{That is it?} Stillstorm asked.
{Affirmative, Lashret.} replied Tempo, crowded next to her in the narrow cockpit and looking out of the same window. {It is the structure that the Shell laborer had known, in this same swamp.}
{The Enemy seems to have… withdrawn from the area. Have they completed their searches in this zone?}
Talon tried to keep the sendings of the two senior officers at her shoulder out of her mind, and concentrate on her flying. She could fly a dropship, yes — that was how she'd talked the Torret of that transport into letting her be the one to fly the dropship, rather than one of the more-specialized pilots — but it was not something at which she had had much practice.
She did have enough left-over attention to have kept one eye on her infrared sensors, however. She indicated them in a brief sending, quiet enough that only the two others in the cockpit should notice.
After all, the rest of the loroi in the back might feel… disappointed if they realized that all of the Shells they had come here to hunt may already be dead.
{Good observation, pilot.} said Stillstorm. {Those wrecked shuttles are still warm. Destroyed by the blast from Tempest's impact?}
It was the most likely cause. The Umiak craft were scattered around a hundred craters blasted into the jungle and swamp surrounding the squat Soia structure, half-hidden in the thickening evening fog which swirled around the marshy terrain.
Tempo sent, {The heat-decay does support that timeline. At the same time, this...} her message faded off, a brief note of worry glimpsed at the end before the Mizol's trained lotai clamped it shut.
{You wonder why the Enemy has not yet returned to the area.} observed Stillstorm. {It may be wisdom on their part — they have no way of knowing if Tempest's reactors were likely to detonate, even now well after his crash-landing.}
{That is quite possible, Lashret.} agreed the Parat, as Talon flared the engines and prepared to land.
{Their cowardice will be our fortune. This Soia facility was clearly the focus of their efforts, and may even be responsible for both their lotai device and this energy beam. If the Shells have uncovered some sort of Soia weapons cache, we will search it before they return. If possible, we will extract it. If not...}
{Boom.} slipped out of Talon's mind, before she could stop it.
{Indeed so, pilot.} sent the Lashret, sharp amusement curling around her message.
If Talon had known how much slogging through this mud sucked, she might have suggested another plan.
Instead, she found herself trailing behind the soroin footsoldiers who led the vanguard of their little group, forcing their way through the clutching muck of the marsh towards the broad-but-short Soia building.
Also, while the area had looked desolate enough from above, down here where the mist curled around the trees it was downright… eerie. Trees whose branches were tall enough to be hidden in the fog still cast dim shadows which reached down to dance around the limits of the team's vision.
From the occasional burst of alarm sent by some of the other warriors, Talon knew she wasn't the only one who kept seeing ghost-Shells out of the corner of her eye, shades which disappeared as soon as her head snapped around to focus on them.
{Another two hundred paces, no more.} sent Stillstorm, somehow without even the faintest trace of worry coloring her thought. Her sanzai was as confident as ever, the tall Torrai striding ahead of the warriors as if the mud was too afraid to get in her way.
At least the same trees, mist and mud which made this such a great experience would also serve to hide the dropship from any Enemy who came to belatedly resume their exploitation of this Soia structure. Talon had halfheartedly considered volunteering to stay behind, ready with a trigger and a dead-woman's-switch on the Type-A fuel in case the Shells still did find the loroi's only mode of transportation.
But the desire to actually see with her own two eyes the wonders that the Soia must have left behind inside the building had won out in the end. So the dropship's own systems were rigged to detonate at any unauthorized entry, and Talon herself got to play foot-soldier.
The loroi spread out as they entered the facility, weapons at the ready. Umiak cargo containers lay scattered around the large bay, dented and scorched.
{Looks like the Shells got splashed by Tempest's landing!} crowed one soroin, sweeping across the crumpled remains of several Umiak pressed into the back corner.
Another added {A bunch more of them over here, shrapnel wounds and burn marks. It seems they were too stupid to duck!}
{Hold the chatter.} sent Stillstorm, stepping up to a portal in the wall to one side of the open bay. A door slid smoothly open at her approach. The humor in her sending barely masked the naked awe as she sent {After all these eons, the machinery still works. Our ancestors were truly architects without equal.}
Talon was close enough to hear one of the gallen send quietly {Or maybe the Shells just repaired it.} The Tenoin shared a quick grin with the technician, and then the group filed in to the narrow tunnel that led further underground.
The first sharp turn hit Talon with the deeply unnatural experience of feeling the mind-signatures of the loroi ahead of her disappear once they rounded the corner, gone as immediately as if they had been snuffed out. They had warned her and the warriors who arrived on the Ring aboard her dropship how the Soia metal blocked sanzai somehow, but it was truly something else to actually feel it herself.
Why would the Soia make something like that, and especially why would they line an entire underground facility with the stuff? Were those distant ancestors just so strong with their sanzai that they could power through the blocking, somehow? Or had this been a facility where only those most in disgrace — cowards and criminals — were sent to work, as some sort of punishment?
After several twists and turns in the ever-descending pathways, the team spread into a large open chamber. Dim, ancient lighting illuminated a messy scene: Umiak containers were spread out in front of a door off to the side of the room, and Shells by the dozen lay scattered around the room. It took Talon a few moments to realize that the floor wasn't supposed to be dark black, but rather it was the Umiak blood stuck to her boot as she stepped in it.
{The blast reached this far into the facility?} questioned one soroin.
{Unlikely.} observed the red-haired Teidar. She knelt by one of the dead Shells, telekinetically peeling back its death-stilled limbs to look underneath. {Weapons fire. Energy impacts, and big ones.}
Stillstorm turned to look at Tempo. {The Enemy fought among themselves?}
{It is… not unheard of.} the Mizol sent back. She stalked around the room, examining the carnage. {The Enemy are no more immune to infighting than we are. But why here?}
Fireblade indicated the only other door in the room besides the one leading to the surface. {These containers are arranged to provide cover against an attack from that doorway.}
{Evidently not enough cover.} quipped one of the soroin, kicking a dead Shell. {Fine by me.}
Tempo walked up to the door in question. It did not open, even when she set one gloved hand against it. {What could cause the Enemy to turn their weapons against each other?}
{Whatever it is, I want to find it.} said Stillstorm. Her side-channels leaked ideas of Soia weapons so powerful as to cause the Shells to fight their brethren over them. {Gallen, get this door open.} she leaned against the wall as the technician set to work, and stared back at Tempo.
To Talon, it felt like the Lashret was trying to keep her sending between the two senior officers, but it was still receivable to her even near the other side of the room. Some 'echoing' effect of the Soia metal? {Parat, any theories?}
{Something incredibly valuable, perhaps. It is believed that the Enemy have some sort of clan-analog system in their society, although it is unknown how much competition there is between such groupings, let alone outright hostility. But if there were Umiak from two rival 'clans' assigned to search here, and one of them found a Soia artifact of such incredible importance to their Hierarchy that it would elevate one clan above another...} She shook her head. {It is still far outside of what is known about Umiak psychology. I truly cannot say what may have so driven them to such an act.}
{I see.} Stillstorm sent. She leaned forwards and looked down. {Gallen, progress on the door?}
{Will take a few bima, Lashret.} sent the technician. {The Shells have worked pretty hard to lock it down, from our side. Welded their own cross-bars over it. They really wanted it closed.}
{Then we 'really' want it open.} the Lashret replied. {Make it so.} She turned back to Tempo. {Is it not possible that—}
A burst of alarm came from one of the soroin standing next to the door through which they had all entered. {Listen! Sounds from above!}
All activity froze, minds and ears straining at the silence. And then, echoing down the same corridors that they had walked through only hundreds of solon ago:
K-chunk K-chunk K-chunk.
An ominous rhythm that all loroi knew well.
Hardtroops.
The first wave lay piled at the bottom of the ramp into the room, their stacked bodies keeping the door from closing even as it repeatedly tried. But sounds from behind the four fallen hardtroops showed that more were coming.
With a grunt, Talon and the four soroin next to her heaved one of the Shell supply crates over onto its side. It joined the line of the others, now re-arranged to protect the loroi now seeking to defend against the other door than earlier. She could only hope that they would serve better for the loroi than the crates had done for their Umiak creators.
{Full power to your weapons.} the senior-most soroin sent. {No need to worry about too much penetration, not here.}
One of her younger caste-sisters added with false bravado {I liked 'too much penetration,' last time I visited a monastery!}
Forced laughter followed around the room, thin and brittle.
Talon noted that Stillstorm didn't put an end to it, however. Instead, the Lashret sent curtly {Gallen, time until that door is open?}
{Less than a hundred solon, Lashret.} ground out the technician, as she and one other of her caste muscled the assembled 'portable' heavy laser cutter into position. {This Shell metal is tough as anything, and the Soia stuff is even worse!}
Talon's attention snapped back to the entrance door as a waft of wind came down, strong enough to be felt even through her suit. As it was, her suit's sensors chimed at her, flagging the sudden rise in heat. Some sort of explosion, outside on the surface? But if the dropship and its Type-A fuel had gone up, they would have felt the shockwave, even this deep down.
At her side, the one gallen not involved in the door-opening tapped at the sensor suite built into the arm of her specialized suit. Talon felt the rising panic that resulted. {Alert! There are fuel by-products in that gust of air — the Shells are bringing in combustion weapons!}
That… was probably smart of them. The entrance tunnel was narrow enough that hardtroops had to squeeze down single-file, and with the steep downward angle their feet were seen several solon before the bio-mechanical monsters could bring their weapons to bear.
The four slaughtered hardtroops still crammed into the doorway had shown that, well enough. But the hallway also led down: all the Enemy had to do was pour any combustible liquid down the tunnels, and set it alight. The loroi in their sealed suits could breathe through the smoke… but the sudden heat was another story.
{Enough of this.} sent Stillstorm. {Teidar, make a hole!}
{Gladly, Lashret!} The red-haired loroi stepped forwards as the gallen hurriedly scuttled aside. Ancient metal and Umiak additions alike bent aside, shrieking loudly as they were brutally torn asunder. It was far from subtle, and the door now could not be closed behind the loroi. It could not help delay Shell pursuit.
{Teidar, scout ahead. You four, follow her. Find the next door along and wait beyond it. Everybody else, rig explosives to these Umiak canisters and then follow. No reason to let the Enemy have an easy time following us.}
Talon helped one of the soroin affix a grenade to the side of the cargo pallet in front of her, proximity fuse set to go active in forty solon. It should be heat-resistant enough to still be active when any hardtroops burst in.
{Here they come!} sent one of the soroin nearest the door.
The heat in the room was now enough that Talon was sweating inside her suit, as the remaining loroi ran to the torn-open door. But just as she turned the corner, she could hear the K-Chunks of the approaching Umiak following hot on their heels.
It should have been obvious to her that the hardtroops would be less affected by the pursuing heat than the loroi were. They were half-machine already!
Yet it was only when the first Shell blaster shot charred a smoking, shallow divot into the wall next to her head that Talon realized just how close the Enemy had gotten.
{Run faster!} she sent loudly at the soroin in front of her. And how had a Tenoin pilot ended up as the rear-guard for this chase, anyways? This was what the Soroin infantry were for!
Talon sent two more power-eight shots back towards the enemy, neatly clipping off the sensor stalk that one hardtroop had stuck around the corner. Massive overkill… and of course that did little to actually harm the cursed thing.
{Which way did the others go!?} sent back the soroin frozen in the next antechamber, helmet darting frantically to and fro between the three diverging corridors that led out of it.
How was Talon supposed to know!?
{That way!} she replied, picking one of them at random. {Just run!}
The winding, narrow tunnels could not have been made worse for keeping a group together: the walls all looked the same, there was no sight-line longer than twenty paces, and the walls also blocked both sanzai and the ability to detect either the Enemy or her fellow loroi.
Really, anyone would have gotten lost.
The two soroin sprinted through the indicated doorway, followed by Talon. One of them was a soroin pideir just barely junior enough — and scared enough — to take orders from a tenoin arrir, while the other was that paset who had been shadowing the Mizol Parat every time Talon had seen them. How she ended up in Talon's ad-hoc fireteam was anyone's guess.
The door hissed shut behind them, its anonymity compared to its comrades hopefully forcing the pursuing Shells to split up intentionally just as the loroi had done accidentally. For several solon, the three just ran on, rounding two more corners and pounding along a narrow corridor. Then—
{What do you mean the next door won't open!?} Talon sent, watching back along the way they'd came.
{It's not welded shut, Arrir! It just won't open!} the paset sent frantically.
{Try shooting it, or hitting it, or something!}
Hopefully the loud blasts and hammering had at least helped the soroin vent some anger, because it certainly hadn't made the Soia machinery work any better. The three of them were still trapped in this now dead-end room.
And the thumping of hardtroop footsteps was getting loud enough to drown out the paset's fists.
{Forget it!} sent Talon, checking that her blaster carbine was still set to maximum power. {Take cover behind those columns and hide!}
The three of them sought shelter just as the booming K-Chunks got loud enough that Talon felt them more in her bones than in her ears. It only belatedly occurred to her that hiding behind the Soia-made pillars meant that she couldn't sense the Umiak minds that now approached them.
Galaxy-ruling honored ancestors or no, if any of those cursed-metal-using piss-artists had lived to the present day, Talon would put her boot so far up their valley that their grandkids would be born with treadmarks across their faces!
The booming hardtroop footsteps halted close-by, range impossible to tell as the echoes continued to reverberate off of the walls for several solon more.
Go away go away go away no loroi here she sent to nobody in particular.
Did the Shells know that any loroi had come this way? Or were they just methodically searching each possible route?
A few mechanical clicks echoed quietly through the still air.
That's it, tell your Shell friends that it's all empty here. All fine. Nobody here. We're all fine here, how are you?
A sensor-stalk peered around the corner, close enough for Talon to see her orange suit reflected in the Umiak's camera-eye.
{SHRED THIS ENTIRE TILTED FIELD!} she sent at full volume, slamming a fist into the sensor even as she jammed her carbine around the corner one-handed and clamped down hard on the trigger.
The temperature in the cramped corridor spiked as high-powered blaster shots screamed down the narrow confines. Talon leaned around the corner, satisfied at the sight of the slumped-over hardtroop, two glowing holes burned through its torso. A second hardtroop behind it clanked rapidly towards her, the gun pod that had once served as its right 'arm' now a smoking slag-heap on the ground.
But behind that was yet another Umiak construct, and behind it another… and shadows danced against the far wall as yet more Shells clanked ever-closer.
Don't they ever get tired of throwing bodies at us!? Talon thought even as she dropped the dis-armed hardtroop.
One of its comrades fired back at her, hitting the column in front of her and spitting molten Soia alloy across her helmet visor.
{Cover me!} she sent, ducking aside and wiping at the rapidly-cooling metal. Her right hand stung even through the glove where it contacted the ancient material. These Shells were throwing high-power shots right back at her!
The hallway reverberated with ear-splitting blasts that rattled her head even through the protection of her helmet. Hardtroops stomped forwards relentlessly, stepping over — and on, by the crunching sounds — their fallen without pity.
Talon cleared her vision just in time to see the soroin pideir catch a shot that burned straight through her shoulder. The loroi dropped with a cut-off sanzai shriek of agony, her mind-signature faint and fading by the solon. Still alive, but it wasn't like there would be any doranzer coming for the three of them.
Talon took her turn again on the firing line, walking two shots up the abdomen of the Shell that had felled her comrade. It sagged to the side, only for yet another to loom behind it.
Talon drew a bead on the next Shell, and pulled the trigger.
Even above the echoing blasts that still reverberated through the room, that single, quiet click managed to be the loudest sound she had ever heard.
The charge pack was empty.
Talon would never admit it, but a soroin better trained for ground combat would have reacted faster. It took her nearly a solon of shock — not terror, she told herself — before she hammered the release switch, right arm dropping to the spare pack at her waist.
The only spare pack she had left.
In the time it took to slam the new pack home, the nearest hardtroop had surged forwards and was nearly upon her. She let off an unaimed shot even as she hurled herself to the ground, sharp cutting-claw whistling overhead. She fired upwards, burning a hole through the side of the trooper.
But must have missed anything critical.
The claw raced towards her once more, Talon twisting aside barely ahead of its impact.
A second hole burst through the monster's abdomen from behind, its limp head sagging downwards as if to stare at the blaster-wound that had slain it.
Thank you, Paset!
And then, of course, more than eight times her own body-weight slammed down atop Talon, pinning her to the ground. The sudden pressure forced the air from her lungs as she sent out a mental yell of pain.
The soroin paset raced across the corridor, throwing her meager weight against the dead hardtroop slowly crushing the life from Talon's body.
It didn't budge.
{There's no use. Leave me.} Talon sent, spots dancing in front of her eyes. {Send a few more of them to the Depths for me!}
Instead, the kid took three steps back and tried again, even as near-misses scorched her green uniform and neatly singed off the short, dark hair that had only begun to reach back from her scalp.
This time, the hardtroop corpse shifted. Not a lot, but enough.
With the last of her energy, Talon pushed it aside, gasping for air even as numb arms scrabbled for her dropped carbine. Blinking away stars, she ground out {You're a hero, kid. Let's remind these monsters what loroi are made of!}
Her grasp finally lighted on her blaster, and she pushed herself upright, flashing a reassuring smile at the young soroin who had granted her another few solons of life. The kid stared back at her, wide-eyed.
And collapsed.
Smoke trailed from two holes burned into her back.
Talon's pulse pounded in her ears, teeth grinding at the sheer unfairness of it all. She'd never even known the paset's name!
She hurled herself upright to a kneeling position, blaster carbine hurling death from one hand even as her off-hand took the laser pistol from the fallen paset's limp grip.
More hardtroops fell to the unaimed fire — it was now dawning on Talon just what it meant to fight an 'army' of Shells with only fifty loroi — but her fury-fueled barrage also emptied the charge pack.
The carbine clattered to the floor, Talon now staring down a charging hardtroop with only a laser pistol ready.
And ducked to the side as enemy fire slammed into the floor a finger's breadth away from her foot, white-hot metal droplets spalling upwards. A hundred scalding points seared at her, burning fingers digging deep into her flesh.
Talon doubled over in agony, but her grip on the pistol still spat defiance back at the Enemy. Eyes clouded by pain glared up at the Shell as it loomed over her, a line of blackened scorch marks across its front.
Stupid shredded pistol wasn't set to full power!
She flicked the power switch on the pistol, only for a leg-sweep to knock it from her grip. Gathering what strength she had left, Talon hurled herself up off the floor and leapt onto the hulking mechanical monster, arms tearing at anything they could reach. If it hadn't been for her helmet, she'd have bitten at the hated Enemy!
She would not go to the Depths peacefully!
Talon grabbed hold of the hardtroop's 'head' and twisted hard. She knew full well that their brains — what brains the Shells had, at any rate — were protected in the hardtroop's body instead, but that was well beyond her ability to harm with only muscle power.
It would be only a symbolic strike; she had already killed her last Shell. But she would die doing her level best to strike back at the Enemy in any way left to her!
Metal twisted under her hand, the thin column linking head to body bending — yielding — to a loroi in the grip of bloodlust. The lens of the nearest camera to her twitched, focusing on her.
And froze.
The hardtroop slumped to the ground, life fading from its body.
WHAT
Talon stumbled back, eyes wide. How?
She looked up to see two more hardtroops down the corridor, and for a moment they stared back at her, frozen. She imagined that her own shock was mirrored by theirs.
And then the nearest one leveled its two blaster-arms at her, and fired at her.
No, fired past her.
A return bolt felled it a heartbeat later, cobalt-blue rather than the off-purple of any blaster she knew.
Before she could turn around to look, an unseen force shoved her aside behind one of the columns pock-marked by weapons fire. An unknown voice barked aloud in her ear, language incomprehensible to her stunned mind.
"[Get the Hell down you damn fool!]"
Talon stared across the corridor at the black-armored loroi who had saved her. Mirrored visor stared down the hallway, as a carbine-length weapon of unknown make spat blood-blue death at the hardtroops.
Who was that!? Her uniform was used by no caste and lacked rank tabs, which usually meant 'Mizol dark-ops team.' But Talon had never run into any such people aboard Tempest, and certainly hadn't carried any over in her dropship. So how did they get here?
The loroi quickly glanced over at her and spoke again. "[Who the fuck are these guys, anyways? Are they throwing fucking robots at us, now?]"
It was halfway through the latest burst of gibberish that Talon realized she couldn't sense this loroi. She was completely invisible to sanzai, even at this range. Talon had met a few mizol operatives that had rotated through Tempest over her own time aboard, and even the ones who showed off just what they could manage hadn't been able to replicate a trick like that.
Definitely some sort of dark-ops team. Deeply classified.
But… why the nonsense vocalizations? Who was she fooling?
{Who are you?} Talon sent.
No reaction. The mizol didn't even look up, focusing entirely on the Umiak that were falling one after the other under her gun. {Hey! HEY!} Talon tried again. If this soldier had somehow followed them this far… maybe they had brought a doranzer!
Still no effect.
Talon glanced down the hallway. Empty. Finally the Shells had run out of bodies, or just wised up and were waiting for them to try and leave.
She sprinted across the narrow corridor, crouching next to the mizol.
"[Whoever these fucks are, they sure go down easy. Hey, what are you—]"
Talon hauled on the other loroi's arm, muscles straining — that black armor was heavy! — as she physically dragging her over to where the two dying soroin lay. If the mizol refused to receive her sanzai, then she'd lead her around like a child.
"[Ah, fuck. MEDIC!]" the mizol shouted. Still using solely verbal speech — Talon hadn't picked up even a sliver of the sanzai that must have accompanied it. These people were good. "[Doc, get up here! We've got two elves down!]"
More pounding feet on metal. But this time from behind them.
Talon let go of the mizol and whirled around in time to see the door that had stymied the three of them earlier slide open as another black-armored loroi sprinted through, dropped to a knee, and slid the last two paces to where the two soroin lay. This latest one drew a white box from her waist, with a bright-blue cross emblazoned across it.
Talon watched the doranzer — for what else could they be? — work. Still in complete sanzai-silence, only jabbering away in the same gibberish in a surprisingly deep voice.
"[Who the fuck sent these kids out here without real armor!? I don't think this suit of hers even has a shield generator!]"
"[I know! And the live elf here hasn't said a damn word the whole time!]"
The doranzer took a small cylinder from the box, inserting its nozzle into the smoldering holes in the soroin paset's side. Filling them with some sort of foaming solution.
Far be it from Talon to criticize their work, but that was no medicine she'd ever seen.
She turned from the strange sight to examine the hardtroops. Her own kills lay crumpled in heaps, blaster holes shot straight through them.
But the mizol's kills were half-melted.
Were still melting, sagging as if they were softening from the inside-out even as she watched.
What was going on?
"[Okay, these two are stable. I think they'll live — elves are tougher than they look and all that. Now, you said the Traffic Cone over here hasn't said anything. Have you tried talking to her?]"
"[Of course!]"
"[In Soia Trade?]"
Talon perked up at that. She recognized two of those words, at least. Was this some sort of super-secret mizol code language? For that matter, should she be hearing this? "Will you speak to me in this language?" she asked.
"[See? I think she understands.]"
"[Hell, Doc, my Trade is shit. I'd end up insulting her or something by accident. Best to wait for the Colonel to sweep around and meet us here. Should be here any second, anyways.]"
Talon was about to repeat herself when she heard approaching footsteps from behind. Lighter than the hardtroops, fortunately, but it might be the Shells just sending regular soldiers at them now. She spun on one foot, pistol rising.
Looked down the barrel just in time for another black-clad mizol to round the corner. This latest loroi held a carbine low in her right hand, while her main hand was empty. The unknown operative paused and held her arms wide. "Easy, now, we're on the same side."
Talon sagged with relief. Finally, one that spoke a real language. She lowered her pistol. "Who are you, and what is going on?"
"I could ask you the same question." the mizol's low-pitched voice carried the recognizable ring of command. She stepped closer, the top of her helmet level with Talon's eyes. "What Legion are you from?"
Talon blinked. "Legion?"
The mizol commander sighed. "What ship, then."
"I am from Tempest."
The loroi in front of her visibly sagged in relief. "Good, Tempest's here. That will get things cleared up."
"[Finally some good news, Sir?]" asked one of the operatives behind Talon, again in their secret language.
"[I think we're getting somewhere now, Corporal.]" The commander then asked Talon "Who are these soldiers?" She nudged one of the fallen hardtroops with her armored boot.
Now Talon's confusion came roaring back. "...Hardtroops?" Who could not recognize the diabolical face of the Enemy, the foot-soldiers who had led so many atrocities known throughout the Union?
"Huh." Before Talon could come up with any meaning for the nonsense sound, the commander continued "First time I've seen them. Are they some new creation of the Soia?"
That really short-circuited Talon's thoughts.
What?
How?
She defaulted back to "Who are you?"
The commander tilted her helmeted head to one side, as if confused. "I am Colonel Pierre Jardin." At the blank look on Talon's face, she added slowly "UNSC Helljumpers. Ring a bell?"
Talon's worsening bewilderment must have been obvious, because the commander only sighed. "Let's see if this helps." She slung the carbine and reached up to unlatch her helmet.
Talon found herself staring at the palest loroi face she'd ever seen — not a trace of healthy blue coloration to be found! Gray hair cut embarrassingly short topped a sharp-lined face, unsettlingly-round brown eyes set deep on both sides of a tall, hooked nose. And... and her ears were both horribly disfigured, cut down to rounded stubs!
Her breath caught. There was no sign of scar tissue on those ears. Between the deathly-pale skin color, the strange hair, the maimed ears, and—
And the eyes were entirely the wrong shape!
This — this was not a loroi.
It was some horrible imitation of one!
"What are you?" Some new trick of the Hierarchy? But no, they had— She snapped her pistol back to bear on this imitation-loroi.
Only for a black-clad fist to arrest her left hand in an utterly unmoving grip, the laser pistol pointed off to one side.
From behind her, one of the not-operatives quipped "[Looks like the old Jardin Charm still works, eh sir?]" Humor was obvious enough, despite the code language. Or was it a 'code,' as opposed to simply 'alien'?
The not-doranzer added "[Nah, this is just like when he first met his wife.]"
"[Really? No shit?]"
"[Can it, you two.]" the not-mizol commander said, her eyes narrowing as they searched Talon's face. "You really do not recognize me?"
No, not 'her' eyes, Talon realized. Between the shorter height and the face shape… 'his' eyes.
While the Tenoin was struck dumb by shock, the strange alien male met her wide-eyed gaze and continued "You do not exactly look old enough to have fought in the First War, and I cannot imagine that we would have been forgotten in only a few decades."
Whatever this was, whatever they were, Talon recognized when a situation was far above her seniority. This was something she'd be glad to hand off to Stillstorm… wherever the rest of the loroi — the real loroi — had gone. "My commanding officer can answer your questions better than I can."
And were those the truest words ever spoken aloud!
At least these aliens were clearly hostile to the Shells, and… 'not hostile' to the Loroi. Talon continued "She and her team are elsewhere in this facility. We became… separated."
"I see." The 'UNSC' said, before looking past her at his subordinates. "[Can those two be moved?]"
"[Biofoam's worked its magic, sir. The nanites are well-spread through their systems now. You can do anything short of use them for battering rams and they'll be fine.]" the not-doranzer replied in what Talon was now certain was an alien language. Where was that Listel Tozet when you needed her? For that matter, the actual Mizol would be best-suited for this bewildering situation.
"[Good.]" said the column-commander. "[I'll take point; you two follow behind. The other teams are still searching the upper levels, so we might run into more of these bug-bots.]" He turned to Talon, and after a few solon drew a sidearm from his waist and held it out to her. "I don't know why you're using popguns against these Bug-creatures, but here's something a bit better. Don't waste shots."
He turned around and walked down the corridor, Talon pausing for a moment before hurrying to catch up. The alien energy-pistol in her hand was even more proof that these were not loroi. But if it had as strong of a punch as the rest of these not-loroi's weapons, she was glad of the upgrade.
The column-commander began to put his helmet back on, but Talon heard him mutter "[Keep an eye on her. If she turns that gun on me, kill her.]"