The same arc. The same directed release. The same silence crossing the gap between his hand and the scout's position.
The second scout lasted exactly as long as the first.
Which was not long at all.
He caught Luton on its return, his fingers closing around the denser form as the slime came back to him. No urgency in the motion. No hurry. The kind of calm that came from doing something repeatedly until the repetition itself became the calmness.
Third scout.
This one was positioned differently from the first two—not in line with them, but offset at a slight forward angle, covering an approach vector that the other two had left partially open. Whoever had arranged this watch formation had thought about it. The spacing was deliberate. The coverage was real.
Against a visible approach, against anything that moved with a presence or an aura or any of the usual signals that high-grade threats produced, this formation would have functioned well.
