The incoming transmission was enough to startle him, and Ilion jolted in his seat.  He looked at all the readings in a wide-eyed panic, then slammed and hand down on the control panel, rejecting the call.  He didn’t even have his mask with him, and there was no way he was showing his face.<br/><br/>“Fuck…” he growled out, fingers flying across the controls in an attempt to figure out where they hell they’d gone wrong, when someone had snuck up on them.  “Seraph?!”<br/><br/>«Apologies.  Whoever they are, they aren’t showing up on any of our scanners.»<br/><br/>“Well, scan harder!” he snapped.  A second request came through then, but this time for audio only.  He wanted to bash it down, just like the other, but his own curiosity got the better of him.  He reached for the control panel and hesitated between the two buttons.  He could’ve sat there like that for an hour, weighing his options, but Ilion doubted his unexpected guest was going to give him the luxury of time.  He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and accepted.<br/><br/>The voice that came through had him frozen in place.  He’d never met Urudal in person, nor had he heard his voice before, but he somehow knew.  Whoever the man was on the other end of that transmission, he was a force to contend with.  It was him.<br/><br/>“Urudal Azolslag, I presume?” he said after a moment, putting on an air of indifference.  Ilion was great at acting unconcerned, even if he was a nervous fucking wreck in the moment.  That had been part of his training as a spy.  He hoped that the distortion put on his own transmission would help make him sound as intimidating as Urudal, but somehow he had to guess that someone like that wasn’t intimidated by anything.  “I always knew they’d get desperate enough to call you in.”<br/><br/>He muted his transmission for a moment.<br/><br/>“Come on, Seraph!” he pleaded.  “Size of the vessel, weapons, distance… I need details!”<br/><br/>The screen to his left flashed a few colourful words in big, bold text.<br/><br/>And back to work.<br/><br/>“I’ve always wondered who would come out on top between us.  I guess now we get to put that to the test, don’t we?”