Naturally Junebug did. The picked their way through the scrubby forest in the jeep, Neil expertly juking around foliage which a heavier vehicle would simply have plowed over. As they climed a rise that was part dune and part low hill Junebug pulled her helmet down over her face and toggled it to infrared. The landscape lit up in a series of pastel yellows and blues. Here and there she saw an orange flash of heat from what might be small aninimal. Behind them the Highlander glowed hot in a number of places, still cooling from the rapid decent. As they crested the rise she switched back to regular vision.

Before them stretched a wide forested plain, rising towards a greenish blue range of mountains in the far distance. The landscape was split by a surprising number of creeks and swales, many of them as large or bigger than the small river the Highlander had put down in. The trees rose high, up to thirty meters in places, but so unevenly distributed as to make the landscape look wavy and unnatural. The leaves were green but seemed to be more like collections of hair or cilia than true leaves of Terran extraction. A few animals chattered and hooted and though she could see a few heat signatures nothing jumped out as immediately alarming. There was no sign of settlements or technology as far as her magnified vision could see.

"Well if there is an infantry battalion sneaking up on us, they have some damn good camo," she observed sourly.

"Looks like we have the place to ourselves."

"Lets hunt up some food and see if we can eat the local, then we can get our mind to repairs."

[@POOHEAD189]