No Gods, Nor Masters

Meeting the Locals

The Lieutenant shifted his behind onto his seat as the Warthog he had mounted onto rolled forward. Above and behind him, one of his subordinates manned the fifty-cal gatling gun on the back turret of the Force Application Vehicle, while farther to the rear, travelling in a line with them as they followed the tracks of the Mongoose and lost two-man team, a pair of Troop 'Hogs rolled on.

He hummed, then scanned the plains around them. To their immediate left was the thick forest. To their right and front, open plains that led out into rolling hills in the middle of nowhere, then into mountains. The place was seemingly surrounded by mountains, their tall peaks capped in a white blanket, piercing the few clouds visible in the night sky. One had little time to appreciate the beauty, though, considering this was still a search and rescue operation.

The Lieutenant retrieved his binoculars and looked forward, scanning the horizon for any sign of a light while the driver kept his eye on the IFF locator. They'd gotten a rough topographical map of the area off of the Vladivostok's scanning equipment, too, so they knew that the area was about ninety-five percent flatlands, plus specks of forest scattered neatly around the place.

"Not far now," He looked upon the tracking system and GPS, "Should be a few hundred meters further ahead, right next to the tree line."

The Driver veered to the left, gently bringing them parallel to the tree line. The forward-mounted lights on the Warthog's roll cage and cheeks clipped one of the trees and the faintest motion appeared in the corner of the man's eyes. He hummed, standing up and looking through the trees for any sort of movement. To his joy, he found nothing, relinquishing what he had seen to the background thoughts of 'just a shadow in the night', basically outright ignoring it for now.

Surely, someone else would spot and report it anyhow...

He scoffed, cued his radio and said, "All units, be advised, possible unknowns in the treeline. Spotted single silhouette moving due left, but it's gone now..." well aware that, yes, while his teammates would've reported something if they saw it, he'd rather not risk them being unaware when and if they did spot it. He felt the air grow heavier as the entire convoy tensed, then drew his assault rifle and thumbed the safety off, racking the bolt to feed a round and reset the counter to 32 rounds.

Looking ahead, he saw the two front lights of the Mongoose luminating a small fraction of the tree-line, yet found no sight of the Marines that had gone missing. He cued his mic, "Approaching Mongoose. I want a perimeter set up. Guns pointed in every direction, overlapping arcs of fire. Gun 'Hogs, you're on three-sixty degrees, any time one of us calls out any possible target. Keep your guns spun and heads on a swivel."

"Roger," The entire platoon replied. The transport 'Hogs sat themselves at the front and back of the Mongoose, while the Gun 'Hogs rallied up to the right and left, keeping their guns ready. The soldiers all dismounted and immediately formed a perimeter behind the Warthogs, utilizing the armor of the vehicles as cover while they scanned the areas ahead through the use of flashlights, motion trackers and their own eyes.

Richard and Ikari stepped up to the 'Goose, stopping in front of it. Littered on the floor were cigarette butts from their standard-issue cigarettes, as well as the torn wrappers of energy bars from their MRE packs. On the Mongoose itself, there were no signs of damage, blood or anything of the sorts, just a faint scent of some kind and the tracks that Ikari was standing on. She looked down at them, then said, "Whaddaya think, El-Tee?"

"Don't know. Cig butts aren't old..." he noted, picking one up and looking it over. He hummed, then tossed it aside and looked at the tracks. Taking a knee, he ran a hand over one of them and said, "Looks like they got caught by surprise. Dragged away into the forest," before looking down the tracks and into the shrubs. He hummed, squinting, and turned on the VISR system built into his helmet's orange ballistic goggles.