“Weapons down!” Nic barked.

“Team Ivory,” said Eli, “weapons down! Now!”

Jarek gasped. “What the...”

“How is this possible?” Perri asked. “This has never... They never...”

“Lieutenant Welch—gah!” Eli snarled. “Damn interference. I can’t raise Welch! Nic, any luck?”

“Lieutenant Welch,” said Nic as he reopened the compromised comms channel. Nothing but a loud electric banshee in his ear. “Lieutenant Colonel Goss...” Same story. “Nothing.”

“We need to warn them somehow! What if they get the Medusas operational again? What if they knock the door down?”

“I know.” Nic swallowed. “Let’s just think this through.”

Standing before the two four-soldier squads was a group of around thirty green-skinned, four-armed aliens—WorldGov had dubbed them Menders—around the factory assembly line, and lurking in the corners. These bulbous-headed, skinny-limbed creatures with rotund abdomens were the least intimidating form of Hexadian, at least when it came to the battlefield. They mostly served as medics and repair technicians for Hex biotech.

It wasn’t surprising to see them cowering where they were safest, inside the asset they’d captured. What was truly surprising was the other life form in the factory: a crowd of humans in uniforms, hands raised over their heads.

“There’s gotta be dozens of them,” said Team Ivory’s Katrina. “Hundreds, maybe. How many did WorldGov say were on the staff?”

“290,” Ty answered her. “How ‘bout that...”

“RTIFIS,” said Nic, “head count on the hostages.”

the AI answered.

“That’s not counting the security personnel,” said Perri. “They would’ve been killed earlier, though, right?”

Nic nodded. “During the initial capture. With their numbers, they never stood a chance. GDF seriously needs to keep permanent squads here.”

“But this part is still good, right?” said Jarek. “I mean, all these factory workers are still alive! We can still save them—work out a deal!”

“I’m sure that’s exactly what these Menders want.”

“What’s to stop us from offing them now and freeing these hostages by force?” Korbin offered. His finger hovered over the trigger of his SMG.

“Ah, yes, let’s fire military-grade weaponry in an enclosed space with hundreds of friendly noncombatant meat-shields,” said Maqsud. “Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...”

Korbin snorted. “You that bad of a shot or what?”

“I’m a sniper, in case my reputation didn’t precede me, so that should clue you in as to how horrendously inadvisable your suggestion was. You that slow on the uptake, or what?”

Korbin scoffed, “I didn’t hear them surrender. We all know these aliens can talk when they feel like it! What happened to no prisoners?”

“Easy,” said Eli, putting a hand on his squadmate’s shoulder. “There’s a protocol for this, okay? In a hostage situation, if we’re not under active attack, Nic made the right call: weapons down. We need to figure out a way to communicate with—”

“Talk,” said a voice. It was loud, warbling voice, uncanny in its not-quite-right similarity with normal human speech. The Achilles employees nearby covered their ears. “Talk... Leader.”

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Nic turned to see a Mender in the corner holding what looked like a fleshy, vein-lined organ covered in protruding bumps. It had a long tube coming out the end of it and ridgelike internal bones giving it shape. This organic device was how the Hexadians communicated with humans, since they lacked the facial and vocal capacity for human speech.

“You want to talk to our leader?” Eli asked it, switching to his armorsuit’s external speakers.

The Mender used three of its hands to squeeze different bumpy nodes on the sides of the organic device. “Yes. Talk... Leader.”

Nic toggled his comms to his own suit’s speakers. “You need to agree to let them go,” he interjected. “The humans. You need to agree to let them go, and then we can talk to our leaders. They’ll negotiate your surrender from there.”

“Peace.” The alien took a step forward, holding out the fleshy organ in its hand, bulging black eyes open even wider, almost pleadingly. “No. Kill. Peace. No. Kill. Human. No. Kill. Me. No. Kill. You. No. Kill. Us. Talk. Peace. Life.”

Nic took a cautious step forward—the green alien flinched, its nictitating membranes flashing shut around its eyes defensively. “Slow down. We’re not in a position to make any decisions about what happens to you.” He glanced at his squadmates and Team Ivory. “But if you let these people go, if you don’t attack us, then you’ll live. I can promise you that much.”

“Assumin’ the GDF won’t blow a hole through this factory and suck out all the air,” Jarek observed grimly.

“Where are your suits?” Eli asked the hostages. “Spacesuits? Airsuits? We need to protect you in case there’s a decompression event.”

One of the factory workers stepped forward, still holding his hands overhead, heavy bags under his eyes and stoic from what was likely a long ordeal. “Destroyed in the invasion. Those damn acid things. They’re gone! We have nothing. If they break down that airlock... We’re all dead!”

“We need a way to alert the GDF, then,” said Nic, switching back to proximal comms. “Audio is a bust—too much interference.”

“Does anyone have a smoke flare?” Katrina suggested. “I don’t know if we have the right color, but it’s worth a shot to get eyes on us.”

“I think only the lieutenants carry those,” said Perri. “Which is stupid... But individual squads don’t usually have cause to use them. They’re mostly for battle plans, evacs, stuff like that.”

“We can go out together,” Jarek said. “One of us. One of them.” A pause. “I’ll do it. I’ll go out with a Mender, wave down anybody else comin’ through. A lieutenant’s bound to see us at some point.”

“No,” said Nic. “I can’t put you in that kind of danger... I’ll do it.” Then, to the alien ambassador, he said, “Come with me outside. I need to tell my people that you’re surrendering. We can’t communicate with them.”

The Mender looked at its cohorts, then back at Nic. “Talk. Leader.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to do! Your kind is causing interference in our—”

“Talk,” it repeated. “Talk. Leader. You. Here.”

The hairs on the back of Nic’s neck stood up straight. This was not the first or even the second time he’d communicated verbally with them; basic, functional chatter no longer unnerved him. It was when he got a glimpse into their true intellect, their capacity for subtlety, even cunning, that he got chills. It’s telling me to raise Welch from here—they must have some kind of telepathic control over the interference. It must have... given control back to us. “Lieutenant Welch,” he said cautiously into a crystal clear comms channel. “This is Scarlet One.”

“Scarlet One?” Welch replied. “Hell, finally! Rest of our platoon is closing in. Anticipating enemy blockade. Bringing deadly force to open up that asset! What is your position?”

“Requesting immediate ceasefire, sir. Do not fire on the factory! Repeat, do not fire on the factory! We have live civilians inside!”

“How many?”

“All 290 Achilles personnel are still alive. They’re here in the factory. I’m here with Team Scarlet and Team Ivory.”

“You put down the rest of the Hexes? How?”

“No, sir...” Nic surveyed the Menders warily. “They’re surrendering.”

“This is such bullshit,” Korbin muttered in the background.

“Korbin,” said Eli, “quiet.”

Welch was silent at first, then answered him, “I’ll brief the colonel on the situation and we’ll go from there. For now, sit tight. We are still inbound. Approaching with caution and weapons down.”

Nic couldn’t help but smile giddily at his squadmates. Jarek offered him a high-five. Eli and Katrina addressed the hostages, separating the humans from the Hexadians, corralling them into distinct groups. Many of the hostages breathed sighs of relief, slumping their shoulders, looking like they were about to collapse, while others shook the soldier’s hands and explained what they’d been through since the start of the invasion.

“Is it really over?” Perri asked Nic, walking over for a moment alone with him. “It was that easy?”

“I don’t know about easy. I think there were a few casualties back there,” he answered gravely, “and Max will need some stempaste to regrow that finger... But other than that, yeah. I think it’s over.”