Ghosts of the Old Guard v.2

'Does it not disturb you?' asked Velen. Conto did not respond as he sifted the rubble, appearing to outright ignore the question Velen was sure he heard. 'Answer, Chief Machinist.' Conto's additional apparatuses and two mechanical arms slowly, almost begrudgingly, came to a halt. He turned his helmet to gaze back at the captain over his shoulder with one eye. Though the silent gaze was unreadable, his contempt was perceptible. 'Why should it not,' he said before turning back to his work. 'Every tendril of humanity we find has some sort of deviance from the norm - but this?' he said, lifting a twisted and broken corpse from the heap by its arm. 'These cheap fanatics, who claim to be from the ancestor-planet? I marvel at their capacity for destruction, Captain. But...' 'But what?' 'I cannot take them, or their hypocrisy seriously. May their emperor-god take them,' he said, as he flung the husk back down into the dirt. 'And that's why you're upset?' Conto's mouth breather rattled with electric discharge as he snarled. 'Must you insist?' 'I must,' 'I'm not in your jurisdiction, respectfully, sir.' Velen shook his head once before removing his helmet. The air tasted the way it looked, still full of soot and concrete Even still, he maintained certain neutrality in expression. 'You're soon to be, so treat that insistence as an order.' Conto stopped for a moment before standing and ultimately turning to face him. His armor was cracked and scorched by the days engagement, and like the air, carpeted in debris. 'Yes, I am upset. We've spent eight thousand years searching, and now that we've arrived, this is what we find instead,' he said, kicking the dead, armored woman who had been screaming litany and invocations at him even as she had been burning alive and clawing at his helmet. 'The worst version of ourselves conquered the birth galaxy. Not science, not the greater good, not the common, neighborly man, hell, not even the truly pious. This. A cabal of enslaved, religious zealots who pray to their guns. I shudder to imagine what the ones who control these drones are capable of.' Velen smiled. He'd gotten the answer he wanted. Conto was the right person for the job, after all. ' Velen smiled. He'd gotten the answer he wanted. Conto was the right person for the job, after all.