Tra'naur'kad Mobile Shipyard and Foundry, Undisclosed LocationThe holocom on Shuklaar's table, connected to the ship's communications system, beeped, shattering the veneer of quiet calm that had set in over his office. Shuklaar didn't bother to check who was calling before he hit the answer button. The device hummed to live, rendering a color hologram of a familiar armored form. "Sar'ika, what can I do for you?" he asked his vod'ika, Saram Kote, commander of the company's elite covert operations commando unit Davaab.
"Alor, we're en route to Honoghr," she started, staring off momentarily as if to consider her next words more carefully. "What the shab could possibly be so important there?" she asked. Alor so she wasn't asking as one of his oldest's friend's younger sister, but as an al'verde of Strill Securities. "We're not babysitters." There was some truth to what she said. Davaab had an impressive operational history, and his personal instruction to deploy them to Honoghr to guard the Locke and Key research expedition seemed a gross misallocation of resources at first glance.
If John was right, they were onto something big, and he didn't pretend to understand this jetii'dral osik, but he trusted John not to understate the importance of such things. "Because I need the best, I need Davaab. I could deploy a whole shabla ori'tsad and it wouldn't be as safe," he said with a sigh. That was true for a number of reasons. A brigade would draw unnecessary attention, and if there was going to be a threat, it wouldn't come in force. No, it would either come in the dead of night or it would be osik they hadn't fought since the recent osik with Naboo.
The hologram stared at him, studying him. "What do you know, alor?" Saram asked finally. She had every right to. What he wasn't telling her, what he hadn't told her, was that he didn't know where the threat was going to come from. He didn't even know what form it would take. All he knew was that if he trusted anyone to be his first response, he trusted her.
"Tell you the truth, Sa- Al'verde Kote, it's what I don't know that worries me," he replied evenly. The very subtle shift in Saram's posture spoke volumes more than she ever would about what she was thinking about what he'd said.
"Then let's hope for both our sake that you're right," she said after what seemed to both their enhanced senses like endless minutes gone by. "My ad'ike get restless when there's nothing to do." Shuklaar had fought alongside many of the company's rammikade before, including Davaab, he understood the sentiment perfectly. At the same time, however, he very much hoped that he was wrong and that everything would go as per routine.
"Nayc, for both our sakes let's hope that I'm wrong," he said with a sigh. "I don't want to see what me being right looks like here." A few scenarios briefly flashed through his mind but were quickly dismissed.
"I understand, alor, we won't let you down," said Saram. It was the decades long bond they shared that told Shuklaar that she understood the situation he was in, or that she understood now that they had spoken. He knew she likely never doubted his reasons, she just needed to hear them herself.
"You never do," he replied. "Oya Manda, vod." Was it the proud alor or the ori'vod talking? He didn't know. Perhaps both. Either way, this was the best he could do for that situation. John would just have to trust him.
"Oya Manda," she replied, a moment later the holographic representation of Saram winked out of view.
