The problem with that lie is that it's a fragile lie; easy to test and hence easy to destroy. And lying gets you a reputation as a liar, and she'd rather not burn her reputation just yet. "I appreciate your advice, Commander."

The two techs are super excited about this. They got assigned to a basically boring ship because they were good at not doing stupid stuff but not (by Attani standards) all that good at anything else, and now they get to take a look at tech from a completely foreign development tree, and see all the awesome developments they made.

They are absurdly genetically engineered, to the point where they don't really seem to worry about acceleration or deceleration of just a couple Gs, intensely muscular, visibly not quite human, and have flat orange and green hair. They are showing up in uniforms that, to the close eye, are made out of some implausibly-tough bulletproof weave, they have nonlethal weapons (apparently named "lightning guns") holstered and are perfectly willing to leave them in the ship but don't find the question very interesting, and they are fascinated by Medina Station. Look at all the compromises! Look at all the places where someone, instead of just using basic standard building materials, came up with an ingenious solution! Look! They have railguns for ship defense! (This spoken with a similar intonation to that of a medievalist who happens to encounter professional longbowmen after the invention of the Kalashnikov.) They are very, very impressed at how the Belters ingeniously managed to solve all these engineering problems, including the ones that no recorded society has ever encountered because no recorded society has ever lived in space without some form of synthetic gravity before! It is so fascinating! They take advice from the Belter engineers about how to not look too dangerous without too much incredulousness, and are overall really very grateful to them for improving their knowledge.

The Belters try not to stare too much at the Attani. They're not thinking at all about how to steal their valuable DNA, like the Attani are worried about, because genetic engineering of humans is just not done, but they are super curious (though mostly dare not ask) about what body mods they're using. (Body mods are legal because they're something you do to yourself; genetic engineering is something you do to another person.) Some of them are aware that the Attani are looking at them with the anthropological curiosity of a culture that thinks of itself as far superior, but they get that from Earthers all the time; they're used to it.

They get the Attani up to speed on basic communication protocols and how to disguise their drive signature—though this will be basically impossible if they're not using some variant on deuterium/tritium or deuterium/helium-3 fusion—and send them on their way with a standards-compliant civilian transponder module.

The Attani aren't using body mods! They received the standard Attani enhancement packages prior to conception. They will refrain from audibly going "oh those poor people were treated so badly by their culture" when it becomes clear that genetic engineering of humans is just not done, but, uh, they're clearly thinking it.

The Attani thank them for their help, make quiet, careful surveys of the systems, and return to the ship, buzzing with excitement about the primitives and their brilliantly primitive tech.

(Look, they were the least xenophobic people I could find with the required technical knowledge, OK? Doing my best here.)

When the techs are back on board the Cor Leonis, Drummer messages them.

"I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but the most difficult part of getting across the system undetected will be just getting out of the Ring. The area just on the other side is pretty heavily patrolled. I can file a flight plan for you that would look fully legit in the computers, but it will not hold up to visual inspection of your obviously not civilian ship, so my recommendation would be to stay as far away from any naval ships you encounter as you can without looking like you're running away. If you keep your drive pointed toward them this will blind their scopes but it may be suspicious in its own right, if you're accelerating in a direction that makes no sense by your flight plan."

As soon as she drops comms, Ashford speaks.

"We got a hit. While you were talking to the aliens.

"We know where Marco is."

"Have we learned our lesson about this from the last two times?"

"I'm going to get him myself."

Slowly, the beginnings of a plan are forming in Drummer's mind. It's not a very good plan, yet, but it might be crazy enough to work.

"Take our alien friends with you. You might need the firepower."

"Even if that were a good idea, do you think they'll go for it?"

"Only one way to find out."