Captain Archibold Phillips of the HIMS Adama, a small cruiser full of surveillance equipment made its way around the coast south of Mor'os.
The plan was use this primitive land as a base to spy on the Xyraelis, and possibly provide an extraction point for the SSI's man in Gillipoli once his assignment was over. The Xyraelis were to busy with their own problems to notice, and Mor'os, well Cpt. Phillips had strict orders not to fire on any ship of theirs unless fired on first.
"Sir?"
"Yes Harrison?" Phillips replied, looking up from his notes, as his XO Geoffrey Harrison entered his study.
"This just came through. You wanted to be notified the next time something like this was reported?"
"Ah, we got another one?"
"Yes, it would seem."
The captain looked over the report. More villagers blaming jungle demons for the disappearance of livestock and supplies. Reports like this had come across every month. At first no one thought a blasted thing of it, but month after month, an interest developed. Phillips had concluded that this must be the work of bandits. The regularity ruled out wild animals, and jungle demons, well that was nonsense.
Normally bandits stealing supplies of primitive villagers wouldn't be a concern. Yet Imperial Marines sent to the villages reported seeing what sounded like advanced stealth equipment.
If Xyraeli soldiers were about the problem needed to be dealt with.
"Send the marines out, go yourself. Find whoever is behind this. We can't allow our objectives to become compromised."
"Aye sir."
----------------------------------------------------------------
Commander Harrison's boat landed on the beach, an other just behind him.
Harrison, dressed in his navy blue Imperial Navy uniform trimmed in gold lead the Imperial Marines, dressed in khaki Inglo-Scotian battledress trimmed in red into the thick green jungle, easily finding a subtle, but noticeable path.
After an hour's march they found their way to a village. It was the one they wanted, the locals were still trying to clean up the mess the "jungle demons" had made.
The appearance of the white men caused an eerie calm to fall over the village.
"My name" Harrison announced, "is Commander Geoffrey Harrison of the His Majesty's Imperial Navy. I need to speak with who's in charge."
The villagers, non of them completely fluent in Inglish just starred at him. The Adama, however, had been operating in these waters for close to half a year now though, so some locals had picked up the language well enough to communicate.
"Here, I lead this people" a man announced. He didn't fit the stereotype of the typical "savage" chief. He wasn't wearing a huge head dress, or covered in war-paint. It was quite clear, however, that he was in charge.
While most of the locals wore little more then Loincloths and simple shirts he was wearing a multi-coloured robe, his people's ancient patterns stitched into it.
"Can you tell me where this demon one of your people saw was located?" Harrison asked.
"Yes, there" he pointed, across from the goat pen, following Harrison as he and and a Marine specialized in tracking made their way to the area.
"Sir, I think we have a mark. Boot print to be exact."
Harrison bent down to get a closer look.
"Can you identify it?"
"No Sir, it's not of any nationality I recognize, definitely not Xyraeli."
Harrison stood up.
"Thank you" he said to the chief.
"Men, lets move out, we have an unidentifiable soldier or soldiers out there. We've been tasked to find them. They may or may not be enemies of the Empire. Move out."
