Almost immediately after the Malevolence's hail, the other ships in their impromptu interdimensional fleet began filtering in out of hyperspace as well, and Sinnali blinked in surprise at several of them diving straight towards the planet and past the Republic blockade without pause. Her smile dipped, as she opened a new channel to hail the rest of the world travelers, especially the Blue Typhoon and Astro Megatimeship.
"Malevolence to Blue Typhoon and Astro Megatimeship, what are you doing?" She felt her wording was incredibly diplomatic compared to the Kaleesh cursing Grievous was doing internally from his seat, his eyes currently shut to block out the sight of Coruscant. "Please withdraw for now. There's no guarantee the Replicators are completely contained from your landing zone."
Coruscant was far too deep for that, and everything she'd heard about this mechanical plague suggested the entire Republic Capital was a giant glorified buffet. The Replicators could hide just about anywhere, and Sinnali was more than a little concerned that they had already tunneled down and outward far enough to escape the Republic's bombardment cordon.
"We should formulate a strategy before diving in." Honestly, had these people been at the same briefing she was? What part of "nanomachines" and "planetary quarantine" wasn't a massive red flag not to set a single
toe on the surface? Well, she supposed she shouldn't have expected much better. Both the Mobians and the "Rangers" were the most clearly mentally youthful and "naive" of those Daniel had recruited, and neither were apparently very aware of even basic space travel etiquette. Even if they weren't getting blasted out of the sky -a mercy precious few others would have received- for their trespass, they still should have gotten clearance to land from the Republic first.
Sighing, Sinnali pinched the bridge of her nose, before refocusing her attention on something more productive. She nodded at the Hammond's strategy. Hiding their signature in the shadow of the Malevolence was perfectly reasonable. Though she wasn't sure how fine the Replicators' detection capacity was, the very fact that the Hammond considered this a viable strategy opened up some potentially interesting options.
She chuckled grimly at the results of the Hammond's scans. "Indeed, Coruscant is its own worst enemy." In more than one sense honestly. "I do not think it is inaccurate to say that -from what we have been told of these 'Replicators'- there is not a single worse location they could have landed in all the Galaxy. 'Worse', of course, in the sense of it being to their advantage." Rapping her fingers on her console, she hummed in thought. "If they have any tunneling capacity or strategic sense, I have no doubt that the Replicators have already escaped the cordon. The only question is how deep they have gotten." She chuckled again and shook her head. "Of course, I would be
delighted to be wrong, but I do think we should proceed with the assumption of the worst-case scenario until proven otherwise." She snapped her fingers. "Oh, and if you wouldn't mind terribly, the Malevolence would be
very interested in having that sensor data for the Replicators. Our logs don't yet have any experience detecting them specifically, and it would be best to get a headstart on that."
"Vessel inbound," a battledroid announced.
"Hmmm?" Sinnali perked up, eying the monitors, as a T-6 shuttle flew closer to the ships still in orbit, while a second headed for those that had chosen to land. "A T-6, eh?" She glanced over her shoulder to eye Grievous's tense posture.
"
Jedi..." growled the cyborg in clear equal recognition, clawed fingers twitching.
Pursing her lips, Sinnali considered where to direct them. Did the T-6 mean to come aboard one of their vessels? She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to push Grievous's buttons harder yet by playing host, but it
would probably be a decent gesture of good will... Meeting Grievous's gaze, Sinnali allowed the moment to stretch, expression blank in response to habitual homicidal rage the General was prone to if a Jedi so much as breathed the same atmosphere.
"Got to rip that bandage off sometime," she said. She couldn't presently think of a better way to prove their altruism than to have Jedi enter and leave their ship unharmed. As long as the cyborg could contain himself...
A low tinny snarl escaped Grievous's throat, as his hands clenched into fists, claws scraping on his armrests. He snapped to his feet. His glare bored into Sinnali's mask with the kind of fury that sometimes made Sinnali truly question if those golden, slitted eyes of his were natural or a result of the Dark Side flowing through him in the only capacity he might have in the Force. Finally, the moment ended, as Grievous spun on his heel, stalking towards the lift with his Kaleesh cloak billowing behind him.
As the door hissed open, he paused, sending a final glare over his shoulder.
"Do as you like with the
Jedi slime."
And then he was gone, and Sinnali was releasing the breath she'd been holding. She sighed, idly tracking the General's retreating figure, as he stalked towards the general area of his personal quarters. The message was clear. If she wanted to play with the Jedi, leave him out of it... unless they were killing them. She supposed that was fair enough. That they were even allowed on his ship unaccosted at all must have felt like it was an invasion of Grievous's safe space. But this was still a win for her; she could hardly keep pushing his boundaries unless she successfully moved the line to begin with, after all.
"Republic vessel," Sinnali hailed the Jedi shuttle, "this is the Malevolence, ready to recieve you at docking bay J." She passed the shuttle directions to the docking bay built into the side of the bridge tower. It was the closest place to the actual bridge that she could direct them, given the titanic size of the ship and also was where Grievous usually parked his starfighter for the quickest route to escape if he needed to abandon ship. Since Sinnali was hardly interested in hosting a grand tour -never mind their present time constraints and Grievous only getting more annoyed the more places the Jedi "sullied", she would make sure any travel was done with as little "sight-seeing" as possible. For security reasons, if nothing else.
Standing from her own seat, Sinnali rolled her shoulders, plastered on a familiar, amiable smile and headed for the lift herself, heading down to the bridge docking bay to recieve her guests.
Danyel
Reisling
Guardian Angel Haruki
Izurich
4wheathRmany
Aku the Samurai
Otreas
