RP Alpha turned out to be a cluster of buildings atop a gentle swell in the ground. the planet Garden was a park world, Class 2, with only the bare minimum of tectonic activity that was necessary for life to arise in the first place. It had no impressive rocky up thrusts or great slabs of broken crust resting at angles atop the layers below, only gentle swells and rolls and grassy hills.
“Ruins?” WARHORSE asked.
“This planet used to be the embassy world for all species.” Regaari explained. “Then the station was built, and because it’s more convenient to dock with a station than land on a planet…”
“Right…” The humans paused to sip from their water supplies. The water was strangely coloured, like the instant juice had been. There must have been something in it to replenish them, Regaari supposed.
“Whose was this then?” Legsy asked.
“I don’t know.” Regaari told him. “My people are nearly as new to the galactic stage as yours, after all.”
“Right.” WARHORSE repeated.
“STAINLESS, LONGLEGS. I have eyes on RP Alpha, one ET and WARHORSE with me.”
“LONGLEGS, STAINLESS. Better get down here quick, we’ve spotted ground forces approaching from the north.”
Legs raised his binoculars to the north, and nodded, before turning to WARHORSE. “Double time.”
“Hold on, scrappy.” WARHORSE said, and set off at an actual run.
Regaari turned his own borrowed binos to the north, and felt his hackles rise. “They’ve got tanks?” he asked. “I’ve never even heard of Hunter tanks before.”
“Tanks we can handle.” Legsy assured him. “Or rather, the angels can.”
“Mythical beings?”
“Nah mate. Fuckin’ spaceships.” Legsy raised his own binoculars and examined the approaching Hunter column as they jogged.
Regaari imitated him. “Why aren’t the Hunters landing directly on top of us?”
“Look up.”
Regaari did so. Nothing much happened for some seconds.
“What am I looking-”
He winced and shielded his eyes as there was a tremendous flash in the sky. It faded almost instantly, but left a purplish-green blob of afterimage behind. “…for?”
“Our angels have got orbital superiority.” Legsy’s translated voice had a note of satisfaction in it.
“Was that…?”
“Tactical nuclear…fusion warhead.” WARHORSE spoke. He was labouring worse than Legsy, but then again he was carrying at least twice as much weight, and it certainly didn’t seem to be slowing him down. If not for his heavier breathing and the sheen of moisture beading on his face, Regaari might have guessed he was almost finding the run easy. “RIGHTEOUS’ll be…having fun, eh Legs?”
“Too fuckin’ right he will. Nobody ever gets to play with the big toys.”
“Fusion weaponry is not a toy!” Regaari protested.
“It is when it knocks those big swarmships out.” Legsy pointed again. It was hard to see in daylight, but there were definitely distant bright trails describing stately lines in the sky. Wreckage, falling from orbit.
They burst from the brush and shrub and picked up the pace across the open ground around the buildings, pounding up the shallow incline onto a paved road surface.
“LEGS and WARHORSE, STAINLESS. I see you. Third building on your left.”
Both men angled for it.
“Last in?” Legsy asked as they came to a halt in a heptagonal ground floor lobby. Eight other men were at work inside, taking the stairs four at a time in the low gravity as they shuttled ammunition and equipment higher up into the building.
“Nothing like a fuckin’ Corti on your back to make you want to get where you’re going ASAP.” One of the soldiers said. He and WARHORSE exchanged one of those fist-slam greetings. “Yours seems cool.”
“He’s cool as shit! Scrappy, this here’s BASEBALL.”
“Scrappy? My name’s-”
“Nuh-ah, man. We’re on mission.” BASEBALL interrupted. “We’re using your war name.”
”…Scrappy seems like the kind of name you’d give a pet.” Regaari protested.
“How ‘bout ‘DEXTER’?” WARHORSE suggested. “With the arm, and he’s a killer, bro.”
The reference—and Regaari knew enough about humans to know that it almost certainly was a reference or in-joke of some kind—went right over his head, but he decided that ‘DEXTER’ sounded much more dignified than ‘Scrappy’. “It’ll do.” he agreed. As he’d suspected, the humans all grinned behind their masks, indicated by a creasing of their eyes.
“DEXTER it fookin’ is.”
This human could only be STAINLESS. He gave Regaari an interested look. “You think he’s worth summat, WARHORSE?”
“He’s a soldier sir.” WARHORSE declared.
“Right. If you’re up for it, mate, I need somebody up in a window keeping an eye on the Hunters. We’ve got a range marker a click out, a little bridge. Let RIGHTEOUS know when they start crossing it, okay?”
Regaari gave him a human nod. “Can do.” he declared.
STAINLESS handed him a communicator. “Press this bit to talk. It’s made for us so you’re gonna have to push pretty hard…”
Regaari squeezed it. As predicted it needed some pressure, but he could do it. “STAINLESS, DEXTER. Communications test.”
“Loud and clear, and translated too. Our evac’s incoming but we need air and orbit superiority first, that’s what the holdup is. When I call that it’s coming, head for the roof. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good man. WARHORSE, TITAN’s rigging explosives along the north road, resupply him. Legsy, nick BASEBALL’s SAW and get yourself set up in a ground floor window. Understood?”
Regaari snapped a “Yes sir!” that was identical to the two humans’. This seemed to meet everyone’s approval.
“Good. Go.”
Firebird
“Shuttle’s away, escort form up.”
Rylee swung Firebird onto the little ship’s wing and, not for the first time, cursed that no Earth corporation had yet produced a satisfactory craft analogous to the role filled by the cheap, boxy models sold in their millions across the Dominion. It was a flying brick, spaceworthy and airworthy only by dint of excessive reliance on its forcefields. No jump drive, no emissions dampening, no nothing. If she’d had her way, they wouldn’t be using them.
She was going to have to use all the clout she could muster to get that shortage fixed.
They’d at least been able to slave the useless little thing’s navigation computer to the network that allowed them to warp and jump in the vicinity of their own gravity spikes by shutting the traps down just long enough. Without that, the ground-pounders would have been fucked.
They aligned, blink-warped, and the planet Capitol went, in an infinitesimal moment that contained nothing more than the suggestion of incomprehensible speed, from being a nigh-invisible turquoise dot in the infinite night, to a great curve of blue and white that filled half the world, garlanded by smashed swarmships.
The bastards were fighting back hard, and they’d learned a few tricks, but she indulged in a grim smile inside her helmet at knowing that they had lost only two TS/2s in the battle, while Hunter casualties must surely be numbering in the thousands.
“RIGHTEOUS, FIREBIRD.” She called. “We’re in your box.”
“FIREBIRD, RIGHTEOUS. Got an incoming heavy column down here, line up for an RFG drop on my call.”
Semenza made an eager “Oooh!” noise. “I’ve always wanted to do one of those.”
Rylee lined up, while her wingmen swept out to clear the box of any lingering hostiles. “So have I.” she agreed.
<Delight> +Fusion weapons deployed via wormhole, too close to evade! ExoAtmospheric deployment of individual ground units! And the communications cyphers! I salivate to sink my teeth into those!+ The Alpha Builder was broadcasting joyous paroxysms like a messy eater spraying prey-blood all over its fellows.
The Alpha-of-Alphas radiated a good mood. It leaned forward slightly in its throne <Amused rebuke> +Continue to pay attention, and you will be fed further morsels I am sure. These deathworlders are not stupid, they will have many secrets in reserve that they have not yet revealed.+ it declared.
<Regret> +A shame that Alpha-of-Many-Broods is going to escape capture.+
<Query> +You are certain?+
<Assertion> +It is the most likely outcome. They move with remarkable speed across terrain.+
<Observation> +The Broods are closing in on their refuge…+
The Alpha-of-Alphas gestured resignation. <Dismissive> +But we lack air and orbital control. There will be more deathworlder surprises. I do not doubt that the capture will fail, but we will learn more from it.+
It snarled, baring all of those vicious teeth. <Anticipation> +Every such secret gets us one step closer to devouring them.+
DEXTER
Regaari set down the binos and gripped the communicator’s button for all he was worth. “RIGHTEOUS, DEXTER. They’re crossing the bridge.”
“DEXTER, RIGHTEOUS. Copy that, y’all watch this shit and tell me how much it hurts them.”
Regaari’s fur rose a bit. The human ‘Combat Controller’s voice had been full of a kind of malicious anticipation which was equal parts infectious and worrying. “RIGHTEOUS, DEXTER…watch what, exactly?”
There was a pause. RIGHTEOUS was presumably busy. A few seconds later, he got back on the line.
“DEXTER, you sir are lucky enough to have a front row seat for the first ever deployment of a Rod From God. Enjoy the show. RIGHTEOUS out.”
Firebird
“RFG dropped!” Semenza crowed. Rylee hit the retros and shared his glee at watching a tungsten-tipped steel bar the size of a telegraph pole leave them behind and streak down into the atmosphere.
“Shuttle escort, let’s follow it down.”
DEXTER
Regaari first saw it as a star in the western sky.
It hung there, low and proud, drifting only a little to the north for nearly a minute, while a flood of Hunters crossed the little bridge he had been watching. He had been wondering what was so important about that bridge, but suddenly he saw the genius of it. Those tanks could only cross one at a time.
The star was drifting a little faster now.
Then it wasn’t drifting. It was a streak of light, a blaze of pure heat that-
He averted his gaze just in time, but even so the reflected flash off the back wall of the abandoned office he was sitting in was dazzling. When he looked back, he could see the ground settling back into place, and an expanding orb of displaced air and water vapour racing outwards.
It knocked dust from the floor of the office and shattered windows when it swept over them with a gut-punch of pure volume that ripped an involuntary alarm cry out of him. The bridge was presumably gone, as was the road for hundreds of meters on either side of it, though that was mostly speculation on his part—there was so much dirt and smoke hanging where the Hunter column had been that actually seeing the bridge itself was a fantasy. When he surveyed it through the binoculars, all he could see was a beige cloud and a lone hunter, broken and dying in the road.
He watched it expire, then put the binoculars down. His paw was shaking.
“Humans are crazy…” he muttered.
Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds
<Epiphany> +Of course! So simple, yet so effective! No need for dangerous and expensive antimatter, no need to mine and enrich fissionable elements! Just drop a steel pole from orbit! Beautiful!+
The Alpha-of-Alphas stroked a claw down one of the cables that connected it to the swarm. <Observation> +It seems…crude.+
<Insistence> +Crude it may be, but Alpha-of-Alphas, greatest one: This is the weapon with which we shall destroy them. With the resources needed to build a single swarm-ship, I can assemble enough of these to destroy a hundred cities.+
<Satisfaction> +Then this hunt has served its purpose: I tire of it. We will intercept that shuttle and kill them. Begin the dismantling of the prey-station. Meat to the maw!+
DEXTER
Something didn’t add up, by Regaari’s reckoning.
Nukes notwithstanding, the Swarm-of-Swarms was immense, and the Hunters were always one step ahead of everybody’s best when it came to cloaking technology. If there was even a ship there for the humans to detect and nuke, it was there because the Hunters either wanted it to be, or else didn’t care enough to hide it.
Which meant that the humans didn’t have quite the orbital superiority they thought they did. Which raised two questions: Why linger and lose ships?
And why not just flatten the embassy compound from orbit?
He exercised a little creative interpretation of his orders and decided to keep watch out in other directions besides north. The Hunters hit by the ‘Rod From God’ weren’t going anywhere, and Regaari had seen enough intelligence on Hunter raids to know that they were far from stupid.
Quite the reverse. They had a uniquely sadistic cunning.
Which was why he was able to save the team’s lives. He was looking right at the dropships when they decloaked in the south, on final approach.
“Hostile contact, south!” he reported, desperately squeezing the radio until his claws creaked. Down below in the courtyard, he saw the Nova Hounds look up and south, then dive for cover.
The opening salvo of coilgun fire that marched up the street therefore did nothing worse than punch some craters in the road surface and knock loose some masonry. The humans, whether by luck or incredible reflexes, escaped unharmed, though SNAPFIRE’s outer fabric suit ripped down his arm to reveal the armor scales beneath.
“STAINLESS, DEXTER, looks like…twenty Hunter dropships just decloaked two hundred meters to our south. They’re landing to drop passengers, the column to the north still isn’t moving.” He elaborated.
STAINLESS’s voice was tight, focused and precise. “Roger. NOVA HOUNDs, reform the line, face south. WARHORSE, get the ETs upstairs. DEXTER, how many Hunters?”
“As many as three hundred, STAINLESS.” Regaari told him. The dropships took off again, engines making a tooth-grinding buzz as they angled up and over the roof. The NOVA HOUNDs opened up a rippling volley of gunfire, which the Hunters returned with interest. The street became a bilateral hailstorm of withering firepower, pock-marked with craters and fallen concrete where the Hunter coilguns had blasted the architecture loose to create cover for the advance..
“Where are those dropships going?” STAINLESS demanded.
Regaari calculated in his head, and felt his ears plaster themselves to his head. “STAINLESS, DEXTER.” he reported. “They’re intercepting the shuttle.”
Firebird
“Multiple bogies! Where the hell did THEY come from?!”
Rylee snapped right and spat two short bursts at the new contacts. Anything coming in like that was definitely hostile. “Stay frosty! RIGHTEOUS, FIREBIRD, I have hostile aircraft on our approach vector, repeat, bogeys in the box!”
“We see them FIREBIRD, plan’s unchanged. Escort that shuttle.”
Rylee threw them into a sideways drift to avoid a coilgun round. “Semenza, light ‘em up!”
Semenza was proving his value again, his voice was as level and cool as a frozen lake. “No missiles, boss. We’re in atmo. EWAR only from me.”
“Shit, yeah. Call targets.”
“Called.”
WARHORSE
“REBAR, Low on ammo!”
“I gotcha!”
The Hunters were using something that looked like an old Bren gun. Long-barreled, slow to aim and firing a steady rhythm of fat, heavy bullets that would have hit like a train if they found their mark. Thankfully, the monsters didn’t seem to know a damn thing about bracing or supporting the weapon correctly, and weren’t strong enough to handle the kick.
The human return fire, meanwhile, was savagely precise—every time a Hunter popped its head out of cover, it got blown away, and the cannibal fucks were losing half a dozen for every ten feet of ground they advanced, but there were a lot them still upright and advancing and the air was full of lead. Adam gritted his teeth as two alien bullets punched clouds of grey dust out of the concrete next to him and dropped, skidding on the increasingly gravel-strewn asphalt to fetch up next to REBAR, who slammed his last magazine into his M16 just as he arrived.
“Good timing.”
“Sure.” Adam left him four mags and then was up and running, delivering ammo to SNAPFIRE.
There was no time to think. With no gun of his own, there was only time to keep the others fighting.
Firebird
The TS/2s spread out then lanced in, picking Hunter strike craft and filling the sky with ammo, but their GAU-8/S guns weren’t really designed for dogfighting. Two Hunters burst, falling apart in rains of flaming metal, but that left twelve more.
The shuttle pilot was doing his part well at least. Every time the Hunters drew a bead on him, he skipped out of the way, usually creating an opening for the TS/2s, but he was under constant threat.
Four more bogies down, then a fifth. Rylee gritted her teeth against the G-forces as she shunted a jolt of power through the thrusters, sweating away precious capacitor reserves and saving the difference by pulling it out of the inertial compensators, sending them skidding across the sky, rattling as they hit the thermal coming off the RFG’s ground zero.
Two bursts. Two bogies down, five left. Four left as FIREDOG rampaged past her, gun howling. The Swarm’s technological superiority counted for squat when the human pilots had millisecond reaction times and could tolerate acceleration that would have killed their Hunter counterparts.
“Shit! That one!” Semenza’s cool cracked. Rylee saw why instantly—it was on the shuttle’s six, and the shuttle just didn’t have the agility to pull off the evasive manoeuvres that its pilot needed.
Only one way to save the mission. Her vision greyed as Firebird leapt forward on a lightning bolt of extra juice to the engines, drawing a groan from Semenza, then they sat on their instrument panels as she fired.
The Hunter evaporated.
The coilgun round that would have killed the shuttle instead took out Firebird’s left wing.
STAINLESS
“Fallen angel, fallen angel! FIREBIRD, going down hard!”
Somehow, Jackson kept her sled level on spitting and stuttering yellow emergency forcefields that spread out like the flaming wings of her stricken craft’s namesake. She fell in a glittering halo that lashed out and grabbed on to the buildings, bleeding off the hurtling wreck’s momentum by gouging out torso-sized chunks of concrete and steel from the buildings.
She still skidded half the length of the street once she hit, but the fields had done their job—she landed intact.
Powell cursed, then grabbed his communicator. “FIREBIRD, STAINLESS.” he demanded. “Any survivors?!”
The reply was a few seconds in coming, and came with a grunt of exertion. “STAINLESS, FIREBIRD TWO. Two out of two survivors, but my pilot’s leg is all busted up.”
Time was tight, but they still had two able-bodied PJs on the team and the stricken TS/2 was on the right side of the line at least. “DEXTER, status of that Hunter column?”
“STAINLESS, DEXTER. The column’s still stopped at that bridge and reeling from the orbital strike. Minimal threat.”
Powell had to admit, the Gaoian was proving to be worth a few multiples of his weight in gold. “WARHORSE, BASEBALL, secure that air crew!”
“On it!” The two young men promptly handed off their cargos of spare ammunition and got up and dashed towards the downed spaceplane.
“SNAPFIRE, REBAR, cover them, TITAN, Legsy, fall back and defend the door!”
All four men grabbed their own packs and hustled, falling back in a disciplined pattern under fire, covering each others’ retreat. That left only the combat controllers, who had formed a rifle team in the ground floor window, HIGHLAND, who was up in the third floor window sniping the Hunters wherever they tried to take cover, DEXTER, and Powell himself.
“CCTs to the roof.” he ordered. He touched the communicator again. “DEXTER, STAINLESS. Get to the roof.”
The Gaoian sounded relieved. “Yes, STAINLESS.”
There was shouting from the door and the Protectors returned, with WARHORSE carrying Rylee Jackson over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, trailed by her WSO. Her leg was a mess, flight suit stained crimson around where it had been cut open and field dressed.
“You’ve always got to be the centre of attention, don’t you?” Powell asked her, falling back on humour to cover his genuine relief that she’d not got herself killed.
She managed a weak, bravado-fuelled grin and extended a fist though she was sweating, shaking and tight-faced from pain. “Good to see you again, STAINLESS. Looks like your boys turned out okay.”
“Don’t fookin’ thank me until we’re home.” he replied, though he bumped her fist in return, then turned to WARHORSE “Get her to the roof, mate.”
“Yes sir!”
More explosions sounded outside, punctuated by chattering gunfire. REBAR and SNAPFIRE fell back into view, firing back down the road before ducking for the door. TITAN was caught in open ground and three rounds sparked against his armour, knocking him off his feet. As he tried to stagger upright, a fourth round hit and penetrated and he collapsed, groaning around a hole in his abdomen.
Powell didn’t even need to give an order. Before he even had the chance, BASEBALL leapt into action, putting the pitching arm for which he was aptly named to work and hurling a frag grenade into the heart of the Hunter advance with such force that it lodged in one monsters’ chest, knocking it off its feet and sending the rest scattering for cover before it went off. He pounced on TITAN and dragged him into the safety of the building even as a burst of renewed firepower missed his head by inches before they made the safety of the doorway.
Fortunately, the Hunters weren’t braving the SAW yet, but that wouldn’t last long at all. Much closer and they’d be in Nervejam range.
“STAINLESS, HIGHLAND. More Hunter dropships decloaking, north. They’re mobbing us.”
Powell grimaced “CCTs, where’s that shuttle?” he demanded.
“STAINLESS, STARFALL, It’s on final approach, landing twenty seconds. Got a lot of Hunter bogies coming in though, we need to be gone in one mike.”
It would have been nice if time had slowed, if he’d had a minute to think through the options carefully. But the decision was foregone. Somebody was going to have to stay down here and hold the Hunters off long enough for the shuttle to take on passengers and dust off.
It was the kind of decision that Powell hated. He hated it especially this time because his options weren’t limited—there WERE no options. Both the CCTs were on the roof, Murray was three floors up, the two PJs had their hands full, and really, this was a job for a close-quarters combat specialist.
But that man was going to die. No maybe, no last-minute rescue. He was order ing a man to his death, and there was only one right option, because the alternative was for everyone to die.
He clamped down hard on his self-hatred and gave the order.
DEXTER
The human shuttle pilot had nerves of steel, Regaari had to give him that much. Hovering level with a building’s roof while aircraft thundered overhead was…
He didn’t have time to think about it further. WARHORSE emerged from the roof access door carrying another human in a flight suit and yelled at him, gesticulating with his free arm. “DEXTER, get in the fuckin’ ride!”
Regaari scrambled in, squeezing as far in as he could while the Corti, Kwmbwrw and the humans piled in behind him. Being built to the scale of Dominion species, they still had plenty of room, but there was one missing, even though the ramp was coming up and they were ascending.
“Where’s-?”
STAINLESS shot a glare at him that could have eviscerated anybody in the shuttle. Then he leaned against the bulkhead, slid down it, put his head between his knees and his hands on the back of his head, and shook.
Master Sergeant James “Legsy” Jones
He would have liked to go down shooting and hollering.
There was no time for hollering. There was no time for anything. Just shoot. Just fight.
Just buy them time.
He’d taken BASEBALL’s SAW and fired it until the box was empty and the barrel glowing. That alone was enough. He saw the shuttle take off and streak into the sky. Mission accomplished.
Then he fought with his SMG until he ran out of magazines. The last of the TS/2 fighters jumped out with thumps of inrushing air, recalled once the shuttle was no longer in danger of being intercepted.
Then he fought with his pistol until there were no more rounds to fire. For honour.
Then he fought with his knife.
Then his fists.
He held out long enough to still be standing when the second Rod From God hit, sent to destroy the wreck of Firebird, and his suit.
The Hunters didn’t get the satisfaction of killing him.
+<Admiration>+
The Alpha-of-Alphas generated a mental note of disapproval aimed at the Alpha Builder, but the lesser being was not paying attention. It had watched a lone Deathwolder fight a hundred of its muscle-grafted experimental “Strongest Brood” warriors, and arguably win.
Everything from the biology, to the weaponry, armour and tactics spoke of wealthy fields of research to come. For a Builder, there was no greater anticipation.
If only that equipment had not been destroyed.
+<Deference> If the Alpha-of-Alphas desires it, this one can begin work on the next generation of innovations immediately.+ it suggested.
+<Blunt disinterest> Do so.+
The Alpha Builder pretended not to notice the emotional context. It simply stood, and departed, already mentally preparing the calculations and experiments.
Left alone in the dark and silence, the Alpha-of-Alphas finally indulged in an unashamed broadcast of its emotional state only once it was sure that there truly were no Hunters within broadcast range..
+<Admiration>+
Regaari
The strangest part was that they recovered, and how.
Caledonia’s flight deck was different to how he remembered it. The shuttle set down with a half-meter’s clearance in a space otherwise filled by crates, equipment, work benches, tool racks and a structure of piping and plastic sheets in the corner. Medics stepped in, carting the two wounded humans away on gurneys. Regaari’s amputation was examined and declared to be as clean and well-dressed as if he’d had it off in an operating theatre. There was nothing to be done for it, at least not that was available on the ship.
He barely paid attention. He was watching the NOVA HOUNDs.
Once out of the shuttle, they had been attended to by technicians, who helped them remove the outer layer of their suits, revealing a variety of shades of browned and white skin, but uniform hair length.
Beneath that was the armour, gunmetal scales that clearly formed the bulk of the suit’s weight, as each man sighed a profound sigh of relief once they were off.
The suits were taken away to be dismantled, serviced and cleaned as a powerful musk hit Regaari’s nostrils. Each one of the NOVA HOUNDs smelled of sweat, salt and exertion, and the dark grey bottom layer was black with moisture in several places. It was also, clearly, better than skin tight, as they had to wriggle out of it.
WARHORSE’s had worn through at the left armpit. He just snarled like an angry beast, grabbed it with his right hand, and tore the underlayer right off his body in a ragged strip.
Regaari blinked. He’d known the human was strong, but seeing what that strength looked like was something else entirely. It was almost…ugly. Uncomfortably reminiscent of those red-raw Superhunters, he could almost see the strands and fibers of muscle under the skin, so many muscles. Bulging power in places Gaoians didn’t have places.
They surprised him further by removing their garments altogether and then retreating behind the plastic screen for a shower. Xiù had always been squeamish about removing her clothes, he remembered that. Even when bathing, despite being in the company of beings who biologically and psychologically couldn’t find her attractive, and despite that Gaoians viewed clothing more as being practical and useful rather than necessary, she had seemed to go to great lengths to avoid letting any more of her skin be visible than was inevitable.
The NOVA HOUNDs didn’t seem to care. Though they did return from their ablutions wearing loose, comfortable clothing.
None of them had any kind of an expression. They just found an array of mats and blankets in the corner, and sat down upon them still and silent, staring at nothing.
Before long, every last one of them had fallen asleep.
Not long after them, Regaari found a spot near WARHORSE, curled up, and fell asleep himself.