[center][h2][b]Ilshar Ard’sabekh[/b][/h2][/center]

As Ilshar ambled towards the improvised assembly point, his lateral perceptors saw the bipedal symbiote of the huge Echo - or was it actually an extension of the unztadlige? - briefly fall into step beside him. He scarcely had the time to wonder if it, too, was there to ask for something before it rattled at him in its mechanical way. [color=steelblue]"Notice: Apologies. Elaboration: This platform may have caused unintended friendly fire during fire mission."[/color] Of course, the ether-worm. It had been taken out by Echo's shot. Not in little part, Ilshar reflected, his own fault for failing to consider just how destructive that cannon was.

[b]"No harm done,"[/b] he grunted back. These things happened on the battlefield, and at least this time nobody had died. He did appreciate the gesture for putting him more at ease about the unztadlige; machine-like as it sounded and looked, there was something like a living mind under its metallic carapace after all. That was well. Thinking machines unsettled him.

What he appreciated much less were the shots that rang out behind him and the confusion of voices that followed. Ilshar turned about and ground his teeth together in annoyance as he surveyed the degenerating situation. That fool human. Did the Intransigence recruit just about every thrill-seeker with a loose trigger they could dredge up from the Expanse? He could sympathize with their guides over more than just a shared genetic heritage. Had someone like this been with him on Enthuur during the war, odds were that he would have ended splattered across a wall.

[b][i]"It shames me to be reduced to fighting alongside such a one as this,"[/i][/b] he raised a hand in a placating gesture as he replied to the ZRF leader in the closest approximation of the latter's language as he was fluent in. It was not something he had used often before but still it rolled out from his mouth far easier than any lingua franca intelligible to non-tarrhaidim ears. [b][i]"Had my fortunes in my own war of survival been any better, I would have been glad to avoid her smooth-boned kind."[/i][/b] 

He nudged a shoulder towards the rest of the squad. [b][i]"But consider, my fellows in the cosmic sowing, that[/i][/b] [b]their[/b] [b][i]masters will seek retribution for their pawn, and it will be the worse for us. You still have the greatest prize,"[/i][/b] the Ulvath's barrel nodded in the scielto's direction, [b][i]"One such as the regime surely values more than the blood-driven hominids. You need not brook this one's meddling much longer. This force should be gone soon, and all that is in my power to aid your cause elsewhere on this world, I will do."[/i][/b] Ilshar nervously squinted a few half-formed eyes at the Envenomed's contact and Rasch, who had been far more peremptory in his address. He hoped the former was not about to contradict him about the squad's departure, however unwittingly.