"That is all the intel I have gathered so far." Hoplite told him, looming tall over Michael's cot and speaking in the deadpan the super-soldiers were known for.

Thirty-seven had spoken quickly and curtly, listing certain things off as matter of fact while presenting other intel that he said needed 'more investigating'. All in the span of a couple minutes, not slowing by even a bit when Michael attempted to ask questions.

"Sir, no offense meant of course, but uh…” Michael then took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

Was he really going to say this to a Hoplite? THE Hoplite even? Michael sighed as he resigned himself to fate, he had to be honest here.

“That's stupid." Michael told thirty-seven, wincing as he waited for the legend's reaction.

Hoplite paused for a long moment before replying in his usual monotone “Negative, that is the intel I have gathered so far.”

Michael shook his head at thirty-seven’s words. Elves, orcs and dwarves? What a load of crap. A lost colony from before the first contact era that somehow regressed to medieval times? Ridiculous, especially when Hoplite told him that it was slightly possible that this was an alternate dimension. Michael was like, ninety percent sure that wasn't what happened. He wasn't no scientician or nothin' like that, but bombs didn’t send people to alternate dimensions… unless maybe… well it had been an antimatter bomb right?

Okay, he was like, eighty percent sure that this wasn't an alternate dimension. It was supposed to be antimatter or whatever, who knew where that stuff went after the bomb went kablooey? Hmm… seventy percent. Wait a dang second, these folks spoke definite Jynesian! Back up to Eighty percent! Now, all this about 'anomalous powers' was ridiculous phooey, only Lord Jyn was capable of the impossible.

Maybe thirty-seven had to be… re-indoctrinated. Michael shuddered. Not a pleasant experience from what he'd heard. Michael personally had almost had to go through it a few times for all kinds a' stuff he’d done, but he'd managed to avoid it so far. If thirty-seven started spouting off all this 'magic' crap to the brass, that'd be it. Hoplite would definitely get…

Oh who was he kidding? There was no 'brass' anymore. Terna had started losing the war after Lord Jyn vanished. Best not to think about that now, and it was definitely not a good idea to bring that up to Hoplite. Why would thirty-seven tell him all of this? Sure, Hoplite mighta believed the stuff he said… But Hoplite sounded like he expected Michael to just accept this bonkers intel without question.…

Wait a second! Michael understood now!

Michael thought that Hoplites were supposed to be deadpan serious all the time, but he could see now that they indeed had a sense of humor. Hoplite had to just be pulling some kind of weird joke on him right? That would be incredibly inappropriate but it would make sense if it were just some awkward attempt of a joke from a Hoplite… Hearing it from the Hoplite though was something else entirely. Now, the stuff about this world bein’ shaped like an eyeball might not be a joke. One of the other marines in Michael’s shuttle had said that the planet they were gonna land on looked like an eye, but Michael had thought it was just a… well, a planet that just kinda resembled one a little bit.

From what Hoplite was sayin' though, the thing looked exactly like some sorta flyin' space eyeball thing. That made Michael really uncomfortable. Was he on some sort of eldritch horror monster? A weird construct art world by the Final Kind? Michael decided right then, to not think about it.

Yes, that would be a lot easier.

Now all this about fantasy creatures… Well, he thought he had seen a couple people with pointed ears in the tent, but he chalked that up to some kinda cosmetic work. The short buff people though? Well, that was it, they were just short buff people, nothing special about that right? Save for the fact that they all had thick braided beards down to their guts. That didn't mean they were dwarves, that just meant that they… kinda looked like dwarves, that was all.

Now the rat person he saw… Well, Michael had chalked that up to a hallucination. Rats didn't just up and walk, that was ridiculous. He hadn't seen one of these orcs either, so clearly they didn't exist. Michael couldn't believe that thirty-frickin'-seven of all people, of all the Hoplites, could be tripping this hard. Was he high? Did Hoplites shoot up in their spare time?

Probably.

Dude was probably high as a kite right now, eatin' weird shrooms off the ground and whatnot. Interplanetary shrooms were dangerous things to toy around with, Michael knew that for a fact. It could also be something in the atmosphere of the planet itself… who knew? Michael could have sworn that he saw that rat-person earlier but… if the air on this world was hallucinogenic, that could explain it.

It was either hallucinogens or it was some kinda mutant-branch... Best to get the question out of the way and ask thirty-seven now.

“Sir…” Michael began sheepishly “Have you been exposed to uh… contaminants?”

"Negative marine." The Hoplite replied sternly, taking him from his thoughts "That is the situation."

Michael winced at Hoplite’s tone. He dearly hoped that he hadn’t just made the big metal square with limbs mad. Michael still held those doubts for sure… but it would likely be best to keep those to himself for a bit.

"Situation sir? What do we do?" Michael asked him, leaning back on his pillow with a sigh "...There any aliens need killin'?" He asked after a moment.

The Hoplite nodded after a small pause "Somewhere, I'm sure. I believe there are more crashed shuttles located past the Fiendwall."

Michael stared "The whatsit?"

"Fiendwall." The Hoplite replied, a sliver of irritation in his tone "What your pod crashed into."

Michael nodded after another wince at Hoplite’s tone "O-okay good, just a wall,” He stammered briefly before collecting himself “Was scared we crashed through a buildin' or something."

"It was a settlement private, they were living in the wall." Hoplite told him in a tone bordering on gentle "I don't know how many casualties."

Michaels blood went cold and his eyes widened in panic.

"I wasn't the p-pilot sir, I didn't know-" Michael stammered, his breathing quickening.

Hoplite put a hand on his shoulder, a cold grip that gave a somehow reassuring squeeze "The situation is resolved. You will not be punished."

Michael breathed a sigh of relief, but a feeling of hot guilt still burned in his gut. Sure, he hadn't decided where the pod was goin' and after you breached the atmosphere it was usually in Jyn's hands at that point… but damn… dozens of lives lost just so he could survive? What made him so important? All he did was kill aliens; a lot of aliens granted, but he was still just a simple killer. Dozens of civilians and the marines that had saved him, all dead but Michael… Why did he deserve to live when everyone else died? He shook his head, feeling as if he were forgetting something important… when he could not recall, he sighed.

He slumped back out of the Hoplites grip, the back of his head hitting the pillow as he winced. Michael shouldn't be alive, he shoulda died too…

He shoulda, but here he was.

"Private?" Hoplite asked, leaning closer to Michael's face until that featureless helmet was mere inches away.

"S-sir you're freakin' me out, couldja back up?" Michael asked, squeezing further back into his pillow.

Hoplite thankfully did as requested, pulling back to his full height as he stood next to Michael's cot.

"I thought you were going to faint." Hoplite told him.

"Naw sir… I just feel…" Michael began, trying and failing to keep the sorrow from his tone.

"It wasn't your fault private." Hoplite told him "We have a mission to accomplish. You can't think about how things should have gone, especially when you had no control over the situation.”

Michael sighed. How could a Hoplite understand something like guilt? They were borderline robots, their emotions dulled to a point of nigh-nonexistence. Could a Hoplite even feel something like guilt? Michael furrowed his brow in thought as he stared down at his hands, tightening them into balls as his thoughts turned into a near-unintelligible slurry. Guilt, anger, frustration and sorrow all fought for space in his mind until finally Michael inhaled, taking in a lungful of air slowly before letting it all out.

Thirty-seven was right, he needed to let this guilt go before it festered and got worse… if he stacked that guilt on top of what he was already going through… the next time Michael was alone again… Well…

He may not survive that.

"Mission sir?" Michael asked, firming his features as he stared up into Hoplite's helmet.

"We need to link back up with the crew from the Sparrow." The super-soldier replied, giving a tap on his helmet "I can pick up on any distress calls over my radio, but we'll need to stay on the move until I pick up a signal." He continued, letting his hand fall back to his side "I was worried that your pod was Final Kind, since I couldn't pick up any signal. If any shuttles had their power disabled like yours did, we'll have to hope that we'll be lucky enough to find them. I’ll be able to pick up the frequency on any powered shuttles, assuming we’re close enough.”

"Alright cool. Did the fella's in your pod stay behind to wait for anyone to show up?" Michael asked.

There shoulda been more troops with Hoplite, why hadn't he seen any so far? Those pods could fit eight men in them.

"There were no survivors aboard the Sparrow when I ejected. I didn't evacuate until everyone else was gone." Hoplite said, monotone not changing a hair.

"Damn man… didja get knocked out or something?" Michael asked.

What the hell could have knocked out a dang Hoplite, especially this one? No, the guy who single handedly destroyed a Final Kind Admech simply couldn't be knocked out, especially when no Admechs had even been aboard the invasion crew to the Sparrow.

"I was caught off guard and was knocked unconscious by a T-57 Rhino prior to the evacuation." Hoplite said flatly, his tone still unwaveringly lifeless.

No shame, just a pure statement of fact. Knocked out by a friggin' Rhino? Did someone run him over or did it get chucked at him by a yugoro? Must have hit him in the back of the head or something to not see it comin'... but wait, why wouldn't he have seen it coming? He heard that this Phalanx model armor had cameras that let Hoplites have three-hundred and sixty degree vision… So what happened? Michael opened his mouth and was about to ask that very question when a long black haired woman wearing a dark cloak came in through the tent flap.

She strode right up to Hoplite with concern plastered across her features… very nice features, he realized, shooting her his best grin… at least up until he noticed those pointed ears sticking up out of her hair. Elves right? Yeah, it was a load of crap, that was cosmetic work if he'd ever seen it. He wasn't into chicks that dipped into cosmetics, they tended to be… not right, in his experience.

Cosmetics was where he drew the line. Now in truth, Michael hadn’t drawn many lines aside from that one, after all, women were at their most perfect in their natural state… and their natural states varied from girl to girl.

"There's a crowd outside." She told Hoplite "They mean harm for Michael. I don't know when they'll try anything, but there is talk."

Hoplite turned his helmet toward her "We'll leave tonight. I'll stay with Michael until then.”

Lance nodded “I’m going to head out there, if things escalate I’ll be right back to let you know. We should be able to easily escape into the Faewood.”

With that, Lance turned on her heel, exiting through the same tent flap she came in from, her black cloak flowing behind her. A few doctors stared after her as she went, heads turning back to Hoplite and Michael in his bed. Thankfully they hadn't seemed to hear their conversation, but they stared at Michael as if to tell him with just those glares that 'you aren't leavin' that bed again boah'. Michael wasn't about to let himself get burned at the stake or whatever the hell else these bumpkins had planned for him. Despite the news, he wasn't worried. There was absolutely nothing these guys had that could possibly even scratch Hoplite's armor, let alone kill him.

He would be almost completely safe… Unless one of them got a lucky shot on Michael with a crossbow or something.

Hmm… maybe he should be a little worried. Hoplite said that they at least didn't have guns. Thirty-seven was a legend, but he doubted that he could catch bullets. Well, maybe he could? Michael half-expected Hoplite to go out there himself despite what the legend had said earlier… but thirty-seven didn't move from his position, remaining facing in the direction that Lance had fled in.

Michael took a deep breath to help steady his nerves as cold worry flooded into him. Hopefully things wouldn’t escalate with the mob… Michael didn’t want anyone else to die today, these people were just blue from losin’ their loved ones… sure they wanted to string Michael up, but he still felt for them. There had to be some way to avoid a coming conflict with these civvies… Wait a moment… Michael pinched the bridge of his nose as again he strained to remember something… Something else important had happened in the shuttle… Something that freaked out the pilot somethin’ fierce…

Michael’s eyes widened as it all came back to him… someone had been clinging on their pod in the atmosphere, and had forcefully altered their course. The crash hadn’t been their fault! Sure, it was possible that the pilot had been seeing things, but the black box would have recorded it had something actually been there.

“Sir, didja get the flight recorder from the shuttle!?” Michael shouted “I think I know how we can get outta this.”