EliteCommander

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The arrival of backup for the droid was initially worrying, though thinking about it, Senjen supposed it did not really change much. The first droid already outgunned him, so the only way this would turn out well would be by making a deal. Having more of their guards around did probably cut off the option of being able to run, though if they had been that close before, then fleeing probably would have failed by the time Light was free. At least this way, they were dealing directly with someone who seemed to have some authority in their organization, instead of a foot soldier who may or may not have even been sapient. When it came to alien AI, he had a hard time telling which ones were even truly alive, and which ones just had convincing personality routines.

Senjen stayed calm and quiet at first while the Human examined the copy, at least outwardly. He did find that trying to think rationally about the situation had something of a calming effect, but he could not deny feeling much of the same fear that Light was showing outwardly. QV had a harder time hiding their emotions than even most organics, which Senjen supposed could let himself seem more cool-headed by comparison. True or not, it was useful.

“No damage here.” Senjen answered to Light while they waited, before giving his new suit a look over from top to bottom. “Hmm, so you went with red. Neat.”

In any case, Senjen’s gaze snapped back onto the Human once she spoke up again, and the offer she made did actually help to genuinely calm him, to an extent. The kind of offer she was making was the sort where they would actually want the two of them to walk away for practical reasons aside from cost-effectiveness. “So, the file was actually what you were looking for. Wild that we ended up in the same hangar.” He shrugged. “Well, personally, I think that is a deal I would agree to: the original file for the money and a fake.” He said, taking a moment to set up a trade for his file. “I’m ready to make the exchange, as long as you agree, Light.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The droid was willing to deal, which was more than a bit of a relief. Senjen did not see any other way to save the QV, with the situation as it was. If Light did not agree to take the deal, then he would try, but he would not expect to succeed. Of course, anyone would be a fool to hand over all leverage at once, so he would do his best to approach this with good business sense.

“Alright then, now let’s be honest with each other, the chances that we just happened to land in the same hanger as you with exactly what you’re looking for, out of all the thousands of other places we could have landed, are pretty slim. So, set your expectations. What I’ll do is make a copy of the file and send it for you to verify. If it is what you’re looking for, then we’ll exchange the money for the original. Either the file or the money are worth the same to me, so I don’t care which I walk away with. If it’s not what you’re looking for, then I’ll ask that you destroy the copy, and we forget this ever happened. I’ll even leave you with my business card, if your boss ever wants to work together.” Senjen said, then followed through to make a copy of the file and sent it to the droid’s monitor as requested.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen was still able to see through the daughter’s point of view, and while it was still hard to make out fine details, there were still at least two things he could gather from her perspective. One, he had a good idea of where the droid was standing on the floor below, in relation to him. Two, he could see that the droid was aiming up straight at him, rather than the source of his voice. Aside from how anxious that fact made him, it also implied that the droid had a way to see him. Senjen avoided giving an obvious reaction, but paid attention to try and figure out how.

Letting the QV die was out of the question, obviously, but just doing a handover on the droid’s terms did not seem wise. Not only did he have a responsibility to Light, but doing everything on the droid’s terms would give it the power to kill whoever it wanted, whenever. “I’m willing to make a deal, uh...random droid, but just putting this out there: anyone gets hurt or killed here, and your chance of getting the data disappears forever. I would destroy it before anyone could even have a chance of taking it from me. In fact...I’m putting the data on a dead man’s switch. I start shutting down for any reason, and the last operation my processor performs is to destroy the data. Now, let’s talk counteroffers. See, I always keep my word and never break a contract, but lucky for you, my contract is with Light. Not Light’s employer. If Light says sell, I sell, and we could sell it just for our delivery price. I guarantee that’s cheaper than what your employer would have to pay to smooth things over after shooting up an innocent shopkeeper. Probably the easiest, cheapest option you have.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The warning from Light ended up being a lot of help, because a moment after Senjen moved out of the way, several shots hit right where he used to be. Aside from fear, there were more than a few frustrated thoughts in his mind. ”Of course it had another gun. Why wouldn’t it? Why couldn’t something just be easy for a change today?”

Senjen scanned the area around the mezzanine. Options, he needed options. The motion of one of the gel suits floating up towards nearby caught his eye. Quickly, he reached out and grabbed it as it passed nearby, its momentum putting him into a slow spin as he pulled it close to himself. These suits had speakers for when QV needed to speak verbally, so he activated and made a connection with them, then pushed the suit somewhere vaguely above the area where he thought the droid had backed off to. Even better than just keeping the droid from tracking his voice, talking through the speakers might trick it into tracking his voice inaccurately.

Senjen himself stabilized his movement with the nearby shelving, then spoke by proxy through the gel suit. “And I was really needing to have a conversation without waving guns at each other. If you’re with who I think you’re with, then I know what you think is in my head, and how valuable that is to your boss. Might be worth considering that, if you hurt anyone here, I can destroy this data in an instant. Your boss will never know if I was carrying what they were looking for, and they’ll have to keep up this expensive manhunt for who knows how long. Might be a lot easier, and a lot cheaper, for them if we discuss this. Politely.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen gave a laugh. “You know, this isn’t the first time a QV has offered me food today, weirdly enough. No, I’m fine. I’ll just...wait over there.” He answered RIDA aloud, but as soon as the droid returned inside the fitting room, he jumped into action. He did not know how long he would have, so he had to get into position as fast, and as quietly, as possible. RIDA had pointed out a gun, so he grabbed it on the way. He did not know yet what exactly it did or if it would be useful, but better to have it than to not. He took a picture of it and did an image search to try to identify it, but for now his own pistol could handle what he needed. It was quiet, with an armor-piercing projectile that would penetrate rather than flatten, minimizing collateral on impact.

For Senjen’s plan, he floated up above the mezzanine. There were other weapons there, but since he needed to be careful not to make too much noise, he could not waste time with them. He had two ideas of what to do, depending on what the droid did, but both had him taking similar positions. He went up to the ceiling, securing himself in place so that he would be looking straight down on the droid when it came out from under the mezzanine. He had intended to message Light and get him to try to convince the droid to come out to the front, but from what he could see from the daughter’s view, it was doing that on its own.

Senjen, more than ever, needed to be precise. He had never been in a gunfight before, but this was really a lot more like his time at the shooting range. Locked into a stable position, lining up his shot carefully, and shooting a slow moving target at close range. He could do that. With the fact that he could lock his arm, keep it perfectly steady, and shoot with complete stability, he had hit reliably accurate shots at much longer ranges than this. This was all well-within his ability, as long as he kept a cool head and avoided panicking.

The droid moved out towards the front, and through the daughter’s view, he could see it was pushing Light ahead as a hostage. No problem, he could still make the shot at this angle, since the backdrop of the shot was the floor, not his friend. With what he had said to RIDA, the fact that Senjen was not immediately in view would not be instantly alarming, so he would hopefully get a chance to take that shot. Without detailed knowledge of the droid’s internals, he couldn’t know exactly where to aim to drop it in one shot, and he didn’t really want to kill regardless. He just had to stop the threat with the first shot, else Light could end up getting hit.

Since he knew about when the droid was stepping out from under the mezzanine, Senjen was as ready as he could be, his arm locked into place and his pistol on target. From directly above, he took aim at the droid’s gun. Though it was worryingly close to Light’s body, this was close range and he knew he could make the shot, so he took it. By disarming the droid, he hoped to be able to get it to stand down, so as soon as he took the shot, he shouted out. “Hold there! Let’s talk.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen took the video feed from the QV and pushed it into a window in the corner of his field of view, so he could keep an eye on this droid. Unfortunately, a QV’s vision was...less than ideal. Their species saw the world in different ways than through a camera feed, and he did not have time to set up any conversion software to interpret that data in a way he could understand. Maybe that was something he should figure out after all of this was over, but for now, this would have to do. He could at least make out the general image of this droid, and could see that it was moving to the door of the fitting room.

This was no good. Senjen probably should have been louder keeping up the conversation. He was not confident in winning a straight up fight, he needed some kind of advantage to have a chance. He needed the droid to think he still had not caught on, so he put his pistol away before the droid could make it to the door. It had only been a moment of silence between him and RIDA, so he could come up with a reason. Something about what she had just said...like a search. An online search to confirm what she was telling him; that was reasonable, sensible. Most people would probably do the same if they were concerned for a friend.

“Interference…” Senjen muttered, acting as if he had found what he was looking for. “Okay, fine, sure. It says that only lasts a little while, though. Does he not have access to comms after the transfer? I can wait, but how long does this take?” He asked RIDA. If this did not work to lower the droid’s suspicions, though, then probably the only plan he would have left would be to talk his way out of this.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

As if the QV’s warning was not enough, the message Senjen received shortly afterwards was crystal clear. Light needed his help, and he needed it now. Swinging open the compartment on his thigh, Senjen grabbed his pistol almost immediately, but even near-panicked as he was, he knew he could not just rush in. He had never been in a gunfight before, and his frame was not even designed for combat. Plus, the droid was armed, with hostages. He...needed a plan. Yes, something to even the odds. Just a bit of creativity to make up for the more material disadvantages, but whatever he did, he needed to do it quick.

Senjen’s pistol he had bought on Orsostro, so it was at least meant for fighting other robots. It was a magnetic accelerator weapon firing armor-piercing rounds, and he needed to keep that in mind. Second, he needed to see what was going on in the fitting room. The daughter was a hostage, but maybe she could help? He could see her, probably trying to act normal and not frightened. With the angle he was at near the front of the shop, she could “speak” with the colors on one side of her body without anyone in the room seeing, so he faced her and did the same. ”Can you see in the room? Do you have any implants? Anything ocular? Can you share the feed of what you see with me?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

The QV’s answer did little to assuage Senjen’s concern, especially as her attitude was so strange. He recognized that she probably did not receive many non-QV visitors, but that did not feel like an explanation. Out of all the species out there, QV had perhaps the hardest time hiding their feelings. Her colors were off, and he felt it worthwhile to do a quick search on what they meant. “Well, I got a message from him a little while ago, but it was jumbled nonsense. I doubt he would message me for nothing. Are you sure he’s alright in there? Have you checked on him?”

Before she could answer, Senjen heard a voice from the fitting room, and his auditory sensors were more than sensitive enough to know it was Light. What he said was not exactly calming, either. The message, the voice, the QV’s attitude and emotions, everything about this situation pointed to something being wrong, and his concern for Light overwrote any fear he perhaps should have been feeling at the moment.

Senjen gave Resplendent-In-Divine-Apostasy a sharp, serious look. She was not above his suspicion herself, and he wanted answers right then and there. He used the lights on his frame to do a basic rendition of the QV’s visual language without speaking aloud. ”What is going on here?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Naturally, Senjen was confused in the message he received. It was...something, alright, but what that “something” was, he could not guess. It was not even words, though it was sent to a port meant for communications. It was not as if his translator was failing, because the data itself was jumbled. Corrupted, maybe? If Light had just bought a new suit, then maybe its transmitter was busted? In any case, Senjen had to err on the side of caution. It was his job to keep Light safe, so he had to investigate.

Distracted as he was, Senjen was not sure if the shopkeepers had responded to his question, or what they said if they had, but he did not have time to worry about that at the moment. “I...sorry, I have to go check on something. I’ll be back, probably, but...I have to go.”

"Your message is garbled, what are you trying to say?" Senjen sent back in response. Regardless, he knew where Light had gone. He still had the spot marked on his map, and following it led him to a long, rectangular warehouse. He doubted the place got very many non-QV visitors, so he expected he would be drawing some attention the moment he floated through the door. It closed quickly enough behind him that he was scarcely able to yank his tail out of the way of it before it sealed. His awkwardness aside, he tried to keep calm when he spoke to the QV woman tending the shop. “Hi...there, I’m looking for a Quelun-Vosh friend of mine. Ligh- or, um...Into-The-Abyss-In-Search-Of-Light. Have you seen him?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen had not expected that the children would be the ones to do business with him, though if he was being honest, he hardly knew what to expect from alien children. From his understanding, Utaysi had accelerated childhoods compared to organics. They had no physical maturation, so all of their development was mental. Without the former, the latter could proceed a lot more quickly. It also did not help that most of the aliens matured at different rates as well, so he did not really know how to guess how an alien child of any age would be expected to act. In any case, as long as they knew what to do, Senjen supposed it did not matter.

In any case, it was not long before Senjen found himself pulled into a conversation he was decidedly ill-equipped to handle. Tkclakytor Remnants? This was the first time he had even heard of them, and he certainly did not know about any planet being destroyed. He wondered, for a moment, if there was more preparation he should have done before leaving. Maybe he should have looked more into current events than more distant history? “I never really...heard of any of that on Orostro. I haven’t spent that long out in the galaxy...yet.” He said, unsure of what, if anything, he should say about the Tindrel.

The question from the child was much more direct in startling Senjen. “Fight? I, um, oh no. I don’t plan on fighting in any wars. Utaysi don’t have a reason to fight anyone, really.”

Now that he had a chance to focus on the quote he was given for a moment, Senjen took a moment to compare it to the list Light gave him. It was more expensive than it should have been, by a fair margin. Had Light been wrong, or were they trying to take advantage of a tourist? Would the children even think to do that? “Can you go down on this at all? My friend gave me the prices for these things, and it wasn’t as much as this.”