Bonding!
“Yes. Let me start by saying I don’t care what your orders say. Mine are to make sure Jalopy Charisma returns to us, preferably in chains. Your dead criminals are of no interest to me; they deserved to die at his hands. We want him for other things.”
“If he surrenders, that’s fine.” Xasan shrugged. “If he resists, I’m in fear of my life. In case you don’t know, that’s Human for ‘I can straight-up shoot his ass and my bosses will clear me afterward.’”
Coronation had an excellent sneer, he decided. Very imperious. “Just how were you planning to do that? Four of your kind had him surrounded and drew weapons, and he still put them all down.”
Xasan’s grin had a very carefully calibrated amount of teeth in it. “My turn for a question. What did Charisma do that made him decide to bust out of the only safe place for him within a hundred miles?”
“That’s none of your concern, Detective.”
“Funny, that was what I was going to say.”