Somewhat reluctant about the hatch, and a bit lost when it came to how things were transpiring at that moment, Camilla wasn’t about to let Tanya head off without her. -Up with her riffle (maybe catch up an axe or or a spade if there's one to be had?), she shimmied along the line of seats before clambering out the hatch after them..  Though if anything happened to the vehicle, her pack was going to be hard to go get..

She scooted along behind them, tucking in close to the outcropping above, and rounded the corner. Mostly she was back peddling, keeping an eye on their back and up, though occasionally panning out over the drop-off. Ashton wasn’t really fond of being out in the open..  And one of her concerns was for how stable the earth was on the high side. Rockslide wasn’t a fun prospect either.

The bright side was the blessed cool taste of fresh air..  When they got around the bend and closer to where Smith was, she’d probably focus on up  and straight ahead past the fallen obstruction. Though dependant upon the situation those plans might change.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:15, Sat 16 Dec 2006.

Tanya and Sebastian approach the fallen tree with Cam in tow while everyone else takes cover and provides security. A pick and shovel over Cam's shoulder and a fairly extensive demolitions kit weigh the three down a little but it still only takes a couple of minutes to cross the distance between vehicles.

A few minutes later and the three have assessed the problem. At least an hours work would be required to dig out the roots enough to allow the two foot thick tree to be towed out of the way, or a little over a kilo of explosives properly placed and tamped. Option two will take approximately 5-10 minutes to prepare with three working on it.

Either option will still require moving the tree trunk with a vehicle - there's simply not enough plastic explosives available to do the job by itself but certainly enough to sever the trunk.

Although you have a number of shovels, picks and mattocks, there is not one axe, saw or other cutting tool of note amongst your supplies. Times like this a chainsaw would be very handy...

  Katka slowly rises, rubbing the back of her neck with a yawn and a back stretch. She cranks open and close the firing ports on both sides to see whats out there before popping her head out of the port roof hatch to scan the countryside above.

Camilla paused inside the defensive perimeter, glancing to her companions as she eased the tools from her shoulder and stared grimly at their wooden foe..  Her blue eyes trailed the length of the tree, up the wall it was protruding from and then across the ground in front of her.. A glance was spared toward the vehicle that was closest.. before returning her gaze to Sebastian and Tanya..  “What you think?..”, It was a rather lukewarm question, her lips drawn into a small frown..

Exposed as it was, and considering the rain the night before, she doubted her cursory glance would glean any tracks, if there were even any involved..  The Danish Lieutenant didn’t relish the notion of digging in this place, mud as distasteful as it was would have been preferable when compared to the stony patch of earth they were treading upon.. Ironicaly while it might be unfun for digging, it was better for driving over..
This message was last edited by the player at 21:06, Sun 17 Dec 2006.

Don takes the chance stretching out when people rise and walks out.

The painkillers kick in, and he thinks about thanking the dock but doesn't have the time before he falls asleep.

Sebastian was frowing too, thinking about how much of his small stock of explosives would be needed to reduce the large trunk into more manageable chunks. He was loth to part with any of it. With every reduction in his supply of explosives, his usefulness to the party would diminish also. As just one more mouth to feed, he could soon find himself sitting alone on the roadside with his thumb out.

Am I being too paranoid, here? Probably. Still, one way or another, explosives may come in handy further down the road...

"Well, it looks like one kilo of C4 would do the trick; less if we could bore a decent sized hole in the wood for placing the charge. So, it appears to be a question of time. How long do we want to stay here... like this." he said, looking back at the bottleneck on the high, exposed roadway.

Virgil popped open the hatch above his head and surveyed the area. With a cliff rising to the left and stream in the right, it wasn't as if they had many options. Even turning around wouldn't help much, they were short enough on ethanol as it was.
"I don't think it's an ambush or we'd be in the shit by now."
Retrieving his rifle from within the BRDM-2, he sighted up the cliff.
"Anyone able to climb up there and take a look around? We've got some ropes and might be able to find something for spikes."

Corrigan had dismounted when everyone else started moving, and almost knew what Sebastien was thinking, losing some of his precious explosives would enable them to move forward, but reduce their effectiveness, and possibly his usefulness though Corrigan could never allow another member to be left at the mercies of the enemy, further down the line...

Still, combat engineering wasn't his forte', time to start doing what he did best, plain soldiering. Moving with the RPK to whatever cover he could find he heard Matterson's suggestion and nodded silently to himself, that would be a good course of action to take for someone and considering they had been all in the vehicles and sitting targets for a number of moments before everyone dismounted, the thought that it might not be an ambush was also fair, better to hit the vehicles before everyone gets out if you want to eliminate the party...

Although, with us dismounted they can use anti-personnel weapons and leave the vehicles intact... he thought to himself and shook his head slightly, "Don't be too sure on that score, Virgil, maybe they want us dead and the vehicles good to go, what better way than to wait for us all to dismount?"  The thought made him scowl, and after a moment he spoke up again, "Someone take up a rear watch position, make sure there's no one tagging along behind us that can trap us here, I'll scout ahead of the obstacle and see what's further on..." he said and moved forwards with the small group checking out the tree, but rather than stop this side of the obstacle he moved past, checking for traps first he made his way over the tree and continued cautiously, advancing a little ways...

His gaze swept the landscape around them, the RPK following everywhere he looked as he took up an advance watch position, scouting ahead of them, hoping someone had the presence of mind to follow his order and do the same to the rear...

"no forget let Major know..",(only if he isn't already there) Camilla’s attention shifted slightly as Corrigan approached.. Pale, though her gaze was, she did follow his course a moment before her lips began to work again.. “Andy no alone.  One go with.”  Her thoughts on the situation had shifted slightly, especially if this wasn’t an ambush..  Ashton wondered at how far the echo might travel if they had to blow the thing..

Unless the SAS man selected someone from the detail, she made ready to tag along, or volunteer someone for the task.

He had paused slightly in his movement when Camilla spoke up and with a slight smile he nodded, speaking as he walked "Come along if you want, Cam..." he said, before continuing to the tree, preforming his check for traps, and cautiously making his way a little further up the road...

Having come to her senses at some point.. And realizing that she was close enough to catch part of Virgil’s questioning as well as considering Andy’s invite at her own insistences..  Camilla tilted her head slightly under the weight of the clunky helmet, and  jut a thumb toward herself, managing a mild response.. “know some climb…”, the woman struggled with the words, “I climb.” She left it on the Table at their discretion..

Brooks left the engine on the BRDM running as he climbed out of the drivers seat and stood up looking out of the hatch behind his seat. He glanced about the area and once he figured out they were up to something at the tree and noticing Sebastian digging around his kit bag he checked behind him for room to back up, just in case. Ducking inside he vehicle he reached over and shut the engine down then sat back down in the driver's seat watching the folks at the tree.

Choosing not to snap her neck anytime soon, as she was really an amateur when it came to climbing, Ashton shrugged apologetically and strolled after Corrigan. The Lieutenant was careful to give him space.. and used her rifle to provide whatever meager cover she could afford the soldier.  Cam had some rudimentary tracking skills, if the situation allowed, and  would peer past Andy occasionally for any ground signs..  Though mostly she wanted to free him up to do his thing and act as a second set of eyes.

Tanya sat in a squated position looking at the tree on what would be the easiest and time efficient way to move the tree and get off this road. "C-4's probably the easiest way out of this Sebastian.  I think we've got an AT grenade in there as well that might help in some way but, we're going to have to drill this out and get the charge and or the grenade in there for wither of them to be any good.  You want to check with my Major to see how he wants us to proceed?"

The options are fairly simple.
1) Use explosives to cut the log from it's roots - big loud noise
2) Burn it taking all day and creating a plume of smoke
3) Build up rocks and logs either side of it to allow the vehicles to climb over it - quicker than burning but still time consuming
4) Try cutting through with the unsuited tools you have (mattock, pick, etc)
5) Give up and try another route

If you choose explosives, there are basically two ways of doing it - a simple cutting charge which will need at least half the available explosives or drilling a hole into the trunk somehow which will reduce the required explosives to about half a kilo.
Around the area all seems quiet. Bird chirp and animals scurry through the brush. Beside the road the stream babbles as the clear water runs over smooth rocks. Up ahead where Andy and Cam are heading, no signs of trouble are apparent. Cam does spot horse tracks on the side of the road - a day or two old perhaps and heading back the way you came.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:03, Wed 20 Dec 2006.

Bernhard has been watching back the way they came when he hears his rank mentioned. Turning, he looks at those around him to make sure they see him leaving his position, and heads forward to the obstruction. "I don't care about the specifics, just blow this thing ASAP. I don't like sitting around here. The faster you can blow it out of the ground the sooner we are back on the move. If you're worried about supplies, we can try to get more explosives in Krakow."

"Well, I can do that. OK, let's get to work."

If no one objects (especially Tanya since she also seems to have combat engineering experience) Sebastian fashions a 1 kilo block charge of C4 (he'd kiss it goodbye if he didn't know how toxic it was), fitting the appropriate blasting caps and time fuse, and affixing the resulting device on a part of the tree that appears relatively weak. He's also sure to pick a spot up away from the road. He'd hate to clear the tree only to create a crater obstacle instead. As he's about to finish, he suggests,

"Someone ought to tell Andy and, er, Cam, is it? This thing is going to send wood splinters flying all over."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 01:57, Wed 20 Dec 2006.

With Tanya's expert assistance, the charge is soon placed and covered in mud from the stream. Although the one kilogram charge is relatively tiny, calculations show that it should be sufficient for the job, if only by the barest of margins.
Warnings are issued to take cover and Sebastian lights the fuze. A minute later (minimum time to take cover safely) and a tremendous BOOM fills the valley, right on time down to the second. As the roar dissapates, the sound of small rocks can be heard trickling down form the cliff where they were shaken loose. Dust settles shortly after and shows the log to have been sliced neatly (for explosives) from it's roots and ready to be dragged from the roadway.

  Katka looks around after the explosion, shakes her head and moves to sit back down in her seat.

Don wakes up immediately at the boom goes off.

He tries to sit up, but gets dizzy again, falling down to the seat again. When he understands it is themselves that has nuked the tree, he groans again.

"Marvellous. That should have gotten all ambushers in the valley up and going. I really hope noone drops a grenade into this tin. I'll be toast in my condition. The really bad thing is that we don't have anyone as charming as myself to chat with the blokes that probably shows up."

"On the other hand, they might be friendlier if the girls shows some leg, I guess"

Not even opening his eyes during his monologue he makes a smile after his nice joke.

"I know I would, hehe"

Before the call went out to take cover, Cam reached up tapping Andy on the shoulder angling the barrel of her weapon toward the horse signs..  She imagined they might be tracks from the group that had told them about the pass to begin with, but felt it could be important.

When they set to blast the stubborn trunk from the path, Lieutenant Ashton huddled up tucked in and low.. Against the wall seemed alright to her, even if stones rained down it was preferable to a chance plunge off the other side. She hoped being very tight to the wall would mean that most of the debris went skipping off the various handholds and lumps above her..

Blue- nearly gray eyes blinked open as she peered out over the land they would be crossing.  There was a dull ache in her gut that seemed to tighten with the echoing clap that resounded. It was that or spend more time immobile.. A tough call, and she wasn’t one for second guessing after the fact. For good, or ill, they would be able to move forward without much delay.. And oooh how her head throbbed..

Corrigan had also noticed the horse tracks but having Cam draw his attention to them as well made him feel better about having her with him, whatever trauma she had gone through she was still alert and capable...  At the warning he motioned to Cam to come with him and take cover as best they could at the edge of the roadway, his senses on high alert knowing that even if there weren't anyone waiting to ambush them, the sound of the explosion would draw anyone around like flies to something sweet...  Or rotting...

The controlled explosion seemed to have done the job from what he could see glancing back, but now was the time to be more alert than ever and, moving forwards a little further to try and give the group back at the vehicles as much notice as he could if someone did attack along the road, he settled into cover and watched the roadway and the surrounding area, especially above the group at the vehicles, like a hawk, the RPK tracking the sweep of his gaze...

"Cam, take cover and watch the roadway, I'll watch the cliff, even if there wasn't anyone around before, that explosion will draw company..." he said in a soft whisper, though loud enough for her to hear.  He again hoped that someone was watching behind the vehicles back the way they had come...

Deciding not to leave the vehicles too far, michelle took up a position in the rear of the vehicles, watching the route they had just come from, hand resting lightly on her weapon. deep inside she hoped ot wasn't a trap, and they could at least spend a day not running or fighting for thier lives. Sighing, she winced slightly as the explosives went off. Well, if there was anyone out there that was a surefire way to get there attention. She sighed and kept her attention on the road behind them.

Double checking their calculations, Tanya gives the signal for everyone to take cover and moves back to a safe distance with Sebastian.  She gives him a nod when she's set and let's him have the honors.  "FIRE IN THE HOLE," she yells out before covering her head with her hands and going to the ground prone (or behind an object).

When the blast comes, she waits about five seconds to see the results of a successful detonation.  She smiles and taps Sebastian on the shoulder, "Good work Sebastian!  Let's get the vehicles in here and get this tree off the road and get the hell out of here"  Tanya waves back to the vehicles and gives a 'thumbs up' to those watching.  She begins to walk back to the remains of the tree.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:44, Fri 22 Dec 2006.

Sebastian uncovers his head and peers into the smoke ahead. The charge seemed to have severed the tree quite nicely, with little apparent damage to the roadway. Slinging his demo pack- now a kilo lighter- and his Uzi, he followed Tanya to the remains of the tree. The massive trunk still lay across the road, however, it was now in two more manageable halves. A nice piece of work by any standards.

"Well done, Sgt. Redgrave. A very fine piece of work." He reached out to offer a congratulatory handshake.

"Now, we will need some strong ropes or chains. Shall we begin?"