Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 18th, Gregorian Calendar
"I don't like the feel of this. Something is very wrong here." Neyla tightened her grip on the rifle clutched in her claws, and shifted slightly to get a better sight picture.
"I'dve certainly expected to see guards or lookouts. But thermal scans aren't showing anything warmer than exterior floodlights. We can't pierce the compound walls though. They're lined with heavy insulation." Sorven's voice contained a telling hint of nervous concern that carried, even through a headset.
As much as the General had wanted to accompany the strike force, orders from above had chained her firmly to the Blue Ridge CIC for the duration of the mission.
Neyla swept the exterior of the compound once more with her gaze. The building had once been some sort of shipping warehouse. It was little more than a dull gray, three story tall, duracrete block with thin, slatted one-way windows.
The facility was situated on a street corner with roads on two sides, and apartment buildings forming alleyways against the remaining walls. There were only three points of entry; A large vehicle bay facing one street, and two personnel access doors on each of the alleyway sides.
Neyla and her strike team were covering the vehicle bay door. Identical strike teams were positioned within range of the alleyway doors. All three teams consisted of a pair of Gryphons, one commander and one sniper, running point for seven Humans in heavy urban combat armor.
Less than four blocks to the south, a forward command center had been established where two light VTOLs and a gaggle of medics waited to treat any potential casualties. Four long range surveillance drones launched from the Blue Ridge were stationed a mile up and out, keeping tabs on the target with LADAR and thermal sensors.
Last, but not least in Neyla's estimation, a three-block perimeter had been cordoned off with JRSF humvees, support snipers, smaller quadcopter drones, and a pair of military Police VTOLs. Command had no intention of allowing any stragglers to escape, and potentially cause havoc in the process.
"If you want to wait for more troops, or rethink the entry plan, just say the word."
Sorven's words gave Neyla almost a full second of pause, during which she considered the alternative options. If her teams held their positions until breaching vehicles arrived, it would give the HLF time to prepare their defenses.
Worse; The breaching action itself would likely lead to a firefight with heavy weapons at the entrances to the warehouse. The Gryphoness preferred the idea of confining the fighting to the interior of the structure. Small arms would be the primary weapon of choice, and there was less chance of explosive ordnance detonating on allied troopers in tight spaces, or worse, a misfire striking a civilian structure and causing loss of innocent life.
"We go now. Commanders first, followed by fire-support troopers. Sniper line of sight is to be maintained at all times. Breach in twelve seconds as of this mark. Remember; This is strictly a kill operation. Waste no time in taking prisoners, and spare no shots."
Two successive clicks on the radio confirmed that the other commanders had heard and understood the orders.
Neyla silently counted down the requisite intervals of time, edging closer and closer to the lip of her roof-borne perch. At the nine second mark, she silently spread her wings, and swooped down from the roof at maximum speed. She flared and arrived just short of the vehicle bay at the same moment as her squad.
The Gryphoness gestured silently, and leveled her RAC at the door. Three troopers took up position on each side of the aperture, while the seventh moved to the center and placed a charge. He shouldered his RPG and stepped back behind Neyla to allow her a line of fire.
As the dim blue three second holographic display ticked down on the breaching ordinance, Neyla cast a furtive look over one shoulder to confirm that her sniper was positioned and ready. She didn't know the gray and silver Gryphon particularly well, but she had been told he was an expert shot even by Gryphic standards.
The small brick of explosives went up with a muffled thump, taking a large chunk of the door inward on its shaped concussion wave. Neyla raised her weapon and dove headlong through the still-smoking gap.
As she juked her wings to stay several feet off the ground, her ears twitched involuntarily. She detected audiological cues indicating the other two strike teams had made their entries as well.
The Gryphoness tucked, rolled, and came up prepared to fire. To her surprise, she found that she was facing nothing more than a dimly lit, largely empty concrete loading bay.
She swept one hundred and eighty degrees with her RAC, then tapped her headset with a single left talon, "Report."
"No resistance in western sections."
"All quiet, north side."
Neyla grunted, and took several more short steps forward, "Proceed with caution. Slowly and steadily. Stay together as groups."
She made several abrupt gestures with her free claw, before returning it to the forward grip of her rifle. Behind her, the seven heavy troopers fanned out in perfect and silent coordination, taking up positions behind the meager spots of cover afforded by stray crates and shipping pallets.
For her part, the Gryphoness edged forward on her hind legs, the pads on her paws deadening every last decibel of potential noise as she inched steadily towards the doors on the far end of the loading bay.
The first resistance finally materialized as she reached the lip of concrete where trucks came to rest to disgorge their cargo. As she prepared to vault onto the raised platform, a figure materialized in the doorway above. Working mainly on instinct, Neyla adjusted her aim and fired a shot directly though the upper plate of the man's helmet before he could even act. As his form crumpled to the floor, the Gryphoness noted two disturbing facts.
Firstly, the man was clad neither in the beige plating of an HLF soldier, nor in the cobbled together detritus of a Follower. His armor was polished, reflective, unmarked, and pure white. Secondly, there was a large silver cylinder clutched in his left hand. The oblong device was clearly filled with potion, and with a jolt Neyla realized that the arming pin had already been pulled. She spied it clutched in the trooper's right fist as it fell open.
"Back, BACK! Seal your hardsuits and evacuate the building!" Neyla didn't bother to suppress the volume of the order; their presence had clearly already been detected.
The sudden advent of the PER threatened to completely sour the operation. Her troops were equipped to the fight the HLF, and as a result their suits were geared for maximum blast and impact protection, at the expense of true hermetic sealing capabilities.
No sooner had the command left her beak, than the cylinder rolled off the loading dock, detonating in front of her as it sailed through the air towards the ground.
She took a swift, sharp lungful of pure air before the lurid purple cloud enveloped her. While the potion itself posed no danger to a Gryphon, the sedative mixed with it was capable of knocking one out in large enough concentrations. Breathing it constantly at the epicenter of a dense, noxious, cloud that was meant to spread out over an entire building, would probably introduce enough to her system to throw off her aim and reaction times.
She began backing up as swiftly as a bipedal stance allowed, covering the door with her RAC and casting furtive glances over her shoulder at her troops.
Most of the troops had bolted for the exit on her order, activating the gas-resistant stopgap seals in their armor once they were clear. Since they were equipped with the urban pacification variants of their gear, the sealant function was a temporary emergency measure that often resulted in a severe degradation in agility and combat effectiveness.
The premise was simple; Tiny gel packs tucked away ringing every air-permeable joint. When the appropriate command was sent from the wrist panel of the suit's arm gauntlet, the packs would be ruptured, spilling quick-hardening rubberized foam into all external openings.
The countermeasure had become standard on all non-sealed suits, mainly as a result of the PER's preferred gas-attack tactics.
"Pulling back! Four hostiles on west side. All PER."
Neyla tapped her radio twice in acknowledgement. As she approached the exit door, she saw that one of her troopers had panicked and triggered his sealant too early. His joints were nearly completely frozen, and he was swiftly becoming a prisoner inside his own armor.
Without breaking her stride, Neyla spun to face the man, using one claw to attach her rifle to the hard point between her wings, while using the other to get a head start on lifting the soldier.
Altogether the trooper was quite heavy, but Neyla didn't need to loft him fully into the air. She merely needed to drag him out into the open, where natural air currents would dissipate the oncoming potion cloud, allowing the suit to keep it at bay.
As Neyla got a grip on the man's shoulder plates, and began to haul him towards the door, the leading edge of the cloud billowed out on a random air current, bathing them both in a shower of purple droplets.
Moving as quickly as she could under the circumstances, Neyla snagged a small gray box from the soldier's belt, and slapped it against the chestplate of his suit. She simultaneously depressed the two safety locks on either side of the oblong object, and stood well back.
As the trooper fell to the floor, the capsule on his chest erupted into a transparent mist, which clung to his suit like an aura. As quickly as it had manifested, the vapor de-sublimated into an amber-like solid crystal cocoon that completely engulfed the soldier, and his armor.
Crystallization was the definitive final countermeasure against unwanted potion; Easily dispensed, and impermeable to nanites, gasses, and liquids, with the exception of a specialized dissolving agent.
The substance also had the advantage of slowing metabolic processes when absorbed through the skin, and retarding Thaumatic radiation naturally. Sometimes it was even possible to use Crystallization to save someone who had already received a dosage of potion. If the affected limb, or limbs, could be entirely engulfed, the metamorphosis would be suspended. The areas could then be amputated, and replacements grown in nanosurgically using the victim's own stem cells.
Once she was sure the Crystallization process was complete, Neyla got back to the task of hauling the trooper out of the building, pausing only briefly to check the loading bay door for signs of further hostiles.
The moment the Gryphoness reached the exit, she delivered the soldier into the care of his compatriots. She opened her nostrils once more, drinking in the uncontaminated night air.
She lost no time in contacting General Sorven, "We have a complication. This facility has been overrun with PER, and they've detonated at least one potion bomb."
"PER? What the *hell* would they be doing here...? You're sure?" Sorven's voice betrayed little, but Neyla thought she sensed a tiny hint of panic on the fringe of the high notes.
"I don't think the what, or the why, is of any particular consequence at this point. One of my troopers almost inhaled a room full of potion gas, and my armor now has a light purple paint coat. If you have a better definition of 'sure?' I'd be happy to defer to your judgement."
There was a pause as Sorven considered potential options. At last, she spoke. Neyla could make out the sounds of hurried conversations and alarms in the background, "We'll go to contingency Alpha three. Human and Equine troops evacuating the locals while you meet up with the fire team leaders, and snipers, and form a new breach squad."
Neyla nodded, in spite of the fact that there was no video link, "I agree. Do you have a recommended point of entry?"
After another, shorter pause during which Sorven was doubtless checking drone telemetry, the General's voice returned to her earpiece, "It looks like the north entrance was more lightly guarded than the others, so that's likely a trap. The vehicle bay isn't ideal, and the team on the west side met with heavy resistance, so chances are that's their weakest flank. I'm diverting an APC to you with air-recycling helmet attachments, and field Crystallization kits."
Neyla turned back to face the warehouse, and glowered, "The sooner this is over, the less likely there will be any innocent victims..." She paused and cocked her head, before continuing, "The risks are worth it now. Send the heavy ordinance too."
"The north quadrant is under assault! Sierra Two-Five-Seven requesting immediate backup! IS ANYONE RECEIVING!? AAAUUUUGH---"
Taranis didn't offer the soldier a chance to finish his desperate plea. Casting aside the shattered remains of the man, and his crumpled armor, the great blue reptile resumed his steady pace down the corridor.
The base was a twisted and confusing wreck. Hallways had been warped into disjointed shapes that would have been more at home in a funhouse than a military installation. As he approached a junction, Taranis was forced to contort nearly at a ninety degree angle just to access the adjoining corridor.
Klarien had long since split away to cover his own route. There were only two Dragons, and there was a very great deal of territory to cover. The Human troops could only push so far into the base before they risked becoming stranded, and eventually irradiated, should the structure fail entirely.
That left Taranis entirely to his own devices. Which was exactly how he preferred it.
He grunted in satisfaction as the corridor widened slightly, affording him the opportunity to turn should he need to. He allowed a small amount of tension to flow out of his muscles, and began devoting some thought to determining his location.
Now that the main strike was over, Command's primary concern was determining if anything of value had been left intact, particularly anything that might provide useful intelligence such as data drives, or commanding officers.
Most of the survivors the Dragon had encountered were clearly technicians, or guards. Men and women who were fractured, frightened, wounded, mildly irradiated, and had clearly received no warning before the assault hit.
Resistance was not proving to be cohesive, and Taranis took that to mean that no commanding officers were left alive.
He rounded the corner to find himself snout-to-snout with his protégé. Klarien's scales had an almost sickly luminous quality in the light of the dying electrical fires that punctuated the structure at frequent intervals.
Taranis raised one scale cluster above his right eye, "I gather our work is finished?"
Klarien grinned and nodded, hefting a small dented silvery brick in one claw, "Most of the server room was ashes. Nothing else survived, but this data drive looked moderately intact so I figured; Why not?"
The blue Dragon nodded, and turned to go back the way he had come. As Klarien fell into step behind him, Taranis voiced a toneless question, "Did you encounter any significant resistance on your way down?"
Klarien hissed. The sound came off like a mixture of manic chuckling and a satisfied exhalation, "As I said; Nothing else survived."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Fourth Month, Nineteenth Day, Celestial Calendar
"This is bad... This is so very very bad!" The panic in Carradan's voice was evident. The only other sound in the cavern was the whisper of dry, rustling, insectoid wings.
Stan and Kephic stood back to back over the prone form of IJ, while Fyrenn and Varan stood guard over Skye. The brave little Unicorn had slipped abruptly into unconsciousness nearly a minute before. That had been the first indication that everything had gone horribly, unconscionably, fatally, wrong.
The second, and far more grave sign of impending doom had come in the form of millions of Drones. It seemed to Fyrenn that the entire Hive had turned out to surround them. The myriad pairs of glittering pupil-less eyes, shifting iridescent wings, and sharp menacing armor plates produced a skin-crawling sense of horror and menace.
The effect was magnified a thousand fold by the unexpected stillness. After appearing, and surrounding the companions in ranks a thousand rows deep, the immense force had simply stopped. All at once, as if on command, they had stiffened to attention and remained rooted to their spots on the floor.
Fyrenn's eyes narrowed, and he tightened his grip on his sword, "Well?! What are you waiting for?! Get on with it!"
The only response he received was the sound of nervously shifting Drone wings.
The Red Gryphon scowled in frustration. Internally, he was already locked in fierce combat with his emotions. It was one thing to face a foe with vastly superior numbers in a traditional fray.
It was quite another to suffer through a futile standoff.
Fyrenn shouted, allowing his emotions to boil over into his tone and volume, "COME ON! Are you all afraid to die FIRST? Well if you want us, you're going to have to TAKE THE LOSSES!"
"Oh, we do not fear you. No. I am simply enjoying your powerlessness." The voice was deep, rich, female, and it seemed to thrum from within the chest of every Changeling in the cavern simultaneously.
In spite of the way it echoed back and forth from every corner and crevice, the true origin of the voice was obvious.
The Hive queen was twice as tall as her rank and file drones. Her neck was extended, her legs were locked in a stiff and commanding position, and her wings were half open, further increasing her perceived presence.
Varan raised his sword, and moved to place his back to Fyrenn. The pair of Gryphons formed a protective cordon for Skye, their swords, claws, wings, and beaks positioned to defend her prone form to the last.
A few scant yards away, Kephic and Carradan had done the same for IJ. Fyrenn could see the roiling tumult of fear on the Pegasus' muzzle. Stan was practically shaking in his armor, and his eyes were darting back and forth like the eyes of a hunted beast with one leg caught in a trap.
But the red Gryphon could see something else in his friend's eyes. A hardened and steely reserve, made of a potent mixture of anger, the drive to live, and something even more powerful still. As he spared a final moment to offer the Pony a reassuring glance, Fyrenn noticed that Carradan's eyes kept returning to IJ's crumpled body.
Every time the stocky Pegasus glanced at the thready, shallow rise and fall of her sides, Fyrenn saw a mixture of sadness, and protective resolve.
The salmon Pegasus tried to offer the Gryphon a wan smile, but it came off more as a grimace. Carradan turned to face the Changelings before him, and tightened his stance, preparing his strong hind legs, and sharp hoofblades.
Fyrenn exhaled slowly. He had no doubt that Stanley was going to make his assailants regret any assumptions they were making as a result of his Equine genetics.
He turned to Varan, and managed a half-smile of his own, "Somehow, I always knew I was going to die like this."
The golden Gryphon raised an eyebrow, and Fyrenn managed a full grin in response.
"Come on. You know me. Long odds, bad positioning, and that charming inability to say no to suicidal assignments. I was never the type to die quietly on a hospital bed."
Varan raised an eyebrow, "Few warriors are."
Fyrenn inclined his head, grit his beak, tightened his claws around his sword, and spread his hind paws slightly to afford him a better defensive stance.
"I'll admit though; I never expected to die three hundred feet underground surrounded by a million angry insects."
His more reserved sibling made similar moves to prepare for the coming onslaught. Varan's voice remained characteristically nonplussed, "I did. There is no love lost between our species and theirs, and they have always presented the most cohesive militarized threat to us."
The red Gryphon snorted, "Only you could make impending death sound so clinical."
Varan shrugged his wings slightly, "I find that it helps."
The Gryphons' attempt at pre-battle levity was brought to an abrupt end by a noticeable shift in the ranks of the enemy. A restlessness swept the cavern, manifesting as a cacophonous scrape and rustle of chitin; Millions of insectoid forms shifting back and forth simultaneously, as if in nervous anticipation.
The Hive Queen's expression subtly morphed from one of pure triumphal arrogance, to one of disinterested smugness, her hooded gaze piercing the two hundred yards between her, and the invaders, as if it were nothing.
"As much as I enjoy watching you succumb to the futility of the situation, you are more a waste of time than anything else. Kill them. Except for the red one. We will acquire his lifecode first."
Fyrenn glowered, and let out a long, slow hiss, "I'll fall on my own sword before I let you sample my DNA."
The edge of the Queen's muzzle tugged upwards in a macabre parody of a smile, "I would greatly enjoy watching you try."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 18th, Gregorian Calendar
"Three. Two. One." On the final word, Neyla broke cover, bursting through the door, and let loose with her grenade. The moment the aperture was clear, her companion dived in after her spraying with his assault rifle indiscriminately.
Neither Gryphon was particularly interested in accuracy, they merely needed to gain safe entry to the building, and break the standoff that had been brewing for nearly ten minutes.
Neyla's grenade claimed two targets' lives, despite the haphazard nature of her throw. The smoke, confusion, noise, and sheer fear-factor of two charging Gryphons bought the other four warriors more than enough time to enter through the door and find firing positions.
As one, all six Gryphons fanned out and began laying down a withering stream of precision fire. The PER had made the fatal mistake of assuming that their position was secure, and as such they had only allocated Human troopers to the defense of their new outpost.
Despite the absence of more deadly life forms in the enemy lineup, the white-clad troopers still outnumbered the JRSF force by nearly fifteen to one.
In an external environment, the odds would have been so far in the Gryphons' favor as to be almost laughable.
But in the smothering confines of brick and cinder block corridors, part of their natural advantage was negated. The results of the battle would therefore be less decisive, should either side err in any way.
As her compatriots held a dozen troopers at bay, pinning them to their cover positions with a staccato hail of rounds, Neyla stopped to secure her rifle. She latched the weapon into place between her wings, replacing a large black kevlar satchel, which she laid out on the cement in front of her.
Working quickly, the Gryphoness extracted the cold titanium object from within, and swiftly assembled it.
The device was one of the first products of the JRSF's own newly minted R&D laboratories; A dark chunky stock filled with a shock absorbing gel layer swooped forward in a series of menacing angles. The underside of the weapon bore two triggers in close proximity, and the entire assembly ended in a hexagonal bolt-like structure.
Attached to the rotatable hexagon were six squared-off barrels that could have been mistaken for the prongs of a jeep-mounted railgun to an untrained eye. The ammunition consisted of two octagonal black canisters bound together by a brace, which locked with the centerline of the weapon such that the munitions would be fed into two of the six barrels at once.
Rounding out the weapon was a menacing urban digital camouflage paint scheme, a dull crimson stripe, and a set of iron sights, with a holographic overlay displaying contextual information about remaining rounds and trigger functions.
Neyla levelled the device, and stepped calmly to the forefront of her squad. In the smoke and gas filled darkness, pierced only by the dimmed headlamps of the PER troopers, her helmet's respirator attachment gave her silhouette an alien and terrifying aspect.
The Gryphoness calmly pulled the primary trigger twice in succession. The weapon discharged a pair of spinning metallic discs, which flew down the corridor and attached themselves to the first surface they touched using miniature grappling legs.
As she crouched behind a shipping container, Neyla glanced down at the weapon's holodisplay; Two small pulsing circles indicated that the projectiles had come to rest, and were linked to the weapon's fire control wirelessly.
She held up a fisted claw, and her compatriots stopped firing. The six Gryphons held their positions with absolute silence, and stillness. Watching and waiting.
After a minute and a half, seven PER troopers cautiously filtered out of an adjoining passage, and began sweeping the area with their floodlights. Neyla calmly stood up from behind the container.
As the first trooper in the line noticed her, and began to bring his rifle to bear, Neyla calmly pulled the weapon's second trigger, and held it in.
A pair of perfectly synchronized explosions bloomed forth behind the PER scouts. Neyla watched, stretching her perception of time to evaluate the precise characteristics of the detonations.
The shockwave propagated first. It did very little besides throw the enemy soldiers off balance. Less than a tenth of a second later, the fireball followed accompanied by a second shockwave bearing millions of tiny titanium shards.
The soldiers closest to the detonations were partially vaporized as the fireball sublimated everything from the outer layers of the armor, right down to their bones.
The soldiers furthest away were simply cooked inside their suits, which glowed with a faint red light as they crumpled to the ground.
Neyla shouldered the launcher, and took a deep breath.
She spoke loudly, projecting her voice to be absolutely sure that she was heard by the remaining hostiles, "This is your first, and last opportunity to surrender."
She got her answer in the form of a particle rifle bolt. As the flickering blue entity zipped towards her head, she calmly tilted herself ever so slightly to the side, allowing it to pass by her left ear with several inches to spare.
She cycled the grenade launcher, and grinned, "I was hoping you would say something like that."
General Sorven raised an eyebrow as the twelfth body bag was wheeled by on a medical gurney. She ducked around the side of the coroner's van and paused to take stock of the scene spread out before her.
Neyla, and the rest of the Gryphons in her impromptu squad, were standing over a series of absorptive biohazard mats, being washed down with large pressure hoses. As the water coursed over and between their feathers, dislodging encrusted Potion, blood, and battle detritus, it turned a disgusting shade of purple mixed with ashen gray streaks and red bloody nodules.
The water was absorbed wholly by the white and orange striped mats, which would later be boxed securely for transport to a materials reclamation facility.
Several yards away to the left, row upon row of body bags were being hefted onto gurneys, then loaded into the back of an elongated transport humvee.
Sorven caught a brief glimpse of the interior of one bag as it was zipped up. She resisted the urge to wince. The corpse was barely identifiable as a living bipedal being.
Bookending the somewhat comical sight of soaked, bedraggled Gryphons on one side, and the gut-wrenching image of more than three dozen body bags on the other, was an organized bedlam of troops, medics, biohazard technicians, and Military Policemen.
Blue, white, red, orange, and yellow emergency lights from Police, Military, Medical, and Hazmat vehicles bathed the scene in a mesmerizing effect, not unlike that of a club dance floor.
Thanks to Neyla's swift and decisive command style, there had been no civilian casualties. Unfortunately, the cost had been wide scale potential contamination of the area. A fair amount of potion gas had escaped the facility during the battle. The amethyst colored goop had adhered to everything from car hoods to building walls.
Some spots were completely untouched, others were painted in swaths of purple. Crystallization teams were focused on the worst affected areas, spraying them until they were coated in several inches of the Potion-annulling, fast-hardening substance.
The next day, dedicated teams of examiners with more precise equipment would come behind them and clear away any residual traces, then a cleanup crew would bring in a dissolving agent to wash the entire inert mess away.
Until then, an area nearly four blocks square was on total lockdown, and had been forcibly evacuated, sending a stream of dazed and upset citizens to the nearest hotels and emergency shelters.
Sorven turned reflexively at the sound of a metallic surface striking crystal, just in time to witness a soldier emerging from a veritable cocoon of the substance under the ministrations of five technicians with small steel picks.
The man coughed and wretched violently as normal airflow was restored to his lungs, but otherwise seemed grateful and relieved as a pair of medics escorted him to a mobile decon shower.
The general shook her head slowly, and moved to stand beside Neyla as the Gryphoness stepped off her mat, and gratefully accepted an extra-gigantic waffle weave towel from a waiting Pony.
Sorven grinned, "You look pretty miserable when you're this soaked."
Neyla began compressing the towel against each layer of her feathers in turn, trying as best she could to speed the drying process, "It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so cold here. I enjoy a nice swim during the summer months."
Sorven jerked her head towards the coroners, who were in the process of loading the final body into the transport, "Did you leave anyone alive for questioning?"
The Gryphoness shook herself, in a manner reminiscent of a cat, then abruptly puffed out the majority of her feathers to afford the frigid night air access to her skin, and the lower layers of fur and feather.
Sorven couldn't help but let out a stifled chuckle. The normally fierce avian looked like nothing so much as a vastly oversized child's toy.
Neyla glowered, "No, we didn't. And if you don't stop laughing, you're next."
The general did her best to remain silent, but could not entirely conceal a small grin. Neyla rolled her eyes and growled, muttering under her breath, "And Humans wonder why we don't like to share the minutiae our private lives with them..."
Sorven sighed, and shook her head once more in a mixture of amazement, amusement, and exhaustion, "Just... Please try to get dry and presentable before oh-seven-hundred. Lantry wants you and me at an emergency status briefing aboard Blue Ridge."
Neyla dipped her head, and shook herself once more, flecks of water zipping outwards from her tail fan in brightly colored arcs, "I'm sure I can find a large heated surface, and a meal, before then."
The general nodded, and turned to make her way to the nearest departing VTOL. She paused, and cast a glance over her shoulder, "Did you even offer them a chance to surrender?"
The Gryphoness tilted her head slightly, "Yes. I don't think they found my terms fair."
Sorven hummed thoughtfully, and mumbled to herself as she strode towards the VTOL, "I'm sure they'd feel differently now. If they had anything left resembling a braincase."