“Right works. Sacred Band, get set.” Thebes intoned. The Sacred Band had been picked for this mission because of the convoluted command structure. They were an endlessly resourceful combat unit, used to asymmetric warfare. Taking suggestions from a Rothian was definitely not the strangest thing they’d had to do in their history. Thebes had noted the Outreman agent had been unusually quiet once they’d entered the simulation. She had scarcely shut up outside of it. She was...different somehow.

"We don’t have our full-fat lab gear with us - that was coming with the second wave of our colleagues. But our CRD suits do have limited water testing facilities; kind of like we’re carrying our school chemistry sets with us.” Dr Wetherall snorted derisively. The suits were in fact reasonably advanced, but the scientist was confident that given more time and less politics, he could design something better. “Allow me.” He gingerly stepped over to the body of water next to Rareth, crouched down and dipped an aperture in the hand of his suit into the murky liquid. Carthage aimed her SMG at the same spot of water and held onto the back of the man’s suit.

After a couple of seconds, Dr Wetherall stood up again, closing the aperture. “Let’s get moving shall we? Needs a moment to analyse.” He started walking around the right-hand side of the lake, and everyone moved into formation around him. “These cliffs look like good nesting grounds. Whatever is making that noise could be warning us from it’s home.” Dr Ngata offered optimistically in response to Nirann’s question. He stared up at the first tree as they passed it. Similar to willow trees on Earth, these had light dozens of blue pods attached to the drooping branches. “Let’s pick up the pace until we’re out of this basin.” 595 grunted, lightly patting Ngata’s suit from behind to stop him gawking at the tree.