The operator glanced down, probably at his controls, and one of the lasers flashed at Ferd's left shoe.
He yelped in pain and momentarily lost his balance.
"Do I have to remind you who's in charge here? Where's the woman?"
Alphon took a step forward. "What's so important about her, anyway?"
"Listen to me, Mr. Quince. Yes, we know who you are. You have no rights here. Absent the woman, you two are in possession of contraband IP. Failure to hand it over is a criminal act according to international corporate law. So here's the situation. Either you two hand it over now, or I'll destroy this entire compound, with you in it."
Ferd winced, and rose awkwardly. "I think that clarifies things a bit, Joe: the IP you're after isn't important. All your masters want is to be sure that no-one can use it. Must be pretty important stuff."
Joe glared angrily, and the drone wobbled a bit.
"You sent this drone," Alphon said, stepping closer still, "because she shot down your surveillance bot. Do you know how she did it?"
Ferd looked a question at him.
"We can do the same thing to this one, and any other remote you send out here."
Joe gave him a disdainful look. "Bull. If that was true, you would already have used it."
"Who trained you, chimps?" Alphon said, growing bolder. "We let this toy of yours stay around so we could find out what your game was. Now that we know, we can--"
Two of the lasers flashed, and a section of the dome exploded. "Enough!" Joe was livid.
"Try that again," Alphon said firmly, "and I'll release a trove of information about your masters that'll make the NSA scandals of the 2010s seem like a day at the beach, before they were too toxic to visit. Kill or injure either of us, and the same thing happens."
Joe shook his head somberly. "You're delusional, Quince. You can't protect everyone you know."
Ferd glanced back and forth between them, unsure how this was going to end.
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