As it turned out, docking was not an easy task. Dave had to guide the ship over to some scaffolding and then set it down in them before maintaining the altitude while others secured the ship. Only then could he cut the engine off so that the ship would sit in the scaffolding. He didn't speak the whole time during the task. Sarah was sure if he had made one wrong move, he would've run into it or missed it and cause the ship to land on the ground.

Heather placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yager didn’t take your papers, did he?"

Sarah shook her head. Her ID was still sitting in her pocket. She was surprised they hadn't taken them, but what good would papers do for pirates?

"Good. Go get the rest of your papers and your luggage. They'll want to search it."

"I'll help you." Ash stepped forward only to be stopped by Heather.

"I don't want them to see you coming with something and panic. Alemanians don't hesitate when it comes to firing their weapons."

Ash nodded and let her guide him to a seat. He seemed won out from current events and he had even more bruises and cuts than before. Sarah was sure that Mel would take a look at him after he attended to Claire.

Dave remained seated in his seat. "And that was such a nice cane too... Well, I suppose Yager will need it until his foot heals."

Sarah couldn't help but feel a bit guilty about the whole thing. She didn’t mean to shoot his foot, but everyone was acting like she had done something praiseworthy.

She went to the room and retrieved everything. By the time she was dragging her luggage out, the Alemanians had already started boarding the ship. Her movement caught quite a bit of attention, but they said nothing. Ash grunted as he stood up and he had to lean against one of the tables for support. Heather stood beside him.

"Gentlemen, welcome aboard the Echelon." Dave slowly got up from the chair. "Feel free to make yourselves at home. Who's the officer we'll be dealing with?"

"That would be me, Captain Sherman." A man stepped forward. He was only a little older than Dave and his accent was very thick. " I am Captain Anton. Is this your whole crew?"

"The ship's doctor and mechanic are on their way. The mechanic was injured." Dave explained. "He was just checking her over. Oh, and the kid with the luggage is our passenger."

"And then you must be the radio operator." Captain Anton commented to Heather."I must compliment you on your fine Alemanian, miss. Much better than the panicking man before you."

"Actually, I'm doing both co-piloting and radioing right now." Heather corrected. "My husband is the cook/quartermaster. And I wasn't the one on the radio. I'm afraid I don't know much Alemanian either."

"But the only other woman here is..." His gaze fell on Sarah.

She thought it was a bit rude of him to switch languages like that.

He held his hand out. .

Sarah fished her passport out of her pocket and handed him the folder. She decided to keep her wallet for now.

"Oh, if we're handing in our papers..." Dave threw his to Captain Anton as he started opening the folder, causing the Captain to drop it. She had a feeling that Dave did it on purpose.

Heather joined in. "And here's all the other crew members' papers, work permits, and other appropriate documents." By the time she gave him everything, his arms were full of documents. One of the people with him picked up the folder.

"Thank you for your cooperation." He grunted as he struggled to hold everything. "While we check your papers, my associates will conduct the interview, so if you’ll follow them. And leave the luggage."

On one hand, that meant she didn’t have to carry it. On the other hand, there'd be no way for her to see if they stole anything. She wasn't carrying anything valuable, but there were persisting rumors about things disappearing when Alemanian border agents searched them. These weren’t border agents, but they were close enough.

As they were about to leave, Mel and Claire appeared. Her arm was in a sling and there was a bandage over the bruise on her face.

"Just don’t use that arm much for a couple of weeks." He advised.

"Good thing I'm ambidextrous or we'd be down a mechanic." She glanced up and saw the soldiers. "Oh great, it's the Fun Brigade. Is it illegal to get caught by pirates now?"

Captain Anton and those with him tightened their expressions. Dave quickly stepped in between them.

"She's joking, gentlemen! You know us Aboloanians and our sense of humor!" He insisted as he chuckled a bit. The other crew members chuckled too. Sarah wasn't quite sure what was going on.

But it seemed to convince the Alemanians and they took a more non-confrontational stance. Dave threw an arm around Claire's shoulder.

"Yes, our mechanic is certainly a jokester. But she knows there's a time and place for jokes."

It was clearly Dave's way of telling her to behave. Claire sighed but nodded. Sarah couldn't really blame her for her foul mood. It didn't look like she had an easy time with the pirates.

The soldiers led them out of the ship and into the base. Captain Anton split off from them at that point. The other soldiers escorted them to a room with a long table and a mirror. They instructed them all to take a seat before they took their leave.

"Ash, let me take a look at you." Mel remarked as he got up. "Did you have to fight through that many pirates?"

"A couple got in a lucky shot, that's all." But Ash let him examine him without any fuss. "I mostly plowed through them."

"Nothing looks too bad. I'll give you something for the bruising when we get back to the ship. And maybe clean some of those nastier looking cuts." The doctor backed off. "Hopefully, this won't take too long."

"Don't hope too hard, Mel. The Alemanians like paperwork." Heather put her hand into Ash's. "Let's just hope they don't keep us overnight. The last thing I want to do is get that far behind schedule."

Sarah didn’t mention it, but she was getting hungry. She hadn't eaten much because of the traveling, but she also planned on being at the University by now. And she was too afraid to ask any of the soldiers for anything. Alemanians weren’t exactly fond of Libans, even less than anyone didn’t speak a language that had roots in Alemanian

The soldiers came back in. One put a plate of pretzels down and a pitcher of water along with some glasses. Sarah took immediate advantage of that. The others didn’t even touch it. But they probably weren’t hungry like she was. A man in a different uniform sat at the head of the table.

"I am Colonel Heinz and I will be conducting this interview." He informed them. His Aboloanian was crisp and clean, unlike Anton’s. "Since you have all been through such a harrowing experience, we’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible."

Claire scoffed, but said nothing else. Maybe it was best if she didn't say much. Sarah decided to take that route too. It seemed like a safer bet.

And Dave was all too glad to tell him what had happened. Though Sarah noticed that her role was downplayed, not that she minded. They didn't need to know that she shot Yager in the foot or she was the one that stole the keys. Colonel Heinz held his questions until after Dave was done.

"So I take it you have had encounters with this Yajar before." She could hardly blame him for his mispronunciation. "Which is why it was up to your passenger to play distraction. Not the best business model, I must say."

"Everyone knows pirates are a risk. And she volunteered." Dave pointed out. " And yes, Yager's been picking on us ever since we got started. Can’t say why, but he's apparently drawn to us. Annoyingly so. I hope you're not trying to imply that this whole mess was on purpose."

"No, not at all." Colonel Heinz chuckled. "Miss... Hidalgo, isn't it? What did you and this pirate Captain do in his office."

"He needed me to give him information for the ransom note, which I did. Then he offered me a drink. I wanted water, but he gave me something called club soda."

"Sounds like Yager." Dave commented. "Probably mistook it for sparkling water."

"Did you drink it?"

"Only a sip. When I remarked on the taste, he tasted it then threw it out the window. Then he gave me some Champagne."

"Did you drink that?"

"Only a sip to make him happy. I'm not too eager to try it again."

"I see." Colonel Heinz drummed his fingers on the desk. "And that’s all? You just talked, alone, and shared drinks with him. Do you usually accept drinks that charming strangers give you?"

What an odd question. Of course she didn’t. But she had been afraid what his response would've been if she hadn’t. Surely he could understand that without her having to explain it. And why call Captain Yager charming? While he hadn’t been a brute, she wouldn't call him a dashing rogue.

"Well, answer the question." Colonel Heinz was getting impatient, his accent was starting to come through a bit. "If you remain silent, I will take that as a yes."

"No, I don't. I'm just having difficulty seeing why the question is relevant, sir."

But all the others, even Mel, were glaring at the man. Apparently, they had picked up on something she missed.

"He's trying to say that you and Captain Yager had a bit more fun than just a chat." Dave stated, while not taking his glare off him. "Very out of line for an interview."

Now she understood. "Very out of line for anyone to ask! If this line of questioning is to continue on, I won't participate!"

"Very well, I withdraw the question. I didn't mean to upset you so much." But the look on his face told her that he had gotten exactly what he wanted. "I'm just trying to, as you Libans say, "cover all my bases". We Alemanians pride ourselves on being efficient when it comes to investigations. We're just trying to get a profile on this pirate captain. You must admit he's quite the...interesting man."

"Then keep to questions about him and not us." Claire grumbled. She looked like she needed some sleep. "We're the ones who're the victims, yet you're acting like we're defecting from the pirates!"

"Calm yourself, Ms. Cunningham. No one is accusing anyone of anything." He got up. "I will go check on the status of your papers. Seeing that your entrance into Alemanian airspace was clearly not your fault or intention, we have no reason to hold you once they clear. If you want, we can try to find something."

"No thank you." Dave quickly replied. "We'd like to be on our way to Paradis as soon as possible. We're already running behind on schedule."

The Colonel nodded before leaving the room. Everyone deflated, especially Mel, who looked like he was going to faint.

"I-I'm glad he didn't-didn't ask me anything. I don't think I-I could've answered him." Mel looked around. "Who do-do you think was on the other side of the glass?"

"Who else? Another ASP." Dave leaned back in his chair. "Next time Claire, don't say anything to any Alemanian in uniform unless you have to. Fortunately, they have bigger fish to fry than us at the moment."

"Sorry I was defending our passenger from an accusation that she and Captain Yager were having "fun". I thought you would've. You've done that with me plenty of times."

Dave sighed. "We'll discuss it when we get back on the ship. Now's not the place. Bedsides, they're probably listening to us somehow." He blinked his head toward the no doubt two way mirror.

"Forgive my ignorance, but isn't asp a kind of snake?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, on both accounts. One has scales and one wears a uniform. It stands for Aleman Secret Police."

"Like the Spetnaz?" Even in Liba, they had heard of the secret police of Syreal.

"The ASP is more public. In Syreal, you don't know who's a Spetnaz until they're stuffing you into a car and taking you somewhere. At least, that's what they say. But I have little doubt that it's far from the truth."

"Which is why we don't do jobs to Syreal. Besides, I doubt the Syrealian government would ever clear us." Heather leaned against Ash very carefully. "Which is a shame. It's a very beautiful country. I remember going there a couple of times when I was younger, back before they got so restrictive in who could even enter the country. I wanted a honeymoon there, but obviously we couldn't. Not that Espan was bad."

"Though we didn't really explore it that much. But I do remember enjoying it a lot. We should go again, soon." Ash rubbed the side if her arm.

"Then I'll try to get us a job there soon."

Dave coughed a bit. Claire was a bit vocal about the situation.

"Do you think you can hold it until we get out of here, you two lovebirds? Unless you want to give our hosts a show."

It was after that that Colonel Heinz and Captain Anton came back. The Captain started handing back the papers.

"Everything appears to be in order." The Captain told them. "After you are dismissed, we will escort you to Paradisian airspace. The damage to your hull is patched up enough to get you there. Thank you for your cooperation."

Sarah, of course, was the last to receive her things. As she took them from him, he held on tight and refused to let go. With her gripping the folder, he yanked it toward him, closing the space between them.

That was the Alemanian name for her country, even though they kept all the other countries name intact even if they spelled them a bit different so it fit their pronunciation a bit better. Probably had to do with the fact that they resented them for allying more with places like Espan and Aboloan over their own "founders" historically speaking, making them "traitors" at their very core.

This confrontation was why she hadn't told him. At least it wasn’t in a public place. But the Captain just seemed to grow angry and she let go of the folder and backed up, worried that he would try to hit her.

The Colonel ordered. He then took the folder from him and handed it back to her. "I do apologize for the Captain's behavior. He is simply overly-patriotic." He said all of that in Aboloanian.

Sarah just nodded and held onto her folder. She hoped they hadn't removed anything. All the papers were important.

"It was a pleasure meeting you all." Colonel Heinz addressed the group. Then he put a hand on Sarah's shoulder as he passed.

And with that cryptic statement, they were taken back to the Echelon. No one spoke until they were on board and in the air.

"Let me guess, the good Captain was accusing you of something." Dave stated. Only she and him were on the bridge. Claire had left to go nap and the rest went to the infirmary.

"He thought I was playing a joke on them. But I'm less worried about him and more worried about the Colonel."

Dave nodded as he locked the steering. "No doubt we each have a folder with our name on it in the ASP archive. What did he say you before you left?”

"He said something about seeing me later."

"I wouldn't worry too much. The Alemanians are convinced that Paradis will join their League on of these days. Or they'll invade it. He was just trying to scare you."

Sarah wished she had his confidence. It had sounded like a promise to her.