Milo smiled, nodding to McKnight. He sympathized with Joshua, and he also saw Laytn's point; he would have loved to bring out his own Mobile Suit again for the occasion, and indeed, it belatedly struck him as risky to put so many high-ranking officers on one recon mission. Be that as it may, he was genuinely curious to see what might be causing the string of flats, and indeed, he was going a bit stir-crazy himself. Hover bikes made sense, and they were certainly better than nothing.
He gestured over toward the Wappas.
"I'll go get us a field sonar pack and some water." He told the rest of the group. "We can do a recce of the road ahead for a few clicks, and see if we can't spot what's causing all this. I'll also pick up a few laser line relays; we'll plant them to keep us in contact with the convoy."
Sonar detection and optical communication were the only two such technologies which could be counted on to work reliably in Minovsky Particle saturation zones; one of Zeon's early advantages over the Federation, besides the use of Mobile Suits, was the full recognition of that fact. Though the Feddies early in the war - hell, even at this late date - tended to try and bull through Minovsky interference with super-powerful transmitters and ultra-sensitive receivers, Zeon communication specialists had become wizards in the use of low-frequency sonic transmissions and laser-based communications and detection; though these methods didn't have the same range or versatility as radio waves, they were more reliable than the former under modern combat conditions.
Milo set off toward one of the supply trucks, excited. It would be good to do something - anything - other than sitting around.
And if they made contact with their former adversaries, so much the better.

[b]Meanwhile, just east of the Jaghbub Oasis:[/b]

Corporal Flint Hobten manipulated his GM's controls, causing the plodding Mobile Suit to stop and hold up its hand, indicating for the other units in the team to come to a stop.
Behind him, another set of heavy, plodding footsteps came to a stop, as did the clatter of tracks and the whine of hover fans. Glancing up at the screen for his rear-view camera, the young pilot watched with gratification as an RGC-80 "GM Cannon" and an RX-75 production-model Guntank halted behind him. Behind them, a Type 74 hover truck settled on its engines.
"Alright, team, this is as good a spot as any. Dennis, why don't you get the sonar set up, the rest of us will form an over-watch. Don't bother with the camo netting or anything; if the... well, what [i]used[/i] to be the enemy is out there, we sort of want them to see us."
The last order felt odd to Flint; after months of trying to avoid notice of Zeke units, he felt naked without some form of concealment. He tried to remind himself that the war was over; theoretically, all Zeon forces had been instructed to surrender. Flint himself remembered one occasion, two days before, when he had run across an entire Zeon armored platoon while out on patrol. Rather than overwhelming the far smaller Mobile Suit force, a dozen Magella Attack tanks had pointed their gun barrels at the sand, their crews poking themselves out of hatches with their hands up.
Flint recalled that, when he had brought the unit back to camp, Colonel Renfield had not seemed very happy about it.
[i]The old Butcher can't stand the fact that he didn't have the right to shoot them all...[/i]
[i]"All set, sir! If anything passes within 20 clicks, we'll know."
"Private Felsh here; optical sweep is set up."[/i]
Flint glanced back at the Type 74; it had deployed a sonar spike, and Superior Private Dennis Wells was poking out of a hatch, one hand on his headset while the other was raised to give Flint a thumbs up. Flint manipulated his controls to have the GM flash back the same gesture. He also nodded his Suit's head to Private Felsh, the commander of the unit's Guntank, from the backpack of which was raised a telescoping mast with a suite of cameras and laser detection systems at the top. 
Ground-penetrating sonar was one of the early concessions the Federation had made to the age of Minovsky warfare. Initially used in support of tank battalions and infantry units, command trucks equipped with sensitive audio detection systems had become an indispensable part of ground-side Mobile Suit operations. Able to track the movements of ground vehicles from far beyond reliable visual range, they worked under Minovsky conditions, which was more than could be said for similar radar systems.
Besides that, the Guntank's enhanced visual pickup systems covered a wide area around the team. Such equipment packages were still not common, but Private Felsh's machine had been outfitted with it after some wrangling on Flint's part with the supply officers. He was glad to have it; though the sonar could pick up most vehicles, flying and some lighter hovering machines, such as the Dopp atmospheric fighter or the Wappa hover bike, were beyond it. That was where visual scanning came in.
"Well, gentlemen, get yourselves comfortable I guess."
The team had set up on an overlook near a road which wound down into the bowl of the depression, toward the Jaghbub Oasis. At one point, Flint knew, a modern highway had run near their location, but the firestorm of regional conflicts in the pre-Federation period during the 1990s had reduced much of the region's infrastructure to ruins. From his position, he could see part of a sky-way poking out of a sand-dune.
It was a lonely place.
Ever since the end of the war, Flint's CO, Colonel Renfield, had been sending the 12th out on "advanced sentry" duty for hours at a time. It was, he felt, almost as if the famously ruthless Federation officer resented their presence. Maybe he did, for all Flint knew; despite words to the contrary, Flint could tell he had not been happy when he had brought in the Zeon armored unit, and this might be petty revenge for making the officer face in person the reality that he no longer had a war to fight.
[i]I keep feeling like a lot is being hidden from me.[/i] He thought to himself...