Freyr shook her head. “We don’t have the infrastructure in place to support a hologram inside this thing. He’d need to come down here and go in person, I'm afraid. How far away is he? If it is a re-code they need, I could go and oversee this personally. I may have more luck inside, where i can analyse the equipment directly.”
 
A low humming sound interrupted Freyr’s train of thought. “Transit plate is live, and we have Dr Dlamini queued to RTB. Want me to bring them back?” One of the technicians asked from behind a row of holo-screens. “Yeah, hit it. Someone start loading the transit plate, please!" Freyr called, jumping over boxes and jogging to Dr Dlamini's side. "Come on, honey. Come back to us."

[hr]

“Good luck my dear." Dr Wetherall presented two thumbs up to his assistant as she stood on the transit plate. "Tell them to bring spare parts and a good engineer, would you?" She nodded, crouching into a brace position. After a few seconds, there was a bright flash and the junior researcher disappeared. Dr Wetherall put his gloved hand in front of his visor to stabilise his vision again.

“If by some miracle our new friends hadn't spotted us yet, they definitely have now. A whole bunch of them are coming this way.” Athena reported, sharing her feed again. A mass of heat shapes quickly flowed to the edges of the village, which the sniper tracked with her scope. They stopped before the incline of the valley increased, and fanned out so they presented a broader face. “Looks like they’re signalling at us....” Athena mused, as some of the shapes wiggled at her. “Bit of arguing and pushing going on too.”