Silverwind's GEAR gave a thumbs up to Edward and the others in the ATCV, before the machine leaned to the left on its' foot-wheels, gesturing to Mike and Kuraiko's GEARs to follow suit with hand-signals as the one-eyed fox veered off and headed for the small and seemingly abandoned settlement marked as one of the possible hostile locations. 

As the GEARs left the vehicle behind, Silverwind intiated a laser-com between the three of them, glancing at the C3i display as he did.
"Prowler, once we're within a closer distance, move on ahead. Scout out and see if there's anything in the settlement giving a clear sign of the enemies' presence. If you do see any hostiles, engage to disable their rear area and infrastructure. Aihara, stick with me and we'll push up the middle using the buildings as cover. If we see hostiles, we engage to withdraw and wait for the others to arrive before committing to a battle."

The buildings resolved themselves from the afternoon heat-haze; a collection of white-washed buildings of only a few storeys each, mixed with a handful of generic municipal and business buildings. All of them looked ramshackle and weathered, with no glazing in the windows and once cheerful red-tiled roofs that had scattered their tiles across the ground, or lost them to the elements.

Meanwhile, the trio of Landcrawlers loomed large in the landscape. The orange-toned wheeled vehicles were somewhat less monolithic and imposing than the land-leviathans of Landcruisers, but still looked like mobile landscape features, and were impressive in size, dwarfing the ATCV, and twice the height of a GEAR. 
All three stood silent and motionless, bearing the scars of the hostile incident that had resulted in the Roughriders being called out. Blast patterns and carbon-scoring decorated their hulls, and empty casings from shells were scattered liberally around the area. Debris and random items spread out in a halo from the vehicles; personal effect, empty crates and the like. 
It was scarily still, with barely a sound carried on the wind, and the doors to the insides of the cavernous vehicles standing open.

Up slope at the Copper Mine where Adrian and Aiden had moved into position, the sniper scope revealed little of note. The mine, formerly sealed off with a grated gate, had been opened up. Tools and machinery were scattered around the entrance, but all were heavily rusted and weathered from years of exposure to the Badlands climate, Spoil-heaps and discarded containers and crates littered the ground, with the mine entrance itself a dark, gloomy opening wide and tall enough for a GEAR to enter with ease. Indeed, a half-salvaged mining GEAR lounged on the ground against one side of the upper slope, sat on its' behind with legs sprawled and one arm resting on a knee. Covers and access panels had been removed, and the UHD batteries and much of the electrical systems had clearly been picked clean.