortex unit that he briefly skimmed. "Looks like you have a very bad boy here. Warrant for armed robbery, theft, attempted murder, murder, battery, another murder, arson and apparently making lewd advances on a Shepherd's niece." He nodded at the list, "Looks like you've won an all expenses paid vacation to the Alliance detention facility on New Melbourne. Lovely place, but the food is Gosa. All right, lets get this fellah a nice warm bed he where he can think about what he's done until the shuttle gets here to take him to his new home." He slid another pair of manacles higher up on O'Connor's arm. "You want your cuffs back Ma'am?" gesturing to Mack that she could remove her set.

"Yep," Mack said. Looked at O'Connor. "If you try anything when I remove these, O'Connor, I'm going to save the Alliance the expense of imprisoning you, Liǎojiě?"

"Wǒ zhīdào nǐ shì mǔgǒu," O'Connor replied.

"Whatever, Gǒu húndàn," Mack said, removing the cuffs from her prisoner's wrists. "Just remember: Tonight you'll eat prison food and sleep alone on a hard prison bed in a cold prison cell. Me? I'm going to get a good meal, have a stiff drink, and find a warm bed and maybe some friendly company to make it even warmer. Who's the mǔgǒu now? And if you're thinking about to saying that I am, you plan on sipping that prison food through a straw."

O'Connor scowled at Mack for a moment but said nothing.

"Wise decision," Mack said. She turned to the deputy marshal. "With due respect, as much fun as tracking and apprehending this Yīkuài fú zhā was, I didn't do it for free. I assume the Alliance is going to pay up? As in now, as opposed to later? I'll take coin or you can transfer the credits to my account."

The deputy took O'Connor by the arm lifting it upward sharply to start steering the prisoner into the jail processing area. The deputy looked back over his shoulder at Mack. "You'll get paid alright. Take it up with Trish at the counter." He nodded towards Trish, she as already calling up something on the terminal set into the counter top. She smiled back at the Deputy. "I got this."

He shoved O'Connor into the doors which started to part before the Prisoner suddenly flung his head backwards into the deputy's face, causing the young man to stagger back a couple steps. O'Connor whirled around breaking the deputy's hold on him and immediately reached for the deputy's side arm, drawing the fire arm and bringing it up to bare on Mack.

Mack's hand was on the butt of her gun the second she heard sounds of a struggle. She drew as she turned to face O'Connor. By the time O'Connor had the deputy's weapon, Mack had her Broomhandle Shanxi Type 25 pistol pointed at O'Connor, hammer back, round in the chamber. She crouched a little and moved off the side as she turned and when O'Connor pulled the trigger, his shots were slightly high and to what was now her left. Mack's two shots hit O'Connor in the chest. Seamus started to cough up blood and stagger backwards. He backed up into a wall and slid down it until he was sitting on the ground. Anyone could tell he was dying, and fast. He looked at the gun in his hand but couldn't seem to raise it to shoot Mack before she took it away from him. He glared at Mack as she stood over him, her Shanxi Type 25 pointed at his head. With a maximum of effort, he managed to spit blood in Mack's direction, but it didn't go far enough to hit her. That feeble expectoration was Seamus O'Connor's final act as a live human being.

Mack carefully checked for a pulse and found none. "Good riddance to bad rubbish," she said. Mack helped the injured Deputy to his feet and handed him his pistol. "So, the warrant says it only pays half if I bring him in dead. He was alive when I brought him in. I hope that means I get the full bounty. I could really use it."

The deputy holstered his fire arm and rubbed his sore chin while looking at the crumpled remains of O'Connor. "You're pretty good with that thing. Thank you." He walked over and checked O-Connor's pulse also. "Yep, he's dead alright. Attempting to escape while in custody, assaulting an officer and attempted murder. Looks like a pretty open and shut case. Trish! See this brave lady gets paid. Thank you for your service to the Alliance." He looked around at the blood on the floor. "Get Medical to send a team over to collect the body. Gonna be lots of paperwork for everyone." With that he pushed open the doors to the back and went to go tend his bruises.

Trish stood up from the place she had ducked beneath the counter. She slid a small hand gun out on to the countertop. She typed some into the terminal. "Alright, I recon we should get you paid. Who do we transfer credits to?"

"Johannah Mackensie Shepard," Mack said, showing Trish the account information on the screen of her encyclopedia. "Everyone calls me Mackensie, or mostly just Mack." A vaguely sad expression drifted over Mack's face for a moment. "The people who used to call me Johannah... we've not been on speaking terms for quite a while." The sad expression passed from her features quickly. "On my way here, I caught a wave on the Cortex about the administration here being in the market for a Chief of Security. I've been on the move for a while. I'm thinking it might be nice to settle somewhere for a time. Can you point me in the direction of who I'd have to talk to about the job?"

Trish brushed a lock of hair back from her face as she copied Mac's account information and the codes for the warrant. It didn't take long to ping back. She looked up at Mac with a smile. "I'm please to meet you Johannah, I'm Trish. Welcome to Greenleaf."

At the mention of the potential job Trish nodded. "You certainly seem to have the moves for the job. You are going to have to take it up with the Station Administrator if you can find her today, things are bit crazy this week. And likely she will have you meet with my boss Marshal Gill Anderson. The predecessor to the position left the two of them a little jumpy toward each other. You worked a Plex before?"

Mack scowled. "Call me Mack... or Mackensie, if you feel a powerful need to use a name with more than four letters," she said. Then her expression softened. "Sorry, didn't mean to be so unfriendly. That name, Johannah, it's only for the specific group of folks that aren't interested in using it anymore. No hard feelings, I hope. Anyway, no, I've never worked a Skyplex before. Since the war I've spent most of my time on the fringes, doing whatever work my skills could get me. Bounty hunting, bodyguard, security, bouncer, courier, stuff like that."

Trish gave Mac a long hard look. This woman was a little sensitive. "Sure thing Mack. Just thought you might use a friend. I've been known to be wrong." She moved back from the monitor. "Everybody's got something they are trying to keep away from. Usually family." She looked the bounty hunter over. "You'll be fine for security. Just gotta keep your head, lots of innocent folk on the Plex. Most of us have grown up here. Its, not a station, it's home."

"I'm only fast on the trigger when there's reason to be," Mack said. "And Trish, I could use as many friends as I can get. Assuming I'm here more than a day or two, what say you and I get a drink sometime soon?"

A pleasant smile came across Trish's face. "That sounds great, although that's more of Scarlett's thing, but you are on." She typed some commands into her terminal. "Looks like our Administrator is at a lunch meeting on Deck three. I'm setting up an appointment for you with her in an hour and a half. If she has a problem I can reschedule it and send you a wave."

"Got it," Mack replied. She took a moment to eject the magazine from her pistol and insert two cartridges to replace the ones she'd put in O'Connor's chest, before reinserting in into the pistol and re-holstering the weapon. "I'll head there now. What's the name place she's having lunch?"

"Not really sure its just in her schedule that she would be having a lunch meeting." Trish responded before a devious look crossed her face. She quickly typed more into her terminal. I'm not supposed to disclose the location of Skyplex citizens without a warrant from the Marshal, or a imminent security concern, although you getting to be head of security sounds like a concern to me. You didn't hear it from me, but if you looked for her around Laotze's Shinon Barbecue on deck three, you might find her." she said with a wink.

"Your secret is safe with me," Mack said, smiling. "I'll call on you for that drink as soon as I'm able. See you soon, I hope." With that, Mack turned and left to find herself a new job, maybe a semi-permanent one at that.

TAG/End?