It was clear that his remark had got the asari riled, and the easy smile remained on the salarian's lipless mouth.

"Oh, I'm [i]hurt[/i]."

Of course, Jek knew perfectly well that he really should've announced himself before entering Hergon's Dive.

In his STG days he would never have walked blithely into a recent battleground in the way he just had. But these were not his STG days, and now he enjoyed playing things a little close to the edge from time to time. In this case, the risk he had taken was a measured one. As far as he could tell, the small group fighting off the black-armoured thugs were the people he was expected to work with on this mystery job, so it would pay to know what made them tick.

He already had a feel for the personality of the quarian (who had still been on his rooftop), he knew Thornton by reputation (the human had been occupied with his captive), and vorcha were generally predictable (inarticulate shrieks of bloodlust from his general direction had suggested he was busy harrying the thugs' retreat). As for the second human, well, her character was still an unknown but he'd heard over the comm that she was a sniper, which meant she would check her targets carefully before firing.

That left the asari, who was still an unknown quantity. Bingo.

So Jek had made his somewhat unorthodox entrance, and the risk had paid off. No shots had been fired (at least, no [i]literal [/i]ones) but Sienn's reaction was rather telling, suggesting a short fuse. That could be useful to know.

Besides, the salarian had never been in any real danger. He knew he could be in cover and have sabotaged her Mattock's heatsink before she had a chance to take [i]half[/i] his shields down.

Leaving the asari to seethe (there was no need to provoke her further), Jek turned his attention to Thornton and his captive. He rolled his eyes as the human blustered about 'always getting the job done' and 'always tying up loose ends'. He sounded like the chest-beating protagonist of a third-rate action vid. But Jek did agree with Thornton's opinion of this new gang's oh-so-original choice of name: it seemed that gun-toting idiots had a fetish for calling themselves something star-related.

Ignoring Kronn's predictable outburst ([i]if I had a credit for every time I hear a vorcha say 'die'...[/i]), he asked the prisoner a question of his own.

"I'm curious to hear how you knew we'd be here. Somehow I doubt it was luck."