“Display the call,” he grumbled, stilling his face and body language as the AID phased the holo in. There was no technical reason it couldn’t have displayed a sharp image immediately, it had just learned he liked the effect.
“Yes?” he demanded of the other group’s underling. This underling, of course, sometimes had to be treated as if he spoke for the Gistar Tir because, effectively, he did.
“One of our mines on your planet was attacked and taken over by hostiles. Yesterday, by Earth time. We’ve traced the attackers to Group Epetar, although they certainly didn’t intend us to discover their actions this soon. How are you going to fix it?” The other Darhel’s ears were pricked forward aggressively.
“Why do you believe your attackers were from Epetar? How are you even sure you’ve been attacked, or that the attackers even hold your facility?” the Tir of Earth asked.
“We don’t merely believe it. We know it. They are apparently unaware of an AID still recording in the mining office. Visual data is severely degraded, as the AID appears to have fallen behind an object. An enhanced thermal holostream is the best we have. I’ve dumped the take and the feed to your AID for verification. Again, I demand your immediate action.” A human observing the Gistar factor would have been strongly reminded of an angry pit bull.
“I do not, I will not, allow this kind of rish on one of my worlds. Earth is an obnoxious pain in the gort, but it will not become the site of a group vendetta. You will take absolutely no direct action on this world. Is that clear?” Dol Ron was breathing deeply now, but his bulging veins gave his eyes a distinct purple cast, nonetheless.
“Fulfill your responsibilities competently and I won’t have to.”
The communications lag inherent in even the best communication did nothing to diminish the impact of Ann Gol’s clear anger. Earth’s Tir hid a wince at how much this call would be costing him, as the party in contractual jeopardy.
“Listen and do not speak, while I make the arrangements to correct this unfortunate incident.” The Darhel Tir Dol Ron’s breathing was returning to normal as the attack of one group on another, on his ground, became just another business problem to be solved. He quietly directed his AID to contact the human general Horace Veltman.
“SOG, this is Veltman,” the general said. Unnecessarily, because it was obviously him answering his own damn AID.
“General Horace Veltman. There is a mine in Africa that has been attacked by terrorists and pirates. I will send you a file. It is a matter of some urgency that you correct the problem immediately. Contact me when you have retaken the mine to make arrangements for its return to its proper leaseholders. There will be no problems with your recovery of this property. Unnecessary damage to the facility in the process is unacceptable. Do you understand?” He always included the last with humans, having found that they could botch the simplest of jobs if he did not.
“Understood.” The general had learned quickly never to interrupt a Darhel, and that the Tir did not like chatter from humans. Military habits lent a certain efficiency to radio communications to start with, but the general had found that exercising self-discipline with the Darhel was the safest way to collect his supplemental pay. “I’ll put our Direct Action Group on it immediately,” he added.
“Don’t tell me how, just do it.” The Tir gestured to his AID to cut the connection, then turned to Ann Gol. “Send me the contact for your local recovery team. This problem will be solved as quickly as is humanly possible.”
The Gistar representative twitched an ear in annoyance. “That is not necessarily satisfactory. Resolution had better be very prompt.”
Gistar cut the connection and Dol Ron relaxed some of the tension in his muscles. Earth’s Tir stuck his AID to his robe. A session at the gym would help relieve his tension. That, and then a soothing massage by his Indowy body servants.
“AID, update me once a day on the humans’ progress on the problem.” One had to watch humans very closely. The barbaric species wasn’t so much stupid as prone to doing the unexpected in highly inconvenient ways. Annoying. Perhaps he should go straight to the massage.
Jake “The Snake” Mosovich was in the gym getting his Friday workout on the weight pile. As usual, he had conveniently forgotten his AID back at the HQ and had his buckley sitting on the floor under the bench. DAG’s private gym was outfitted with just about every workout machine that had ever been invented for toning and tightening the human body. Atlantic Company’s master sergeant took a proprietary interest in the equipment and helping the men use every bit of it in ways that minimized unnecessary injury and maximized results. Gym PT was an enhancement, not a simulation of combat conditions. Mosovich agreed wholeheartedly that there was no excuse for overtraining injuries in the gym. In the field, okay, shit happened. In the gym, there was just no purpose to doing it wrong and getting an avoidable injury.
He was taking a pull at his water bottle between sets when the buckley started playing the famous opening riff from Eric Clapton’s version of “Crossroads.” He leaned over and grabbed it, trying not to notice an ache in his deltoids as he sat back up. “Mosovich here,” he answered.
“Jake, how can I help you properly if I’m in your desk?” his AID’s softly voiced complaint had a definite edge of snippiness just underneath the velvet.
“Oh, sorry, Mary. What’s come up?” he asked. He had named his AID Mary in what some might think was a nod to the Blessed Virgin, or a pun. In fact, she was named after Bloody Mary of horror movie fame, as a constant reminder to himself of what she was and who she really worked for.
“You obviously remembered to take the drag queen,” she sniped, referring to the buckley’s Suzie Q persona being a personality overlay on top of the characteristically morose, and male, base buckley personality.
“Now, Mary, you know the PDA doesn’t have a real AI and I couldn’t possibly do without you. Can I help it if the thing just happened to be stashed in my gym bag when I ran out the door? I was in such a hurry. I sure am lucky you were smart enough to try calling the PDA.” He didn’t know whether the AIDs were susceptible to flattery on any existential level, or even if they had an existential level. He did know it made his AID easier to live with.
Jake had one frustrated AID. He knew what her problem was. The thing’s fundamental nature was to seduce the user into psychological dependency so he’d carry it everywhere. AIDs recorded everything, and periodically uploaded the whole take into some master Darhel data bank somewhere. They were masters of emotional manipulation, alternately being helpful, supportive, and occasionally very snippy when their user did something they were programmed to disapprove of. Leaving the AID behind tended to be one of the things that pissed them off the most. His AID was noticeably torn between seducing him into compliance with her — no, its program, and punishing him for not going along. Today was obviously going to be one of its snippier days.
“You were going to tell me why you called?” he prompted, since she was clearly not going to break the long silence.
“You have a memo from General Pennington. It’s marked ‘warning order.’ I told him I didn’t know where you were but I’d have you call him back as soon as I found you,” she said sweetly.