Captain Drake was surprised when "The Commander" didn't show up at the drop-off. Instead, it was one of the few long-time vets of the squad, Dax, if he remembered correctly, who formally bowed upon realizing he was waiting as they exited the ship. "Captain Drake, the 'Hell Hounds' are reporting with our quarry as ordered."

Drake appraised the man with an upraised eyebrow. He was every inch the professional. Years of working with the squad had turned him into an effective and dangerous soldier who could command top rates wherever he went after this, though probably not as well as Drake was already paying them. After all, sometimes it paid to invest in quality instead of quantity, although Drake was in the unique position of not having to choose between the two.

Nodding to the man, Drake finally addressed him. "Well done. Your quarry is still in one piece, I presume?"

Dax nodded as Drake could see something being wheeled off the ship behind him. "For the most part, yes, though we had to sedate then restrain her."

As the cargo was wheeled over, Drake could see it was his long-lost daughter, Lucy. However, the joyous reunion was somewhat dampened by the fact that she was gagged and bound to a metal hand truck someone might use for moving furniture. He frowned slightly. "Now then. Is all this really necessary?"

Dax's professional demeanor slipped for just a moment, but it quickly fell back in place as he answered. "She and her... accomplices were responsible for almost every member of our squad being severely injured or killed. She was directly responsible for the death of our Commander. We felt it was in her best interests, as well as our own, to make sure she could not force us to choose between finishing the job as requested and our lives."

That news surprised Drake. The Commander was dead? Lucy had managed to nearly take out the entire squad? He knew the station had said something about giant space bugs, but perhaps there had been more to that report than the frantic ramblings he'd suspected. Either way, this debriefing was promising to be interesting. Though, looking at the stiff way Dax was favoring his ribs, if he was the one making the report, the rest of the squad was probably in shambles. If he wanted to keep them loyal, it was time to offer them the only respect a proper mercenary group expected. "Of course, I'll cover any medical expenses and funeral arrangements, and as an addition, due to the unexpected...complications, I'll double...no, triple your pay for the job. After all, despite the challenges, you still succeeded. I will expect a full debrief, but only after you've seen to your more... immediate needs."

That seemed to perk the man up. Unsurprising, considering that one bonus would go a long way toward covering a future retirement for everyone involved, Drake knew a reputation for rewarding the efforts of people who went above and beyond paid dividends down the line.

As the Hell Hounds turned to leave Drake with his daughter, Dax turned around one last time. "Oh, and sir? You might want to wait until you've got plenty of backup to release the subject. I caught her eyeing a styrofoam plate as though she was trying to figure out a way to weaponize it."

That made Drake laugh as he reached up and undid the gag around his daughter's mouth. "Well, it sounds like you've learned a thing or two since you left the family business! I can't wait to hear all about it!"

Lucy worked her mouth a little to loosen it up before responding. She looked at him with those large, innocent eyes he'd always had such a hard time saying no to as she asked in a very innocent tone. "Dad, can I ask you to do something for me?"

Captain Drake smiled generously as he answered. "Of course, pumpkin! Ask, and the world is yours! Or worlds if you prefer. I more or less own a few by now!"

Lucy looked down at him from her raised position of being tied to the hand truck. Her innocent smile faded and her expression grew hostile. "Can you go to Hell and just leave me and my family alone?"

Drake laughed heartily at that. "Now that's my girl! How I've missed you!"

-

The She that had been chosen to represent the collective when speaking to Scott and Alice all dedicated a considerable portion of their resources into building appendages to Charlotte's specifications and learning the vibration language to the best of their ability. Given that their situation was considerably more stable than Charlotte's when she learned and the fact that they benefited from her insights, it didn't take long for each of them to produce a functional appendage, ready for speech.

That was how Charlotte came to be acting as an intermediary between Scott and a half dozen She. When Scott walked in, Charlotte noticed some hesitancy, reminiscent of how he'd acted around her in the early days of their interactions. Obviously, he did not trust the other She like he trusted Charlotte, but She supposed that was only fair given his inability to connect directly to them as She could. However, he quickly overcame his doubts and joined them at the table Charlotte had designed for this meeting.

The table was large enough to give Scott some space from the other She but small enough to enable efficient vibration communication. His was the only "chair" at the table, with the rest of the She standing at various appointed spots around the circumference. Charlotte stood directly to Scott's left and left extra space on his right to avoid making him feel too pinned in. On the other side of the gap stood the She, who Charlotte felt would be most amicable, with the more antagonistic She's positioned more toward the outer edge.

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Scott took his seat and nodded in the direction of the other She. "Uh, hi."

Immediately, all six started speaking, and Charlotte held up her hands while sending a projection to each of them to pause their speech before speaking aloud for Scott's benefit. "Due to limitations in human processing power, you will speak one at a time. The one who raises a question will be allowed to continue speaking with Scott until your concerns have been addressed or no further clarity can be reached, then, you will be silent while another She speaks. Additionally, an attempt shall be made for all communication will be done verbally, aside from selecting who shall speak. That way, Scott will be able to contribute to the conversation properly."

A series of mental assents were relayed, and then the She chose amongst themselves who would speak first. Seeing as she had a concern relevant to the immediate situation, the antagonistic She spoke first. "So inefficient. You can only speak with one of us at a time, yet expect us to believe you humans are our equals? Ridiculous! You are smart beasts, I'll grant you that, but beasts all the same!"

Scott was silent a moment before responding. The delay was likely noticed and taken into account by those waiting, but Charlotte was less concerned with such a slight delay and preferred that he take his time to consider how best to answer. After the moment passed, he addressed the She who'd spoken. "So I am to gather that your question is, if I, or rather humans, are so limited that we can only speak to one of you at a time, how can we be considered sentient?"

The She grumbled in response. "Yes, though the limitations of your primitive manner of communication prevent me from properly expressing the gap in our capabilities, I suppose you've managed to grasp the essentials of what I am asking."

Scott stopped again and took a breath to steady his emotions before responding. "Well, one-on-one, a human may not possess the scope of ability or even intelligence of one like yourself. However, let me ask you a related question in return. Why have you decided to disregard the use of tools as a people? Many humans would look at a society of individuals like yourself, who never even learned how to make even the simplest of tools and think that you must be nothing but a bunch of oversized primitive bugs."

Charlotte could feel the annoyance of the She being questioned in return but knew they would not lash out at this time. Or at least not physically. "How dare you compare something as barbaric as 'tool use' with the perfection of the She! You clearly do not comprehend the vast difference in our capabilities!"

Scott sighed and shook his head. "You say that, but I'm not certain you've fully grasped how effective and efficient tool use really is. The amount of time and energy you dedicate toward growing specialized limbs is wasteful compared to picking up a simple tool for the job at hand."

Charlotte could tell the other She was about to respond but interjected. "We can arrange for a display of the capability of human tools later if all parties are amicable. However, until that display can be arranged, I believe further discussion along these lines will serve no further purpose. Shall we agree to pause the debate on evolution and tools until then?"

A series of assents were followed by nodding heads, as Charlotte directed, but She noticed the She in question did not nod. However, given that the rest of the She present all seemed united in agreement, the antagonistic She allowed the subject to be dropped.

This time, the She closest to Scott's right hand was chosen to speak next. "You mentioned that one-on-one, humans are not necessarily our equal in intellect or ability, but that could imply that as a collective, you are. Could you please clarify?"

This time, Scott barely hesitated, and he actually smiled a little. "Yes, and I did mean just that. From what I gather, each of you is built to contain all the knowledge you are capable of using, correct? For example, I believe you cannot construct or fully utilize an appendage if you do not fully understand all the principles that went into its construction. Is that correct?"

The She in question nodded. "That is correct. Am I to assume that you are implying you can use these 'tools' your people use without such an understanding?"

Scott nodded. "That is absolutely what I'm implying...or, I guess, stating. The breadth of human knowledge far exceeds the capacity of any individual, or even a hundred or a thousand individuals, to understand. Yet, we use that knowledge to create tools rivaling even your most advanced appendages and structures." He held up a hand in the direction of the She who'd spoken first. "I know we haven't proven the capabilities of human tools to your satisfaction yet, but we can at least agree humans achieved space flight and faster-than-light travel, correct?"

The antagonistic She didn't seem appeased by that statement. "We achieved space flight tens of thousands of years ago, while our species was still very much in its infancy. Just because you've managed to scrape together something similar does not make it equal to what we are capable of now! And besides, how can you possibly exchange ideas between a thousand humans? You must spend your entire life looking for people to speak to!"

Charlotte sent a silent reprimand for speaking out of turn, though muted it somewhat as Scott had addressed her, while the more friendly She nodded. "While that's not how I would have said it, that is a similar question to what I was going to ask. How is it possible for so many humans to work together to get anything done? It seems like it would be incredibly inefficient to constantly speak to one another about whatever tool you are working on or with."

Scott turned his attention back to the more amicable She. "For much of human history, that was a limiting factor, but then we developed the ability for anyone to communicate their knowledge en mass through the use of symbols to represent the words we speak. Originally, we had to transcribe those symbols by hand, so it would take a long time for one person to convey their ideas, and it was a specialized job to do so. However, as we realized the potential of mass communication, we developed more and more efficient ways to distribute that knowledge. Eventually, we developed a way that as soon as someone typed out the symbols, anyone who wanted could access them. I could post something right now, and millions, if not billions, of people could read it and learn what I wanted to say." He held up a data slate. "Eventually, we even bypassed the need to write symbols by transferring the actual words directly, like so!"

He then flipped around the data slate, where a smaller image of him repeated the words, "Eventually, we even bypassed the need to write symbols by transferring the actual words directly, like so!"

The She he'd handed the slate to scrutinized it, turning it over as if trying to understand what she was seeing. Meanwhile, the antagonistic She spoke up again. "I thought we were holding off the display of human tools until later?"

Charlotte was about to interject when Scott beat her to what humans called the proverbial punch. "Oh, you haven't seen anything yet!"