"Straker!" the familiar bellow on the phone sounded a little more worried than usual to the pale man receiving the call.
"General," he greeted his caller. "What can I do for you?"
"What the hell are these things?" James Henderson demanded to know as he watched a trio of short, yellow beings tidy up his office. He wasn't using the gun in his desk drawer because so far they seemed to be friendly.
"Things?" Straker's brow furrowed for a moment wondering what sort of things the retired General could be dealing with. A cup of coffee, light and sweet, just the way he liked it, appeared on the corner of his desk accompanied by a light humming. The small yellow, dungaree wearing entity beamed up at him, nodded and scurried off again.
"Ah, things," he continued. "Not very tall, yellow skin, single or bi-ocular and wearing dungarees?" he asked.
"Yes," came the answering growl.
"They're … minions, sir." Straker hoped he was covering his desire to laugh well enough not to offend the older man.
"Minions."
"Yes, sir. They're a … gift."
"A gift?" James Henderson frowned at the busy minions who were just finishing up their cleaning, regarded him seriously, gave him funny little bows and then filed out of his office. "They're robots?"
"No, sir. They're … uhm … minions." How the hell did he explain that the lurkers had gifted a number of them with the entities who seemed to hail from another universe entirely? Come to think of it, he was certain he'd never mentioned the lurkers to anyone who hadn't encountered their somewhat lunatic antics previously. "We've had a couple of incursions here. They work hard, are very intelligent and are difficult to discourage." Understatement. He didn't want to think about the couple of incidents in R&D where things had blown up. Nor did he particularly want to think about the introduction of the fart gun to their armory. It took days for the fans to get the smell out of the area.
On the other hand, they were true jewels when it came to running the commissary and their work on the moon was nothing short of … well, he wasn't going to get Nina, Joan and Gay to give their minions up any time soon.
"Trust me, sir. They're," he paused while he tried to find a way to phrase things that didn't make them sound too innocuous. "They're very useful. They're difficult to get rid of if they take a liking to you and they've helped us with a couple of issues without having to take the problems out of house." He did not mention that their salaries were minimal for what they provided. He had enough issues with getting funding approved already.
Henderson harrumphed at his end and nodded. "We'll see."
Straker replaced the hand set and smiled. He'd be hearing about this again when the background checks came in. He was laughing softly at the thought when Alec poked his head in.
"You've heard?"
"Heard what?" He wasn't certain he appreciated the big grin on Alec's face. What had they done now?