Chapter Text
Gurathin had given them all a serious rundown on Corporation Rim practices as if she had never encountered Corporation Rim's ilk before. But, Gurathin was very serious— worried serious, anxious serious— so Ayda made sure to listen attentively because Gurathin was showing that he had been struggling with the concept of dealing with Corporation Rim since it was announced. He was getting snappy and verbally more pessimistic, showing reluctance and even embarrassment over things he had seemed to tolerate and even sometimes enjoy on Preservation Alliance. It upset her, but she is not going to push while they were in the middle of the deal with the bond company. Gurathin knew he had the space to talk if he wanted to, so Ayda continued to hope that any minute Gurathin would pivot from talking about the specific corporate culture and how sneaky it can be to how it is making him feel. But he does not.
While Ayda has taken the late hours of the night to allow Gurathin to dump so many of his concerns with relative privacy, Pin-Lee also gets focused attention during the day. In a different way, Pin-Lee can assure Gurathin that he is being taken seriously. Pin-Lee gleefully talks about all the times they have caught Corporation Rim-aligned solicitors in legal traps and how fun it is to spar with them when they are prepared. Gurathin can be prompted to smile with some of this information, which is way more than Ayda could do during her reassurances. The most she could do was get Gurathin to make a relieved expression when she was able to repeat something he had told her earlier as an example that she was retaining information.
Together, Ayda believes this is why Gurathin does not get any worse; if he stopped talking about it at all, than she would worry. He is still sleeping, still engaging with them, although he is twitchy and irritable. The rest of the team notices, but they understand to a good enough degree to let Gurathin have his space. He always wants some amount of space. If Gurathin is isolating more than he used to, making it look like he is still getting comfortable with them like they just met, that is something to quietly acknowledge among themselves without having to say anything aloud. It is something Ayda believes needs to be brought up, but they can do it somewhere else. Somewhere more secure. Both Pin-Lee and Gurathin were very adamant that spyware was rampant around here. The less conversations they had about anything at all, the better.
Tomorrow is the meeting with the bond board, and assuming things went forward, the ship to their survey location would be scheduled shortly after that. Gurathin might not consider a company ship any more secure than Port Free Commerce, so Ayda mentally reminds herself to practice patience with Gurathin's concerns that will likely not settle until the team is settled themselves on the survey planet. He was doing this out of concern, which was from a place of love. He meant well— he meant well so fiercely at times, it turned prickly.
It was going to go well. A bond meeting was not new to Ayda at all, but this was the largest scale she had ever been in charge of. She cared deeply about every member of her team— and this was risky. Appropriately risky, not needlessly risky, but it was out of her comfort zone. Going this far out was not something she had done before with herself as the main planner; she had helped other survey teams coordinate and plan and provided the appropriate bureaucracy needed to match Corporation Rim policies before. Bharadwaj was the most experienced; she had been on smaller-scale, more temporary surveys with her students as part of internships, field requirements for classes, and for her own continuing education. Everyone was excited— Gurathin was the least excited, perhaps, but not unexcited— but Bharadwaj was carrying the most grounded excitement. Ratthi was excited, but he gets excited for almost everything.
Between Pin-Lee and Gurathin and her own expertise, the meeting with the bond company was going to go well. Pin-Lee had strategies and helped build in buffers into the plans to give the air of giving ground to compromise, which included budgeting. It was going to work out. As much as this survey means to her and the future of Preservation Alliance, the sooner all this corporate scheming is over, the better.
None of them were happy about the Security Unit, for mostly overlapping reasons. It was a sentient construct, firstly, and couldn't disobey. Thus, enslavement. But the deal needed one. Ayda wondered if Corporation Rim required a Security Unit specifically or if a well-trained person could have filled that role. It was too late now. They had a Security Unit.
"It was lucky they had that refurbished model available for us," Ratthi said.
"No, that wasn't luck; that was manipulation," Gurathin said. He had been picking at his nail polish under the table while the talks continued, continuing to stare off at the compartment where the Security Units were held even after they were hidden from view. He was still eating for lunch, though, and while his nails were worse for wear he hadn't picked at them so far as to move on to the nailbeds or to put them in his mouth yet. A part of her regrets bringing him along, knowing that being here is causing him this much distress.
Ayda did quietly agree. It was very convenient that there was a budget unit available for them to make the sudden addition of a required expense feel less painful. She is not oblivious to all such marketing tactics; she's a planetary administrator. She knows how this works. Mostly.
"I think it was an accident, based on their expressions." Pin-Lee said. "But, whatever. It works for us. We got a cheap Security Unit, filled the deal requirements."
Gurathin tries again, frowning while he has to swallow a bite of his wrap to counter. "They don't do 'accidents'—"
"Yes, they do. As automated as they are, Corporation Rim is still make up of people. People make mistakes," Arada says. "I don't like that we need one, but we got one. Which is nice, because as much as I love and trust all of you, we do not have the skills to handle security issues."
"We're not going to have security issues," Ayda says, placating. She would not take her team to any world deemed any more dangerous than the lowest risk assessment. Most of them had gotten weapons training yesterday morning, for goodness sake. They were not prepare for anything dangerous that required combat readiness.
"And if we do, we have a Security Unit." Bharadwaj says with a smile.
Ayda would have preferred a consenting person to do the work of security. She cannot lie to herself and say that there isn't a tiny part of her that is relieved to know that she will not have rely on herself or her team for any security-related violence. She barely qualified for Combat Readiness II, and she put in all that work to earn it just so that she could be the one to handle that sort of thing if it came down to it. That was not a task she was willing to delegate… but that little part of her is relieved to know that someone more experienced than her had that kind of capability.
It was a spur of the moment thing, all of that Security Unit stuff, but when the bond company had asked her to confirm she wanted administrative power over the Security Unit, Ayda had asked for Gurathin to be co-admin, too. She is thankful she did— even more thankful Gurathin agreed with a silent nod, and how he didn't get more tense at that prompt from her, actually loosening some of the tightness around his mouth when she asked— because this interactive document the bond company sent as a way to 'design the SecUnit to her goals' does not make much sense to her.
"I can walk you through most of this," Gurathin offers quietly, leaning in when he notices what she has pulled up on her tablet to read. His hand hovers questioningly over the top edge, asking permission to connect.
"Later," Ayda says. "We'll have plenty of time on the trip. Work is over for the day."
Gurathin pauses more. Ayda smiles at him. "It's time to celebrate our new adventure. All I want to worry about tonight is the dinner and whatever everyone else wants to do after."
He drops it— until dinner, when he is vulnerable again, but as much as it hurts to see him vulnerable, he is open and that means so much. The point about the Security Unit goes unchallenged for now. There will be time to talk about this. Tonight is not that time.