“That wasn’t necessary.”
Saren looked at him with an expression of ‘seven months later and you’re still dumb as soup’. “To kill him?”
“Well, yeah, that part was necessary. But that wasn’t.” That ‘dumb as soup’ look again. He threw up his hands in despair, almost sending a boot flying. “You know what I mean. The thing you did with the tubular machine and the room with the steel hatch–“
“The AMX Industries M-Series Deuterium Extractor zero-twelve-zero-one,” he commented helpfully, never taking his eyes away from the holoscreen.
“–Yes, that. Where do you get these ideas? Extranet? Some old krogan horror flicks?” Nihlus turned the boots in his hand upside-down, causing a small pile of sand to accumulate on the cargo hold floor. Spirits, they’re going to have a fun time doing the works on their armour later. And he didn’t even want to think about the rover. “Seems like a good place for one of those, actually. Prime thresher territory past the coastline.”
Saren nodded, closing whatever diagnostics he was running and looking directly at him. “The outpost was far worse. But at least the apparatus could be put to good use. We’re leaving as soon as you finish.” He turned to leave.
“I wonder if some of them are still alive.” Nihlus wondered out loud. Surprisingly, he could see Saren pause and call up something on his omni-tool.
“They might be.” He replied. “But not for long.”
Wincing–the default expression he had for these unfortunately common situations, he went back to work. And added ‘whatever was happening to the structurally frail heads of those biologists’ to his ‘do not want to think about’ list. Right after that stupid rover.