Petrification

Adian Stammler and Rachel Wraith were waiting for their shuttle, after meeting with the Terran Meritocracy representatives.
"I know that look."
"What look?"
"The one you get before you task me with intelligence gathering, and just before you repeat for the thousandth time, 'information is ammunition'."
"I am a little predictable, aren't I?"
"Come on, get on with it."
"This location isn't secure."
"Those skulls creep me out."
"Me too." He found the ones where the skulls had been vitrified, the bone turned to black obsidian the creepiest, but he didn't say that out loud.
"What did you think of the scary ones?"
"What do you mean?"
"Not all the skulls were vitrified, two were turned to metal, calcium, from what I could tell, covered with the usual nitroxide layer..."
"As in pure metal?"
"Didn't get close enough for spectranalysis boss, but bone's too fragile to coat into anything metallic that hot. Has to be something we don't understand yet."
"And the ones where the bones are vitrified?"
"No idea, whatever did that works in a way I don't understand."
"And she didn't look scared of them..."
"No, that's not quite true, I think she looked like whatever did it wasn't the scariest thing on her mind right now... Which isn't the same thing, Sir."
"Oh, well, with the new wormhole, we're becoming accessible to all that, Intelligence, get me information. We can't let them get to earth if they're that deadly."
"That's another thing, she positively drooled when you mentioned Sol III."
"I want condition Nightfall on the wormhole coordinates, and how to reach her through it, if they attack us, destroy any navigational data to return home."
"But how will we return home?"
"We wait for relief to come first, at least that way, Imperihome won't be attacked unprepared."
"That's what I love about you sir, always about duty."
"You, Rachel Wraith, are a tease."
"Now, Sir, those are righting words!"
Spoilered for disturbing imagery

Type

Divine