<div class="floatleft">(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c7/0b/40/c70b40fa22c31104fc1dd073630d1a4c.jpg)</div>One boat started to unload- and why only one, she wondered?- oh, of course. The other was probably empty for her people, aside from the flight crew. The Marines that filed off the one looked...well, like Marines. Armored, armed, fit, most wearing a sleepy, dangerous look she recognized from her life on the streets. Their senior noncom was a very large, competent-seeming man; their leftenant was very pretty, very precise- and looked as if someone had shoved something very large up her<em>kakhol</em>before departure, something she was still trying to dislodge. Perhaps it was an occupational hazard with officers, something they learned during their training. Karn had known several police Superintendents with a similar look.<br/><br/>The Marine leader's mood was unlikely to be improved by Garner's flippant attitude, nor by his gawking at the soldier behind her who, judging from her badges, was a medic of some sort. If the man complicated her own relations with the rescue squad, she might have to arrange an accident for him...To avoid that necessity, she moved as smoothly as she could into the breach.  "Leftenant, Sergeant. We are very glad to see you, as you can imagine. I won't need more than half an hour to finish organizing the staff, and then-"<br/><br/>And then Shvedova made her second, insane request, and the nickel dropped. In a flash, Karn knew what the station Chief had been hiding from her, and why. "Sergeant," she said, lips tight, tone as neutral as she could make it. She directed her remarks to the junior officer rather than the senior because, like Karn, he was a Company man, if of a different sort. Being a worker bee, not a politician, he'd know bullshit when he heard it. And then just like her, he'd have to find a way to make it work. "The crash site is that way-" she gestured "-in approximately seven fathoms...errr, ten meters of water. Mildly<em> toxic</em>water, as it happens- that was one of the functions of this station, to moderate that. And several of the local life forms tend to be aggressive. This is- was- a research and terrforming station. We have dive-rated personnel, but not salvage divers, so far as I know." Her anger was rising. They already had people down there, dead, including one of her own crew. Now they were to delay the rescue and risk more of their people so some Earther<em>dikat </em>could look good in a report?<br/><br/>"Administrator," she called, rounding on Garner. "You are aware,<em>geen,</em>that the crash site is a Class Three Hazard, at least?  Possibly a Four? The pay increment for anyone you send down will be...impressive." No way was she signing off on this. Her job was to keep her people alive, even against their own impulses. If this<em> drol </em>was going to happen, it was going to happen with Garner's name plastered all over it, including the budget-breaking overpayements. "If any member of Staff is still active, then the station is active and the contract is in force, Administrator." Actually, she wasn't sure that was true in the most strictly legal sense, though she'd spent a fair bit of time reading various people's contracts as part of her backgrounding work. But she was quite sure Garner wouldn't know with any certainty either. And in any situation, asking Company personnel to dive on a Company wreck to recover something for the Company- there was no wriggling out of financial responsibility for that.<br/><br/>Not that the money would be any fucking use if the divers got trapped by a shift of the wreckage, or had their faces chewed off by a barbfish.