[h3]The Lone Survivor[/h3]
	[i]“If there’s any doubt I’ll just strip them of as many parts as I can safely remove. It shouldn’t be difficult... unless they have some kind of automated defense mechanism, of course.” [/i]
	"Not unlikely," Notrau muttered. Naturally, he did not really know ... he was no tech. Those folks were semi-safely stowed away, much like the drone-pilots (and would most likely be preemptively shot before they could be taken in by the enemy). The knowledge those people harbored was actually [i]valuable[/i], whereas his was supposed to be strictly limited to which approaches worked for a person of his loadout and which did not. He was equipped to relay information that could be used by drones among others, but as far as his orders in regards to [i]handling[/i] them went ... do not touch and do not obstruct. "Make the cut off head bite one more time, yeah?" 
	What would be the point of making drones explode upon startup, over just destroying them right away? Seemed like an unnecessary additional risk, dallying around for long enough to tamper with one, all the while hoping that it did not turn into an opportunistic mine while you were at it... It made a tremendous amount of sense, that they would implement something of the sort. 
	[i]“Can you shoot them?"[/i] Kay-Gee suddenly inquired. [i]"Is your gun powerful enough for that?”[/i]
	"[i]Powerful[/i] enough?" he repeated, sounding almost incredulous. "At mid-range, it can punch through two and half centimeters of hardened steel, and anything less. Tank, APC, those won't care a bit. A human, a flying drone small enough to navigate these forests with ease, some lighter vehicles and craft... If I hit true, it's got a new hole punched through it." One could doubt the usefulness of wearing armor at all, if it were not for the fact that he knew what being hit did to [i]unarmored[/i] targets... And the possibility of using bullets with significantly decreased penetration that were geared towards more extensive damage instead. Overpenetrating projectiles did not necessarily have the most stopping power.
	Wearing armor was useful or the sake of everyone's moral state, if not for the innumerable other threats present. Fragments, suppression-fire from lighter weapons, ricochets, sound... And in the end of day, humans could - at least briefly while high on adrenaline and who knew what else - take a surprising amount of abuse before they went down for good. Saw that again just yesterday... 
	Notrau winced to himself. 

	[i]A hundred and nine[/i], he idly noted in his head. Some things you eventually learned to know as if by instinct... He suspected that that number might dwindle at a quite uncomfortable rate in the future, with no restocking in sight. Any number was too small if the estimated duration it had to last was "indefinitely".

	It was when he had already gotten up to get on moving that Kay-Gee added another disconcerting notion to the mix - though one would be hard pressed to say that it surpassed the sheer lunacy of their little WMD-suicide plan. This one was more personal. This one threatened to strip him of what few belongings he had, and in spite of his insistence that it was not [i]wise[/i] to go about looking like a factory-made Anderekian (a disturbingly apt descriptor, perhaps) when he was no longer affiliated with them, going without his armor and the extended senses his helmet anywhere outside his home barracks ... "blind and naked" was probably as close approximation as it got.
	Never letting his possessions out of sight (or letting them taken off his person) was probably the best bet he had. Even if it meant he had to sleep atop of his gun and wearing everything. He had halted when Kay had brought the topic up, head halfway turned towards her. 
	"I used to be a heavy sleeper," he mused audibly. And that had obviously gotten taken advantage of. "I got better." 
	He turned to face forward again, and began moving forward. He was not marching - it was even, measured strides, not rushed but quicker than the average person's walking. He could probably have kept it up till he either fell asleep mid-motion or passed out from dehydration, whichever happened first. 
	"And [i]please[/i] try not to take my helmet apart ... it's more my eyes than my actual eyes, yeah? Probably quite easy to fuck up, too, get some dust into an otherwise sealed sensor or something... Not even I know how the bloody thing's assembled, but I do know I'd be long deaf without it. And dead. Very, [i]very[/i] dead. And it's probably our best chance of picking up others' communications, especially if they just crossed me off, no?" [i]Maybe.[/i] At the very least, he was quite certain he was not trackable, or the enemy would have long figured out how to pick them out without line or sight or anything of the sort. 
	 [i]“Also – and I realize that there might be no reason to warn you against this, since it’s pretty much common sense – don’t threaten the others. It’s fine with me, I didn’t really mind, but not everyone’s as reckless as me. At best they’ll refuse to let you stay... at worst, they’ll kill you on the spot.”[/i]
	"You were alone," Notrau noted, with immediacy and matter-of-factness that suggested that he did not even need to think on the matter. "If it came to firefight, I could probably get away before the rest of your lot showed up. Had I been in the middle of a base, there'd be no getting away before [i]everyone[/i] took a shot at me, if it came down to that. I did not know for certain whether that thing of yours could pen my armor, so it was get away without being noticed, or confront and don't get hit, and not knowing how willing you were to draw guns, it was safer bet you wouldn't do so when you'd be certain to be hit first if you tried, yeah? I could last in these woods for a while, probably, but for how long? So I needed to find someone who wasn't [i]definitely[/i] hostile. I decided to risk it with you, no shots were fired, so so far, so good."
	For a bit, he walked in silence. 
	"There are still ... customs, yeah? A protocol? Things you talk about, and things you don't ... aside of threatening violence, I mean, since if [i]that[/i] is not universal, I don't really know what is. Some chain of command? A person you have to talk to so that they'll maybe talk to a more important person, who will talk to an even more important person, who will maybe be able to contact someone who might actually be able to change something, but most likely won't, and then you'd have to face repercussions for bothering them in the first place?"
	He sighed. 
	"I would not even know where to begin, especially if we're going to go and try make it so that the whole place does not get turned into a smoking crater," he muttered. "I am Enn-Que, bringer of bad news and harbinger of doom. I may have lost the hellbeast I was supposed to ride here, because I'm not too good at this..."
	
	Thunder rolled across the land. Not the thunder or supersonic planes, but that of lightning. It was a common phenomena with sunstorms, along with the sicly-yellow sky, turbulent winds and fell beams of light that could scorch a surface they hit - something the cover of clouds was wont to shield the ground from, though the cover of trees was nearly as effective even on clear days. It was not the worst of them, granted, however it nevertheless remained unpleasant. 
	But, at least Kay had been right in one thing - most hostile entities were less likely to wander about while it lasted.