"It'll help," says Dora. "Ay. Is Boots still alive?- he's the medic," she notes, catching the look of incomprehension at the name. "I don't hear him..."

Now, it's a good thing to capture an enemy's weapons and use them yourself. X is making this no longer an option. On the other hand, a weapon destroyed is still a weapon denied the enemy.

It is a very, very bad day to be Elite.

Well. It was. Now it appears to be a good day to be a great many corpses....

(And away in the distance, the sound of fleeing dropship engines is overlaid with the sound of approaching dropship engines. There are three more of them. They are coming. And they are heavy-laden.)