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DRYCLEAN-SIGINT .CONTINUE PLAYBACK

Crunch.

A bubbling skeletal torso is presently under assault. Its position face(?) down on the ground is not one that it maintains for long as a fluorescent blur crashes into the side of it, axe on bone, followed by an immense blast of pressure and incendiary rounds. Walking fire of explosive shells and area-bombardment continue to reduce ambulatory gnashing teeth to base components, providing necessary backup for a pair of voices carving a swathe through the horde. Fog and choking dust would be far more of a visibility hazard if not for the multiple sources of tactical data gathered and efficiently relayed through to all fighters.

All in all, it's going pretty well!

A significant amount of ash has been lost from the main body at this point; much detached and forming the swarm, the rest destroyed in the onslaught. Large holes pockmark it, mass flowing back into few but most instead slowly filling in with a thin fibrous support, though the smoldering shrapnel embedded within seems to slow it immensely. Its arms have sloughed off, material reclaimed to repair tactically-shattered legs, form only retaining the most vague suggestion of 'human'.

The legion staggers to its feet - though suddenly a large ball of detritus slams into its chest, knocking it right back over as an eruption of fangs from the ground keep it there. An instinct-evoking roar tears out, as even more of its mass detaches in order to attempt to escape the lockdown - exposing a pulsating red core deep in the center of it. The core shifts like a living thing, and is quickly subsumed once more; weakness shown regardless. A leg sweeps through the crowd - long enough to threaten the three ground fighters, and strong enough to plow through irrelevant skulls like they aren't there. The rest of the detached skeletons spread out further, assaulting the long-distance fighters with clouds of parasitic influence in an almost desperate bid to turn the tides.

Last legs. Kill it now.
Ishirou Well...that's new...

The red parasitic influence captures Ishirou's attention.  He switches his attention from the first corruption to the second.  Using his scanners to try and figure out what it's made out of/ how it works/what /is/ it?  He uses the RESCUE unit to stay airborne, but in flight, mode to keep on the wing and hopefully fast enough to avoid anything it can throw.  

Rockets are fired, peppering the creature, but actually careful not to hit the red growth.  Not until Ishirou has learned what he can from it.  That and others were going to hit it, so he's trying to stretch out the time he has to get data on it and it dies.

This is the most important thing to him right now.
Kukuru The skeletal monstrosity's very existence is an enigma to Kukuru. She's seen skeletons before, but not like this. She's handled bones before, but not like this. Everything here is the complete opposite of what she's usd to seeing, and to have to face something this large and aggressive in such a way that she can't simply...

Well. She's never really had to talk skeletons down before. Everything about this is just rotten, but there's not much that can be helped there. As it redoubles its attack with its legion of horrid little skulls and sweeps the giant leg at the ground crew, Kukuru throws herself forward with both arms raised, then slams her open palms down against the offending limb in an effort to catch or even break it with that heavy impact.

"Stop that. It's not nice, and you're setting a bad example for the rest of them." She sounds like she's scolding the skeletal torso, and almost like she's considering those skulls its offspring. "The more you do this, the more we'll have to break, and that's... Too much work, you know? We don't really wanna be here, either, so if you let us do our job...?"

Kukuru's not really sure how to attempt negotiations in such a state, especially when she's actively trying to destroy the very thing she's talking to/at.
Wisconsin     Ishirou is getting his scan on, whilst Denver is still wishing for Water In Space. There's a blast of main cannon fire, another volley of explosive energy rounds that lance out from the Mk 16s. She's continuing to aim for joints and weak spots, rather than pound away at the hard bones that are presenting themselves. "Is this what people-people look like on the inside all the time?" It's unclear if she's joking right now, the hardsuit's radio pickups are a little garbled.

    Nimble feet skip over a dune, enough that she's only clipped by that sweeping leg, and forced to do some acrobatics to not land on her ass or scrape the paint any more than it already is. "Kukuru, I'm not sure it can understand you! That's very kind of you, though!"
AME      Making a number go up, or making a number go down. That's all that's on AME's mind as she goes all in, ignoring every gnashing skull in her way to simply kill this damn thing dead. There's no better path than a straight line directly to being the star of the show!the positive reinforcement of a physically-felt victory.

     A running jump, for extra momentum on the swing. AME *crushes* directly into the center of what mass is left. Another waveform previously set on it collapses, but the sheer force of the axeblade's blow dwarfs any damage that might've done. For a moment, as the crusher connects, that same sheer force causes her left arm to slightly detach, coolant spewing from the stump. Immediately the clinging cables that keep it in place work to reattach themselves, black tendrils reasserting themselves onto the stump and crawling over her shoulder like vines. AME doesn't pay any of this any attention at all. How often does this happen?

     It was a good try, sure to get a lot of attention, and a lot of damage done in the process, right? But the blow's poorly-timed. That's the kind of finisher attack you try to save for when it's just a little closer to dead than it actually was. And now she's standing there, reeling, trying to push back the screaming of her pain sensors. A little dangerously too close to the action.
Sleek Shimmer     Sleek Shimmer has really about had it with this place. The unnerving, desolate landscape. The bizarre and alien monstrosity that has appeared before them.... hopefully, eventually, it will make sense.

    Until it does, though, she just wants that monstrosity to fall over and stay down.

    "Huuuuuuuuuuuahh....!" With a hop back as it staggers, she takes a stabilizing stance and raises a hand to the air, fingers spreading outwards. A great flame erupts from her shoulder to engulf that arm! It begins to blaze brighter and brighter, shifting from orange steadily towards blue-violet-white. The heat given off is simply unbearable. Being too near her is a bad, bad idea. Still, the flames aren't hurting her at all, nor does the heat seem to be slowing her down.

    Instead, the flames begin to spiral and redouble in intensity, curling around the arm as if spun by unseen winds. It builds and builds until finally...

    "The flames that leave no ashes behind... DRAGON'S SUSPIRE!"

    She thrusts that blazing hand towards the fallen monstrosity and, to likely nobody's surprise for an attack named thus, the coiling flames unfurl into a long, sinuous serpentine dragon three times as wide as Shimmer is tall. The roar of flame drawing in air to fuel itself may as well be the battle cry of a great beast as the column of scaley flame, as long as a tree, rockets across the battlefield leaving a molten trench in its wake. There's no subtlety to this whatsoever... just raw destruction.

    The dragon of flames seeks to engulf the skeletal monstrosity and blast through it at the same time, detonating into an upwards inferno capable of melting flesh off of bone and boiling bone straight to vapor.
Father Berislav      The superheated shrapnel and the pressure wave are the work of the silver mech, standing easily shoulder to shoulder with the behemoth--when said behemoth's legs are intact, anyway. Light glints from its hammerlike head as it dips forward, the whole of its body moving with impossibly human fluidity.

    The right hand--the one holding the war pick--makes a deft flick as the entire machine pivots from the waist up. In the midst of an underhand swing, the pick's sharp side cuts across the leg sweep, flying inside, parallel to the undulating mass, seeking the spot where the ribcage would be.

    A trade--blow for blow, a sweep suffered and mitigated for a haymaker calculated delivered. The monstrosity's leg crashes into Isaiah's, sending the mech tumbling and the strike off-target--no. On-target. Down, just a hair, just barely below where the ribs would end, a little bit to the side. The stomach.

    The kinetic war pick's supermassive head means that even glancing blows cause destructive aftershocks. A cone of force is shot through the legion's abdomen, intended to slough the undulating matter away from its weak point once again.

    Isaiah's side hits the ground. The mech sends up a spray of white (and red-stained) sand upon impact, rolling down the dune to end up rising on one knee with its massive, person-sized revolver drawn on the legion.

    Five shots clear the wheelgun in a deafening, blisteringly fast crack of thunder. Rings of superheated gas fly forward with each pull, like fiery lightning illuminating the midday battlefield. The projectiles are visible only because of their sheer size, these ones different from the ones before, with divots in the nose of each bullet. When they slam into the legion, the projectiles blossom outwards, prioritizing stopping power at the slight expense of penetration.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT The crusader's kinetic pick hooks under the ribcage, and the force from the blow blasts that semifluid skull-based aggregate outwards in thin tendrils - retaining some semblance of cohesion, but only paper-thin. The follow-through and a stern kick knocks them just out of the way of an encroaching pillar of flame, which completes the job started - the mass is practically gone, with nothing but the actual skeleton remaining. That core, though, seems to have been untouched - thin sinew attaches the sickening thing directly to the spine, like a malignant growth.

It's still moving, but barely.

As ten meters of shining metal careen overhead, a well-timed salvo at the knee and a sudden massive application of force shatters off another leg - just in time, as well, the limb stopping just short of barreling directly through Kukuru and AME. The former is practically just holding the thing, once more - whatever animating force comprises it seems to drain out when detached violently, and ash stains her hands. The major threat is near-practically eliminated -

    - but the chaff remain strong.

A floating skull suddenly clamps down on an open wound, and a second set of encroaching tendrils is added to AME's shoulder. Deeper, and deeper, integration with ( CONTROL / MOTIVE / IDENTITY ) systems, blood subsumed to dust. The gnawing thing bubbles, melds, spreads, at an almost incredible rate. Something ( WHISPERS / SCREAMS / CONVERSES ) in the back, then front, of her mind - ( TAKE A BREATHER / FULFILL THE CYCLE / ISN'T THIS NICE? ).

It has become very, very apparent to Ishirou what these things do. ( ISN'T IT GOOD TO LEARN / THERE ARE MANY USEFUL APPLICATIONS FOR THIS / MORE INFORMATION WILL BE NECESSARY ). He's developing something of a headache.

The clouds of skulls are pulling in on the long-range fighters, biting at gaps in armor - but the sources of them have been somewhat thinned. ( KILL IT NOW / KILL IT NOW / KILL IT NOW ).
Sleek Shimmer     Skulls have no right to act like fluids. No right AT ALL. Just one more thing to add to the list of spectacular nuttery Shimmer's unsure if she'll ever get answers to.

    Unleashing that ridiculous firebomb consumed enormous quantities of qi though, leaving her briefly winded. She had HOPED that her blast and everyone else's efforts together would be enough... and she was wrong.

    A few skulls come swinging and biting at her in that brief moment of just trying to breathe, triggering a loud yelp as the foxgirl swings her arm around and smashes at several of the roaming skulls with wild punches and kicks. Then, with a disgusted look and a weird flicker-whoosh, she's just GONE...

    Reappearing, instead, about five feet behind Ishirou as a small cloud of skulls is coming at not just her, but everyone. And she's far from too proud to ask, "Say, Ishirou... does ANYTHING about this place make any sense to you?"

    She lashes out with several swift spinning kicks, smashing more and more skulls and battering more off with a rapid backflip-kick that grinds through a dozen more and sees her landing with her back to him about five feet away. Seems she's willing to guard his back.
Ishirou Ishirou's head is pounding...he's learning so much!  There are so many useful applications...so much more information he can glean.  

-Memetic hazard detected.  Self-hack authorized.-

A moment later Ishirou's headache becomes /so much larger/ but he seems to shake off whatever...thing was trying to reach him.  "Ugh...what the hell..?  Even knowledge of this thing is like this..?  Just in time for some Skulls to try and clamp down on him.  He spins, using the high speed of the unit to avoid the devastating attack...but their wake was enough to shake him up.  

Recovering a few feet lower than he would like to be he decides that humanoid mode is the winning move.  As he transforms, he starts getting target locks.  "Open all missile ports.  We're going to carpet bomb this place," he says and follows through.  As a /lot/ of missiles seem to fly out of the various launchers on Ishirou.  

"Yes, and that's the dangerous part," He responds to Shimmer.  "It's trying to get into our heads."
Kukuru Kukuru gets a chance to breathe when the giant limb gets removed, only mildly irritated by the ash covering her hands and her clothes when it still smacks into her with a heavy thud just from the maintained momentum alone.She tries to shake it off and only succeeds in getting it all over herself, too, drawing another annoyed sound from her before she looks over at Ishirou. "That's a shame... Ah, but I have to try, Ishi. THat's how they'll know someone cares, if they could understand!"

Sadly, with so many skulls still harassing everyone, Kukuru has to take a moment to start spreading some of that healing energy around. With her nanites swarming the area to provide everyone with some of that soothing energy, though, her focus is elsewhere, and one of those skulls bites down on a wound that has't fully healed yet. It gets a yelp out of Kukuru as she reaches back for it instinctively, feeling something distinctly wrong in both her body and mind even with her implants keeping her head from getting messed up too quickly.

"How rude... They're not allowed to do that. Don't worry, everyone! I'll keep your heads nice and safe so they can't fit in. Trust me!" She calls out with an infectiously chipper tone to reassure all her allies here that everything will be alright (if a bit forcibly). Ironically enough, it's rather similar to what the skulls are already trying to do, but at least it's easy enough to tell that Kukuru really is their friend while she's slamming her palms down at anything that gets too close.
AME      A flurry of thoughts. AME's still reeling, staring into the distance, hunched over slightly, when the skull clamps onto her shoulder.

xxxxxx: u got got lmao
xxxxxx: u kinda suck at this?
xxxxxx: aw poor thing actually
xxxxxx: You know, being the damsel in distress here could be a bearable angle.
xxxxxx: They're too scared of this thing to blame you for eating shit to it, you know?
xxxxxx: u were a lost soul from the start anyways
xxxxxx: yeah, how long have you basically been dead for?
xxxxxx: Better to just give in and let it take hold.
xxxxxx: easier this way lol
xxxxxx: Shame so many ppl are looking but hey a whole lot more saw the last time right? X3
xxxxxx: Wait! Stop! You have t* **** ***

     AME falls to her knees, the grey mass coating her body. She drops her crusher. Considers picking it back up. Hesitates just a little bit too long.
Wisconsin     Denver's squeaked past the main danger, that's for sure, but there's still Skulls and Memetic Hazards flying about and that's No Good. Luckily, she's good with Flying Things. The cruiser hunkers her shoulders a bit, wiggling her hulls around to loosen up the flak guns that have been silent for the fight. "Hold on, folks, I'm coming!"

    And she dives right into the clouds of skulls, the anti-air weapons opening up to pepper and blast and fill the space around her with shrapnel and fire and General Badness for anything that's-
    She passes through where one of those popups is, mentally, and shivers all over, the Anti-Air guns faltering for a second, before she gets that helpful boost from Kukuru. Denver's feet actually touch the dirt again, as she rights herself, and gets back to her hovering , scooting across the dunes again, heading in the direction of Father Berislav and his Big Robot. "MAKE A HOLE, DEADHEADS!" And she's busily pounding skulls out of the air, and away from Isaiah.
Father Berislav      The core is intact. Seconds to decide on a course of action. Eliminate the main threat entirely, or cull the chaff?

    The decision is taken out of his hands when a sweep across the battlefield catches sight of AME. Kukuru's infectious voice falls on deaf ears, in a manner of speaking--the words are heard, they are understood, they are trusted, but only in the way that language normally works between people.

    The mech rises, breaks into a sprint, running a circle around the battlefield. Skulls collide against the metal frame, as the distance between Isaiah and Denver shrinks. Once she's back to back with the big robot, a panel atop its shoulder opens up.

    Denver and Ishirou's covering fire allows an attack of opportunity. Missiles race upwards and outwards in droves, hissing through the air as if the robot were a kicked hornets' nest. They explode violently on impact with the flagging behemoth.

    Between Kukuru counteracting the influence on AME and Denver's covering fire, that should be enough of an opening to charge the primary threat one final time. The mech's grip is choked up, all the way to the head. The eye of the pick becomes the epicenter of a massive shockwave, after Isaiah's arm reels back and rockets forward in a vicious sprinting haymaker.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT AME is beginning to be lost under the skulls, as more bubble to the surface and pop off, replicating and gnashing at the nearby Kukuru. A half-detached arm grabs a weapon.

...............................................................................
( HOST THE CYCLE THE ASH BLOOD ON THE IT'S GOOD TO ATTACK ADRENALINE IN VEINS )
A voice, an influence, breaks through the screaming. Insisting something.......
( FIND SOMETHING NEW FIND SOMETHING OLD WE CAN KEEP GOING AS LONG AS YOU WANT )
Under the roil, a moment of action granted. Save yourself......................
...............................................................................

Flak and explosives detonate across the battlefield, a blinding storm within the darkened haze, followed by the flying of fist and claw. The ambulatory legion eerily similar to AME's current form are immolated, skulls shattering and red lights flickering out within the ash. Even as more and more are destroyed, though, that ( INSTINCTUAL / CORRECT / COMPLETELY COMPREHENSIBLE ) pressure keeps mounting, inviting to ( SEE SOME RED / HAVE SOME FUN / STAY FOR A WHILE ). The counterpressure from Kukuru and Ishirou helps keep it somewhat manageable in the minds of the untrained, but even still it's becoming easier and easier to blissfully ignore id crushing the superego.

A pick strikes true.

The legion's core cracks, then violently shatters backwards with the blow. A screeching roar, louder still than the previous, echoes through the ground - and as the main body of the intended target begins to blow away in the currents from the explosives, the ground rumbles and starts to crack underneath. A chest-shaped tumor extrudes from the earth, enticing - but the cracks continue to spread. Heat and a dull orange glow can be felt from within them.

Skulls continue to gnash, though few remain. Ground trembles, a reward proferred. And amidst all this - faint static washes through systems. A figure strides through the ash blanketing the immediate area, seemingly unfazed by the still-present chaos and the ( UNABATING PRESSURE / DRIVE TO IMPROVE / WARM EMBRACE ).

They approach where Berislav and Denver stand above the tumor, and then crackling through all headsets -

    "Good work, folks. Recommend backin' up a mite, ha ha. I'll grab the, ah, box, so you all can focus on gettin' t'safety. Appreciate all this."

Stated with all the confidence that DRYCLEAN usually holds, yet anyone watching their footwork would be a little worried by how close they keep coming to tripping into the growing cracks.

There's an irony to this.
Wisconsin     Denver is panting inside the hardsuit, the effort to shoot all of those Flying Deadheads getting to her as she peppers the air with flak... only for Berislav to finally crack the core, and put an end to the blasted SKELKINGTONS PRIEM. And then the true treasure starts to emerge from the tumor, the prize they'd come here for, just like flotsam floating up from the depths after a heated battle at sea.

    Denver is about to reach for it herself when Dryclean's message hits the airwaves. The cruiser huffs inside her helmet, and then skates back on her heels, the little hovering jets finally switching off. Feet touch the dirt and dunes again, and the small knight slumps into the nearest good thing. Which is Kukuru. She's also doing all the healing and the ANTI BRAIN INVASION stuff, so that's good. "...Hiya Kuku~, I think I did okay. Can we get out of here?"
Ishirou Ishirou is worried about AME, but with things how they are...

Oh then suddenly there is a call to pull back.  Ishirou, instead, decides to head for AME.  He reaches a hand out to her and then starts...

Tries to use his powers to interfere with the Red trying to take over her, and instead tries and tilt things so that she can pull out on top.  If she needs it, he can also give her a ride out of here.  

But first thing's first...getting this gunk out of her.
Sleek Shimmer     "WHAT?" Shimmer, it seems, has never heard of anything like 'memetic hazards', and so what Ishirou's yammering about takes her just as much by surprise as the madness of this place. She very briefly freezes out of pure confusion, and then takes a flying skull to the face. It sends her tumbling but she smacks the ground to divert her tumble just in time to avoid getting chomped by more skulls.

    Thank heavens for Kukuru's efforts providing some protection against the awful influence of these things. After taking a few bites herself, she's looking a little rattled, but with a sudden bestial grin she lashes out again and batters the skulls away. "Heh. I still have no idea what's going on... this place stinks. But smashing these is kinda fun..."

    Still, there's a call for help AME by Ishirou. And she glances over, responding with another teleport, appearing next to the pile of horrible that AME's buried under and thrusting both hands forward to unleash a tornado-like gale of wind to try and dislodge most of it from her!
Kukuru Smashing, mind-invading, healing, all of it is putting more strain on Kukuru's body and mind than she allows herself to show. It's painful, sure, and she's getting rather tuckered out by all the effort along with all the bleeding, but the rest of the group is undoubtedly pushing even harder than that. It's not until the swarm of skulls finally ceases and the tumor makes its appearance that she finally allows herself to relax a bit.

Only a little, though, as Denver falls right against her soon after. Chuckling softly at her fatigue, Kukuru turns her head briefly to politely yawn as loudly as she needs to (very), then ruffles the cruiser's hair before scooping her up in some kind of princess carry. "Mhm! We all did real good today. Let's go home, huh?"

Instead of just leaving right away, though, she moves over to where Ishirou's trying to help AME out. With her hands occupied, though, Kukuru can really only try and nudge her out of there with her foot before closing her eyes and aiding the streamer with the power of NANITES and things.

Also, creating and walking through a portal that'll conveniently deposit whoever opts to walk through it right in front of their escape vehicle. It might be a little disorienting, just seeing an evil-looking energy cloud one moment and then just being somewhere else the next.

If nothing else, though, there's still plenty of snacks to munch on to recover.
Father Berislav      "I'm glad to be of assistance, Dryclean," says the priest through the mech's loudspeaker. Its footfalls are carefully placed to avoid the cracks in the earth, but 'safe distance' is, as defined by the pilot, still close enough to watch, and be heard by, Dryclean. In places the paint job is scored; in others, grains of streaked red-white sand cling to armor plates. "I'm rather ill-equipped for helping AME," comes the priest's voice again. The war pick rests in a sheath covered by the mech's red mantle, streaked with detritus from the myriad slain skulls.

     The revolver stays out. Six rounds are loaded into it in a display of uncanny speed and mechanical precision, the mech's fingers moving in a practiced, graceful dance. Three paces from Dryclean and six cartridges with diameters the size of soup cans are loaded into the human-being sized revolver. With a heavy, menacing click, the cylinder is locked back into place. "I'll just stay here, and make sure you're safe. We'll have a few things to discuss later, I'm sure." The mech's vertical eyes gleam brightly as optics focus on Dryclean.
AME      AME doesn't move. Can't move, under the bubbling skulls, even if she wanted to. The only thing in her slouched, kneeling form that seems capable or willing of pushing against the bubbling mass turns out to be her left arm. Methodically, robotically, it picks up the crusher where AME dropped it, and raises it one-handedly, like it's waiting.

     Ishirou's powers, Sleek Shimmer's wind, and Kukuru's nanites work in unison in trying to dispel the skulls. It's not quite enough, the three of them together. Clearing legion infection from a body takes a certain physicality. A push. It's AME herse... it's AME's arm that provides that force. As the triad of dispelments hits a boiling point against the legion, it suddenly swings the crusher, full-force, directly into the center of AME's still-hunched and otherwise motionless body.

     There's a dull clang as it impacts, metal on skull on metal, and with the force of the hit the skulls are loosened just enough for power, wind, and nanites to fully whisk them away. They disperse, like ash in the wind, like nothing ever happened.

     Her arm drops the crusher, and an uncovered AME is back to reeling, though she's not motionless this time. Staring at the sand, twitching slightly, heaving like she's trying to catch her breath. There's an almost imperceptible dent in her torso where the axeblade hit- tiny compared to the force of the actual impact. She mumbles a few broken phonemes.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT Under blatant overwatch, DRYCLEAN steps their way over to the pulsating chest and kicks it open - pulling out a blood-red greatsword, blade slightly translucent, glinting in the light from the magma below. Any magical scans of it instantly return a powerful necromantic output - relatively similar to the planet itself. They rotate it in their hands for a few seconds, before spinning on their heel and moving to - catch a foot on a fissure. They sprawl forward onto the ground, before quickly pushing themselves back to their feet with the blade and picking up their pace greatly. A corner of their jacket is on fire; they either haven't noticed or don't pay it any mind.

As they and everyone else step away, the area under the disintegrating skeleton implodes into the earth, magma splashing out. It doesn't seem to spread more than a couple dozen feet out though, luckily. The ground stops shaking, and the ash begins to settle out of the air - but that inctinctual pressure doesn't die down until everyone has ended up back near the still-hovering vessel a short distance away.

<J-IC-Scene> Ishirou says, "I can't tell if you're messed in the head or just really uncaring?"

DRYCLEAN hitches in their stride at this comment - but only for a fraction of a second. Their walk away from the crumbling ground redirects towards where Kukuru is shepherding people through a portal, and they grab AME's discarded crusher off the ground. It, too, is contemplated for a few seconds. They lower their arms and stare at the teleportation cloud.

<J-IC-Scene> Kukuru says, "Helping when we're asked is normal, right?"

Another heel turn, away from the portal and instead directly towards the ship - but it's lacking some of the bravado the first one held. It takes them a little while to trudge back; and within that time, it's blissfully quiet for the Elites catching their breath. The cargo door opens as the first group steps through the portal; the two doorways already active, seating space cleared off and oven preheated. It looks like the bathroom has expanded, a few separate individual showers available. Some sort of recompense. The interior retains that silence as well, the static and influence obvious in their absence.
DRYCLEAN-SIGINT At the organizer's return to their ship, both weapons are gingerly propped up against a wall, and they take their usual seat to address everyone.

<J-IC-Scene> DRYCLEAN-SIGINT says, "I ain't just bein' polite when I say I appreciate th'help. You folks are busy people, and takin' time to go do somethin' dangerous and arbitrary for a fella you ain't exactly trustin' of is a maneuver I ain't gonna forget."

They pause for a few seconds, static crackling only from their own monitors. "This place has all sorts've ore 'round. Miss Denver and Miss AME likely got th'tools to get that out fine, and anythin' you pick up is yours t'keep as payment. Precious metal exchange rates ain't what they were, but they sure do still fetch a pretty penny, ha ha."

Another awkward pause. They adjust their antennae jacket. "I owe you folks. Give the word and I'll swing past t'give some assistance. The, ah, tendrils shouldn't linger in th'mind for too long, especially with you all versed in that."

    "That's all I got for debrief."

They weren't lying about the presence of precious minerals. They're abundant, and acquisition and distribution of them gives a decent chunk of pocket change to anyone who accepts.

But is that enough?

The vessel takes off shortly after everyone is satisfied with what they've gathered. Anyone watching the diagnostics screens inside might notice the lack of presence of the planet they just took off from; not visible on external cameras, nor on the broad overmap scanners. Like it was meant only for them.

.END PLAYBACK