airlock

@Oliver L. Naalo stood impassively in the doorway, waiting to see what the crook would do after he caught his breath. He didn't expect the man would be any further problem, but wanted to stand his ground to make sure his point well and truly got across. What he didn't expect was for another voice to interrupt the poignant silence. Turning in the direction of this absolute madman who dared to casually walk up on his brutal time-out session, Naalo stared in annoyance and disbelief as he took in the sight of none other than a Taxonim trying to get by to use the airlock. The crook he'd been torturing saw his distraction as his chance to skitter off and he quickly pushed passed them both to tear off through the tunnels. Hopefully to go change the damn air filters or else Naalo would find him again. But first...

"Yeah, I /care/." Naalo bit back stubbornly and didn't budge in the least from the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest to stare the man down with stark, grey eyes. Everyone else had continued on their merry way when they saw the airlock was /clearly/ in use, but this guy was either recklessly bold or completely daft. "Of all the airlocks you could use, you thought this was the best option?" He asked in an accusatory tone that obviously hinted that the answer was anything but that. Shaking his head, Naalo held out his hand and crooked his fingers toward him. "What's in the bloody bag that's so important you couldn't wait? Give it here. Now."

@Naalo'yul Z. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. As far as survival went, that was the law down here in these parts if somebody wanted a decent chance at living peacefully. See, if you simply weren’t there at the scene of the crime, then it had nothing to do with you, right? Saved a lot of trouble for either side of actual law- Olivier couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen an officer bother with something like witnesses in these dredges, considering that all they were going to get out of any person slumming here was just going to be a jumbled mess of I don’t knows. Societal rule and law and order were saved for those who didn’t have to worry about whether or not they would wake up the next day. Besides, what did the government, or whoever it was that kept the police on payroll nowadays, ever actually care about their lesser citizens? The coin of the mafia was what got them their next meal. And in his humble opinion as well as personal experience, getting to eat was miles better than fighting in the dumpsters for trash.

The point was the first thing that the taxonim should have done when he spotted the unfortunate figure in the airlocks was turn on a dime, fold his tail neatly between his legs, and book it the hell out of there. Seriously - and forgive his all too good motion vision for seeing too damn much in a split second - getting on a copper’s bad side because you saw them committing potential murder was not a good threat to have looking over your head along with every other grim promise. If he was lucky, the soft padding of his feet would have long been drowned out by the thrum of that one vent nobody had bothered to fix for the last half year. (He suspects that it was also the reason everyone seemed to be using this lock to conduct their business.) But at least that wasn’t a concern now, because, instincts be damned, liv didn’t even budge from where he’d stopped short in his tracks, right, ing, outside of the airlock. A perfectly place position to be in full blown view of the officer decided to turn his head back this way, which was almost guaranteed, considering it was the only exit and all.

At this point it wasn't even too late to back away slowly and hope that the other was too preoccupied in the sport to notice him scurry by, But the absolutely not suspicious bag of nothings he had slung across his back really couldn’t be kept for that much longer lest he wanted to die in some ugly, pathetic fashion, and this was the only lock whose code he remembered in order to bypass the sequence to dispose of his… space trash. So, because death seemed inevitable whichever way he turned, why not take a risk and go big? “Lovely day ain’t it? Care to move just an inch over so I can reach across ya?”

After being a part of a senseless war that caused harm to too many people for him to count, Naalo liked to consider himself a good cop. More than the gratification of seeing a criminal get what was coming to them, he liked knowing that he was helping people by getting them off the streets even when he couldn't directly see the impact. And, yeah, there were days when Naalo got to be that kind of cop and he slept damn good at night. But on Teccypso, good cops didn't get things done. Good cops got shot or thrown out an airlock and that helped no one. So when the man responsible for changing the pesky air filters in the beta quadrant of the Dregs had thought it was okay to not do his due diligence and had resulted in a couple hundred of men, women, and children choking on noxious particulates, Naalo decided today he was not that cop and he was still going to sleep ing fabulously.

"Wait! Detective! We had a deal! T-Talk to the captain! Or do you want money? I can get more-" The man tried to barter, his voice pitched in his desperation as the Thraicid held the collar of his once neatly pressed button up and his arm in a death grip that he used to effortlessly haul him across the floor of the concourse. People quickly skittered by, wisely glancing the opposite way as Naalo shoved the crook's face into the door of the airlock. That was survival on Teccypso. Keep your head down, look the other way. Scowling at the man's sniveling, Naalo let go of his arm only to tap his data pad against the control panel to override it and the doors opened up with the familiar hydraulic hiss of an airtight seal being broken. He shoved the other into the airlock without a second thought, watching him stagger from the force before sprawling onto the floor. By the time he'd gotten to his hands and knees, the doors were closed and Naalo was watching him through the little windows.

Any pleas were immediately silenced when the impassive cop hit the button and the chamber began to depressurize in preparation for a deep space vent. Red warning lights flashed inside, painting the criminal in an ominous glow as he fell to the floor, grabbing at his throat as the air was forced out of his lungs. Naalo watched him flounder there like a fish out of water as the countdown sequence initiated, until he knew that the oxygen depravation was probably making the man's vision go black around the edges, before he pounded a fist into the emergency stop button. The doors hissed open once more, but the sound of the criminal's ragged gasp for sweet air was far louder.

Naalo's crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes seeming to blaze brighter in his anger. "Breathing is nice, isn't it?" He proposed harshly to the man greedily gulping in breaths, who now looked up at him with fearful, watery eyes. Taking a deep, mocking, uninhibited breath, the cop visibly let the tension flow out of him, his broad shoulders slumping in a relaxed posture. "So good it's priceless~ With your newfound /appreciation/, I know you're gonna make sure those ing filters are taken care of from now on, hm?" He watched the man nod fervently and a wolfish smile stretched across his lips. "That's what I thought."