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[color=f26522]<<Not quite,>>[/color] the expeditionary force's resident Serb replied over the comms, cycling through Merlon's sensor suite from his lazy circuit of the LZ's designated perimeter some five hundred meters up. All told, the descent into atmosphere was as smooth as one could ask for— the shield had been rated for Venusian Entry burn, to say nothing of this, much less oppressively dense as it was.

To tell the truth, between the winds and the desert in the distance, he hazarded a guess at this being roughly similar to the feeling of operating in the khamsins of Egypt— simple enough, after you learned to stop letting turbulence spook you. Naturally, the winds that tossed around dusty soil at surface level were [i]a touch[/i] stronger half a click up, and rather than listen to his Orbital shift with the buffeting gusts he elected to simply ride them when able. Atmospheric flight the evidently rare luxury it was, it may as well be used to loiter with mobility— perhaps it was old habit, but he much preferred circling to hanging still in the air. The wings on the Bedwyr's back facilitated it regardless, ailerons responding to stabilizing microadjustments thanks to fly-by-wire. 

[color=f26522]<<Something different, actually.>>[/color]

Especially if his attention was going to be planted squarely on the ground for the next few minutes. Thermal imaging outlined everyone and every[i]thing[/i] in a healthy red thanks to reentry burn, so he hadn't passed over it during the drop— opting instead for geiger, spectroscopy, polaroid (for some reason), and biometric. Once they had determined that there were plants to the north, largely inert silicates in the soil, and no lens flare to worry about...

[color=f26522]<<Stojanovic to Landing Team. Be advised, [i]Merlon's[/i] picking up multiple hot spots on the ground, incongruent with the topsoil temperature. LZ is full of them, no discernible pattern. Heat is probably radiating from some below-ground source. Stand by for region designation.>>[/color]

On the way down, he had made sure to set up a datalink with each craft in formation, the target identification software piggybacking off of the signal used for IFF communication. As far as Konstantin was concerned, he was playing the role of AWACS for this mission— offering those on the ground as clear a picture as they needed to do their jobs.

One by one, those on terra firma would find the soil beneath them begin to light up as a field of thin-lined boxes labelled as simply "HEAT" blossomed onto their HUDs outward from the zone's center, each congruent with a location, size, and depth of discrepancy.

High above, the Bedwyr continued its loitering.