As the chopper flew out to sea, Marius kept an eye out, scanning around them and looking for issues. A fleeting glimpse of something made him engage the auto-nav, commanding the chopper to fly straight while he focussed all of his attention on the sensors. The engine RPM rose as the chopper lifted higher in the air, the auto-nav system refusing to fly under what it was programmed as a 'safe' altitude, but Marius didn't have any attention to spare for that.
All of his mental energy was instead funnelled into the sensors – the various tiny cameras installed around the craft, the thermal optics, the passive radar receiver and radio equipment. He wasn't sure what he'd seen, but that bothered him even more. So now he watched, wondering if the glimpse would return.
It did.
Behind them, at their five o'clock position. He slewed round additional sensors, and turned the craft slightly, moving the tail boom round just a touch to get some clear air to look through, while he zoomed in on the magnification as much as he could. It was difficult to keep the picture stable, and the quality was poor – the image was blocky and jittery as the computers struggled to process the limited data input into a recognisable image.
Then he saw it – appearing around a steep hill, tracking towards them for a moment then turning to follow the terrain – another chopper. Back on land, and a good twenty kilometres back, he thought. If he'd been in control of his body, he would have held his breath while he waited to see if they'd been spotted, but the RAS override in his rigger link kept his autonomic functions running just fine, and out of his control.
He saved the few seconds of footage from the sensors and played them back, then triggered the audio-visual interface from the rigger system so he could talk with the rest of the team.
"There's a chopper back there, nosing around a bluff, using it for cover. Looks like it is tracking across the course from Batumi up the coast route towards Sochi. I'm guessing that's what they're doing anyway. Ja, Ja, turning away now, and heading back, staying low and out of sight. If we'd been flying north, we'd have flown right over them without spotting them, and they could easily have come up on our six."
"What kind of chopper are we talking about?" asked Kai.
"Hard to say exactly, but looks like a Westland 1200 series. Big enough for a platoon of troops to get crammed in for a short deployment, so we're talking two full squads and some command personnel at least. Maybe twenty shooters they can put on the ground. But the chopper is also normally armed with a nose-mounted minigun, and at least a pair of air to air missiles under the pylons. They're armed for bear, certainly – more than we can handle unless Tads can support us with some magic like against those flying creatures.
"Um… she's shaking her head at me, saying something about not affecting inert astral targets. Oh right – no. She can affect living creatures like that no problem but not crews hidden away inside."
"Well, if they catch sight of us or get in range – we're fucked. Seriously fucked. I don't think they can catch us, but the sort of corporation that can mobilise a craft like that also has access to jet fighters – and we can't outrun that, for sure."
"So keep flying the way you are, and we'll get out of range, yes?"
"Yes, but if they're throwing this kind of resource around, we have a bigger problem than we thought." Marius clicked off the speakers, and resumed control of the craft, slowly easing it down again and very gently banking left to get back on his initial course, turning the narrowest aspect of his craft towards them. With every passing second the distance opened that little bit more, and if they remained undetected for another few kilometres, the curvature of the earth would take them out of detection range.
Hunter had grabbed the sensor feed from the computers and overlaid it on the map, then added the flight plan details, confirming what Marius had said. When he instructed the computer to display a mocked up 3D relief map of the area, they could see the valley the Westland was making use of, and how their flight plan would have taken them over it almost blind.
Pushing that to one side, Hunter zoomed out and displayed the overall area, displaying a chunk of real estate over 1500 by 1000 kilometres. He plotted their route, so far, and then tapped away on the icons until eventually a shaded circle appeared over the icon for the chopper which gradually edged westwards. Already the circle only just barely covered their destination.
"Marius, come to course 265 please, and hold for five clicks – we need to cut the angle a little here and get back closer to the coast." The chopper heeled over to port slightly as Marius gently eased them round, and the circle steadied, holding fast just past the island of Patmos.
Hunter manipulated the map a little, planning a projected turn not far off the northern coast of Turkey, keeping them out over the Black Sea and heading west towards Constantinople, before turning again just before they reached the city for a dash across the more civilised parts of Turkey late at night, then making a bee-line for their destination. The computer considered his commands for a moment, then plotted the route, emitting a harsh alarm honk at him, and displaying a stopping point a good distance before the island.
"Well, that doesn't seem so good. Looks like the original plan to go more or less via the city and follow the straights down leaves us without fuel. Unless we stop somewhere." Hunter sat back from the computer and stretched out his back, then looked around at the rest of the team.
The conversation flowed between them – Tads didn't care which way they flew as long as it was as safe as possible, and it seemed Shimazu seemed mostly to agree. Aswon wanted to file a flight plan that let them land at Constantinople airport and refuel, avoiding the whole danger thing entirely. Before Kai could say anything, Tads responded, again reminding them all that it would create *another* legal tie between the chopper transponder, a date, a location and someone's fake ID, giving their pursuers even more digital data to track down.
Kai sat back and listened to her tone, and nodded along with her, offering her at least validation and acceptance. Aswon responded, agreeing that it was a risk, but one he felt was outweighed by their ability to land and quickly and easily refuel, and not to get ripped off.
"Hunter, what happens if we cut across Turkey sooner, much sooner?" Hunter manipulated the map, dragging turning points around and having them angle in to cross the coast near the tiny village of Belyaka, and cutting across the road they had driven down only a few months ago. It meant covering a massive amount more land than before, and at considerably higher altitude as well, working their way up to the highland mesa that rand down the central spine of the country. It also took them a lot closer to Ankara, the capital.
"I don't like going so close to the capital," Aswon muttered. "Look at all the trouble to the east with the rebellion and civil war. They will have a lot more coverage around the city than might be normal, especially after things like that terrorist attack on the oil refinery we got caught up in. If we're going that way, I think we *must* file a flight plan, even with the risk of creating a data trail."
"Just to inform you all, that while I am indeed an excellent pilot, and you're perfectly safe flying with me, the chance of me performing acts of great stealth, cunning and guile flying across vast swathes of land are very low. This chopper is too big, and I'm not practiced enough for this kind of flying." Marius's voice was serious and made them bend forward and look at the route again, checking for natural features they could fly through, or take advantage of along the way.
"How about if I work up a flight plan from up here, coming out over the sea and down," Hunter described and arc from Bulgaria, heading down across Turkey and to the south, "just in case we get challenged." Aswon pulled out his own commlink and tapped away for a minute, then looked up at them.
"As far as I can see Bulgaria and Turkey are not particularly friendly, despite being pretty much neighbours, but they don't hate each other either. So we shouldn't run into problems there from what I can see…"
"That at least means we don't have an issue. And if we do get picked up by military sensors, that might be the difference between a quick scan and a thorough identification probe by some passing fighter jocks."
"Especially if we use another transponder setting for them as well." Hunter checked the database and selected another of the transponder codes issued by Milo, and entered it into their logging system, recording where and when they were planning on using it, which IDs it was linked to and a host of other details – all so they could ensure the detail was as consistent as possible.
They flew on, out over the Black Sea with the dim outline of the Turkish shore just visible in port side windows through the gathering darkness. Hunter continued to tap away on his computer, and then started to mutter, letting forth an intermittent diatribe of curses and complaints.
"Kai, I need a credstick that we can tie to this ID. There's a whole bunch of fees to pay to lodge this flight. Thieving bastards."
"How much do you need?"
"It's just topped seven grand."
"How much!"
"I know. There's licencing fees for the pilot's certification, and an expedite charge to get it done now. Then there's a type fee, with another expedite charge. Then insurance. And another expedite. Then we need an air-worthiness certificate which is one of the most useless things I've ever seen as we just need to fill it in ourselves to prove we're air worthy. But there's a registration fee for that as well. Then based on our size, there's an eco-tax because we're not registered as a full corporate body. The list goes on and on… but I still need seven thousand, and change."
Kai muttered under his breath now as well, but they worked through their credsticks until they found one that wasn't tied to anything else and had the funds available to do a transfer, then worked their way through the banking systems to move funds around until they could pay from the right SIN to the right place.
They flew on, reaching their turning point and changed their heading inland. The tension aboard rose a little as they crossed the shore and started to rise up, Marius hugging the ground as much as he dared. The hills rose up in serried ranks, covered in trees planted now with geometric precision for later harvesting by some agri-corp. Higher and higher they rose, clearing five hundred metres at times before dropping back down into the valleys beyond. The chopper thundered up the valleys, probably waking up dogs, people and scaring livestock as they went – but they were gone too quickly for anyone to spot them.
As they headed in from the coast, the landscape became more mountainous, and Marius was forced to start making hard choices. He could stick with the valleys, wending and winding their way further inland and accepting that it was going to raise the distance – and fuel usage – higher and higher as they went, or he would have to take a more direct route and rise over more of the ridges facing them. In the end he compromised, trying never to go more than thirty degrees off course, and going over what he couldn't go around. The peaks rose higher and higher, clearing 1200m now, and the heavy chopper threaded down the valleys and rose over the peaks like it was a routine flight, such was the control given by the rigger systems.
They were flying down a valley, about 115km in from the coast, mountains whizzing past their windows as Marius banked and rolled through the air as he followed the road which led in an agreeably direct route towards their next turning point when half the team suddenly sat up in alarm. Shimazu was just coming back from his first test of the airline style toilet, a disgruntled look upon his face when he noticed several of the team suddenly looking around them or pressing their faces up to the windows.
Kai, Tads and Aswon all felt the change – a surge in the astral that felt like someone was running a feather down their spine. Rather than being a feeling of despair and filth that they normally encountered, this was different. It was…wholesome.
"Where are we? Marius, stand by, something weird going on astrally!" Tads shouted out, her nose pressed up against the window.
"41.08406 by 32.81714," Hunter called out, "We're on the Yolu road, just coming up on Karabúk monastery according to the map."
"Monastery? Ok, maybe that's why. You guys feel this too?"
"I feel the surge in the background, yes. But it feels benign. Actually, it feels quite nice. Like… being wrapped up in a blanket and surrounded by my tribe." Aswon had his eyes closed, and his fingers outstretched, as if he was using his digits like antenna. "Yes, like being with the tribe during a festival, when everyone comes together to celebrate."
Shimazu had grasped the handle of his sword now and extended his sight into the astral too, giving a little gasp as he too felt the rise in aspected mana that flowed through, around and over them.
"I've felt something like this before actually. When one of our people gave birth, despite being injured. We didn't know if she would make it, but she did, and the child was healthy. The whole village was there to support them." Tads also had her eyes closed now, cutting out one of her normal senses to try and amplify the others.
The feeling started to fade just as quickly as it had come, and another minute later it had gone completely. For Shimazu, Aswon and Kai it was their first experience with a truly positive background surge of mana, and they all fell quiet as they processed the feelings and emotions it had stirred up.
"That happens sometimes where there is very strong emotions and feelings. Normally it doesn't last long. There was a bit happening when we got captured by the wolf tribe in the desert heading up towards Tashkent. Less so because they were going to sacrifice us, and that's always going to give you a different flavour. But if there's a lot of people very happy, all sharing the same belief, then you get spikes like that. Enjoy them while you can, because the bad side happens a lot more often." Tads spoke in a somewhat resigned voice, clearly wishing it was the other way around. "Aswon – your talk about the tribe. It was probably the same thing – just back then you couldn't see it magically, only feel the echo of that power."
"So what do you think that was we flew over?" Shimazu looked between Aswon and Tads, not knowing who was most likely to speak. It was a very human thing – the back of the chopper was noisy enough that they couldn't actually hear each other speak normally, the replied on the comms – so whatever was said would be piped into his ear bud, not heard by facing the speaker.
"Maybe a birth, maybe a marriage. Possibly even a death." Shimazu raised an eyebrow in Tads' direction in surprise, and she continued. "Sometimes, if people have been suffering, the end of suffering is a time of joy. Depending on your belief system, it could be the expectation that they have moved on to a better place, or have been reborn." Shimazu nodded as he considered her words, thinking about his own Shinto upbringing and how that might work.
"Sounds like we don't have anything to worry about from that though." Kai interjected. "Just happened to be flying past something interesting that has nothing to do with us. Let's settle down and keep our eyes out though – we can't be far from the next nav point and the capital."
Hunter had been having a look on the matrix while the magical part of the team chatted, and read off some information.
"The monastery there dates back to at least the 11th Century, and possibly older – no archaeological digs or examinations have been authorised by the monks there. They currently appear to be a Christian order, who live as farmers and do some craftwork which occasionally is sold – things made of wood or carved from stone apparently. There's really not much information out there beyond some tourist pictures. No affiliation with a formal church group or sect that I can see. "
They shared a look. That did sound a little suspicious – but they had no fuel margin to stop and investigate, and it was only a passing point of intrigue. The chopper flew on, heading south as it swung and threaded through the valleys, following the twisting road and heading south.
The ground gradually rose in elevation, the mountains receding into hills and as they crossed into the interior they entered the arid plateau that made up the centre of the country. Still sticking to the terrain as much as he could, Marius guided them southward, heading towards their turning point. He did pick up an increase in electronic activity from the bearing on Ankara – multiple radar sets and some fairly advanced sensors – but factoring against that was the greater electronic noise of the more populated area. He eased the chopper down as much as he dared, trying to remain lost in the ground clutter.
They reached the point in space identified and started to swing around as they crossed the spine of the country, now heading on a more westerly course and still sticking to the far side of whatever hills and terrain they had, using them to shield their vehicle from the questing energy of the military and civilian radars.
Their slightly longer route seemed to work though – as the journey progressed, they didn't get scanned or swept by anything, nor intercepted for any discrepancies in their route or paperwork. The hours flew by with the terrain, and they slowly started to descend back through the mountains and foothills, approaching the coast.
As they flew over Nazilli, following the D320 road, Marius felt an icy tingle in his bowels. He checked the systems and then consulted the map, looking at the remaining distance and working out the maths in his head. Back in the physical world, a warning light appeared on the cockpit next to the fuel gauge, alerting anyone who cared to look to the fact that they had only 10% of their fuel left.
They pressed on, Marius trying to fly as conservatively as possible. About twenty kilometres shy of the coast, the icy feeling inside him intensified, feeling now more like a cramping sensation. The light in the cockpit changed from orange to an angry red, and a loud buzzer started to sound intermittently. Crossing over the coast and onto the Mediterranean Sea, heading arrow straight for their target, Marius gently eased them up higher whenever he felt any kind of gust or thermal activity, using the natural environment to gain some height. It wasn't about stealth now – it was about not running out of fuel. Despite the size of the wings on the side of the helicopter, he had no illusions that they could glide far – it would be a challenge to try and set them down on auto-gyrate without trashing the vehicle, and if they were over-water, they were lost.
Aswon had made food in the back for most of them, including an extra portion for Grandfather, who didn't show himself. As they sat eating, Tads suddenly stopped chewing halfway through a mouthful and looked thoughtful. She ruminated for a moment, then hurriedly swallowed.
"Isn't there some kind of secret code we have to use here. Something the Zephyr crew told us? Who has their card?" Kai searched through his pockets for a minute, eventually finding and pulling out the holographic card. He turned it over in his hands, examining it but shook his head – nothing on there. "It was an odd thing. 'Mynock Pepper something something' I think it was.
"Minos-Papprika-229-Vaggelis-Chatzis," sounded over the speakers, as Marius corrected her. He sounded vaguely distracted though, and the others looked up in alarm as the engines suddenly throttled down sharply and they felt their stomachs rise slightly. "Sorry, trying to keep us on glide slope."
Hurriedly they cleared away their food and headed to the cockpit, strapping in to the various positions and looking around them. Hunter got on the electronics equipment and gave a quick scan of the area, finding a beacon pulsing on one of the little used frequencies. He keyed the comms to the same frequencies and sent out the password, being rewarded a moment after transmission with a series of additional radio sources coming online.
"Marius, we have an ILS beacon on the north eastern side of Patmos, checking the map….looks like it's on the top of a hill, we may want to curve around. No – wait. We definitely want to curve around, I have a second beacon showing and they're set up to mark either side of a landing zone."
They flew on for another thirty seconds.
"Marius, you need to curve around mate, you're coming in on the landing zone sideways. Marius? MARIUS?"
"Shut up and let me fly. Look at the fuel gauges." The voice was snappy and abrupt, yet there was no real malice there. It was as if he was speaking with whatever proportion of his brain wasn't taken up with something far more important and pressing. Hunter unbelted and moved from the electronics warfare station to the cockpit and looked over the shoulder of the motionless German at the gauges and readouts in front of him. His eyes scanned over the readouts, and watched as the fuel gauge tripped down from reading in hundreds of litres to tens of litres.
"Oh Shit! Hang on everyone, we're about to run on fumes!" He raced back to his chair and grabbed the restraints, buckling them over himself and then raising his arms to guard his head. The others hadn't been particularly alarmed up to then, but watched his reaction and their tension spiked.
The huge bulk of the chopper overflew the hill on the eastern side of the island with zero clearance. The outsize landing wheels actually started to spin gently as they rubbed across the gorse and low heather growing on the summit. As they cleared the hill, they could see a very secluded little bay below them, filled with a boat yard of some kind and several small, low buildings. In front of them on the next low summit was a small church or temple of some kind, the silhouette only just visible against the dark sky.
They all swung to one side as Marius hit the rudder control hard, spinning the chopper round through 90 degrees, and then dropped like a stone, stomachs once more rising towards their throat. At the last possible moment he threw full power to the engines, and their downward fall slowed just enough that they landed at a reasonable descent speed. Even so, the suspension dipped to the limit of the pistons as the gear compressed under the weight of the vehicle. Even before the suspension was recovering, Marius killed the engines, cutting off their voracious appetite for fuel. He thought for a moment that he'd heard one of them just starting to cough, and hoped he hadn't run the pipes dry…
The massive rotors slowed over the next one hundred seconds, and as the air resistance lowered, gravity took over once more and the ends started to droop. The team watched in morbid fascination as they got closer and closer to the surrounding buildings and infrastructure – it was like watching a car crash on ice. Nothing was going too fast, but there was a sense of inevitability about it. There was, quite literally, not a single thing they could do to affect this outcome.
The size of the chopper came into effect once more – this time to their advantage. The top of their rotor shaft was 9.1m from the ground. Even the 17.5m rotors could only droop so far, and with the initial elevation they had, the buildings escaped being treated to a strimming of epic proportions.
Marius powered down the electronics slightly more selectively, trying to work through his post flight checklist and evaluating what the emergency cut-off would do to their next start up. The rest of the team unbuckled, and headed to the back and the ramp. With the sudden violent course change at the last minute, Marius had slapped the chopper down into the only open area with even the slightest chance of holding them. Even then, as they looked through the side windows, they could see how tight it was as a landing site. There were signs of damage to a number of the buildings from loose debris, which probably meant someone was going to be a little annoyed when they found out.
"Hey Marius. Do you need help putting your sheets out?"
"What sheets?"
"The ones over the engines. The big red sheets you have?"
"Oh, the intake cowls. No Tads, that's fine. It's a lot of hard work and heavy lifting. And that sounds more like a Hunter job to me." Hunter raised a middle finger around him, just in case there was a camera somewhere Marius could see through, but grabbed the covers from their locker anyway, heading back towards the cockpit area and the ladder that led up to the engine area.
Aswon saw movement through one of the windows, and gave a low whistle to alert the rest of them – pointing towards the rear of the chopper and then holding up three fingers. Kai nodded, checked his gear and the charge on his taser, then conspicuously holstered it and secured the flap over it before heading to the back ramp and hitting the button to lower it. The others took their cue from him, making sure weapons were to hand and ready, but slung or holstered in a non-threatening manner.
As the ramp hit the ground with a loud thump, the whine of the electric motor died away, replaced with the gentle sound of the surf breaking onto the beach nearby. Standing about ten metres away were three people, waiting silently. Kai gave a cheery wave and then started forward down the ramp, shouting a cheery hello to them and walking like he'd just pulled up in your average family car.
Shimazu, Aswon and Tads all gave the three a quick astral look-over, examining them to see what was immediately obvious, without making any deliberate attempt to assense them.
The one in the middle was an orc, in generally ok health, and with dark splotches all over her head and neck, and a few lines leading down one arm to her right palm – a classic location for the induction pad of a smart—link weapon system. Her body seemed mostly intact though, and her aura was guarded, but somewhat curious.
Standing to her left, and their right was a troll. Not especially tall as trolls went, but very broad. He had black fingers, the essence normally found there driven out by mechanical replacements, and also had some black filaments racing up and down his spine. Most curious was a single large black splodge in the middle of his forehead. They too radiated watchfulness and caution.
The third figure, standing on the other end was much more dead inside than the first two. They had black lines extending down their skull and spinal cord, wrapped around their chest and then spreading down both arms and legs. There was an air of hostility towards them that was somewhat alarming, and they seemed ready to attack at a moment's notice.
"One on the left is heavily cybered, all through the body, angry and may attack," muttered Shimazu. He closed in on Kai, getting ready to swiftly draw his blade and defend their leader if needs be.
"One on the right, the troll has replaced hands or fingers, maybe weapons, probably some kind of reaction enhancement," added Aswon.
"Middle one is curious and has some stuff in their head and neck. Seems non-hostile though." Tads finished.
Kai heard the subtle reports through his earpiece and examined them in the real world, looking over all three for a few seconds. In the centre was a female ork, of average height and a little overweight. Plump even. From the spilt light shining from the back of the chopper, he could see a black t-shirt with 'Frodo Lives!' scrawled upon it, while her leggings had a repeated pattern of a yellow skeletal head and shoulders wearing a blood hood.
On her left was a large troll, wearing a huge blue boiler suit, and a large utility belt. The sleeves of the boiler suit were ripped off around elbow height, and massively hewn forearms rippled in the pale light. Most noticeable though was the one huge eye in the middle of the face, clearly cyber-replacement as he saw a red line scanning from one side to another and back again.
The final person, was shorter, much shorter, wiry in build and with a sharpness to their features that made Kai feel somewhat ill at ease with them. They too were in a boiler suit and had a tool belt festooned with equipment slung about them.
"Hoi Chummers – what do you want?" the slightly overweight orc asked.
"Hi there my friends!" Kai turned on the charm, mirroring body language and pitching his voice down in register somewhat. "We're just hoping we can find some fuel for our chopper here. Nothing fancy."
"Sorry chummer, we're just a little fishing cove, ain't got nothing for you." The voice was a little odd, as if *they* didn't quite believe what they were saying.
"Oh that would be a shame! You see, some friends told us about this place. We flew a long way to get here, and we've only got a Zephyr of fuel left…."
The ork in the centre snorted, then moved forwards towards Kai.
"I'm Zoe, I run this place. This here," she gestured up at the troll with the cybereye "is Leonidas. He's in charge of rentals and debt collection." The troll stared at them all, and when he took in Shimazu's size, he flexed a little, making the boiler suit stretch at the seams. And this is Ibratta. She's our mechanic and runs all of the tech side here, and manages the dock. What she says, goes."
"I'm Kai, and this is Aswon, Shimazu and Tads. Hunter and Marius are shutting down the systems up front, but will be out shortly I imagine. Nice to meet you all." Ibratta scowled at them all, then took another look at the chopper before shaking her head, turning on her heel and stalking off towards one of the buildings down near the water.
"So, as we're new here, what are the rules?" Kai fixed Zoe with a winning smile.
"Well, pay for your fuel and your beer, clean up after you and don't leave a mess, don't bring no trouble with you and you should be good. Oh, and don't piss off Ibratta! Please for the love of god, don't piss off Ibratta." Kai nodded along.
"Ahh, here comes Hunter and Marius now. Excellent. So, this is all of us."
"Are you wanting to stay in the flop house, or in your vehicle?"
"Is the house warded?" Asked Tads. Zoe shook her head, and Tads made a face, clearly indicating what she thought of that fact. "I'll stay in the chopper then. Nothing personal against you Zoe, but there are people occasionally trying to find me, and they can't if I'm behind a ward. And you said not to bring trouble." Zoe nodded at her, clearly with some reservations.
"Well, your call. If you're out here at night though – don't go outside the cove. Definitely not up into the hills."
"Hi. I am Aswon. Why not the hills? What's up there?"
"Well, occasionally you might find a Cerberous Hound running loose up there, we have some nasty old scorpions that are active at night, snakes…" Aswon made a shrugging gesture, indicating that it wasn't anything they were particularly worried about. "And of course the goats, who have to deal with all of them."
"Goats?"
"Goats."
"Well, if there are goats up there, we shall remain down here." Shimazu nodded his head in agreement, and Zoe flicked her eyes from one to the other in confusion. She recognised that there was something significant here, but not what.
"Oh, Tads – can you fetch a box of the small good stuff please, for our host here?" Tads headed back into the chopper, returning a few moments later with a small punnet of truffles, which she handed to Kai, then watched as he presented them to Zoe. "A small selection of luxury truffles for you to eat, and start us off on the right foot."
"No." Zoe spoke emphatically, as she took the truffles. Kai echoed back her comment, clearly confused as she said one thing and took them anyway. "No, truffles to sell to the next rich idiot that lands here and thinks they're something special, someone with more money than sense."
"Ahh, very wise. Well, they're a gift, and you may do with them what you wish. Now, is it possible to arrange for some fuel for our craft? We're a little low…"
The worked out the details of what fuel was needed, and then the troll dragged out a large hose from one of the small buildings, and attached it to the fuel inlet. Soon the team was down another sixteen thousand Nuyen, but the tanks were topped off and they were ready to go.
"Are we heading off tonight, or leaving in the morning?" Tads asked Kai.
"I'm not flying any more tonight unless I have to. I've not moved for the past five hours, I need a wee and I want to get some sleep," responded Marius.
"Seems like we're staying for at least the night."
Aswon headed into the chopper, and once the rest were clear raised the ramp. Setting his alarm for midnight, he climbed into his hammock and closed his eyes, and a few minutes later was asleep, slowly swinging from side to side with his spear held loosely in his hands while his dreadlocks scrunched up around his face and made it appear that he was being devoured by some monstrous eldritch horror.
The rest headed into the bunk house, finding a very basic shelter, made out of prefabricated sections. A small set of tables and gas burners at one end reminded them of the Quarry – but there was no chef here, and it looked like it just allowed visitors to cater for themselves somewhat. The main part of the room had ten cots, military surplus from the looks and adequate for most of them – though what trolls were supposed to do was anyone's guess. At the far end of the room a cable had been slung across from one exterior wall to the other, and blankets were pegged up, according a very little privacy to the two buckets and commode chairs, and the water tanks bolted to the ceiling which looked to collect rain water and store it for washing with. It was spartan and basic – but compared to sleeping in most vehicles would be preferable. With the modifications made to the chopper recently, it was actually a tossup as to which was better…
"Can you supply me with some containers for food and water please, Zoe?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a mage. I can create both food and water. I'd like to make some for you to keep, to help pay for our stay, or just to top up your stores." Zoe looked Tads over again, obviously reassessing her.
"Sure. I'll get you some stuff." She was as good as her word, bringing in a selection of large metal containers with screw tops, and then rolling in a large barrel with a tap installed in the bottom outlet. They could hear the sloshing of fluid inside, but it did sound mostly empty.
The team settled down, claiming cots and relaxing, enjoying being still and not having to shout over the sound of engines or contend with the constant vibration and shaking. Tads got to work creating food and water, slowly building up a pile of freshly created oats and grains in the metal containers, and adding litre after litre of fresh pure water to the repurposed oil drum.
Shimazu got his phone out and hunted down the number for Dr Mohammed, the contact they'd been given in Egypt. When he tried to call, it took a while for the call to go through, but then went straight to voicemail, asking the caller to leave a message.
"Hello Dr Mohamed. My name is Shimazu, and I was passed your number by a mutual friend, a gentlemen by the name of Aslick." Shimazu shuddered as he said the name, trying to add a different intonation to his speech. "He mentioned that you might be able to assist me with some specialist training I seek, and said he would pass along his recommendation to you. We happen to be down in this part of the world at the moment, so I thought I should get in touch." He reeled off his phone number and comm codes, then flipped the phone shut and went back to staring at the ceiling, hands laced behind his head and listened as the cot creaked under his weight.
Hunter was on the other side of the room, doing a very similar thing. He placed a call to Julius up in Denmark, hoping it was late enough to catch him out of work.
"Julius, hi, Hunter. Look, it turns out that there's a video of me doing the rounds that has definitely caught some corporate eyes, and it's no secret that I'm alive now. No secret at all."
"What are we going to do with you, Hunter. Seriously. You should be working for a corp you know. Someone who can look after you, and give you some direction…"
"Yeah yeah, save it. You're not recruiting me. Listen though, we might be going off air for a few weeks. Heading out into the boonies or a trip in the desert, so likely not to have good comms. Just wanted to let you know." They chatted for a few more minutes, then he too hung up, and unconsciously copied Shimazu, stretching out on the cot and enjoying the stillness and space.
Marius headed outside, and found a piling to sit upon, well away from the others. He turned to look out over the sea and sat below the star-filled sky, stretching above him in a natural panorama, the lack of light pollution giving him a superb view of the cosmos laid out before him. He didn't see any of that though, as he concentrated on the conversation to come, as he used his internal cyberware and sat link to place a call to Nadia at the ranch.
Inside the hut, Hunter had been searching through some old matrix sites, looking for something. He was sure he'd seen or heard something when he was a kid, and it was nagging at him. It took a while to find, but he eventually found what he was looking for.
"Hey guys, check your pads." He squirted over the video clip to their phones, tablets or commlinks as appropriate, using the local network set up between their devices. "It's some old show about some drones that got an AI or something, and rebelled, and started to kill all the Humans. But check out the eyes – don't they remind you of that Leonidas fella?" They watched as the ancient low-res video played, showing chrome drones with flashing red eyes stalk and kill humans until a plucky hero took them out with his laser gun.
There was a passing resemblance to the scanning pattern on the cyber-eye of the Cyclops. None of the team had ever met one before, but they were not unknown. Some weird twist of DNA meant that many of the trolls that expressed or were born in the Mediterranean region seemed to turn into this particular meta-type, having only one large central eye.
"Oh, and get this – they were called Cylons! You know what that means don't you. This one must be a Cyclon!" They groaned as Hunter rolled out the punchline, but it did seem to be strangely appropriate.
Back outside, Marius sat for nearly an hour, listening as Nadia told him about the ranch, and Germaine, Rusudan and the rest of the family. The hills, the barns. The state of the driveway. How much she missed him. How much she wished she was here with him, or he was there with here. He listened as she got a little choked up, trying not to cry, with half his attention, while the other half scanned through online articles about long distance relationships, communication, how to make your partner feel loved and a variety of other topics – trying to distil often contradictory advice down into something practical he could use.
Marius was annoyed. Annoyed with himself, and annoyed with the world. It shouldn't be this hard. As a child he'd gotten used to succeeding. He knew he was gifted, he knew he was clever. Always at least two years ahead at school, he'd been used to being somewhat isolated from his peers, and relying on adult conversation. He'd been used to excelling at things, at getting top marks. But none of his formal education, upbringing or work experience had trained him to how to deal with a sniffling girlfriend who missed him. And, he had to admit to himself that he missed her, too.
Despite growing up in a loving family, girls had never really interested him when there were fun things to do like building his own flying drones and then kitting them out with flamethrowers. Or upgrading his electric bike with a new transmission and discovering how scary sixty kph felt on a bicycle when you were only ten years old. The whole dating scene had pretty much passed him by as he charged through high school, then university, then straight into the welcoming arms of the corporation and flight school. And then one night, Nadia had snuck into their life, and been with him ever since. And despite missing a good chunk of most teenager's life, certain things were just 'natural' and they'd figured a lot of that stuff out for themselves. Sometimes several times in one night. But he did miss her.
Eventually he settled down on describing his own day in intricate detail. Slowly the snuffles stopped as he described the evacuation from the airport, the tension of waiting at the football ground, the spotting of the chopper and their long flight over the water. Long, tedious flying. Hour after hour of long tedious flying. In fact, he'd only gotten about half way across Turkey in his description, when Nadia interrupted him, telling him that she was very sorry, but she had to go as someone needed her in the ranch, for something.
Smiling, Marius told her he loved her and broke the connection. As long as he'd not overdone the boredom, that should stave off the tears for a few days at least…
He turned and headed back towards the flop house, watching as Tads returned to the chopper to sleep in warded safety. As she climbed aboard, she didn't bother trying to move quietly, knowing full well that she was almost certain to have woken Aswon, who would be lying still with his eyes closed, tracking her movement with his uncanny hearing. So she just pottered around, attending to her personal hygiene, then climbed into one of the bunks, curled up at one end under a blanket and went to sleep.
When Aswon awoke at midnight, feeling refreshed, he was the only one awake in the smuggler cove. He quietly hopped down from his hammock, grabbed a few pieces of chalk and moved down towards the elaborate construction they'd made in the shipyard. Slowly and methodically he started to draw on it, sketching out a story of a great hunt across the plains, stick men warriors chasing after wild creatures with massive fangs, as he worked his way around the edge of the containment unit. In astral space, a steady haze started to build as the ward grew into existence as he progressed with his work, forming a powerful barrier over the contraption.
Above them all the stars tracked across the sky as the world rotated, the waves lapped against the beach, slowly advancing with the tide, and the quiet scraping of chalk continued to describe an epic hunt across the world, waiting for dawn to arrive.