Robin was completely drained when he arrived back on the Hubble together with a sickly looking Alena.

“You still look like a mess!” He said, “Having such severe side effects after activating your skill for only four minutes, that’s crazy.”

“It’s worth the boost.” She said with a shrug, “Also, I’m already back in shape, just a bit exhausted. I’ll leave first and hit the bed.”

“Fine, thanks for your work today. I appreciate the risk you were willing to take for Ang’Tue - going directly against the UAS and stuff…”

“He reminds me of my old man. Always wanting the best for everyone.” Alena said and one of the rare smiles crept onto her face.

“You mean these grandpa-vibes? I know exactly what you mean!” He chuckled and made his way to the hangar. He would only have that long before Trevil and his men wake up and storm over here to make a scene. It would be best if the drone was stripped of its weapons by then.

“Captain!” Alena called over her shoulder, “That was a good fight today!”.

“Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?” Robin exclaimed but then let go of a sigh, “Even though, it proved once more that I’m no frontline fighter. I wouldn’t have been able to win on my own.”

“If you had gone for the kill, the fight would have ended earlier and without the need for support.” Alena laughed and left.

“Probably… but is that what I am striving for? Being able to kill people before they kill me?” Robin muttered while walking to the hanger. It may be a necessity if you want to survive out in the universe, but there was also a chance that he was approaching all this too naive, which in turn led them to face one critical situation after another. So maybe it wasn’t about killing to survive but about being a better captain or adventurer to avoid such situations in the first place.

He thought about that until he had dismantled the stun-guns from the drone, reassembled them to normal stun-rifles and fell into his bed.

Even when his eyes got heavy and dreams were reaching out for him, he couldn’t find an answer to this question.

***

Early next morning, just as he had expected, Landom woke him up because the team from the Discovery was knocking at their door.

“I only exchanged a few words with them, but they do look really angry!” The man explained while Robin got dressed.

“Of course they are pissed, they lost their prized alien. I bet Trevil is fuming!” He laughed.

“Trevil isn’t with them…”

“What? Why wouldn’t he come?” Robin wondered while following Landom to the elevator, “Maybe he went to Dreamer’s Hope to contact the UAS? Alena said something about their ship looking like someone broke their comm system’s external relay.”

“I don’t know, they were mostly shouting every which way. Didn’t get much out of them.”

When the elevator dropped Robin and Landom on the forest ground outside, Mereus was just beginning to crawl on the horizon. The four men he had seen the day before all began to yell at the same time when they saw him.

“Good morning together!” Robin said, suppressing a yawn, “I thought you would be on your way back to Gaunus already. Thank you for protecting me and my crew till now. We are mostly back in shape by now.”

He stopped and looked at Landom, “We are, right? How is Keran doing?”

“Keran woke up a few hours ago. He ate what the doc had prescribed and quickly fell asleep. He is fine.”

“Good to hear.” Robin said with relief and turned back to the four scouts, “So, how can we help you?”

The men had already fallen silent and one took a step forward.

“We are waiting for the UAS to send another team!” He said with gnashing teeth, “Was this your doing?”

Robin saw how angry they were and how much they had to fight to not explode on the spot. Something felt off.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. How is Ang’Tue doing and where is Trevil?” He asked warily.

“He is dead, didn’t survive the attack!” One of the others yelled angrily.

“What? You killed the Eltaran? Are you crazy? That is too much even for Ramones. What the fuck…?” Robin exclaimed in shock. How did they find the old man and why would they kill him? Fuck, that was-...

“Rain Trevil is dead, the Eltaran is gone. Fled during the attack.”

“Trevil? Dead? When? How?” Robin’s head began to spin and next to him he could feel Landom also tensing up.

“We were attacked tonight. A combat drone infiltrated our ship, knocked everyone out with a stun weapon and freed the prisoner. You have a combat drone with you, right?” The first dude replied, accusation in his voice.

Robin couldn’t make heads and tails out of this, Trevil dead? How?

“Yeah we have a combat drone - well it’s more like a scout as it has no weapons. What’s with Trevil?”

“Choked! Suffocated on his own damn bile! You damn fuckers, I know you ki-” The other man shouted once more but was held back by one of his friends. Robin now identified him as the drone-specialist he fought that night. However, the shocking news of Trevil’s death kept most of his attention. How could that happen?

“That… I’m sorry to hear.” Robin said in a low voice.

“Can we see your drone?”

“Yeah, sure, please come in.”

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***

“That’s it! That’s the one!” The drone-guy yelled when he saw the UAV and one of the others also nodded in agreement.

“How could you attack your own people? For some fucking alien you killed one of us? That will have consequences! I’ll make sure you all will get fucked by the UAS court!” He continued. Robin shook his head, trying not to think about Trevil for the moment. He needed to clear their vests first.

“Mate, I already told you - I’m sorry for your loss. While we told you that this is a rowdy neighborhood here, I didn’t expect… that. However, we have nothing to do with the attack or whatever. This drone,” He said and pointed at the black combat UAV, “That’s a BWT drone. I dunno if any of you knows a bit about that tech, but that is not something you can use to infiltrate an enemy’s base or ship. You don’t have more than 10 commands you can safely use and the project was shut down by the UAS exactly because of that. That is nothing more than a really expensive scout. No chance to let it do operations without someone standing next to it.”

That made the Discovery’s crew quickly shut up. They came from Gaunus and even if they didn’t know all the projects that were worked on, this one they heard about. Remoore once even made tests with the BWT module while it was still in a demo-UAV.

Not having anything tangible at hand, they soon left back to their ship and it didn’t take long before Robin also got a message from the UAS. They were ordered to stay on Seavis until another team checked the situation and cleared them.

He scheduled a meeting with the whole crew for an hour later and went to the conference room alone. After he closed the door, Robin slumped on the first chair he found.

“Fuck… FUCK!” He shouted, burying his face in his hands.

“Damnit! How could that happen? ROMAS, did you notice something? Is it really possible that Trevil died due to choking on his own bile?”

* Rain Trevil’s cause of death is a broken neck

“Ha, see!” Robin exclaimed, “Wait, what? How do you know?”

* Ang’Tue killed him after the drone knocked him unconscious

“No way… How… Why?”

* Reason unknown

* He seemed unstable

* He claimed it to be an accident

* Chance he was lying: 43%

“He was unstable? What the hell did they do to him?” Robin muttered after calming down a bit, “An accident he said…”

Leaning back, he took a few deep breaths. 43% chance he was lying, 57% chance that it really was an accident, no great probabilities - especially if one considered that ROMAS’s calculations were based on a few simple books, all about human body language, and more in the field of pseudoscience than proper scientific concepts.

“I need to talk with him…”

* Incoming call from Hutton

* Open channel?

“Put her on the screen.” Robin said and straightened his back.

“Mr. Tulward, good to see you!” The woman in the yellow coat waved at him when she appeared on the video wall.

“Mrs. Hutton! How are you doing?”

“Well, there always was too much work to do, but with you discovering new alien relic sites left and right it only got worse!”

“Sorry to hear. Any news from the UAS about the Eltaran?”

“Is it even relevant now? I heard he was freed… we lost people tonight. There are many that want to use this as an excuse to push their own agendas.”

“I heard about that, just met Trevil’s team.” Robin said, “Are there any theories already?”

“To be honest, the most prominent ones are all about your crew. Did you have your fingers in this, Tulward?” She asked with tension in her voice. She feared the answer Robin realized.

“Me and my crew have nothing to do with Trevil’s death, I can promise that. Also, we already explained to the scouts that you can hardly use a BWT drone for such an operation.”

“Prof. Aurelius was already questioned about that and confirmed your claims. However, this is alien-relationships and -politics and way above my paygrade. I have to forward our call to someone from the main HQ.” Hutton explained while she nervously fiddled with her hands.

“Okay, let’s have a talk at a later time.” Robin nodded as he understood that she was reaching her limit and had to make sure to not overstep the boundaries and burn her fingers. She had already done enough for him.

Five minutes later the middle-aged woman on the screen was replaced by a stern looking man with broad shoulders, a cleanly shaved beard and short, black hair. He wore a military uniform and was just done introducing himself as Thomas M. Eston.

“So, you say you didn’t kill Ramones’ dog and freed the Eltaran?” He said with a friendly smile but Robin could feel the beast hidden under the human skin.

‘That man is dangerous!’ He instantly realized. It was as if his body just knew that this was an undeniable truth, despite only seeing the UAS official on a video-feed.

‘Meeting him in person must be quite the experience!’

“I can guarantee that neither I nor someone from my crew has killed Rain Trevil.” Robin said with a firm voice.

“Good to hear. An asshole he may have been, but he was one of us nonetheless. You’ll have to stay put for a few days until the general investigation clears you, but can leave afterwards.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You didn’t say anything about your involvement in freeing the Eltaran.”

“I didn’t know he needed to be freed, Sir. As far as I knew Ang’Tue was invited as an honored guest.”

“Yeah, sure.” Eston grunted and made a dismissive hand gesture, “I have a proposal, Tulward - under the assumption that you really aren’t directly responsible for the death of a UAS member. I’ll eat any bullshit story you feed me about how this Ang’Tue got away. The one that only you knew where he was and the one you arranged to stay on Seavis for 12 hours because of your need for protection… In return you make sure to secure us a meeting with the council of the Eltaran.”

Robin listened attentively and immediately understood that he would not be able to talk his way out of this.

“Sir, how should I be able to negotiate such a meeting without knowing where the Eltaran fled to?” He asked in an attempt to play down his connection to Ang’Tue. Alas, he failed spectacularly.

“I don’t care, ask the tooth fairy, Elvis or the Terminator, whatever you like. Just make sure to get them to the table.”

“...the Terminator?” Robin repeated stupefied.

“It’s an old, historic movie… forget it! Just get us the meeting.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Robin agreed, “No promises with the council though. The proposal was a meeting with some of the leaders, not the whole council.”

“Yeah, that was before one of ours was killed.” Eston growled but then his face relaxed a bit, “Just see to it that you get a good deal for us.”

“Yes, Sir.” Robin said and gave an earnest nod.

“Ah, right. Mr. Eston, please make sure that no one is making fuss about the failed surveillance within the Hubble. My crew likes its privacy.”

“Noted.”

With that the image winked out and the connection closed.

“Puhh…” Robin let out a long breath and slumped back in his seat. That was short but taxing.

So the UAS would let him do as he liked and even close one eye in the direction of Ang’Tue. Not only about his magical getaway but Eston would even cover his back if he decided to let the Eltaran stay on his ship.

“Of course, they would love to have someone to build a deeper connection with them…” He pondered, “But everything else aside, it seems like the UAS is really giving me leeway in most of my actions. At least some factions… If they now manage to put Ramones on a short leash, I’m positive that this can work out.”

He massaged his head and sorted his thoughts.

“Why would you kill a defenseless, unconscious man that had already lost the fight? Who are you really? The nice next-door-grandpa or a vicious demon?”