"You don't know Victor?" Rick raised an eyebrow, trying to gauge whether or not Austin was serious. "Sure you haven't been in a coma yourself? He's the Director of the Intelligence Service, Fleet Admiral's brother." He explained, before turning his attention to the commotion over the tasteless piece of propaganda aired a moment before, one voice rising above the others. "Kaistocracy!" Someone exclaimed, presumably the one flipping the bird, as that's about all of him Rick could see of the stout man in the crowd. "Bunch of' toffers. Where were they when Harris fell, 'eh? Behind the lines, leading from the rear?"
"The bloody hell is a Kaistocracy, anyway..?" Rick asked, instinctively placing his hand on his sidearm in case the real toffer in the room attempted to escalate things. A few moments passed in awkward yet comfortable silence broken only by swigs of beer, and the clack of mugs set down upon the counter until a woman approached the pair of soldiers. The irony of her request, one for wingmen, was not lost on Holden in the least. "No need to waste your credits on either of us, lass. But I don't have an issue with you sitting here, even if it's startin' to become a little crowded for my tastes. How about you, Lieutenant? Mind playing wingman for a lass in this hellhole?" Austin asked him, sliding his chair over to make room.
"Do I have a choice?" He replied, sizing up the woman who had stepped in between them. Something seemed familiar about her, but he couldn't quite place it. "And where'd you get the idea I wasn't trying to hit on anyone tonight?" Rick asked, still eying her a little more intently than was probably comfortable. "Where the hell do I know her from?" He wondered, rapping his fingers softly against his pint of beer.
