Hawkeye was all set up and looking like the official captain of the ship, while everyone else was set about doing menial tasks; Arioch's height made him the next likely candidate to operate the crane that Hawkeye had built for his proportions, and Lafoot and Alejandra were still taking inventory. Skulley slowed to a more methodical pace, moving crates from Arioch's post at the crane over to the pile mid-deck, then returning to help him untangle bits of stray flotsam from the nets. Everyone looked about as nonchalant (and bored) as any government contractor might, treating the affair as a matter of pen, ink and labor, rather than a tragedy of life lost and routine disrupted. Before long, the other ship was alongside them and throwing over hitch ropes. The crew obliged, tied the two ships together and extended a gangplank.
"Look alive, ye swabs." It was hard to tell whether Hawkeye was just acting or genuinely enjoyed berating them in front of the other ship's crew. Skulley shot him a dirty look, mostly for show. She'd certainly been working harder before, and now it was all she could do to keep it to a slow and steady pace. She kept her eyes lowered and her mask on as she plucked chunks of splintered wood and kelp from the net and chucked them into the water.
The captain, a rather muscled orc, came over the gangplank with two other men, a goblin and a blood elf. Arioch was suddenly nowhere to be seen--probably a good thing, given his previous distaste for fel elves. "Motley crew you have here, captain."
"Welcome t'the Guppy mate, we be a friendly fishin' boat commissioned t'be cleanin' up da waters of floatin' wreckage. What honorable captain be in me presence?"
"Gonrah Greenfist." The orc captain looked around at the other crew members. "This don't look like a horde ship," he twisted his face at Hawkeye, the only one of the lot that could pass for Horde. They spoke to each other in Orcish.
"I assure you, captain, dis be a sanctioned operation." "Lafoot!" he called out in common. "Show 'im de papers."
Lafoot procured the papers he'd prepped before their departure. They bore the insignia of the Horde as well as a bunch of scrawl that none but probably Hawkeye and Lafoot could read. Captain Greenfist looked over them, rubbing his chin. He tried not to make it too obvious that he wasn't well versed in the various point of Horde law that were scrawled on the paper. "I haven't heard of no Guppy, Captain Hawkeye. But your papers seem to pass. We were sent out here to investigate the raided ship and recover any survivors and its supplies." He passed the papers to the goblin, who began looking over them. "If I understand your papers correctly, you were ordered to recover supplies as we were?"
It was clear from the captain's voice that he was suspicious. Hawkeye kept face while the rest of the crew looked busy. "Aye."
"And... there were no survivors?"
"Der was none." Hawkeye and the rest of the crew knew, as a general rule, not to offer up information that wasn't directly asked for, but there were certain times when it was appropriate. Like right now, for instance. "From da style of da cannonballs, seems da Alliance took em out."
The goblin scrutinized the papers. He was tall for his kind, came up to his orc captain's waist, even. Ugly fellow had a flat head and a pointed nose, no hair to speak of, a curious dent near his left temple and a series of titanium bars threaded through the holes in his long green ears. Xionn's gaze shifted from the goblin to the blood elf, and he realized that the blood elf had been staring at him, sizing him up. Before either of them could speak, Gobbo looked up from the impossible legal gibberish printed on Lafoot's crumpled paper and caught sight of the gaunt figure clad in snug, oiled black leather untangling nets off to port. "Oy! Skullz. Skullz!"
Oh snap! Could the jig be up?
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