The five brothers affixed their personal tethers to the gateway, which they concealed under a camouflage protocol, checked themselves and each other for readiness and then embarked down into what was once a thriving freshwater port and its surrounding suburbs in the Old World. Using a variant of the bike construct popular amongst the people of the Sky-Blue Republic, enhanced with stealth and speed hacks, the team swiftly descended into the ruins. Discreetly they scouted, sighted, scanned and identified the Bug forms that they found as they sought for clues to the governing intelligence that they believed to be present.
Silently, using only hand signs, the quintet progressed through their search for some time. As the sun soared through the sky, soon to fall behind the hills and cast the ruins into shadow, they paused at one of the many dig sites. Nala then pointed down into the open dig and motioned to enhance their vision: below was a humanoid figure, prone and unmoving.
Without deliberation, Nala dismissed his bike and motioned for Blue and Yellow to follow him. The three leapt down into the pit; Red and Green assumed an over-watch position, expecting trouble. Without missing a beat, the three landed, rolled to their feet in a single motion and approached the figure- now clearly one of the Sons of Ken, as his snow-white hairless skin and sunken yellow eyes made clear.
This Son fought the Bugs, and did not conquer- that much was obvious. Yellow checked his pulse while Blue used a diagnostic protocol to check for other injuries- or surprises; he wasn’t dead just yet, but had lost too much blood to survive and could not be moved due to mortal internal and external wounds. They looked to Nala, and Nala signed his response: fix the frame on him.
Blue and Yellow resolved a chestplate similar to their own while Nala made a copy of his chakram and affixed it to the backplate. They waited for the chakram to synchronize to the mind of the dying Son, and then Nala went to work using the inside circle as a holographic computer interface to initiate a rapid backup of the Son’s memories to the chakram.
Red and Green scanned the ground and the sky, watching for a reaction, and distantly they found it. A fast-moving Flyer group raced in their direction straight from the Hive, and Red linked his visual feed to Nala.
“As expected.” Nala thought, “This confirms that there is an intelligent Bug form present.”
The download finished well within the time before interception, and Nala detached the disc from the backplate. With his free hand, Nala ordered Blue and Yellow to rig the Son for a glorious death; they did so, and the three leapt out of the pit in a single bound. Regrouped, Nala gave the sign to exfiltrate and the five of them used their teleportation protocols to return to the gateway. As soon as their protocols reassembled their forms at the gateway and they got back their bearings, they witnessed the Flyers getting blown up by the bombs that they left behind- conveniently deresolving all evidence of their presence.
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