“Five minutes.” Dr Wetherall responded to Rareth’s question directly, lying next to the comms mast to fiddle with one of the control panels. “Why are comms so patchy? Sounds like you lot are inside a ration packet.” Memnon asked, carrying his massive repeater like it was a beloved pet. “Not sure. I’ll try to clean up some of the background noise in a minute.” Dr Dlamini grunted, tugging at one of the levers controlling the mast’s base. 

“Athena, go and check out what our Rothian friend has found.” Thebes ordered the Sacred Band’s sleek, grey armoured sniper. He activated the first node in their deployable cover, which was actually a misleading name for an acorn shaped energy shield. Once the other two nodes were in place, it would envelope the transit station in a bubble which resisted ballistics and supercharged energy alike. They could even camouflage it against the background, making it almost invisible.

Athena wordlessly complied with the order, jogging over to the edge of the ridge where Rareth stood. She lay down on the pitch black ground and unpacked her weapon. Originally a rectangular block, it quickly unfolded in her hand, elongating into a high powered rail gun with a bulky scope. A bipod flicked out from the end of the barrel, which Athena rested on a stable platform before peering through the optics where Rareth had indicated. “Shit. My picture isn’t clear.” She put her hand in front of the scope and flicked it back and forth, trying to focus it. “That’s a bit better. Hmmm. Yeah, I can see something. Heat sigs. Looks like some buildings too.”

595 jogged over. “Where?” Athena pointed, her eye still trained down the sight. “Interesting...We should do a recce, see who or what lives there.”