[color=f7941d]“That was your plane shot down a few hours earlier correct? I’m afraid that area is Kerovanian Separatist Alliance territory. As much as I would love to personally make it ours, the peace we maintain with them is done so for… reasons beyond my paygrade.”[/color] Gourlan spoke, pausing for a moment as a few of the troops near him grunted. Someone could be heard spitting and muttering something in celaderakan under their tongue – a human, specifically, one of Gourlan’s entourage. His semi-triangular, blocky helmet pulled back over his head as he turned towards Paris for a second; he wasn’t as bulky or blocky in shape given that the armour he and the rest of the group were wearing was based on a similar design philosophy. [color=f7941d]“I can offer you something else in return. Your team is awfully small to say the least and while I do not claim to be an expert in Sect operations, I do know that many here lack the same respect that we will show towards you. After all, holding a few deniable mercenaries hostage is one thing but such a mismatched collection of commandos? They’ll know who it is easily. You are not just threats to be eliminated but assets to acquire. I would know from prior operations I have seen.”[/color] His grin grew, sickly motley fungal flesh pulling back against cruel, thorn-like teeth. His fingers snapped and the same soldier that looked for him stepped up, bringing a box-like device, almost like a jerry-can save for a small gap around its midsection and a number of small antennae pointing out from its flat sides. Gourlan took it and offered it to Paris on his gloved fingers, long enough to hold the entirety of the device. [color=f7941d]“Portable shield generator, the sort we employ during patrols. Handy when the local League-funded militias start thinking they can sneak under our noses and ambush us. 30 minutes for a full recharge but I’ve seen it hold out against a whole mag’s worth of heavy-duty gauss rounds. Yes, the militiafolk have those. Of course, the scielto lords we see carouseling on interstellar news-feeds about the importance of civility in this time of tension wouldn’t know anything about that.”[/color] He chuckled with a sound like water sloshing inside of a plastic bag. As the impressively tall tarrhaidim turned to the hulking vrexul, Silver would get a sudden buzz over his coms. The soldier who he had been speaking to didn’t notice, giving him a rather disappointed expression before shrugging it off and walking away. Encrypted private channel – IFF tag marked as Dolsilvec Regime, specifically, from Yrilovan. There was data being sent but the progress bar was climbing slowly. It seemed reception was weak out here but soon he began to talk. [color=f7941d][/color] His voice was tense, a far cry from the arrogant confidence of earlier. [color=f7941d][/color] A trace revealed that Yrilovan had moved between two of the APC’s – he was purposefully far from the rest of the gathered forces, even his own. [color=f7941d] [/color] Gourlan in the meantime had produced a small rectangular data-pad in his hand, roughly the size of the mobile phones of civilians. With a few flicks of his wrist, a projected map appeared in a ghostly teal of the surrounding mountainous territory in all of its forested digital glory. A pair of lines were shown tracing back to a flat area of round and a nearby power plant – their current location. There were two spherical dots, one being a orange and another purple. Both travelled the same direction but differing paths, with the purple trail surrounded by flashing dots of red. [color=f7941d]“As you can see, this is what I was instructed. The orange path is you of course, at least the path I was told you would take. Our path is parallel to yours and we have the fun part of the job – causing a ruckus with all the rebels hiding in the wood. We will draw their attention – you will be free to have your heroic little rescue mission in relative peace.”[/color] He smiled and turned to the rest of the team, leaning to the right to look at Silver. That voidhanger had been quiet – maybe the nature of such beings. [color=f7941d]“I imagine you would all want to download a copy of this – this data-port is open right now if anyone would like a remote transferral. I don’t know how your briefing went but I was told that you would all take care of the scavenger hunt yourself. My folk are simply here to make noise and problems for any threats in the area of operations. There is a path for vehicles but it will be treacherous and the most open to hostile fire – it will slow us but just enough that we can match pace. All the better us than you – you will be doing a lot of movement through rough, forested terrain. Be prepared, Gnosis Eaters.”[/color] He smiled to them all, his head slowly sweeping left and right. Was he looking for someone? And if so, who? After a while he closed the port and turned to his own squad, motioning for them to regroup and head to their transports. Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the group was getting prepared to leave, the engines of their huge machines revving as their mounted guns began to swivel. Yrilovan had stepped out around this time, just as Gourlan entered his transport, and looked over to the Sect members he’d escorted this far. [color=f7941d]“I will be on my way. I have some matters to deal with about this mission. When I get to base, I’m going to reach out to my higher ups and my contact with the Sect. We’ll need to stay in touch.”[/color] To that end, a number of blocky com devices, almost brick like in shape save for a thinner body that could be gripped, popped up in his hands and he passed them to the others. [color=f7941d]“I have no reason to stay but seeing that smug bastard’s face makes a lot of things not sit right with me. You watch yourself.”[/color] [center]++++++++++[/center] [Center][i]The Sprawls, forested region of Caracosa[/i][/Center] [Center] [hider=Current Location Reference] [img]https://i.ibb.co/C0P5Fn3/Very-Mossy-Forest.jpg[/img] [/hider] [/Center] [Center][hider=BGM: Univers Zero - Combat] [youtube]https://youtu.be/NMaPLpuhlvg[/youtube] [/hider][/Center] The appropriately titled Sprawls didn’t get their name for nothing. Moss covered trees bent like the old and the withered, barely maintained paths that stretched off into root-covered dirt piles, and past the treeline and over the edge of the mountain path, a maze of ancient vegetation that in spite of a number of grand craters and massive stretches of scorched forest, still seemed barely affected by the war. They could distantly see the group of APC’s moving up a badly maintained gravel paths, crumbling and dropping down into the treelines far below them, nearing an open area plateau area created by sustained bombing runs. It was impossible to tell where the hostiles were hiding, only that the sheer scope of it would be revealed soon. For the Gnosis Eater team now making their way through the treacherous, misted terrain there were more pressing matters to deal with. They were assigned with finding a Sect base but there was a bit of a problem – they weren’t told how to. It was clear there was an idea of where to look and as far as anyone could be concerned, the base couldn’t have fallen yet. Whatever anyone thought of Gourlan and his team, it was clear they believed that they would be more than capable. He had all the reason to given it was known the Sect only chose the best of the best. If the fungoid’s data was to be correct, their path through the woods would be fairly straightforward – keep moving northwards, remaining parallel to the Dolsilvecs even if they were divided by a treacherous, unknown wall of the wilderness. It wouldn’t be hard to keep track of them. After all, barely a few minutes later and the sound of heavy calibre automatic weaponry and hissing energy weapons could be heard. Flashes of light lit up the woods a few thousand feet away and distant blasts echoed over the staccato argument between dolsilvec and rebel arms. [color=f7941d][/color] The tarrhaidim leader’s voice buzzed over their coms, followed by crackling and a scraping, unpleasant buzz. Those of the Dolsilvecs flashed a mixture of purple, yellow, and white. The rebels blue, green, and orange. Right now, the former were starting to drown the latter as storms of tracers scourged through trees and through distant black shapes, rendering an insurgent weapon silent. Hidden from sight but not from scans, radar, and motion sensors, there was rapid movement just a few hundred metres away. Camo-fatigued forces could be seen moving deep through the faint fog with heavy footsteps and distant shouts – some in English, others in alien tongues. At least ten of them moving northwards along a similar path as Gourlan had outlined the Sect team was supposed to follow. Something was moving with them that wasn’t bipedal – they could hear some kind of mechanized gears whirring and heavier steps being taken, accented with crunching bark and loose soil slogging under its weight. Where exactly they were headed couldn’t be determined, at least not where they stood. Whatever the source of that stomping sound was, it remained unseen as the silhouettes of the guerillas vanished, their footfalls becoming increasingly inaudible. The path forward for now, remained clear, but it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that any hostiles on this side were getting agitated and the mist could only hide one from their site for so long. Further up ahead, where the insurgents had charged out of, the Sect team would be able to see what had seemed like a small camp further up on one of the hills, partially hidden by heavy bush but exposed when they had charged out of it, footsteps easily visible across the leaf-strewn floor. It wasn’t much – a few large rocks gathered around a small fire pit, a series of bio-mesh tents, and what looked like a pile of shells of some sort, snail like and covered in some sort of slimy fluid, next to a small hole in the ground with a shovel next to it. A long-bodied insect, looking something like a spinier ladybug larva, could be seen crawling near the round shells and some sort of ginger-y, pungent smell was coming from the tent. They had left in a hurry – it was clear these ones were caught unexpected by the sudden Dolsilvec advance, but nothing of much worth could be seen here. Any weapons they had were taken with them and it was clear this was just a temporary hide out. More gunshots off in the distance, blasts echoing over the mountains. Buzzing creatures shot off towards the sky, black shapes around the camp’s perimeter, and rustling could be heard all around. The forest was alive and it was clear as the battles grew more heated, the wildlife would grow further agitated. Time was of the essence – Gourlan’s team was heavily armed but there was no telling if it was only gauss guns the rebels had in store. The path they had been travelling on was somewhat more exposed, closer to the edges of the elevated, hilly ground they had seen on the map. Yet another one was visible behind the tents – bushier and overgrown but clearly well used, either by animals or the guerillas. It seemed to head the same way but it didn’t look much easier to navigate, flatter but larger roots could be seen travelling across it with some only partially chopped open or cleared off – a few piles of chipped up wood could be seen. It was less exposed but the problem was that there was no telling what could be hiding in here. After all, soldiers went missing in the Sprawl frequently and everybody knew it couldn’t always be chalked up to covert operators or clandestine engagements.