[LSDF] Dissidents - Homefront Worries

"So after the tour do we get to sample the- Argh!" Adept shirked away slightly as she looked directly at the llamnel doing that. A bile feeling formed in the occhestans throat and she quickly found herself right out of the shuttle behind the imposing freespacer. She wasn't getting paid nearly enough to deal with bugs!

A deep breath and personal mantra brought her somewhat at ease as she shook the jitters away and admired the surroundings. Being stuck in the hangars and research spaces of NAM and the mega industrial hive cities of nepleslia had robbed her of her appreciation of just how much... Green... There was still out there. Even the air tasted almost suffocatingly fresh and free of pollution that the small Lorath felt she could actually take a deep breath without worrying about starting a coughing fit.

It was actually kind of nice to be... Home... After all these years.

And then she looked back at the llamnel still doing bug things and the color drained from her face again before turning away.

"Then again..."

It didn't take long for Selet's pheremones to reach her entourage, both Lorath and not, where Widow would find herself surrounded by four massive sweetwasps nestling onto her hair and clothes, the other four beginning to tend to their queen as a plain, average llamnel girl approached, her short white hair showing her place, and the fyuunen engineer's uniform accenting her curves as she walked. Vestigal wings fluttered as a nervous bee as she blushed.

"Ma'am, that's... Selet's my bonded, could you return her to me? I'm sorry, she's a love sponge and attention whore, and my queen, so... she likes to travel?"

Two of the wasps broke away from Selet's squirming form , two more lifting away from Widow, immediately setting to work cleaning dust and debris from Honeybee's feathers, their pheremones flooding the space around her with rhe sent of fine Lorath honey and joy. "My name's Honeybee. The wasps with us are unnamed, but they are Selet's entourage."

The serious Widow seemed rather flustered to Scumcleanser as she had now attracted more of the overgrown insects by dangling their matriarch in such a way, and bared some fangs at the wasps ganging up on her as white hair increased its coarse, filament like texture to seem less comfortable. "Hey, my hair is not a nest... Do you all want to be tied up and dissected?!"

When the Llmanel scientist caught a glimpse of Talas'et approaching to claim her prized Bonded, though, she quickly released the grip on Selet with a slight chiterring noise as her appendage started forming back into a short black wing once more. Aran'ya then folded her arms under her chest with a slight annoyance at the chipper, fluttering new arrival. "So, Honeybee is it? I don't think it's wise to let such a capricious insect lead you around by the nose too much," chided the Trooper with a wrinkle of her own pale one at the scent of so much raw happiness, "As intoxicatingly sweet as they might be. But to each their own, I suppose."

Her shifting eyes then ran over the engineer's form once more as the bugs preened, before offering an introduction. "I am Widow, by the way. Biochemist and Medic. Do you work here in these vineyards?"

"No, I was in the vic at the tail of the convoy. I'm the engineer on the mission. I was working during the breifing, but Selet was there. She'll tell me what happened when it's needed." She gave a soft smile, some signal telling the wasps to lower their pheremones as the wasp queen buzzed into Honeybee's waiting arms and nestled deep into her chest. The uniform slipped up during the insect's clambering, revealing the slit on Hineybee's wrist where one of her stingers lay ready to deploy.

All eight of Selet's entourage droned as they lifted off, dispersing in search of food as their queen squeaked a need for attention.

Scumcleanser simply looked at Widow with that impassive, skinless face of his. He hadn't been trying to imply that but he supposed connotation and implication were hard to suss out with his monotone drone-voice. Regardless of that, the time for action was nearing he felt. What were these sightings exactly? Perhaps aggressive fauna, armed brigands, errant drones? When he saw this peaceful, busybodied scene he found it hard to work up that killing instinct that had kept him alive for so long. Yet maybe he was just un-used to a world not made of steel and grit; by comparison this domain was vivid and lush, something he had only known from downloaded novels and videos from data networks. In the person and against synthetic flesh, there was something about it he could not put a hand on but it was an emotion near alien to him.

"We don't have any info on these odd sightings from the briefing, do we? I hope I'm wrong. This land looks too peaceful for the onset of bloodshed."

Outside of Xiaah'c Nacd

Breaker returned after a few minutes, a hand on the top of the handle of her sword to keep it from the gentle sway that came with it being at her side. For those not paying attention her boot falls in the squish of the soft ground would announce her return, and even more so the way she cleared her throat as she arrived.

"Spoke to a few of the foremen at the factory about the issues. They say typically at night they are getting raided by small creatures. Things have a voracious appetite for anything and everything, and tend to steal shiny things and tech. They said they've seen small piles of refuse and broken discarded tech in the woods as well to the west. The plan for now is to investigate still, I need anyone..." Breaker took a moment and paused in her speech to take a look at the two Llamnel with them in Honeybee and Widow, "With recon abilities to keep an eye to the sky and the surroundings. Scum, I want you near them to act as protection. Adept, You are to work with me when we find these piles to check them over and see what we can find, am I understood? Questions can be asked on the way, now move out."

The Fyunnen woman turned after a second to look the team over and began to head toward the woods. Rifle over her back, sword shifted on her hip to sway less and be a bit more secure, Breaker lead the team toward the woods with the intent to head inside and begin their search. Unlike most more industrial areas, the woods that spread out before them looked more akin to the old great forests of Lor than anything found on most Nepleslian worlds. As always, the Lorath favored nature still over surface expansion and tended to take care of their natural world a bit more than most of the other races in the galaxy at large. As such, most of the forest they entered was largely untouched and it showed in the way the forest seemed to thrive. The two Llamnel, their bond to nature, would sense the creatures around them though none seemed to come forward outside of glances and staring eyes from the shadows of bushes and trees as if to size up the intruders into their natural habitats.

"Keep eyes peeled for any hostiles, but do not disturb the wild life. Do not attack unless you are attacked."

Outside of Xiaah'c Nacd

"Aye~" Was adept's nonchalant acknowledgement in trade as she casually immersed herself in her dataslate while she fell in, Lacking much of the general sense of situational awareness one would be accustomed with if she where actually part of the LSDF and not some hanger on.

Frankly the whole problem the fyuunen just described matched mutants to the letter. The matriarchs gift had been in contact with nepleslia long enough that no doubt some of the blighters had tagged along or more than likely stowed away in the berthing of some ship to the gift and where doing the usual mutant things like stealing tech trash to sell to the Mad Mutant on freehold for exuberant pay for seeming garbage for whatever the mysterious master of freehold was doing on the former spacer world not that adept of frankly anybody in NAM cared enough to hazard a guess.

Yeah... Sounds like mutants... She mentally sighed and then actually sighed to the almost cringe orders of the fyuunen leader.

Dont attack unless attacked? Who the hell's even stupid enough to pick a fight with a force like the LSDF who are about as cold and merciless as the IPG?

With a whistle and a buzzing flutter of her wings, Honeybee called her horde forward, the wasps lining up on her forearm. A few whispered words and directed intentions, questions, her queens's scented and motioned instructions relayed for her troop to spread out, seek nectar, other wasp hives. Eight Lorath sweetwasps lifted off a Llamnel arm, spreading out as Honeybee relaxed under the gaze of the woodlan creatures. Absently, she petted Selet, who chirped and buzzed happily in her arms.

"I've got eyes spreading out. Selet told them anything unexpected to describe distance and direction. Anything that shouldn't be here. Coordinating with other hives if they can."

Outside of Xiaah'c Nacd
One hour into the Operation.

For close to an hour the troop had trudged through the woods, animals scattering at the heavy sounds of their footfalls that took little care to mask themselves or their presence. There was little to impede the progress of the group though the forest save for the foliage. Though as they trudged through the woods though, the smell would hit them eventually.

Honeybee's sweet wasps would come back in a flutter, buzzing around the queen and her bonded in a flurry, relaying information to the queen through clicks, buzzes and dances. It would roughly translate for the Llamnel "trash, lots, huts, stink." They would huddle and land on Honeybee's shoulders, seeking the approval of the queen for a job well done even as Breaker covered her nose from the smell that wafted downwind toward them.

"Seems something is dead up ahead. We will investigate, but stay close to one another and keep an eye out." The Fyunnen woman removed her My'Hyz from her back and grasped the weapon across her midsection before she trudged ahead. It was another ten minutes of walking before the group saw the first felled tree. They would come upon a clearing in the woods, seemingly devoid of trees and replaced by piles of what looked like refuse and slime covered bits of technology and machinery, all small enough and all disassembled. The piles were at random, placed about like someone had simply walked off and vomited on the ground away from another pile. Trash was strewn about the clearing as well, not in the larger piles and littering the floor of the forest. It looked more like the aftermath of a concert that had just ended than a serene forest. Breaker looked about the area as she cautiously moved in, rifle at her shoulder and safety off now.

"Spread out, investigate, find out what this is and what that is..." She lifted her rifle to a hut near the opposite side of the clearing against the wood line, the felled trees offering a modest structure for whatever had set themselves up here. As any of the squad would close on the hut though, the stench would increase and be particularly painful for the pair of Llamnel in the group should they leave their sense of smell heightened.

"An artist's rendition of a sewer." The huge machine buzzed, taking in the reeking filth through specialized receptors and his numerous eye-modules. It really did have the look of where society's waste accumulated and piled, as if some transport carrying the vile substance had tipped over and spilled it unto a campsite. Someone had set up a camp of some sort but he needed to get a closer look at the machinery. If this was the act of some wildlife, they no doubt had a reason for doing so and it wasn't hard to guess that certain communications and electronic devices attracted their attention. Moving towards the machinery, he paused for a moment to scan the gooey mess. While he was a machine and arguably the most durable member of the team, he was on extra high alert in this alien environment as he began to analyse the material, seeing if it was safe to touch.

"Breaking down data from the gunk; I will let you know when it finishes." There was little time for that however as they neared on the hut. With his massive cannon, he kept watch and took the second position to the pointman. He wasn't used to combat in the wilderness; every gap between the trees and bushes could be a potential ambush site; in the cramped mining station he called his birthplace ambushes came from anywhere.

He held up his fist, motioning for the others to stop and to find cover. Out of his body, what looked like baseball sized spheres began to emerge and begin an anti-gravitational flight towards the structure, moving near the corners of windows and other openings. Hopefully if they could get a preliminary look they could determine if it was safe to enter.

"Can say that again" Adept agreed with the spacer, Pulling up her undershirt over her nose in an attempt to mask the stench of the location from her already timid pallet. Still not in any sense of combat alert and her weapon still hanging on its sling, The modest occhestan waved fresh ar at her face hoping to keep the almost physical stench from tearing her up while she fought the urge to vomit as her other handheld against her stomach in some faux attempt to hold her light lunch down.

To the shipwright, weaponsmith, and voidbreaker of NAM such things where anathema to her. A starship had a certain smell, A hive city had a certain smell, Even unwashed laborers in greasy jumpsuits on their seventeenth hour of a long shift had a bearable smell. But in such fresh conditions the current climate hit her like a bus and the already pale Lorath saw the scene more as the odd burrow of some kind of family group like the alphabeavers of the hives sewers than anything worth shooting.

Though such animals that created such refuse and waste where worth burning as she agreed with the spacer again hoping such an action might cleanse the stench before she-

Too late she wretched off to the side and began to dry heave, Each breath bringing more and more into her lungs and nostrils as the usually sterile woman was overcome with revulsion.


Between reaching and heaving she reaffirmed her theory about Mutants in more than one language and in very low syllable wording.

Shaman had been keeping quiet, she had been keeping her eyes on the others in the group. She didn't care for the smells of this area, but she sucked it up to make sure the crew was okay. She was kind of in her own little world and wasn't thinking what the others where talking about. That was until Heaving and vomiting noises happened, this snapped her back into the material world of the operation.

She walked over to Adept as she ripped of some of her own shirt and stood in front of the heaving person "This wont be a good fix, but it will help more than nothing." With this the medic slid the piece of torn cloth around Adept's face in a sort of makeshift gas mask, she knew it would remove the the total smell but may help a little in neutralizing the stench of this place. She had noticed that others had pulled out their weapons and she nodded as she drew her own and checked around "I am more about healing than hurting but you can count on me to provide you guys assistance if a fire fight happens."

Honeybee flexed her forearm, letting the eighteen inch stinger slide out, then retract, priming. A small, glistening drop of venom collected on the tip as she focused, her skin swelling, thickening, hardening as chitinous plates started to form, eyes seeming to form kalleidescopes as her vision compounded, widening her field of vision exponentially.

"Something is not right, here. This smell is bad, but something else just... feels wrong." She stepped forward, letting her life with the fyunnen take over as she put herself closer to the mounds than the others.

Forest Clearing outside Xiaah'c Nacd

The orbs Scumcleanser had released would float along into the opening of the structure to be greeted with fairly rudimentary construction. Basic walls and enclosures, big enough to house two, maybe three people at maximum and not very large people at that, it seemed the structure was to be temporary. Inside another pile or two of seemingly discarded tech trash was strewn about, along with another pile of technology that looked to be half repaired that rest on a table in the middle of the room. Two of the side rooms toward the back of the structure seemed to have doors that sat open, yet the third was closed with some faint sounds that emerged from it.

The data returned to Scumcleanser would show a heavy presence of gastric acid in the gunk that covered the piles of tossed aside technology, almost as if it had been regurgitated. As they got closer, a heavier scent of refuse would assault anyone's nose that came within a dozen feet or so of the structure. Yet beside the sounds from the closed room, there seemed to be no one in the area besides those of the LSDF forces, at least not just yet.

From behind the hut, those with heightened hearing would pick up on the noise of heavy, encumbered walking through the woods as if whatever moved through had no care to stealth. It was obvious whatever came through was not of the woods themselves, possibly whatever had made the clearing.

Breaker had begun to close on the hut along with Scumcleanser and had noticed the noises. She moved forward to gain cover against the outside of the structure and peeked around the side to look into the woods. Without looking to the others, the Fyunnen woman began to make hand signals to the others to take cover and get ready.

"Not a sewer-" The warmachine's fist raised as his enormous cannon swept the surroundings. The scattered machinery, the foul reek, and now the chemical analysis; if something could have consumed all of that. "But a feeding ground."

From his feeds, the cabin appeared safe but it was not made to hold so many people, least of all an enormous warmachine like himself. Yet they had no idea if it was secure and with the sound of something large and weighty approaching, there was little time for a thorough inspection.

The huge machine moved to a corner and sent his globular drones out into the woods, keeping their altitude high and spreading out to cover more area and avoid becoming easily fired upon. However, they'd slow and settle into the top level foliage, concealing themselves as they attempted to keep a watch on whatever was moving their way.

Quickly reaching into his pockets, he slid five bolts into a rack on the side of a weapon. Tracker bolts; if whomever they tried to fight bolted, there was a chance they could follow them.

"Someone watch our sides and flank; we're exposed and in prime ambushing position. If need be, consider me additional cover."

"On it," Honeybee rasped, ducking down behind a pile of refuse. Turning her head with a small twitch, she could watch the war machine's back and the side of the group, keep an eye for motion as Selet moved back, into a tree.

Two of her attendants stayed behind as the other six settled around her shoulders, saving their strength for the fight ahead. Another flex of her forearm moistened the point of her stinger with more of the powerful venom, hissing and burning as a drop hit the ground.

Graciously accepting the makeshift covering from Shaman with a nod, The occhestan started to level her breathing while also trying to figure out just what their fyuunen was waving and testing like an idiot about.

And then the bee...

Then the spacer...

Adept, however, was lost on most of the tactical sense having little of her own and plainly blurted out "What?" In response to the coverbound LSDF members before the distant shuffling got her attention and it all began to click.

A smug grin started to pull at the side of her mouth as she frankly found the overreacting fyuunen humorous to what amounted to some mutants returning to their squatting dead with whatever rats or small animals they likely killed to eat as mutant, she knew, were want to do.

"Just a couple of muties, I know how to deal with 'em." She stated matter a factly with no decrease in tone before raising the muzzle of her ZARCNAM skywards and clicking the safety off. If there was any recognition in the fyuunen leaders' eyes to what she was about to do, it went unnoticed by adept as she casually depressed the trigger twice to fire two rounds in the air to what would otherwise send homeless squatting mutant scurrying far-far away.

Breaker would stare wide eyed, mouth agape at Adept as she fired her weapon into the air. The Fyunnen commander waved her hands, mouth open to shout at the fellow Lorath, but the words never left her mouth as a streak of energy sailed past her head. Adept would find herself looking into the woods one moment, then flat on her back the next. Her right side was on fire, her neck and face awash in agony from heat and pain. She would find it difficult to breath as she laid there, and a glance down would see charred skin where her uniform had burned away after taking the brunt of the damage from the shot.

Breaker would turn into the forest, her own service rifle lighting up the woods in a flurry of hail as she began to bark orders.

"Cover the idiot! Get her safe and looked after and get some suppressing fire into these woods! Start falling ba-"

Her orders would never finish as the outer wall of the structure she was next to exploded in a hail of shrapnel made of wood bits. Scumcleansers' drones would have picked up the opening of the door inside the structure and a mass of jiggling flesh running full speed at the corner where Breaker had stood, only to crash through it like a rampaging bull. The source of the smell inside possibly, rippling flesh continued to create waves across it's form even as it brought about a rifle and began to fire at the others, beady black eyes taking in the forces in the clearing, aiming for whatever posed the largest target, which at that moment meant Scumecleanser was up on the chopping block. A spray of bullets went wide as it spun to bring it's weapon to bear on the contractor, taking aim now and pulling the trigger to fire.

More gunfire from the woods began to find its way into the clearing, enemies obscured by the low brush and trees, but every so often a form could be seen darting in between here and there, most of the shots missing Breaker thankfully after she crashed through one of the piles of refuse and knocked it over. Covered in the gunk but hidden behind whatever was left, she rolled to her side with a groan and fought to get up from the ground.

It would take the barest instants of her entourage informing her for Honeybee to start moving, chitin clicking and scraping as she rushed from the cover to protect Breaker.

Powerful legs carried her into the air and a hand lanced down into the rancid mass of flesh. Her stinger deployed, a full eighteen inches of bone snapping out of her wrist to dump the highly corrosive and neurotoxic venom deep within the fleshy creature as she fought to hold on, her wings pumping to fan air and the attack pheremones she was dumping through her skin, hoping to alert any wasps nearby to the danger. She may not have been armed, but she was far from harmless, and planned to ride this beast to the ground, snap up the fallen Adept's weapon, and return fire the instant Breaker wasn't being borne down upon by her victim. Selet made herself scarce, the queen flitting towards a nearby hive to enlist their help with the mutants.

The flying, stinging insects often used their venom to carve into rock faces to build their hives, and to defend those. The venom was often quite dangerous to those that collected their honey, at least without befriending their queen and gaining the trust of the hive while it was small. The omnivorous creatures would also happily carry off the half digested remains of their kills to feed the hive. So the cat sized queen wasp hoped that she could enlist another hive to defend their home, and the lorath working to that same goal.

"Excuse me," crackled a dry voice over Honeybee's coms. Bullets could be heard pinging off his reinforced shell. "I shall offer my assistance."

With how close the target was and the fact that one of his own was upon it, Scumcleanser realized that he could conserve his munitions. He had brought another weapon with him, one that sat ominously over his back like some enormous roughly hewn chunk of metal. Too ugly and bulky to be a sword, too much of an implicit threat to be anything other than an implicit death threat to anything that looked at him the wrong way. The other gigantic chunk of metal hung in his other enormous hand as the handle of his blade. The entire weapon easily bigger than most people and now its magnetic clasps disengaged, swinging high over his head as the sun glistened against its rust-coloured body, complimenting the rushing of air from his synth-muscle powered swing.

"Please remove yourself from the target."

In a series of strides, he cocked the entire blade back with its cutting edge parallel to the ground. In spite of his lumbering, brutish appearance he moved in a single fluid attack. One stride, two strides, three strides and with each one his weapon seemed to shoot forth in slow motion silence amidst the carnage of battle. Multiple targeting programs linked to his facial cameras, coordinating with his reconaissance drones floating overhead, plotted a slightly curving travel path intended to enter through the stomach of the mutant beast and exit through the upper back of the ribcage.

The time to impact was-

*SSSKKKRRRRRUUUUUUNK*