Buddy The Recon Droid

8.3.5 SW
Late Morning SW-CP-Local Time
North Matron’s Coast > Comms Oupost 1

Driving out to Comms 1 Outpost, the Marshal found the body of the Cervine Fox. The carcass had exploded from inside and he was sure that if the rain hadn't washed the corpse clean over the past several days there would have been blood everywhere. It was strange that no other animals had tried to eat the carrion. Either way, the sight was not encouraging for his search, instead it left him feeling more nervous than before. This was really starting to look ridiculously similar to what happened on the Cronus. In reality it had been a couple of weeks but to the Marshal, that felt like a few days ago, mostly due to being asleep in cryo.

"This corpse doesn't explain much but if I'm right... and I hope I'm not. This animal birthed something else... involuntarily by the look of it. A parasite... And my guess is whatever it was found the boy..." said the Marshal.

"Parasite?"

The Marshal waved the thought aside, "Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet."

"I'll scan the area with my recon droid." offered Gauss.

The Marshal agreed and after Gauss took photos of the scene and the Marshal recorded his findings, they activated the droid and it whirred to life.

"Morning, buddy." Gauss said to the droid happily.

Buddy buzzed back with a friendly tone. ...Good morning, Rico...

Then the two-wheeled machine spun around on its own, scouting the area with its bulbous eye.

"He has a fully functional AI system onboard, high tech cameras, he can scan in infrared, nightvision, as well as more advanced light spectra. Buddy can also detect traces of chemicals, blood, and list of other programmable things." Gauss informed the Marshal.

"Great." said the Marshal coldly. "No offense, but where the hell was this thing yesterday?"

"Still charging... after some minor repairs. Aaaand... well... as you can see... he doesn't do so well in the mud."

"Right..."

Officer Gauss picked up Buddy from the sunken wet ground and shook the mud off. He held the bot, rotating it around so that it could scan the area.

"See what you can find, Buddy. We are looking for blood or tracks."