[Translated from Loxthal with an acceptable certainty of 93.7 percent]
“I can’t take this anymore X’ik.”
“Woah, woah, woah, slow down U’ith,” X’ik’le’an said, handing U’ith’le’gho their favorite drink, “Are you talking about your job on the cargo hauler? You told me last time you loved it.”
“Yeah, well,“ they sighed, “That was before the stupid cargo handler decided to only do dangerous hauls.”
U’ith took a sip of bōf, the usual effect of the drink seemingly having no effect.
“What type of hauls?” X’ik said, concerned after seeing the drink have no effect, “Like, ones to unsurveyed systems?”
“Yes,” U’ith mumbled with their head now lying on the table, “And it somehow manages to pick the most high-risk systems possible—the most high-risk for me, that is.”
U’ith’le’gho fumed silently for a some time while X’ik’le’an waited in quiet companionship, creating U’ith another glass of bōf. The sound of X’ik stirring was all that permeated the room.
“I first noticed how dangerous the trade negotiations where getting when my colleagues were talking of getting armored evo suits for the upcoming haul,“ U’ith said while accepting the refill from X’ik, “Before then, I hadn’t really ever checked where we were going until the day of the negotiation because, well, negotiations in surveyed systems are always the same: go down to the planet, show the species the economic and scientific wealth they would gain, then leave.”
X’ik walk around the counter, grabbing a near-by chair, and sat down next to U’ith. They didn’t seem to realize X’ik moved; they were too engulfed in their own thoughts to notice.
“On the planet of first unsurveyed mission, which I obviously didn’t know was unsurveyed at the time,” U’ith continued, “Everything actually went pretty smoothly—until the ambassadors I were talking to were killed by another of their kind, that is. First time that happened for me.”
“The Coalition checks if a planet has a cohesive, stable government as part of these surveys, right?” X’ik asked after U’ith went silent for some time, lost remembering those events.
U’ith blinked out of their reminiscence, “It’s more like if the planet has an authority that can eventually reach everyone equally—multiple governments working in tandem; a government that only controls all other governments; etc.—but, yes, that essentially correct,” they explained, then chuckled dryly, ”Having your ambassadors assassinated by a rival government definitely doesn’t fit that bill.
“After the assassination, we immediately went back up to our spaceship. Normal procedure, I thought at the time, maybe the survey was outdated. It happens. What is definitely not normal procedure is going back down to the planet the next day to meet with the government who killed the previous ambassadors—at least, that who I think we met with. They were very cagey and only wanted to talk about the trade deal itself.
“Everything was going fine—well, relatively fine—when…when…” U’ith tapered off, now frozen in remembrance, the shock of what had happened still ripe. X’ik moved closer to U’ith and wrapped their arms around them.
They sat like together like that for some time. U’ith broke the silence, “Thank you, X’ik.”
X’ik slowly unwrapped themselves from U’ith, “Anytime.”
“I’m obviously not ready to talk about what happened,” U’ith sighed, “But I will tell you the outcome of that…debacle. When we left the system, we left with less beings than we came in with.”
X’ik, shocked and stunned, said, “Oh. I didn’t think it would be that bad.”
U’ith chuckled darkly, “Well, it was.”
“Do you need a place to stay tonight? I have a spare room, if you want” X’ik asked, trying to distract U’ith.
“Oh! I hadn’t even thought of that yet, aren’t I a mess,” U’ith said, irritated, “Yes, I do need a place to stay tonight, thanks for the offer.”
“Well,” X’ik said, glancing around the bar, “Since no one is here, I’ll close the bar early.”
“Do you still have that funny looking statue? The one that looks like royally messed up mix between a kic and a k’rit?” U’ith asked while X’ik was getting the bar in a state to be closed.
X’ik chuckled, “Of course. What are you asking for?”
“No real reason. I just love it.”
X’ik chuckled again, putting the last stray bottle away, “Bar’s all set. Ready to leave?”
“Definitely.”
[This excerpt is in a deprecated from, retired from use for being, “too akin to a story,” and having “too much flourish for a spy drone recording.” ]