Stealth Bugs

"I do not understand why we had to leave the car behind." The Farm definitely looked like Hellbugs had been there, there were even some dead one nearby, but Xanthiana could not see current activity as she approached. It was dark but it wasn't that dark to obscure the normally not caring to much about being seen bugger bastards.

"I just got it running again, I don't want some hellbug shit or blood or whatever else they spew out wrecking it." The challenger was safely parked up the road well away from any wandering hellbugs, it made a bit of a walk to get to the ranch on a hill, but it was worth it for the car to stay safe.

"Someone could always steal it."

"You're just a wealth of helpful beliefs Elly." Xanthiana moved from the main parking area of the ranch to the main house which was empty of people but had more hellbug bodies. That's how it went as she moved through the entire complex, bodies of dead hellbugs, spent ammunition casings from weaponry, but no people or evidence of anyone who had called for help.

"I have no current active people on my scans Xan, I am scanning several frequencies to even identify who sent the distress call, I'm not coming up with anything locally."

"Well I'll admit this is fairly alarming, either hellbugs have advanced to being hyper intelligent and not just ravenous beasts."

"Or someone else got here before we did."

"Or something else, I'm not seeing any blood from people here am I missing it?" Xanthiana was confused, she had retreated to the main house to try and seek out a basement structure or something to indicate what had gone on, but she wasn't finding anything.

"Negative none of my scans show any blood."

"I'll admit Elly I'm going to need your help on this one, I can't even begin to guess what happened here."

"My scans are showing something interesting with the corpses Xan, they are all dead by several days."

"They are what?"

"Yes can we withdraw outside I want to confirm a hunch."

"Sure It was getting creepy in here anyway." Xanthiana walked outside, what Elly was hoping to see she couldn't make out.

"Confirmed, this was an organized grab by slavers of some kind, I can make out tire imprints obscured by the hellbug blood." Xanthiana was taken a back by the revelation. Regular slavers were stupid and brutal, who would steal a group of ranchers with a fake hellbug attack, on top of that why call in a hellbug attack and then dissappear?

"I'm really confused by this."

"Perhaps you can ask the group of armed men approaching from the south Xan."

"I just might Elly, I just might."