The whine of the engines lowered in pitch, and the rotors slowed, the long blades starting to droop under their own weight. Various parts of the craft ticked and plinked as the metal cooled and contracted, or systems bled off excess pressure. Around them the wind blew across the field, making the grass ripple, and the trees that surrounded the site swayed in unison as the persistent northerly wind blew.
A full minute passed before a door opened in the small collection of huts and containers to the edge of the field, and a lone figure wrapped up in a large parka jacket emerged and started to amble their way. They seemed in no rush at all, and kept their head down, swallowed by the large hood and fur trim on the jacket, so it was impossible to tell who or even what they were.
The team grabbed their gear, and after Aswon cracked the side door open for a moment letting a sharp and cutting wind into the cargo area, grabbed the winter jackets they'd purchased, donning them hastily over their normal clothes. There was some frantic rearrangement of belts and holsters to make things fit, but they still had time in hand to get out before the figure arrived.
Kai and Shimazu dropped down to the landing pad first, followed a moment later by Aswon and Marius. Hunter, Nadia and Tads remained in the chopper, ready to provide support – not that they were expecting trouble, but after some of their experiences it was better to err on the side of caution.
The outside group walked around the nose of the chopper and crossed the pad, heading towards the figure. Close enough now they could see a human-looking shape, tall and slender – perhaps an elf, but definitely not any other meta-type. As it reached the edge of the pad, a mittened hand pulled at the hood, pulling it back a little to reveal a dark-skinned face, lean and slender, with a wispy thin moustache and beard that looked scrawny enough to be in danger of blowing away.
"Hello?"
"Hi there, we were told we could get some fuel here?" Kai said, letting a smile light up his face, while he opened his arms and raised them slightly towards the slender man, subtly indicating some kind of shared situation.
"Oh, ok." The slender guy rocked slightly from foot to foot, looking at them uncertainly. Brown eyes so dark they appeared almost black flicked from one member of the group to another and back again. The smile slipped slightly on Kai's face, as the silence extended.
"Yes, we were told by our employer that she'd make arrangements for us to get refuelled here."
"Yeah, ok." Still the figure rocked from side to side, seeming unsure of what to do next.
"That's Ludmilla, by the way. Our employer." Relief seemed to flood over the face of the man at the mention of her name, but the rocking persisted – intensified even. "I'm Kai by the way. This is my team. What's your name?"
"Tariq." Rock, rock, rock. The hands seemed to flutter by the side, as if unsure of what to do with themselves.
"Ok Tariq. Well, we have the money for the fuel. So, should you get a cred-reader or something perhaps, and arrange for a fuel bowser to come and fill up our tanks?"
"Right, ok. Yeah." The body language changed, and he nodded, then turned swiftly and strode off towards the shack, much faster than his amble over towards them had been. It didn't take long for him to reach the hut, and he was only inside for a minute before he emerged again, a small computer dangling from a shoulder strap and a large length of corrugated hose draped over the other shoulder. When he got back to the pad, he fired up the computer and plugged the cable into the cheap-looking plastic datajack implanted in the side of his neck.
Kai proffered the certified credstick and watched carefully as it was inserted into the reader module connected to the computer by the interface cable. Two antenna were swung out from the housing on the side of the screen, and the system connected via a low speed link to the local town and the matrix relay there.
Marius, already frustrated with the young man's lackadaisical attitude had already grabbed the fuel hose and was screwing it on the fuel inlet on the chopper. It only took a moment to look around and see the pop-up coupling on the pad for the other end, and he managed to release the spring loaded latch and open the cover, revealing the 100mm diameter pipe concealed within, with a coarse thread clearly designed to mate with the other end of the hose. He turned and called over to Kai and Traiq when the hose was secure, and a moment later the pipe kicked and jerked as fuel started to flow through it up into the craft.
The pumps ran for several minutes as thousands of litres of fuel were pumped through the pipe into the cavernous tanks in the chopper, being distributed evenly through the new and old tanks by the new computer system installed at the Quarry. The figures danced up and up on the screen, eventually stopped at 17,142 Nuyen as the tanks were filled. It was still enough to make them wince – but not as bad as they'd feared. Once the transaction was finalised and the credstick removed, they nodded to Tariq, and headed back to the chopper. Marius unscrewed the hose from the inlet, letting the flexible pipe drop to the ground while he sealed and secured the fuel hatch, then joined the rest.
Once back in the chopper and out of the biting wind, they relaxed a little, but then spotted Tariq still standing there by the side of the pad. He was back to his rocking again, staring at the chopper with an uncertain look. He stood for a few minutes just watching the craft, then finally moved over to the hose and disconnected it from the ground side, and sealed up the underground access, gathered the pipe and the computer up in his arms and headed back to the building.
Back onboard, they watched him go, then started up the conversation again.
"So, we spent just over 17K on fuel here. That should cover our route into Yakut, and back out to here, no problem. We'll certainly need to refuel again though, before we head off. It won't be as much probably, but we're still looking at about 15 grand to top up the tanks, depending on just how much fancy flying Marius has to do." Hunter spoke somewhat absently and slowly, measuring distances and punching data into his fuel tracker application on the computer as he described each leg of the journey.
"See, plenty of money. I don't know why you didn't have faith in me!" Kai beamed at them, but his levity was lost on them. "Ok, seriously – we've got enough, I'm sure. We'll be fine."
"I don't see how. The credstick has enough on it to fill us up when we get back here, and that would get us to Grigori's without too much issue. But when we land there, we'll have about 10% of the tank left, and that's it. And the credstick will have enough to get us a few dekalitres or so, but not much more. So we'll be stuck."
"That does not sound like a good idea. I do not want to be stuck at any place, but especially not at a place like that. There is a man fallen on hard times – not likely to come up with some deal or work to give us free fuel." Aswon frowned as he spoke, thinking back to the disgusting condition of the diner and the general state of disrepair present.
They discussed the situation for another minute, until a flash of motion caught their eye out of the window. Tariq was back, and was standing at the side of the pad, staring at the chopper while he rocked from one leg to the other and back again. They watched in fascination as he stood there, nervously twitching from side to side without actually doing anything.
"What do you think he wants?" asked Shimazu.
"No idea. I'll go and ask him though." Aswon pulled his jacket closed around him and headed back from the cockpit through the doorway on the left side of the craft, causing the others to shudder and flinch back from the cold whip of wind that whistled through the craft as soon as the door was opened. It wasn't that much colder outside than inside – the chopper was not exactly fitted out as a passenger transport – but the speed of the wind seemed to whip through the cabin like icy cold fingers that reached through their clothes at the wrists, neck and waist and made them shudder.
Aswon ignored this, and ducked around the craft, approaching the gangly man quickly. As he scanned the man's face up close, he realised he was probably only in his late teens. From the skin tones he looked more like an immigrant than a local, possibly someone from Pakistan, India or somewhere else far to the south. Aswon certainly didn't care enough to enquire.
"Hello there. Are you after something? Maybe a hot drink?"
"Uh… I dunno."
"You don't know?"
"Uhm… no. Maybe, I was just wondering if you have anything you needed a hand with unloading? Or something?"
"Ohhhh! Right. Hang on there." He turned and circled the craft again, climbing back inside through the crew door to the indignant cries of everyone inside as the cold wind once more whipped into the craft.
"Dumb young lad. He's after a bribe or something, but doesn't know how to ask for one. I'm going to give him a box of ammo or something."
"Hey! Don't give him our ammo!"
"Come on Hunter, it's just the cheap shit we got from Iran and Turkestan and such like. We've got buckets of the stuff. And we're never going to use it – at least I'm not, and I can't see you relying on it either, and are you going to recommend to anyone else in the team that they rely on it?" Hunter looked surly but didn't answer. "Exactly. Oh, thanks Nadia." He took the small plastic tub with what felt like about a hundred rounds of ammo inside.
Once more the door was opened, giving the wind free reign, and he climbed down somewhat awkwardly with the heavy tub in his hand, then circled around to the rocking youth.
"Here you go. A little gift for you for letting us use your landing pad and helping us fuel up. Is that ok?"
"Oh, great, yes, thank you." A nervous smile broke out on his face, and he did a weird half nod, half bow gesture, backed away clutching his prize, repeated the bow-nod, then turned and ambled off back towards the hut. Aswon shook his head at him, trying to remember if he'd ever been that gangly and nervous. Probably – but when he was about six… He turned and headed back inside once more, to find Marius describing his idea for the border crossing.
"Now. We are approximately 305.2 kilometres from the chosen border crossing point, between these two large spurs of land here. That will take approximately 93 minutes flying at 80% throttle, to maximise fuel efficiency and keep thermal and auditory signature at the best compromise levels. I would like to cross just after dusk, when any observers are struggling to adapt from daylight to night operations and signal resolution on sensors is not at 100% efficiency. We fly without lights, and as much as we can nap-of-the-earth, using the route that Hunter and I have planned and refined."
Kai and several of the others exchanged tiny little smiles at the "approximate" measurements given by their young pilot, which were an order of magnitude more precise than anyone else would have bothered with, but followed along the snaking route that went mostly north from Tara into the wild lands of Siberia.
"Tads, will we have magical cover on this?"
"That depends. I'll keep an astral eye out and provide over watch, sure. I can't summon a spirit big enough to conceal the craft though – at least not without risking going blind or passing out. It's just too big. I may be able to offer some magical concealment though, but it won't leave me with much attention spare for anything else while I'm concentrating on that. It depends what you're after, Kai."
"I don't like running a border like that without magical cover," Aswon raised his hand quickly towards Tads as he spoke "I understand why, and I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying I don't like it. This helicopter is big! I guess that's part of the problem." Tads glowered at him for a moment, but she knew the lanky tribesmen really did respect her, and she didn't want to argue with him, especially when it wasn't his fault.
"Ok, so it sounds like we make the best of it then, and use as much natural cover and concealment as we can, going over just after dusk and go with eyes open and ready for trouble. Until then, I guess we clean and prepare equipment, and then just relax until it's time to go. It's not like we have enough time to be worth heading into town or exploring the area, and from the size of the airport facilities, we're not missing much there." Kai looked around at the others, checking they were all in agreement, then swiftly moved out of the cockpit and into the module, grabbing the best bed before anyone else could claim it.
Hunter checked a weather site and worked out what time dusk was for their location. With a bit of simple maths he worked backwards and factored in their travel time and the time for pre-flight, then set a countdown timer running for when they needed to lift off, before moving into the rear and breaking out his cleaning kit and starting to disassemble his rifle. The other team members split up, preparing their kit and cleaning weapons, checking their supplies and getting things ready while they were stationary and everything wasn't vibrating or sliding around.
Kai pulled out his phone and checked – the signal strength wasn't great, but there was enough leakage from the town that it should hold. He gave Ludmilla a call and hoped he got through to her while she was in a good mood.
"Hello?"
"Miss Ludmilla? It's Kai."
"Oh, darling! Hello, yes, are things ok?"
"Yes, everything is going ok. Well, pretty good. We're at Tara, and I just wanted to let you know that your man has helped us out with the fuel, so thank you for arranging that. Although there is a bit of an issue."
"An issue? That does not sound good?"
"Well you see, the fuel as we mentioned is very expensive. I just wondered if we could get a line of credit here on the way back?"
"A line of credit darling? Really? I've already given you an advance!"
"Yes, and we're very grateful. But you see we invested that in equipment to ensure the mission would go smoothly for you and we could get what you wanted with the minimum of fuss or risk. But getting those things left us with depleted funds, so we're just wanting to make sure we don't disappoint you. And I'd rather be open and honest with you, as I'm sure you would want me to be."
"Well darling, this is most unusual. And to be honest, all this talk of money is a little…well… tawdy. Very common, and I don't care for it much. I will make arrangements though I suppose. I do hope that you're not taking advantage though…" The voice had taken on a harder edge as the conversation progressed, and Kai felt like he was straying into dangerous territory.
"Have no fear, we're just trying to maximise our chances of getting you what you need. We'll be leaving very soon to cross the border, and you won't hear from us again until we are on the way back with your goods. And if you don't hear from us again at all, it's because we're all dead."
"Well, in that case, I shall look forward to speaking to you again, soon. But now, I have other matters to attend to." She disconnected the call abruptly.
"Well goodbye then, and speak to you soon." Kai paused, then laid the phone down on his chest and stared up at the ceiling of the module, his mind racing as he replayed the conversation. Meeting Ludmilla was certainly going to be interesting, when they finally got around to it.
An hour and a half passed quietly, the team reading, doing maintenance work, or in the case of Aswon gently snoring in his hammock. Marius was disturbed from his study of the route when a low rumbling sound because audible to the west. Jacking out of the VR sim he'd been running, he looked over and then his eyes widened in alarm as an aircraft appeared over the trees to the west, overflying the airport and starting to bank sharply.
"Achtung! Inbound aircraft!" He heard the clatter of equipment being grabbed or dropped in the back of the craft but ignored it in favour of climbing over to the other side of the cockpit and craning his neck to follow the sharply banking aircraft. It tipped over on one wing at an angle of maybe thirty degrees, swinging around in a tight circle – tight for a civilian craft anyway. Yet as he studied the aircraft he saw no signs that it was military in origin. He felt the presence of someone behind him, but ignored them, his eyes still fixed on the aircraft as it swung around the airport, doing a full circuit. As he moved to the other window, he saw Kai waiting patiently for some information.
"Looks like a civilian aircraft. Reminds me of an Ilyushin craft in general layout. Perhaps thirty metre wings, and length, looks like a small passenger or cargo hauler. No weapons obvious."
"We have movement near the airport buildings! Two pickups coming through the trees, heading in our general direction!" Hunter's voice rang out though the craft. "Both approaching at slow speed, I have them covered."
"No magical spirits or effects on the plane that I can see." Aswon called as he crouched by one of the small oval windows in the door, scanning the aircraft as it circled around them.
"Nothing on the trucks either, no sign of people or rear gunners," shouted Shimazu as he peered over Hunter's shoulder.
Marius watched as the aircraft straightened up to the south of them, then deployed both gear and flaps, pitching the nose up a few degrees. It looked like they were lining up on the faintly marked grass runway that lay further out from the hardened concrete chopper pads.
"Trucks aren't actually heading for us – looks like they're heading to the north end of the area. Shimazu, stop leaning on my shoulder." There was some muttered sounds of arguing from the rear, but the fact that they were arguing led to a further reduction of tension.
The Ilushin IL-114 came in smoothly, dropping neatly onto the grass runway and slowing abruptly as the pilot threw the engines into reverse. They'd almost stopped about two thirds of the way down the runway, but then accelerated slightly and taxied clear to the north end of the runway before finally coming to a halt, near where the two pickup trucks had stopped. Once the aircraft had stopped completely and the turboprop engines powered down, the trucks started up and moved around to the rear of the aircraft.
The team watched as a fair chunk of cargo was offloaded by hand, a variety of crates, packages, parcels and letters – some in standard sized containers, some looking pretty unique. About ten minutes later, they started loading new cargo from the flat-bed area of the trucks into the aircraft. There wasn't as much, and two minutes later, the aircraft closed the back door. The four men then loaded the cargo which had been stacked on the grass into the back of their trucks, building two small mounds of cargo which were covered with a tarpaulin or cover of some kind. Once they were both loaded the trucks backed up, swung around and headed back past them, while the plane restarted the engines, turned and then thundered down the runway, pulling up at the end and banking left in a smooth gentle turn as it continued to gain altitude, until it headed off to the south-east.
The team settled back down, realising that it was either another smuggler crew at work or perhaps even something mundane like the weekly mail delivery that had just happened – but either way they didn't seem too bothered by the presence of their chopper. Finally, the countdown timer beeped, and the team roused themselves and began preparations for take-off. In the gathering gloom, Tads reached out and started to gather magical energy to herself, calling on the spirits of the air to heed her. Whether the area was just unfriendly or if the intense vibrations of the chopper during ascent were the cause she couldn't say – all she knew was that nothing answered her call except a monstrous headache and a nosebleed. She fumbled around for her water bottle and some painkillers and then sat back in her seat, rubbing at her temples and wishing the helicopter wasn't so loud.
Unaware of their shaman's discomfort, Marius continued to apply power, lifting the chopper into the air just far enough to clear the trees surrounding them, before slowly dipping the nose and shifting into forward flight. The rest of the team stared out of their respective windows at the surrounding area, looking for trouble but finding nothing but darkness and the odd scattered light nearby, and the faint glow of the town of Tara to their back.
The helicopter flew over the wild terrain, crossing the snaking course of the Irtysh River and then heading north across forest, moorland and fens, the ground undulating beneath them. The land looked bleak and unwelcoming, rough and difficult to traverse and too expensive to cultivate or produce worthwhile goods. As they flew northwards the lights in the countryside became more and more rare, roads became little more than dirt-tracks and everywhere they looked they could just see the broken landscape as spurs of land fractured into a thousand shallow gorges or escarpments. A lot of their flight they spent looking up at low rises that hemmed them in on one side or another, as Marius used the landscape to shield them from the occasional settlement or suspected radar positions, corporate sites or farmsteads.
An hour into their flight, as they approached the border, Tads had managed to shift the pain in her head and tried again. She spent a few minutes trying to meditate as best she could, ignoring or tuning out the ever-present roar of the engines and the constant vibrations. She gathered power again, slightly less this time and was more careful with her movements, aware of the confines of the turret that she sat strapped into. Her care paid off, and she was rewarded with a wisp like creature that arrived next to her in astral space, ready to carry out her bidding. The effort made the headache come back though, so she returned to massaging her temples to try and ease the pain before she was required to do anything specific.
They flew on through the night, the chopper banking and turning slickly under Marius's expert touch, with a grace that belied its' huge size. The crescent moon shone down on the landscape, providing enough illumination for the low-light amplified sensors to display a strangely distorted vision of the landscape.
They approached the border, and Marius issued a curt warning over the intercom, making sure people were ready. He made the final turn into the valley they had identified for the crossing, and let the power drop a tiny amount, feeling the craft sag below him. He stared ahead, and suddenly as he crested a minor ridge, his vision swam as heat sources appeared everywhere. Threat warning lights flashed as they picked up electromagnetic sensors, and the X-band alert sounded, indicating a fire-control radar ahead.
He swore and started to twist the craft to the side, increasing power and preparing to take evasive manoeuvers. At this kind of range he'd have bare seconds to react, and even man-portable shoulder launched missiles would be deadly, even to a helicopter this size. He'd thought it was about as bad as it could be – but then it got worse. His sensors pinged, demanding his attention, and picked out in a wireframe with all manner of alert icons flashing was a ZIL-ZSU99 gun, right in the middle of the valley. The quad-mounted fifty calibre machines guns mounted on the heavy duty chassis could spit out enough firepower to saw the craft in half if they tracked in on him – and that was almost certainly the source of the X-band emissions.
All over the chopper people grabbed hold of the handles or stanchions around them as the chopper lifted at a more acute angle, and various cries of alarm sounded as people were thrown around in their seats.
Marius looked down with horror as their forward momentum carried them further down the valley, closer to the firing arc of the gun system. But, as he stared at the scene he noticed that people were waving at him. Not just waving – but looking like they were cheering? What the…. Suddenly he reversed course, heading back down towards the centre of the valley.
"Marius, what are you doing?" Hunter called out. "That's closer to the men with guns!"
"Russians. Border defence force. What kind of helicopter are we in?" He let that sink in, and then went for broke, flashing his running lights twice in salute as he crossed over the troops low enough to batter them with the downdraft from the rotor. As they crossed over the gun system his threat warning system screamed as the x-band radar locked on in tracking mode – though at this range the helicopter must have been almost impossible NOT to lock up, as it would fill 90% of the seekers viewing angle.
"They probably think we're a raid or a Spetsnaz force or something. But flying over a secure valley to do an insertion, as a last safe point. After all, we're on their side and going into the enemy… why would they fire?"
Moments later, the x-band alert dropped off as the gun crew cancelled the track, and the sky behind them remained blessedly clear of missile launch tracers or streams of bullets. Looking back at the sensor feed, Marius ran a quick count of the heat sources, and came up well short on what he'd expect to see.
For now though, he concentrated on flying, shunting the data over for someone else to look after. He heard the others looking at the data, and Aswon examining the count, coming up with a short company. That meant either the rest were really well dug in elsewhere, or the company was short on manpower. With the state of the Russian military and what they'd learnt at the base, that was far more likely.
He exited the shallow ravine, and for a moment was atop the hill, before he ducked back down into the rough terrain on the other side of the summit. There were trees to his east, covering him from that direction and providing a background for him to blur into from the opposite direction – but it was still the most exposed he'd been forced to be so far. His threat warning lights all stayed black though, and sensors picked up no active or passive signals at all. He pushed on through the darkness, slightly advancing the power now, relying more on speed than discretion to clear the locus of the crossing point.
It turned out though that electronic sensors were not what he needed to worry about – it was a threat of a very different kind. Both Tads and Kai spotted the owl, flying high above the forest. Its aura was unmistakably powerful, a shapeshift of some kind, much like the one they had seen back at Samara. It was powerful but untrained, unable to mask the magical signature it projected – so a threat, but not one as severe as the group of three shifters they'd had to deal with previously. It had obviously spotted their craft, and was angling down towards them, wings flapping furiously to accelerate. It was using some kind of magical power too, accelerating its natural movement to a much faster rate – but not one that could match the chopper.
They alerted Marius, who altered course abruptly, putting the bird squarely behind them and pushing the engines up to full power. As they flew onwards, the owl dropped further and further behind, until finally it was out of sight. Marius executed two more course corrections to throw off their base track, before finally settling back down on the route to their destination.
It didn't take long at full speed, and they circled the landing area not long after 19:00. It was a burnt-out farmhouse of some size, surrounded by a large pad of concrete on three sides. The area looked abandoned, but they examined it carefully before Marius came in for a landing, gently lowering the huge chopper down onto the middle of the expanse of concrete, ready to vault into the sky at a moment's notice.
"Hey Tads – if we hover here for a moment, can you scout out the area?"
"Nope!" She didn't explain any further, and her answer was curt and clipped. Aswon shrugged and didn't push any further – sure that she had her reasons.
As they touched down lightly, Aswon, Hunter and Shimazu jumped out of the door one after another, splitting up and moving out from the craft to take up a guard position. Marius waited until they were clear and looked settled, and only then did he continue to reduce power, letting the craft settle on the suspension. As the three moved out to examine the area, he kept the power at minimum, the huge rotor sagging but still spinning and ready to go.
The three returned a minute later from a quick scout, giving a thumbs up one after another – all clear. Finally the engines shut down and the rotors slowed – only to be replace shortly afterwards by the sounds of a much smaller engine starting up as Marius prepared the drones to launch.
Aswon and Shimazu moved into the burnt-out wreckage to check it out while Hunter remained on guard outside. Their initial assessment had been deceiving – although fire had damaged the structure, it looked like water had been the real killer. As they picked their way through the house they saw sagging beams and huge rotten timbers collapsed, sections of the house smashed by the upper floors collapsing and falling down on them.
As they moved through and examined the wreckage, a story emerged – or at least suggested itself. Most of the house was damaged by the elements and neglect, but the area near one of the doors showed signs of a violent struggle, with smashed glass and crockery in a radius around the doorway. Knife marks – or claw marks? Broken furniture all consistent with a swirling melee. Darker stains on the floorboards, and then the burn marks of a hastily thrown improvised bomb or incendiary. It appeared that the attackers, whoever they were had intended to burn the place down, but hadn't cared to check or do a thorough job – but had probably carried off the inhabitants. Aswon and Shimazu exchanged glances, and Shimazu wondered what secrets this place would reveal if he had had a chance to follow up on the training with the professor down in Egypt. It would probably be interesting, but very dark…
They split up and checked the far ends of the house out, where the damage was minimal. Aswon found a sturdy travelling chest, still sealed and in good condition. The lacquered wood had shed the rain and retained its colour, and still opened easily enough to reveal several sets of warm looking winter clothing, of an average to large size. He dragged the chest out with him, figuring that the clothes would be useful to someone, and the chest was a nice find.
Shimazu meanwhile had found wooden doll sheltered on a wooden dresser from the collapse of the ceiling above. It was brightly painted, with deep reds and greens showing a caricature of a plump woman in a woollen dress, with an exaggerated face picked out in bright pink. As he reached over and picked it up by the head, the bottom section fell off, revealing a smaller version inside. Shimazu blinked, then carefully picked up the top section again, and watched as it split and revealed a third smaller doll inside. A grin broke out on his face at the sheer inanity of it, along with a respect for the craftsman who had turned it so expertly. All together there were eight dolls stacked one inside another, with the smallest being little bigger than his thumb and the largest being about 250mm high. He reassembled them quickly and returned to the exit, helping Aswon with the other end of the trunk as he dragged it outside.
They loaded their booty into the chopper and reported in that the location seemed secure, then got to work on opening the back cargo hatch of the chopper and unloading their off-road vehicle. As they rolled down the hatch, they caught sight of moment at the edge of the concrete pad – rabbits. They grazed unconcernedly and didn't seem alarmed by their presence or movement.
"Chances are there aren't many people around here then – and very little hunting. That or someone feeds or cares for them in some way. Very unusual behaviour if there was a settlement nearby, at least." Tads stared at the rabbits for a few more moments, then shook her head. "Very strange."
They worked out who was going on the expedition, and who was staying to guard the chopper, looking at the size of the seats in the UAZ 469. It was a basic vehicle, without any of the frills found in most off-roaders, and was clearly a working vehicle, designed to be thrown around and treated harshly.
Shimazu was nominated as the driver, with Hunter taking the front passenger seat, with Aswon sitting behind him and Tads behind Shimazu. The temperature controlled box was loaded into the rear cargo area and carefully lashed down, ensuring that it wouldn't rattle about at all. Marius, Nadia and Kai were to stay back at the chopper, monitoring them via the surveillance drone and ready to fly over if the mission demanded it. After a quick shuffle of gear, the overland team were ready to go, and Shimazu slowly drove away, getting to grips with the vehicle as he drove into the darkness.
Tads asked her wind spirit to stay behind, guarding the helicopter and the people inside it. She felt her control over it wash away as she grounded herself, moving her magical focus from the air to the ground. It would at least guard them until dawn, keeping up its end of the bargain until the first rays of daylight released it to return to the skies.
With her mind now firmly rooted in the drive ahead, she summoned magical power once more to conceal and disguise the vehicle. A moment later a large wild mammoth plodded across the land, moving purposefully to the south, tusks weaving back and forth as the massive legs pounded the ground – though behind it, a pair of twin tyre tracks marked their passage…
The Uaz handled well – very well, and made Shimazu's job much easier. As they drove across the wild and untamed landscape the soft and spongy suspension that made it feel like driving a jelly on the road soaked up the ditches, rocks, potholes and drops to allow them to continue moving relatively smoothly. It was cold inside, the unpadded interior transmitting the frigid temperatures of the night air with little hinderance, and their body heat and breath started to make the windows steam up – forcing them to open the windows at least a little to clear their view.
They drove slowly, barely making walking pace as Shimazu moved across the landscape, following the rough map that Hunter had given to him. As they drove, they quickly discovered that what looked like smooth land was actually more like marsh or sometimes large ponds or small lakes of an unknown depth. Occasionally they reached an impasse, driving along a narrow track that suddenly became a spit of land projecting into the water. Once or twice they risked a crossing where the water seemed only deep enough to cover their wheels – but in some places Aswon's spear sank a good meter without reaching the bottom, and they retraced their steps to find an alternate route.
They'd been driving for about an hour when there was a sudden drop at the back of the vehicle and a crunch, followed by a sickening squeal. The sound carried through the night, making them all wince and look around quickly. Shimazu braked, and a moment later there was the furious sound of something attacking the back of their vehicle. They felt the rocking and swaying as it threw itself at the rear quarter of the Uaz, and heard the scraping as claws or teeth savaged the metal and plastic of the bumper and rear load area.
For a moment Shimazu saw a flash of movement behind them, before it disappeared fully behind their vehicle, then the attack continued, even more furious than before. Hunter, Shimazu and Aswon piled out of the vehicle, moving round towards the rear to deal with the situation, while Tads decided it would be wiser if she kept an eye on things from the back seat.
The creature was about a metre long, but no more than knee height and was throwing itself at the vehicle in a frenzy. Ten long and sturdy claws raked at the back of the Uaz, stripping paint off with every shrieking claw that scraped down the surface. As they appeared, it ceased its attack and flattened itself against the floor, seeming to almost meld into it and becoming nigh impossible to spot. With a blur it launched itself into the air with a grumbling war-cry, powerful legs propelling it towards Shimazu with the mouth opening to reveal two rows of rancid and sharp teeth aimed at his throat.
The creature shuddered as Aswon spitted it from the flank, knocking it off balance and rolling it to one side a little – just enough to disrupt the attack on Shimazu and giving him time to bring his sword up from the scabbard and slicing through the air in one smooth move, striking at the throat. The ancient blade severed the head, driven as it was by the full force of Shimazu's body, and the two parts collapsed to the floor.
They risked a little light to examine the corpse – some kind of badger it seemed. Looking around they found the edge of the set with the roof collapsed where the weight of their vehicle had caused some of the earth to collapse, crushing to death another one of the creatures. Aswon checked the set carefully, but it appeared that there were no young – just the pair of creatures.
Shimazu and Aswon lifted the corpses into the back of the truck, being careful not to get any of the gore onto their plant box while Hunter kept watch. It looked like the creatures had some magical powers, able to adapt their colouration to match the surroundings, so there was a chance some of the creatures might be useful to their magical research – especially the one cleanly killed by the sword blow. They were careful to avoid the claws and teeth though, aware that many wild creatures were carriers of some pretty horrific diseases that they were immune to, but that caused meta-humans intense suffering.
Back in the chopper, Marius snorted as he watched them recover the creatures and place them carefully in the back. The picture from the drone showed a flattened landscape in unearthly greens and blacks, devoid of detail and texture. The low light optics did a good job of showing hard edged objects and major details, but often lacked the resolution for fine work and made colours all but impossible to separate. He could have gone lower and switched to an ultra-sound map, but that would limit the amount of terrain he could watch at one time. He sat back from the screen and panned the camera around the empty landscape, and started to hum a tune. It was somewhat catch and familiar, like the opening music for a trid-show. Kai looked at him in surprise, and gave him a quick astral check over as it was quite unlike him – then shuddered as he took in the mass of cyberware and replacement parts with the slim sliver of humanity. However, there didn't appear to be anything affecting him.
The ground team pushed on, driving through an increasingly wet landscape. Slowly they became aware of smell – an oily chemical kind of aroma. Hunter took a deep sniff and let his chemical library go to work, announcing that it was a number of different long chain hydrocarbons, several combustible materials and some traces that were borderline explosive. They pushed on, driving down a narrow causeway painfully slowly, Shimazu trying to keep two wheels on firm ground to give them traction, with the other two nearly submerged in the oily gack to the side of them, sending ripples out into the inky blackness, hoping that nothing lived in there that would consider them edible.
A shape loomed out of the darkness, and the causeway widened, leading them onto a larger and much more solid landmass. In the centre was a concrete pad, roughly formed and imprecise around the edges. At the centre was the twisted remains of a derrick, presumably some kind of oil extraction well. The steel beams were twisted and warped, the machinery around them broken and mangled. Shattered pipes lay on the far side, running alongside a wider road that looked to have been deliberately created.
They picked up the pace a little on the road, and found themselves hopping from island to island amidst a large body of water, or series of linked lakes perhaps. At every junction, there was another piece of machinery, smashed and ravaged in some way. Astral space carried a very faint tinge of emotion, the rush of combat and a vague feeling of elation. The events that had taken place here must have been powerful and important to the people to generate such strong feeling, and for it to remain so long, which probably meant that it was the rise of the Yakut nation and the overthrow of Russian control that was the cause.
The drove deeper into the area, sometimes following pipelines, sometimes having to drive over crumpled remains of machinery or storage tanks, sometimes being forced to ford through shallow areas or back track from the end of a pipeline that led only to deeper water. As they drove along, Shimazu picked up speed and held the wheel straight, aiming them at a large pond dead ahead. The others waited, expecting him to brake or steer, but the Uaz just got faster instead.
Hunter glanced at him, and saw a faint dreamlike stare across his face. His gut told him something was wrong, and he had enough experience to trust it – so he leant over and slapped the gear leaver hard. With a crunch and snarl, the vehicle popped into neutral, and stopped accelerating. Hunter's hand moved backwards and yanked up on the handbrake, and he felt the wheels lock up and then start to slide across the damp surface. Shuddering as the wheels kicked and the deep tread fought for traction, they slid to a halt, the front wheels just starting to dip into the water.
Shimazu blinked and looked around him, as if waking up from a dream. He frowned as he saw the water ahead of them, dark and forbidding.
"Can't go that way, we'll have to go around." He checked the controls and put the Uaz into reverse, found the bite point and then carefully released the handbrake, letting the vehicle pull back up the slope and onto solid ground.
"Are you ok there? Not feeling tired?"
"No, I'm good. Ok to carry on certainly. Think I've just about got used to the driving anyway."
Hunter glanced into the back at the other two, his face wordlessly asking the question. Both Tads and Aswon dropped into astral at the same time, looking around them and at Shimazu, seeing if they could spot what might have influenced or compelled him to drive like that. Nothing was to be seen, just the ever present glow of life around them from the surrounding area. Although – over to the west, there was something…odd.
Tads concentrated and tried to focus her mind, sparing just enough concentration to keep the vehicle masked with her spell, but looking to the west to determine what the strange glow was. It looked like a movement in astral space, a flow of power – perhaps the mana line they sought?
She pulled back, looking around the vehicle and decided that just looking like a creature was clearly not enough. Repeating her mantra, she made signs with her hands, and spread her magical protection over the group, fortifying their minds with power to resist magical intrusion.
The effort made her neck muscles taut and the manifestation of her totem's power made her shamanic mask show slightly – her eyes became dark and liquid, her nose elongated slightly and grew dark at the end. In the darkness of the vehicle the effect was unnerving, like having a half-woman, half elk sitting in the back seat, wrapped up in a heavy duty jacket.
They pushed on, continuing the journey west and heading towards the brighter flare of astral energy that leaked into the night air. Whilst Shimazu kept his concentration on the road, either Tads or Aswon kept flicking into astral sight, checking the path ahead and the glow. It was like an aurora, a faint shift in light and the effect was subtle, seeming to fade away if you looked at it for more than a few seconds.
In the chopper, they continued to monitor the progress of the team as they threaded their way through the cobweb like maze of interconnecting causeways, pads and service roads. Both Marius and Nadia were humming the music now. Kai listened for a moment, wondering what kind of show they must have been watching.
His eyes went wide as a thought burst into his head, and he shuddered as his brain followed to a logical conclusion and refused to be diverted. It was the kind of bouncy repetitive nonsense you'd find on a porn film. A film they'd watched together. Probably while doing… NO! He stood up and excused himself, refusing to think of what they'd been doing while that was playing in the background. Tea. Yes, tea. That was what he needed. A nice strong cup of tea. With some vodka in it or something. Yes.
Marius and Nadia wondered why Kai got up so fast, but as he wandered off towards the back muttering about tea they shrugged, and resumed their humming, getting in sync again. Nadia moved closer to Marius, who wrapped his arm around her protectively, and they turned their attention back to the display from the drone, still motoring along silently overhead.
Aswon was just checking in astral space to see if the flare had moved or changed when the apparition appeared. It manifested ahead of them, rising up out of the ground suddenly, arms raising from its side to reach towards them. It was an eldritch blue, faint ripples shifting in its form as if it was constantly decaying and reforming. The face was long and rotting, strips of skin peeling off and separating from the face, turning into wisps of smoke and fading away. Dark voids lay where the mouth and eyes should be, staring into the vehicle. It opened its mouth wide and shrieked, waves of astral power bursting forth like a torrent of hate and washing over them.
The magical barriers Tads had put in place were battered by the onslaught of psychic horror, wavering and wobbling – but they held, mostly. Shimazu and Hunter recoiled in fear and disgust at the shape, and their vehicle dipped as Shimazu slammed on the brakes. The front of the Uaz drove into the apparition, the ghostly form sliding up the bonnet and long spindly fingers scraping at the windscreen, leaving blue lines of energy behind them that faded quickly into the night.
A sudden smashing noise sounded from the back of the Uaz as Aswon swung his elbow into the rear window in terror. Perhaps it touched upon some ancient tribal belief, perhaps it was because he was looking in astral when it appeared and launched his attack. Perhaps Tads had concentrated more of her attention on protecting the others, figuring that Aswon was better able to look after himself. Whatever the reason was, his mind was filled with terror, an absolute blind panic and all that he could think of was that he had to get away from it. Again and again his elbow smashed into the plexiglass, until finally the ancient gasket gave way and the whole window popped out behind him. He squirmed through the gap and clawed his way over the corpses of the badgers, sliding in their blood and falling out of the truck onto the moist ground below.
Shimazu recoiled from the ghost or spirit, but then saw Aswon struggling to his feet and starting to run. With barely a thought he opened the door and ran after him, summoning power of his own to infuse his muscles with energy and drive him onwards. He knew Aswon was quick – quicker than pretty much everyone else in the team but himself. If he ran off into the darkness, fleeing in terror from this thing, nobody but him had a chance of catching him…
Hunter clawed for his gun and bailed out of the vehicle, backing up and raising the rifle to his shoulder. He wasn't sure if bullets would hurt it, but he was prepared to give it a bloody good try. He pulled the gun back hard, compressing the soft filling in the jacket and snugging the butt in tight to ensure he had good control, and then snarled as his Smartlink went mad. The targeting cursor flew all over his cybernetic vision, not finding anything to lock onto and refusing to correctly range on the spirit. With a mental flick he set the cursor to lock at the centre point – it was close enough and slow enough it really shouldn't matter anyway.
Tads had bailed out of the vehicle too, grabbing Aswon's spear as she did so. She didn't think he'd mind, given the circumstances, and besides – if he'd not wanted her to use it, he should have taken it with him. She knew that without the magical bond Aswon had developed with the weapon it wouldn't be quite as useful to her – she wouldn't be able to focus the mana into making it truly effective, but it remained at its heart a magical weapon. And that was a magical creature. Its protections against bullets, knives, sticks or stones would matter not at all against such an attuned weapon.
The apparition looked to be drifting over towards Hunter, raising its arms to attack. Around them the air felt chill and odd, a sense of deep foreboding spreading out from the creature. Hunter stood his ground, refusing to give in to his fears and his finger tightened on the trigger, slowly turning white as he raised the tension. Any moment now…
"Hey!" STAB! Tads thrust the spear into the creature, grazing the edge of the arm as it moved away from her towards the orc. "Hey you!" Anger filled her voice, as she let off the frustrations of the last few days on a worthy foe. With a mental flick she gathered her defences back to her, like magical wings folding around her body. The creature turned and hissed at her, and she felt the full force of its hatred and rage wash up against her, recoiling off her protections. She stabbed at it again, grunting with the effort as she carried out moves half-remembered from her training with her tutor, half a lifetime ago. They'd used a staff then, but the principle was the same…
The creature advanced upon her, blue specks of mana leaking from the shallow cut inflicted upon it by the last thrust of the spear. A rising shriek bellowed out across the landscape, echoing from the distant shores and reverberating from the ruined derricks. Tads screamed in return, and thrust her spear deep into the creature's torso, striking back hard with the weapon and raising the spear point up the belly of the creature. As the magical point cut through the form of the apparition, it started to disintegrate, clothes flying open to reveal pallid blue flesh inside, sagging breasts flying apart as the ribcage disintegrated and the creature span into a whirling maelstrom of energy before dissipating into the wind. She felt a jolt of power from the spear too, adding to her rage as she spitted the creature. Strange – that shouldn't happen. In fact everything she knew said that it *couldn't* happen that way…
Marius and Nadia watched in confusion. The picture from the drone had shown the vehicle skid to a sudden halt for no apparent reason, then a moment later Aswon had kicked out the rear window and ran off into the darkness, pursued a moment later by Shimazu. Hunter was aiming his rifle at something, and Tads was making wild swings and thrusts at something else – but there was nothing there.
He adjusted the controls a little, zooming in on the scene, but no matter what they did nothing showed up.
"It has to be something magical, Nadia. Some creature of the abyss. They don't show up on sensors you see, because they say machines aren't alive, and don't have a soul. Pah. Mages." He reached over and patted the side of the chopper, his hand sliding down the fuselage almost tenderly. "Don't have a soul. Shows what they know." Nadia nodded slightly, ignoring him stroking the side of the helicopter the same way he stroked her. She'd deal with that later…
"The witch will fight it though, yes? With the magic spear?"
"I guess that's what she's doing. I've not really had her down as much of a combatant though – I hope she knows what she's about." As he spoke, they watched Tads leap forward and thrust, then raise the spear tip like she was holding a fishing rod and had caught something big. Whatever she was doing it seemed to work, as moments later the saw her lower the spear to her side and stand there panting, the clouds of breath clearly visible on thermographic. Hunter lowered his rifle and was scanning the area, looking out, and not at some target close-by. He pushed out the magnification a little, returning to a wider picture…
Striding out of the darkness came Aswon and Shimazu. Shimazu had apparently caught Aswon, and had tackled him to the floor it seemed, as both their fronts were sodden and streaked with mud and oily residue. Aswon seemed somewhat dejected, his head hung low in shame at the display of fear.
"Aswon, thanks for the loan, but I think you should have this back." Tads offered the spear to him, and when he hesitated for a moment, she planted the end in the ground and titled the shaft slightly then let go, letting it fall towards him and forcing him to catch it. "I think I disrupted it – some kind of spirit, but not something I've ever seen before. Maybe something special to the area. Some kind of psychic scream or resonance to trigger the fear reflex at the very least. I also think it would be bad to let it touch you – the way it was leaving little trails of mana behind. Eugh" She shuddered, but there was no jesting or humour in her voice, and the others nodded in acceptance.
They looked around for another minute, but nothing moved in the area, and the spirit didn't return. They managed to prise open the gasket on the rear of the truck and wedge the plastic back in place, though it looked like it would never seal itself properly again without a trip to the garage or perhaps the tender loving care of Marius. When they were convinced that nothing had been summoned by the sounds of the fighting and screaming, they got back into the vehicle and continued their westward journey.
Finally they pulled onto a long thin causeway that seemed to jut into a much more significant body of water. Driving along they saw a number of spurs off to the side, each leading to a little open area with another of the broken and shattered derricks. Shimazu slowed and then stopped as the end of the causeway came in sight, looking around at the slowly rippling water on either side of them. The smell of chemicals was intense now, and as he cast his torch around he saw the multi-coloured hue as the light refracted off the oil that coated the surface of the sludgy water.
Aswon looked around and tentatively dropped into astral space again. They were right in the middle of the aurora now, the mana approaching from the south west like snow in a blizzard, driving towards them in a cone. It appeared to come out of the ground a good way into the lake, rising in a shallow arc and twisting through the air just over their head height, tendrils of mana dancing and intertwining in a complex and beautiful dance before descending into the lake to the north east. There was a palpable aura of power here, and his fingers felt slick as if they were covered in the oil that surrounded them.
Tads apparently felt the same, and was examining her hands, as if expecting to see sparks shooting from the ends of her fingers.
"I think we've definitely got to where we need to be. Now it's a case of fanning out and looking for this plant that we're after." Aswon nodded at her, then pulled out the small sketch he had. With a small torch adapted with a red lens, he shone the faint light on the sketch, reminding Hunter and Shimazu of what they were after.
"Tads, do you think a spirit might help us with the search?"
"I'll give it a try. I'm going to be careful though – I don't want a repeat of what happened near that golem." Aswon nodded, and took a firmer grip on his spear, just in case. Shimazu moved to the other side of her, and laid his hand on the hilt of his sword, fingers poised to draw and strike if something….else….was summoned. Hunter saw their dispositions and picked up on the vibe, moving to stand behind her and started to glance left and right, rifle at the ready.
She dropped the illusion of the woolly mammoth covering the vehicle, and gathered the power to her, not only feeling but seeing the mana flow from the arc overhead. Like lightning following a path, the mana flowed towards her, more and more power arcing down into her outstretched hands. She called on the spirit of the land, restricting herself from using too much power, fearful of the results. It was almost an effort to stop, to break away from the ready source of energy. She felt like she could drink at that well, pull it all into her and shape it to her will, and she realised how easy and seductive that power would be. However she was old enough and wise enough to know that nothing came without a cost – it was just a matter of understanding how and when the bill would have to be paid.
She concentrated on the task at hand though, shaping the mana and calling to the land, mentally bargaining with nature to obey her in return for her respect, her worship and her love. A spirit appeared in front of her, a mossy shambling mound extruded from the ground with clinging ferns and a spine of sharp rocks down its back. It struggled against her though, fighting for control and resisting her as though it resented her very life.
"Why do you summon me, why do you do this? Release me!"
"Spirit, we seek help finding a flower, a rare flower in this area. We need to find it and then we will leave."
"Foolish mortals. You should not be here. You should not have come! Flee, and you may yet live." Tads blinked – then checked the creature in front of her. It WAS under her control, barely, yet acted much more like a free entity, displaying its contempt for her and her teammates in a most unusual fashion.
"We're not going to flee. We came here to get something, and we're going to get it. Then we'll leave. If you help us find it, we'll leave faster.
"Very well, though your quest is foolish and your demeanour arrogant. You will pay the price for your transgressions."
"Why should we flee? What is it that we should fear here?"
"This land belongs to that which I will not name. You will come to understand, and you will suffer. But I will speak of that no more. Now, what do you seek?"
The others watched as Tads stared at the creature, communicating with it mind to mind. They saw the moss ripple and shake, the vegetation wave, but it didn't seem to make any hostile moves, and finally it seemed to slink away.
"Is the spirit looking for the Dragonspine?" asked Aswon.
"It is, for now. It's not happy about it though. There's definitely something wrong here. I think it would be wise to find the plant and get out, as quickly as we can."
They fanned out, making sure they remained just in line of sight of each other, and stared to cover the ground and the edge of the water, searching for the magical plant that was the objective of their mission.