Mission 08: Spindrift

[81mm_Mortar_God]

The ground began to shake again causing Karnage, the Marines and crewman to stumble in the mud...

Karnage knew they were between a rock and a hard place....the large creatures with parental protection instincts on one side and the possibility of falling trees from the quake on the other....But the choices and options were limited....

"Keep moving to the trees, we've got to get distance between us the critters."

So the Men all supporting one another moved deeper into the brush and trees and away from the clearing, with as much haste as they could muster in the vibrating and shifting mud....

[Crux]

Fortunately for Karnage and his group the creatures were also distracted with the shuddering ground and paid their retreat little heed. Scittering to circle around her young, the mother sheltered the nest in the underbrush while the father collected the wayward one and dashed back to the nest!

The mud bubbled and boiled with the shockwave, trees crashed to the ground willy nilly... the whole world was awash in chaos!

Up in his tree, Crux clung to its branches tightly waiting for the shuddering to stop. The heavens roared out with thunder that echoed the earth's tantrum. It seemed like the whole planet was tearing itself to bits!

[ntypical]

J'Yan stumbles almost to the point of falling down when the quake hits. But keeps pushing towards the trees with the rest.

[81mm_Mortar_God]

Moving futher into the brush, with trees cracking and the ground trembling, Karnage wondered how long this quake was going to last...

[Crux]

At long last, after what seemed like an eternity, the ground ceased its shaking leaving the only sounds those of the rain, wind, and thunder. There appeared to be no wildlife nearby, or in any portion of the forest following the quake. The group was coming close to the mouth of the gully that Crux had fortified... the first traps hang line dangling down, nothing but a simple vine so it appeared... an ordinary vine draping down from the tree canopy.

[ntypical]

As J'Yan walks forward nearing the gully, his gut starts talking to him. But in his degraded state he ignores it.

One of the crew men walks right to the vine and even uses it to steady himself.

[Crux]

Sitting back in his tree, Crux munched away on a particularly juicy bug. At least the quake had stopped and the forest gully was peaceful... well, at least as peaceful as a thunderstorm gets. Over the patter of the rain his lobes detected something else. Something out of place to the world he had woken in. It was the sound footsteps entering the only logical way they could. Freezing, he waited with a lobe cocked, keenly listening...

Meanwhile the crewman growing weary of a pebble in his shoe, grabbed onto the vine to steady himself as he began to bend over to exile the pestering stone.

"Ok... it's time this little thing took a triiiiiiiiiiiiip....ahhhhhhh!" He was there one moment... crashing out of sight through the canopy the next. The vine had been secured to a rather hefty suspended tree branch after being run through a natural pully system and levered with another springy tree... the end result was a complicated but effective natural trebuchet that flung the crewman far and wide through an obstacle course of leaves and branches. It wasn't long before the scream of shock subsided and only the sound of collisions continued before fading into the rain and thunder once more... in the muck where once he stood remained the shoe with the pebble still inside and a tricorder.

[ntypical]

J'Yan is just about to stop the crewman from doing what he is doing when he quickly vanishes into the sky.

After letting out several loud curses in Klingon, J'Yan growls to his two Marines and the two remaining crewmen. "Go find him, bring him back to the shuttle."

[81mm_Mortar_God]

Karnage cautioned the Marines and crewman...

"Watch every step you take!...Watch for natural tripwires and boobytraps....That could have only been Captain Crux doings, so he is close!"

Karnage took out his Taccorder and scanned the area....For a second he picked up a weak blip about 50 meters away, but then it vanished with a flashed of lightening as a bolt struck a tree nearby and the electricity charging the atmosphere interfered with the signal....

Karnage grunted at J'Yan and pointed and hand signaled a possible contact, its direction and distance, hoping to at least deny Crux of the Intel his superior hearing could give him that they knew ...possibly, where he was...

The two Marines and the crewmen left in the direction the unfortunate crewman had been slung, leaving Karnage, J'Yan and 1 Marine to the task of bringing in the Captain.

[Crux]

Karny need not have been concerned about a sound betraying them... Crux's sensitive hearing was a blessing most times--but currently a bane as the lightening struck nearby rending his senses overpowering! Huddled down in the branches of the tree he rammed his hands over his lobes trying hard not reel from the pain.

The gully before the group looked to be just draped in foliage, however.... between the trio and their prize was a a series of Crux's most simplistically brutal traps. Many vines were attached to trigger devices that employed the natural forces of gravity or potential energy. The first of which was less than a few yards before them, a hefty branch on a hair trigger waiting to let gravity give the 'bat' a swing...

[81mm_Mortar_God]

Karnage looked around in their back trail and found a long freshly fallen tree branch and quickly trimmed the smaller limbs from its length and ended up with a good probing pole approximately 10 feet long...

Then with the pole before him probing the mud and the vines, he nodded at J'Yan and the Marine....

"Don't step anywhere or touch anything I have not probed."

[ntypical]

J'Yan nods weakly at Karnage and follows in line.

In all the rain and wind, a familar smell catches his nose. But as soon as he smells it, its gone.

[Crux]

The prob stick catches a vine and it whips back savagely into the brush taking a tree down with it into the path with an immense crash and splashing muck and mire everywhere.

[81mm_Mortar_God]

Karnage raised his brow slightly at the reaction to his probe touching the vine....

"One down and no telling how many to go..." he muttered under his breath as he continued probing and advancing slowly...

[ntypical]

As the group pushed foreward the maze thickened, and narrowed. But when they came to a wider patch J'Yan stopped and called out for the rest of the group to halt. Something didnt smell right. As a matter of fact something down right stank.

The weakened Klingon warrior pushed past his compatriats and  stopped again. Then threw a broken tree branch at a mud and vine covered patch of the trail, and the branch vanished with a spash. Upon closer inspection it seems that Crux made use of a natural sink hole, partially filled with muck, and lined the bottom with broken branches drenched in his own feces as another trap.

With a smirk J'Yan looks to Karnage and says. "So the little one does read manuals after all."