The comforting murmur of quiet conversation drifted through the cooling night air. The crackle of burning grass and wood hinting at the warmth and camaraderie to be found in the camp. A set of tents arranged in a circle around each fire. These tents were clustered on the crest of a low hill in the savanna just before the foothills of the mountains. The small herd of accompanying pack animals were bedding down for the night, though several continued to graze on feed and take water from the lightweight wooden troughs that someone had pulled from one of the expedition’s trucks. The docile animals huddled in a group at the base of the riverward side of the hill. Finally the trucks were pulled into a loose half circle on the mountainward side of the hill. Small groups would patrol away from the hill, keeping within easy shouting distance of those keeping watch from the roofs of the trucks or those tasked with guarding the herd. Those who were venturing away from the warmth and comfort of the camp carried small portable lights that went bobbing along and revealing wedges of the darkened grassland as their owners swept them back and forth. The illuminated areas writhed with shadows, dancing as if to celebrate their freedom from the larger body of the night’s darkness. The buzzing and singing of insects would hush as the light passed, only to burst forth once again as the protective cover of night gave fresh courage to the choir.

One such group patrolled past a bush, their lights turning the usually immobile vegetation into a vision of shifting shadows and illusory movement. It wasn’t the first time that evening that they’d walked by this particular shrub, nor would it be the last. However on this particular occasion the movement among the shifting shadows of their lights was not entirely illusory. As the lights moved on and the songs of the night insects resumed something shifted in the depths of the stunted branches. A slim appendage, the color and texture of bark and leaves, carefully extended itself from the concealing embrace of the underbrush. This strange limb delicately gripped one of the branches of the low lying bush. Its claws firmly seated, the limb began to curl with an almost sinister grace, even as more such limbs reached out of the same recess, silently advancing a hand-sized spider-like form as it crept closer to the line of vehicles at the base of the hill.

Rather than the unsettling predator it resembled, this form belonged to one of the half dozen infiltration drones that had been lurking nearby, waiting for just such an opportunity. The combination of their small size and adaptive camouflage skin made them difficult to spot, even if their latest subjects had been aware of their existence. Their fusion of organic and mechanical meant that more than just appearance linked them to spiders. The hybridized and gene-modified spider body, both housed the majority of the drone’s electromechanical components and shielded them from easy detection. The overwhelming majority of the electronics were isolated in a Faraday cage in the core of the infiltration drone. The spider’s body allowed the drone to climb on nearly any surface in near perfect silence, and was capable of shocking bursts of speed and agility. The modified octopus skin that covered the exterior could alter its color and texture with astounding versatility, providing active camouflage that wouldn’t give itself away by leaking electromagnetic radiation. Though, Lin reflected, as she monitored the progress of half a dozen such infiltration drones. The electronic shielding features seemed unlikely to be relevant on this night. She was more concerned about what strange phenomena might be harnessed to detect her drones in ways Lin had yet to conceive of.

In their base camp Andrea was getting a good night's sleep. Lin had maintenance drones going over the heavy lift drone and passenger pod, ensuring that they had suffered no failures during their maiden flight, and were in peak condition to transport Andrea over the mountains the next day. The high altitude drones were now all tasked with monitoring the Protectorate camp from a great distance, and were moving to provide an overwatch for tomorrow’s planned meeting area from different angles, covering each other’s blind spots. The base camp itself had not had any of its patrolling stealth drones or concealed sensor network detect anything new or unusual in the vicinity, so Lin had decided that diverting all of the high altitude drones to maximize the support she could give Andrea was the best choice. Lin had already begun moving the four combat drones that weren’t part of Andrea’s quartet of escorts. Lin planned to covertly station them near the meeting point so they could strike from a different angle than Andrea’s escorting combat drones, in the event that Andrea was attacked. This meant that only the utility drones conducting work around the camp, the Donkeys, and the stealth drones for scouting and sample retrieval would remain in the valley. If an animal with exotic abilities began destroying the base camp, there was very little that could be done to defend it, until Andrea had returned and Lin could shift the combat drones back. The entire base camp along with all of their drones and equipment were ultimately expendable, the only thing they had to preserve at all costs was Andrea’s body. As long as that survived both Andrea and Lin would survive.

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The infiltration drones continued to creep into the camp, dodging the patrols and evading the sight of the sentries was proving extremely easy so far. Lin was getting the impression that the expedition was primarily guarding against a potential animal attack, and clearly they didn’t think the threat was a terribly serious one. That or they were some of the least disciplined and trained soldiers Lin had encountered. For all that Olan Lunere, and to a lesser extent Unla-Ela, had trumped the expansionist and aggressive attitude of the Protectorate, this group did not strike Lin as particularly threatening. Indeed Olan Lunere’s small contingent of troops had appeared far more alert and professional ,even before Andrea made contact with them, and raised the prospect of something besides dangerous plants and animals in the valley.

The first infiltration drone reached the line of trucks and began to climb up the tires and into the wheel well, from there it found a gap that it could squeeze itself though and as it unfolded on the other side it revealed the interior of the canvas hull to be filled with crates and sacks of food. This wasn’t a surprise, since long range surveillance had already allowed Lin to determine the contents of most of the vehicles. The interesting part, and the reason an infiltration drone was even in the vehicle was the area in the forward section of the storage compartment that Lin had been unable to get any useful readings from externally. It always emitted flat even thermal spectra with no variation across its surface, while certain electromagnetic wavelengths had been able to penetrate the canvas walls of the rest of the truck, and give a limited idea of the interior layout, the forward compartment had remained stubbornly opaque. This strange section was located on several of the vehicles in the convoy, and Lin had tasked a couple of infiltration drones with inspecting those spaces directly if possible. Sure enough, the infiltration drone scuttled deeper into the storage space and spotted a wall with a closed door, partitioning off the mystery section from the piles of food and sundry supplies. A similar scene began to play out on one of the other trucks, as the second infiltration drone wriggled its way into the rear compartment and advanced towards another closed door.

The remaining four infiltration drones continued to slip deeper into the camp, climbing the hill and perching themselves in out of the way corners, convergent pressures driving them to emulate their true spider ancestors. Lin used these lurking eyes and ears to help build the translation lexicon for the Protectorate’s official language and gather samples of other dialects. Lin was also culling footage of social interactions for Andrea to study as she flew to the meeting, maybe she could wring some insight into how best to interact with the members of the Protectorate expedition. Lin returned her focus to the doors obstructing her infiltration drones. There were a number of possible solutions, though Lin wanted to leave no trace of her presence, and avoid causing any bodily harm or material damage. After all, Andrea and Lin both still wanted to act in good faith to establish a peaceful relationship with these people, just as they had with the expedition in the valley.

The doors both appeared to have some kind of lock, there was no obvious opening for a key to be inserted. Lin was forced to conclude that either some unfamiliar form of combination lock was in use or else the keys required no direct mechanical access to the lock. Considering the various uses of, Lin sighed, ‘magic’ she had seen so far. Lin wasn’t even sure where to start when it came to bypassing the lock. For now, the two infiltration drones crawled up to the ceiling and nestled themselves into a good vantage point.The previous days of aerial observation revealed that the vehicles with the mystery compartments received extra visitors on a near daily basis, these extra visitors also seemed to spend quite a long time inside the compartment with each visit. Lin had timed visits as short as fifteen minutes and as long as two hours. It was likely at least one of the infiltration drones would witness how the compartment was accessed, and potentially be able to slip inside. Now Lin had to take another lead from spiders and lurk quietly, waiting for her opportunity to come to her.