Allen is who again? Synod? Impersonating USNE? He poisoned his mates? This thread is a bit fuzzier than your other one.

Oh, nice. This is shaping up to be a great encounter.

I call shotgun on a Mexican standoff!

@Drake, I know what’s going on, but I guess I didn’t tell the reader. I found room to insert Bates’ name two more times. He’s the murderer. Other context from previous ficlets; Synod sent a cleanup squad to Threeworld to kill anyone who’d survived the plague, and Vana and Oris stranded them there by stealing their shuttle. Mother (tunneler 13) discovered they were wearing false USNE colors. They’ve been fighting a guerrilla war against the rebels, sole survivors of their genocide. They have no officers on the ground, and their commander in the Synod ship wants them dead.

Now HSAR has someone he can happily kill, but I’m not going to make it easy for him.

so these synod are corporeal? They seem to behave like humans, which is fine. I need these details for Shwartz’ next few segments. Learning curve set. Creative license acquired.

All the Synod are corporeal – they’re human beings like you and me…noncorporeality is what they’re working on, though – but for that they’ll need some help.