Chapter 18: Jungle Fever.
Smoke sat on the rocky outcrop and watched the forward operating base, he was taking notes and recording what he saw, if they didn't know already the Clan was going to need useable intel, troop deployments, strengths, numbers, everything they could learn.
As he watched he saw tanks rolling in and out of the base and from what his mask's zoom could show him the tanks coming back in had some serious battle damage, scoring and huge holes all over their thick armour, this made him smile because it meant that where ever they were hiding the Raptorians were putting up a fight.
They seemed to have two very different models of main battle tank on the field here, one type had a smaller main gun but seemed to be fitted with some kind of anti-gravity technology that caused it to sit floating on a set of blue glowing coils hidden beneath skirts of armour and he only knew about those because he could see them reflecting on the water as they floated over it.
The other type was much heavier, it seemed to be part bulldozer part tank, it sat on quadruple tracks that dug huge furrows in the soil and undergrowth, on the front of the tanks was a huge ram scoop like the snow ploughs they used at home when it snowed in winter, only much bigger.
Above it sat a huge turret covered in what looked like small tubes which must be launchers for things like grenades and smoke, not to mention smaller calibre weapons to defend against infantry getting close, the main gun unlike that of it's floating brother it was telescopically designed to be retracted behind the scoop so that it didn't get damaged in transit, but this would also be useful for absorbing the recoil of firing the large bore weapon.
The antigrav version seemed to have some seriously powerful generators mounted in the back of them as his thermal vision picked them out like golden beacons even among the trees and foliage, this allowed him to get a much better idea of how many they had moving about in the jungle.
In the FOB itself, he also saw troop carriers shaped like angular ovals and sat on eight huge wheels, with truly massive tyres that had treads like huge triangular grooves that were interlocking to allow it to run over soft surfaces like sand as well as dirt and mud like you found in a jungle, atop them was a small turret that looked to be mounted with a 20mm belt-fed chain cannon, so it appeared that they had ballistic style weapons to go with the plasma small arms they had.
But what had Smoke worried the most was what appeared to be a large battery of artillery located towards the rear of the base, their large bore barrels aiming skywards ready to rain death down on any target that got called into it, he also noticed that it appeared to be a shared base with both Scalathor and Draconis living and working on it, though there was not a sense of togetherness there and while he might not know hardly anything about either of these species other than their seriously backwards attitudes he knew what unity was.
Growing up and living in Clan Mason had taught Smoke what true unity was and looked like, every day he watched three very different species work together as a single organism, like a well-oiled machine with every little part working perfectly and doing its tiny little part to make the whole machine run like clockwork, but looking down there where groups of Scalathor and Draconis stood part from one another, not seemingly willing to interact unless forced to he saw none of that unity, none of that cohesion and with that, he saw an opportunity.
As he watched about a hundred Scalathor soldiers doing various tasks around the base, some working on the damaged vehicles, others fetching and carrying various equipment and some getting ready to go out on patrol, that's when he spotted a group of Draconis about eight strong all geared up in battle armour towards the edge of the base, it looked like they were also getting ready to go out on patrol.
They seemed to be receiving orders of some kind from another Draconis this one dressed in a black uniform while the patrol soldiers were dressed in a kind of light blue which was odd as camo goes, now granted many would say the same about golden Hunter armour but it was only that colour because they had their Yautja cloaking tech, otherwise it would be outfitted for whatever arena of battle they were entering,
Which was exactly why the Scalathor and Draconis couldn't see the bright sun glinting off golden armour as their silent invisible observer continued to watch them, suddenly the Draconis all saluted the soldier in black who was obviously their commander, with that they all spread their huge wings and one after the other took to the air hovering over the base until they were all in the air.
As he watched the Draconis began to gain height by doing circles around the FOB until they gained enough height and then they set off flying a patrol route over the jungle obviously their job was to act as an organic air support and spotting unit to their troops on the ground and from where he sat Smoke had a very good view of them and their route, they seemed to be following one of the rivers that branched out from where the FOB was located.
Well that was until they had a bit of a run-in with some of the local fauna anyhow, from high above them there was a loud whistling noise like an artillery shell coming in and when Smoke looked up what could only be described as a living aeroplane dove out of the cloud and right into the formation of Draconis.
It had to be thirty feet long beak to tail, it looked like a feathery dinosaur from Earth's history, but with what appeared to be a large armoured beak that seemed to have large hooked teeth obviously for grabbing prey and holding onto them, like the screeching Draconis that it currently had hold of.
Smoke watched in both awe and horror as the huge beast basically shrugged off the plasma bolts they were firing at it and proceeded to shoot overhead at incredible speed as its huge wings propelled it along, it had a long feathered tail trailing it and stabilising its flight seeming to allow it to change direction very quickly, as it passed overhead Smoke could hear the caught Draconis screaming in a mixture of pain and fear and he had to force himself to stay his hand as his desire to help the woman very nearly caused him to give away his position and fire upon the creature, it was a strange feeling to wish to help your enemy, but in his opinion as natural as this act was for the huge creature it was still horrific to watch a sentient being getting eaten alive.
As the creature passed low over his head casting him into shadow Smoke realized that what he thought were two huge wings were actually six smaller ones, three on either side, this only added to the huge creature's manoeuvrability, which in a world like this it really fucking needed because what happened next Smoke couldn't have predicted in a million years if he was given infinite guesses.
The Draconis were determined to either save their lost comrade or extract some form of payback for her loss and were chasing the creature firing at it as they flapped their own huge wings in pursuit, but the creature which had been gliding over the trees trailing its four clawed legs which made it kinda resemble a Gryphon from the Earth fables that their Grand Patriarch would tell when the people gathered together for a large meal of togetherness to celebrate a hunt, it both celebrated the skill of the hunters and as was the way of Paya gave thanks for the prey and their sacrifice.
The creature changed direction like a dancing Xeno and in a flash of movement Smoke saw why, out of nowhere two of the trees ahead of it on the course it had been on suddenly sprung to life and out of the branches spindly legs shot forth each having what appeared to be strands of something shiny strung between them, the pursuing Draconis swerved to avoid it but not all of them were so lucky and one at the back flew right into the web of strands and stopped dead.
In a flash, the tree creature instantly wrapped the screaming woman like a mummy breaking both her wings off with a sickening pair of wet sounding cracks which caused the woman to scream as jets of bloodshot from the stumps in her back where the arteries that had fed the wings were suddenly severed, but before her comrades could intervene the tree creature revealed it's true self and a truly monstrous head appeared out of the upper foliage.
It looked like a cross between an ant and a spider, it's large antenna covered in something designed to simulate foliage, it had a pair of pincer-like mandibles on its rounded head which was covered ina skin designed to simulate tree bark, in-between the mandibles a large pair of fangs extended and sank right into the hapless woman cutting off her screams as they flooded her with some kind of fact acting toxin that sent her as limp as a boned fish.
That's when the mandibles began removing limbs from the now dead woman like giant organic blades that simply sheared them clean off like they were made of paper, smaller legs appeared from the faux foliage and guided the severed limbs up to the creature's mouth between the fangs and the mandibles and they simply vanished.
Smoke watched in utter horror suddenly very glad that he had not landed in that tree, it was some kind of giant spider, suddenly he realized why exactly it was that the Raptorians lived underground, he also got the distinct impression that the Yautja were going to be soiling their fucking fishnets the second they learned of them and he got the feeling that as soon as the war here was overhunting parties were gonna have a field with this place.
But even while the chaos in the sky above him was raging it seemed that the planet wasn't done yet, over to his far-left there was a tremendous bellowing roar and Smoke turned just in time to see a huge heat bloom rushing through the trees towards a returning column of vehicles heading back into the base, an even if he hadn't seen the heat bloom the path of trees being smashed over like match sticks kinda gave it away.
That's when Smoke saw them and his blood ran even colder than when the tree spider ant thing made an appearance, four of them charged out of the tree line and hit the tanks like a living wrecking ball, giant lizards the size of a house with huge armoured heads covered in an array of horns and spikes that they used to try and impale the tanks they hit, their scales were shifting in colour as they moved, they had been green when they burst out of the trees, but now they were on the river they shifted to a blue which indicated they had a kind of natural active camo.
It looked like a cross between an alligator and a T Rex, a truly massive head with a long snout filled with razor-sharp teeth split open as it tried to bite down on the stricken tank's armour, it whipped at the next closest one with its tails which seemed to have retractable spines along it that flicked out to help it impale, by the set up of its digitigrade legs it could stand on its rear legs or run on all fours.
The tanks in the rear of the column opened fire on the huge creatures with their main guns as the creatures dug huge divots and gouges into their armour with every attack, their shots sending huge plasma charged shots into the beasts blowing off body parts as the huge glowing blue-green orbs smashed into their scales, but not before the creatures inflicted an incredible amount of damage of the heavily armoured vehicles.
It seemed that this war wouldn't just be a war against the Raptorians for the invaders, but against the very planet itself, it seemed that everything on this planet was perfectly adapted to kill in some way or another, from perfect ambush tactics honed over millennia to monstrous power and brutal fury focused into a savage blood lust.
Only one of the T Alligators was left standing after the barrage and it upon seeing its friends or possibly pack mates decimated by the heavy fire flew into a blood rage, it leapt right up onto of the nearest tank and with an incredible amount of strength tore the turret clean off before throwing it at the next closest one, it plunged its long snout into the hole it hand made and by the screams he could hear it sounded like it had found the crew of the vehicle.
The guard towers of the base had now joined in the fray as alarms began screaming all around the FOB, plasma machine guns began to stitch the Aligator making it raise its long bloodied head from the now utterly crippled tank, it was just in time for the next tank in the column to get a bead and with a single shot from its main gun the beast's head turned into a cloud of mist.
They couldn't see the Tree Spider Ant as it had morphed back into the foliage and resumed its charade, but the gryphon thing was still circling while being pursued by the remaining Draconis, the towers opened up with a 20mm triple barrelled Gatling gun that sent burning hot lead through the sky visible because of the line of tracers in amongst the invisible bullets that they guided.
These things were usually mounted to large ships as a form of anti-air and anti-missile defence using a computer to target and spray any incoming with a wall of lead so dense it was impossible to fly through, but they worked just as well on the ground when used for air defence as well, the bullets moved a lot faster than plasma bolts and while plasma was a hell of a lot more powerful than simple lead, in this role it worked perfectly well as it struck and turned both the gryphon and its Draconis meal to be into a cloud of chunks, very nearly taking the pursuing Draconis with it.
THat's when he heard it again, a soft chittering noise like a whisper among the trees around him, but not close, it was like the noise was drifting to him from somewhere below him, so slowly he crawled to the edge of the outcrop and leaned over to look into the foliage of the trees below, at first he saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing.
But then he saw them, so small he could barely make out the thermal signatures against the background, but they were there, six of them moving like shadows among the tall grass at the edge of the river closest to him, when he tried to see them in normal vision he could see nothing but grass, either they were using a camo system much like their own or they were using such good camouflage that they just blended in perfectly, he was too high up to get any real detail on them even with his zoom in play.
Silently he watched as they grouped together at the edge of the grass, they seemed to be setting up something long and round like a piece of pipe, in fact, it took Smoke until they had it set up to realise what it was, it was a mortar.
They seemed to be waiting for something, they formed a loose circle around the mortar which was hidden in the grass out of range of the guns of the FOB, the shapes were small, the tallest among them could only be about four and a half feet tall, he couldn't see what they were armed with from here or any detail other than they were short, that was the problem with thermal vision while it could pick out a mouse at two miles against a normal background, it couldn't show you any more than it was a mouse and you could only guess at that.
Suddenly one of the creatures he guessed and indeed hoped were Raptorians stepped forwards and picked something up from a pack on one of the backs of the other, then like a perfectly timed Freedom Day's firework display they fired and they weren't alone.
From a verity of spots around the surrounding jungle and rivers edges, there were a series of dull thuds and they created splashes of gold and red on Smoke's thermal vision, he counted eight separate launch sites, to the naked eye, they would see nothing but to Smoke's thermal vision he saw the heated gasses that created bright red arches through the air as the mortars flew from their launch sites towards the FOB in long lazy arcs.
The anti-air gattling gun woke up and went crazy spinning on its mounting firing bursts into the air in order to detonate the mortars early, of the eight fired it hit four but the other four hit the ground sending huge plumes of flame-filled smoke upwards as they detonated, instantly the guard towers began to rake the jungle and ground in the general direction that the mortars had come from causing the Raptiorans to scatter as their positions were compromised.
Some unleashed shoulder-mounted missiles in the direction of the guard towers before scattering with their fellows and though most were intercepted by the anti-air turret two made it through the screen of lead and hit the towers, the towers were obviously designed to weather the hits from the weapons though causing minimum damage to the superstructure, this was his chance and Smoke decided that this was his chance, he just had to find the fleeing Raptorian team that was closest to him.
So Smoke as unhappy as he was about going out into the jungle filled with abundance of living nightmares this planet seemed to offer dropped down from his rocky outcrop and into the trees, well he hoped they were trees anyway but given that they didn't try to eat him he felt safe enough, he tried to remember what their Grand Matriarch had taught them about hunting smaller prey.
He used his height advantage to cast about in the trees until he found what he was looking for, footprints on the colder ground, they weren't human that was for sure as they seemed to be shaped like a large bird's foot, two large toes and a narrow heel and sole, they were all over the place, like they were running in circles like headless chickens but that's when something Tik had said flashed through Smoke's mind, this was an attempt throw off and confuse any pursuit, to make the pursuers chase their own tails and go in circles.
Smoke hopped from branch to branch his power-assisted movements making up for his human inadequacies, he knew that moving at speed would compromise his cloak somewhat and turn him into a rippling shimmer that was visible to an observant eye, but he had no choice, the Raptorians were moving fast and he had to work to catch up and given that he was being slowed by their counter pursuit manoeuvre he had to make up for it with speed.
Unfortunately, that was his first mistake, he was desperately trying not to lose the trail among the undergrowth which meant he had to move fast before the marks faded, as he was running along a branch not looking forwards but down at the trails of prints below him in the undergrowth the branch suddenly exploded under him propelling him first forwards and then downwards into the ground with a heavy thud that sent a shot of pain through his body, the impact jarred his senses and before he could get them cleared and back figures appeared out of the undergrowth all around him in a circle.
It was like the jungle was alive for a brief moment before it morphed into six little gun-toting figures, "Ahh fuck" Smoke moaned as he found himself staring down six gun barrels that by the look of them were plasma-based but there was something different about these ones, but right now that really didn't matter as they were all pointed at his head.
Every instinct in Smoke's body screamed at him to grab his own weapon from its sling on his back but he stayed his hands and slowly lifted them to show he meant no harm, the figures around him were bipedal, humanoid, standing on a pair of digitigrade legs looked very muscular in the thigh region but very thin in the calf area, they were obviously meant for speed, each one had a very long tail behind them that was as long as they were tall, their torso's were small and compact and their arms were thick for their size denoting a decent amount of strength in those compact little bodies.
They were blatantly all females by the hourglass shapes of their short bodies visible even through the battle suits they wore, even under the plate carrier style body armour the swells on their chests which announced the presence of breasts, as he watched them colours began to swirl over their suits and they looked at him which what appeared to be confusion, like they didn't seem to know what to make of him, "Err hello, my name is Smoke, I'm a Hunter of the Guardian Core of Clan Mason..." he began before as swift as a striking snake one of them stepped forwards and planted a rifle butt to the side of his head.
Thanks to his helmet which absorbed the blow it did not hurt nearly as much as it should of, but the force behind the blow was both impressive and an obvious indicator for him to shut the fuck up, one of the others in the group didn't seem to like the fact that he'd been struck and she chittered at his assailant with what sounded to be anger, but then given he had no clue how their language sounded in context she could have been congratulating her and telling her to do it again for all he knew.
But Smoke covered his head with his arms all the same as they angrily chittered among themselves, right up until as fast as a striking snake again one of them snatched his rifle from his back pulling him backwards off his knees as the sling caught on his chest, as he went to grab for it five barrels closed into his vision, she turned the rifle over in her two-fingered hands which by the pointy shapes at the tips of her gloves had claws of some kind, she was obviously trying to figure the weapon out that's when she made a bad mistake and she gripped the handgrip.
"Whoa! I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Smoke exclaimed reaching out his hands towards her causing her to recoil and one of the others to strike him again, but it was too late.
"Unauthorised user detected, deploying countermeasures," the rifle said in perfect English, the little creature went as stiff as a board even her tail sticking out as stiff as a board as the hundred thousand volt shock ran through her body before she slumped to the ground releasing the rifle to the floor, this did not go down at all well with the others, they started chittering angrily as two of them broke ranks and rushed to their fallen comrade checking her over, Smoke knew she wasn't dead it was simply an anti-theft security system that rendered any would-be thief unconscious if they attempted to use the weapon, all Clan Mason weaponry was outfitted with such things.
"I tried to warn you," Smoke said before another blow silenced him and a rifle barrel was pressed against his faceplate hard, now Smoke was not an aggressive person by nature, but he was getting really sick of being hit for no goddess damn reason, so he felt now would be a good time for a bit of a show of force of his own.
So this time Smoke rather than just take the blow he responded as his Hunter training kicked in, his mask lit up and the two closest Raptorians found that they had a triangle of red laser dots on their heads, with two sharp clicks and a high pitched whir his plasma casters popped up on their gimbals and took up the aim spinning up as they did, the one who put the barrel to his faceplate went to move but stopped when she felt something hard against her throat and the movement of her head made it obvious that she had glanced down at the long wrist blade that had extended while she'd been distracted.
The pair tending to their fallen friend turned and found themselves facing his other hand which had extended his wrist launcher, granted it was only loaded with shock darts but they didn't know that, they all froze solid as they realized they were in a Mexican standoff.
The revelation that not only was he not disarmed but utterly armed to the teeth seemed to shock the little creatures and they were sharing a lot of nervous glances, Smoke noticed that their suits seemed to be photochromic, he noticed little what appeared to be letters or words flashing rapidly in streams of colour across their faces or shoulders, they were communicating without speaking, very smart.
"I'm not your enemy so please stop hitting me" Smoke snarled angrily, he could tell they were wound tighter than springs at this point thanks to the fact that he wasn't as disarmed as they'd believed but also that he had enough weapons on him to hold them all at bay at once, but he knew that he had to deescalate this or one of them was going to get shot most likely him, so with slow precise movements he pulled his hands back and retracted his wrist blade and launcher before also powering down his plasma casters and returning them to their locked positions which seemed to surprise the little group.
"I am not your enemy, we came here to help you, we got a call from our allies the Serpentinus telling us that you were under attack, so we came to aid you," Smoke said slowly and softly, while he was talking he leaned down very very slowly and retrieved his rifle which made them nervous as hell as he could see them tensing up.
So with carefully measured movements he returned it to his back on its sling on his back letting it hang keeping his hands free of it, this lifted some of the tension in the air but not enough that he felt comfortable, that's when Smoke had an idea, maybe if he showed them he wasn't a Scalathor then maybe they wouldn't attack him, so with a slow measured movement, he raised his hand to his neck and pressed the helmet release.
Thankfully they already knew that the air was not toxic and they hadn't detected any contagions that could cause them issue, so with a hiss of released pressure his faceplate retracted and the helmet split apart before the whole thing retracted into the part around his neck revealing his face to the surprised creatures.
"See? Not a Scalathor, or a Draconis, I'm a human a..." Smoke began but unfortunately, he didn't get to finish the sentence as the one who had hit him with the rifle butt repeatedly saw an opportunity and rather than take a chance on him being a new form of enemy she stuck like a coiled snake and this time without the protection of the helmet the butt found nothing but skin and skull to stop it.
It felt like being full force punched in the face by an angry Yautja girl who's birthday you'd forgotten, there was a sharp crack that echoed through his skull as his nose caved and his head rung like a bell, sending white bursts of light into his vision which seemed to split into double, then triple, then quadruple as he collapsed to the floor on his back, all of his senses were star bursting in his head as they tried to realign, it felt like being in a room when a flash-bang went off, he could hear a lot of fast paced chittering and he wasn't sure but it sorta sounded angry but he couldn't tell, the edges of his vision pulsed with grey as his mind tried despretly to hang onto its consciousness, but he could feel his mind letting go, the blow had been a lot harder than he'd thought, maybe enough to even give him a concussion, a fact that his suit detected and just before his eyes rolled up into his head his helmet deployed to protect him from any further harm, but it didn't matter the blackness still found him.
Waking up felt like trying to drag his mind out of a tar bog, like the blackness was sticking and clinging to his thoughts as he tried in vain to leaver them free and force them back into his brain, soft sounds began to flutter into his mind from all around him, he couldn't pin down if they were close or far as everything seemed to echo, it was like being inside a tornado with sounds and thoughts swirling around, the last memories of what happened to him swam into his mind as did the pain and shock that came with them, not to mention the fear, they'd attacked him, why had they attacked him?
Something jolted him and his whole body pulsed as his mind tried to reconnect to it, slowly his thoughts emerged out of the tar pit of the blackness and he felt his eyes and forced them open, instantly his head was assaulted by white-hot pain that felt like a thousand screeching Xeno's at a party in his head, "User has regained consciousness, mild concussion detected, heavy damage to nasal bones, air passage blocked reconstruction required, slight fracture to right cheekbone and heavy swelling to right eye causing loss of vision and depth perception, pain killers and anti-inflammatories administered, please seek Battle Angel assistance immediately" a sweet female human voice said in his head in English.
The white hotness and stabbing intensity of the pain was what finally pulled his mind back into reality before the pain killers that his suit administered blurred it out, the voice of his suit was right as his vision swam back into focus as his senses did their best to reattach themselves to the organs responsible for generating them, he couldn't see out of his right eye and everything was pulsing and blurry, he remembered the savage blow from the rifle stock to the face that had broken his nose and damaged his cheekbone apparently, that's when he realized he appeared to be standing up.
Slowly and groggily he lifted his head which suddenly became painfully aware had been hanging on his chest, using the one eye that still sort of worked he looked around himself and he realized he appeared to be in a blacked-out room where the only source of light was hanging right above his head, it was creating a bright circle of light that was directly around him, but it didn't extend more than three feet away from him in any direction, he swore he could hear whispering and chittering in the ink like blackness beyond it.
It took him a painfully long moment to realise that both of his arms had been secured above his head with both his wrists and elbows bound with what appeared to be shackles and chains, effectively rendering both his wrist blades and his shoulder-mounted plasma casters useless, as with his wrists locked in what appeared to be a rectangular shackle unit that was secured to the ceiling by a pair of long chains he couldn't deploy the wrist blades, while the chains that had been wrapped around his forearms and elbows stopped him using his wrist launcher.
This position was also smart as it prevented him from deploying his plasma casters which were locked in their housing units on the tops of his shoulders, both of his ankles were secured to the floor with a pair of shackles essentially securing him in place.
His suit wasn't showing any tamper alerts so they hadn't tried to remove any of his weapons, probably for fear of what happened to their friend when she'd handled his rifle, from what he felt of the weight it was still on his back along with his combi stick or war spear as some Yautja called them, it was one of the trademark weapons of a Hunter, they all carried them along with the Smart Disc's on his hips, all Yautja based weaponry given a human and Xeno flair.
He heard more chittering from the shadows around him and he switched his vision to thermal with a simple command, the room instantly lit up in a deep blue colour that removed all the shadows around him and also revealed the small figures all using it to hide in, it appeared their combat suits weren't designed to mask their thermal signatures like his was, panning his head from left to right which caused the dull ache in his skull to magnify as did the bright golden light being given off by the thermal signatures of the twelve figures hiding in the shadows of what appeared to be a cave by the cold stone walls made of what appeared to be bed-rock.
They were all watching him intently while whispering to one another, they appeared to be waiting for something, or maybe for someone, so Smoke decided to speak first, "I can see you all, there's no need to hide from me, I didn't come here to hurt you, though by the way my head feels right now same can't be said for you" he said his words falling into a whisper as he looked around at the group in the shadows, they chittered to themselves though this time a bit louder.
"Fuck of course you can't understand me, suit activate universal translator protocol," he said half to himself half to the vocal command unit in his suit.
"Universal translator protocol active, new language detected, incredibly complex vocal structure, unknown translation time" his suit replied in its incredibly calm voice, he wished he could be as calm as she sounded, but inside he was shaking.
"Come on Smoke think, there has to be a way to communicate, this is what you do for fuck sake, find a way to talk to these people," he said angrily to himself, but fear was still clouding his mind and making it difficult to think, he was a proud Hunter and he had to make the Grand Matriarch proud of him, he just had to, he had a chance to open a dialogue with these people and to show them that they were not the enemy and every second that he failed was another second that his brothers and sisters out there working in the shadows remained in danger of friendly fire by the very people they were here to help and he was not going to let that happen, but while he was desperately racking his brains another group entered the room and instantly the atmosphere changed, he recognised a snap to attention when he saw one.
The new group made up of eight individuals chittered to the other groups in the shadows before they finally approached him and stepped into the light circle that surrounded him, they wore the same form-fitting combat suits as the others but their helmets were missing giving his first look at a Raptorian.
They had small pointed heads that tapered into flat-tipped snouts, they had dome-shaped skulls that had feathers that ran in four distinct rows from the tops of their heads down the back of their necks, they were covered in what appeared to be overlapping scales that formed a natural form of armour, they looked like a cross between a Velociraptor and a miniature dragon, they had two flared nostrils on the tip of their snouts just above their lip line, their eyes were large and forwards facing, binocular vision, these were predators plain and simple, small ones yes but predators all the same.
They seemed to come in a verity of colours as well, there seemed to be very little uniformity other than their shape and sizes, their scales ranged from jet black right up to ice white, some of them had camouflage patterning, others had mixtures of red and orange, their feathers were the same, one of them had jet black scales with white and red feathers, another had ice white scales with black and pink feathers, their eyes were just as colourful, the one closest to him right now had eyes like burnt amber which really stood out from her black scales.
The vertical slit pupils narrowed as she looked at him and she chittered something that almost sounded like a bark looking around, a group of six stepped into the light and saluted, he recognised the suits, these were the one's that captured him, or at least he thought so, the black scaled leader chittered at them and they chittered back, one of them mimed a helmet retracting then pointed to another of the group and mimed striking something with a rifle butt, before miming the helmet going back up, she also mimed pressing something under their chin.
The leader stepped up to him with the other seven that had entered with her, "Hey I'm not you're enemy, I came here to help you" Smoke said, she answered with a series of chitters and clicks, he noticed that she seemed to have small sharp and pointed teeth, but rather than keep talking she reached up and pushed his head up by pushing her hand under his chin and lifting it, she seemed to be feeling for his helmet release, "My suit won't let you open it" Smoke said trying to warn her, but obviously his unknown words fell on deaf ears because she located the catch and pressed it.
She jumped back with a loud yelp of shock and pain as the suit delivered a short sharp shock at the attempted unauthorized access attempt, there was a lot of angry chittering and hissing as the female who got her hand shocked cradled her hand before shaking it and flexing her fingers, there was a tremor passing through it, "I tried to warn you" Smoke sighed, a part of him felt like laughing but he honestly didn't want to see any of them hurt, she shouted at him now the anger obvious in her voice and she stepped forwards and squared up to him which wasn't all that effective as at over six foot tall he stood a foot and a half over her head.
She hissed at him angrily and one of the others stepped forwards and placed a two-fingered hand on her shoulder, she jumped a bit but then resumed her glare at him, suddenly Smoke had an idea, well two actually, one was kinda stupid but the other might actually work, "Suit release helmet, raise it in ten seconds" he said and with that, the suit released the helmet seals and the visor lifted before collapsing into the neckpieces again.
The black scaled one-shot forwards again like she was going to strike him but before she could another grabbed her arm and stopped her short, that's when the black scaled one seemingly realized she wasn't looking at a Scalathor and her eyes widened in surprise, a look of utter confusion slid over her face along with her companions, he saw her eyes darting all over his face before lingering on his eye and his nose, she went to reach up to grab his face but it was a slow controlled movement rather than a rapid aggressive one, but before she could complete the action the helmet closed back up and sealed him behind the protective barrier again, she tapped a blunt claw on the faceplate of his helmet chittering in a softer voice this time.
"Suit switch vocal translation mode, switch projected language to Serpentinus" Smoke said.
A little symbol like a Yautja speaking popped up in his HUD to indicate the translation mode was active, "I'm not sure if you guys can understand this but I'm willing to bet someone does as the Serpentinus are your allies, your friends correct?" Smoke said and the voice that came from the suit was in perfect Serpentinus and that got the attention of every single person in the room, he instantly felt every set of eyes lock onto him and go very wide, they might not speak it but they sure as hell recognised it.
The one with black scales who had her hand shocked instantly began barking and chittering orders at the others and three of them raced out of the room hopefully to find a translator of some kind, now maybe, just maybe that'd actually get somewhere that didn't involve beating the shit out of each other or shocking one another, or at least that was his distinct hope anyway, he just hoped that they didn't resort to torture before his words got through to them, oh goddess that was a real possibility here, because until he somehow not only opened a dialogue with these people and somehow proved to them that he was on their side, he was an enemy combatant, which given his already broken nose, fractured cheekbone and swollen eye, it was painfully obvious how far they were willing to go.