Paige had notice that one of the other two captured bioships was putting out the same signals as her own, but the other wasn't. There was no communication between the three captured vessels, it just seemed to be the right thing to do. The two obviously friendly ships lined up to escort the third one towards the destroyer. Major Blunt was, to a certain extent, grateful that she had helped save half his batallion's survivors, but he was too pissed off that he'd forgotten to put someone knowing the signal code on the other captured ship to thank her properly.<br/><br/>The aftermath of this fiasco would, the sergeant knew, send political shock waves up and down the Empire. She was expecting to attend a court marshal for her role in destroying the ship. But she had plenty of witnesses that she was obeying a direct order from a senior officer, so she wasn't too worried.<br/><br/>"Do what, Lt? Take command of a Fleet Carrier? I tell you, I've never been more scared in my life! You know why -hic- I'm still a sergeant? 's cos I dun't want th' responsibility!" She was slightly drunk and she knew it, and she didn't care. "Anyway, th' navy already busted me back down to Sergeant..." She grinned. "Seems I'm not Hofficer Material!"<br/><br/>But then the LT asked who she though deserved a promotion. She shrugged. "Gullins". She shook her head. "Girl saved our bacon. Hell, I know she's fleet, Sir, but she deserves a bump-up. Monroe too. If not for him, none of us would be here." She rattled off a list of other names, including the SAW team that had held the ramp she had led hear team up. Some, she knew, would be posthumous, including that particular team. "So many..." She sighed. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, but it didn't get any easier. She added a couple of guys from her own squad, including Deville and his loader.<br/><br/>And, rather surprisingly, she ended by saying, "And two more fleet personnel. The Captain of this ship, and the Captain of ours, posthumously." Her recommendation wouldn't count for much, she knew, at such lofty heights, but every little helped. The fleet personnel she'd swept up into her squad, along with the two surviving Marines, had been re-assimilated into Fleet, but she'd recommended one of them, besides Gullins, for a medal.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Paddy sat, gazing into space. In his head, he was working out a way of preventing the sort of communications fuck-up that had cost them the ship as well as several others, and almost cost them all their lives. The answer was there. He just needed to get it down on a datapad. LOS-Comms were fine if you had line-of-sight. Lasers could not be jammed, but could be blocked. Hard wires could not be blocked or jammed, but they could be cut and they had to be there physically to start with. There was a better way, he knew. He just needed to find it.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"Yes Sir, I gave Sergeant page the code". Gullins was not sure why she was being grilled like this, but this was the third time she had been brought before one of Kidd's officers. The New Britain ship's protocols were somewhat different from what she was used to, but they were all Fleet. "If I hadn't, with respect, Sir, you should have blown us out of the sky!" She suppressed a sigh. It was the third time she'd given that answer, this time to the first officer. She wondered if the next stop would be the captain.<br/><br/>But no. "That will be all Specialist. You may return to quarters. Well done."<br/><br/>"Uh, thank you sir". Gullins managed not to salute. This was a Royal Navy ship, not an Imperial one, and she had quickly learned that one does not salute when one is not wearing a cap, and one's cap is removed when 'indoors' - i.e. in an office. She made her way back to the over-crowded missile magazine that she and several of the other Fleet survivors had been bunked in, considering what she wanted to do. She had seen action. Not the usual Fleet kind, but up-close and personal, and something had clicked in her head. She had personally killed two Orcs, and she wanted, for some mad reason, to kill more.<em>I wonder if they'd let me transfer?</em>She thought to herself.