"Whatever in the armory is yours, provided you can carry it. Familiarize yourself and read the manual; League issue frequently demonstrates itself ill-fitting for your line of work. Sink or swim, as your kind like to say."

The Invictoid's eyes turned from the sole human of the team to the anguillid alien, still in its stupor over previous duties to an empire to many now in decline. To that, the skeletal spectre paused, arms crossed and striding past hologram and the splinters of living light from the spherical biocomputer. Its head swivelled before settling back on Rho-Hux.

"A funny thing about that. There had been no time to organize a command structure with the urgency of the prior mission. The voidhanger however, proves himself capable and devoid of the signs of lobotomization most pure-skins and their adjacents are plagued by. There is your authority - feel free to challenge it or more fittingly, earn his place as your own."

From the corner of Salvator's sight, the pupils of some frozen emotion (contempt, arrogance, disdain, fear) crossed with his sight. The Invictoid left and in his trail the machinery that had manifested retracted in its hovels and holes like the glands of some insect having finished their purpose. Conversation diminished and the clatter-buzz-hum of the command centre returned. Where the sphere-leader once hovered it had drifted off into the jungle of wiring and jutting appendages of the ceiling to melt into the mindlessness of whatever gestalt consciousness systems it reigned over above.

---

The walk to the armory had been uneventful in the realm of angular black metal and occasionally shifting isopod-like bioplating that was the Intransigent vessel. Yet there were signs of something fouler beneath its contemporary cutting-edge visage. The smell pungent like oil yet earthy like damp forest at first and the sound of not merely cocking and clicking firearm but equipment that chittered, trilled, and sucked. Not the sonic profile of civilization but something primal it had long since evolved from.

The quad-doors retracted.

Another human-like-yet-not; features skeletal but covered in the signs of corrosive rot and infesting cybernetic plague. Cybernetics colonized fester-dark biomass, emerging to form plating aligned with tarrhaidim-type bio-kevlar energy-ballistics padding. Humanity was present but buried beneath the invasion of fungoid flesh that had long since staked its claim and machine components dividing it from what was left of their original self.

Rectangular pulse projector in his hand, pulled off of an unfurling spider-leg every bit living and machine as they - lights pulsed as if awakening to the foul dream of a world of dishevelled combat organisms and shining before the eyes of the fellow envenomed as they entered. Flaccid worms flopped out, twitching in pathetic hunger before the coiling bony digits seized them and stabbed their barbed mouth tips into ports across transhuman's lower back.

Mechanisms of biomechanical hunger chortled and fluids sucked their way through. Just in time for them to turn and face their comrades for the first time.

More shapes hidden amidst the cylindrical trees of clenching and unfurling arachnoid limbs. The lights above were dim and a sickly purple, fluctuating into brighter neon yet the copse of artificial life that held the tools of the trade casted long shadows over them.

Colossal vrexul sitting upon the floor yet whose bulk alone was boulder-like, primarily limbs having split into numerous finer appendages as they maintained a weapon that might as well have been jagged metal and predatory beetle body rendered as a projectile spitting junk-cannon. Its head shield-like, a mask with empty dome-like eyes that stared at nothing yet everything, apathetic to its array of curving limbs emerging from sides and back. To each one was assigned magazine, grenade, portable drone, nutrient-mulch sac - occupied by all manner of a living arsenal's necessity.

Bladed-bodied, jagged shell, patterns like flames sculpted into a craggy armor of stony carapace - celaderakan warrior, their external skin-exoskeleton marked with cleft and crevice. Peering eyes could see the cybernetics within but hear not buzz and whirr but humming pulse. A touch of coldness as anyone neared him, the space itself feeling crowded even as he leaned alone against the wall. Scatter-rend shells beat out a steady rhythm loaded into pouch magazines, sucking in the shells when they touched the edge of its receiving port. No eyes with which to glare but his gaze was felt; predator to prey or observer to subjects, difficult to determine.

Surrounded by the x-winged drones, the way their bladed flight appendages cut through its body reflected the shape of its skull, a scielto hovered a foot above the ground. Gun-holder platforms hovered around with diagonally symmetrical anti-grav projectors attached to frames holding a variety of modified infantry rifles. One swung upwards, blurring as any envenomed looked upon the barrel that now pointed between their eyes for a scant second. Its features were obscured yet not by purely ethereal means. Its gnarled almost bark-like body was obscure by both a transparent membrane and a series of overlapping cloaks night-blue in colour yet whose translucency fluctuated at a whim.

The post-human's mouth opened and closed as if testing its own jawbones - many, many jawbones. A lower jaw that was comprised of smaller arm-branches that split it apart and reformed it. Hints of cracks travelled across its head and something gazed at them from behind the mask of decomposed humanity it wore. It was but a brief flash of something worm-like, almost an illusion before those some cracks hermetically sealed; the very metal-bone aggregate of its self sealing them.

It stood before the door the team had entered. Guarding its own or the welcoming committee; the others remained at work, watchful not just of their allies but the one who greeted them. Its eyes had not one but multiple tadpole pupils and it watched each member of the squad as if for inspection.

"I question your methods more than your effectiveness. SBC's last broadcast had a funny bit about the innocent apartheid troopers shot 'executioner' style... with wounds matching those of League issue submachine gun rounds."

It did not need to look at Kleo to detect her; multiple sensor systems within its cybernetic body had felt them enter before they had entered the door, scanned biomechanics and ethereal signature. A blank slate; a being of purely flesh and blood.

"Strutting around in a high class antique; they don't make unaugmented brigades nowadays - not good for much beyond putting down civilian militias. Maybe that's why your friends at the village didn't follow you further, ultimately for the best."

Its voice was human. Throaty, tinged with phlegm from a dry drone hovering underneath every inflection. Its stature was imposing at five foot ten yet it did not come off as domineering - its body sleek and power condensed into a shape one could almost say slender if only not contrasted by the rugged brutality of the celaderaka or the imperious mass of Echo. Before an ordinary human, it was moreso a looming spectre.

"So, you're the ones doing the actual spleunking and we're on voice-in-your-ear duty. Personnel dossiers are off limits, but I'm guessing the 'rocht isn't the pathfinder here. You got some vacuum-walkers I see... that construct recovered from a black box somewhere? Not the first anomaly that swung by here."

Was the goddamned Invictoid trying to get him shot? Judging by the look it had shot him after all but inviting the team to try to supplant him, yes. Not that he even wanted the job, but no one else had stepped up, and someone had to establish chain of command.

"For the record, if any of you proves you can do a better job, I'll gladly hand over command. So don't feel like you have to frag me for it."

___

They were off to a bad start with the other team, it seemed. Was it too much to hope for professionalism, for once? Salvator resisted the urge to snap back, instead giving his armament a brief once over as he replied in a conversational tone.

"Just be glad we'll be the ones stuck in that hellhole checking every corner, and not you and yours. Not looking forward to it, myself." He'd kept the heavy biomechanical shotgun he'd looted from the previous mission. Considering they'd be in very close quarters, its firepower would be useful. Although...

A quick march over towards a workbench had Salvator lay the shotgun on top, starting to cut the barrel down a few inches with the tools available. As it was, the length would be too cumbersome.

"You got a name? Designation? Callsign? Or should we stick to calling you 'support'?"

The mass of Echo's endoform was already waiting for the rest of the squad in the armory, as the slowly filed in. Seemingly having already begun preparations, a semi-rigid duffel bag was mounted to his back as though it were an infantryman's waist bag, and as well as a number within easy reach all across its shoulders, chest and legs. Already they were filled to the brim with supplies Echo believed they would need for the operation. Cutting and demolition tools, emergency rations for the organics, energy cells, multi-spectrum trauma-kit, and plentiful ammunition for Echo's weapons of choice.

At the Endoform's feet were a series of smaller saddlebag style pouches to be thrown over each squad member's attending microform, the Endoform casually chucking each over the backs of the microforms as they approached. These too were fully loaded, primarily with the essentials tailored to their particular squad members. Spare ammunition for their particular weapons, emergency first-aid kits for their specific biology, replacement armor plates and emergency rations. Syringe rounds for Alice's rifle, energy cells for Salvator's gear, grenades for Kleo. King's microform in particular didn't have much in is saddlebag, mainly because Echo was unsure what physical supplies it actually required.

"Notification: Coming through." The Endoform announced as it moved past Salvator and the support team member he was speaking to. Echo could vaguely tell that the support team was attempting to be antagonistic, though not outright hostile- or else Echo would've put them down. It did not particularly understand the purpose of such conversation, nor did it particularly care. The term 'hazing' came to its many minds, but the understanding of the definition was elusive at best.

"Notification: This platform shall be responsible for maintaining communications over long distance. Request: Reduce unnecessary use of communication networks for optimal performance." The large frame monotoned as it approached another set of workbenches. One of the microforms attended and Echo quickly went about making field modifications to its new weapons as well.

Close quarters and the risk of sudden depressurization meant that the autocannons would likely be staying on the Warform as opposed to be carried by the Endoform, so its recently procured weapons would have to fit the bill. Both had their stocks and sights removed- as they were unnecessary, and the scattergun was mounted to its forearm, its firing method slaved to one of the Endoform systems for hands free firing. The rifle was mounted with a heavy duty carry handle, and had its barrel replaced with a considerably thicker and heavier barrel for sustained fire. The magazine was replaced with a sealed belt that fed directly from an ammunition pack mounted to the Endoform's back.

"Notification: Platform preparations complete."

Despite the somewhat dismissive shade in the Invictoid’s words, Ilshar had very little issue with what it actually said. Leaguer equipment was rarely subtle in the ways these kinds of deployment needed. That had been why so few in his units had taken trophies during the war; as good as that stuff looked, most of the time it ended up being dead weight. Not that the UCL did not have precision gear when they needed it, but getting a hold of it in working condition was a feat for those truly buoyed by the breath of the Nexus. For the time being, the coils of the spiral had favoured him with free choice from the Intransigence’s stockpiles, and he would not be one to complain about that. Odds were that in a ship like this they would have no trouble with organically interfacing technology. How long had it been since his last implant? Growth and decay renewed themselves in a healthy body, that was the example the cosmos had set for their kind.

Rasch being designated the unofficial leader of their equally scrambled unit, at least as far as the strange gealtirocht was concerned, did not sit badly with him either. Someone who had a clear head and good enough flow in the common-space language was good enough. A proper tarrhaidim unit would have been another matter, but this was the wider Expanse for you.

“Easy there, that’s not how we work,” he chortled at the voidhanger’s maybe not unjustified caution. Perhaps shooting your way to the top was how the Intransigence usually did things. “Keep running clear brain-fluid and I’ll be right behind you.”

The armoury itself, once they had reached it, looked quite decently stocked. If it could support a handful as heavily armed as their new support team, scarcity would have been a thing of the past. Ilshar ran wide-angled eyes over the group, lingering curiously on the drifting scielto and shifting a foot as he passed the hulking vrexul. The insectoid alone made the chamber feel crowded, even without the strange sensation that seeped from its celaderakan companion. Abyssal, perhaps?

What was certain was that what seemed like their leader was unimpressed with their human complement. Ilshar could hardly blame it.

“The unaugmented… The body is a bud of the spirit, as they say where I’m from.” He strolled past the confrontation, shrugging amicably.

“We will have to find our eyes in there, but I think ether will matter more than vacuum. I assume you don’t know any more about the currents in there than we do.”

Guided by his frontal eyes, he scanned the armory supplies as he spoke, reaching for the necessities. Vacuum-sealed membrane, respiratory sacs, what about Oneiric- Something caught his interest, and he forgot the rest of the room for a moment.

Seraphic Predator symbiote. He had heard something about their kind, mostly in his latter years in the Expanse. Those of Enthuur who spoke of similar things balked at them - too deviate, something that would mar one’s harmony with the Nexus. An instrument of heretics. And still…

“Is it not all Its bounty, in the end…” Ilshar mused, whether to himself or his memories he could not be sure. Maybe attunement was slipping out of his reach as he hefted the ether-insulated capsule and looked at the writhing form within. But if he did not make it, very likely the whole dream of harmony would die with him, and the Worm Host could well make the difference in Sargasso. Pensive, he made his way to a table and began to strap off his vambrace armour, only halfway listening to what happened around.

King had done little else other than dismissively roll his eyes and pretend to sleep when the team had received the Sargasso briefing - his eyes had snapped open when the Invictoid had indicated that anybody was free to challenge Salvator's de-facto command of their squad, staring at the Invictoid Authority with unmasked distaste. He had sourly gotten up from where he was seated at the table and fallen in behind Salvator almost immediately, the wavering curtain oh photons comprising their visage taking on a shifting quality of camouflage; blending in with the shifting alien corridors of the vessel as the team moved to the armory and making efforts to stay both out of sight and mind, for the time being at least. He followed Salvator over to the workbench and stood by as the Voidhanger began modifying their shotgun.

"You got a name? Designation? Callsign? Or should we stick to calling you 'support'?"

It was then that King reached out and placed a thumb against the Salvator's helmet - and in the next moment King's reverberating, echoing voice resonated in Salvator's ears almost unbidden, seemingly occurring from somewhere inside their own body.

'Better call them 'troubleshooters,' chief. Don't react. I'm hitting your cochlear bone with an electron stream so you can hear this, they shouldn't be able to overhear. This wouldn't be the first time the Intransigence has arranged for inconvenient individuals like ourselves to get stranded and mysteriously vanished around a space station. Can't elaborate just yet, we'll talk more later. Just keep this in mind: Our 'support' are not our friends.'

King retracted his thumb, their active camouflage patterning fading away, leaving them conspicuously opaque and eerily picture-still once more.

"No more of a construct than you are, friend. Though I'm surprised you've been tasked with overwatch for us, given the focus you'll need to get to that control center. Maybe they think we can't get our job done otherwise?" King laughed then, hunching over faintly as they leaned their photo-curtain against the workbench. There was something ever-so-slightly off about their posture - some incorrectness to the curve of their spine and the balance of their frame relative to where their center of mass should have been.

"Anyway - we should talk about our mutual objectives. You've got your own craft but with you moving around inside that station and all the Etheric mess inside, it's entirely possible some of you might get cut off from it. Likewise, with all the automated defenses we'll be dealing with, our own exfiltration craft might be at risk. Might even have to commandeer one of the vessels we're being sent to investigate if things get really bad. What is going to be our exchange protocol for objective assets for when things start going wrong?"

King seemed wholly uninterested in the contents of the armory - though as he had joined the team just a few minutes prior, perhaps he had already outfitted himself for the mission sight unseen? Though by the same token, there was no evidence of any equipment on - or inside - his person. How exactly was the contentious construct meant to fight?

"You'll have company down there; a whole ethereobiology holobook's worth of strange and wonderful friends. I'm no zoologist but our drone handler knows a thing or two about wildlife in the ether. He's a bit of a traveller of the outer currents and all; this sort of thing was his wheelhouse even before he was tossed in our collective garbage dump."

A skeletal finger joint twisted in its socket as he raised a hand as if to point at Salvatore, King, and Ilshar. The appendage that would've done so instead bent backwards and jabbed at the scielto. Its skull swivelled to watch the squad, framed by a ring of its drones vertically arranged around its body.

"Husk will do for my callsign. It's a miracle the systems inside even work but that means that the main station's have likely seen some use and whoever jammed those ships in there was aware of it. This isn't some floating junkyard, science project getaway. Comms towers like the ones we're assigned to should've broken down and been overrun ages ago. Credit to whoever is on deep-void homekeeping duty, because they're going to be making our work infinitely easier."

From the wall, the craggy celaderaka watched Echo closely. It strode his way with militant motion while its shotgun was fed the last few shells. Temperature fluctuated as it neared and the microform drones would feel the prickling spikes of cold.

"Your canon-rifle; old and rare Yrrkradian model I believe. I have not seen since the years when Tergalarkan was an Emperor rather than an ordinary politician."

As if overpowered by the atmospheric conditioning systems, the veil of coldness disappeared and his voice scraped and grinded at the air. It was as if he had rusted sickles in his throat. Not pointed and not aimed; the machinery in his body nearly clashed with its host in terms of how old the latter was against the current gen make of the former.

"A unztadtlige platform is never not in demand for its services. So what brings the emperor's iron first among our esteemed number?"

Alice's voice brought the scielto's attention. It signaled her before it spoke, sending a sensation akin to a communications ping straight to the nebulous powers at her command. The scielto itself turned its head to her not a moment too soon.

"Ship-dweller, if I am not mistaken. You have not the making of voidspawned planet-walkers. A pleasure to see those who prefer the outer dark."

The alien's body descended until its almost vestial, footless legs like worn match-tips tapped against the ground. It was a lanky figure and even the illusion of its skin did not give it much in the way of volume to its branch-like limbs. Its voice felt as if the very air around itself melted into a syrupy series of long legato tones.

"I suggested a team of vacuum-dwellers, but alas, my words are ignored by our ever-knowing benefactors. Perhaps that is the sort of thing you simply cannot ask in these corners. The cost of civilization is convenience."

Husk spared a glance at Kleo's outbursts and his teeth twitched and bobbed within his knife-tooth maw. Worms coursed about where a tongue was supposed to be and they had long since conquered. Two of its left pupils locked onto Salvatore's visor.

"Say Mr. Voidhanger, how many levels of inbred is she? I heard what I thought were words but that's being generous; on a reexamination, it is better described as a slurry of pseudo-verbal vomit."

His lips curled and he turned away from Salvatore to swagger towards Kleo, head raised and his compound eyes watching her every move.

"Is this strange dialect the result of another generation's worth of genetic purity testing? Hey, human, how many of your uncles worth of seed did your mother swallow and did they install a faulty gene-mixer into her womb to try and make sense of it after the fact? I'd ask if they gave you that toy in your hands out of pity but I have a better one."

The fluids in his veins sloshed and squelched between the connective tubes leading between his body and his energy rifle, slack in his hand.

"Do you feel better about being a purer, frailer expression of humanity, certainly carried on by the hard work of your teammates, or is that the incest-inherited mind-sludgefication that prevents you from spouting anything more than catchphrases even old NATO stalwarts would balk at? Actually, don't answer that, I doubt I'd be able to decipher the gibbering excrement you squeeze through your lips that-"

A shadowy blur smacked against the back of his head and he stumbled away, turning his head to look at a freakishly long limb - at least nine feet in length, jointed all over and ridged with small carapace thorns. It had extended silent and patient as Husk spoke out of the body of the enormous arthropod. The rifle in it shead chunked and cocked, uncocked, and a telescoped round could be heard unjamming from its sputtering internal mechanisms.

The rest of his squad took a moment to glance but otherwise, continued on with their original activities.

Slowly the vrexul stood up and Husk's head turned, slapping away the blunt side of the serrated mantis-like limb. Somehow it retracted back into the enormous, biomechanical body as the largest member of the squad took to the forefront. The posthuman muttered something foul and incomprehensible but even his words seemed to vanish under the insectoid shadow. Its head was positioned in such a way it would be seen as "looking" at King to answer his question but behind its ocular domes, silhouettes moved and tracked the rest of the Envenomed.

"In scenario where you are cut off - us four become two - Husk and our close quarters expert, Rahadin-" The vrexul's clawed hands scraped over its shoulder as it stood rigid for a second. "Split from us, retrieve your squad and your data. Remaining two can handle the electronics. Automated defences a threat if we stray away from Sargasso. Exfil and guncraft signature masked and in guise of debris respectively."

The vrexul was not using its actual voice to speak. It was too clean, only partially distorted, artificial but fluctuating in such a way as to mimic a human, and the sound that emerged did not buzz out of its body but from speakers arranged around its upper shoulders and chest.

"Vice versa - I... we... can create a nearby exfiltration spot. All that is required is moderate-accuracy coordinates."

Between King's quiet advice and Kleo's reaction to the support team's provocation, Salvator tightened his grip on the hacksaw he was taking to his shotgun ever so slightly. First things first, a mental command to his armor's subsystem had a green acknowledgement light winking over his readout on the squad HUD King was patched into. Heard and acknowledged. He knew that much already, of course. But it didn't hurt to be professional, regardless. Too bad no one else wanted to be.

Except for whatever had dope-slapped Husk upside the head. Likely Salvator's own counterpart on the other squad. The voidhanger gave the speaker a brief nod of acknowledgement and thanks, deliberately choosing to gloss over Kleo's response for now.

"Understood." Salvator replied simply before shifting his helmeted gaze ever so minutely in the direction of both Kleo and Husk so that the biomechanical giant would notice. Another mental command had his visor blinking in Morse code for a moment. A simple offer: he'd ignore Husk's outburst if his counterpart ignored Kleo's.

Echo watched the ensuing back and forth with something akin to confusion. Its request for reduced unnecessary communications having been seemingly ignored. The Endoform's broad shoulders moved in what was seemingly akin to a frustrated sigh, though no sound other than the creaking of metal plates was heard. The potential conflict was seemingly defuse and its interference was no longer necessary. Echo's collective forms stood up to exit, seemingly finished with the current interaction, though did pause as it turned to the support team's squad leader.

"Notice. Echo Platform entity: 'Warform' will be attached to support team. Notice. Forwarding technical weapons data. Elaboration. Direct fire platform to be assigned to support unit. Elaboration. Warform will provide direct link and exact coordinates to away team. Notice. Etheric interference may have effect on coordinate accuracy. Elaboration. Will manually update coordinate location as necessary."

The Endoform's 'head' turned towards the rest of the team.

"Alert. This communication has reached conclusion. Request. Please proceed to staging area."