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

By then, Ilshar could not find it in him to be glad at how this new standoff was defused. Yes, they had gotten out of it without a bullet fired or embedded in their hides, blessed be the Nexus, but the fact that a misunderstanding had wasted this much time irritated him. Worse still if these guerrillas had a direct link to his employers, as their equipment suggested, in which case the whole scene could have been averted with a bit of coordination, something that had been in precious short supply in this operation so far. Downsides of working at the scale that the Intranszjednota did, he supposed, and with forces as haphazardly mixed at this. His first off-planet missions before the war had been clean jobs in comparison.

[b]“If you’re hanging back, keep an eye open for whatever did this. Would hate if it was patrolling and caught us in the attack,”[/b] he rumbled into the transmitter before shambling ahead. Specialty or not, the group in the woods looked more than heavily armed enough to provide decent support in a direct assault; more likely than not they simply saw Echo as an excuse not to put themselves at risk. Arguing the point would be worse than pointless, but they had been preparing to face whatever had taken out those vrexul, so at least they could put those railguns to use.

Whatever dregs the universe gave, he would scrounge them. That was how one survived.

[hr]

A further stretch of tense woodland march later, Ilshar’s vision organs leered at the first line of defenses before the squad’s ultimate target. The armoured hulk that directed the automated soldiers brought back unpleasant memories of just what being outgunned by League heavies meant. These cybernetic shells were an unpleasant way of overcompensating for other bipeds’ lack of tarrhaidim-kind’s rotborn blessings. They did have their own poisons, but EMP rounds were so damned expensive.

[b]“Killbox, good idea,”[/b] he nodded to Rasch as he chambered the precious lightning-marked ammunition and pointed onward to the left with a momentarily free hand, [b]“I’ll cut off from over there, keep the pressure from the front.”[/b]

Ilshar was about to disappear under the double veil of overgrowth and aetheric cloaking when the other voidhanger’s voice almost made him start. With how quiet their kind was, he tended to forget she was there.

[b]“The higher-ups would like it if we take him alive,”[/b] the tarrhaidim grunted noncommittally, [b]“But I wouldn’t risk it. Nexus knows he’ll have some failsafe implant, I don’t think whoever sent him wants to leave loose ends if things go bad for their side.”[/b]

With those words, he shuffled quietly forward, taking an advanced and slightly lateral position away from the main group. His Ulvath had neither the voidhangers’ precision nor Echo’s indiscriminate potency, so to make the most of it in a surprise attack he had to make the most of firing angles. From where he crouched, he had the widest view of the armoured soldier and the lineup of automata, and the advantage was more than an observational one. As the rest of the Envonomed opened up on the target, Ilshar fired off a quick burst at the power armour’s conspicuous center of mass, then smoothly trailed off into a cone that swept over the enemies’ profile. The most damage with the fewest wasted rounds, a prize that would be worth his riskier station.