"Very few things going on in this system are good things," Sayeeda rejoined dryly. Verbally, as her hands were still inside the autodoc, she qued up the sensor data, a synthesis from the Highlander's own sensors and the sytem wide net they were tied into. Scrolling back the data she traced the object back into space and found it on an intersecting track with the PDC batteries that had recently opened up.

"Looks like a piece of a bioship that got gutted by the defensive screen," she told Neil.

"Yeah well it dosen't look that gutted from here," crackled his reply. Cursing she ordered the auto-doc to begin its disconnect sequence, and over rode several of its mechanical objections to the half finished job. The machine hissed with the gentle discharge of various gasses and the withdrawal of integrated IV access points. Even on a state of the art system the disengagement would take several minutes. In the mean time she remoted a view to one of Highlander's optical sensors, closet to where Neil's comm system emenated. The top of the bioship, a lumpy charred thing like a burned lemon was visible several miles distant. She rolled the maginification forward and got a hazy view of the surface of the thing. Chambers in the... hull for want of a better term, were popping open like pimples, oozing some sort of slime as nightmarish creatures, difficult to view at this magnification but similar to what they had seen on the moon, emerged and shook themselves like wet cannines. As she watched parties of the creatures began setting out a dozen or so to a group.

"Scouting," Sayeeda said, despite the fact that Neil didn't have access to the video and could only guess at what she was talking about. They were radiating away from the downed ship like spokes on a wheel, unfortunately one of the spokes seemed to be pointed within a few degrees of the village.

"Neil get inside, break. This is Highlander Six to Tin-man command," Sayeed went on, tripping the comm circuit to the Knights.

"This is Sword Seargent Atrador of the..." the Knight began to respond, the irritation at her impromptu callsign clear in his voice. Sayeeda grinned and squashed his transmission. In a military net the highest ranking officer speaking would be given priority by the AI controling the circuit. Sayeeda wasn't technically in a net with Atrador but she had the advantage of the Highlander's commo suite, which had orders of magintude more power than any practical man portable gear.

"Yeah yeah, save it for the Nun's or whatever. We have incomming from the impact site. What is your ETA on the evacuation."

"I estimate twenty minutes to get all civilians aboard if we prioritize them over the foodstuffs," came the somewhat sullen response. That wasn't going to be fast enough, not by ten minutes at least. The auto doc cracked open and Sayeeda climbed out, naked except for the clinging antiseptic slime the machine used and started grabbing for her clothes.

"Neil better round up whatever fighting statuary isn't actively helping people," she decided, stepping hastily into her pants and pulling them up over her hips.

"We need to buy ten minutes."

[@POOHEAD189]