A few of the Sangheili looked up from their past-times as they saw Zharn and Grymar'ee approaching, but most didn't even bother. One man lazily put aside his drink and ambled towards them casually, weapon held carelessly at his side. [i]We could probably fight our way in if needs be,[/i] Zharn mused, disgusted with the complete lack of professionalism amongst the men, even if they were just mercenaries. The merc heading towards them held out a hand. "What do you want?" he asked interrogatively, slanted eyes staring up at them suspiciously. His voiced reeked of the lower caste. Zharn cleared his throat and opened his throat to speak, but was interrupted before he had the chance. "Is that any kind of way to speak to your superiors?" Grymar'ee barked at them sharply, so much command in his voice that even Zharn nearly leapt to attention. "I don't care if you're a fleetmaster or a scum-of-this-galaxy merc, when a superior officer approaches you stand ready regardless of position! You think we're paying you to drink and gamble?" All of the men loosely assembled outside the entrance fell into order, hastily thrown salutes hailing them and backs straight as an arrow. Their 'speaker' coughed into his fist. "Sorry, sir," he muttered, abashed. "We are not accustom to jobs being run in a military fashion, my boys were just--" Grymar'ee stalked forward and loomed over the smaller merc leader with his considerable stature, mandibles opening with menace. "They are most certainly not your 'boys' when they are on our payroll, commander!" the Imperial Admiral shouted down at the man. Zharn looked around with paranoia, worried Grymar'ee was going to attract attention to them. Contrary to this however, most other guards in the locale had slyly shuffled away, not wanting to cross whoever was giving these poor fellows a bollocking. "Understood, sir. Forgive me," the merc leader pleaded, eyes now downcast. Grymar'ee growled for a few moments, before pushing the man back into his comrades. "You are fortunate I have a meeting, or I would not think twice about lashing you for your insubordination," he leered at them, sighing with disappointment. "I will have to mention this to the Ossoona, of course." Fear suddenly gripped the ranks, and they all looked towards their leader for help, who seemed to resent his position as he subserviently raised a weak protest. "I swear on the rings this won't happen again, sir. There's no need to bother the Ossoona with a matter as trivial as this." Grymar'ee seemed as though he were about to erupt in anger again, and the leader drew back fearfully. Finally consideration passed his eyes, and he nodded aggressively, grabbing the merc leader by the base of his chin. "Make sure it doesn't," the Imperial Admiral breathed, his words carrying with them the promise of death. He let the man go and moved towards the door; he didn't even have to ask for one of the guards to open it. Grymar'ee turned to Zharn. "Come!" Zharn sneered derisively at the mercenaries as he walked past, and didn't have to fake much of it. He loathed their kind; no honour, no morals, coin was their conscience. "Impressive," he murmured to Grymar'ee as they both entered the inside of the building and the doors closed behind them. A narrow hallway stretched out before them, a few metal panels all that kept the ugly rock of the San 'Shyuum from being stepped upon. "If there's one thing an Imperial Admiral must possess, it is a voice which could make even the hierarchs reconsider a decision," Grymar'ee explained, demeanour meek again as he saw Zharn's weapon back in sight and pressed into the small of his back. "Well you may shout down at me as much as you please, it will not stop me discharging a round into you if you make even the slightest--" "Yes, I understand the arrangement we have, Thierr'ee... if there is one good thing about these Janjur Qom ruins, they are easy to navigate; San 'Shyuum architects were hardly the most complex of artisans. We will find Pel easy enough, and then you can get us both killed." "Just get walking, Grymar'ee. I intend to survive this encounter and if you play your cards right, so will you." * "Report," Pel ordered, his voice strained from the shouting of orders for some hours now. He was usually the sort to take a hands-off approach to leadership and trust in his men to carry out his will, but not in this case. His very neck was on the line, with Truth holding a blade above it. "We found no body other than what was left of the Unggoy, sir. But it's a deep lake, maybe--" "No," Pel interrupted wearily, raising a shaking hand to stop the hologram of his tacticians officer mid-sentence. He could faintly hear the gentle lapping of the lake behind the man, and saw a pillar of ebbing smoke rising in the distance. "If you haven't found a body by now then they escaped. I did not anticipate that the Unggoy would find a way to subvert the transmitter, the blame is on me." The officer seemed relieved to hear it, but quickly masked the sigh that was about to release from his mouth for fear it would be the last he made. He saluted sharply. "It's probable the asset told the target of the hostage we have," the Sangheili nervously continued, as though he were afraid Pel could kill him from where he sat in the Temple of the Rings. "He could be on the way." "Sorran and Ahkrin's biological prints have been weaved into our sensors," Pel affirmed to the officer, manipulating the view of the holodrone at the scene of the lake and taking a closer look at its misty waters. "If they come here, we'll know." The faintest rivets of dawn were beginning to break the horizon of High Charity; he'd petitioned for the station's axis to be shifted so they'd have a few more hours of night to work with, but the hierarchs had refused on the basis that it would push the suspicions of the people too far. A day operation it would be, then. "Affirmative," the officer understood. "We'll continue our search for their hiding place in the meantime." "I doubt you'll have much success," Pel disagreed. "Descol'ee has more criminal contacts than almost anyone on this station. If we want to find them, it'd take a large-scale deployment of the army to conduct simultaneous raids on every syndicate on High Charity; out of the question, of course. We wait for them to show themselves." "And if they don't?" the officer asked. Pel looked coldly at the man, shutting the hologram system down. He stalked over to his command-table and stared down at the masses of information piled on it through dark hoods. If they didn't come to him, then they wouldn't be the only ones trying to flee the station.