They watched from behind a jut of rock near the ridge, close enough now to hear the pods hiss open on impact, close enough that Hibanna's breathing had gone tight and controlled beside him.
"We don't get this close," she said quietly, eyes fixed on the mother ship. "Not to one of these. Every invasion we've faced has been an orbital deployment, pods raining down from high atmosphere, the ship itself always staying somewhere we can't reach it." Her gaze swept over the crater it had carved into the mountainside, the pods still cracking open in steady succession along the slope below. "I've never actually seen one up close. Not like this. Not with hundreds of them coming out of it at once."
