Conrad smiled at Elyra's and Veronica's remarks, apperantly liking what he heard. He raised an eyebrow as Maude presented her equipment requisition form, but didn't seem all that supprised. Dr Archer might be a neutral, but he had worked around Psions for a long time now, he knew what to expect.<br/>"Yes, the assignment. Well, it might actually be something up your alley, Ms Bristol. You've had dealings with the Qin before, I believe?"<br/><br/>Ah, the Qin. Mysterious creatures from the far reaches of space.  In 2107, when Chinese deep space explorers with the aid of Uepo Wa Macho teleporters intercepted strange radio transmission during a mission, humanity was thrust head over heels into their first First Contact with an alien species. While both sides were suspitious and carefull at first, diplomatic relations were soon established and today the Qin is humanity's most important allies. They are masters of Biotech All their technology is grown, they have no hard tech whatsoever, and the concept fascinates them. No one really know what they look like, everytime they have a face to face meeting with a human they wear humanoid biosuits, wich appear to be modelled after humans.<br/>The Qin staff of their embassy on Luna were stranded when the Teleporting Order dissapeared in 2114. The Qin had not yet established warp flight, and relied on the Uepo Wa Macho just as much as humanity did. The Qin stranded in the Sol system have not recieved word from their homeplanet for over six years now. There were rumors circulating that the Qin, using their awsome knowledge in Biotech, assisted Orgotek and the UN in a project to design some sort of ship that could mimic the teleporting powers of the Upeo. These rumors were confirmed when the Colony, an Aberrant infamous from the Aberrant war, attacked a site on Luna were the ships were being built, destroying it utterly. Luckily, there were a secret second site in operation, and the project could continue with only minor delay. If everything went smoothly, humanity would soon be able to once again reach for the stars, and it could not have been done without the help of their Qin allies.<br/><br/>"There is this fellow, called An Ming Kang, who is a bit strange even by Qin standards." Many Qin had adopted Chinese names in their dealings with humanity, since it was the Chinese they first encountered. Many have the tendancy to view Qin culture as an almost asian culture, since they share alot of things, like politness. It was however quite dangerous to assign human characteristics to such an alien culture.<br/>"Most Qin are quite curious and fascinated with human culture, and tries to learn as much as they can about it, even though they remain very secretive about their own culture. This fellow Ming has aquired a somewhat...strange fascination for us. To put it bluntly, he likes to study humanity at it's worst. A couple of months back he managed to elude his Aeon body guard detail and snuck of on his own. When we finally tracked him down we found him about to enter the Pit on Luna. You know, the place that quite possibly is the most dangerous place in the solar system, filled with pirates, murderers and criminals and such? Well, it's a good thing we got to him when we did, he would have stood a great chance of being killed had we allowed him to proceed." Conrad got a tired expression on his face and sighed.<br/>"Well, I'm affraid the old chap has gone and done it again. His body guard detail lost track of him as he toured the Aesculapian clinic in Olympus, Luna. That was about 4 hours ago. Triton division speculates that he might be coming down here to Earth however. If he does, we'd very much like you to get him and bring him back home, before he gets seriously hurt or even killed. I trust I don't have to tell you what a diplomatic nightmare that would be?"