10-10-2017, 02:40 PM
“Nash... What. The Hell. Is that?” Davion stared, horror-stricken, as Leon shuffled around uncomfortably. The 'trooper coughed, awkwardly.
“It's... well, it's your uniform, sir.” the man explained plaintively. The lieutenant glared at him. Meanwhile, Hijiri began doing up the buttons of his shirt and smirked wickedly. It had been two more days since he and Davion had awoken following the warehouse raid, and they were now finally well enough to leave the medical bay. Leon had brought them their own clothes, so that they could change out of the hospital gowns. While Hijiri had lost no time in changing, though, his superior was having a little... trouble.
“Where is my amour!?” The words came out as a barely discernible growl.
“Sorry, sir, but, well, you see...” As the 'trooper tried to find a way of breaking it gently, Hijiri snickered.
“Seems like someone decided to have a joke at your expense, huh sir?” He smirked at Davion. “Apparently, instead of promoting you through the stormtrooper ranks like normal, you were bumped up to 'officer' status.”
“That's absurd! 'Troopers fight on the front lines, while officers study strategy and tactics in big posh schools! They're completely different skill-sets! You might as well promote a chef to a biologist, just because both their jobs involve animals! Besides, how the hell am I supposed to fight in that!? Where's the armour!?”
“Uh... well... there is some armour to go with it, sir, Imperial Officers actually get this really cool black breastplate and helmet which look totally badass... but Iechtelsteir said not to give it to you yet; he says officers are only supposed to dress like that when they're actually heading into battle.”
Davion snarled at him. “I don't give a shit what that ex-noble wannabe sniper thinks! This is Tier Five, we could be attacked at any moment... so bring me the damn armour!”
“Y-yes, sir!” tossing the outfit to the lieutenant, who caught it, Leon dashed from the room.
“And you can wipe that stupid grin off your face right now, corporal.”
Hijiri laughed.
“... Who would have done this...? Why? What does it benefit Command to have me dress up like an idiot and pretend to be some sort of tactician?” Noting the tones of confusion and resignation in his superior's voice, Hijiri stopped joking around, and tried to take this more seriously.
“If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely person to be behind this would be Officer Andreas. I'm not sure exactly what her motivations are, but from the moment I saw that hologram, I've just had this feeling that she was behind our 'rewards' somehow.”
Davion snorted. “She's only a lieutenant herself, and she barely even does any work, Takanomiya, what could she possibly have done to gain that kind of authority?”
Hijiri simply looked at him for a moment. Davion couldn't meet his gaze.
“I spent a several hours shut in a room with her while I waited on your squad on my first day here, and that was more than enough time for me to notice something weird about her, and you've known her much longer than I have, right? So don't try to tell me you haven't spotted it too.”
The lieutenant groaned. “Okay, fine. She's suspect number one, then. You know what this means, though? We're going to have to actually confront her about it at some point.”
“Oh. Yeah.” It was the Battle Rabbit's turn to groan. “How about we... you know... put that off for as long as possible?”
“And give her more time to continue her scheming? That's almost certainly a terrible idea.”
“But...?” Hijiri insisted.
“... But I don't really look forward to speaking to her at all, much less potentially having to argue with her... so let's just go with your plan.”
***
Several minutes later, leaving the changing area with Leon, after the 'trooper had returned with Davion's nice new gear, they saw Priya and Sarah waiting. The prisoner, also having changed out of the gown, was now dressed in a sleeveless, grey crop top and denim hot pants, both of which did a fine job of showing off her lithe figure. The woman could easily have been attractive, were it not for the strangely blank expression her face almost always held. Also, Hijiri noticed that, as when they had first met, she had for some reason chosen to eschew any sort of footwear.
“Where did those come from?” demanded Davion suspiciously, gesturing to Sarah's clothes. “I thought her outfit was destroyed in that fight?”
“Well, it's not like we keep a stockpile of prison jumpsuits lying around in case our captives decide to strip naked and tear up all their clothes, sir. As hard as it may be to believe, that sort of thing isn't generally all that common. So I gave her some of my things to borrow, sir.”
When Priya began speaking, Sarah very unsubtly looked off to one side. Her demeanour remained as bland as ever, yet she was clearly intent upon avoiding meeting anyone's eyes. Hijiri smirked. He wasn't sure quite what the deal was with her unwillingness (or inability?) to express her emotions properly, yet he couldn't help but find it funny that someone with a Transformation ability which worked like hers should still find nudity embarrassing. He would have assumed it was something you'd get used to after a while.
“Davion frowned and rubbed his forehead, then sighed. “When did this squad become so unprofessional? Since when has it been acceptable military procedure for soldiers to lend prisoners their clothing? Actually, why are you two even still hanging around here? Shouldn't you have taken her to her cell once she was changed?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I was going to, sir, but Iechtelsteir called me to say to wait for the pair of you, then bring you both to the indoor training section. Our reinforcements have arrived, sir.”
“Iechtelsteir? Again? Why is he suddenly running this squad?” the lieutenant demanded, as they all started walking.
Priya shrugged. “Dunno, sir. Doesn't he come from a noble family, though? Maybe he just has more experience bossing people around than the rest of us?”
“Alright, alright, 'why did everyone let him take charge', I meant?”
“Well... I dunno. No one could be bothered complaining, I guess? Oh, except Windvale, who said we shouldn't have to do any work at all until you were back on your feet to force us to, and Leben, who thought we should contact Imperial Command to ask them for instructions. But then he gave Windvale your Dataverse Device and let Leben drink the rest of the rubbing alcohol, sir.”
“He did what!?”
“Didn't you wonder why Leben had fallen back into a coma, even though he'd woken up and was well on his way to recovery when we headed out on that raid?”
“I don't give a shit about that guy's drinking problem... though that does explain why Dodson was dusting medical equipment a couple days ago, rather than actually cleaning it. No, I mean what the hell did Iechtelsteir think he was doing giving away my Dataverse Device!?”
“I guess he thought you didn't have long left to live?”
“He could have at least waited to find out!”
Hijiri laughed, and got a glare in response.
“Oh, look, we're here!” the stormtrooper quickly punched a button which slid open a mechanical door and dashed in, dragging Sarah through after her. Leon hurriedly followed. Apparently, neither was particularly keen on enduring their commander's anger any longer than they absolutely had to.
“After you, sir.” said Hijiri, standing aside and waving the lieutenant through as a butler would, though he didn't drop his smirk as he did it.
Ignoring him, Davion strode in, just in time to hear a chorus of 'yes, sergeant!' from the assembled 'troopers, who were presumably their reinforcements. The man they had been addressing, who stood facing them from in front of their orderly formation, turned as the others entered. Hijiri and Davion immediately noticed that he was wearing a pauldron identical to the one Davion's own stormtrooper armour had been fitted with, prior to his promotion. A pauldron which was used by the stormtroopers as a rank marker; in this case, indicating a sergeant.
“Greetings, sir.” said 'sergeant' Kroll, giving the lieutenant a smart salute. “It's good to see you've recovered enough to get out and about.”
“Iechtelsteir, you bastard! Who the hell said you could take my damn shoulder-pad!?”
“Your... you mean your pauldron, sir?” Kroll inquired.
“Yeah, that thing! And what's this I hear about you giving Windvale my Dataverse Device!? I'll never see it again! He's surely ruined it already!”
“Ruined?” came the voice of Brandon Windvale, from where he sat, cross-legged, over by one of the training room's thick, steel walls, a half dozen metres to their right. The remains of what looked like it might once have been a Dataverse Device were spread out before him, along with various other mechanical parts and hi-tech tools of some sort. He had taken off his helmet in order to get a better view of whatever he was doing, and so his shoulder-length brown hair, slim features, tanned skin and long, pointed, elven ears could be seen clearly. “I didn't ruin anything; I'm just improving it a bit, that's all.”
Brandon had originally been summoned in the Tangled Green, and had been a hunter, primarily, though he had also been meant to serve as an archer to defend the elven city-tree of Yggdrasil in times of need. After discovering the wonders of technology, though, he'd immediately run off to make a living in Coruscant instead. Since he was fit and had decent aim, it wasn't all that hard for him to get recruited into the stormtrooper ranks.
“Is... is that a blaster?” Davion was correct. It seemed that Brandon was in the process of grafting the Device onto someone's blaster.
“Oh yeah! I thought it'd be just totally awesome if we could check our emails, texts and stuff in the middle of a battle, without having to actually go to all the effort of taking our Devices out of our pockets. So I made this...! Unfortunately, it does seem to have the odd minor, tiny little bug in its programming, so I'm just looking around to see if I can get that sorted right now.”
Ignoring for the moment the abject stupidity of welding a phone to a gun, Davion chose instead to focus on the rest of what the technophilic elf had said. “'Little bug'? just what constitutes a 'little' bug in your mind, Windvale?”
“Er... well, the most serious one is probably the glitch that seems to be, ah, causing the blaster to fire on its own every time you get a call...”
Davion stood in silent incredulity for a few seconds, before he gave up on finding a way to express the stupidity of his soldier's invention, turned to Hijiri and said “This is your fault, you know. My squad was normal before you showed up... well, maybe not always so normal in their down time, but disciplined, at least. Windvale only built his idiotic contraptions outside of work hours, Iechtelsteir never stole from dying comrades, Singh didn't play dress-up with our prisoners-”
“Seriously? She had no clothes, what was I supposed to get her to wear? Don't include me in your damn ranting...” Priya interrupted. Davion ignored her.
“-and Leben... well, okay, he may have occasionally drunk rubbing alcohol beforehand, but he was recovering. We even managed to take him out to a pub once without having to drag his comatose carcass back to the 'racks afterwords.”
“Hey, hey, don't just blame me.” Hijiri objected. “Don't forget, Dodson joined you all the same time I did; doesn't this all seem more likely to be his fault?”
“Seriously, Takanomiya, did you actually just insinuate that our behaviour was being influenced by Dodson? Not cool, man. Not cool at all.” Brandon piped up.
“Windvale has it right; no one here has any interest in aping the behaviour of an incompetent cretin like that man. You are solely to blame for this, corporal. You go around out of uniform, not even using a blaster in battle, jumping around like a fucking ballerina and changing into some stupid, fancy outfit in the middle of your fight with the wolf-bitch over there. They've been hanging around you way too long, and now this lot have somehow got it into their thick skulls that they can all just do whatever they want and act like a bunch of special little snowflakes just because you've managed to somehow not get yourself killed yet, and-”
From over in the direction of the perfectly discipled lines of reinforcement stormtroopers, there came the sound of someone clearing their throat, and interrupting Davion in the process.
“Not that any of us would like to avoid listening to your crazed ranting, sir, but we do have a whole mob of impressionable new recruits here, many of whom have never even worked lower than Tier One before... you're not exactly setting the best example, sir.”
“Wait...” the lieutenant was suddenly distracted from his complaints by something Kroll had said, “new recruits? Never worked lower than Tier-freaking-One? What the hell is this!? Is Command trying to kill off as many of our own people as they can possibly manage!? These brats won't last a week down here! The gangs'll tear them to ribbons! Why would those morons even waste our time with all this cannon fodder!?”
“Oh for the love of...” Kroll muttered, facepalming... or... helmet-palming?
Hijiri patted Davion on the shoulder. “Look, lieutenant, you're a great guy to have on our side in a fight, and it's really impressive that you managed to keep so much of your squad alive for as long as you did, despite having to work on Tier Five... but please, whatever you do, don't ever try to make an inspiring speech.”
The Prime nodded towards the newcomers, a few of whom were visibly shaking. Davion followed his gaze, then sighed. “Alright, Iechtelsteir, you wanted us all here, including the two prisoners acting all lovey-dovey over there-”
Sarah, who had been very slightly leaning up against Kevin – who was standing in a corner off to the left of the doorway – suddenly stood bolt upright, as though she had been caught doing something wrong. Kevin continued to smile softly, but also raised one eyebrow questioningly at the lieutenant.
“-so what was that all for, exactly, sergeant?” A moment passed after Davion had finished speaking, as they all waited. He blinked. “Dammit, no! Take that stupid shoulder-pad off this instant, you're not a-”
“I wanted us all to have a chance to introduce ourselves to our new allies, sir, it was as simple as that. I also thought we might as well let them meet our captives as well while we were at it, lieutenant; judging by the fact that Command has for some reason yet to send anyone down to collect them, I can only assume that we are likely to be stuck with them for some time, even if only as the result of some clerical oversight.” Kroll deliberately spoke over the lieutenant, clearly trying to distract him enough that he would forget to force him to remove the pauldron. It seemed to work.
Davion glanced across at Hijiri, suspicion in his gaze. The Battle Rabbit met him with the same expression.
“Andreas?” Hijiri muttered under his breath, so that none but Davion could hear.
“Has to be. 'Clerical oversight' my ass.” Came the equally quiet response.
“Alright, whatever.” The lieutenant continued, at a normal volume this time. “I've shown up, they've met me. I need to think some things over in private... and now that I'm an actual officer, I suppose that means I'm not required to actually spend my every waking moment watching over you lot anyway, so I'll just leave you all to it. Corporal Takanomiya, you're in charge for now.”
“Yes, sir.” Hijiri replied... yet as Davion left, and the door slid closed behind him, he heard the Prime addressing Kroll as 'sergeant'... apparently being just as happy as the rest of his squad to perpetuate the belief that that guy was in charge... for some reason.
Davion allowed himself a brief moment to feel relieved at having been summoned to the Omniverse; back home, if so much as a single stormtrooper under your authority acted out of order, an Imperial Officer could and most likely would be held personally responsible... and that sort of thing usually meant a swift and unpleasant death via telekinetic strangulation, courtesy of Lord Vader.
Thank Omni that that lunatic hadn't been brought here with them... anyone who thought Judge Dredd was strict had no idea how lucky they were...
“It's... well, it's your uniform, sir.” the man explained plaintively. The lieutenant glared at him. Meanwhile, Hijiri began doing up the buttons of his shirt and smirked wickedly. It had been two more days since he and Davion had awoken following the warehouse raid, and they were now finally well enough to leave the medical bay. Leon had brought them their own clothes, so that they could change out of the hospital gowns. While Hijiri had lost no time in changing, though, his superior was having a little... trouble.
“Where is my amour!?” The words came out as a barely discernible growl.
“Sorry, sir, but, well, you see...” As the 'trooper tried to find a way of breaking it gently, Hijiri snickered.
“Seems like someone decided to have a joke at your expense, huh sir?” He smirked at Davion. “Apparently, instead of promoting you through the stormtrooper ranks like normal, you were bumped up to 'officer' status.”
“That's absurd! 'Troopers fight on the front lines, while officers study strategy and tactics in big posh schools! They're completely different skill-sets! You might as well promote a chef to a biologist, just because both their jobs involve animals! Besides, how the hell am I supposed to fight in that!? Where's the armour!?”
“Uh... well... there is some armour to go with it, sir, Imperial Officers actually get this really cool black breastplate and helmet which look totally badass... but Iechtelsteir said not to give it to you yet; he says officers are only supposed to dress like that when they're actually heading into battle.”
Davion snarled at him. “I don't give a shit what that ex-noble wannabe sniper thinks! This is Tier Five, we could be attacked at any moment... so bring me the damn armour!”
“Y-yes, sir!” tossing the outfit to the lieutenant, who caught it, Leon dashed from the room.
“And you can wipe that stupid grin off your face right now, corporal.”
Hijiri laughed.
“... Who would have done this...? Why? What does it benefit Command to have me dress up like an idiot and pretend to be some sort of tactician?” Noting the tones of confusion and resignation in his superior's voice, Hijiri stopped joking around, and tried to take this more seriously.
“If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely person to be behind this would be Officer Andreas. I'm not sure exactly what her motivations are, but from the moment I saw that hologram, I've just had this feeling that she was behind our 'rewards' somehow.”
Davion snorted. “She's only a lieutenant herself, and she barely even does any work, Takanomiya, what could she possibly have done to gain that kind of authority?”
Hijiri simply looked at him for a moment. Davion couldn't meet his gaze.
“I spent a several hours shut in a room with her while I waited on your squad on my first day here, and that was more than enough time for me to notice something weird about her, and you've known her much longer than I have, right? So don't try to tell me you haven't spotted it too.”
The lieutenant groaned. “Okay, fine. She's suspect number one, then. You know what this means, though? We're going to have to actually confront her about it at some point.”
“Oh. Yeah.” It was the Battle Rabbit's turn to groan. “How about we... you know... put that off for as long as possible?”
“And give her more time to continue her scheming? That's almost certainly a terrible idea.”
“But...?” Hijiri insisted.
“... But I don't really look forward to speaking to her at all, much less potentially having to argue with her... so let's just go with your plan.”
***
Several minutes later, leaving the changing area with Leon, after the 'trooper had returned with Davion's nice new gear, they saw Priya and Sarah waiting. The prisoner, also having changed out of the gown, was now dressed in a sleeveless, grey crop top and denim hot pants, both of which did a fine job of showing off her lithe figure. The woman could easily have been attractive, were it not for the strangely blank expression her face almost always held. Also, Hijiri noticed that, as when they had first met, she had for some reason chosen to eschew any sort of footwear.
“Where did those come from?” demanded Davion suspiciously, gesturing to Sarah's clothes. “I thought her outfit was destroyed in that fight?”
“Well, it's not like we keep a stockpile of prison jumpsuits lying around in case our captives decide to strip naked and tear up all their clothes, sir. As hard as it may be to believe, that sort of thing isn't generally all that common. So I gave her some of my things to borrow, sir.”
When Priya began speaking, Sarah very unsubtly looked off to one side. Her demeanour remained as bland as ever, yet she was clearly intent upon avoiding meeting anyone's eyes. Hijiri smirked. He wasn't sure quite what the deal was with her unwillingness (or inability?) to express her emotions properly, yet he couldn't help but find it funny that someone with a Transformation ability which worked like hers should still find nudity embarrassing. He would have assumed it was something you'd get used to after a while.
“Davion frowned and rubbed his forehead, then sighed. “When did this squad become so unprofessional? Since when has it been acceptable military procedure for soldiers to lend prisoners their clothing? Actually, why are you two even still hanging around here? Shouldn't you have taken her to her cell once she was changed?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I was going to, sir, but Iechtelsteir called me to say to wait for the pair of you, then bring you both to the indoor training section. Our reinforcements have arrived, sir.”
“Iechtelsteir? Again? Why is he suddenly running this squad?” the lieutenant demanded, as they all started walking.
Priya shrugged. “Dunno, sir. Doesn't he come from a noble family, though? Maybe he just has more experience bossing people around than the rest of us?”
“Alright, alright, 'why did everyone let him take charge', I meant?”
“Well... I dunno. No one could be bothered complaining, I guess? Oh, except Windvale, who said we shouldn't have to do any work at all until you were back on your feet to force us to, and Leben, who thought we should contact Imperial Command to ask them for instructions. But then he gave Windvale your Dataverse Device and let Leben drink the rest of the rubbing alcohol, sir.”
“He did what!?”
“Didn't you wonder why Leben had fallen back into a coma, even though he'd woken up and was well on his way to recovery when we headed out on that raid?”
“I don't give a shit about that guy's drinking problem... though that does explain why Dodson was dusting medical equipment a couple days ago, rather than actually cleaning it. No, I mean what the hell did Iechtelsteir think he was doing giving away my Dataverse Device!?”
“I guess he thought you didn't have long left to live?”
“He could have at least waited to find out!”
Hijiri laughed, and got a glare in response.
“Oh, look, we're here!” the stormtrooper quickly punched a button which slid open a mechanical door and dashed in, dragging Sarah through after her. Leon hurriedly followed. Apparently, neither was particularly keen on enduring their commander's anger any longer than they absolutely had to.
“After you, sir.” said Hijiri, standing aside and waving the lieutenant through as a butler would, though he didn't drop his smirk as he did it.
Ignoring him, Davion strode in, just in time to hear a chorus of 'yes, sergeant!' from the assembled 'troopers, who were presumably their reinforcements. The man they had been addressing, who stood facing them from in front of their orderly formation, turned as the others entered. Hijiri and Davion immediately noticed that he was wearing a pauldron identical to the one Davion's own stormtrooper armour had been fitted with, prior to his promotion. A pauldron which was used by the stormtroopers as a rank marker; in this case, indicating a sergeant.
“Greetings, sir.” said 'sergeant' Kroll, giving the lieutenant a smart salute. “It's good to see you've recovered enough to get out and about.”
“Iechtelsteir, you bastard! Who the hell said you could take my damn shoulder-pad!?”
“Your... you mean your pauldron, sir?” Kroll inquired.
“Yeah, that thing! And what's this I hear about you giving Windvale my Dataverse Device!? I'll never see it again! He's surely ruined it already!”
“Ruined?” came the voice of Brandon Windvale, from where he sat, cross-legged, over by one of the training room's thick, steel walls, a half dozen metres to their right. The remains of what looked like it might once have been a Dataverse Device were spread out before him, along with various other mechanical parts and hi-tech tools of some sort. He had taken off his helmet in order to get a better view of whatever he was doing, and so his shoulder-length brown hair, slim features, tanned skin and long, pointed, elven ears could be seen clearly. “I didn't ruin anything; I'm just improving it a bit, that's all.”
Brandon had originally been summoned in the Tangled Green, and had been a hunter, primarily, though he had also been meant to serve as an archer to defend the elven city-tree of Yggdrasil in times of need. After discovering the wonders of technology, though, he'd immediately run off to make a living in Coruscant instead. Since he was fit and had decent aim, it wasn't all that hard for him to get recruited into the stormtrooper ranks.
“Is... is that a blaster?” Davion was correct. It seemed that Brandon was in the process of grafting the Device onto someone's blaster.
“Oh yeah! I thought it'd be just totally awesome if we could check our emails, texts and stuff in the middle of a battle, without having to actually go to all the effort of taking our Devices out of our pockets. So I made this...! Unfortunately, it does seem to have the odd minor, tiny little bug in its programming, so I'm just looking around to see if I can get that sorted right now.”
Ignoring for the moment the abject stupidity of welding a phone to a gun, Davion chose instead to focus on the rest of what the technophilic elf had said. “'Little bug'? just what constitutes a 'little' bug in your mind, Windvale?”
“Er... well, the most serious one is probably the glitch that seems to be, ah, causing the blaster to fire on its own every time you get a call...”
Davion stood in silent incredulity for a few seconds, before he gave up on finding a way to express the stupidity of his soldier's invention, turned to Hijiri and said “This is your fault, you know. My squad was normal before you showed up... well, maybe not always so normal in their down time, but disciplined, at least. Windvale only built his idiotic contraptions outside of work hours, Iechtelsteir never stole from dying comrades, Singh didn't play dress-up with our prisoners-”
“Seriously? She had no clothes, what was I supposed to get her to wear? Don't include me in your damn ranting...” Priya interrupted. Davion ignored her.
“-and Leben... well, okay, he may have occasionally drunk rubbing alcohol beforehand, but he was recovering. We even managed to take him out to a pub once without having to drag his comatose carcass back to the 'racks afterwords.”
“Hey, hey, don't just blame me.” Hijiri objected. “Don't forget, Dodson joined you all the same time I did; doesn't this all seem more likely to be his fault?”
“Seriously, Takanomiya, did you actually just insinuate that our behaviour was being influenced by Dodson? Not cool, man. Not cool at all.” Brandon piped up.
“Windvale has it right; no one here has any interest in aping the behaviour of an incompetent cretin like that man. You are solely to blame for this, corporal. You go around out of uniform, not even using a blaster in battle, jumping around like a fucking ballerina and changing into some stupid, fancy outfit in the middle of your fight with the wolf-bitch over there. They've been hanging around you way too long, and now this lot have somehow got it into their thick skulls that they can all just do whatever they want and act like a bunch of special little snowflakes just because you've managed to somehow not get yourself killed yet, and-”
From over in the direction of the perfectly discipled lines of reinforcement stormtroopers, there came the sound of someone clearing their throat, and interrupting Davion in the process.
“Not that any of us would like to avoid listening to your crazed ranting, sir, but we do have a whole mob of impressionable new recruits here, many of whom have never even worked lower than Tier One before... you're not exactly setting the best example, sir.”
“Wait...” the lieutenant was suddenly distracted from his complaints by something Kroll had said, “new recruits? Never worked lower than Tier-freaking-One? What the hell is this!? Is Command trying to kill off as many of our own people as they can possibly manage!? These brats won't last a week down here! The gangs'll tear them to ribbons! Why would those morons even waste our time with all this cannon fodder!?”
“Oh for the love of...” Kroll muttered, facepalming... or... helmet-palming?
Hijiri patted Davion on the shoulder. “Look, lieutenant, you're a great guy to have on our side in a fight, and it's really impressive that you managed to keep so much of your squad alive for as long as you did, despite having to work on Tier Five... but please, whatever you do, don't ever try to make an inspiring speech.”
The Prime nodded towards the newcomers, a few of whom were visibly shaking. Davion followed his gaze, then sighed. “Alright, Iechtelsteir, you wanted us all here, including the two prisoners acting all lovey-dovey over there-”
Sarah, who had been very slightly leaning up against Kevin – who was standing in a corner off to the left of the doorway – suddenly stood bolt upright, as though she had been caught doing something wrong. Kevin continued to smile softly, but also raised one eyebrow questioningly at the lieutenant.
“-so what was that all for, exactly, sergeant?” A moment passed after Davion had finished speaking, as they all waited. He blinked. “Dammit, no! Take that stupid shoulder-pad off this instant, you're not a-”
“I wanted us all to have a chance to introduce ourselves to our new allies, sir, it was as simple as that. I also thought we might as well let them meet our captives as well while we were at it, lieutenant; judging by the fact that Command has for some reason yet to send anyone down to collect them, I can only assume that we are likely to be stuck with them for some time, even if only as the result of some clerical oversight.” Kroll deliberately spoke over the lieutenant, clearly trying to distract him enough that he would forget to force him to remove the pauldron. It seemed to work.
Davion glanced across at Hijiri, suspicion in his gaze. The Battle Rabbit met him with the same expression.
“Andreas?” Hijiri muttered under his breath, so that none but Davion could hear.
“Has to be. 'Clerical oversight' my ass.” Came the equally quiet response.
“Alright, whatever.” The lieutenant continued, at a normal volume this time. “I've shown up, they've met me. I need to think some things over in private... and now that I'm an actual officer, I suppose that means I'm not required to actually spend my every waking moment watching over you lot anyway, so I'll just leave you all to it. Corporal Takanomiya, you're in charge for now.”
“Yes, sir.” Hijiri replied... yet as Davion left, and the door slid closed behind him, he heard the Prime addressing Kroll as 'sergeant'... apparently being just as happy as the rest of his squad to perpetuate the belief that that guy was in charge... for some reason.
Davion allowed himself a brief moment to feel relieved at having been summoned to the Omniverse; back home, if so much as a single stormtrooper under your authority acted out of order, an Imperial Officer could and most likely would be held personally responsible... and that sort of thing usually meant a swift and unpleasant death via telekinetic strangulation, courtesy of Lord Vader.
Thank Omni that that lunatic hadn't been brought here with them... anyone who thought Judge Dredd was strict had no idea how lucky they were...
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)