Personally, I could not see myself getting my ass kicked day in and out like they did. Haroon pointed at me in outrage. "I thought that you 2 were going to be by the river today!?" he accused. "We were by the river! I told you we were exploring down stream from the red scale tribe hang out spot. And, we got ambushed by them on the way back to the ship! Why didn't you radio us for help!?" I snapped back. He looked flustered. "Haroon said you were too far away to be any help." Alyas said. I just rolled my eyes at that. "Yeah. We were far away. That doesn't mean we wouldn't rush over to defend you if you were in a life or death struggle! We are a squad!" I snapped. They all looked down in shame. The 4 of them needed to get in the regenerator pods for healing. It was concerning that they were attacking us from cover. I turned to the scientists and engineers. "Is there a way you can whip up a device to display where they are? If they have telepathy, it isn't a stretch for them to simply block our minds from perceiving them when we are in front of them." An engineer nodded.
It was not long until both projects were in the prototype stage. Throwing Haroon a bone, I gave him the new machine that should tell us when other lifeforms were around us in the river. We did not know if they were warm or cold blooded, so they had 2 different settings at the detriment to the range. If they were warm blooded, we would be able to detect them with infrared radiation. If they were cold blooded, it would not work. We could then use the radar function. That meant that radio waves were emitted and then recaptured when it bounced off of something. Even if they were cold blooded, they would not be able to escape that form of detection. Haroon had the machine in his hands, so he was in front. All of us were in the power armor for the big fight. As we approached the river where the red merfolk hung out, he turned on the device. I waited for him to get a reading. Nothing happened. After a few minutes we got pelted by rocks. "Are they on the device yet!?" I asked covering my face. "No! It's not working." he snapped. "Change the settings then." I told him. Haroon did.
Quickly, he pointed down stream and yelled "There's 8 of them! Right over there!" I pulled out my gun and began shooting in that direction. I was not going to be taking a chance on this. We heard a lot of squawking as at least a few of them got him. Blue blood leaked from them and began to flow down stream. After taking fire from the others, I was relieved when Haroon told us that they were retreating. It was the first decisive victory against the merfolk for them in a while. "We got to confirm that they are cold blooded and we got them to flee. I consider that a great win for the Solari cause." I said. We began to cheer and congratulate ourselves for the achievement. The morale was super high. Larl pat me on the back and smiled. "Quick thinking with the gun there, David. That made things go great." he said. I nodded my head. "Haroon usually just charges in with his fists." Alyas added. It was something I could definitely see happening. It also was something that got me to not regret focusing on all of the exploring. That had to be one of the dumbest things I had ever heard.
