When the Vandals prepared the gear for the exploration party, they put some thought in maintaining contact. The large amount of interference made it impractical to receive wireless signals from more than a few kilometers away, so the only way to remain in contact was to use a physical medium.
Chief Dakkon and a handful of other engineers designed a small spider bot. It was as small as someone's palm and could traverse over very steep angles, though speed was not its forte. Even though they should be somewhat resilient against the breakdown effect, in truth they were just cheap bots designed to be as small and cheap as possible while still capable of navigating through the rough terrain.
No matter. The Vandals produced thousands of them in short notice and packed them up in crates that held hundreds of them at a time. They took up very little space when folded up, so the fast transports could easily carry them all.
