The Sacred band all turned to face the new threat. They didn’t relinquish their circular defensive position around the camp, but a few of the team shuffled slightly to gain an unobstructed sight picture. 595 glanced over at the Simrothians and found a few of them peeking out at the massive worm from behind their hands; all of them were still motionless on the floor. “These primitives, they’re hiding from the worm!” She realised out loud.  

Ngata, who was a world-class xenobiologist, looked back up at the ridge. “Right! This thing might sense vibrations, nobody move!” But it was too late, for Rareth was already racing away from the camp; she’d already committed and couldn’t reasonably stop now, it seemed. The giant worm’s whole body quietly adjusted to watch the Datius speak, and after a few seconds a tight beam of sickly green light emitted from the beast’s larger eye. The area around Rareth lit up like a gruesome spotlight was trained on her. The Simrothians hissed quietly, sounding quite stressed, and buried their heads even deeper in the dirt.

“Carthage, get ready. Everyone else - don’t move a muscle.” Thebes cautioned, training his rifle at the worm’s head. Carthage slowly pulled a small tube from her back, which began assembling into a launcher. The silence was palpable. The worm was motionless; making no indication that it understood what Rareth had said. Until a [url=https://freesound.org/people/drzhnn/sounds/199937/]deafening siren[/url] erupted in their private comms channel, making 595 jump out of her skin. A voice immediately followed, completely synthetic to begin with, but becoming more human with every word. It even sounded familiar in the last sentence, with the tone changing with each word. [i]“Why are you here? Where have you come from?”[/i]