"Marius – please can you head back inside the vehicle? I'm pretty sure they can't get to you in there – not quickly and easily anyway."
"Give me two minutes, Tads – I'm just finishing up the checks to make sure we're ready to fly again – then sure."
"Alright – for the moment then I'm going to put my mana shield up around you – that may help against any spells they cast, but not against their powers." She concentrated, raising up her barriers around him while keeping some of her essence guarding Aswon and Hunter. It left her undefended and potentially vulnerable – but hopefully she'd see them coming and have time to react if they did come for her.
"The small spirits are still manifest – potentially I can shoot them down… but I feel that might not be the best plan." They heard a mutter from Hunter, but Aswon ignored him and continued with his point. "The small spirits can be summoned again, by whatever shaman is in the area. We need a plan before we kick off a fight. Or another fight. They're definitely going to know they lost some spirits to Shimazu, that's for sure."
Concentrating on the radio chatter, both Kai and Shimazu were caught off guard when a large burly Russian soldier burst out of his room, wielding a large section of pipe.
"Stop, or I attack! Vasily! VASILY!" Kai and Shimazu froze, though Kai saw out of the corner of his eye that Shimazu had the end of his finger touching the sword hilt. Kai felt confidence surge in him, knowing just how fast Shimazu was with the blade, and that he was pretty much guaranteed to be safe from having his face caved in by a pipe. He turned to the man, spreading his palms wide and showing him a large and friendly grin.
"Wow, those spirits like to play rough, don't they? Good evening, and sorry for barging in like this. We were heading for the main building for our appointment with the Brigadier, when that pack of spirits came down and mobbed us. Next thing we know, hailstones were pelting us from all sides, and we were forced to take cover. Sorry if we startled you. Now, we're probably going to have to wait here for the rest of our team to arrive, so we can get to the headquarters building safely." A second Russian appeared, holding an extendable baton over his shoulder, ready to strike. He'd obviously taken a few seconds to get a little more ready as he had his combat trousers on along with a t-shirt, while the first man had just his briefs and a t-shirt.
"Who are you people? What are you doing in my barracks block?"
"Yes, sorry about that – like I said, unexpected trouble with the spirits. So, I'm Mr. Kai, and this is my associate. And we have a small team as well, come to help out with the spirit problem."
"Pah. Some help. Why are you in here hiding then?"
"Like I said, just some unanticipated bother. Nothing we can't handle, with the right tools – but she's over at the airfield at the moment." Shimazu stifled a snort, while the Russian just looked a little confused. "But as soon as we get organised, you'll see… now, we just need to hang on here for a little while until we get things sorted out, then we'll be off to see the Brigadier."
"Vasily, contact Ops. Find out who these people are and what they want doing with them." Vasily gave a curt node, then turned and marched into his room, closing the door behind him. The burly man took another step towards them and leant the pipe against his shoulder, crossing his arms as he did so. Muscles flexed and his jaw worked while he examined them. It must have been cold, his bare feet being leached of heat by the bare concrete floor – but if so, he gave no sign of it bothering him. Kai smiled, then turned back to check the door, realising that his efforts to win over the man were having no effect whatsoever. It only took thirty seconds, then Vasily returned.
"Sergeant! Operations confims that Mr. Kai was expected, and has permission to be on the base. His team were the ones here before we shipped to the front, who found the spies." As the sergeant heard that, his expression softened a little, though he still looked guarded.
"Very well. Cause no trouble, and leave my men alone I say. They are in barracks and I don't want them leaving – too many accidents!"
"No problem. So, how long have you been back here, then?"
"That is for the Brigadier to say. If he wants you briefed, I am sure I will receive orders." He turned on his heel and returned to his room, closing the door firmly behind him. Kai and Shimazu turned at the door opening on the other side of the hall, as Vasily returned, clutching a medical kit. It looked basic, but better than nothing, and they nodded their thanks to him as they started to deal with Shimazu's wounds. Fortunately the gouges, while painful, were fairly shallow and easily dealt with, and it didn't take long to patch him up. Kai tried a new tack with Vasily.
"So, we need to get to the main building – any idea how we do that?"
"You wait. Wait until dawn."
"Why, what happens at dawn?"
"For a while, they leave, and it is safe. Not for long though – enough for a squad to go and run to the mess and get fresh ration packs, or to take someone to the infirmary. For the sergeant to run and give a report. But then they come back, and the accidents happen. People trip, they fall, they drop things. Blizzards spring up out of nowhere and drive soldiers to their knees." Vasily shrugged, his face full of despair. "We cannot stop this. Someone was supposed to come from Moscow… but they have not come. What can we do? So, we hide in our barracks, and at dawn and at dusk – we run. But not for long."
"Ok, I think I need to talk to your operations officer." Vasily led them to the phone, and dialled through – and Kai spent the next few minutes talking with him, establishing that the Brigadier had retired to his room for the night, and that no – the ops watch weren't going to wake him up unless they thought it really was urgent. Realising he wasn't getting anywhere, he asked to be put through the infirmary, hoping to speak to the Doctor that Tads had been dealing with. A few clicks and whines from the phone, and it rang for a few rings before being connected and a voice snapped at him.
"Duty doctor."
"Ahh, hello Doctor. It's Kai – I don't know if you remember us, we were here a few months ago and you helped patch up our shaman after that incident in the woods."
"Yes, I remember."
"Well, we're back, here to help out with your little spirit problem. Now at the moment two of us are in one of the barracks after running into some trouble, but we're going to try and make our way over to you, as we need your help."
"You're trapped in the barracks and you need my help? As 'specialists', you're not filling me with confidence…"
"Look, we've just arrived into a difficult situation – don't worry, we'll get things under control. Now the first thing we need to do is talk to the Captain."
"Which Captain, we have dozens!"
"Captain Zarkorov, the Brigadier's aide."
"That will be difficult. He's out in the ward, in a coma. He was doing an inspection in the motor pool, and a vehicle jack slipped, striking him on the head. He's stable, but not responsive at the moment – so I don't think he can help you."
"A natural coma, or have you had to induce it?"
"A natural coma – why?"
"Hmm… well, I think we need to get Tads over to you as soon as possible, then. Ok, thank you. We'll be over to see you soon." He hung up the phone, nodded and smiled at Vasily and then turned to squeeze past Shimazu and head to the sergeant's room. Knocking on the door frame, he called out without entering the room.
"Sergeant – the special ammunition you had. Do you have any left?" The door opened, revealing the sergeant, now dressed in his PT kit.
"No – it's all gone. When we were running low, we started to pull back – but it's all gone now. We had to fight our way clear."
"Dammit. None left at all?"
"Not that they told me. We just shot what we were issued with, and told to keep it for special targets."
"Ok, never mind." He pulled away from the door and went to the exterior door, risking a quick peek before letting it quickly close. He made sure his comms were on, then called to the team. "Everyone, we need to get to the infirmary with Tads, and we need to start working out what and where these spirits are operating from. We're pinned down here, in the company barracks on Brigade A side, we need a pickup."
"Leave it with us. Might be a while, but we'll get something organised." Aswon sounded confident, so Kai didn't press for details. Instead he leant against the wall and then slid down into a crouch, before turning to Shimazu.
"Best get comfy – might be a while."
Back in the hanger, Tads was chatting with Marius in Azerbaijani. It was neither of their native languages, but it was probable that nobody else spoke it either, so if anyone was messing around and trying to listen to them, it should fox them.
"Marius – if we got some water based paint, would it damage the vehicle if we painted the outside. The special things that make the sensors not see you, I mean – would they get broken if we painted them?"
"I don't think so – not unless there was some really strange chemical reaction. I can try to look into it, but almost certainly it should be ok. Why?"
"Well, normally we keep the ward on the inside, to keep it subtle. If we painted the outside, we can make sure the engines, propellers and all the other things are inside the ward, and keep them much safer from outside interference. It'll take a little while, and it won't last more than a week – or less if it rains, of course. But it means you could fly if you needed to, without things happening like they did in that ghoul park."
"Ahh, I see. Then that sounds like a good plan. I mean – we're not being subtle about being here, are we? Not to the spirits, anyway."
Hunter got Aswon to hold on to the rope and walked and then slid down the side of the hanger, almost running down to the ground level as if he was abseiling, before releasing the rope and making sure that Aswon wasn't sliding down after him. When he was sure that wasn't going to happen, he quickly headed inside and had a look around at the crews still busy doing maintenance, before heading over to the cluster of what looked to be senior chiefs or junior officers. In nigh-perfect Russian he interrupted their work.
"We have need of a vehicle to perform some minor work on, to keep it safe from the creatures out there that are causing these accidents. My commander has told me to requisition one, and that this has been authorised by the Brigadier. Now, I know you are attached to the base, and not his Brigade – but I hope that nobody wants us to call him at this time of night and wake him up to confirm his orders?" Hunter hoped his body language didn't give away the fine gossamer lies he was spinning – pretty sure that his explanation was flawless.
"I suppose you can take one of the push-pulls, or a starter. It's not like you're going to drive off the base in them!" There were grins and a few laughs, and it wasn't until the officer pointed at the vehicles that Hunter understood what he meant. The two vehicles were based on the same chassis – a small cab perched at the front with large windows on three sides; though at least they had polarised glass installed. Behind the drivers cab was a large load bed. One type had a good size electrical generator and a number of coiled cables on hooks dangling from all three sides. The other had a huge outside engine and a heavily reinforced solid tow bar on a steerable axle. Neither looked 'sporty' and Hunter estimated they'd only be good for about fifteen kilometres per hour at the most.
"Well, that should work – it's only for driving around the base. And at least they'll have plenty of power." He grabbed the keys and started up one of the push trucks, driving it over towards the tilt-wing.
"What the hell is that, Hunter!"
"It's a push-pull. They use them to tow choppers and jets around and position them when the engines aren't running."
"Well… you know we're going to struggle to get more than two people in the cab, right?"
"Hey, I got the best they had – it's a vehicle, and we have use of it. That's what you asked for, that's what you got."
"Well, I suppose we can ward it as a cube, and include the space over and above the engine. That means someone will have to ride outside, maybe crouch down on the back. Ok, we can make that work. Let me go grab Tads."
He called for Tads, passing Marius on the way through the tilt-wing as he grabbed the Condor surveillance drone and started to unpack it. All three of them left the tilt-wing, Aswon and Tads heading to the tow truck with some pens and ink ready to start their warding process, while Marius started to fill the lifting bag of the drone with gas from the cylinder. The blimp quickly inflated, the translucent bag distorting the sight of the hanger beyond it. When he'd finished the pre-flight, he got Hunter to walk it out of the hanger, rather than risk flying it around so many people and the piles of equipment. Hunter found himself with a couple of the air crew, who were curious about the drone, and started asking questing – admiring the compact design and efficiency of the systems.
Once outside, Marius sent the drone up high, spiralling round to examine the area and to look out for spirits, before turning the cameras down to examine the land around the base. He could see the small flock of materialised spirits swirling around the barracks still, along with the two larger types, but other than that, the base was quiet with barely any lights and certainly no movement – nobody seemed interested in being outside of a warded area.
Tads and Aswon spent the next hour scribing symbols onto the vehicle, working as quickly as they could to put up a powerful ward around the vehicle, extending over the cab and the back section by about a metre, but otherwise conforming to the shape of the vehicle. By the end, their back ached and their fingers were cramping from holding the chalk sticks and brushes so precisely, but the subtle mana ward protected the vehicle from exterior attacks. Marius was back in the tilt-wing, jacked in and controlling the drone as he carried out a careful search of the base and the surrounding forest, but Hunter was sitting over with the air crew, gathered around a table with a few paper plates and some of the food from the tilt-wing. When he saw they were done, Hunter excused himself and headed over.
"Been chatting with the guys over there, trying to get a bit more information about what happened here. It seems the Brigade moved out about two months after we left them, heading up to the front line. They came back earlier than expected, it seems. They're not clear on the details, they're the air corp, not infantry, but it was supposed to be at least a few more months before they returned, they said. And they also took pretty hefty casualties, it seems. But since they came back, there's been stuff going wrong all over the base, and people getting hurt by accidents – way more accidents than is normal. They're afraid… they're trying not to show it, but they are. Morale around here is in the shitter. Nobody wants to go outside, and the officers are having to threaten people to get out of their barracks blocks. Pretty much all the training has stopped, and they've had vehicle crashes so often now, that all flights are pretty much grounded and nobody wants to drive anywhere. They're not a bunch of happy campers, let me tell you!"
"I'm surprised that nobody from the army mage team has come to sort this out," Aswon responded.
"Ahh, apparently they were supposed to. The base has been calling out for help from someone equipped to deal with this, and they got promised someone is coming – but nobody has turned up yet. That's part of the problem – some of the crew think they've been abandoned, and that's hurting morale just as bad as the attacks for some of them."
"Hmm. Well, while we were warding, I had an idea. I presume the base has an air traffic control tower or radar room of some kind. Can you find out where it is for me?" Aswon didn't explain why, so Hunter wandered off to talk with his new friends, giving Aswon a chance to get into the cab of the tow truck and start to work out the controls. Returning a minute later, he found the tow truck slowly moving forwards and backwards as Aswon experimented with the vehicle.
"They say it's on top of the main HQ building – highest point around, and close to the HQ ops office. Why?"
"Well, we know their sharpshooters are pretty good. What they're probably not aware of is that if those spirits are actually materialised in the physical world, they are affected by mundane weapons. They're resistant and hard to damage compared to normal people – but it can be done. And a high-powered sniper rifle is just the thing. They probably don't know that's the case though, and if I can get them together and we do a mass barrage, we can probably take down most of them in one go. That's good for keeping people safe, but also a massive boost to their morale."
As Aswon described the plan, Hunter flashed back to the scene in the woods, where he was engaged in a desperate melee with a shapeshifter bear, the massive creature doing its best to eviscerate him and his frantic attempts to hold it at bay until someone could come to his assistance – and the shots from the snipers Aswon was talking about, from the orbiting helicopters, that put one of the strange warp bullets square through the creatures head and dropped it instantly. Yeah, the snipers were pretty good. But then Russia had a habit of turning out decent snipers, throughout its history.
"Are you lot ready to go?" Marius called out over the comms. When they all responded, he continued, "I'm going to leave the back ramp down. When you lot go and start driving around in that truck, it's going to wind up the spirits I expect. Hunter – tell all the air crew that if the spirits come here and attack, they're to run up the ramp and cram into the troop and cargo bay. As long as they're inside, they should be safe."
"Ok – and I'll tell them not to touch anything. I mean, we should be safe – the aircrew did say that nobody ever got affected inside a building, they were only ever attacked or had accidents outside."
"Yes, but nobody ever sliced a bunch of them up using their weapon foci or started driving around the base in warded trucks either. I'd rather play it safe."
"Fair enough, let me go brief them then." With that Hunter headed back to the air crew and started to describe what was going to happen, and what to do if any spirits appeared, waving towards the back ramp of the tilt-wing. Soon enough the senior NCOs split up and started to brief all of the night shift crew working on the planes, sharing the knowledge.
As Aswon pulled out in the tow truck, Tads in the cab next to him, Marius started to pilot the drone out a little, moving away from his initial position directly over the hanger. He set a search pattern, spiralling out from the airbase, aiming to cover the forest with sensor sweeps, each overlapping the previous pass to ensure he didn't miss anything. He saw the tow truck pull out on the path and start to drive towards the main base at a dizzying speed of eight kilometres per hour – Aswon taking no chances with the vehicle still until he'd felt how it handled in the corners and over rougher ground.
The tow truck worked its way along the rough road, bouncing up and down and Aswon checked the time – about a quarter to one. He hoped that Kai and Shimazu were ok still, but there wasn't a lot he could do. He concentrated on the driving, eyes flitting around the road ahead and giving the forest on either side careful consideration. It was a good place for an ambush, though hopefully the ward around the vehicle would blunt any assault and give them a chance to counter-attack. About two thirds of the way from the air base to the main base, he saw something zoom past, up in the air.
"Tads, up and back your side. Think I just saw something."
"One moment…" she squeezed the transmitter on her comms, broadcasting to the whole team instead of just responding to Aswon. "Heads up, I have spirits heading towards the air base. In astral – I repeat in astral. They are NOT physically present any more. Marius, Hunter – be careful, you may want to get inside if you're not already!" She heard Hunter acknowledge, imagining him grabbing his rifle and crouching by the back ramp, just inside the protective ward.
As the tow truck emerged from the path between the two forested sections, the ride improved as the rough track was replaced with concrete. Aswon risked a little more speed, accelerating ponderously down the road. The vehicle was designed to push or pull aircraft weighing hundreds of tons about, but not to move at speed. It gave Aswon some insight into how Marius must have felt at times driving the truck about.
His thoughts were interrupted when a few flakes of ice suddenly landed on the windscreen, followed a moment later by a deluge of hailstones and shards of ice, pelting the vehicle and making it sound like he was inside a steel drum. The wheels skidded as they slid across and over the golf-ball sized hailstones, and he felt the vehicle yawing to the side, heading for the drainage ditch at the edge of the road. Fighting the wheel, he slalomed back and forth, the torque from the engine making the wheels spin almost uncontrollably as the rear end fish-tailed back and forth. After a few tense seconds he felt one wheel bump on the rough ground, perilously close to the edge of the ditch, but then slide back onto the road surface as he slowly and very gently steered back towards the middle of the road.
The blizzard stopped as abruptly as it started, and Tads craned her body forwards, staring out through the polarised windows and the ward at the spirits above. She saw the tail end of the spell, and studied it intently before the traces faded away.
"That's a combat spell, not a weather manipulation." She wasn't sure if Aswon was even listening, but carried on regardless. "I think it's closer to something like a fireball or lightning bolt spell, but using the medium of ice as a damaging effect. Clearly one designed to blast people over an area, not a single target spell. I'd imagine that the ice melting underfoot is a handy secondary benefit of the spell, making it more likely for people to trip and fall. If the small spirits are working with them, using their powers as well to make people stumble, that's only going to make it worse and increase the chance of something really serious." Aswon grunted at her, concentrating on his driving and trying to prepare for a second attack.
Tads looked out and checked over the spirits again, taking a good, long, hard look at them in astral space and trying to assess their power and type. There were fewer of the small spirits now, only two or three visible; that tied in with the number that Shimazu said he had destroyed along with the ones heading towards the hangers. As she reached out with her senses to examine the spirits she noticed a common thread to them – a coldness and harshness that she'd not seen anywhere else. They weren't toxic – or at least not like toxic spirits she'd found before – and neither where they the normal nature spirits that she interacted with daily. There was a quality of 'other' about them that disturbed and alarmed her. She did get a better read on their power though, or at least what she thought was their power. She probably had the edge on them – but it wasn't a large edge, and that made attempts at things like banishing them or astral combat a chancy proposition. All it would take would be one of the other, smaller, spirits coming to interfere and it could heavily tip the odds.
Aswon swung the tow truck around and backed it towards the barracks, leaving only a narrow gap to one side and stopping only when he heard the bumper gently grinding against the rough concrete stairwell. He watched the spirits swirling overhead, still thirty metres or more in the air, waiting for their chance to strike as they continued to patrol around the building. Co-ordinating with Kai and Shimazu over the radio, they waited for the optimum time, when the spirits were as out of position as they were likely to get, before the pair bashed open the door and sprinted for the vehicle. Aswon swung out of the cab and up onto the roof, sliding along the back and stretching out a hand towards Kai, then pulling him up onto the roof and next to him, laid out flat. The position looked vulnerable to mundane eyes, but it kept him under – and inside – the ward they had put on the vehicle. Shimazu threw himself into the cab and just as his fingers grasped at the door handle, the vehicle was once more pelted with ice and hail, the bulk of it aimed at the cab. The spirits it seemed, had a special dislike for Shimazu…
"Ok Shimazu, we're ready to go. Now careful with this thing – really light touch on the accelerator. It doesn't jump fast, but it's got more power than something this size should have. If you hit something, you're just going to smash through it, and wreck the vehicle."
"Got it. Ok, hang on, starting up now." Coached by Aswon, Shimazu gently pulled away and headed for the main HQ. The spirits flew around angrily overhead, and they saw the occasional flash of power as they probed and prodded at the wards, but the barrier held and they slowly rumbled across the base towards the HQ building. Heading around the back of the building, they found the rear entrance to the infirmary, a gentle ramp down half a level that slid under a canopy. Shimazu carefully turned them around and rolled down the slope backwards, ensuring as much of the vehicle was hidden from overhead view as possible. When they were as close to the double doors leading into the emergency department, he killed the engine and then looked about for spirits, along with Tads. A few moments of intense scrutiny, and with no sight of the enemy, they opened the doors and quickly descended, heading into the building as quickly as possible. They held the doors open while Kai and Aswon jumped down and made the same sprint, then pushed the doors closed behind them, hearts racing despite the lack of action.
"If this is making us feel like this, I can see how it would shatter the morale on the base." Aswon recounted the information Hunter had passed on, and the others nodded grimly. Shimazu and Tads led the way, familiar with the route through the hospital area. The receiving area was deserted and dark, with no activity at all – unsurprising if nobody was outside of the barracks. But when they got through into the ward area, they found it thronged with patients. Every bed was full, there were cots laid out alongside the beds and strewn in the central corridor, and walking wounded were in chairs or sitting on piles of blankets on the floor. A pair of medical orderlies were checking out the patients, and as the team entered, one of them stopped taking notes on his tablet and headed off towards the doctor's office.
A moment later, looking tired and slightly gaunt, Doctor Tolyev appeared in the doorway, the medical orderly just behind her. She strode out towards them, and as he approached, they saw the loose hairs that had escaped from her bun, the wrinkles and stains on her white coat and the lines around her eyes. She looked exhausted, but the state of the ward made that an unsurprising observation.
"Hello again, Doctor. I wish I could say it was good to see you again, but I wish it wasn't under these circumstances."
"I agree on the situation – but I am very glad to see you. Since these attacks started, we have too many sick and wounded here, as you can see. If you can help any of them, I will be glad to have your assistance."
"Can you tell us about Captain Zarkorov? We heard he was in bad condition?" Kai asked, "Though we'd like to help all of these people out, I believe that getting the Brigadier's right hand man on his feet again will be a pressing need." The doctor nodded, and turned, leading them up to the bed closest to her office. Captain Zarkorov lay in the bed, the sheets neat and tidy, the pillows perfectly matched. It looked unnatural – the bed looking too neat and tidy, with the unmoving patient laid out atop it. He was hooked up to a number of biomonitors, and as Kai and Shimazu examined the readouts, their frowns deepened. Respiration was incredibly slow and shallow, blood pressure was low, and brain activity was disturbed and atypical.
"He got struck by a jack and some material in the motor pool during inspection. A team were working on one of the vehicles, and he'd gone to check out their work. It should have been safe – every man working there swears the jack was properly locked in place, and the visual records confirm that. But as he walked past, a pin snapped and the jack was catapulted out of position and struck him on the side of the head, along with some materials that struck the body. He fell, and they rushed him here after emergency first aid – but he slipped into a coma and has been unresponsive ever since. The ribs were broken, but not shattered and they missed the lungs, and the strike to the temple is the likely cause of the coma. We've stabilised him physically, but he's not responding to any treatments. It's as if his brain is just not connected to his body…"
Tads, Shimazu and Kai all glanced at each other, and then examined the Captain, probing his aura magically. Shimazu had his hand firmly on his sword, wondering if he'd need to leap into action at any moment. The same thought was going through all of their minds – was the Captain possessed or in some way infected with a magical malady? Some power of the enemy, hiding within him? As they carefully checked him over though, they saw no signs of magical taint in his flesh. He had a small amount of cyberware implanted within him – datajacks and some implanted memory in his head, no doubt small things to help him perform his job better. Beyond that his essence seemed low though, his spirit weak and detached from his body.
"I don't like this at all. Not sure if the weakness of the body is the cause of the injury, or because of the injury. But we need to get to work on this." Tads murmured. "Now, the difficult thing here, of course, is gaining his consent. I don't want to…" The doctor cut her off, speaking firmly.
"On his behalf, I consent and authorise the treatment – or attempted treatment. Yes, I remember your speech from last time. But as his doctor, I strongly approve of any treatment that will help his condition recover." She raised her voice, speaking to the room. "And I'm sure everyone here will also consent, with thanks, to any treatment you are able to offer them." Tired eyes glared around the room, daring any of the patients to object.
Leaving Tads to attend to the Captain, Shimazu and Kai started to work around the ward, checking over the patient notes and talking with the patients. They found there was little they could do physically, as everyone had been treated and patched up. Despite the primitive facilities, the doctor was good – and everyone had been treated with care and skill. Instead, Kai gave them encouragement and a pep talk, describing how soon the spirits would be dealt with, and things returned to normal. Shimazu watched their faces, seeing their doubts wrestle with hope. It was odd, seeing these men in this state. Physically fit, most in their prime years and at the height of their physical prowess, trained to march for days, carry heavy loads. Psychologically conditioned to charge enemy positions, to advance under fire, close with the enemy and kill as needed. But against this threat, they felt helpless and their power was rendered moot. Unable to defend even themselves let alone their friends or civilians, it was an insidious and debilitating strike against their psyche, one that wormed away at their self-confidence and determination.
One thing they did notice as they worked down the ward though, was that people initially weren't paying them much attention – they were all looking at Tads. When prompted, it appeared that while they had vague memories of the rest of the team, most of their knowledge was confined to the shaman who had been awarded the medal for her service to the Brigade. It didn't appear to be a snub against them, but more of a societal conditioning to venerate those who served and were recognised…
Tads finished her preparations, and pulled up a chair next to the bed, sitting on the edge. At least if she overdid the healing process, she wouldn't fall and become the next patient. Laying her hands over the chest, near the bloody bandages of the broken ribs, she concentrated and started to mumble the words of her healing mantra. Golden light streamed out of her hands, and started to drift down to the body before her, motes flashing in the dim illumination of the ward. As before, gasps of amazement burst out around the room as many of the soldiers saw magic for the first time in their lives.
Tads ignored them, filtering out the distractions as she usually did. Her eyes widened in alarm though, as the golden light seemed to concentrate into tight and small channels, working up from her hands and heading towards the Captain's head. Rather than spreading out around his ribs and flank, working to accelerate the natural healing of the body, all of her mana flowed towards the head, following what she guessed were nerves or blood vessels, riding the natural highways of the body. The golden light travelled up through the neck, vanishing into his head, disappearing from her sight. The spell was still working, as far as she could tell – but it wasn't doing what she expected at all. She continued to channel power in, trusting her totem and abilities and watched with mounting concern as the seconds ticked by.
She spent nearly a minute hovering in position, before she felt the stream of power slow, becoming a trickle and then fading away, leaving just the nagging pressure in her head that threatened to become a headache. She sat back and took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to centre herself and deal with the backlash from casting. Her eyes sprung open as she felt a hand on her shoulder, and twisted up to see the doctor, leaning over her to examine the readouts on the far side.
"Pulse is climbing, BP starting to come up. But look at the ECG!" Tads stared at the machine and watched the squiggles and numbers starting to rise, but wasn't any better informed after doing so. "Alpha rate is stabilising nicely. Respiration is returning to normal." The machine gave a harsh buzz that cut through the silence of the ward. The buzzer sounded again, as the doctor stretched over to acknowledge the alarm, and then a second alarm sounded, which she also cancelled. The readings on the screen changed from red to green, though, in time with the second buzzer, as the Captain's vital signs all rose steadily. "A clot. It must have been a clot on the brain, located on the stem. Perhaps hidden under the cerebrum. Yessss… that would have put it in between his memory controller and the communications relay, just where we couldn't scan. A small clot would have been impossible to spot shielded by the cyberware, and we'd only have found it if we'd opened up his skull."
The bio signs had continued to climb, and some noticeable colour had returned to the body. He still looked weak and somewhat pale, but the skin seemed to have lost the cold clammy look of death which it had held previously. The doctor checked a few more readings, and then laid a hand on his chest, feeling his respiration for himself. At her contact, his right hand twitched a little, and they saw his body flex slightly.
"Excellent – look, that's sub-conscious movement. He's heading out of the coma, more towards sleep. He's still exhausted, but now his body is starting to respond normally." Once more she raised her voice, and looked around the room. "It looks like the captain is going to make a good recovery!" Kai, Shimazu and Tads all jumped a little at the sudden ragged cheer that erupted around the room, and the mood lightened noticeably.
Back in the tilt-wing, Marius was still piloting the Condor through the clear night air. Looking down at the forest below he caught the occasional flash of life, tiny bursts of heat as rabbits grazed or ran through the undergrowth, the odd fox hunting for food and so on. In the seat next to him, Hunter made use of the sat-uplink and was browsing weapons catalogues and matrix sites about Russian weapons, reading up on the different versions of the AK-97, still in production over sixty years later. He paused in his search, as Marius called to him.
"Look at this, Hunter." One of the cockpit screens lit up as Marius shunted the data output to it, displaying a thermal output from the drone's sensors. A small white speck was in the middle of the screen. "Doesn't look like much does it? But watch while I zoom in…" The view spiralled in, starting to shake a little as the air currents movement of the drone was magnified by the zoom. On the screen, the shape grew larger, splitting off into bands of colour and gaining some definition. Vague legs could be seen, slight movement as the shapes moved through the forest. "Tell me that doesn't look like a pair of shapeshifters – like the ones we fought last time!" Hunter examined the screen, and couldn't argue with Marius' assertion.
"Where are they?"
"About three quarters of a klick out, on a bearing of 23 degrees. Heading west, as if they're circling the base. I've marked the position where we first picked them up and their rate of advance, and it looks like they're moving around the base in an arc."
The voice stopped suddenly, and the camera view swung wildly. Hunter watched as the camera glitched for a moment, then resumed normal view rather than thermal imaging. As Marius fought for control the camera continued to swing wildly, and Hunter managed to grab a frame of the video to examine as the camera was jostled upwards. It looked like the small spirits Tads had warned them about earlier – now materialised and ripping at the lifting bag, opening up rents in the fabric and letting the helium escape into the night. Despite the many baffles and ribs that were stitched into the bag to prevent one tear causing a crash, the frenzied slashing and ripping of the critters had ripped open too many of the cells, and the drone started to plummet out of the sky.
Marius was faced with two choices – he could jack out now and abandon the drone to its fate, letting it fall from the sky and smash into the trees. Or he could stay in control, trying to use his skills to bring down the body of the drone for the softest landing possible. The downside was, linked so intimately to the drones sensors and feedback systems, if he messed it up and the drone pancaked, it would send a bio-feedback shock back to his deck that could scorch his brain. He hesitated for a moment, then plunged back into the drone's systems, control the spin of the fans on the sensor body, getting the maximum thrust he could from them as the drone twisted and plummeted out of the sky, swinging wildly and spinning in all three axis.
He managed to control the drone just enough to send it through a small gap in the canopy, perhaps where a branch had fallen or lightning had once struck. The drone's body plummeted through the hole, slicing past branches in a blur of motion. As the shredded lifting bag fluttered down behind it, the ribbons of materials caught on the trees, entangling the drone and slowing it. A metre before it smashed into the ground, the resistance was strong enough to make the drone stop, then bounce upwards, before swinging into a tree trunk, sending cracks through the housing and smashing off one of the engine pods. Marius winced as a jab of pain lanced through his head, but then it stopped. A moment later, something shorted in the drone and the signal stopped – but by then he'd managed to dismount and was back in the 'captain's chair', the overview mode that would let him view and direct the drones without the intimate direct link level of control.
Marius blinked and looked around the cockpit, his vision a weird overlay of the rigger deck controls over his normal vision – it was disorienting, but saved him jacking out completely.
"Crash site is about three hundred and eighty metres from here, well into the forest. About four hundred metres from the contacts – assuming they haven't been warned by the spirits. Dammit!" Marius was upset about this drone, and really wanted to fire up the Dalmation, sending out the vector thrust drone with its twin linked rifles to lay down some fire. But, he had a nagging suspicion that doing that was just going to end up with two crashed drones in the forest…
"Why don't you review the footage you have from your sweeps, and assemble a route plan for how to get to the drone to recover it? I'll go talk with the aircrew to find out what they know about the area, and be ready to bring them aboard if the spirits do stage an attack here." Hunter pushed himself up and out of the chair and was heading out before Marius responded, hoping that he'd be distracted by what seemed like a good idea. Much as he generally liked Marius, and probably got on with him best out of all of the team, he knew that he'd do nothing but grouch and moan about his drone for the next hour, and it was far too early in the morning to listen to that. Instead he grabbed a tray of cookies that Aswon had knocked up back at the ranch, and went to find some Russian Airmen that really needed some chocolate chips in their life in exchange for fun stories that didn't involve spirits, crashed drones or how nuclear annihilation was too good for them.
Back in the infirmary, Shimazu and Kai rejoined Tads at the Captain's bedside, as the doctor carried out further tests and marked up his improved condition on her charts.
"I wonder if we can get some more information from him about the accident when he wakes up? It might tell us something about what the spirits are doing." Kai mused. Shimazu went to speak and then fell silent, staring down at the floor for a moment, before deciding to continue.
"I could try to read his aura. The techniques I leant from Dr Mohamed in Egypt. I've not tried it in the wild yet, but I can give it a go?" Kai nodded, and Shimazu placed a hand near the Captain's head, close to the wound site. He placed the other hand over the ribs, and then concentrated, opening himself up to the mana that flowed through the body, trying to pick up on the sympathetic echo of the injury. He suddenly winced, and started to tremble, then staggered back a step.
"All I got was pain, fear and darkness. The feeling of being scared and alone. Utterly alone." Shimazu had gone pale and was sweating, and licked his lips nervously. "I see what they mean about having to be careful about losing yourself in the emotions. That wasn't good."
"Let me try. I should be able to skim his surface thoughts and pick up his memories." Tads looked to the doctor. "I'm going to check the memories of the accident only, not anything else. You have my word". Tolyev looked a little unsure but nodded, and Tads concentrated, casting the lightest mind probe that she could, gently searching through his memories and reliving the sequence of events, the horrible cracking noise and then the fear as the huge vehicle came crashing down, the blur of motion as the jack lanced into the side of her head. She pulled out of the probe and recounted what she had seen, with the doctor nodding along in agreement.
"Hmm. Nothing so useful there then. It sounds like it was just the spirits using their powers to create or intensify natural accidents. Looks like we'll have to dig further. So Tads – lot of sick people in here. How long do you need to do your thing?" Kai gestured at the ward and Tads had a look around then shrugged. "Well, I see us having several priorities here. First, get as many of these critical patients well again, in the time we have until morning. Second, we get to the motor pool and ward a few vehicles, so the base have some decent mobility and some options. Third, we need to work on the plan for neutralising those spirits. Just blasting the small ones is a short term gain, but if they're being summoned like you do yours, that only buys us time until either dusk or dawn. And fourth – I've been thinking… your spell that let you dig out the space for the fuel tank. How long would it take to dig tunnels from here to the barracks blocks?"
Tads blinked in surprise, and her mind went blank for a few seconds while she tried to work out what a crazy idea that was. But, as she thought about it – maybe it wasn't so bad. Underground, they'd be out of line of sight of the spirits, and much less likely to be spotted or affected. And it would take time for a spirit to press through the living earth to try and get to them – so if they were careful… She realised that Kai was waiting for an answer.
"Um – if we're talking about a narrow tunnel, perhaps a metre wide and two metres high – I can probably excavate a tunnel about six or seven metres long at a time. So, with enough time and energy, then sure – I can dig a tunnel all over the base. But it will take time. And they'll be cramped – no room to pass other people, and if a spirit does get in there, people will have nowhere to run and hide. It'll be ugly." Kai nodded in acceptance. "The other thing is – not arguing with your objectives here – but fixing the critical cases will be the most taxing and difficult. I can probably go and fix all the broken ankles without raising a sweat."
"I'm sure they'll all appreciate that, but isn't it better to do that afterwards?"
"Well, there's the other advantage to getting rid of all the lesser wounded. Not only do we get the place empty faster, but we can also massively improve morale. I don't know if you've noticed, but the manasphere in here is not particularly pleasant." She turned to Doctor and laid a hand on her arm. "Nothing against Doctor Tolyev here, but there's been too much pain and suffering here – mental as well as physical, and it's polluted the manasphere somewhat. If we can create some joy, relief and happiness, it'll go a long way to counteracting that. And that will make dealing with the difficult cases much, much easier."
"You're the expert here. Go with whatever you feel is best, and most efficient."
It suddenly got a little darker, and they flinched, wondering what was going on – only to find that it was Aswon, who'd been lurking in the corner for a good while now, letting the medical folk get on with their jobs. The huge Nigerian had snuck up on them with his usual grace and quiet, and his mane of dreadlocks had neatly blocked out the light from the yellowing bulb overhead.
"Excuse me, Doctor. May I use your phone to contact the operations officer? I have important matters to discuss." She nodded to him, and led him through to her office, dialled the base operations team and handed over the handset, then returned to the ward, just in time to see Tads healing the first victim of a minor wound.
"Operations, Specialist Potomok."
"I am Aswon. I am part of the specialist team with Kai. I have some requests to make of you, to be executed at dawn."
"I'm sorry, we were informed that some outside contractors were coming to the base, but I've not been advised of any authority here."
"I understand. I also understand the Brigadier tends to rise at dawn. Perhaps I can list my requests to you, and then if the Brigadier approves them and contacts you at first light to authorise them, you can execute them rather than us wasting time. If he doesn't then nothing has happened, and you haven't disobeyed orders."
"That sounds… reasonable I suppose."
"Very good. Well, I know that the brigade has a cadre of excellent snipers. I need every single sniper from that cadre, along with anyone that has a qualification as a designated marksman, or anyone that has won a medal, award or competition for shooting, to head from their barracks to the HQ building at dawn. In the small gap from the spirits vanishing and the new spirits arriving. I also need the armoury to grab sniper rifles or match grade rifles for every one of those people and also meet up at the HQ, to arm those individuals. And last of all, we'll need access to the highest point of this building, possibly the radar tower or air traffic tower."
"But we got told that we can't hurt the spirits. One of the officers tried, emptied a whole magazine into one, and it just ate the bullets!"
"Ahh, but there are important factors here. One is that the power of the bullet DOES make a difference. A large, powerful gun will be much harder for the spirit to resist. Also, we have seen two types of spirit on the base so far. A large number of weak ones, and just two powerful ones. The sniper rifles will destroy a small spirit, while they might bounce off a stronger one. So, we need the snipers to thin the ranks and take out the vulnerable targets, while we use our stronger weaponry and magical equipment against the more powerful ones."
"Ok, I have that noted down. But I will need authorisation from the Brigadier for this. Unless we get his say so, none of this matters."
"I will get you that authorisation. But be prepared to carry out the orders as soon as you get the all clear. In fact it would be better to organise this and tell them to be in their battle dress and ready to move at dawn – we have precious little time. They can always abort what they are doing if the Brigadier decides no, can't they? Yes, exactly." Aswon didn't really give the man much time to argue. "So, why not do that – be ready to serve the Brigadier if that's what he decides, and be ready to cancel if not. After all – when the Brigadier finds out this plan, do you want to be the person who has to stand in front of him and tell him you're not ready and need twenty four hours to carry out these plans?" There was a telling silence from the other end of the phone. "Exactly, just what I thought. I will be back to you at dawn, once we've spoken to the Brigadier."
He hung up the phone and left the office, and saw that Tads was working her way around the room, following Shimazu who was triaging the patients and trying to make sure she was dealing with the least injured first. Kai was in the corner chatting on the comms, and he turned up his volume so he could hear what he was saying and to whom. It turned out to be the tail-end of a moan about a crashed drone and Marius expressing his desire for revenge – which Kai certainly bought into by asking about the range of mortar or artillery fire from the base to the spot that Marius had identified in the woods. Kai left him gleefully plotting area strikes to contain and then flatten that area of woodland, and rolled his eyes at Aswon, getting a broad fanged smile in return.
Aswon and Kai settled down and waited for Tads and Shimazu to finish the first half of the room, getting all the minor injuries dealt with and healthy. They headed back to meet them and Tads flopped down, gratefully accepting a drink and some biscuits from one of the recently healed men, along with repeated thanks. While Tads rehydrated herself, Kai looked around each of them asking their opinion on the spirits and the situation.
"So, it seems to me, that what we need to do is get them down to ground level, where Aswon and Shimazu can go to town on them. How do we do that?" Tads giggled and spoke around a mouthful of biscuit.
"Shout at them! 'Come down here'" she imitated the voice Kai used when he was trying to shortcut the conscious mind and get someone to just obey him without thinking.
"That might work, certainly against the smaller ones. Otherwise we can try to insult or aggravate them, and then go underground or under something like the canopy outside – something that forces them down to get line of sight to us. And then be ready to spring to the attack." Aswon made a stabbing motion, just in case it wasn't clear to anyone.
"Or, from inside a warded or secure spot, we can engage with banishing. Easy enough for the small ones, but very risky for the big ones." Kai cocked an eyebrow, and between Aswon and Tads they went over the nature of the magical banishing duel, emphasising that once locked into a contest, the two duellists could not easily break off, and were effectively helpless and unable to react to anything going on around them.
"The other main problem here is that the two big ones are free spirits. They tend to have unusual and significantly more powerful abilities than other nature spirits or elementals." Kai gestured for Tads to go on, and she took a sip of water and swirled it around her mouth to try and come up with a good explanation.
"Ok – let's say we summoned a spirit, and I made it a powerful one. But then we set it free, and invited it to stay with us – and for whatever reason it did. It would gain some powers, just by being set free. It might suddenly learn how to cast a spell – like a sudden large hailstorm in an area. Or it could take ownership of the chopper, despite what Marius might say. And by making it the personal domain of that spirit, it would become way more powerful in that area. So if one of those spirits has taken a part of the forest as it's personal fiefdom, it might try to lead us there and then ambush us – where it would be suddenly not as strong as either me or Shimazu, but as strong as both of us put together!"
"So what is their Achilles heel? What are they weak against? Everything has a weakness somewhere!"
"They're not good with technology, though they are well defended against technological attacks. But the main thing is the true name. Every spirit has one, and they'll fight to the bitter end to protect it – because if you have a spirit's true name, you can bind it using that name and command it to do anything. Absolutely anything – and it will. It has to."
"Great – so how do we get that?"
"Normally a very dangerous, long and complicated quest on the depths of the astral plane, including visiting the spirits home place and completing arduous trials."
"Oh. So something we can do by morning?" Kai sounded vaguely hopeful, but Tads and Aswon shook their heads. "Ok, then what are their motivations? Maybe that is a weakness."
"We don't know," Aswon took over the conversation, giving Tads a chance to finish her drink and relax, recuperating before she resumed her healing. "But either they are independent, free willed entities – doing this because it serves their purpose or because it's funny. Hey – some of them are dicks, just like people. Or it could be because someone – or something – already has their true name, and they're in service to it, and it serves their purpose. But we just don't know. I would guess it's to do with the Brigadier's invasion of Yakut, or their use of that weird ammunition – but we need to keep an open mind and remind ourselves that we just don't know."
"It may be that for some reason they just want to lock down the base and neutralise the brigade for a while – if so, then their plan seems to be working!" Marius added over the commlink. "There's a thousand soldiers that are quite frankly, shitting their pants at the moment, for the investment of a bunch of spirits. That's not a bad rate of return for someone with more magical power than ground forces." Unknown to him, the group in the hospital nodded along with his speech – it made a great deal of sense.
"And when we want to launch the attack, we need to be careful about who and what we kill. Killing the summoner of those little spirits might send some of them free, gaining new powers and abilities. Some would just flee, returning to the realm of nature. Some might side with us – but the most likely is that they'd try to kill us. Just something to bear in mind – take the spirits out first, then the summoners."
"And if we can distract the big ones and get them locked up in combat thoroughly, maybe wounded and on the retreat – it might be possible for Tads to probe their minds, and gain their true names that way. They will resist with every fibre of their being – but if we've exhausted their defences first, it would be much easier for her, and once we have their true name…" Aswon clicked his fingers loudly "They're ours, and no longer a threat. Otherwise, if we can avoid any strongholds or enchanted areas, fighting them in the woods might be our best option. The lower lines of sight plays to our strengths as mostly melee combatants."
Tads stood up and brushed off crumbs from her clothes, bolted the last of her drink and then turned to face the waiting patients in their beds.
"Right, Shimazu. Who's next?" Thirty seconds later, golden light filled the room again, while the Russians watched with awe that had not diminished, and the rest of the team waited, wondering if the Brigadier would sign on to their mobilisations.