Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 35.67591, 51.34556 Time 20:15

Marius circled the area, looking for possible landing sites, and evaluating their safety.

"If I am setting down, it will have to be on the main road, a fair way back from the target building. I do not want to allow them to catch us on the ground, or even have line of sight."

"Are we definitely taking these guys out? I'm not saying we shouldn't – but think about it…" Aswon gestured down to the ruined truck. "We're pretty sure that's got some kind of polymers on it, which means it's not actually a shitty old truck. It's probably got a whole bunch of toys installed on it – which we've trashed. That's probably cost them a couple of hundred thousand Nuyen in repairs. Do we need to take them on? I think Germaine would be happy with this as a lesson. I'm just saying do we want the extra risk?"

"I am happy to take these…people," Marius almost spat the word out, "all the way out. They act like animals. But if we are not taking them out then we destroy that vehicle completely, and leave them with no way to get out of here quickly and easily. We give them bigger problems than tracking us down and exacting revenge. Or, and this is the option I favour – we wipe them out, and ensure they are dead. No missing bodies in the burning building to show up six months from now with massive cyber replacements and a revenge complex. Dead. I do not want to be looking over my shoulder forever for these idiots."

"That's what I thought… bank a little more, then, please." Aswon waited until Marius angled over slightly then triggered another long burst into the truck, sending armour plating and structural components flying in all directions as the heavy rounds slammed through the vehicle.

"They're in the building there – probably fortifying their position right now. We've taken out their van – isn't that enough? I just think that walking into an ambush isn't the safest thing for us in the world…" Tads called out over the team channel.

"That is true – and I am reasonably certain they do not have a lock on the vehicle or our electronics signature – at least not enough to identify us. Are you certain that they do not have a feel for your magical signature, that they could use to hunt us down?" There was a pause, interrupted only by a burst of fire from the rear ramp as they continued to turn and Hunter got to contribute to the damage tally some more.

"This is the second time we have encountered this team. We clearly operate in the same kinds of area – at least roughly. It's likely that if we don't deal with them now, we will encounter them again. And if they know that we are responsible for this…" Shimazu gestured down to the smoking vehicle which was now starting to sag outwards, the front and rear sections angling towards the ground while the middle tore open under the grievous damage caused.

"They're unsubtle – we understand that now. But that doesn't mean we have to be. We've no info that any of them is a decker of any kind. Maybe I can just get onto Shadowland and start a hatchet job on their rep? Take them out by destroying their ability to get work." Hunter fired another few shots into the truck. "It's an option. Just saying."

"Turn around some more, please, Marius – I want my go. And we definitely take out this truck, until it won't ever drive again. Then I still think we should take them out – I agree with Marius, I don't want these lunatics hunting us down forever." Kai grinned and swung to the side with his own gun, waiting for the turning vehicle to bring the enemy truck into view. As he adjusted position, his foot landed on a handful of the spent cartridges ejected from Aswon's gun and he slid, reflexively grabbing hold tight with his hands. The gun obediently opened up fully automatic sending a heavy hail of slugs down, missing the truck by a metre and slamming into the wall of the building, slashing open a man sized hole as they chewed through the brickwork and sent a hail of masonry shards and chunks flying out into the night air. "Hey! That one doesn't count! I slipped!"

"That gives me an idea though. Hang on." Aswon flipped round in his harness and peered out of the side of the tilt-wing past Kai, then slowly smiled, revealing his huge incisors. "Ok, one circuit of the building, please, Marius, while I work out the position. Hunter – the truck looks open now. Maybe try dropping back to the assault cannon – it should wreck the inside now there's a massive hole in the armour."

They circled the site once more, Hunter quickly emptying half a clip of ammo into the massive rent in the top of the truck, and being rewarded with a series of explosive gouts that ripped through the whole vehicle, blowing open the back doors and popping the front windows, leaving the vehicle a smouldering ruin. Aswon meanwhile had crouched down as far as the safety harness would let him and then craned forward, and was checking out the building as Marius circled.

It had clearly been taller in the past – either four or five storeys tall. During the attack on the city it, along with the neighbouring buildings, had been hit with a few powerful attacks from something – probably some kind of magical blast from Aden or one of his minions, and the top levels of the building had disintegrated, falling down into the streets below. Looters and the weather over the years in between had only added to the misfortune, and the top levels were ruined now – but the bottom one or two levels looked intact. To the rear they could see a couple of doors, one of which they knew Unsubtle had entered the building, but the other doors looked vaguely accessible. The next side over was the shared wall with the next building, which was in roughly the same shape. On the front, most of the building was covered with rubble, the piled up remains of the upper levels that had slid and collapsed off, descending down into the street in a treacherous pile of loose concrete chunks and debris. There were some indications of large windows along the front, stretching up quite high, but the rubble protected 90% or more of them. The final side was solid brick, with no windows or entrances at all, but with a similar rubble embankment at the front side that tailed off towards the rear.

"Ok, I reckon that was a shop – the large front windows, probably a set of double doors. Nothing on this side, because of the shelves and stock display, big loading dock to the rear. If that's right, then it's also probably double height – the shop will take up both the ground and first floor as we look at it from outside. Which means the bit of roof we can see is actually the roof of where they're hiding."

"Which means…." Kai said with a leading voice.

"Which means we know we can get through the walls of the building with the door guns – thanks to your little slip. Hunter. If I drill a hole through the ceiling, what do you think your chances are of getting the auto-grenade launcher and dropping a couple of grenades through it down into the interior."

"Ooooh! Fish in a barrel! Lemme grab it!" They heard him quickly racking the Panther cannon and unclipping, then climbing back through the stock pile while he rummaged for the MGL6 launcher and a case of grenades. "Oh yeah, baby. I remember we picked these up at the market, but we've not got to try them yet. BL109 mark two, improved anti-personnel explosive fragmenting cluster shot. Improved over what I wonder."

"The mark one, I would assume," Marius remarked dryly. "I am scanning the building with my sensors now. I can detect a number of vague heat signatures roughly half way through the building, and one electronic system that is closer to the rear – perhaps a weapons system or drone of some kind."

Two minutes later, Hunter had the grenade launcher ready and spare grenades to one side so he could reload quickly. Tads had checked with team and had thrown up her mind-link – and now as Marius picked up the faint movements on his sensors, the rest of them instantly received an update on the probable positions. Aswon opened up with the door gun, wiggling the rear of the gun as he fired to create a cone of fire, watching as the rounds punched into the concrete slab – and then through it. When he'd fired enough to create a ragged gash nearly a metre in diameter, he paused and let the smoke settle slightly, while Hunter carefully aimed and when his smart-link flashed green, pumped a few grenades through the hole and into the darkness below. The forward motion of the tilt-wing sent his shots through on diverging courses, and moments later explosions lit up the interior, sending a cloud of smoke and burning particles up through the roof.

Marius banked, turning to come around for another pass, and this time Kai got to fire, duplicating Aswon's approach, and aiming at a fresh part of the roof, that lined up with where the fleeing sensor blobs appeared to be. The grenade launcher fired again, and more explosions rippled through the building.

"That appears to be one down, the signatures are definitely splitting up." Marius didn't realise his description was somewhat redundant thanks to the mind-link, but he was concentrating on not only flying at low level through a ruined city in a tight course, but also running his sensors at maximum sensitivity and trying to track individual heat signatures through the blast of the grenades – so nobody on the team felt it was appropriate to have a dig at him.

They made pass after pass, ripping holes in either the roof or walls of the building and firing grenades through it, slowly whittling down the team inside until only one remained – the strongest of the original signatures, that stubbornly refused to move now, no matter how much fire they aimed in that direction.

"That's got to be the troll. I bet he's wearing a metric frak-ton of armour. We might need to do this more directly…" Aswon closed his eyes to help him concentrate on the mental picture a little more clearly. "Gahh… we've got no idea of the terrain down there. He could be hidden between some massive cermacrete support blocks or something that those AP grenades are just bouncing off of."

"But they're improved! Mark twos!" Hunter sounded peeved.

"But they're not nukes. Everything has a limit, and the entire roof hasn't collapsed yet – so there's got to be something sturdy holding it up. Marius – can you drop us in the side road? And Kai – can you drill us a hole through the wall once you're back airborne? We can go in then, the four of us – and take him out. It was a he, right? Yeah… "

Marius circled once more, letting the sensors refine their readings as much as possible so that he could share that information over the mind-link, while Hunter, Shimazu, Tads and Aswon got ready for the ground assault. As soon as they'd moved to the rear ramp and were ready, he turned in tightly and descended into a smooth parabola, barely touching the ground and halting as the team stepped off the rear ramp almost as one, before he applied power and moved away to take up an overwatch position, swinging around to let Kai have an unrestricted view through his door at the target.

The four on the ground moved into position, getting into positions of cover behind fallen slabs of concrete or twisted metal beams. Aswon and Tads curled up tightly behind their cover, while Hunter was only partially covered as he steadied the Panther cannon on a large hunk of material, aiming it at the wall. He peeled back the glove on his right hand, and a small compartment opened up, two flesh coloured flaps of material springing open to reveal a second pair of eyes nestled tightly in their stowage box. With a mental command they extended outwards, rising out from their hiding place until they lay parallel to his hand. Another cybernetic twitch activated the targeting laser built into the left eye, and he lay the dot on the wall of the building, then slowly crouched down himself.

Shimazu had some cover – but it was on the wrong side of him. Instead of using it to crouch behind, he wedged his feet upon it and slowly sank down, compressing his legs like giant springs until he was almost in a ball. His hands lay to each side of him to keep him steady, sword grasped tightly in the smallest three fingers whilst his larger two wedged into the rubble.

Kai spotted the laser and aimed carefully, then opened up with a long burst of fire, ripping holes through the walls in a ragged line that rose up the building snake-like. As the sound of the machine gun filled the air, Hunter slid the target point over a half metre and fired – watching the round impact the wall and blow a huge rent into the building. The wall blew inwards almost like a door, ripping through the mortar lines top and bottom, and shearing to the right, while the left hand side gave no support at all.

And as soon as the machine-gun rounds had been fired, Shimazu had burst into a sprint, driving forwards across the rubble as fast as he could, hugely-muscled legs driving him up the shifting debris towards the target point. He was nearly at the wall when the cannon round hit, driving a blast wave into his face, only his raised arm protecting him from the roasting air and violent gust of explosive gasses. With his left arm held around his face, hand almost touching his right shoulder, and his right arm trailing behind him, sword extended out like a tail, he slammed into the remaining debris with his left side and barrelled through, opening the hole even wider – while he flew through the air into the chaos beyond.

"Oh. Right. Charge then!" Aswon grabbed his spear and moved up as quickly as he could to support him, with the rest following suit, aiming for the ragged hole in the wall that now belched smoke and showed a swirling mass of dust and devastation from inside.

As Shimazu had hoped, the single target in the building had ducked behind his shield and braced himself when the wall had been struck. Bits of stone and masonry were still bouncing off his armour and settling to the ground around him as Shimazu was body-slamming the wall. And he was barely starting to uncurl and get ready when Shimazu gracefully hit the ground in a roll, left shoulder tucked down and in while the right moved to the side, keeping the blade along the centre of rotation. As he rolled up into an attack position, the blade swung forward and in, slicing forwards with deadly accuracy as it slid over the top of the shield and aimed downwards in a sharp arc towards the torso.

The blade scraped down the heavy armour breastplate, sparking as the blade dragged over the refractory sections before skipping onto the heavily reinforced plates. Dense plastic weaves supported the entire structure, holding it all in place as the sword skittered down, trying to find a weak spot where the blade could puncture the outer layer fully and dig inside to the supporting layers – but without success.

The others ran up the slope after Shimazu – Aswon reaching the hole first, swiftly followed by Hunter and then Tads. They jumped inside, dropping down half a metre from the hole to the tiled floor, and landing amidst the chunks of roof and torn debris that had once been shelving and display racks. At various points in the ruined building, small fires burnt, where the grenades had found some small amount of remaining burnable material, casting flickering light over the darkened interior. The troll had taken refuge near a kiosk or service area, and they could see where he'd crouched behind his shield, using the massive object to protect him from the explosive carnage and penetrating rounds.

Shimazu was dancing around the enormous figure, his sword licking in and out of range as he sought an opening – but he was finding it tough going. The troll was over three and a quarter metres tall, and must have weighed in at over three hundred kilos – possibly more. Clad in heavy-grade security armour from head to foot it was an intimidating sight – more so when they could focus on the weapons.

In one massive hand was a 'Centurion' axe, a two metre long pole weapon with a sweeping thirty centimetre long curved head made out of top quality steel. Mounted on either side of the blade, though, were four small but powerful lasers, all aimed at a focus point halfway along the blade. When the sensors detected an object about to be hit, the lasers fired off a powerful burst of energy designed to burn or defeat the top layer of whatever material was about to be struck, creating a small opening for the rest of the weapon to slice into.

In the other hand was his shield – a massive slab of metal at first glance. As the troll roared in fury at Shimazu though and swung after him they could see it for what it was – a door. Not a door from an office or a home though – this was by the looks of things a reinforced hatch taken from a light tank or armoured personnel carrier. They saw the dull glint of the thick armour plating, chemically welded together in multiple layers that would stop their weapons fire cold! No wonder even their heavy machine guns hadn't penetrated it and killed the troll – slowed down by even a little from their passage through the roof, even the 12.5mm rounds would have lost more than enough energy to bounce off of such a massively armoured slab. It must have been incredibly tiring to carry, and only the massive physique of the troll made it remotely possible. It was also a sobering warning of what they were up against. If the troll was strong enough to carry a two hundred and fifty kilogam door strapped to one arm, then a blow from his axe was probably likely to cut any of them in half. They'd seen how lethal Shimazu could be with his blade. For a human, he was very strong – enough that if he'd been of a mind to, he could probably compete on an international level. But the troll was likely to be able to exceed his power by a factor of two, before breaking a sweat – there was a reason so many Orks and Trolls found their way into hard manual labour…

Shimazu was continuing to press the attack, but wherever he swung, the troll seemed to get the door into the way in time, and his blade bounced off with barely a mark left behind. The troll kept favouring his left side, and Shimazu darted around that way, wondering if he'd taken a wound from an explosion they'd not seen – only realising at the last moment that he'd been suckered. The troll had waited for Shimazu to start moving and then pushed around the other way, spinning like a top and using the weight of the door to propel his motion as he swung with a reverse grip towards Shimazu. The bodyguard had to bend almost double to let the axe swing past him, the scimitar like head passing along his torso with barely a handsbreadth of space. Shimazu was no slouch though, and as he bent he let one leg start to turn, twisting around until he, too, had spun on the spot and could carry through with his own reverse hand strike. The blade slammed into the armour once more, but was again defeated by the incredible bulk and protection of the heavy combat suit.

Tads watched as the second attack from Shimazu seemed to bounce off the thick armour without injury and considered her options. She wasn't sure she had a stun spell strong enough to take him down – not with the potential warping of the mana in here with the recent deaths. Instead she called to the spirits guarding each of the other team mates, gathering them into a pack and quickly giving them orders to mob the troll and aid Shimazu in the combat.

From her side, Aswon stepped forwards quickly and his arms thrust forward, sending the spear jabbing into range. Even with the spear's length, he was hard pressed to match the range advantage given by the trolls' long arms and the size of his own axe – but he was better off than Shimazu! With the troll currently focussed on his team-mate Aswon found himself able to gauge the best time to strike and managed to get a strong hit in – thrusting at the kidney area and striking it square on. The weapon flexed and vibrated as he struck, the tip slamming into one of the strong armour plates and stopping dead in its tracks. His arms quivered as the force of the impact slammed back into him, and it felt like he'd stabbed something immovable like a cliff, or an ocean liner – and Aswon's heart sank as he realised just how heavily armoured their opponent was.

Hunter had no such doubts – he'd dived over to the left as soon as he'd entered the building, vaulting up onto the raised desk of the service area and running down the dusty counter-top, his assault rifle trained to his right. As he got opposite Shimazu, he paused for just a fraction of a second to make sure that none of the team were directly opposite him, then triggered a three round burst. The armour piercing discarding sabot rounds functioned exactly as they had been designed, jettisoning their shrouds and leaving a dart of incredibly hard and heavy metal to be propelled to the target, all of the power of the propellent concentrated on a tiny cross-sectional area – and as a result hitting with enormous pressure. The three rounds penetrated the heavy armour and drove into the flesh inside, ripping through the trolls flank and sending waves of pain through his nervous system.

The howl of pain started in the mid-range of their hearing, but quickly dropped, turning into a low growl that made their chests rumble. The pain seemed to vanish – maybe as chemicals flushed into his system, or cyber-enhanced nerves stripped out the pain signals, or just sheer bloody-mindedness filled their target with rage. But whatever damage he'd taken, it took only a moment to realise that he wasn't in pain any-more. Mostly, it seemed, he was pissed.

Really, really pissed.

The troll seemed to realise that Hunter was a significant threat, and swung around with stunning speed for a creature of his size. The axe whistled through the air, and in the choppy strobe like slow-motion that most of the team were operating in thanks to their enhanced reflexes, they could see the ruby-red lasers glowing as the lasing chambers warmed up ready to deliver a blast of energy. Swinging in a wide arc, the axe swung around in a flat arc, a metre above the counter top and hurtled towards Hunter's midriff. There was no way he could block that attack – the axe would cleave straight through whatever was put in the way, with barely any chance of resistance.

Hunter tensed and then strained, his muscles shrieking in pain as he flexed them, trying to replicate a move that should only have been possible for someone half his own size. Calf muscles bulged and his quads flexed, as they propelled him upwards – normally he would have wanted to crouch first to gain some leverage, but there simply wasn't time. He arms flung upwards, holding the assault rifle and using it as an impromptu balance bar while he tried to build up some rotational velocity. As the axe swung in, closing on the base of his spine, his legs kicked up, muscles pushed to their limit and he threw himself up and backwards – or at least the top half of his body backwards. The decimetre of height he'd managed to gain was just enough to raise his centre of gravity to a point just over the axe, and his body rotated around it as the massive ork did what was effectively a standing backflip – the axe sailing on harmlessly through the position his spine had occupied only a second before.

He landed heavily – as surprised himself as anyone else that he'd managed to pull off the high-risk manoeuvre. The momentum was going to send him off the counter-top one way or another, so he chose to dive forwards, following the path of the axe as he half tumbled, half threw himself out of the way – anywhere to get him out of reach of that murderous axe head.

While the troll had been focussed on Hunter, Shimazu had slid in behind him and his sword had slashed and cut at the troll three times in a series of viper-like strikes, but each time the armour held and the sword bounced off harmlessly. Shimazu snarled, his eyes flickering all over his opponent, looking for a weak spot to strike at, but not finding one.

Aswon was in a more fortunate position, and as the troll swung around, he caught sight of a slight gap under the arm, a position where the underlayer was exposed for a moment without any of the massive plating to cover it. He stabbed hard and felt the spear-tip sink into the densely-woven material, letting the troll's rotation rip the blade free of the wound before he recovered. A dark stain over the blade told him he'd gotten a good hit, and within seconds a small river of blood flowed down the side of the armour from the wound.

The troll roared again and turned to face Aswon, readying the axe to chop down in a massive slash that would cut him in half, while the enormous door moved into position to protect him. A motion just beyond him attracted Shimazu's attention, and rather than go for another strike, his right hand lofted his sword into the air, then darted down to the holster at his side. The gun was snatched out and fired without aim, but the huge hand-cannon spat a slug downrange, towards the troll and impacted on the shield, a massive flash and gout of flame erupting from the barrel. It didn't hit anything vital – but it did provide an audible and visible distraction that consumed just a bit of the troll's attention.

Enough that it missed Hunter landing on the floor and sliding through the rubble on his back, while his arms bought the assault rifle to bear. Cybernetic commands flowed through the induction pad into the SmartLink system, and the weapon clicked over from burst to fully automatic, and a moment later as the targeting crosshair lined up with base of the troll's spine, the weapon fired. A storm of APDS slammed into the armour, penetrating it and punching deep into the spinal column, shredding nerves, muscles and cybernetic systems alike.

Crippled, the troll wavered – and a second or two later, he fell as both Shimazu and Aswon struck once more, driving their blades and spear-tips into the exposed joints while Tads' spirits mobbed the troll's helmet, pawing and ripping at it and trying to twist it off his skull. The enormous troll sank to his knees, the collapsed, pulled down by the weight of the shield to land on the floor with a resonating thud that sent a fresh wave of dust and debris into the air, motes of dirt dancing in the dense smoke, illuminated by the flickering fires.

The stood for a moment, breathing heavily, then Hunter rolled to his feet, approached the back of the troll's head and fired a three round burst at point-blank range into the base of the skull.

"Target down. Sweeping the building."

They checked around the rest of the supermarket, kicking the fires apart to ensure they wouldn't spread and making sure they accounted for all of the team. One by one they found the members of Unsubtle, bodies shredded and in various states of dismemberment, flesh burnt and punctured by shrapnel or with large entry wounds and enormous crated exit wounds from direct hits from the heavy calibre bullets. The large box they'd spotted the team entering with turned out to be a standard military style drone transporter, and it had held an IWS Mark six utility drone – matching the one Marius had. This one was trashed though, and would never function again – one grenade had fallen inside the chassis and detonated, ripping it to pieces. They also found that rather than a standard firearm, it had been armed with a glue-gun, an anti-riot style weapon that fired a foaming mixture that hardened very quickly on exposure to air and made people stick together – or to the floor, walls or anything around. Each of them had their own thoughts on how the fight with the troll would have gone if they'd not been able to move freely, and it wasn't very pleasant.

"Hey Aswon – I doubt we're taking the bodies with us, are we?"

"Shouldn't think so, Hunter. Why?"

"Suggestion then – anyone with cyber-eyes, give em a stab with your taser staff. If someone has a recorder or camera built in, it's gonna fry the footage in case someone comes in to loot them."

"Good call! Ok."

They dragged the bodies together and then checked them over, finding a credstick in an inside pocket of Modulo, the former leader, along with a bunch of armour piercing ammo in his trashed SMG. Mono – the psychotic adept - was found with a pair of Ares Monoswords in a scabbard on her back – each of which had their own personal background count that made Tads move away in disgust. Hunter felt no such alarm though and snagged the blades and holsters for 'recycling'. The massive armour of the troll, 'Door', was formidable – and now they had a chance to evaluate it more thoroughly without the risk of decapitation or dismemberment, they could see conductive links between the different parts of the armour, leading down to strips that draped off the shoes onto the ground.

"Glad we didn't try to taser this guy – don't think it would have worked."

"I was wondering if a lightning bolt would have slowed him down, Aswon. Good job I didn't!"

"Huh – look at that." Aswon struggled to lift the giant APC door, and Hunter squatted and helped him flip it over. "I thought I saw something weird. Looks like an assault shotgun, cut right down and mounted into the door, just under where his arm was. Lousy accuracy I'd guess, but who cares if you're breaching a room and coming in behind your own door!"

"Ohh, I'll have a look at that then. Shift over, Aswon." Hunter pulled out some tools and started to disassemble the weapon from the armour, pulling out the cut-down AS7 shotgun from the mount.

"Check the mage out. The dwarf – he looks like he's got some nice jewellery that might be worth looking at?" Aswon suggested

With some distaste, Tads moved over and quickly went through the pockets of the dwarf 'Gorgon', finding his PDA with a copy of all of his spells on. She scanned through quickly and made a note of her findings, calling out to the others as she did.

"He's got some interesting spells – Fireball, firebolt, firewall – all at high force. I guess he liked burning stuff. Hot-potato, ignite… I'm seeing a theme here! Ahh, here's that monster spirit ball he threw at us, that one might be really useful. Something to boost his reactions. Then some parlour trick stuff, I think…" She moved over to check the two items she'd seen that also grabbed her attention. "The ring is gold, with a single ruby inset into it, weakly magical – probably strong enough to hold the reaction boosting magic in place, though. And…oh my. That necklace is huge – and tacky. There is… two, four, six rubies in that, all in gold and silver filigree cages, that's got to be worth a bit just on its own. But it's also VERY strongly magical – maybe enough to hold something like my vehicle masking illusion on! If I bound the focus to me, of course, but that would take some doing. But this… this is worth a lot of money to the right buyer. That's potentially paid for the job in full!"

"Don't tell Germaine that!" Hunter snorted.

"I got the activation key for the vehicle – I guess that makes the blue-haired pulp Dice…" Aswon gestured at the body which had been caught between two grenade blasts and hadn't come out of the situation well."

"I think we got everything worth salvaging from this lot – let's check out the vehicle…" Hunter led the way through the back to the open door and then checked out the vehicle – confirming their earlier work had more than done the amount of damage necessary to render it beyond repair. Once the cannon rounds had started exploding inside, the damage had been brutal. They did manage to confirm that someone – presumably Dice – had managed to purge their electronic records before they'd abandoned their vehicle though, so there was no way of finding their home base.

"Shame. But at least one of them was professional. Coming around for a pickup." Marius sounded almost glad that at least one of the team had been security-minded and that it was their rigger – as if that somehow vindicated his profession somewhat. He pulled the tilt-wing around and repeated the earlier manoeuvre, but spent a little while longer on the ground as they team dragged the large military storage box onto the ramp holding their various bits of booty.

"All aboard!" Hunter called cheerily when they were all on the ramp, and after a quick check round to make sure nobody had hands of feet sticking out, hit the close button for the ramp.

"Setting a course for the ranch. With luck we can be there for a little after ten." The ground team looked over to Kai to see if this was something he'd decided while they were fighting, but he just shrugged and then waved a hand in the air. The engines powered up and they lifted into the clear night air once more, rising up to a thousand metres and then heading north north-east, back towards the Trans-Caucus League.

Once clear of the ruins of Tehran, Marius dropped back down to a more subtle altitude, threading his way through the mountains and hills to the north of the former capital and then out over the coastal plains and onto the Caspian Sea for a quick dash north until they were level with Shirvan. Once they were close, he called through to the base, and advised them of their imminent arrival.

The IR floodlights guided them down onto the helipad, and by the time they had powered down the engines and shut down the systems, Nadia was waiting anxiously for her husband – greeting him with a passionate embrace. Absence had made the heart grow fond enough to overlook the dermal replacement – at least for now, and the team headed back to the ranch, aiming for the glowing space that highlighted the open back door and already smelling the food that Rusudan and Naena had cooking to welcome them home.

They trooped into the light, flopping down onto the chairs laid out around the dining table and relaxing, gratefully accepting the drinks and plates of food provided, unwinding from the stresses of being on the road. Being able to stretch out your legs, drink from a mug without a sealed top, the floor not vibrating and being able to talk without earplugs in – all the things they had gotten used to putting up with slowly leeched away, and they relaxed, suddenly feeling the fatigue of being out on 'combat ops' for an extended period of time.

"Please, leave your dirty boots and… things," Rusudan gestured at the various weapons and bits of looted gear that littered the dining room table and floor. "We will just tidy them to one side, and they can be dealt with in the morning. Go, bath or shower, and relax in bed." He gave a sly wink at Marius, sitting with Nadia perched on one leg with her arm around him. "Or at least go to bed. Relaxing might be optional. But we will see you all in the morning."

In dribs and drabs, the team headed upstairs to find either a bath or shower, and a comfy bed that didn't require the user to be strapped in for safety. Tads was the last one out, at first refusing to leave the room in such a mess, until Naena firmly took her hand and led her upstairs, promising that there was nothing that couldn't wait until after prayers at dawn in the morning.

With the team starting to unwind and crashing out in their rooms, Rusudan looked around at the weapons and equipment littering the room, thinking about the strange vagaries of fate that had led the team to his ranch at just the right time to save him and his family's life. Glancing up, past the ceiling to an ethereal 'above', he muttered thanks to whatever deity might be listening that they had, and acknowledged that a bit of grease, gun oil and blood on the floor was a small price to pay for the safety and security they bought to him and his loved ones.

Shortly afterwards the lights clicked out, and the stairs creaked as he, too, turned in, and the ranch fell silent as everyone slept…