NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3780155" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 517: Tracks“Tracks, sir,” Rea called out over her shoulder, kneeling down just off to the left of the shuttle’s boarding ramp with her small glowrod held over the ground with her left hand, and blaster pistol still comfortably held in her right.    The Duros commander turned around, as he’d been wandering towards the treeline because he had said he had seen something odd about the trees. But he’d only gotten about halfway there and was now turning around, with his glowrod still facing the trees. Commodore Nok spared one more glance towards the treeline, then looked over to where Adria was kneeling, “Check the trees, Harken.”    With a nod, Adria slipped up to her feet and headed over to where Rulae had been going, while he walked over to Rea and knelt down next to her, inspecting the ground her glowright was held over. He reached out a gloved hand carefully and traced a line that was easy to see from the shadows of the light being held, “Not very big.”    “But heavy,” Rea added as she shifted her weight slightly, trying to ignore the slight chill in the air as it grew into night on Thyferra. When the Commodore sent a curious look in her direction, which was subtle on a Duros’ limited features, but one she’d learned to identify in the short months. Her hand was ungloved, and so the light blue of her skin was a rather sharp contrast to the darkness and the bright light on the green grass. Ignoring this, she motioned to the boot print, “We haven’t left any tracks, ourselves. Even kneeling here, nothing,” she shifted her weight to show move her boot and show the grass straightening there slowly.    Commodore Nok’s thin lips seemed to form a flat line as he thought about something, then he looked outwards to the south, “They keep going.”    Looking up to follow his gaze, Rea could see a faint series of boot prints leading down the tree line. However, immediately, she noticed something odd about them, “There’s at least a meter and a half between each print.”    His eyes narrowing, Rulae got to his feet and began to follow them for a bit. He got a good six meters from Rea before turning and saying over his shoulder, “Two meters between each.”    Slowly, Rea stood up and let her eyes follow the tracks for as far as she could. She couldn’t even see them as far away as Commodore Nok was standing just meters away. The tracks were there, and easy to see in the light, but night on Thyferra was surprisingly dark out away from the cities.    “Commodore,” Adria’s Coruscanti accented voice called out to them and was a sharp contrast to the gentle hum of the shuttle’s floodlights behind them.    His attention divided, Rulae looked to Rea again and motioned to the ground near him, “See if these keep going due south, but don’t get too far. Keep you comlink on.”    “Yes, sir,” Rea nodded, then made sure to check her comm before she started to carefully follow the tracks. All this grass was rather odd to her. Having grown up in the stark caves of Ryloth meant that rocks were her foray, and while she found grass to be rather fascinating, like many Twi’leks that grew up on their homeworld, it was still very, very alien.    In a few short moments, Rulae reached Adria, who was standing almost exactly where he’d been originally moving towards. Her glowrod was facing the trees, and he could clearly see an opening that couldn’t have been natural. It was slightly oval shaped and...    “Looks like the marks that were inside the shuttle,” the human woman waved her glowrod slightly at the opening, allowing Rulae to see a few severed limbs of trees and entire branches that had been cloven in two very cleanly. The ends of the branches and limbs were scattered on the ground at the edge of the forest in a rather random pattern, but they were so cleanly cut that he could see no shards or small splinters...simply the large, cut pieces.    After taking some time to take all of it in, he motioned with a long-fingered hand towards the opening and what little the glowrods revealed of the forest within, “Doesn’t look like it goes very deep.”    “Do you want to...”    “No,” Rulae cut her off, knowing where that was going, “Even with a glowrod and a blaster the forest could be dangerous,” he paused, then glanced over his shoulder to the somewhat distant light of Rea’s glowrod, “And we are separated enough as it is. Come on.”    Though slightly annoyed that she didn’t get to check the forest herself, Adria relented and fell into step behind the taller Duros. They may have been pilots, but this ground work was a somewhat refreshing change from the general starkness of a starfighter cockpit. Of course, it was more exciting in the cockpit...and just following tracks was not Adria’s definition of exciting.    Though both Adria and Rulae were walking at a brisk pace to keep up with Rea’s glowrod, and, hopefully, the Twi’lek that was holding it. But she must have been moving quickly, or gotten far enough ahead that she was well out of actual sight beyond a point of light. How she could follow tracks at such a speed was beyond Rulae and was at least a bit worrying.    And then, in his ear, which Duros did indeed have, though they were small and not like humans, Rulae heard Rea’s voice come in through a bit of static. All their technology and they still couldn’t get rid of the damned static, “Sir...sir you need to get here right now!”    Those words would have two affects on most people. Either they would stop and talk, or run and talk. Military training had instilled in Rulae the latter, and so he gave Adria a quick look to make sure she, too, had heard that. When the red-haired human nodded just slightly, he started to run, hand coming up to the comlink’s ear piece to make sure he could hear her. Hitting a small switch to activate it, he spoke as fast as he could while keeping up a swift run, “Are you alright, Lor?!”    Static filled his ear for a long half a minute, which felt even longer when one was running at a very brisk pace and worried about what might be happening at the small light that was, finally, growing in the distance. Then, almost suddenly, Rea’s voice cut through the static of the open comm channel, “I’m fine, sir...but I found a body and I think she’s dead.”</blockquote>

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