"Alright, how about we start with something easy. I am Commander Keres Max, of the Terminus Trading Company. What is your name?" Max asked.
"I am uhh, um, James. My name is James." The pudgy young man replied.
"Do your people not use family or guild names, James?"
The man started visibly sweating as he tried to come up with a good lie.
"How about I save you the trouble, your name is Gerald Geremiah Gregor, you grew up in the city, never employed, with a fondness for video games and robotics." Max continued.
"How did you learn that?" Gerald demanded.
"You tried to hack our drone, did you think that we wouldn't at least hack your cellphone in return? I must say, that is some interesting adult content you peruse. Is that common in your world, or unique to a small niche?" Max asked.
Gerald went pale and fell to his knees. "Please don't tell my mom I've been using her net to look that up. It's a serious crime here, and she's never done anything wrong."
Max took a split second to look up the young man's mother in the system, to see if she had been located.
To his surprise, she was one of the frontline soldiers, out in the city, clearing the attacking forces. Her tracker was still active, and she was moving, so she should be alright. But Max sent a few drones her way to help out anyhow.
It would be best if they were able to return their volunteer to an intact family, such as it was, but Max could tell that this guy didn't actually know much, or really understand the social norms of his people.
In comparison to everyone around him, he wasn't that bright, and he definitely lacked social skills, but at least Max could probe his mind for more answers as they talked.
Trying to actually interrogate him wasn't working, he would panic and freeze at every question, and Max would have to read it from his mind anyhow, so instead, he started a conversation with him.
"How about we have a bite of lunch, and a conversation? The hard questions can wait until one of the soldiers shows up." Max suggested.
"The Glorious Golden Legion." The young man automatically corrected him.
"Yes, the Glorious Golden Legion. They should send someone here eventually to talk to us. They'll understand fairly soon that our crab drones are not a threat, and then they should stop avoiding us."
The young man nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think that sounds right. They taught us something about that in school, how we came here in the time of the ancestors to wait for the moment when our Glorious Golden Legion would be needed."
He really didn't remember much of it, even Max couldn't pull much from his mind, but it was obvious that the Greater Energy Being was sheltering them here, and that it had done something to keep them from being discovered.
At least, until now.
They didn't want to join with so many of the other species in the Great Enemy's army and continue the eternal war, and their guardian being had taken pity on them, likely recognizing that they would be eliminated from existence if history played out the same way again.
While Max and their volunteer had an unproductive conversation, the Nico and the research team were having much more luck with their feline friend.
As they had quickly discovered, the creature could read. So, despite being unsuited to verbal communication, it was a simple matter to make a small data tablet for it to answer their questions while they treated it to the equivalent of a spa day.
The cat had been brushed, cleaned, massaged, fed and placed on a custom-made bed to relax while they talked.
[They keep half of their entire population in military training, while the rest is supposed to be support staff. The support staff are lazy, though. Too much can be done with technology, so they don't really do anything but sit around and waste their lives away.
It's gotten to the point that they don't even breed anymore, they're too lazy. All the new kittens to play with come from the soldiers. The one in the other room is just as bad. I came to him the other day with an itchy ear, and he just pushed me off the desk to keep staring at a video on the screen.]
Nico smiled and gave the cat's head a scratch, which made her purr, then frown.
[This is an abduction attempt, isn't it? You're trying to get me to willingly stay with you through the use of good food and petting.] The cat accused.
"I won't deny that. We would love it if you stayed with us, but we're not going to force you to stay, and it's not really an abduction if you freely choose to leave with us. We might have to find more of your people, though. Being alone as the only one of your species would get too lonely otherwise, and I'm not sure if we will be able to return here if we leave." Nico agreed.
Their guest considered that for a moment, and then nodded and placed a paw on the map.
[I know where you can find them. Send drones to the building here. It's a shelter for my kind, and they will be happy to go with you instead of being caged. Do your drones have a way to communicate?]
The team cheered and hugged each other in celebration.
"They do. They can broadcast audio, so they can talk to them, and then escort the ones that want to leave the city after they cut open the cages."
The feline purred in happiness as it learned that the unfortunate among its kin would be getting a better home, full of people who knew the value of a head rub.
[Alright, you should hurry, the soldiers have cleared the area, but they didn't let us out, and there is no food in the cages.]
