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Kyoko Takada     Back to the desert. Some of those called in have recently been to a rather nicer version of Japan, while this one's countryside is largely unrecognizable. There are ruins, and certainly there must have been a city here at some point, but now only a few buildings remain standing. A few do, some over two stories tall, but those are the exception. The roads have buckled and collapsed, and the subway has been filled in by shifting rubble. It's hard going, and the soldier allegedly named Alpha-39 has taken this long to make it to this point, find a vantage point, and point her scope up at what's ahead. There are a few students with her. "Students," again allegedly, by their school uniforms. There's only one school still standing that she knows of, kilometers behind them, and the only teachers it's had in recent times have been those multiversal visitors who chose to teach classes.
    They've stopped for a good reason, and called in help for a good reason. There's a castle up ahead. "Up" and "ahead" are similarly operative words. The Western-style castle, with its tall towers and concentric rings, each higher than the last, rests upon a massive stretch of land that casts a shadow over the city ruins, floating out of reach. They can't get up, but there's something coming down, and there are shadows flying out the walls.
    "Yeah, none of this looks good." A-39 keys her radio. "Okay, tracking mission's complete. This is an emergency assistance call. Incoming fliers, and we're more exposed than I'd like." There's a mountainous area behind them, but it'd take time to reach.
    The boy with the senior-year uniform, called "Dragon" by himself and his classmates, looks up, pensive. "How do we fight that?"
Maya So they have been called out to lend a hand again she was not expecting a floating island she looks up to her it feels natural to see land flying like the Creator intended but this is an Earth where this is highly abnormal for this world she thinks for a moment as she looks up.

"This would not be out of place back home but here? This can't br right."

She'll take a moment to focus.

Maya's just clad in leather with some metal armour, not much more than that but she seems make note of the Flotilla as they arrive.

"We'll have to reach it for one."
Maya pulls a small pendant she has mutters a spell, it comes to life and big blue energy wings sprout from her back as he'll move to join those making for the castle and give cover to those building a way up for eveyrone else.
Starbound Flotilla     The STARBOUND FLOTILLA are here, in their standard Durasteel equipment! Moonfin, the fishman, is in elaborate full-body durasteel armor that looks like a powered cross between a diving suit and a samurai's armor, glowing cyan at the faceplate. Biteblade, the humanoid plant, is in durasteel plating with elaborately carved wood and bone ornaments over glowing powered components that glow an intense green. Pavo the bird-girl wears a pirate-aesthetic set of mesoamerican-style armor, with yellow bands of energized fabric linking the pieces to her central piratey longcoat. Albert the monkey-man is wearing elaborate dystopian commando armor reconstructed with a 'rebel spy' aesthetic: A sleeker faceplate, a slimmer form, and a more chaotic design that integrates thin, resilient plates of durasteel, and lines of bright white. George (just plain human) wears a futuristic combat EVA hardsuit that glows a gentle red at the flat faceplate. Seft, the robotic Flotilla member, is wearing full-on medieval knight armor with a soft energized blue glow below the plates on her body, and especially around the eyes. Each has a heavy industrial-yellow two-pronged plasma-cutter-like tool strapped to their side, a Matter Manipulator.

"That isss big floating cassstle, right? Like Glitch?"
"Enemy fortress. Treat it the way you would treat any."
"Boggling. It certainly does seem... Very Glitch-like...?"
"It is the source of the demons, and so our approach is easy to understand."
"Aye, matey! ANd where there be castles, there be treasure! Let's take it!"

    They've partaken of a bit of this outing already, having worked to help with these students since they encountered them before. "Alright, kiddos!" George calls out, clapping both gauntleted hands together. "Here's where our field trip gets to the good stuff. Grab those dance partners and let's get to dancin'. Now, when it comes to aerial customers like this, best way to go is three-man teams, so trio off like so." The team splits up into two sets of three: George, Moonfin, and Albert make one set, and Pavo, Seft, and Biteblade make the other.

    Pavo launches into her usual lengthy glides, while George fires off a grappling hook towards incoming forces. Biteblade draws her bow and Albert draws his rocket launcher. And Moonfin plants himself firmly at the ground, as does Seft, anchoring themselves defensively. And then, they begin to rapidly construct a towering structure towards that floating island, rising up. The students under their care ought to have enough people among them with enough odd abilities that could potentially affect that they should be able to find trios, one hopes! These little rising platforms will suffice either way, though.

    George and Pavo work to close in on foes and keep the air clear of the incoming enemies, through glides or grappling and flintlock gunfire or aggressive tackle-punching. Biteblade and Albert fire their own weapons rapidly, covering the ascent at range. And the builders charge the platforms up, hoping to rapid-construct a scaffold to the edge of the island and let them, and their students, get right into the entrance of the place!
Nozomi Houken     Nozomi had planned on coming a little better-prepared this time. Something to protect her from the ambient radiation. Something where she wouldn't need to transform in order to deal with it. But the threat this time is absolutely airborne, and quite possibly more dangerous than the last.

    So, as if in answer to Dragon, a girl in black armor goes blazing overhead, bright yellow thrust flaring as she banks into an upward climb. No words, no greetings... but then, Rampart Nozomi never gives those anyway. Just about all she gives is 'death glares' and 'death'. She's angling for both those, here.
Kyoko Takada     As fortune would have it, there is a reasonable trio among the students, consisting of Dragon and his classmates Rose and Breaker. The leader-kid has his obvious-to-name fiery abilities, while the other two were also seen last time, and the other two with telekinetics. Rose has half a dozen swords floating around her, a combined offense/defense powerset, while Breaker pulls up chunks of rubble to fire off. The two form a medium-range guard as they advance, trying to get their hits in before the enemy can do anything about it.
    This proves more difficult than anticipated, on every level. The shadows in the air resolve into things like crows, though a good six feet in wingspan, and as misshapen and unhealthy as a crow could look. Some black fluid exudes and falls from their legs in viscous gobs, though they do little else, just flying up, largely out of reach, and unpleasantly raining. A-39 fires her anti-material rifle, taking one out, but a dozen more approach behind it. "Is that... oil?"
    The ground forces, dropped from the castle and less harmed by the fall than one might hope, advance more slowly. There are two principle types, one half-familiar. The smaller ones are only about human-sized, giant beetles that skitter rapidly, their shells hard but not impervious to the students' abilities. The slower rank behind them look mostly like elephants, but standing upright, their squat posture belying a typical ten feet of height. Most of them carry weapons, and the one in the lead strikes with a spear twice its own height, crude in construction put with enough force to make the trio of students near it scatter and shout. They could be wearing scraps of clothing, as well, but it's hard to tell given unevenly marred their flesh is all over.
    A-39 keys her radio. "Okay, upright demons aren't new. Weapons are kind new. Never seen one that could talk, so I don't suppose these can. Still could be dangerously intelligent. Take care, I'm trying to take cover against the rain."
    The castle is still a distance both up and forward, and while it can be built toward, this brings one more quickly against the advancing numbers. The fliers spotted, at least, don't yet cause any harm but the oil spill.
Nozomi Houken     Those yellow eyes dart here and there. The TIGER's AR display flickers to life in front of Nozomi's face, displaying an info readout on the crows, the ground forces, all of it. A silent decision is made.

    Whatever that oil is, it can't be good for the people on the ground, and while she can go from the air to the ground later, the students on the ground can't exactly go from the ground to the air. That means she, the Flotilla and Maya, are probably going to need to thin the flyers first.

    With one hand occupied by the EM Zanbatou, the armored girl will be using the other to shoot, for now. She lifts her right arm up, fist closed, and begins unloading a fair barrage of yellow energy shots into the descending crows.
Maya It's time to clear out the air a bit and that's what Maya is going to do and she's not going to play around either she does't go for her rifle as she rises up. She makes note of the intel she's been given about them. She will flit about trying to kee from getting caught up in melee. She does see that things are are heating up and she'll open up with her rifle a mix of bullets, lasdr blasts, and even frag grnades are fired from the weapon as she flits about trying to do her best to thin out the flyiers alongside Nozomi.
Starbound Flotilla "Anxious. Even our local contact doesn't know what this is about..."
"Who cares what it's about? We're here for profit, not puzzles!"
"Focus. Best way to find profit and answers is the same."
"And I would certainly hope to solve it more elegantly in the castle."
"Well, that means getting to the damn thing then."
"And kill all prey betweeeeeen!!"

    Their stylish, weird elevator-bridge-things are pressed forward now, trying to take them up and against several of the still-standing ruins for extra support. For now, the ranged Starbounders focus hard on the ones menacing the students as their own segments of the titanic ascension-bridge is completed. The aerial combatants hold back from the oncoming threat, and they intend to move in close to cover their allies... Though Pavo is tempted badly by that oil. George moves in on the melee spear-wielding ones, calling out, "And if you're on terrain duty, keep some melee handy! Make sure you've got some toughness to tank the hits and all! Armor armor armor, you won't regret it if you're dealing with situations like this!" The flexible response will hopefully help maintain this aggressive, crashing push against the oncoming wave of foes.

    Nozomi Houken has the crows thinning, but Albert can tell, somehow, that she would want some help thinning them out. "Moving to assist, TIGER. Star 1 fox three, launching." His blasts of guided rocket launcher strikes are meant to be a heavy, explosive compliment to any of Nozomi's quicker, more piercing shots, providing area damage to go along with her hitscan of a sort, always careful to make sure not to hit May.

    Aside from him, the rest of the Flotilla continue their building, or begin engaging mid-range and melee combat to cover the students, who need some time to get into the flow of this lesson. Albert is their heaviest long-range fighter by far, hosting no less than half of their long-range firepower all on his own, and so it's still the best contribution they can offer at the moment, even if it's rather less effective than Nozomi and Maya are overall.
Kyoko Takada     The crows are big but not especially agile for their size, and they don't do a lot more than squawk and die as they're blasted out of the air by TIGER and Maya. They keep coming, more flitting out of the castle in the looming distance, but concentrated attention keeps them from spreading too far over the battle line below, and keeps the Flotilla's constructions from becoming even less OSHA-compliant than they already were.
    This helps those on the ground, one could surmise, when it becomes apparent what those beetles can do. Here and there, one stands up and contorts, facing both mandibles and rear-end at those on the ground, despite the lack of stingers. Rather, instead of stingers, bursts of intense flame fire out as gases mix, biological flamethrowers igniting the air and anyone unlucky enough to be caught. They go out again quickly, the ruins having little to burn, and those too close quickly take cover. Wherever the black rain did reach, the fire catches and burns steadily.
    Even more crows explode to missile fire, and between the Flotilla help and flying swords, arrows, and superpowered martial arts strikes, the beetles are pushed back from the construction site. This goes well up until the elephant-men arrive in full. A club swing knocks aside flying swords, a spear forces Dragon to dodge side to side to back, and another swing catches his less-flashy bro, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him vulnerable to further attack. "Breaker! Hold on, I'm coming for you!"
    A-39 finally gets to another vantage point and resumes her sniper fire, but there's a surplus of targets, and she doesn't have a high rate of fire. One mottled oliphaunt goes down after several hits, but three more take its place. "Remember all that extra back-up we had last time? Yeah, I do. Could use some more of that. If anyone has ideas to make up for it, I'm listening."
    A loud buzzing picks up from the castle's direction, just as the platform-building is coming within triple-jump-plus-grapple range. The crows may have been slow, but whatever flies out of the towers in a dark swarm at this point isn't nearly. Smaller than the beetles, but far more numerous, they look like uglier grasshoppers, dog-sized and with bigger teeth. Or like locusts. They don't quite spread out so much as stick to several clouds, each moving in a different direction as they leave the castle.
Nozomi Houken     A-39 requests ideas. Nozomi Houken cannot speak those ideas. But she has other means to communicate.

    A snapshot of a crow mid-flight is transmitted, followed immediately by a brief video clip of a patch of burning oil. On the heels of those, is one more snapshot, this time of the oliphaunts.

    Then the swarms emerge, and she suddenly has much more trouble to worry about. Rampart Mode doesn't have any particularly wide-area armaments. It was made for tackling powerful individual enemies, with the expectation that swarms would be so much weaker as to make little difference. So it remains to be seen how well her weaponry will stand up to this. But she's got no real choice, does she?

    Sweeping the Zanbatou into an under-hand grip, Nozomi raises both arms this time, pointing two energy cannons at the incoming swarms instead of one. Foom foom foom, one after another, softball-sized globes of yellow energy are sprayed into the swarms, in hopes that she'll at least be able to disperse the swarms and weaken them that way.
Starbound Flotilla "Ahhhhh!!! Fire fire fire fire!!!"
"Star Three, get her extinguished!"
"Panicked. On it!"
"Star Two, hold construction and cover breaker! Star Four, take over!"
"We are nearly done. I will guide them to the last of it."
"Aye mateys, but take care! I hear a noise of mighty worry from the walls!"
"Fire with fire, kids, let's go to crowd control!"
"First thing you've said today that wasn't stupid. Calling in the Vehemence 2."

    The Flotilla respond to all this chaos with a rush of dynamic, flexible reorganization. Biteblade is badly burned by the incoming foes, her wooden armor and wood-like body lit up by the dangerous flames, needing Seft to help put her out with elemental equipment. If someone else can help her get it done faster, all the better, because rolling burning Floran is the Flotilla's heaviest hitter and will need those valuable hitpoints. Moonfin slips back, and takes up his position he's been so keen on before, a defensive and protective stance to keep the students from suffering too much. "Seven Sea Hylotl Style: Unbroken Shores." His defensive stance is just as effective for ranged weapons as it is for melee, but he's a tank, not a counterattacker, and his katana-slicing will only do so much; breaker will need a full defense action, from Dragon or even better if it's from Maya or Nozomi!

    George and Pavo try to take over doing the last little bits of construction, but Albert, the last free Flotilla member, kneels down and operates something on his wrist quickly... In a short few seconds, a large ship is called in, pulling down rapidly from orbit! It swings low, offering to allow A-39 to land atop it from her perch and operate its weapons, before pulling up above Albert, and beaming him up! This small, heavy white gunship-like is still clearly under construction, in the process of being armored, but not being armed. The dozens of turrets are a little better for clearing swarms, especially because of the anti-armor plasma-throwers functioning as a sort of ad-hoc flamethrower!

    It also should be a useful platform for the students to leap to the castle if they need. One of the heavier shots, at least, from a massive railgun, is fired towards the door, meant to breach it hard; if the Flotilla can finish this final push quickly, they want to head right into the castle without a moment's delay!
Maya The crows are big bad and notafile for their zise this makes them a bit easier prey but it worries Maya they might just be bullet sponges for the attackers fodder to wear them down. She seems to be not having a good feleing about this but she keeps going with her attacks trying to clear them out and keep them from overwhelming her allies. 5R
"How many of them are there?!"
Kyoko Takada     A-39 scales the ruins and takes a running leap onto the gunship, slinging her rifle and drawing her SMG with one hand, steadying herself with the other and firing at full-auto into the approaching locusts. It takes her a moment to figure out how to work the turrets, after which she swaps to that, saving her ammo. "Target-rich environments... feh." There isn't time to deal with both getting the students up and attacking the swarm, but some of the students do fall back toward the construction area, taking cover and continually pushed by the elephant-men, who hit more like elephant-ogres. Only the spot where Moonfin is defending and Dragon is pulling up and dragging Breaker back to safety isn't getting overrun. The beetles are still possible to keep back, if only because the crows aren't making enough headway with Maya still shooting them to render the whole land on fire.
    The flying swarms are hard to disperse, widening but coming back together again, the ones in the center line taking fire and burning to a crisp, corpses dropping, but the ones near them unable to escape the mass. Some die, but the swarm continues. Flamethrower-type weapons are highly effective, and they die in droves as A-39 in the gunship gets close, and at an increasing rate as they close in on TIGER, but their increased vulnerability at short range is offset by the short duration of that range, before they swiftly descend upon and attack anything that comes within reach, chewing and crawling. Flame and plasma are less useful at that range, small arms more so. "They're on us! Ah, shit, they're everywhere."
    TIGER might be able to simply through them off by evading hard enough, as they're numerous and effecient climbers, but lack individual strength. They're quick, but either can't or just aren't prone to quick lateral evasion, either.
    Dragon got a radio at some point. Useful. "Medic! Ahh, there's no time. We need to fall back. On me, cover! I can't fight and carry him at the same time." Rose moves to support him, adding her swords to Moonfin's with what look like theatrical flourishes yet slice off demon fingers or beetle legs with each swing. Yet, she's moving back as Dragon does, not sticking up front. With the attention taken up by the locusts, those are at least staying to the air, but that leaves the ground yet more dangerous.
Nozomi Houken     Yeah, this isn't working out. And it's getting more and more dangerous by the second. Other people have better means to deal with these things. Like fire. All Nozomi has is her sword, her cannons, her hands, and...

    ...and an idea.

    As the swarm closes in, Nozomi suddenly halts herself and reverses, a body-jarring shift of momentum that allows her to escape being swamped before they can reach her. Shooting is just not killing them fast enough, so she's not going to shoot them. She's going to take her own advice, sort of.

    Down, down the TIGER soldier hurtles, kicking on her boosters at the last second to land with a solid *THUD*. Her landing puts her right next to the downed corpse of an oil crow; without hesitating, she kicks it up into the air, snags it with her free hand, and then starts using it to coat the EM Zanbatou's blade with copious amounts of oil. Then she sweeps it through a nearby patch of fire, and her anti-swarm weapon is complete - a fiery, massive blade.

    Maintenance is going to have a field day fixing the blade afterward. And Nozomi is probably not going to sleep well after grabbing a dead bird. Oh well.

    Now is bug-killing time. And without hesitation, the black-armored girl rockets right back up into the swarms, and begins sweeping her fiery weapon around her in a rapid-fire whirlwind of flames assisted by lots and lots of thrusters. Left, right, up, down, she's the center of a crimson ball of insectoid death.
Starbound Flotilla     Biteblade is pretty badly damaged by this whole effort, crying out in pain as the dangerous insects are beaten back. Moonfin, thankfully, gets a little backup from Rose as he works hard on defending the others. The help means that every time he blocks, the jarring, painful shock of it doesn't have to be sustained too long before an effective counterattack can free him up. He pulls back with the others, intending to cover them...

    "Important lesson there too!" George calls out. "Live to fight another day! You don't survive with risks, same as you don't make a living off of gambling!" They finish things off and check... I mean, he cares about these kids, but he's gotta at least /peak/ at the door there. He needs to gauge stuff. Does it look thickly defended enough that they would need to deal with a gauntlet on the way inside, to whatever dangerous and unusual contents there may be within? Or does it look clear, so they could find what they need and get out as quick as they can?

    The Flotilla's overall integrity and health is okay here; they seem quite eager to head in, if they can. With the link finished, they could possibly head in... And an interior would certainly make it a lot easier to deal with these crows and locusts. Now that Seft and Biteblade are clear, the former tries to break the doors if they need breaking through with mining beams at this point, while the latter works on providing cover and blasting down the crows, hoping that she can cover enough for Maya that Maya could swap roles, and working best she can to compliment Nozomi's crowd-control damage-over-time tactics.
Maya Maya is keeping to the air for the moment but it looks like there's a few other things going on here. It has been a target-rich enviorment to be sure. Even if the crows have been mostly thinned out. She's finding it easy and that /worries/ what is the enemy holding back? Could they just be trying to tire them out with swarms of weaker creatures before they send the more serious things they have after them?

"I'm going to go give medical support. Dragon hang on I'm on my way."

Maya will leave the glory to others as she swoops away fromt eh fight making use of having thinned out the crows to make he exist to Dragon's location intendint o help him with his downed comrade and do what she can to keep Dragon and co on their feet with her healing abilities.
Kyoko Takada     Fire works. Wide-bladed weapons work. Compared to before, Nozomi's doing a lot better at dealing with the swarm. Even better, since the swarm is now focusing on her, trying to land and chew through her armor, but constant motion and disregard for g-forces is keeping her relatively safe. Ground-level is already heating up, and now that's spreading upward, as locusts catch and burn and die and fall, generally in that order. There's still enough of the bugs to take a long time to wipe out, but the ones trying ineffectually to eat her aren't eating anyone more vulnerable.
    Like A-39. She lacks such armor, and such flight capability, having to instead rely on small arms and precision to take out just the demon-bugs that manage to land on the Vehemence II. It's rough going, but by giving up the ground fight and just letting the oliphaunts advance, enough attention is freed to try for the castle's gates. They get hit, and cracked, but that's even rougher going. Terrain-weapons come out, but this place registers less as terrain than it does a relatively small number of pieces, each resistant enough to being added to one's inventory that it would take a protracted, supporting defense to try to get through that way. It's like the seams on the walls are just for show. The front gate does break under concentrated effort, enough to show the portcullis just on the other side of it and, dimly, a second portcullis past that, after one walks underneath the customary rows of murder holes.
    The retreating ground line does slow to let Maya work, Dragon laying Breaker down so she can work on him. Rose and the other students continue to cover them, but they're now well past the Flotilla's tower, without a way to get back to it. Thankfully, the demons seem uninterested in it, except for a few beetles that start crawling up it and will eventually arrive at the gate area, probably. Maybe.
    Probably not. The floating island with the castle on it starts moving, slowly drifting both up and away, breaking any connection made to it. It's silent as it drifts, though there's no wind-based explanation for the motion. Going over the walls to get inside might be possible by dragging up the resources or moving the gunship, but there's no telling what's on the other side, or what kind of defenses are there. It's a concentric castle, so it's at least certain that there are multiple gates to break through.
    While the students are getting healed, Dragon speaks his opinion, which amounts to a plan for his faction, if no one convinces him otherwise. "We're withdrawing back to the mountain pass. That'll be easier to defend, and we can send for reinforcements. I can't let anyone else get hurt. Are you staying here?"
Nozomi Houken     Sweep. Slash. Whirl. Nozomi is the center of a firestorm, and while her armor protects her from the flames and cushions the G-force besides, it can't eliminate the strain entirely. And of course, that oil won't last forever. Eventually, even she has to retreat from within the swarm, moving to the outskirts and getting a better picture while she tries to keep the insects from surrounding her again. And what she sees is both sides in retreat. So, that's gonna be her call, too. She rockets out and dips down towards the ground, skimming it as a quick burst of mana through the blade disperses the fire. It's still got plenty of charred-on oil, though.

    When Nozomi's flight takes her over Dragon's group, she finally stops, floating there in the air; both for the sake of 'listening', and for the sake of 'still being there to fend off anything that gave chase'.
Maya Maya get to work with her healing magics blue fire bleeding out of her body into a strange card and then she refocues the enery through it and on ot the wounded Breaker to do what she can before she'll move some more conventional treatment tyo make sure her paitent is well in better care and once that's done she's got some ideas to aid the students down here.

"Easy you are going to be all right."

She'll have to turst in Dragon and the others for cover fire though.
Starbound Flotilla     The resistance against their equipment isn't exactly unusual -- many facilities and constructions can resist it -- but precisely /how/ it does so is quite unusual, and leaves them at a unique loss. George, Seft, and Pavo each only indulge this long enough to fully determine that this won't be viable today. Instead, Seft teams up (ugh) with Pavo, defending George long enough for him to jam a little baton into the ground, which sprouts up into a strange flag. This should let them teleport to the door of this place... Hopefully. And later. They're down a few significant combatants themselves, and so with great effort, they manage to get Pavo to stop lusting after the loot that's undoubtedly housed in the castle and instead start heading back.

    The trio hops aboard the gunship with A-39, and then all of them swing by to pick up the rest of the Flotilla, and to work on extracting Dragon's team so they don't have to carry each other. George calls down, "Another lesson! Footholds! As long as your foothold moved an inch, you still did some work that day! We're not sticking around, but we've left a beacon on this thing to head wherever it's going on our teleporters!" He calls out, yet unaware of whether the beacon actually worked out or not. Hopefully the gunship's weapons, A-39's shooting, and Nozomi's flight combat will be enough to cover the retreat...
Kyoko Takada     The students are defending Maya as she works, but it's doubtful they'll be able to stay here long. Back-up comes in the form of TIGER, and now they have enough breathing room, even with the ground-based demons coming after them, to let the healer work. There weren't that many wounded, but even getting everyone back up again isn't enough to change Dragon's mind. He gives Nozomi a nod, and then calls out, "Okay, everyone up!" He calls out to half a dozen kids in particular, "Full retreat! Everyone else, on me, fighting retreat!" He shouts, punches, throws fire from his hands into the faces of demons, and backs off quickly with the others. The mountains are still a ways away, but, "Move quick, and only the beetles will catch up. They have to stop to shoot. Keep moving!"
    It's enough, together with the others, to keep them safe for awhile. Long enough for the gunship to swing by, and provide a faster way out of here. If not the mountains, then getting all the way back to the school would be preferred, though Rose adds, "Take us off-course. We need to lose the swarm before we get back there." in a stiff, business-like tone for a teenager, though this place doesn't exactly have a lot of kids who just act like kids.
    The beacon seems to be working. They'll have to wait to see whether it stays working long enough to get used.