Chapter 96: Dawn of War.
Jack Mason strolled into the council chambers located aboard the GMF and found everyone including his wife sitting patiently awaiting his arrival.
"Sorry for my tardiness my friends I got held up by some more details coming in from our joint analysis agents," he said before leaning in to kiss his wife and finally taking his seat at the large round table which held the representative council of the major parties in this war.
"Have you learned anything new Jack?" the Raptorian civilian command pride all said together all while staring at him expectantly.
"Actually yes and it is something that I do believe could be a linchpin to us getting more teams onto the ground to help Spectre, possibly even begin the ground invasion in earnest," he said reaching into the pouch of his armour and producing a data chip which he promptly plugged into a port on his seat.
A little holographic display popped up before him being projected from emitters built into the seat and he quickly transferred the display to the large emitter in the centre of the table.
The large holo display sprung to life and immediately began to display a full-colour image of both Velona, its shield network and the fleet surrounding it.
"Alright according to what the joint analyst team have dug up from what the data miners have already pulled from the network that Spectre breached the other day we have discovered that the shield network itself seems to work because of a series of emitters placed at strategic points which create a web chain effect," Jack said clicking a few buttons on his personal display to zoom in and highlight the shield itself.
"Yes our science prides came to a similar conclusion, that to project a singular shield this large and powerful a series of much smaller emitters would be required to create a network of sorts," the Raptorians said nodding in agreement with what Jack was presenting to them.
"Agreed, our science packs came to this conclusion as well," Celina said nodding her large regal head.
"Yeah same here, the science hive came to the same conclusion," Tik eleth said.
"Well here's what could upend the entire thing," Jack said tapping the keys on his display.
"These here are the relays, they are near impossible to see either with the naked eye or sensors because of the shield's scattering effect blurring everything, but the data retrieved from the network has allowed us to precisely pinpoint the little fuckers, now here's the good bit, certain relays act as lynchpins of sorts, they are designed that if certain relays go down for whatever reason they will rapidly adjust their orbit to plug the gap and ensure the shield's integrity thanks to a series of extra emitters placed into them as some kind of failsafe, but should these lynchpins get pulled then it will cause major disruption to the entire network possibly even collapsing the entire thing because the sheer amount of energy that the field tried to reroute through the other nodes will almost certainly overload them," Jack said marking a few of them and pulling them out of the equation to cause the hologram to simulate the effect based on the date plugged into it.
As they watched huge sections began to flicker out of existence like a power grid faltering before eventually the whole thing succumbed to a cascade failure and collapsed.
"Details of the team's findings have already been sent to your analysts and science teams for confirmation," Jack said.
"This excellent news but it still leaves us with two questions, how do we reach these relays and how do we sabotage them, but also how do we deal with the fleet in orbit?" the Raptorians asked and Jack nodded.
"We believe we have a solution to that as well, our science hive and analysts have been reviewing the data that has been recovered by our Dark Angel teams on the composition of the insectoid fleet and here's what we've come up with," Jack said tapping his display again to change the image to one of the massive fleet surrounding the planet.
"From what we've discovered the ships are cybernetic bio-organisms that use a combination of biological and artificial components, this also seems to translate into their weaponry and even their munitions as well, these images were uploaded from the Spectre team on the ground showing types of vehicles and weapons they have encountered," Jack said clicking a button on his display and causing a second display to pop up in the large emitter.
This image was showing a mixture of soldiers on the ground carrying weapons that seemed to have biological components as well as walking tanks.
"The science hive believes that this mixture of biological and cybernetic components is both an incredible strength as well as quite likely their greatest weakness," Jack said causing both the Raptorians and Serpentinus to look at him in surprise and curiosity.
"How so?" Celina asked.
"Well from the scans that the Dark Angels took they found evidence of what appears to be a neural network in play, in short, the ships are using a form of telepathy to communicate just like the insectoids on the ground use what appears to be chemical pheromone signatures to communicate rapidly, we believe we can disrupt it long enough to throw their fleet into chaos," Jack said.
"Disrupt it how?" the Raporians asked.
Jack clicked a few buttons and the image of the tanks and soldiers disappeared to be replaced with an image of a Xeno queen.
"With the help of the queens," Jack said.
Now everyone except Tik looked confused.
"How can the queens help with this?" the Raptorians asked.
"Well for those that don't know them that well, you might be unaware that Xeno queens are incredibly powerful telepaths, they have the ability to control their entire hive through thought manipulation and commands, the science hive believes that that have figured out a way to not only chain the three queens together but to be able to boost the signal to a level that to any on the neural network it would be like an atomic bomb going off inside your head," Jack explained.
"An interesting proposal Jack but how exactly would we get them close enough to allow them to not only tap the network but disrupt it?" Celina asked.
"Well our engineers are in the process of modifying three of our Runner Class scout ships into basically floating comms relays that using their sophisticated cloaking tech will be able to slip into key positions within their fleet and when the time comes they'll unleash a telepathic barrage on the network causing absolute chaos amongst the enemy fleet, now I'm not saying for a moment individual ships will be unable to retaliate against an assault at this time but with their fleet in disarray it will allow us to counter their numbers with co-ordinated tactics and concentrated firepower, but before any of this we will need the shield grid ready to be disrupted so that they cannot hope to repair it in time to prevent our forces from landing," Jack said.
Both the Raptorians and the Serpentinus seemed very impressed with this plan but it was obvious that they had some concerns.
"What about the anti-air risk to our landers from the ground?" the Raptorians asked.
"Yes we have accounted for this as well, before the major assault is to be enacted we will instruct our Spectre team to hit as many of these sites in an area as possible to establish a safe landing zone on one of the continents, this will then allow us to set up and establish a foothold from which our ground forces can be deployed outwards until other areas can be cleared," Jack said.
"We wish our newly formed Star Stalker teams to be a part of the operation to take down these lynchpin relays," the Raptorians said.
"And we wish our Royal Sword packs to be present as well," Celina said and Jack and Tik nodded.
"That can be easily done, we were thinking of suggesting either a joint op or setting up mixed teams anyway, whichever would work best for you both," Jack said and all present nodded in agreement.
"Let us make it happen and take this war right to their very doorstep, we will show those who harm the innocent what form true justice comes in!" Lord Beltran exclaimed and the other nodded in agreement with the large Beledon lord's passionate proclamation.
"We'll contact our Spectre team and get them briefed," Tik eleth said and with that, the council went into recess.
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"Yes Grand Matriarch I understand, do you have any potential sites or any confirmed ones that we should start with?" Markus asked as he looked into the holographic display on the bridge.
"Yes our analyst teams have identified a series of sites that will need to be destroyed before a coordinated landing is to be enacted, we are transmitting them to you now" she replied.
"Excellent, we'll get it done," Markus said.
"How is your work with the resistance going?" the Grand Matriarch asked and Markus nodded while smiling.
"Far better than we ever anticipated Grand Matriarch, the Velons must have been seriously ready for this, we already have an active network in place with new cells popping up and reaching out every day, some are even on the other side of the planet, it seems this whole place had been a tinder box just waiting for someone to light a match," Markus said.
"Most excellent young Seeker, well see if you can get their help on this, a co-ordinated attack will be far more useful in keeping our enemy guessing where this is coming from, we will speak soon, Tik eleth Mason out," she said and Markus saluted before the visual display closed down.
"Alright team form up we got new orders," Markus said into his personal comms.
"We getting redeployed boss?" Lucious chirped as he walked onto the bridge holding two steaming mugs of coffee, one of which he handed to Markus.
"Looks like the Clan is gearing up to bring the fucking hammer down on this place, but they need up to get things softened up for them," Markus said and Lucious grinned all over his handsome little face.
"Yes! I can't wait to see the whole clan bring the fucking pain down on the vile fuckers," he said happily.
"Come on let's go gather the others up, we need to go over our new orders," Markus said and with that, they headed out to gather everyone up.
Once everyone including Tes'veren was all present at the meeting table Markus began to outline their new orders.
"Alright here's what I know, looks like the Clan and its allies are gearing up to begin the ground war, that must mean they are ready to deal with both the fleet and the planetary shields, now what they need us to do is to clear the skies for them to land enough forces in one area that we can establish a beachhead, they will then use this corridor to funnel more troops down from orbit so they can spread out along the planet surface," Markus said.
"Why don't they just take out the anti-air from orbit with the big guns?" Adesus asked curiously and Markus flicked up one of the pictures that Tik eleth Mason had sent them.
"That's why," he said pointing to the image of a large anti-air emplacement filled with missile launchers and what appeared to be some kind of CWIS system sat smack bang in the middle of a population hub.
"Fuckers are hiding behind civilians! Fucking cowards!!!" Victus bellowed slamming a fist the size of a sledgehammer head down on the table top with a bang.
Markus nodded grimly and he instantly saw his feelings echoed by all of his comrades around the table.
"Couldn't agree more big guy, but that's why the Clan need our help, they need these sites shut down or better blown to kingdom come so they can safely land our teams planet side, this way we can minimize or even eradicate any kind of civilian casualties, hopefully, the latter because you know how unacceptable those are to the Clan and all of us who wear our colours," Markus said to many nods around the table.
"What about the All-Mother, we still haven't been able to free her?" Feris asked and Markus nodded.
"I haven't forgotten about her Feris I assure you but we are but one team, even with the support of the resistance we can only do so much, once we have more Clan on the ground and its allies we'll be able to divert some resources towards locating and freeing her, but for now we have to concentrate on co-ordinating this attack and making sure its successful," he said.
"What is their projected time frame for a ground war?" Tes'veren asked clicking her pincers as she looked up at Markus.
"Unknown, the Clan tends to move fast when we get into something so hopefully once we have ground support in place it will be a good sign for even more to join the resistance and help regain territory from Clan Ruara," he said and she nodded by bobbing her self up and down on her six legs.
"How many of these things do we need to take out?" Adesus asked and Markus brought up the region map which now had the sites ringed using the Grand matriarch's intel.
"Six of them have the range to hit out orbital drop craft and pods from any point in the region, so they are the priority, the smaller and more mobile units can be targeted by our fast movers, so here's the plan, I'm gonna split the team in two so we can take out these two at the same time, we will then move to this third one here as a whole unit, the other three will be handled by Tes'veren and her people, once the sky is clear we will send the signal to the Clan and that's when the party will really start," Markus said using his finger to draw on the hologram and to designate the targets for each team.
"We can do that," Tes'veren said confidently as she eyed the map and Markus could already see her doing some mental calculations as to what sort of teams and munitions she was going to need.
"How are we splitting the team?" Lucious asked from his booster stool at the table.
"Team one will be me, Adesus and Verris, and the other will be Lucious, Victus and Feris, I will lead team one now called Red Team and Lucious you will lead team two now called Blue Team," Markus said.
"Huh Red versus Blue, why does that sound so familiar to me?" Lucious asked and they all looked at him strangely and he waved a hand at them.
"Ignore me just talking to myself," he chirped ruffling his feathers in embarrassment.
"Alright, these missions will be weapons free but I recommend stealth as heavily as possible, get in plant your charges on the gun and its ammo containers then get out again. each of the charges will have a backup timer just like they did for the hydrogen plant, so if your comms goes down they will trigger, be aware of this as once those timers start they do not stop, this time we will be suppplying these munitions to the resistance as well as at this point it doesn't really matter if they figure out if Clan Mason is involved as if they don't guess it from the residue they sure as hell will when the Clan hammer hits the planet from above," Markus said.
"I'm guessing speed is going to need to be a high priority here," Adesus said and Markus nodded.
"We need all six to go down at once giving the insects no time to try and set up their mobile launchers or man-portable stuff in its place to plug the gaps," he said.
With that the team began to mash out a plan along with Tes'veren as to how to carry these hits out, now the resistance was at a serious disadvantage when it came to the stealth side of things given they had no cleaking tech so Markus decided to gift Tes'veren some of the Clan's mobile cloaking generators which could be used to hide a person for up to four hours on a single battery before recharging was required though he explained they would need to be locked to a single person so they couldn't be used by others, as was the way of all Clan tech.
He also agreed to gift them some of the Clan's hunting masks which they could use the 3D printer they had on board to tailor make to the specs of the person who would be wearing them.
It took Tes'veren a day to get her fighters together and to bring them to the base site for Markus to measure and outfit them before also going through a briefing on how to use the cloaks as well as the visors, they brought their own weapons which Victus promptly took apart and upgraded while Markus was going through his lecture, the smith in the big Beledon could not be suppressed on this occasion, from blacksmith to weaponsmith you just couldn't keep the will of a good Beledon down.
The weapons that Victus handed back to the resistance fighters had been uprated with suppressors and had targeting systems that tied right into their shiny new masks so now they'd be like scorpion-shaped Yautja hunters, the targeting systems were taken from the gimbals that housed the plasma casters the Clan used.
"These are most impressive, thank you Victus," Tes'veren said and the big Beledon gave her a salute and a bow.
"Consider it a gift from the Beledon people to our allies, even though we are born of different stars we still fight with the same heart and to my people that means more than you will ever know," he said softly.
Levi slinked up beside him and wrapped herself around her male and held him tightly against her despite him being taller than her.
"We will do our very best to honour both our ancestors and yours when we strike down our enemies with these gifts you give, thank you Victus," Tes'vern said as she and her fighters drew up into their version of a salute which involved them rising up on their legs and crossign their claws on over the other while pulling their tails in tight to their bodies and tipping themselves forwards.
"Alright people time to get this mission moving, we're heading to sites one and two, then we'll converge on site three once the other two are wired up, stay on the comms Tes'veren and keep us in the loop," Markus said heading over to one of the six Surface Skimmers they had prepared for the mission and mounted his.
The others of his team did the same and as they started their engines up the resistance fighters gave them a wave off yelling "To a free Velona!!" as they shot past them and into the dunes.
Now the resistance did have some vehicles that they'd captured from the insects and repurposed but most of the captured tech was completely useless to them and to anyone other than the insect race as it had a tendency to commit suicide if handled by someone other than one of their kind, which wasn't unlike the Clan's own fail safes.
But that having been said Tes'veren's lot were really rather inventive when it came down to it, in only a matter of days they had developed a method of stripping out the mechanical components from a variety of vehicles and cobbling them together into working transports that kinda reminded Markus of some kind of post-apocalyptic walking tanks, they had even mounted cannons on them.
They'd also been putting the things to great use in harassing the Hydrogen convoys that had been desperately trying to resupply their bases after the factory went boom thanks to Markus and his team.
Now they were going to be put to even more creative use in diverting some of the attention away from the teams sent to take out the anti-air sites, some of them were obviously going to transport the resistance fighters to their drop-of points to hit their targets, but others were being deployed to hit small outposts with mortars and rocket fire in order to throw some good old fashionedchaos into the mix.
As the Red team split off from the Blue team Markus gave Lucious a wave and a salute which the little Raptorian who kinda looked like a little reptilian biker as he sped along on his Surface Skimmer returned with obvious passion, it obviously meant a lot to him that he was being entrusted with this, he probably felt it was a shout out to Remal the first Raptorian male Seeker and who was somthing of a folk hero to Raptorian males everywhere.
Though Markus still remembered the look on Remal's face when someone had shown him a picture taken on the Raptorian homeworld of his face on a billboard, the picture had been of him standing tall and proud in the centre of the image while two more images showed the two sides of him.
One showed him leading a charge during the rescue of the hive that became the War Angels during the rescue of their captive sister.
The other showed him on stage strutting his funky stuff with Jack Mason before a baying crowd of all species during the concert.
The caption underneath said 'Boys are not just soft and pretty, they can be warriors and singers too, learn to protect your own pride today, enquire with your local city guard pride or at a Clan Mason embassy and get trained today, make it so your pride never mourns the loss of their beloved male, together we can beat the scourge of vile mimics in our cities!'
Markus chuckled to himself as he remembered Remal looking up from the picture and seeing all the grinning Seekers all around him.
"They turned me into a fucking PSA!" he'd exclaimed before the laughter broke out as his wife had hoisted him up onto her massive shoulders and promptly told him that his performances were always inspiring, especially the ones he did just for her.
It took the team approximately an hour and a half of hard riding to reach their first target and this one was by far the most secluded site, but it was still in the centre of a remote village with civilian buildings surrounding it.
The large gun itself was rather obvious as it stood tall out of the centre of the little village with its long resin-covered barrel pointing skywards.
Sat around it were a series of what looked to be CWIS systems all moving around as they scanned the horizon around them, ready to intercept any incoming rockets or missiles at a moment's notice.
There was also a rather large and very complex radar dish system set up in the middle of the group that constantly turned around scanning the region, it looked like a large flower rather than a metal dish but even from this distance Markus could still make out the metal components of it.
"Alright people that's our target, now as I explained in the briefing, the plan isn't to go in there and blow it up right now, we simply need to get in there and identify parts that would completely cripple it, if at all possible I'd prefer not to send it sky high due to it's proximity to civilian buildings, we just need it out of commission and unable to fire as well as any subsystems being blind," he said.
"ROE?" Adesus asked and Markus nodded as the rules of engagement were always important.
"Full stealth protocol is in effect but upon discovery or if you are about to be discovered you are weapons-free," he said.
"Is anyone on overwatch?" Verris asked and Markus shook his head.
"No we need all hands on deck but we will scope out the site before we enter, that building there would be our best bet as it overlooks the site," he said pointing to a large sandstone building that was sat off to the right of the site.
"Alright, then what are we waiting for let's get this party started shall we?" Verris said and with that, he dismounted from his Surface Skimmer and checked his weapons before placing the camo sheeting over his vehicle.
The three of them moved in a loose staggered formation to try and prevent any possible ambushes from hitting all three of them at once or any potential traps are taking them all out in a single go, their first priority had been to get out of the desert area surrounding the town as their cloaking tech was far more effective in an environment where it could blend them into the background, in open areas the shimmers were far easier to notice.
Climbing up the side of the building took no time at all thanks to the spider systems installed in their armour which essentially just let them climb right up the bare surface not that would have bothered either Verris who as a Xeno could simply scale it like he was walking on the floor, or Markus who as a Seeker could simply run up the damn thing.
But given stealth was the name of the game here they moved slowly and as silently as they could up the bare stone until they reached the roof of the building.
The gun emplacement looked surprisingly ramshackle, it looked like not only was it a recent development but given the power cables strewn everywhere it looked like it had been put up as quickly as possible.
As they watched a small team of engineers moved between the CWIS cannons and crawled all over the things obviously inspecting them.
To Markus's eyes, they looked to be the same type of insects that they'd seen working at the data stations in the comm centre so he began to wonder if they were indeed a hive-like species with a caste system in place, with certain castes carrying out certain jobs while other did other jobs, like for instance soldiers.
Speaking of which a group of four much larger insects strode out into the floodlights from one of the resin-covered buildings that were interspaced throughout the site and began to patrol it.
Even from here without his zoom function enabled Markus could see their feathery antennae swishing and tasting the air around them trying to pick out any foreign scents to the ones they were already used to.
They paid little heed to the workers crawling over the CWIS guns like they were nothing more than background noise to them, which made him wonder about their cognitive functions, he obviously knew they were sentient as that much was blatantly obvious but he wondered how their cognitive systems worked, were they more like traditional insects or were they more like humans, or a blend of the two perhaps?
Or maybe they were nothing like either, but until he or another Seeker was able to perform a mind dive on one of them he had nothing but speculation and observation to go on.
But he couldn't afford to get distracted here as there was a hell of a lot riding on the success of this mission as a failure to bring these cannons down would either halt the ground assault or even cause mass casualties for their allies, neither of which was acceptable to him or the Clan.
"Alright, that there looks like the main generator for the whole site and I would say that are its fuel tanks," Markus said using the smart targeting system in his HUD to highlight the targets for his comrades using their short-range ad hoc network that linked their suits together and allowed them to tap into each other's feeds.
"Is hitting the generator a good idea what with it being powered by hydrogen fuel, isn't that likely to blow the whole place sky high?" Verris asked.
"Yeah but we don't need to blow it just cripple it, now power equals no gun or no radar," Markus said.
"We could punch a few holes in the fuel lines with a dart launcher or slice one with a smart disc," Verris suggested and Markus thought about this.
"That's not a bad idea, the hydrogen fuel will evaporate really quickly which should be dispersed by the prevailing winds as it is pretty windy around here," he said.
"Won't they just be able to repair it?" Adesus asked and Markus nodded.
"Yeah but with their fuel shortage it will take them time to get replacement fuel in, we should punch a few holes in the tanks with a dart launcher just to be sure," he said.
"Why not just use one of the rifles?" Adesus asked lifting it up and looking at the shrouded barrel.
"Oh goddess no, that would blow this whole place sky high!" Verris exclaimed.
"I didn't mean using the plasma mode, I meant in railgun mode!" Adesus shot back and verris shook his crested head.
"No good as the air resistance heats those slugs up so that they can punch right through armour, when they hit they fire a jet of molten tungsten through whatever they hit like a sabot round, you put one of those things into the tank and what's left of it will be bouncing off the inside of the shield," he explained.
"Oof, don't these things have a low power mode though?" she asked and Verris nodded.
"They do but while that won't cause it to explode through the molten metal those slugs still transfer an incredible amount of energy into whatever they hit, one spark and boom," he said making a motion with his hands to emphasise his point.
"Ok I get it no guns, wow you Battle Angels sure are spoilsports aren't you?" she said and Markus could almost feel her grin inside her mask being aimed at the large Xeno.
"Very funny, we should probably not let you anywhere near those hoses in case those spines of yours start punching holes in them left and right," he shot back.
"I got this," Markus said and with one fluid movement, he drew one of his stealth discs and threw it sending the matte black disc spinning towards the target marked in his HUD.
As the three of them watched with bated breath the disc span down towards its marked target before arcing into an attack vector that allowed it to dive right down and slice through the three hoses like they were made of paper.
The discs began to piss hydrogen fuel out like they were live fire hoses that had been turned on with no one at the helm.
As this was happening the disc arced through the air and shot back to Markus who deftly caught it and flicked it to clear any excess hydrogen off it before placing it back on his belt.
"Nice throw," Adesus said with obvious admiration in her voice.
"The disc is self-guided, all he had to do was mark what he wanted it to hit and it did the rest," Verris clarified.
"You just couldn't let me look heroic in front of my hot alien girl now could you?" Markus said playfully and Verris made a humph noise before folding his long arms over his chest.
"Well alright then Mr. Hero how about you figure us out a way to deal with the rest of this place without making too much noise," he said and Markus grinned inside his mask.
"Already way ahead of you doc, see that large box at the bottom of the gun?' Markus said pointing at the large metallic box covered in resin.
"Yeah, what about it?" Verris asked.
"I'll bet you a week's worth of babysitting duty in the hive that that's the master motor for the gun's drive mechanism, so if we smash it, or blow it then that gun is fucked until they replace it, we could also squib the barrel with some of that expanding Xeno resin foam that we use for sealing hull breaches," Markus said.
"That's actually pretty smart, they'll have no idea their gun is fucked until they go to use it, but what about the radar for the CWIS guns?" Verris asked.
"Oh yeah I thought of that too," Markus said reaching into one of his pouches and pulling a large can from it and holding it out to the large Xeno.
"Is this a chaff grenade?" he asked and Markus nodded.
"We rig a couple of these puppies up to a charge with a remote detonator and pull the trigger when we need to, it'll send the fuckers so crazy they won't have a fucking clue what's going on," he said.
"Or we could just rig a small cutting charge on that tower base," Adesus said pointing to the large radar tower in the centre of the station roof.
"Now whose being the spoilsport?" Markus shot at her playfully as she pushed him gently.
That was the moment that the lights in the camp all conked out at once as the generator promptly ran out of fuel and began sucking up sand through its severed hoses causing it to come to a grinding halt rather swiftly.
"Alright that's our cue, Verris you squib the gun barrel while me and Adesus chop the radar tower, meet back here when the job is done," Markus said.
"What about the gun gears?" Verris asked and before he could lift his head to get the answer there was a sharp ping noise from the gear housing and he turned to see Markus lowering his dart launcher.
"Well the hive didn't give us these nifty sabot darts for nothing now did they?" Markus said and with that, he jumped over the side of the building.
Rigging the charges up was actually pretty easy as the engineer bugs were far too busy trying to figure out what the hell had happened to their generator to notice the invisible Human, Velon and Xeno that slipped into their midst before heading to their objectives.
As he clambered up the now stationary radar tower Markus glanced down at the gun aiming drive and noticed the nice little hole that his sabot dart had punched into the side of the house where it would have sent its dense steel core bouncing around inside the motor hopefully causing enough havoc to render it fucked.
While Adesus wrapped a few coils of det chord around the radar tower's supports Markus kept watch, or more accurately he watched Verris climbing effortlessly up the underside of the barrel of the massive gun only to lob a few canisters of foam into it when he reached the muzzle brake.
The foam itself was based on an insulation foam that they now used to line the cavity of their homes but this stuff was designed to patch up vehicle hulls and even starship hulls, it set as strong as steel in a second and could expand to fill pretty much any gap, useful stuff to have hold in a pinch, especially when all of the atmosphere was being sucked out of your ship, saved you from ending up using your arse to plug the hole.
Once they were done the three of them made their way out as silently as they entered, that was one site down, and now they had to make their way to the RV point and meet up with the rest of the team, if this went well pretty soon it would be raining drop pods and this party was really going to kick up to 11.