“Senty Dlamini, can you hear me?” Freyr asked loudly, opening the girl’s eyelids. Her pupils were almost completely dilated. “Can I have a medic in here now please!” Freyr shouted. Dr Dlamini moaned suddenly, struggling within the harness. Freyr quickly worked to unplug the junior researcher from the device, and helped her sit up. 

“Senty, do you know where you are?” The girl didn’t acknowledge her, instead abruptly slumping to one side. Freyr managed to catch her before she hit her head on the floor, awkwardly holding her up. “Medic!” Freyr yelled. One of the Barbarossa’s doctors sprinted over with a satchel in hand. Together they maneuvered Dr Dlamini back onto the harness table. “You’re alright.” Freyr soothed.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She shook her head once the medic had taken over. “These objects are much more adept at controlling artificial systems than organic ones. We don’t want to give it open-ended access to your mind, especially at this early stage. We could lose you in there. In fact, I have half a mind to scrub this mission altogether until we can adjust our equipment. Although we’ll need to run diagnostics on my colleague first before we can even consider pulling everyone out.”

[hr]

“That’s done it. They’re coming up here now.” Athena confirmed. Her feed showed a few of the shapes had broken ranks and were making their way up the slope toward the ridge. “Looks like they may be heading for level ground before approaching us.” More of the group were following behind the first figures, while some stayed behind at the village limits. “I count...maybe one hundred?” Athena offered helpfully. The sound of an alien chattering registered on the group’s sensory net for the first time as they drew closer. 

“Sacred band, shield wall. Keep your weapons down.” Thebes ordered, before pointing at Dr Wetherall and Dr Ngata, who were desperately trying to fix the comms mast. “You two, go in the transit station shield and stay there. Be ready to jump out on my signal.” The Sacred Band jogged over and formed a loose line between the array of equipment and the approaching mass of heat shapes. That included Athena, who detached the scope from her rifle to continue tracking the life forms. 595 shrewdly arranged herself behind the shield wall.