You're investigating sheep.
Well, technically you're pursuing a stolen agrimech but for all intents and purposes you are pursuing stolen and murdered sheep.
It's a poor explanation for why two trucks full of crack soldiers have been put on the case, mind. Even if 'full' is a bit of a misnomer, for with Second at half strength and Fourth off helping the MPs the trucks are downright roomy. About thirty men across two cabs and truck beds meant for something closer to sixty.
Bilal's driving your truck, and you're up front with him. Nefer Zaki is driving the other, with Turgut riding up front.The Kianid seaside rolls by to your left, all woody cliffs and rocky beaches. To your right trees rise and dip with the rolling of hills and the gentle rumbling of the truck, restricting your view of the woods.
Bilal's a far better driver than Zaki and it shows. You can see the poor boy's truck jump and rattle as it rides over a road meant for horses, and periodically you're forced to slow and wait for Zaki to catch up. It is one of these times, engine idling, that you see the harvest-walker trundle into view.
It's small as walkers go, maybe twelve feet of steel and iron. Dark smoke belches from its roof, and canvas is wrapped around much of the torso and back. It drags a trailer loaded high with logs behind it, and its brass arms are mismatched. A large claw and a set of saws of different sizes and shape, both visibly newer than the rest of the lumbering thing. Bilal chuckles as it begins to cut into a tree, and turns to you.
"You know, sir," he says, "I used to drive one of those as a boy." You merely raise an eyebrow and wait for him to continue. "That thing must've been a Qaf mining walker, twenty years back. Jockeyed them for five years when they first rolled off the lines. Metal gleaming in the sun. Calligraphy and frescoes stitched across the canvas. Filled with smoke and sweat quick, but you barely cared. Cause it was you and a buddy, and the sun reflecting off the emerald mountain while you worked. This, just, this joy in being half-delirious and horribly dehydrated, dragging blocks of emerald and jugs of Nar behind you."
"It sounds incredible," you lie, for the description brings to mind memories of the acrid stench of smoke and burning flesh in your lungs. Dying men in molten coffins and the screams a flamethrower elicits from even the most valiant soldiers. But you never understood walker jockeys, and so see no reason to make an issue of it, "Why leave?"
He looks out the window as the old mech begins to lever the severed tree trunk into its trailer. "No glory in it. The scots wanted mech pilots, and they offered money, glory, and dead franks," he lies, "And I had more experience than their best. What more could a kid ask for?"
The rest of the ride passes in relative silence. It takes you little more than an hour to get your first glimpse of the victimized farm, a great stretch of cleared land and rickety fencing that smells strongly of sheep droppings. You soon turn down an isolated road, better paved than the one you had come down, and soon begin to see sheep and goats wandering the meadows and the silhouette of a large house rise over the next hill.
The farm itself is modest, but the farmhouse must be ancient. It's three stories tall, worked stone and polished wood in some old bulgar style in a pointed clash with its more grounded surroundings. It is dilapidated now, but once the family that lived here must have been quite rich. A few buildings and storehouses are scattered across the land around the farmhouse, as well as a garage that appears to have had a ragged gash ripped through its roof. You imagine the Walker was stored there, once.
You pull up in front of the farmhouse and Zaki's truck jerks to a stop behind you. The great double doors open, a tall, gaunt man emerging from within. He supports himself with a cane, and a wispywhispy grey beard droops from his face. You hop out of the truck with a Salaam and a smile, striding over as quickly as you can.
"Mulazim Yousuf Oziri," you say, "Napoleonic First Artillery. I'm here about your walker."
The man glances at the two troop trucks full of men behind you, then gives you a quizzical look. "Thank you for coming, Sir Yousuf," he says, "But I had imagined this a matter for the police?"
"I'm afraid I am as confused as you are, sir," you lie, "But I assure you we will act with all the professionalism of a police investigation."
There's a scene of quiet mulling. A small boy pokes his head out the door, clearly the man's grandson, or perhaps even great grandson, and the farmer turns back and gestures furiously for him to get back inside. Someone pulls them in, then closes the door and the farmer gives a pointed glance towards your sidearm. "As you say, sir," he says, "How might I help?"
"A name, for our report, and a description of last night's events," you say, "You'd mentioned previous incidents?"
The man gives you an odd look, stone silent, before breaking into a quiet chuckle. "I apologize, Officer," he says, "I am Radu. I had, and I pray you forgive me, thought you were here to rob me!"
"Are things that bad?" you ask. You lean in, smile, eyes, posture, all tailored by years of experience to get him to open up just a little bit more. Trust you as a possibly sympathetic ear instead of a potentially murderous soldier. It's an approach you've had some experience with. Years of listening to the recounting of some atrocity, act of violence, ancient trauma, or mere stroke of bad luck. It's a skill you'd practiced long before you entered the army and you imagine that it's one that will serve you well when the war finally ends.
He is hesitant to answer, and when he does he speaks slowly, picking his words as he goes. "I did not think so, Officer," he says, "Not until last night, but I am a rich, Christian, Bulgar and there are poor, Muslim, Turks about." Your reaction seems to reassure him, and his explanation becomes less circumspect as he continues.
"Dumb boys from Crapets, mostly," explains Radu, "They come over in the night, cut a fence, push over a goat, maybe steal a sheep or shear dirty words into its fur. Little things. Occasionally the idiot detectives from the Tap would shoot some animals for sport, and less often still they would refuse to recompense me for it. But the new Detectives are better, and they haven't hurt anyone or stolen anything serious before."
"There's a Qaf Tap near here?" you ask.
"Another mile down the road. One of Mahmud Pasha's," he says, "The workers are good people. Local. But the Detectives are not. There have been new ones, recently. Haven't shot any sheep yet, but I don't trust them, they are…" He looks past you, gesturing subtly at Bilal.
You resist the urge to roll your eyes and instead ask him to elaborate..
And elaborate he does. Tensions have been getting worse recently, there's a Young Turk chapter in Crapets now, and there have been fights of late. Slogans have been getting angrier, graffiti crueler. He thought it would pass, but late last night one of his servants awoke him, said she heard something going on with the garage. He had thought it was his son, tinkering with the thing again in the night, and simply told everyone to go back to bed. They only actually got up when they heard screaming sheep, and got out to see the garage ripped open, several sheep trod upon, and others missing. He'd had to shoot two of them to put them out of their misery, for their spines were broken by the thing.
You thank him for his time and let him go inside as you and your men take a look at the scene of the crime. The tracks are obvious, they're hours old and probably of less use as they go into the woods, but they're at least relatively fresh. And if the pilot was particularly inexperienced, say, a drunken seventeen year old, it's entirely possible that you have a good trail.
On the other hand, you'd have to ditch the Trucks. Crapets isn't far, you could ride into town and use your numbers to split up and assess the situation. Might step on Third Platoon's toes as they investigate the missing teenagers, but it's entirely possible that your cases are related. You've joyridden a motorboat as a dumb teenager trying to impress your fiance, why wouldn't some other teenager joyride an agri-walker?
The Qaf Tap is another possibility. Since the Detectives are armed you may want to make contact in case you need to conscript them later. In addition, a stolen walker's going to need a supply of Qaf emerald and Nar sooner or later. Hell, it's close enough that there may even be witnesses. Or maybe the new detectives thought a new Walker would be a better use of their time than shooting up some sheep.
Where to?
[ ] Follow those tracks into the wood. If they're not a particularly good pilot, they may have left a trail for you to follow. [You must leave the Trucks at the farmhouse, they can't go offroad]
[ ] Head to Crapets. There may be some clue as to who's been sheep-rustling and who might feasibly have stolen and hidden a Walker. You may also learn something about the rising tensions.
[ ] Check out the Qaf tap in the woods. The staff may be your best shot at a direct witness to whatever the hell happened.
