"Cautious?" Sophie echoed coolly.  "I don't know if I'd say that, exactly.  It's more that I wouldn't want to dive in and only then find out how shallow the water is."  Abby barely stifled a snort of laughter at this, and Sophie hoped that she wasn't blushing.  Without realizing it, her thoughts echoed Winter's -- that soon, none of this would matter because they'd all be on their way back to Earth -- and though she would be very sorry to leave her work, it would be a relief to get away from the soap opera that her life was threatening to become.  She didn't even quite feel like the star of this particular soap opera, she thought with a sigh.<br/><br/>Then they were in the hangar, surrounded by guns and uniforms, and Sophie frowned darkly.  It wasn't that she wasn't used to guns, unfortunately, but she had hoped that she'd left that sort of life behind long ago.  Now here it was again, adding to all the other chaos.  At least these people had some semblance of order and ranks, she told herself, though of course that assumed that whoever was in charge was at least reasonably responsible, which might no be the case.  She caught sight of Winter gaping in what looked to be unadulterated admiration of their rifles, and her frown deepened.<em>Would Almayer security be directly involved?</em>she wondered, catching sight of Security Chief Dressler.  Though she'd always seemed very strict, she'd never been particularly trigger-happy as far as Sophie knew, so she could only hope that the Marines would pay some attention to the woman.<br/><br/>There was a dark-haired woman among the Marines who seemed to be the one in charge for now, at least, giving orders to Garner -- which was probably annoying him no end, Sophie thought, though he also seemed a little distracted by something.  Then he turned and nodded towards the three new arrivals, apparently in response to something the Marine had said, and Sophie took a deep breath.  Like Abby, she was now at the point where she just wanted to get these next few hours over with.