Trouble

Cass sat at the black console located in front of the containment field. "How much blood do you need to determine race Jazz?"

"A hundred and fifty milliliters should be good." He turned to face Marc. "How much do you need in order to run the health tests?"

"Fifty should be fine." He looked at the subject. "We know nothing about her species yet. If we take too much it could send her into shock, if she isn't already from the blood loss she's already suffered."

"When do you think you'll have the tests done? The sooner we know what it is the sooner we can help fix its injuries." Cass asked both as she focused on typing the instructions to the probe.

"Well it should only take a few minutes after we get the blood, but if it's the race I think it is we won't have to do anything. It should heal by itself." Jazz looked at the form lying on the bed in annoyance.

"What? You don't think it's Ayeri?!" Cass paused in her typing as she looked at Jazz in surprise.

"They're one of the few humanoid races that would survive in this atmosphere, and who would abandon their young on an uninhabited planet." Jazz sat down. "Oh my god, this is going to be such a pain if I'm right."

"Maybe we can just put it back?" Cass continued typing the codes, hoping the life form they had picked up wasn't an Ayeri.

"Guys we can't just leave her on the planet. She'd starve to death. Also, planetary code, if someone finds an abandoned Ayeri they are supposed to take care of them. 'Finders Keepers' type of thing." Marc couldn't believe they were thinking of leaving a child on the desolate planet below.

"We can just pretend we never picked it up. Wipe the logs, never speak of it again type thing. You have no idea how much trouble young Ayeri are. Sure, the adults are awesome explorers, sometimes a bit irresponsible, but amazing at mapping uncharted galaxies, also great warriors."

"But… The children… Just no… They are nightmares. Mischievous little devils that love to get into trouble exploring places they've been told are dangerous, not to mention sarcastic, no respect for authority, throw temper tantrums that could level cities. Uhuh."

"Not to mention that 'Finder's Keeper's' rule you mentioned means that the people who find said child are responsible for them. This means paying for any damages accrued, risking life and limb to save them when they get into danger, trying to discipline them without causing a temper tantrum, learning how to stop a tantrum before things are destroyed, paying for all damages to whatever gets destroyed during said tantrum."

"Seriously, just no…"

"She could end up not being Ayeri…" Marc was less sure of himself when he heard Jazz talking about Ayeri children. "Also, could you guys stop referring to her as 'it'?"

"Protocol dictates that until we find that the subject is a sentient being, we do not humanize the subject." Cass looked at her brother as she hit the last key, launching the probe into the room.

"But she's obviously a girl! And how many humanoid races are there that aren't sentient?!"

"At least ten thousand." Jazz mumbled into his palms, he was sitting facing the room, hands together, eyes peaking over, looking into the room, hoping that what they had in the containment room was not an adolescent Ayeri.

The probe approached the girl on the bed and stretched a needle out, scanning for veins as it landed on the bed. Finding a vein, it inserted the needle, and drew a hundred and fifty milliliters first, after carefully storing the first sample it took another fifty, pulled the needle out, and returned to the small window from which it came.

"Alright samples are here boys." Cass took the samples from the probe and handed them to Jazz and Marc.

Jazz left to use his lab, and Marc stepped to the far side of the room where he kept his equipment. After putting the blood into the right machine, he waited Jazz's results.

Jazz raced back into the room and went straight to Marc's machine. Taking the blood out he used the laser in his left arm to completely obliterate the sample.

"What the hell Jazz!" Marc was astounded by his friend's actions. "What do you think you are doing?!"

"Cass, destroy all evidence that we picked someone up from this planet!" Jazz looked at the girl in the room in amazement.

"What are you talking about Jazz?!" Cass was just as surprised as her brother at their friend's actions. Worried that he had been serious about leaving an Ayeri child stranded on 2D4's hostile environment.

"She's a survivor of Pasef." Jazz walked towards the containment room, deactivating the safety measures in place, he ignored Cass and Marc as he walked into the room and picked her up, carrying her to the transporter and typing in the number for the medical center.

"No way…" Cass nearly fell out of her seat in shock.

"What?" Marc lost his balance and fell to the floor. Sitting there it took him a few seconds to get over the shock caused by Jazz's words. When he finally fully processed what Jazz had said, he started vibrating with excitement.

"Cass, we found a living member of the Pasefien race!" Marc had gotten up and was shaking his sister in his excitement.

As she digested the information, Cass sprang into action. Accessing the core databases of the ship to delete all mention of them picking up an unknown life form, before she could delete anything Marc stopped her.

"Wait Cass, maybe we can say we picked up another species. You and Jazz said it was likely an Ayeri child, right? Could we change the test results to make it look like we picked up an Ayeri child?"

"That way no one would question who she was or where she came from, because if they did then they would end up having to take over caring for an Ayeri child. Which is something no sane person would do voluntarily."

Cass looked at her brother in surprise. "I can't believe you're the one that came up with that plan."

"Hey! I'm actually quite brilliant thank you!"

She hugged him quickly before checking Jazz's systems and wiping the results that confirmed the girl was from Pasef, replacing them with information confirming she was an Ayeri.

"Let's go talk to Jazz." Cass said, leaving the chair and heading to the transport pad. Barely waiting for her brother to catch up as she typed in the number for the medical center.