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Gypsy Flash Posh
405647
One hasty running down the corridors later...
"Hi guys sorry I'm late uh so yeah--"
Saru stares at me and plunges her head into her hands. Oh. Oh shit. I didn't realise they were already here. "Oh, um, sorry, I, uh..."
"No, no," says the, um, human I think? "Don't leave. Please. Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about, after all."
I don't recognise this guy. I don't even recognise the species of whatever's next to him. Areeni spacer?? I meekly take a seat and try to become invisible.
Saru slams her fist on the table. I jump a little. "She isn't involved in this. Leave her out of this. You are dismissed, Sinter. I will talk to you later."
"Oh, that's not what the reports I received say at all. In fact, I'd say she's the reason you got dragged into this little incident in the first place, is it not? If you felt the need for additional personnel, you could have at least filed a request first before hiring someone with a past that could be charitably summarised as 'a little shady'. Sinter. What an interesting name. What prompted you to take it?"
Prompted me to-- what does he know.
The man chuckles. "Of course, you don't need to explain to me. I believe your colleagues may feel differently soon enough. I'm genuinely surprised this planet is so aggressively backwater that a wanted terrorist in one nation is a complete nobody in another. How do they communicate? Carriers? Smoke signals? Trying to shout over the ocean waters? Depressingly primitive. But that isn't my business. My business is retrieval. So, I'm going to make this very clear, Ms Ti-kza. If you aren't willing to co-operate, things are going to become rather less civilised in a very, very short time. Do we understand?"
Retrieval? Retrieval of what? I haven't seen Saru's eyes so consistently blue in, well, ever. That is one hell of a poker face. "Of course. I understand completely. It's not worth sabotaging my entire career over this. I don't even know who these people are or why I'm apparently sheltering them. I think," she gives me a calculated stare and I feel my stomach turn, "I should be more wary about who I trust in future."
The man smiles. "Glad to see you're as smart as you were all those years ago, Ms Ti-kza. I will wait here while you collect them."
"You aren't going to collect them yourself?"
"Ms Ti-kza," he says, pleasant tones slipping slightly, "Credit me with enough presence of mind to not walk into an obvious trap."
"And what if I came back armed? I know the contents of this facility better than anyone else. I know what's dangerous, what can be controlled, and, more importantly, what items have both of these qualities."
"Well, Ms Ti-kza, I notice you have at least one member of staff currently idle." The human stares at me with very inhuman eyes. "Perhaps she could run your errands for you?"
I told ISO to lock everyone in their rooms until I could get a plan formed! What's going on, AOS?!
"No." Saru stands up. "I will go collect your quarry for you." Her voice is filled with a polite sort of absolute disgust. It's quite a feat, really. "Sinter, with me."
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