Gazes Fondly purred, and appeared to grin.

“Wonderful. Let's get locked in.”

Chitnarit bristled and clacked about, positively furious. There was no way she would let Gazes out of her sight, suit or no suit. “Let's make haste. The beasts will not notice either way.”

---

While they were talking, the Rothian vessel had dropped through Psi-Helios’ atmosphere. The crew could barely feel anything. It swept high and quiet over one of the planet’s lakes, almost completely camouflaged against the sky. Morgrawalai roots supped at the water and covered the landmass, from the shore up to the mountains behind. Large winged creatures slapped their wings against the water as they hunted for food.

The ship whirred over to a long mountain range with innumerable outcroppings and attempted to land inside a large cave, several times larger than its own profile. Morg roots crept across the roof and walls, their colour changing as they went from outside to inside.

Regardless of what any individual’s opinion on it may have been, they had a plan for the moment. They would investigate from the ground, with the Sacred Band and Void Company as escorts, and a handful of scientists from each species. No one was receiving special treatment.

From within the ship, none of those on the surface team could yet see where they had landed. The scenery would have to wait until they were outside. In order to maintain their cover, the soldiers were recommended to keep to weapons that were concealable. They did not yet have enough data on the natives’ weaponry to be able to convincingly mimic it. Armor was still usable, as long as it was made with rigid plating, and was not too bulky. Void Company had opted for a lighter, more form-fitting variant of their usual armor which would not interfere with the holograms.

Among the Rothians, Vreta and Nirann were accompanying as attachés to Void Company, while Marae and the archeologist Artek’Qin were joining as members of the science team. The ship had landed, so the team was in the hanger bay making final preparations to depart.

“We should go ahead and ensure all of our disguises are working correctly.” Vreta addressed the group. All of the equipment he needed, he put into a backpack and set aside, the sole exception being the shield belt he was wearing. He made sure it was tightly secured and fit snugly to the body to avoid it interfering with the hologram. While the hologram device did project an energy shield as well, it was far weaker than one meant to protect against weapons fire, so the shield belt was needed for protection.

The hologram projector was a harness, worn like a bandolier around the torso. While it would take some adjustments, it could be fit to any of the species present. Vreta was the first to activate his. The device took a few moments to scan its surroundings, calibrate to its user, then apply the pre-loaded hologram of the native it was meant to be imitating. All at once, Vreta’s reptilian body seemed to shift into that of one of the insectoid locals.

“Activate your holograms, then go through a range of motions to make sure there are no calibration errors.” Vreta recommended. From the perspective of the others, he sounded just the same as usual, though that was only due to their own translators. Vreta’s translator was outputting his words audibly as though he was speaking the native language.