The team had a discussion, and agreed that it was almost time to move on – they needed a paying job to replenish the coffers, and to keep their name out there "on the scene". With that in mind, they agreed that they'd start to tidy up loose ends and get ready to move out when they were all ready. After a good night's sleep, they team started to get ready.
Tads took Shimazu and Kai with her, and went to visit the mortuary to recover the two halves of the giant owl carcass. Under the curious eye of the mortuary attendant, she spent the day painstakingly working through the corpse looking for the ideal parts to take. Neither Shimazu nor Kai were adept at spotting the right parts, and Tads tried her best to teach them what she was looking for – but without great success. She did manage to find a number of feathers in pristine condition though, along with a claw from one talon and a false ear that seemed to hold magical potential.
Marius and Nadia continued to work on their helicopter – it was able to fly ok, but the craft was obviously aged and worn. It was getting harder and harder to scavenge any parts from the graveyard that were any better in quality that what they had, and they were having to scrounge or fabricate parts from scratch from materials on the base. After a day's work, they were able to improve the creature comforts somewhat, and get the tiny chemical toilet working ok, patch up the seats and replace the missing padding and replace the five point harnesses that were looking somewhat dubious.
Aswon chatted with the base snipers a little more, continuing to get to know them, and trying to strike up a friendship with them. Later in the day, he went to see the base armourers, chatting with them about ammunition availability for his big rifle. Chambered for a slightly shorter round than was normal for the Russian weapons, they had nothing in stock that he could use. The NCO in charge of the armoury tapped the side of his nose though, and told Aswon to come back later on.
Returning later in the evening, he found three boxes of ammo put to one side for him – the results of an afternoon's work on the lathe and the other various tools in the armoury. Aswon slid one of the monster bullets out of the magazine and examined it closely, noting the coloured tip.
"We cut down the rear end, and then refitted the primer, so the necking and the actual round were not touched – they should be nice and accurate. We also reloaded with E23, so it'll burn a little faster and give you more initial velocity on the shot. I figure the extra recoil isn't going to bother you too much on the size of rifle you're putting them in."
"Thank you – I appreciate it. What are they loaded with? I'm not familiar with your colour coding?"
"Oh, right. Well, like I said the propellant is E23 now, so you should get a nice flat trajectory on firing out to a good few hundred metres. The round is a fragmenting lead-based tip with an impact fuse into a few grams of DX-IV explosive. When you hit something hard enough, the fuse will trigger the explosive, and that in turn is designed to shatter the round and force it out into roughly star-shaped blast pattern." As he talked, he described the explosive blast radius with his hands, making Aswon's eyes widen a little – this DX-IV was obviously potent stuff, whatever it was, and he made a mental note to make sure the rounds were well padded and looked after. He certainly didn't want a ten round mag exploding in the truck or on his person, that was for sure. By the sounds of things, this was as violent as the commercial "Baddaboom" rounds made by Combat Inc, famed for their handgun ammo – to the point where their marketing team had coined the slogan "we put the EXtra into EXplosive!" On a round this size, that gave him enough stopping power to take down even a troll hyped up on combat drugs.
Hunter came back covered in mild bruises, but with a large grin on his face and his hair streaked with sweat – it appeared his combat training was progressing well, and with his increasing abilities he was making his instructors work harder now – which meant that occasionally there were a few slightly over-zealous moves that contacted with him. He appeared not to mind though, and headed off to the showers for a nice long soak.
After they had eaten, Kai requested a quick meeting with Captain Zarkorov, to get things sorted for the final few days. He was told to head to the office, as there was a little time in the diary free, and headed over to the admin building at once, weaving his way through the now somewhat familiar corridors and knocking at the door, entering at the muffled response.
"Good evening, Captain. You'll probably be glad to hear that now Tads is better, we're looking at moving on shortly. She passes on her thanks by the way, and wants you to know how much she appreciates your concern and care for her."
"Please tell her she's welcome. We're here to defend the people of our country – and she nearly died helping us out. It would be a stain on the honour of the Brigade if we hadn't."
"Well, thank you again, and I'll pass that on. Now – one thing we thought of was that someone managed to infiltrate your force. Who says that they haven't done it more than once?" The Captain frowned, but didn't look surprised – presumably having already thought of this. "Well, everyone knows we're here now, so we don't have to be quite so subtle. How about if you can get another parade or something, and we can just go through the whole lot at once – in the open, and look for anything unusual?"
"Hmm. That's not a bad idea. I wonder." The captain tapped on his teeth with the end of his pen for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling. Kai waited patiently until he spoke again. "Yes, that's a good plan. I will organise something for tomorrow, and get everyone through – tell them its mandatory health screening. I can get a check on attendance then, and we can ensure everyone is accounted for."
"That sounds good. Following the recent adventures, I'm now versed in examining astral space as well, so there should be four of us. If we can find somewhere they need to come past us, it's extremely unlikely they can slip past all four of us."
"Very well, and thank you. Knowing we don't have anyone else hiding something will be a great relief, both to myself and the Brigadier. Was there anything else?"
"Yes, we wanted to discuss your vehicles with you. Now, as you know we put up the magical wards around the barracks, and it was those being tripped that caused us to stumble across the intruders. We've had a discussion, and wondered if you wanted us to put up some wards around your vehicles?" The captain drew in a breath, but Kai spoke quickly, before he could respond.
"Now, we don't have any more materials – and we know you probably won't be able to get hold of any locally. So they won't last forever. If we do a really strong warding like we have done on your rooms, then it may only last a few weeks. If we do it like around the barracks, it will be good for 6 months, maybe more. We know you're heading to some front, somewhere, sometime – so it's trying to balance what good it may do you, with the time. If we do pretty powerful ward, then you're talking maybe two vehicles a day."
The captain considered, twirling the pen idly between his fingers.
"I think, on reflection, that we should be ok. As I understand it, if the vehicles are magically guarded, then that itself is visible to someone watching – and I think we'd rather go with a low key approach. Especially if we can never be sure how long they would last or when it might fail."
They chatted around the point for a few more minutes, then wrapped up the conversation with pleasantries, before Kai headed back to their rooms.
"Right, we're doing a full scan of the brigade tomorrow, so make sure you get a good night's sleep tonight – we're going to be hard at it tomorrow. One more day of training for you, Hunter, and another day fixing up the chopper, it seems."
"Hey, I had a thought about the chopper. How far can we go in it?" Shimazu asked, turning towards Marius.
"If we're flying in a normal manner, not doing any combat operations and with a nominal cargo load, we have an operational range of around a thousand kilometres. Until we've had at least one long run with the engine running for a couple of hours, I can't be sure the fuel consumption is as expected – but I don't think we'll be too far wrong. Why?"
"I was just trying to work out how far we could go, and it sounds like the helicopter is shorter range than the truck."
"Ahh – well, technically yes – but you can often fly in straight lines, instead of driving where the road takes you. Sometimes you can shave nearly half the distance off by flying rather than driving, so it's probably not going to be that much difference."
"Oh, I suppose. I hadn't thought of it like that. But I wondered if we could just put some extra barrels of fuel in the back and connect up a hose to give us more range? What?" The look on Marius's face was telling, and it was clear that he felt very strongly about this.
"Absolutely not! Fuel tanks are very specially constructed, with baffles, double skins, fire suppression systems, monitors, pumps and a whole host of other things. We are not strapping what is for all intents and purposes small bombs into the back of the chopper!"
The conversation devolved at that, as people started to make jokes about rolling barrels off the back ramp with lit rags in the top, wondering just how big a Molotov cocktail was possible. The good-natured banter went on for some time, as they joked and laughed, until they started to settle down again. Marius had made his point though, and they discussed possibly giving up some of the cavernous cargo space for properly designed fuel tanks to extend the range, along with discussions about adding small medical bays, bunks and various other options to the chopper to make it more useful. Along the way they discussed how they were going to get the vehicles moved – settling on Shimazu driving the truck, with Hunter, Tads and Kai going with him to reach the quarry first and check the place out, then calling for Marius, Nadia and Aswon to come in the chopper. It was going to be a full day's drive for the truck, but about a two hour flight, clearly showing the value of the bigger craft.
"I can always drive you know – I can wear a 'trode net, too," said Aswon. Marius shook his head, pointing at Shimazu.
"No – he is now certified to drive the truck, having proved he has the talent not to drive into buildings and such like. You have not been cleared yet." That started another round of jokes and loud humour as they discussed the Marius Driving School, and what kind of certificates it issued.
They settled down, not long after, standing their watches and resting for the night, rising at their normal time the following morning and going for their now routine run with the troops. As the days had passed, the weather had turned, and the wind was tending to blow from the south east now, rather than the north east, bringing with it a hint of warmth. Snow still lay on the ground, but the bitter edge had gone, and the snow and sleet storms seemed to have abated.
Marius and Nadia collected the promised NSV machine gun from the armoury, wheeling it on a trolley to the helicopter pad. It was a heavy beast, made of metal alloys and quite sizeable compared to the small arms the team normally carried. Marius showed Nadia the size of the rounds, and she was shocked, comparing the 12.5 X 108mm beasts with the now tiny looking 9 X 38mm rounds from her submachine gun – and looking at the size of the rounds, it became clear to her why the machine gun was so massive.
Marius had never seen this particular type of weapon system before, and as they examined how to mount it to the turret of the helicopter, he started to quietly curse under his breath. Rather than being mounted on a fairly standard tripod to absorb the punishing recoil, it came with its own proprietary mounting, with angular legs that made it look like a crouching insect. The swivel mount was on the base of the tripod, rather than the gun, and worked around the bottom receiver – meaning that the standard vehicle mounting system would require considerable reconfiguration to fit.
It took them most of the morning to convert the NSV onto the weapons mount in the nose, but at least having to go back to almost first principles meant that Marius could fit the last set of shock absorbers he'd picked up in Batumi. The heavy duty springs from the large gun system would easily damp out the kick from even sustained fire from the weapon, meaning that when he got it properly linked up electronically, he'd be able fire with high accuracy long, sustained bursts that would do horrific damage.
Hunter was back training, leaving the other four to take their positions in the windows of the admin buildings as the seemingly endless line of troops filtered past for their swabs at the hands of bemused medics. It took more than an hour, and their eyes felt like they'd been staring at the sun by the end of it, from the effort of constantly searching astral space for the tiniest glimpse of power. They'd identified a few troopers who seemed to have diminished essence, as a result of infections or illnesses and had sent them for an actual medical examination – but they'd not picked up so much as a twitch of power from any of the troopers.
In the afternoon, after a break, they headed over to the chopper and started work on inscribing a powerful ward over the craft. Again, they lacked the materials to make it permanent, but between the four of them they could certainly pour enough power into it to keep it going for weeks. They worked long into the night, building up the carefully layered magical defences, but when they were done it was almost undetectable unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.
Whilst they were fabricating the mounting brackets and doing some more cosmetic work on the chopper in the afternoon, trying to keep out of the way of the astral team, Marius had another run in with the group captain, again getting a particularly evil look.
He headed off to go find some of the senior techs, and started to help them out with their tasks, engaging them in conversation as he did so. Slowly he turned the topic from the choppers and their maintenance towards the air corp – and then the captain who lead them, trying to find out more about him, what made him tick and what his likes were – perhaps a suitable gift would appease him for whatever imagined slight so offended him.
It took a while, but he found out what the captain prized above all else – apparently he was a bit of a connoisseur and had a taste for Caviar – particularly Beluga Caviar. He went to see Nadia to discuss things, and a few minutes later she was tapping away on the pad, doing a search on the stuff. It only took one look at her face a few minutes later to know it wasn't good news.
"This stuff, it's very rare, and very expensive. There's a whole bunch of restrictions on the gathering and sale, and there's just not much around. Which is why it's about six thousand a jar." Marius winced – that was pretty steep for an apology for something, especially when he wasn't even sure what he'd done!
While the rest of the team headed back for a rest, Tads headed off into the woods to meet with her acolytes. She managed to arrive a few minutes before the appointed time, and only a few soldiers were present – she greeted them and then moved off to the side of the clearing and began her summoning. First she called the spirit of the forest to her, seeing a large humanoid figure made of branches and leaves appear before her in astral space. After she had greeted it, she called forth a number of watcher spirits, keeping them very low in terms of power and intelligence.
With that done, she rested for a few minutes, letting her head clear after the effort of concentrating so hard – it had been a tiring day magically, with two thousand magical examinations followed by a powerful ward on their new chopper – and now this. Certainly she was going to sleep well tonight.
More troops had filed in and were gathered in small knots, chatting amongst themselves while they waited, and she spotted the three troopers who had been the first to meet with her. Iosif, Kiril and Anfim came over to her, pleased to see her up and about, and she felt their eyes flick over her, making sure she was up to the exertion.
"It's good to see you too, and I'm fine – thanks to your surgeon and being looked after while I was sleeping. I understand that you came and sat with me, to keep me company. Thank you. I hope to have a slightly better service for you and the men this time – I've been thinking a lot."
"We're glad you're ok. If you're ready to get started, we'll gather the men around." Iosif called out, stilling the side conversations and getting the men to form up in a loose arc in front of Tads, before stepping back to join one end of the ragged line, waiting patiently.
Tads took a different approach this time, rather than trying to lead them in a service or prayer – something she had no real experience with and had struggled with last time – instead she tried to teach them. She started with a very basic description of what a watcher spirit was, describing their short lifespans and immaterial nature, but pointing out that they could spy and watch, or carry messages just the same as a better spirit. She did a quick count and asked the men to split up into groups of three, and then called a watcher spirit to her and asked it to appear with each group and talk to them.
The watcher spirits were dumb, as she had deliberately not given them much power to ensure that she didn't end up with a massive headache after summoning the half dozen she could control at once. But, each group of men had a magical creature appear before them, that they could talk and interact with – a manifestation of magic made real. Her demonstration went down much better than a speech, and the men had fun asking questions and trying to make sense of the answers given, poking at the forms and watching their hands move through them.
She gave them about ten minutes to explore and interact with the watchers before she gathered them up and sent them to one side to wait, then asked the forest spirit to manifest in front of the men. She thanked the spirit, bowing deeply to it, and was rewarded with a shaking of leaves and vines as it acknowledged her. Turning back to the men she spent a few minutes describing the spirit, speaking respectfully of how it was the manifestation of the land, and reflected what man had done to it – warning them that pollution and evil acts caused a darkening of the spirits in turn.
"Now, can I have a volunteer please, for a demonstration?"
There was a few moments of hesitation, then one trooper raised his hand tentatively.
"Yes, thank you, come and stand over here by me, what's your name."
"Cizchy, T, 8337-9711-0641" he snapped back automatically, bracing to attention in response, before he realised he'd answered so formally. "Err. Tomasz. My name is Tomasz, wise one."
"Call me Tads, please. Now, what I'm going to do is ask the spirit to conceal you. It won't hurt, and you shouldn't feel anything at all – you probably won't even be able to tell. But everyone else will probably find you very had to spot – if they can see you at all. Tomasz looked nervous, but stood his ground, and Tads calmly asked the spirit to conceal him.
Gasps rose from the arc of troopers, and people blinked in surprise as he neatly vanished. Tads described what was happening, talking over them and advising them to try looking hard, or looking away and then back again. One of the men gave a cry, shouting that he'd seen Tomasz for just a moment, then he vanished again, and that started a whole series of ridiculous looking pantomimes as people played peek-a-boo or turned back and forth. She gave them another minute of trying to find the concealed trooper, and described how big an advantage the power of concealment gave to their enemies – and how eagle-eyed they needed to be to spot it, before she moved on and asked the spirit to demonstrate its other powers.
Another volunteer was sought, and then she bent down and untied his laces from his right side boot, and said that all he had to do was retie it. The trooper laughed, but then bent over and froze, as the spirit addled his mind. Looking around in confusion, he watched the dark sky for a few moments, then idly scratched at the side of his neck and started to whistle tunelessly. She got his friend to shout instructions to him, and they all watched as he went to comply, but then got distracted. Again Tads pointed out the tell-tale signs of someone being affected by the power, as clearly demonstrated, before finally asking the spirit to stop.
"There is one more demonstration I can show you, but I'll explain it first before anyone volunteers. Spirits have a way to make you experience your darkest and most powerful fears. They can tap into your memories and find the thing that scares you most, and make you believe it is happening – most people run in fear, and pay no attention to their surroundings – even running off cliffs or into the sea. I can show you this, but whoever volunteers will need to be held by others, to make sure they don't hurt themselves. And, it will only go on for a few seconds – but don't think that this would be easy or fun.
There was much discussion, and for a while she thought no one would take up the offer, but just as she was about to call a halt, one man stepped forwards. She made sure he was ready, and got four of the others to hold him firm, then asked the spirit to make him afraid, but only for a few seconds. It was enough – the four troopers holding onto him nearly lost their grip so violently did he thrash, and the look of wild-eyed terror on his face was enough to make all of the rest glad that it wasn't them.
The spirit stopped after a few seconds, and the man slowly recovered his composure. None of the men laughed or joked – the reaction had been too visceral for that. Tads crouched in front of him, calming him down and speaking in a low voice, making sure he was ok, before she rose and addressed them all.
"Imagine if that happened to the driver of your vehicle, or helicopter. Or if one of you was holding a grenade or rocket. Remember – it doesn't make you weak, it's a battle you've not been trained to fight. But if you support each other, and look after each other – and treat the land well, then you can help to guard against those things." She spoke for a few more minutes, wrapping things up and thanking them for coming. Iosif asked to speak, and approached her, holding a small bag in his hands.
He turned to face the troops, and recounted the words of the Brigadier from the parade, describing Tads' actions, much to her embarrassment. That wasn't helped when the troops braced to attention facing her, as she was awarded her medal, and her cheeks were flushed as she gave a courteous bow to them in return. Iosif pulled out a small case from the bag, and opened the lid towards him, revealing a number of compartments inside, each holding a small sample.
"We went out and collected these for you, by hand. Soil from the forest, sand from the river bank, leaves of the different trees. A small mouse skull, some moss, all the things from Samara. We hope they connect you to us, and remind you of your help here." He examined her face, clearly looking for approval and hoping that they'd made the right choice of gifts. Tads ran her fingers over the samples, feeling the different textures of the various items, smelling the scents given off by them.
"Thank you – this means a lot to me, it's a very good gift. I can look at it, and remember you all."
She headed back with the troops, releasing the spirits from her control as she got to the edge of the woods, and headed back to the barracks with her sample case and medal to get some sleep.
Her plan was thwarted when she found the team up, discussing Caviar and the extortionate prices though.
"Tads? Your spell that makes food. Could it make fish eggs? They're simple enough, right?"
"I suppose so – and yes, that should be simple enough. But why, Aswon?"
They briefed her in, explaining to her that yes some people thought they were a delicacy, and no, there was no accounting for taste. Tads explained to them that she had to have seen, tasted or experienced the food to be able to make it really, which threw a bit of a spanner in the works.
"I have an idea, Tads – how about if you put up your spell to link our minds, and I will imagine eating the tastiest giraffe steak I've ever head. And you share that, and then try to make it?" Tads was somewhat curious, and agreed – and moments later she was pulling the information from Aswon's mind about what giraffe tasted like (much like chicken it seemed), apart from the crushed seeds and paste it had been marinated in (hotter than licking molten lava). She tried to make some that matched what she had experienced, and handed it over to Aswon.
He tried the food, sitting with his eyes closed to avoid tainting the moment, but after a few chews, shook his head.
"Sorry, it's just not the same. Not quite right. It's like…diet giraffe. But you can tell the good stuff has been taken out!" They tried a few more times, and after experimentation decided that a mental picture of someone else's taste buds or experience just wasn't the same as your own, and gave up the idea – although if they could get a sample and Tads could recreate it, they could make some money to be sure.
In the morning, after their normal run and breakfast, they drove the truck up to the helicopter, and cross-loaded a large amount of their equipment. The difference between the two vehicles became even more obvious – the truck felt almost roomy when the majority of the gear was moved over, but it barely filled a small corner of the chopper. Tads did a last visit to the infirmary, and put some effort into clearing out all of the soldiers of their injuries before thanking the doctor again for her work. By about 11am they were ready, and Shimazu carefully seated the 'trode net on his head.
Hunter, Tads and Kai spread out on the seats, and the truck pulled out gently, the trailer rattling along behind it as Shimazu carefully drove away under the watchful scrutiny of Marius. They watched the truck leave, then Aswon, Marius and Nadia returned to the final prep on the chopper.
"How far down to the quarry, Marius?"
"It's about 600km, so they'll be lucky to make it before 17:00, assuming they have a quiet journey."
"And how long for us?"
"About two hours from when we take off, and maybe plus or minus fifteen minutes, depending on the wind."
Aswon headed off to see the snipers, aware that he had a couple of hours to kill. He decided that as this was his last day on the base, to take along the monster rifle they'd picked up in Constantinople. On seeing the massive 50cal, the snipers were very curious, and jumped at the chance for a test when Aswon offered it. They collected their weapons from the armoury and soon found themselves on the long gun range.
Aswon soon found himself embroiled in a friendly competition – apparently somewhat home brewed, it involved doing a run to a marker and back, a crawl with the rifle held in front of you, another short run, then settling down for some shots. He could see the genesis of it – it tested many of the skills needed in the field, and would mark out the better sniper, rather than just the best shot. There was some complicated method of scoring that factored in the time and the grouping, but he didn't bother too much with that.
He placed well, ending up near the top of the pack and earning the congratulations of the rest of the group – his general athleticism pushing his performance up considerably. After the competition was concluded, he let each of the snipers fire off a short string at the distant targets, experiencing the massive recoil from the monster weapon, he getting a turn on their Russian made rifles in exchange.
Marius meanwhile headed off to the officers' mess, grabbing one of the stewards for a quiet word. With a small exchange of hard cash, he was pointed at the right person, and soon walked away with four bottles of premium vodka, two that he had wanted, and two that Aswon had requested.
He grabbed his two bottles and headed over to the air wing, seeking out the group captain. He was unsurprisingly in his office, snowed under with paperwork, and responding to Marius's knock on his door with exasperation. That changed a little when he saw Marius with the bottles, becoming much more guarded.
Marius took a deep calming breath, then pushed a smile onto his face, and crossed the open space before his desk, and carefully seated each of the bottles onto the plastic surface, careful to avoid landing on any strips of printed plastic or loose items. Trying to keep his voice friendly and non-confrontational, he thanked the captain for his help and support in what must have been a difficult time, and wished him and the air wing good luck in whatever situation they found themselves in supporting the Brigade.
His careful choice of words, and decision to avoid mentioning the choppers bought back into service, or the Brigadier seemed to get through, and hooded eyes studied him for a moment over the desk. After a moment, the group-captain pushed back his chair and stood, then offered his hand to shake over the desk.
"Thank you. I wish you good flying, and good luck."
Marius nodded in return, and then straightened and braced to a position that could be interpreted as something akin to attention. He didn't salute – he wasn't in the military and he wasn't going to appropriate that and undo the work he'd done. Again, the captain seemed to understand, and nodded at him, clearly giving him leave to 'carry on'. Marius turned and left, careful to keep his face blank to avoid giving away his feelings to any of the staff outside the office, and heading back towards the chopper for some last minute tweaks. With any luck, there was a bridge that had been on fire, but was now quenched, and while not the sturdiest – might be used in the future.
When he got back to the hanger, he dialled Milo on his internal com, hoping he wasn't in the middle of a scanning session. While the call went through, he opened the access panel and connected up small spool of fibre optic data cable to the transponder installed on the craft, running the cable back to a workstation at the side of the hanger, so he and Nadia could get to work.
He was in luck, and Milo answered, from the background noise apparently in a restaurant, café or bar of some kind. After the usual pleasantries, he told Milo he'd managed to get hold of a chopper, second hand – very reasonable, slightly careless owners, but he'd managed to fix her up. And now, he was wondering – seeing as the ID that Milo had worked up for him was still pretty fresh, was there any chance he could maybe just change a few bits here, a few bits there, make sure that he was certified for a heavy lift transport chopper?
Milo told him no sweat – he'd investigate what was needed, and then get back to him with a price, in a couple of hours. They chatted for a few more minutes, Marius giving a very brief run-down of their time on the base in very high levels. When their chat was done, he ended the call, returning his full attention to the computer screen, and helping Nadia to reset the transponder code – ensuring that it squawked a different code, not tied to the military. They'd need to do some work to insert it into civilian databases as they flew around, but they could cross that bridge later.
Once the transponder was dealt with, he got a very confused Nadia to help him rig up a long tube that was slotted over the front of the machine gun, with an empty hose attached to each side of the back, that was then mounted on brackets running down each side of the fuselage and running back to the cargo area. After a while, Nadia couldn't constrain her curiosity any more.
"Marius – what ARE we doing here? This doesn't connect to anything, it's just going to create drag. These hoses will never hold any pressure, and I don't see what we're doing here."
"Ok, look – go right over to the far corner of the hanger, and take a photo on your com, don't zoom in, don't concentrate on holding your hand steady – just grab a snapshot." He waited for her to comply, then come back over to him, still with a look of confusion on her face. "Now imagine – that's your sensor picture – taken from a casual sweep. You query the transponder and library details, and the quick search comes back, filing a flight plan for a freelance disaster clean-up team. One with a specially fitted-out helicopter that has been converted to aerial firefighting duties, with a nose-mounted fire hose for combatting fires on oil derricks or high rise buildings."
"That's thin. Very thin. I mean, a good look at this and that story is blown wide open. But I guess… if we sell them on the details and the background, so they never look closely – have no reason to look at the vehicle in person. Yes, that could work. You're so clever, my love!" She leant in and rewarded him with a hug and slow sensuous kiss, and a moment later there was a 'spang' as a small machine screw shot across the floor as his attention wandered from what he was doing. Nadia sniggered, and then wandered off, leaving him to reattach the clip that was now trying to work free.
She returned in a few minutes with two pots of paint, and started to paint the new additions red and white, hoping that it would be at least tack dry before they had to take off.
Back in the barracks, Aswon spent a while cleaning his rifle after his time on the range, then packing it away in the transit case. When he was all done, he grabbed his last bag of stuff, and then hefted the case in his right hand, pushing open the door with his left. Behind him on his bed lay the two bottles of premium vodka, lying side by side on his pillow.
As he left the barracks, he stopped on the threshold, level with the two privates standing guard over the barracks. The same two privates that had ended up having to run with them a few weeks ago, wearing their heavy gear.
"Hey guys. Just wanted to say thank you. And to let you know, that in my room in there, there's a bottle each, for your troubles. I'm heading off to the air wing now – I think I can find my way. I'll see you around."
He started walking again, keeping up a steady pace and a wry smile tugged at his lips as he heard the door quietly open behind him as the troopers slipped inside.
Shimazu and the rest of the team in the truck drove south west, retracing their route from a month ago. Their journey was agreeably smooth, and they made good time down the highway, Shimazu carefully keeping the truck running at top speed down the route wherever he could to maintain their schedule. When they reached Volgograd, he followed the directions, joining the heavy traffic heading north along the New Silk Road. Large rigs carrying a thousand and one cargos thundered up and down the road, with some conveys of a dozen or more trucks with APCs riding as escort clearly seen. They headed north towards Sebryakov, a mid-sized town about two hundred kilometres to the north of Volgograd, and then slid off the highway onto local roads.
Following the main road through town, they emerged from the north into an industrial area, full of massive buildings and goods yards. The air was dusty, and a film of white residue game the grime a strange quality. They pushed on, looking around them carefully, and after another mile saw the road rise in a large sweeping S-bend ahead of them, up a large hill that looked to be a man-made.
At the base of the hill, a guard shack sat by the side of the wide road, guarding a large gate that covered the road, bridging the gap between the chicken-wire fence that stretched off to either side into the countryside. Over the top of the shack a massive sign warned that the BCQ quarry was private, and that trespassers would be shot. Shimazu slowed, letting the truck coast up to the gate and saw a heavy-set man emerge from the shack, a large shotgun held on a sling over his shoulder.
They popped the door open, and Shimazu and Kai climbed down, walking over towards the man.
"Quarry's closed." His body twisted a little, bringing the shotgun around in their direction, making it clear that he wasn't open to negotiation. Shimazu pushed Kai in the back, prodding him to make the play.
"Hi there. We have one of these." He opened his hand, revealing the card with the aircraft printed on it.
"Welcome to the quarry." He turned away, without any change in his demeanour or signs of actually meaning what he said, but a moment later the whir of electric motors kicked in, and the gate was dragged back. Kai and Shimazu remounted, and after a minute to get the 'trode net secured again, the truck started up and rumbled forwards, climbing the hill.
As they crested the hill, they saw the road drop down a more gentle slope on the other side, but instead of a sweeping series of bends, it was arrow straight as it travelled north west from them. Cliffs of limestone were to the left and right of them, rising in ten metre sections then stepping back a metre like impossibly huge steps.
Shimazu let the truck coast down the road, and they slowly dropped in height, descending into the depths of the quarry. The journey was quiet, the truck rolling smoothly downhill, with Shimazu keeping gentle pressure on the mental brake to stop them accelerating. Hunter looked confused for a moment, then pressed his nose up against one side of the truck, before scrabbling over to the other side. A moment later he pushed open the door, and hung half out of the door, examining the road surface below them. With a grunt, he pulled himself back inside the cab and slammed the door shut.
"This road – pretty smooth for a quarry, don't you think? And I just looked – it's concrete, heavy duty concrete. Probably about ten metres wide. Straight – look ahead, there's still a good thousand metres to go. It's got a coating of dust on it, but underneath that it's smooth, straight, solid." He looked around at the others. "What else do we know that is about ten metres wide, smooth, made of reinforced concrete and about fifteen hundred metres long? Is anyone else thinking 'runway'?"
They continued to roll down the hill, redoubling their examination of the quarry around them. Halfway along the road, the quarry opened up to their left, with huge machinery evident in the gathering twilight, massive dump trucks and monster drills and bucket scoops. But the road – or runway – continued down at the same steady slope, dropping them down further and further. The sheer walls of rock, bermed by man-made heaps of spoil on the others sides isolated them from the outside world – unless you were standing atop one of the heights, the quarry was completely out of view from everyone outside.
At the bottom of the slope, a virtual copy of the guard shack sat to one side, set back a few metres. A sign overhead proclaimed "Demolition Shack" in two foot high letters, and a similar looking guard emerged, also with a heavy duty shotgun on a friction sling. Kai climbed down alone this time, leaving Shimazu connected to the truck. The guard took the card without a word, examining it closely, and then pointed over towards the cliff face, and a large cavern that appeared to lead into the mined face of the quarry.
"New arrivals, over there." Kai nodded and pocketed the card, then climbed back up into the cab.
"Apparently, new arrivals are over there. Let's go." The truck pulled away slowly, heading towards the darkness that lay ahead of them.