"And so you disobeyed my orders to save a small girl who got killed anyway and you don't know where her body was, nor if there were other people in the area who might be held hostage." Xanthiana had met up with Cobb on the cliff where he took his shot, he had the rifle held in his arms like that of a small child. Xanthiana could see a sequence of marks down the butt of the rifle, with a fresh scratch for the Sensoth, Cobb clearly had issues.
"Not buying any of that are you?"
"Roeyka I may sound like I'm some dumb farm boy, and I may have once been a dumb farm boy, but I'm not that stupid, let me guess you thought you were in a better position than you turned out to be and they found you, you fled because you didn't have a weapon capable of piercing the metal guy's armor and I saved your stupid ass against my better judgement." Cobb was alone, he had apparently also been sent to scout bandit hide outs, though he didn't have to walk like Xanthiana did, he had a nice atv nearby.
"Sounds about right, though that last part is a bit insulting, my ass is not stupid at all, its quite smart the rest of me is where the stupid resides." Cobb did not smile, Xanthiana thought him quite incapable of smiling most of the time. Cobb sighed, and looked around, she could tell he was trying to decide what to do with her, for a moment she thought of drawing down on him and killing him, because with his state of mind she didn't know if he was thinking the same thing.
"Ok heres the problem. You reported to a bunch of bandit camps, I found a bunch of bandit camps, and the Erep high command does not want any bandit camps." Cobb was thinking out loud, "The issue of course is that command doesn't want to give me a real force of anyone as this trip is already a public relations nightmare and we've lost a lof of good men of earth already." Xanthiana did not like the way he said men of earth, it was an implication that losing Votans was perfectly fine, which from what she'd heard of Cobb was the exact implication.
"So where does that leave us Cobb?"
"Fucked Roeyka." Cobb spit and then went back to get on his ATV.
"I'm going to need orders sir, unless you want me to just hang around until you figure it out Cobb."
"Do me a favor and kill some damn bandits, try not to burn down any more farm houses while you are at it."
"Any other suggestions Cobb?"
"I'd say act like a soldier for once Roeyka, but I believe you are incapable." And with that Cobb rode off leaving Xanthiana to wonder where or how many bandits Cobb wanted her to kill.
"I don't think he likes us very much Xan." Elly was the master of the understatement.
"Nah he had a bad day I'm sure in a few hours he'll calm down and apologize for being a dick."
"Really?"
"No Elly, not really."
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