Ruk shrugged morosely. “I hope you’re right. It would be kinda incredible if it does come off that way though, right? There are a lot of ‘ifs’ still.” She took another sniff of her bowl and lounged out slightly on her chair. It wobbled gently on uneven ground.#

“I can’t think of any reason my skillset particularly commends me. There are many people more experienced than me in the field of medicine. My virology credentials are shaky at best. I’ve not even managed an AI specialist yet…I did work in a couple of conflict zones after I graduated, but nothing particularly heroic. I was treating laser burns and trauma miles from any kind of action.”

She ran a talon along the cracked cobblestones beneath her chair, scooped up a millipede which she studied closely for a moment before returning.

“It doesn’t make any sense, but I don’t think Vitality will back down now. The die is cast; you’ll only piss her off trying to renegotiate now. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of Chekeri you want to see angry.”