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Unfortunately we're not going to be able to update this week. We've both had quite bad insomnia and as I said before my schedule this month is already very busy, so taking an extra day or two to finish it up isn't feasible. Apologies for the delay.

[X] Kill the Colonel and leave

<<Just kill him.>> You say. No mercy for slavers.

<<Sure.>> Luyu says. She kneels down, pulls out the Biff's revolver out and then taps him with the med unit.

<<You have time for that?>> You ask.

<<I'm not just going to kill a helpless captive.>> Luyu steps back, carbine slung across her body, her others covering the corridor. The Biff Colonel blinks awake, seeing the gun in front of him. He looks up at Luyu and you see in his eyes an amusement. An acceptance of death.

"It's fully loaded. One chance. If you're fast."

Or maybe you're just anthropomorphising.

"You people." He says. "Such sentimentalism."

And then he goes for the gun.

For a Biff, he's very quick, but he can't come close to matching Luyu. Her carbine comes up and she fires twice, then once more to make sure. The three of her move off without another word, the last scoping up the Biff's still cold gun as she passes. Behind them you hear the Balwar scream in rage as they scent their colonel's blood.

Reizay is silent on the channel, then takes a deep breath. "...I'm into the interface on the command box. We can feed in whatever you want."

"We need a quick tactical scrambler. It doesn't need to last long, just throw them off. You need to - " You pause. It's a marvel that you know how to do this, without any memory of how you learned it. It twitches you. But you've learned by now that staring into the blank space only impedes the recall you need in the moment. "Load a chaos model behind a translator interface. Luyu should have a model on hand." She does, with presets ready. She's been in so many battles.

<<Won't work for long,>> she says. <<But as the boss said…>>

It's a very narrow program. More like a language model than an intelligence. It has enough linguistic competence to sound authentic and enough tactical nous to make bad decisions. The aim is confusion. A storm of contradictory orders flowing into the River channels. Chaos. Reizay loads it, fires, and forgets.

The effects of the hack don't take long to appear. The River are prepared for this in a way. They have secondary voice communications, but they're unreliable in a high jamming environment like the one ECHO CHAMBER are facing them with. Individual River fireteams and squads will begin to move independently, ignoring orders from above. But that's hard to win with when you're up against elite conflict specialists like ECHO CHAMBER.

The sensors that Luyu and Alawen's drone hives have automatically laid begin to pick up sounds of increased gunfire and activity. ECHO CHAMBER, and perhaps the locals have seen the holes opening in the River command and are pushing their attack. Sonic sensors detect weapons discharges and microbot explosions rising up the structure as the marines throw themselves into the fight.

"Okay." Luyu says. "I think we're clear on those Balwar for now. What do you want us to do now Boss?"

"Opinions?"

"Should we just leave?" Alawen asks. "We've really scrambled the River op here."

"Maybe. I don't really like leaving the elves or that potential superweapon here to get snatched by ECHO CHAMBER though. We could work our way back into the centre and try to grab it."

"Those Balwar are still hunting us. If we start a big fight they'll fold in onto us."

"Maybe." the three Luyu look at one another and shrug. "I can sac a body to draw them off if it comes to that. I still have one body regenerating on the ship."

You consider what to do. Leaving is possible now, but it will mean that ECHO CHAMBER get hold of the jellyfish. Maybe they won't be able to get it running, but even so. Especially if this isn't the last you see of them. It would be dangerous to your team to go back in but it might be worth it. The question then is what objective?

Alternatively, you could try to contact the mockmaids and see if you can open a dialogue with them, which might open up possibilities in further negotiations with the Nereidi later, though risks bringing you into direct contact, and perhaps conflict, with ECHO CHAMBER.

Finally there's the matter of the Balwar, who are certainly now hunting you and probably won't stop for a while. You could try to cut the difference and move to re engage them in a proper ambush rather than having to worry about them later. But that would lose time and casualties, and might end up with you losing the other two objectives anyway.

[ ] Pull the team out now and leave the base to ECHO CHAMBER and the pseudo-Nereidi.
[ ] Move back to the dig room and attempt to disable the Nereidi weapon andseize the Shalathri that they were using to interface with it before ECHO CHAMBER can.
[ ] Move to try to contact the Mockmaids and see if you can open a dialogue with them.
[ ] The Balwar are gunning for you, they need to go. You've broken sensor contact, turn the tables and hunt them.

[X] Move back to the dig room and attempt to disable the Nereidi weapon and seize the Shalathri that they were using to interface with it before ECHO CHAMBER can.

<<We can't allow ECHO CHAMBER to obtain the weapon.>> Even if they aren't completely pawns of the Conspiracy, this Dandelion and its Wasps, you wouldn't want a group like them to have it. There are conflict specialists who are nice, but not all of them are.

<<I concur.>> Luyu says <<Let's loop back around and try to grab the Shalathri.>>

The fighting is growing more intense. On your drone, you see the force field around the ECHO CHAMBER submersible cut off, and it starts to drop war drones into the base. It's worrying, in a way, to see the conflict escalate from regular infantry to combat inorganics. Then again, the presence of the Biff is an immediate cause for escalation. No Gardenian power wants to see a return to the First Flood Period when the River dominated Garden space. Even if it created artefacts like the Deep Ships, it also left bands of radiation on many planets that are still hazardous today. The war to expel the River is the most famous and recent of the Garden's dark ages. The paradoxically unchanging Riverine civilisation, frozen in what the Garden's more determinist theorists consider a cruel stage of development, must be opposed.

Inside, Luyu and her team move back towards the dig room. Heavy gunfire is happening within. The flash of River plasma weapons now joined by the metallic thunder of Gardenian kinetics and the crump of catapult rounds. She pauses as you move up near the excavation site, pulls a small recon drone from her kit, then tosses it forward. It spirals out of the tunnel to get a view of the room. The River still hold it, and the Shalathri are still screaming. They're huddling in their force field as the room turns to fire around them.

One of the Biff Quad Barrels are still firing down into the pit, Biff and Balwar fighters incover around it, pouring fire downward. A second of the semi-portable guns has been swung around to cover a side tunnel. Piles of dead mockmaids and their creatures litter the room, streaming in the heat of the plasma impacts that killed them. Their numbers and how close they are to the Riverine lines testify to the fury of the assault.

The foe that now faces the Riverine is far deadlier than the low tech aliens however. ECHO CHAMBER troops and combat inorganics are coming from two angles, a group at the bottom of the pit who seem mostly to be trading fire to keep the Biff pinned down, and another group walking their way forward with black out smoke and fire. The team trading fire from amid the corpses of giant eels are mostly the same as the ones you encountered at the temple, neat, Knightress embodied warriors with large combat visions of spiralling black orbs. In these conditions they don't really need the advanced sensors, they know exactly where the Biff defenders are, and have augmented their firepower with a Sakuran micro-missile gun and several fire support drones.

It's the other team that's more interesting though. Clad their infantry are all clad in power armour, tall, fast and large. Valkyries or something like them. Around them, Combat Inorganics run like snapping hounds, directed in rapid rushes. They're using an array of heavy firepower, including Riverine weapons of their own.

The Biff probably think that this is a standard fire and manoeuvre team, but actually both sides are distractions. ECHO CHAMBER's true assault is detectable in the air. Tiny stealth microbots, visible from the drone above when their stealth systems compensate for the pounding beat of the Biff's active sensors are spiralling in amid the debris and blackout smoke. The microbot approach is somewhat slow. They need to appear semi-random, but once they get concentration on the position, the fight will end abruptly. An alert Biff officer would already be barraging the room with anti-microbot munitions just on the off chance but for now it seems like they're trusting their detectors too much against the high quality micromunitions that ECHO CHAMBER are using.

<<The manoeuvre element is one of ECHO CHAMBER's vanguard teams.>> Luyu says. <<Top Killer. They must really want us.>>

<<Well, let's not give them us, or it. What can you do?>>

<<First, let's steal some computers.>> Luyu records the ululations of the four shalathri, then the three of her creep forward. There's a few Biff watching the outside passages, but not enough to stop Luyu from creeping forward. Her each movement picked between the triggers of Biff perception. She apparently doesn't want to wait for microbot contact, because she grabs the first Biff sentry by the throat and dashes him against the wall. Her other hand slaps a hacking spike into his telemetry monitor. It placidly continues to return normal biosigns from the dying Biff as she drops him.

The three of her move forward into the chamber proper while Alawen covers with her Jingal. One of them does spikes the force field power source and it deactivates. One of the shalathri spots her, but too late. Their cries vanish under a noise canceller and in the same instant are replaced by a statistical recreation from Luyu's screamer. Even outnumbered three to four the valkyrie makes short work of grabbing the spindly aliens. It's a good thing she's so tall. Even so, you're relieved when they stop struggling after the initial shock passes and Luyu has retreated back into the corridors. After a few minutes of frantic motion the group pauses in a disused part of the complex, Alawen and two Luyus covering as one talks.

"Sssh sshh." Luyu tells the still frightened looking aliens. "It's alright. We're friends. Garden fighters. You know what that means."

The shalathri look at her. Then one another. The one you saw before cocks her head, birdlike. "You are not with the other Gardenians?"

"No." Luyu says. "They're not the best people."

They exchange glances again. You see microexpressions flicker. You wonder if the Biff here knew this code - you certainly don't. You can barely detect it, and you're pretty sure even Luyu, with her Valkyire's heightened empathic senses is only catching a fraction.

"Can you-" Luyu starts, then the lead shalathri starts speaking. The alien blooms with heat and her eyes go wide. She's clearly a high level adapt as she can go into her trance without any use of drugs or medical aid. She looks at Luyu, eyes huge and very dark, unblinking.

"The other Gardenian force are a specialist mercenary unit. They have high level Chrysanthemum equipment. Probability high they work for the Chrysanthemum as their catspaw. Minor possibility they are working for themselves but are self serving and against your faction."

"Yes."

"You wish to deny them our services and the weapon."

"Yes." Luyu says. One of the others pulls out a thermal camo blanket and blocks the tunnel with it, then moves to cover as the other does the other end. The Shalathri is fever hot. Her hair drifts in the air, dumping heat.

"We are of two minds but wish to remain together. As local bearers of force the decision resolves to you. We are close to resolving several of the dialectical forms that govern the behaviour of the weapon. We wish to see the shape of their resolution. If we resolve them the weapon will regain limited and likely locally-decisive functionality. There is a secondary interface point in an adjacent gallery for use in emergencies. However, it would be very dangerous. Casualties are extremely likely even in successful scenarios."

But we also wish to escape. To live and for our children to live."

The speaker is pregnant. The others aren't. You don't know what the distribution of opinion and authority is inside. It seems absurd to risk not escaping at all to continue their work (coerced work, no less), but if they wanted they could have told you anything else.

Luyu and Alawen look at each other, but wait for your decision. Then Luyu volunteers, on a private line: <<If we leave, one of me can carry a bomb to the weapon and make it as inoperable as possible. Though I don't think anyone is getting it working anytime soon without the computers.>> You wonder how the shalathri would react to that idea, and see why Luyu kept it quiet.

It's an incredible prize they're offering you. But you're in the middle of a battlefield, and defending a fixed point means the Balwar hunting you will find you.

[ ] Defend the River interface point until the shalathri can complete their work. Intervene to keep the battle in stalemate if need be.
[ ] Have one Luyu attempt to disable the weapon while you escape with the slaves.
[ ] Just get out, now. You've pushed your luck too far.