The white coated man broke the silence first, "Hello Captain Navarro." He considered Navarro, "You are the captain right?"
"That I am. Nice to meet you face to face Technical Loire." He said, recognizing the voice of the station's leader, "Your welcome is a bit too formal for my taste though." He said, nodding toward the twenty men with a bead on him.
"Please forgive me sir, it has just been so long since we made contact with the homeworld that we can't be reasonably sure of your intentions." Technical Loire said with sincerity, "Your men may accompany you and you will be allowed to keep your firearms, but just be warned that we will not hesitate to toss you out an airlock should any trouble be caused by you or your crew. Now please follow me, we'll talk in more comfortable quarters."
Captain Navarro nodded and complied, falling into step behind the Technical. He took the time to become better acquainted with his surroundings, many narrow catwalks crisscrossed throughout the structure. The station itself was cigar-shaped and built to be orientated vertically. Maybe three men could stand shoulder to shoulder at a time on the catwalks he could see.
There wasn't too many people around either, a few more men and women in the same uniforms as the soldiers or security walked dutifully toward unknown destinations, a smaller number of them were dressed in what appeared to be civilian outfits, yet occasionally one would order a guard authoritatively.
The weapons the guards used were also of an unknown design, though they were reminiscent of the lightning guns that engineers would handle in the close confines of a starship, but much smaller.
They finally arrived in a sterile looking silver-white room with a few chairs and a long table. Technical Loire motioned for Captain Navarro to take a seat, his five security guards filed in behind him and stood at attention against the wall. The Technical's men did the same the opposite of them.
"So captain, I'm sure you have questions for me. Ask away." He said with a smile that had no warmth
"What exactly is the Umbran Technocracy? A pirate operation with delusions of grandeur?"
Loire laughed "No no! Three full worlds make up our nation. This station is merely a listening post to monitor the actions of the new Imperial Government."
"Three worlds in this system?" Navarro balked, "How?"
Loire seemed pleased at his guest's incredulity, he was definitely enjoying this big reveal, "With whatever we could. The United Nations sent out this expedition a long time ago, our terraforming equipment malfunctioned and we were lost beneath the thick atmosphere of Umbra. It would be decades before we regained the ability to communicate with anything above the clouds."
Captain Navarro folded his arms and did his best to process this information quickly,
a lost colony, he thought.
"Now captain, if you could please answer a question for me?" Loire began, "Just what exactly is your infant empire hoping to gain from us?"
Navarro wasn't at all sure of what the Empress was hoping to accomplish here...or if this assignment was even from the Empress; for all he knew it was from the Cid.
He chose to remain silent.
"Ah, you really can't say. I understand, national security and all that." Loire got up and pushed his chair back in, "Well regardless of the reasons, we really can't trust you to go back to your employers with the location of the Technocracy." Navarro's blood ran cold, "I'm sorry captain but your men will be needing to relinquish their weaponry now."
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