[Erszbat, Ertl County] Scorched Earth (Closed)

A message appeared on Sonya's optical overlays. We've finished with the disc.

The engineer blinked and reached for her omni-tool. You've finished scanning?

All objectives complete. We'll be ready with the duplicate when you return.

Excellent. We're heading back now.

Looking up at he four-eyed host, Sonya said, "Good news. It looks like most of the OSD was encrypted empty space. The scanner's program has been altered so that it can detect and avoid it, so the process will go much more quickly." She glanced at her omnitool's chronometer. "If we leave now, the data will probably be ready by the time we get back."

Mekan's upper set of eyes fixed on Sonya as he turned to face her. If most of the OSD was empty, there was only so much he was looking to get from it. After processing this information for a moment, he nodded. If he couldn't get what he was expecting, he'd take what he could get. But there was no telling just how much information the Cerbies had falsified, or removed, or if the scanning was intended to take as long as they'd said it would, or-

No. Don't start second-guessing the situation. Just go with it. Mekan thought bitterly to himself.

If Sonya and her boss had planned to double-cross him from the start by falsifying data he needed to get at, then there was no going back as it was. But he had every expectation that they knew who Mekan could call up at (almost) any given time. If he had to, he could cause them some trouble. Once again confident that they'd deliver, he stood and headed for the door, smiling pleasantly as he lead the way out, leaving his almost-untouched batarian ale on the work desk. "Let's go, then. I'm assuming you'll take your copy of the information there and lift off by the end of the meeting."

"Of course." The engineer began walking towards the aircar.

What an easy job Palmer thought to herself. She sniffed and took one last look around the apartment before heading towards the door. It was good to see a friend, even if batarian, in a somewhat good situation and even better, (in her mind at least), a friend keeping up maintenance on the gear she had given out at some point or another.

Climbing into the driver's seat and immediately starting the aircar while Palmer and Sonya climbed into their own seats, Mekan brought up his OT interface and engaged the autopilot setting on the vehicle. The car lifted off, and began hovering back to the spaceport, faster than the trip to Mekan's apartment this time.

The trip back to the spaceport seemed to be a short one from Mekan's point of view. As the car hovered into a parking space and set down, Mekan climbed out and approached Sonya's shuttle, waving over to the [Redacted] Security personnel as he walked and motioning for Palmer to keep close. If there was ever a time for the deal to go bad, this would be it. Hope this is worth the wait.

As Sonya stepped out of the aircar, the shuttle's doors opened and the technician working on the disc stepped out.

"Do you have it?"

The tech nodded, and offered Sonya a pair of OSDs. Sonya turned to Mekan and presented the pair. "The scanning process can be rough on some discs. We recovered the data, but I would not be surprised if the original OSD begins to deteriorate. We placed a copy of the information on a new disc so that you would not need to worry about such a failure."

Mekan nodded and took the OSDs, pocketing them and smiling the whole time. "Thanks for the kind forethought. It won't be forgotten. That wraps up our business, here, then?" He tilted his head to the left in a gesture of respect before turning to look at Palmer, nodding at the car. They were done here, but the departure was often the worst part of any deal. If they were going to get jumped, this would be the last chance anyone would get. "Let's go."

"A pleasure doing business with you."

Sonya and the other [R]SC personnel returned to the shuttle, the hatch hissing closed behind them. The engineer turned to look at her technician.

"So, do you have it?"

Palmer nodded,her vigilance unending as she examined the area while moving towards the car. Sure, everything had gone smoothly so far but she had learned long ago that the unexpected always happened if one didn't pay attention.

"Full dossiers of 127 undercover members of StateSec and StateInt." The technician handed Sonya another OSD.

Campbell let off a long, low whistle. "Damn. You could buy a private army with the money the Alliance would have paid for that kind of intel pre-war. It's out of date now, though. Half the bastards are probably dead."

"More than that, I'd imagine. Still, there are people out there to whom this information could be incredibly dangerous." Turning back to the tech, she asked "What about the discs you gave the goro?"

"Full dossiers of 126 undercover StateSec and StateInt agents. The critical record was removed very carefully from the original disc, and was never copied over to the new one. I left the first disc in a fairly delicate states, so it should collapse after a few uses."

"Good. The client should be pleased."

Campbell was shaking his head. "I must have missed this part of the briefing. Who are we working for again?"

"The man whose file we removed from the disc. Offered the boss access to his intelligence network if we helped preserve his anonymity."

"And why is this the first I'm hearing about this?"

Sonya winced. "Sorry, Phil. This was Need to Know only."

He shook his head. "Erg. Guess I can't give you any shit over that. We leaving soon?"


"Yeah. I'll go see how much longer." The engineer stepped through the door at the front of the cabin and entered the cockpit. "What's our status?"

"Just got clearance to leave."

"Good. Lets - " she glanced at the other figure in the room, and her head whipped back towards the cockpit. "Campbell, is there some reason we have a bound and sedated batarian in the shuttle with us?"

"Yep."

"And that reason is?"

"Need to Know."

Sonya Manning scowled, her eyes moving from Campbell to their new guest. "Fuck it. Let's get out of here."

Mekan grinned at Palmer. Their shuttle was taking off, there were no attempts on his life thus far, and he had the OSD, plus a copy if he needed it for anything. Pausing as he prepared to step into the car, he looked to Palmer. "Wanted to thank you for coming out today. Not sure if they'd have made a move or not if you weren't here, but the added security your rep carries definitely helped, I think." Climbing into the car's driver seat, the four-eyed alien looked down at the OSD, pulling it out of his pocket. He pulled up his OT interface, and quickly scanned the disc. The screen lit up with a list of 126 dossiers.

He nodded, satisfied with the final count. "Alright. It checks out. I'll need to get started on this. You want to come along for the ride, or are you catching the next flight back to Omega?" His upper set of eyes turned to Palmer. He didn't need her to stick around, but if she did, then a bar was probably the first place she'd want to go.

I'll stay the night. After that though I gotta leave. She coughed, Doubt it would be good for me to spend much more time on a batarian planet.

Mekan nodded as he settled into the driver's seat. The car took off, hovering quietly down the road back to Kav'narsh.

"Come on. I'll set ya up with a bed back at my place, and drive ya back in the morning for the next flight offworld."

Then, the batarian fell silent, looking down at the OSD in his hands. He was one step closer. It might not be much, but it would hopefully lead to some real progress in his investigation.

Small blessings, small steps, small hopes. It's something.

He looked out the window and watched the Ertl County landscape pass him by on the sides of the roads as he quietly pondered his next move. The rolling hills of the Ertl region were a pleasant sight, even as night fell.

Unbeknownst to him, his next move would be interrupted by a brushfire conflict between two counties, and his subsequent abduction.

FIN