The passengers of the lifeboat are stranded, sitting apart in defeated silence, for several hours. Ark Royal was able to get a distress signal out during the attack, but the nearest emergency vessel, Haven, still took some time to fly in. Haven is a small, fast, ground-effect ship equipped for rescues just like this, and is able to recover the crew members quickly once it finally arrives.
Aboard Haven, Noira’s worst fears are realized. Theirs was the only lifeboat recovered intact, and only about 10-12 of Ark Royal’s original crew of 40 survived. Marion is drawn away immediately to report to ASMC and AM about the incident, focused on lost assets and damage control; Noira is painfully alone during the flight back home. Her physical injuries are major, but will heal; her arms and hands are treated and bandaged by the medical staff aboard Haven.
When Haven arrives back at Ark Royal’s home port, Marion approaches Noira during the slow docking process. He apologizes for his blunt treatment towards her during the attack and for his absence during the voyage home. He informs her that he’ll be ending his part-time work aboard Arcturus Meridian’s various support vessels and return to working full-time as a lead engineer for ASMC. Noira is distraught by this, but he makes her an offer: he can open an apprentice engineering position in his department for her. She would come with him to Orus’ capital city (on a separate island/continent from where she’d been working), and receive generous compensation from the company for her losses. Tearfully, she accepts, and begins to look again to the future.
~ ~ ~
Author's note: this is a bit of a shorter one, but this is a good stopping point for now. I have a lot of plot stuff that I need to develop and flesh out some more - there's a lot already written up after this point, but a lot of details need to be worked out in the middle, so I'm going to try and take some time during this winter break to do some brainstorming and worldbuilding and get some of it more developed. Stay tuned!
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