Kovacs felt excited, and he had whistled some old folk tunes during the march. As the march had progressed, though, he had stopped whistling around the halfway, as they had approached the area. He was used to trekking and long walks with weighty backpacks, but the march felt to last forever. 21 kilometres was a long way to trek without many stops. As they stopped for a bit longer pause, Kovacs took off his boots and checked quickly for blisters. He had developed a few during training, and one had infected during the first weeks, but it had been nothing serious. Painful to walk with, but tolerable.

Kovacs didn't have much in the way of explosives, which was nice. Of course, he only had a couple claymores and lots of wire, but carrying more by yourself was a pain in the ass. Beside his carbine, Cadian uniform and gear, bedroll and food, he didn't have much else. Kovacs had bought a few civilian wool socks from the locals, as they were much better than the Guard issued "socks". Wool was the king of materials when it came to socks.

He put his boots back and went to find a couple long, thick and sturdy branches. It had been a good few hours since he had relieved himself. Kovacs tied the branches between two trees with the wire and dug a hole beneath the "toilet". He went to the squad and said to them "I've made a lath over there. Use it when you can."

Friedrich looked at his officer, and he pressed his lips together, "Honestly... with everything I know about this situation we are going into I would try avoiding it. But since we are purely infantry we have the best bet inside that forest. Most of those here are green and inside the forest it will rifle them with fear, I would suspect that we will have at least one false engagement before we make contact with who ever ambushed those who went in before us."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he took a knee, "Since we are going in there I would have one squad stay outside or on the outskirts of the forest or somewhere nearby that we can use as a point of operation. I suspect that our vox will be dead inside the forest so we would have to use runners in there... who ever takes that job will most likely be dead before the morning if they are not well supported."

Friedrich looked down at at the rocks and sighed deeply, "We are fighting enemies that are most likely going to act like we do with our tactics as light infantry, only difference is that they know the landscape better then we do... So I am sure we can make short work and find a good foothold before we continue on. If we keep our flanks well secured and a decent supply line for information into the forest held. I am sure that we can relieve what is left of those poor souls before us."

The Unteroffizier stood once more and smiled, "Or we are playing with an enemy well out of our reach and will be slaughtered like those before us. We are good in mountains and the pined forests of our homeworld... this forest doesn't have trees that have been trimmed from the neck down in uniform like ours are in our training ground."

Hasenkamp took off his cap momentarily, wiping one hand over the sweat-slicked hairline and squinting at the trees below. With something of a sigh, and acknowledging the Sergeants advice with a curt smile and nod of his head, the Second-Lieutenant raised his monocular to his eye and took a moment more before giving another nod.

"Richtig..."

Turning to glance quickly at his platoon, Hasenkamp lifted his voice enough to be heard, but not enough for anyone positioned within the trees to hear.

"I will take a team into the woods and recon, the remainder of the platoon will remain at the treeline should we need to be reinforced or extracted."

Leisurely replacing his cap he took a half-squat position and threw out names.

"With me - Sergeant Baumeister, Corporal Kovacs, Operator Mehl, and Jägers Varren, Ivers, Heinrich, Müller, Aafje, Běla and Dolph."

The remainder of the platoon was seperated off, equal numbers of under-officers and two vox operators left with the 'back up' section, as the Lieutenant rose back to his feet and bid his recon team follow.

---

---

The forest wasn't all that thick in trees, but it was layered in moss and the footing was generally uneven wherever one stepped, so a serious caution and general slowness was required by the advancing infantry squad as they honed in on the source of the recieved distress call.

As they drew closer the scenes of battle became all that more obvious - debris of war strewn through the bush in the form of flak armour, weapons, patches of blood as well as hefty plumes of oily smoke rising in the distance - there was thus far no sound of conflict, no cracks of las-rounds and no screams of death.

"Form up, single line, weapons primed."

Hasenkamp hissed the order to those following as he drew out his laspistol and chainsword from its sheath at his hip, drawing his long stride down to a half-walk even as his heartbeat began to quicken in his ears, and his breath matched that rythmn.

What greeted them as they made their way to the edge of the clearing was a rather quizzical scene. Yes, there were a number of Chimera APCs that had been gutted by heavy-calibre weapons, and yes there were obvious signs of battle... but there were no bodies, not of the attackers nor of the Vanquishers.

From the number of transports there must have been at least a couple of hundred Faeburners in situ to their new position, arranged in a standard column but unlikely to have sent out any flankers.

Taken unawares in a foreign land, by a force unknown, they had doubtless stood little chance.

"Spread out but keep within visual, see if you can find anything."

Kovacs had his lascarbine primed. He kept the safety on, but he was ready to shoot at half a second's notice, as they walked through the woods. He was near Hasenkamp, who sounded a bit nervous. Kovacs examined the grounds. He feared that there might be booby traps left behind. Grenades without pins, claymores ready to explode and mines just below the ground, all primed to explode with simple tripwires or pronged beneath equipment. If he had destroyed an unit in a remote location and had time to prepare, he would have left "surprises" behind. The enemy clearly had had time - they had clearly taken the corpses of the fallen.

"Be careful what you touch. Anything can be booby trapped", he reminded the squad. "Evacuation from here would be a bitch."