"Euxine"

Silence.

"Euxine, report."

The augmented Vortian stared at the scene of grief. This was entirely unseen among Irken. This level of grief, of feeling. It seemed more like them than anything. Not to mention those of Ohnmatu earlier? There was something more at play than she realized. Overlord was keeping all of them in the dark.

"I swear, if I have to come over there." Overlord sounded none too pleased.

Whatever this was, she was going to find out. She turned off her comlink and transponder, also ensuring she disabled the remote self-destruct with a very unauthorized bypass she cooked up before tuning into the planet's transmitter arrays looking for any signals of SIS agents. The furthest one away was in dark gold…very far away. A survivor of one of the power plant teams? Most curious.

Silence was the name of the game now. Her only benefit for being a prototype is that she was still short in stature. The smallest of the augmented Vortians made her way through Irken lines with her optical camouflage before she assumed it safe enough to uncloak and continue with enhanced speed. The urban landscape of Tallum slowly gave way to ruined suburbs. Smashed and destroyed businesses and homes all around. Nobody was spared destruction, especially this far in the campaign.

Trailing the suspicious signal brought her to the suburb's police department. It's building suffered superficial damage from outside appearances. As she went inside, the place looked like it was looted. Datapads and documents thrown about the floor, drawers open, computers smashed open and their drives removed for data processing. Anything for the Irken to locate any useful intelligence. Her path, following the only noise coming from within, eventually led her to the armory.

She was greeted with a shotgun leveled right at her face.

"I'm not going back, you hear me?" Blaster practically snarled. He was certainly intent on defecting. "You, Overlord, or any of the others are gonna stop me."

Her hand came up and gently pushed the shotgun aside. "I'm not here to stop you."

"...Is this some sort of trick?"

"No. I just saw something that…makes me think something's going on here and we've both been left in the dark about it. Nearly being nuked aside."

The shotgun stayed at a low ready as the other Vortian backed up to give himself some distance in case this was all a ruse. "You have my attention."

"There was this team of Irken. They're…different from the others. They seem to…feel. That's aside from the physical aspects about them that were definitely different." She paused, "I watched one break down in tears holding one of the others. They talked about love. Irken definitely don't do that."

Blaster blinked. This was certainly intriguing. "Go on…"

"What's more is I saw them meet up with Athka team for something. They were seeming like they were working together. Last I remember, all of those guys in Ohnmatu were a solid bunch. No way they'd turn traitor and start helping the Irken. Especially not since they were breaking off when the reinforcements started showing up."

That was extremely unusual. "What's your theory?"

"Right now? Don't really have one, only know that they know something we don't. But, if anything, I figure it's that Irken team that are the traitors and they're working for us instead. That makes the most sense."

"So why track me down?"

"Clearly you've gone rogue too, right? You really should turn off your transponder, by the way."

"Fucking shit." He quickly did so while she smirked and leaned against a wall. She then watched him load a magazine for a mass driven pistol. "Is that a Thordorom M and P?"

"Yes, yes it is," Blaster answered as he loaded the topped off magazine and racked the slide before withdrawing it once more to add another round. "What, you going to ask if I can team up with you now?"

"How'd you guess?"

"I'm not an idiot, Vyara."

Euxine smirked, "Of course, Eclas, sorta feels like we're the only two in SIS left with any sort of conscience."

With the pistol holstered, he slung a plasma carbine across his back and grabbed his plasma shotgun once more. "So what's our play?"

"Ships are gone. I'm certain by the time we find them, all of Ohnmatu's ships are going to zoom off world. Tallum's spaceport is definitely trashed, and there's no way we're getting ships out of any of the others. If the Irken don't have them under heavy guard, they've definitely sabotaged what civilian ships are left there."

"So, commandeer Irken transport?"

"That's what I'm thinking. Find some corvette, get out of here. Might have to rip out the tracking systems or ditch it at the first opportunity, but that's the idea."

"And then what?"

"We're going to get to the bottom of whatever this is. Finding this elusive group of Irken is going to be a good first step."

"If they're anything like the ones I ran into in the sewers, I also want some answers. Let's go."