Vague Tracks

Joint post with Red_sword7

7.3.5 SW
Evening SW-CP-Local Time
Ghost Forest

Gauss and Roberts, donning rain ponchos, searched the area east of the crates. The tracker took them eastward uphill in a straight path with little trouble. James Lombard's personal comm device was still active, laying beneath the ferns in the wet earth. The Marshal picked it up and pocketed it before spotting extremely vague animal tracks and what appeared to be drag marks leading further southeast.

Following this new lead, he discovered a few shreds of cloth, probably from the boy's jacket. It had been a 15 minute trek into the forest; the sky was growing darker as they hurried after the tracks.
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"~tzzt~ Red to Wolfhound 6, no sign of the boy here... ~tzzt~ just a dead animal. ~tzzt~ Gonna head back to the APC. Red out. ~tzzt~"

On the way down the muddy hill, Greg Sargent nearly lost his footing, sending him sliding down to the rocks at the base. He was a little shaken and fairly covered in mud, but otherwise unharmed.

"God damn it." he said shaking his head and the sludge from his rifle.
Lightning flashed close by, making him twitchy, knowing the boom would be a big one. This weather was making him nervous.
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BOOM! Rumble rumble rumble...
It was no good. The rain was falling in torrents, there was no clear path through the undergrowth and had the storm had severely muddied up the ground. Continuing forward was inadvisable. These woods were full of dangerous wildlife, some unknown. If they headed straight they would eventually leave the woods and come across fields leading back toward the airfield area.

Roberts did not want to leave too far from the area; the crates worried him. He decided they should head back to the truck.

The Marshal keyed his radio, and there was some static. "Wolfhound to Red. We recovered the device but the trail's gone cold. We are coming back to the truck."

After another 15 minutes, they returned to the crates. Red and Blue pulled up in the APC.

The thunder continued to rumble and boom overhead and rain pelted the trees around them. The Marshal spoke loudly to his assemble team over the rain, "We need to keep an eye on these crates for now! I don't want to take them into the colony! Do you have any remote cameras?!"

"Sure! Got some cameras in the recon kits! Night vision capabilities!" said Blue.

Officer Gauss agreed, "Yeah, we can set up some IR lights and trigger the cameras when they detect movement."

"Ok! Hide them if you can. In case someone tries to come back for the crates!"

Roberts headed for the Lotus gyrocar as Blue and Gauss setup the surveillance.