[i]Ah[/i], Stab thought, [i]there was the other shoe[/i].

"Okay, those shields are like our body armour, kinectic impact resistant," she informed the squad, flicking the internal channel over so Myst base and LORD FOUL SKREAM could hear her as well. "they've also got the material in the skin and bones too, clearly genetically engineered. They'll be shrapnel resistant, so if we end up shooting a Snake at 'em, don't set it for cluster mode." In standard mode, a Snake, like all the S- series missiles, was ulitmately a shaped charge - well several, usually - so it was the energy of the blast that did the damage, not the fragments. "Treat them like power troops or droids," she said. "They're going to to need coherent fire to bring them down. Actually, if they use those shields, they'll be very like War Droids, since they aren't going to be able to use cover very easily, and I bet they'll try to make some kind of shield wall like, well, our War Droids have [i]their[/i] shields."

"Grenades are acid gas, so watch yourselves - closest easy comparison is GT toxin rounds, it'll burn through armour and likely shields given time, and you won't regenerate from it."

"Spears are low threat, non-magicial." Piercing weapons were largely useless against skeletal liches, since there weren't any organs to hit. And the alien's super strength would likely actually hinder them more than help in that regard, since it was more likely to reach high enough velocity to trigger the Medium Body Armour's own kinetic deflection. It PROBABLY wasn't going to be high enough to hit like a vehicular railgun. (Bullets were not all equal in the end, of course, and something like a Hammer of Hatred's can-opener was in a different league to assualt rifle or even heavy machine gun rounds; there [i]was[/i] a limit to what Kinetic Armour could actually stop).

As Feltain made his similar reports, Stab mulled over her thoughts, paying just enough attention to stay alert to the conversation.

As he finished, she ventured an observation.

"I think their fiction sucks."

Feltain, surprised, only managed a baffled "Wha?" at the apparent non-sequeituer.

"This whole don't-use-powered-tech thing they have going. Seems to the point of paranoia. It does feel like they, like, got done over in an AI rebellion or something like it."

"Okaaaay..." Feltain replied, clearly still not following.

"Well, sir, thing is about "robot uprisings" is that pretty much everyone who ever had robots and AIs had the idean of them rebelling against their masters in fiction since, well, before robots were a thing, right? I mean, I know, I've read so much of it," she added in an undertone, hearig the faintest grunt of amusement from Feltain and the admission. "So that, by the time it got to the point where, like [i]actual[/i] AIs were gonna, everyone took steps, because they were, like 'shit, I've [i]seen[/i] this movie!' So it mostly never happened."

This time there was a short chuckle, from Lord Foul Skream. "I concur with Voidslay's assesement from personal experience, since as I recall, Yeller and Daggerheart both used nearly those exact words... In unison as I recall."

[i]Oh dear[/i], Stab thought absently, [i]if I float out of cover will they see me?[/i]

"Looking over the data, sir," Shadowflight reported, "I would hazard those curse-spikes could be a form of control, or at least an assurance of control, over the soldiers. Though it is also possibly, given Stab's suggestions, they are also a body-destruction switch, to ensure the bodies are destroyed on death, so they cant be used or assimilated - or raised from the dead, since they appear to have divine casters."

"Noted," Feltain said. "It occurs to me that whatever the purpose, it might also be able to be used to make them explode offensively. I don't think we want to find out, so despite the relatively smaller danger those spears present, try and stay at range. Spears and shields don't make good gear for getting theough undergrowth, so try and keep some of it between you and them if it comes to a brawl."

There was a rumbling of assent from the squad.

One of the technicans from the base, who had also been looking over the data, spoke up. "Captain, their communications with simple language and pheromonal complexity puts me in mind me of the way the Lazerblaster's instinctive engineering works, albiet a bit more obviously. They somehow manage to work, almost hive-mind like, on engineering tasks, using only the simplest casual conversation, but at a level of co-operation that is well beyond that that should be able to achieve. There's a lot unspoken, and no-on has ever figured out how it works, given that it doesn't follow any obvious normal vectors. If this pheremonal communiction produces similar results, they may manage a level of tactical co-ordination that we might only see in controlled animated Undead or in extremely experienced units like the Defilers."

Good point, Stab thought, she wouldn't have caught that herself.

"Okay," Feltain said. "Unless we want to stop these guys from... Setting up their transport infrastructure? At eight-to-one odds - which I don't," he paused, giving their listening superiors chance to give orders to the contrary, which they didn't, "I think we're done here. We'll circle wide around and see if we can get further in. There's nothing to suggest we can't Gate back to the Fallen Soul at the moment, so we'll move deeper in and see what's closer to the heart of this place.

"It occurs," he went on, "that both of these two species might be subserviant ones, given the level of genetic engineering, so there still might be a master race somewhere, and I want to see if spot anything."

She and Feltain made their way slowly and cautiously back to the rest of the squad, and then stealthily, they moved onward towards the alien's central drop-point - or at least as far as they could go...