"I never said they were, ma'am," the station manager replied, taken somewhat aback. "I,"
Just what kind of station are you running where a CS craft can be subject to this kind of security breach?" she continued wrathfully, running right over the top of him, now that she had the upper hand and some verbal momentum. "I'm reporting this to the Central Worlds Sector Coordinator on my own comlink."
"You don't need to do that ma-"
"And furthermore, I am standing off-station until you can give me a high-security slip!" she continued, really getting warmed up and ready to demand all the considerations due a PTA. "My poor brawn is black and blue from head to toe from the knocking around he took and lucky it wasn't worse! I want you to question these people,"
"We're taking care of that, ma-"
"And I want to know everything you learn from them before I dock again!" she finished, with a blast of feedback that punctuated her words and made him swear under his breath as the squeal pierced his ears. "Until then, I am going to sit out here and clog your approach lanes, and I don't particularly care whether or not you like it!"
And with that, she put him on 'record' and let him splutter into a datahedron while she turned her attention to Alex.
He had a wad of tissues at his face, trying to staunch the blood from nose and lip, and his eyes above the tissues were starting to puff and turn dark. He was going to look like a raccoon before too long, with a double set of black eyes.
Obviously the first thing that had impacted with the couch was his face.
"Alex?" she said timidly. "Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean, there wasn't time,"
"Ith awright," he replied thickly. "You did okay. Din hab mush shoice. Hanneled ev'thing great, hanneled him great. You arn gon moof for wile?"
She correctly interpreted that as praise for her handling of the situation and a query as to whether or not she planned on moving.
"No, I don't plan on it," she replied, dryly. "But I hadn’t planned on any of this in the first place."
He simply grunted, pried himself up painfully out of the acceleration couch and headed for their tiny sickbay to patch himself up.
She sent in a servo, discreetly, to clean up the blood in the sickbay and a second to take care of the mess in the main cabin, thanking her lucky stars that it hadn't been worse. If Alex had been standing when she pulled that spin and acceleration instead of heading in the direction of the couch. She didn't want to think about it. Instead, she ordered the kitchen to make iced gel-packs. Lots of them. And something soft for dinner.
They left as soon as the CS contingent arrived and spent a little time debriefing them. The CS folk showed up in a much fuller force than even Tia had expected. Not only Central Systems Medical and Administrative personnel, but a CenSec Military brainship, the CP-One-Oh-Four-One. Bristling with weaponry.
And with the latest and greatest version of the Singularity Drive, no doubt, she thought, a little bitterly. Heaven only knows what their version can do. Bring its own Singularity point with it, maybe.
Whatever the administrators of Presley Station had thought they were going to get away with, they were soon dissuaded. The first person off the CenSec ship was a Sector Vice-Admiral; right behind him was an armed escort. He proclaimed the station to be under martial law, marched straight into the station manager's office, and within moments had the entire station swiftly and efficiently secured.
Tia had never been so happy to see anyone in her life. Within the hour all the witnesses and guilty parties had been taken into military custody, and Tia confidently expected someone to call them and take their depositions at any time.
Alex still looked like someone had been interrogating him with rubber hoses, so when the brainship hailed them, she took the call, and let him continue nursing his aching head and bruises.
The ship-number was awfully close to hers, although the military might not use standard CS brainship nomenclature. Still... One-Oh-Four-One. That's close enough for the brain to have been in my class.
"That is you, isn't it?" were the first words over the comlink. The 'voice', along with the sharp overtones and aggressive punch behind them, was very familiar.
"Pol?" she replied, wondering wildly what the odds were on this little meeting.
"In the shell and ready to kick some tail!" Pol responded cheerfully. "How the heck are you? Heard you had some trouble out here, and the Higher Ups said 'go', so we came a-running."
"Trouble, you could say so." She sent him over her records of the short, but hair-raising, at least by her standards, flight, in a quick burst. He scanned them just as quickly, and sent a wordless blip of color and sound conveying mingled admiration and surprise. If he had been a softie, he would have whistled.