Greyloch.

The squad took a minute to recover from Ordlo's ordnance. Tyrone ordered his team to sound off. Names were called out, all were alive. Ordlo slid through some icy build-up tailed by Delaware to reconvene with the group. Desoto hitched the sling of her rifle over her shoulder. She was struck suddenly, not violently, a friendly touch from Operator Delaware. He congratulated her for her aim. Remarking at her skill. Saving lives in the heat of the moment, remaining cool under fire. Quite unexpected from a pilot. The vulnerability she may have displayed at being the lone woman present evaporated in Delaware's mind. He understood that Fleet exercised intensive survival, infantry-combat, and tactical training for its pilots, however, he understood more that Desoto practiced alot, rehearsed in VR tanks and paid close attention on the shooting range. She likely felt she didn't have a choice. In war, Everyone fights for everyone's sake. Holcroids had never been documented as having taken human prisoners.

The Major called the team to regroup on him. Centering the two newcomers of Coil 68 where they could exchange in kind. Ordlo, Tyrone, and the two operators removed their headgear to better ID and commune directly.
“Firstly Sir's, I would like to thank you for saving our lives. And apologise for bringing the wrong crowd to the party.” The man who spoke had a single stripe and girder on his armour's right pauldron ranking him as a Specialist.
“You're welcome and pray-don't-mention it. The squad was ready for it. You all handled that well.” Ordlo looked at everyone individually to reinforce his appreciation, respectfully nodding.
“It's a hell of a thing I caught your squawk when I did Specialist er... Walker? Tyrone was reading the Specialist's name stencilled onto his suit.
“Yes sir. And thank you again, your timing with the Chaser evened our odds!”

The team milled around to hear the two men brief them on what had happened to them at Ordlo's request.
Operator Tate Ellsworth and Specialist Jason Walker assumed a standby stance before each man began alternating with their debrief.
The pair recounted their element on reconnaissance the same as every unit, out of contact, lost in the blizzard. Coil 68 had managed to keep together throughout the storm by holding position somewhere to the south. A day later, a section had gone AWOL. Their team leader had ordered a search. Hopeless. The squad was lost. When the blizzard and atmospheric anomaly occurred, Coil 68 picked up a faint transponder, moving in on it. At the transponder's signal-source, Ellsworth, Walker and Coil 68 found the bodies of the missing section diced up in the middle of a strange structure. Walker decribed it as four dark pillars made of a strange black rock. Each one had three perfectly round holes bored in them from one face to the other, lining up with those holes in the other pillars.

At this, Ordlo and Tyrone interjected. Halting their brief to detail that they had found an identical place which led to their interaction with the technology discovered to affect the atmosphere. Ordlo had Walker indicate on his map where they found the bodies and the edifice. The Specialist gave a rough estimate of its position, far and away south, of where Ordlo expected that he and Tyrone had found theirs. It was understood that Coil 68's commanding officer had disallowed any one member of their unit to touch the things. The two men resumed their debrief, beaming footage to the Major and Sergeant-Major, showing the site to corroborate their tale.

Tyrone and Ordlo watched a scene from the perspective of Walker standing on ice surveying the frozen blood-splatter pattern, bent, twisted sections of power-suit still holding body parts had been ripped away to land in a discarded heap throughout the site. Walker remarked that when they found the men, the Slashers had long gone.

Both men continued, recalling their finding a Holcroid gather-point in a crater in the snow. The video replay skipped forward showing Walker and Ellsworth inspecting the heat radiating from the crater's cool outer edge to its sizzling middle. Boiled rock-sediment glowing still. Thousands of small indentures in the exposed crater proved the crater to be the impact site of a landing Holcroid force suspected to have arrived only recently that day. The Holcroids tiny triangular foot prints branched off in a single direction toward the northern edge of the crater before being lost in the snow. Ellsworth emphasised a suspicion, that a Metaclasm of conjoined Slashers made landfall before dissassembling into individuals to scout the world.

Tyrone and Ordlo were intrigued by the time-stamp in the footage, they would have just found Desoto as Coil 68 were finding the crater.
Ellsworth explained while he and his team were en route to Checkpoint Sligo, their platoon Sergeant fired a flare to get the attention of someone they'd seen in the distance at a nine o'clock position. It was the rest of Tyrone's platoon. The silhouette they had seen was a body standing upright because his suits gyro's had locked him that way. His head was severed, lolling at an angle where splintered metal, tissue and a huge arterial spray crowned the wound-cavity. The soldier's right arm had been lopped off at the elbow, blood still dripped from the stump punctuated occasionally by an errant spark due to catastrophic circuit damage to the powersuit. Around him laying in ragged red puddles, mutilated, killed in action, was every other man from Ultra 11 Tyrone knew personally and was responsible for. The Sergeant-Major flicked off the video recording then turned away. He didn't care to observe what damage his soldiers had inflicted on the enemy that had butchered them so grotesquely.

“Sar-Major!” Called Ordlo, but Tyrone kept walking.
Desoto stopped the Major, appealing to him to let the Sergeant-Major grieve. Ordlo sighed. Turning back to hear or review what had happened to the unit Coil 68. Finally, Ellsworth and Walker elaborated on the specific contact they took which wiped out their own unit.
They shifted unsteadily but kept their cool while reviewing the event. They replayed another recording. Ordlo watched: Pictured in high resolution were the HUD perspectives of either man of 68th Platoon.

The pair were sent off to scout a position where movement had been detected on someone's scan. A trap. A single Slasher had dug itself into the deep powdery snowfall lying in ambush. It had baited the unit in with a technique reminiscent of a Terran snake luring a mammal with its partially exposed tail. In that moment not only had it burst from cover to pounce on Ellsworth sending him careening down a slope before Walker wasted it with rounds to its fleshy inner portions, but a whole host of Slashers broke cover. Surrounding the men below Ellsworth's and Walker's position. Unable to rout the uncannily swift machines in close quarters, the two men could only watch as the enemy dived, sprinted and parried into their squadmates, killing everyone systematically. Their futile efforts to shoot from their point on higher ground risked putting holes in their comrades, but too little too late. Everyone was gone.

The Slashers had turned their attention to the two surviving members of 68th Platoon who since had been chased right up until making contact with Tyrone and his Preyhound.
Walker stopped the playback. He had the features of a man still young, early twenties. But it was plain to Ordlo he had flash-aged into someone fearful, sensitive, and overloaded with dreading the inevitable. The Major noted to himself, to consider particular assessment of these two surviving operators. Ordlo was not at all ready to rule out a trap or security risk in the shape these two scared, exhausted subjects. His scrutiny would attest to the theory he kept secret still, maintaining it as the basis of his mission. ~ Profile operators, observe discrepancies, document patterns, determine Holcroid bio-infiltration theory, await further orders. ~

Ordlo dismissed the group back to perimeter positions. From the crest of a snow mound he watched gentle swirls carrying ice over or through their battleground from mere minutes ago.
Ruined carcasses, perforated exteriors and blasted wastes littered the area north and west for three hundred metres. The initial snow cover long vapourised following his airstrike, began to fill up the cracked pitted rock beneath. The Major entered a dialogue with his own thoughts.
Noting that funerals among Holcroids have never been observed except by Mother Nature herself. And she was swift in her burial today. He wanted desperately for the aliens to exhibit something civilised. Something tangible to compare to culture. Something humans might find familiar enough to combat the very disposition of their existence. They don't feel. He thought.
Funerals stretched long into Ordlo's silent reflection. Remembering Ultra 11's casualties and Tyrone's grief.
Ordlo let his sorrowful thoughts linger for a time. He mourned, he hated, he regretted. To distract himself, the Major set about examining Holcroid remains left in the wake of drone air/orbit-to-ground weapons. A fruitless task, yielding little to satisfy his clandestine mission's parameters.

Ordlo began to wonder whether volunteering for the Proprietary Enforcement Group (PEG) on Vrallahos eight months prior had been a wise choice on his part.
It occurred to him, that he may not possess the constitution to adequately assess members of the same regime he also subscribed to. It horrified him to think that the enemy may harbour technology able to hijack human consciousness... It horrified him more, that he alone, was tasked with determining if any truth to the idea existed.

Unnerved by the feats of Holcroids, especially from a short time ago, Ordlo sighed. The mechanical-organism hybrids were totally unfamiliar to humanity. Unfamiliar in the extreme to Ordlo. He sanctioned a notion citing that humanity never declared war on the Holcroids. The aliens had responded to their presence with total hostility. No one had ever discovered why. Communication with the Holcroids was at best deemed impossible, at worst; an outright refusal on their part.

Only theoretical or rhetorical concepts served to enlighten Ordlo. He found himself scanning a piece of a Slasher. Nothing conclusive managed to appeal to Ordlo as he rotated the charred chunk in his fist. He knew at least, the organic part of a Holcroid must have evolved gradually on a far flung planet. Unlikely that the discovery of Hol-43's moon served as the organism's homeworld. ~ They, whoever they were must have been intelligent in the first instance. Intelligence stems from carnivorous predatory evolution. A response necessary to ensure the hunting of prey. So ironic. The obvious structure exhibited by the cybernetic components mimicked the very same instincts as that of the proposed animal it dominates. ~ Ordlo ratified silently.

At last, the Major grew disinterested in his examining enemy remains for clues. He sighed long breaths before touching his right ear to adjust for clarity in his transmission to Regal Cell.
He spoke clearly and unbroken:
“Regal Cell, this is Major Ordlo, Meclas B. Transmitting situation update attached to Callsign Ultra One-One. Enemy contact taken on planet's surface, location – Checkpoint Sligo break... Callsign Coil Six-Eight suffered catastrophic losses, Coil's survivor numbers are two up. Name and Ranks: Operator Ellsworth and Specialist Walker break,”

“successful repulsion of enemy forces in pursuit of Walker and Ellsworth. Survivors have shared information detailing the losses of their own unit and seventy percent of Ultra One-One break. No other Callsigns have made rendezvous Over.”
Ordlo continued to chatter, detailing the combat in quick briefs, then named those still standing in Ultra 11. His concern with himself, or his ability to carry out his mission perplexed him. Ordlo decided to effect a consultation with Strategic Command to better understand their prerogative.

Killing seemed to be the Holcroids existential hardwiring. Details regarding how a cybernetic array communicates its awareness, and why it killed was lost on Ordlo. He had every reason to suspect an infiltrated individual, but by what applied mechanics they become infiltrated dogged him. Unable to truly verify the theory to be correct as stated by his superiors. If these troops on the ground had been infiltrated by some means, I too could be compromised eventually. Holcroids had not taken prisoners in all the long years of warfare humanity had waged with them. Never before had spies in human form, with what could be called 'Holcroid objectives' been detected. Alas, they may already walk among colonies, on human-inhabited worlds relaying, collecting data for the enemies even unwittingly. Ordlo could not be sure.

“Major Ordlo, we copy your last. We're logging your transmission, stand by.” Came the Major's radio reply. He waited anxiously priming his words. As though additional courage might assuage the possible chewing-out he might get for questioning his orders.
“Ordlo to Regal Cell, Request communication uplink: Clearance code – Sierra, Delta, three-three-niner.”

“Er, Major – That code links to the Strategic Command Capital Centre on Vrallahos, verify?”
Ordlo steadied himself. Ready to face a dynamic audience of senior officers.
“Affirmative Regal Cell. Patch-link to my armour please.” He felt almost polite. In actuality he had sounded firm, even gruff. His tone serious.
A small series of noises preceded his linkage to the TASTRAS Proprietary Enforcement Group's reception station. A process taking several minutes to complete as the signal travelled many thousands of light-years to Vrallahos.

“TASTRAS P.E.G comm-net, state your code?” Demanded a voice.
Ordlo repeated his link code and request. Informing the operator he was mission time-on.
He waited until he was presented with a swarthy accent belonging to his boss.
“General Winhir P.E.G, who am I squawking to?”
The Major stood rigid. Regardless of his proximity to the General. He spoke loudly and clearly accounting for the long pauses in his transmissions.
“Sir, Major Ordlo P.E.G, attached to Task Force 616 in the Scorpio Constellation. Transmitting on operation sir.”
The General eventually replied with: “Jesus... Meclas! Why in hell do you call me on shortwave?? The Aeneas' lose power to the super-lume transmitter?!”

“With respect Sir, I am planetside, unknown, uncharted world designate 'SX-02'. I have appealed to you directly while on mission to ascertain my parameters. I have met with a stalemate here Clivitz.” Ordlo had so few options he simply waited.
“Major, you know well what the brief with the science-team at New Russia outlined. We went over it micron by micron. What's stifling you? Progress or evidence?”
The General was surprisingly gentle. His Vrallahossic accent helped to dispel the anxiety in Ordlo. Winhir seemed ready to sympathise with Ordlo.
“Progress AND evidence Sir, I request further integration with Task Force 616 to gather more intelligence, first on Holcroids, then on any personnel. Can you affect 616's Command solution to enable me to do more work?” That last transmission out took far longer to get a response.
Ordlo had just asked his commanding officer to override the orders to evacuate the platoons from SX-02. The Major understood precisely what he risked by having the long-distance conversation. He risked a lot more if Winhir redirected STRAT-COM's plan to retrieve and egress from the SX-02 system. But Ordlo knew better, the very nature of the planet enthralled him, he wished desperately to study it more and find out its secrets. His being able to convince the General might help him achieve an opportunity to do exactly that.
“I can't believe what I just heard Major... You want me to re-work the extraction plan? How?! What am I going to say to 616's General Staff?”

At this Ordlo had already formulated a suggestion. He recommended to the General that because the area immediately occupied by his team on Checkpoint Sligo served as a fairly ideal zone for an encampment, Winhir should reprimand the TASTRAS' original mission objective 'Arcsine'. Creating a forward operating base on Sligo would allow Ordlo a permanent, secure establishing point to conduct his mission. As well as the strategic advantage of maintaining a foothold on a potentially habitable planet. Remove the Holcroids, and it could later be colonised.

The delay before the General answered Ordlo was substantially shorter, but still lengthy given the separation.
“Alright Major. It's done. My neck is craning out-of-order on this for your ass... Make it worth it.
We just got the casualty report a few moments ago... Messy. Ensure those lives aren't lost in vain.”
Ordlo made a personal note to avenge the Sergeant-Major's comrades and those of Walker's and Ellsworth's.
“One more thing Clivitz... What am I looking for? What qualifies as evidence to support the science-team's theory? Emotion shifts? Motor function fluctuations? Psychological disturbance?
What about behavioural discrepancies? How would I know? Do I have to wait until a suspected agent moves to sabotage something? I'm fairly blind in my flight down here Cliv...”

The General was less malleable this time.
“All of the above Major. You asked these questions of the team at New Russia, we stipulated you must account for every possible eventuality and thoroughly outline your findings. If we gain some new insight here, we'll post it to you. Remember, we Enforce the compliance of all operators with colonial military law for the Service. And you do too. Our combatants are vulnerable to this type of espionage, but we don't know for certain the Holcroids are actually doing this yet, and that's what you volunteered to find out. Do it. And that's an Order Major Ordlo...”
Standing with snow building up around him, so rigid with shock Ordlo nearly saluted despite himself.
“Yes Sir, understood sir. Ordlo out.”

The Major sighed once more. Wheezing a cloud of carbon dioxide from his mask's filters. Relaxing somewhat in his gear. He now had another problem to resolve. ~ How in fuck am I going to break it to the squad? ~ He cursed. Changing the plan might be one thing, but altering the course of operations on SX-02 directly effected a multitude of variables, not least of which was squad morale. But this would serve to test a potentially hijacked soldier in their ranks.
Ordlo theorised that a Holcroid-affected individual would likely want to get off-world and into society amongst the military and civilian population. This in turn, would progress toward either espionage or sabotage. Ordlo always based his notions on the strategic prowess of human innovation. Human intelligences served as the only example to procedurally generate a hypothetical Holcroid intellect, and how perhaps it might operate its campaign against humanity.
Ordlo hated it. To think like a Holcroid, try thinking like a human being, only with a metric shit-tonne of uncertainty. He scoffed at himself. Humans themselves were a lot to be uncertain about.

Ordlo knew that Holcroids were nothing like humans. That they were something so inhuman it seemed like folly to compare human intellect with theirs. So advanced, and so cunning. It was little wonder to Ordlo, that a Holcroid civilisation far outmatched that of Mankind's. If civilisation it could even be called...
Had the aliens discovered Earth only centuries before the advent of the Relativity Gate, and the societal reforms which rebuilt humanity to take the stars, Mankind would have been sorely unprepared for an invasion of their like. Ordlo had never visited the First World. He wondered now what it was like. Then, centuries ago and now.

For what seemed like hours the Major plied himself with a great deal of thoughts. He was beginning to grow tired of them. Not really caring to guess how old the Holcroid race was, where they came from, or why they wanted to kill him and his species so earnestly. Again he wished simply to be fighting them off under provisional orders like those attested to Tyrone and Desoto.
He turned to face the squad. Two sentries stood off to his right. Watching for the enemy.
Ordlo struggled with telling the men of Ultra 11 they won't be going home just yet.
He decided he would be honest and take whatever came to him. Rightly deserved.

Understanding the displeasure which inevitably would arise, Ordlo braced himself.
“Sergeant-Major? Assemble the team on me. You all need to hear this.” Ordlo watched as Tyrone slowly got up and replaced his respirator and goggles back on his head. He called for Ultra 11 to regroup. Tyrone looked stiff with anguish. Ordlo expected to receive a terminal quantity of abuse for his next delivery.
“Alright. Listen up team.” He said as he checked himself.
Some nods and dispersed shifting waved through the group.

“You are not going to like what I have to say. At all... But here it is. We're not going back into orbit...”
The entire group, especially Delaware was dumbfounded, exchanged glances interspersed with curses and questioning.
“Save the questions until I'm done. Why are we not going home? Why not leave this icy rock for the Slashers you say? Well this is why: I have a mission D-30 gentlemen and lady... As of this moment you are all commandeered by the TASTRAS Proprietary Enforcement Group for sanctioned operations to gather intelligence...”