[b]Marcus Goldstein - Convoy Escort[/b]

“Go around? Dude you have a giant gun can't you just blow it up?” truck driver 3 complained. The tall wiry man Marcus privately dubbed 'captain hook' given the unfortunate shape of his nose and his tendency to assume he was in charge.

“Negative three. Might as well ring a giant dinner bell that we're here. I don't want to attract the attention.” Macus replied coolly. His gun remained pointed at the fallen pile regardless. Optics zoomed in at the base of the quartz pillar, searching for the signs of the work of men. Pickaxes, high explosives, water cutters and their like all left highly tell-tale marks, if one knew what to look for. The thing that stood out in this case was the honeycomb of small tunnels cut through the rock at the base.

Marcus chuckled when the answer struck him.

“People, it was the bugs themselves that did it. I took a closer look at the pillar, they made so many tunnels at it's base that it became unable to support itself and just fell over.” he said over the radio. He chuckled again, sitting up straighter. Stupid bugs got him all excited for nothing.

“Mister Rice I make up only a quarter of this team. Be assured that Oswald, Diamond and Aurellius are very capable in combat as well. Anyway Oswald the basic plan for the trucks is to make a run for it should something happen, remember?” Marcus said. Had he not been clear enough in his briefing? Whatever the case, it could wait, truck two spotted something ahead of them.

“The hell?” Marcus muttered as he zoomed in on their destination. The camp was surrounded by the wrecks of the previous convoys, fortified to hell and back. One convenient bottleneck remained as a pseudo entrance. This wasn't good. He counted at least seven different weapon traces in the battered transports. A fuzz entered his mind as the tank crossed some invisible threshold.

“Fuckblaarghaaddam.” he snarled and threw a specific switch. Instantly nearly a full half of his sensors dropped dead. There was only so much military surplus a teenager could get his mitts on even with his parents helping out with paperwork. So by necessity a lot of the after-market electronics he'd strapped on where not rated against this level of jamming.

He blinked as he absorbed what Diamond yelled at him up on the turret. Okay, get a grip now Goldstein.

“To sum up: Radio's gone, a lot of my sensors are shot, and the camp is a write-off. That jamming means the ambush is already started. By the time reinforcements get here either we're dead or they're gone. Instead, Oswald, Aurell and me are going to attack them from the left. You sneak around and shut down that jammer. If you can grab paperwork or anything else that points to who is behind this and how they worked.” he half shouted. These orders needed to be crystal clear, no pun intended. That done he slowed down to let Diamond off if she wanted to.

Further forward Oswald had the common sense to stop the trucks instead of run forward into an obvious choke-point. Marcus just prayed the drivers kept their engines idle. Breaks squealed as the tank came to a halt next to the lead truck.

“Trucks, back to Vale! We are clearing the camp and we'll radio you when we're done. Oswald, Aurellius on me, we are going to bust a wall down and sweep this place clean.” the young officer ordered. Implied was the order that if no word was received from MODA the truckers were supposed to keep running all the way back and get them reinforcements. Or at least arrange a nice funeral. Once the two hunters had joined Marcus he went into a bit more detail. As he spoke he drove away from the entrance, going around the camp in a wide arc.

“Diamond's off to look for the radio jammer, we are the distraction. The enemy is a humanoid rebel group of some description. Check your targets! Could be prisoners or Diamond in there. For the rest, make some noise. We want all of their attention on us!” Marcus outlined.

“Can do!” Aurellius replied with an eager grin. The whine of his minigun spinning up underlined his words.