Sunday 11/06/2061, Location: 40.02442, 48.95752, Time 10:00

The team gathered around the kitchen table, taking their customary chairs and settling down with their beverage of choice. Eteri, Rusudan's daughter dropped off a plate of freshly-made pastries with a smile, then excused herself and headed outside, walking in the direction of the stables with a bucket of feed. Kai looked around the table, checking the mood of the others, then gave a little smile – they mostly looked well rested and relaxed, with the exception of Tads. She'd been working hard, spending full days in the trailer, confined in her magical lodge doing whatever it was she was up to – but she had an undeniable air of satisfaction about her now, and though he'd prefer to see her have a few days of just relaxing, she always seemed to be able to find 'just one more thing' that needed researching or learning…

He reflected on the time they'd spent at the ranch. Some downtime was sorely needed after the operational tempo they'd maintained prior, and they'd all had tasks they wanted to complete before they headed out again. Marius had spent considerable time breaking down the tilt-wing and performing maintenance, stripping the aircraft down almost to the fuselage in some places to get at some parts, then meticulously rebuilding it – but he seemed more than happy with the results, and now was doing maintenance around the farm, building new devices and spending time with Nadia and Marius Junior.

Shimazu had been training hard, and had all but disappeared from the ranch – returning to the local town and ended up spending most of his time there building up his training academy. He now had a sizeable portion of the youngsters in the town training with him – enough so that Aswon had been forced to help out with carving some wooden swords to practice with after demand outstripped supply. Hunter had been busy training as well, but on and around the ranch, spending as much time in the matrix as he had running up and down the hills with a rucksack full of rocks or spending hours on the firing range.

They'd been busy, but so had the world – they'd made a habit of meeting up for their evening meal and watching the trid to see what was going on in the world, and then discussion what might *really* be happening, rather than what was reported. Not long after they had returned, they caught a small segment where Novatech announced that they were shelving their development plans in Nigeria after discovering 'weaknesses in the geological structure of the mountain that made further construction unwise'. That had given them all a good laugh, as they considered how much more they must have spent on equipment to only have Pebble trash it and throw it off his land. More telling perhaps was the small article that Hunter found indicating that the CEO of Novatech Nigeria had been reassigned following 'disappointing performance' of the division, and had been replaced by someone from the London office. No mention was made of Angel's new position or job role, and it was a fairly even split in the team between those that thought she'd been quietly executed, and those who thought she was now scrubbing toilets with a toothbrush in some Stuffer Shack somewhere.

A few weeks later, a major article hit about the city of Seattle, indicating a power outage that had taken power down for nearly the whole metroplex with the blackout lasting a full forty-eight hours. Even after the main power had been restored, rolling blackouts and brownouts seemed to plague the city for weeks afterwards. Hunter had been adamant that this kind of damage could only be caused by a number of tightly co-ordinated strikes at a number of locations spread across the metroplex to disrupt the multiple redundancies and failsafe designs built into a system like that.

The corporate court, the globe-spanning organisation that monitored and adjudicated activities of all the corporate entities across the world had also been busy, announcing a new cross-corporate entity known as the "Grid Overwatch Division" to police and monitor activity on the matrix. The name had not gone un-noticed of course, and activity on Shadowland, the underground site frequented by runners across the world had spiked as discussions had ramped up about what this actually meant for the community. It turned out in most regards 'very little' was the answer – just that if you attacked corporations in general, that there were no people that hunted you down regardless of where you hid. But, while the corps were all in lockstep that they were the number one entities in the world when it came to power, none of them wanted to share it with each other – and they certainly wouldn't agree to the oversight from GOD when it came to them tracking back black-ops back to their own systems. Once the flurry of newness settled down and the dust cleared, it turned out that it was pretty much business as usual…

In April, a new series of crackdowns had emerged in the California Free State, where General Saito, the occupying Japanese commandant had begun a series of pogroms targeting metahumans and their activities, raising tensions to ever-higher levels. Protests turned violent – or more violent – and frequent newscasts showed Imperial Japanese Marines gunning down protestors in the streets, backed up with mega-corp assets from Renraku, Mitsuhama and Shiawase. Noticeable by their absence was Yamatetsu though, the corporation which had formerly been the fourth mega that counted Japan as their home. They had recently shifted though to Vladivostok, a move that had caused considerable disruption and anger to the Japanese, triggering a flurry of activity in the Shadows. Now Yamatetsu had come out swinging, supporting the metahuman population and throwing shade at their former corporate family and starting a whole new series of mud-slinging competitions that was already leading to an uptick of work in the shadows.

At the start of May, Renraku announced that they had regained control of the SCIRE in Seattle. The 'Self-Contained Industrial-Residential Environment' had been a flagship project for Renraku and a source of corporate pride. A massive edifice, towering over three hundred stories high in the centre of downtown Seattle, it was home and work to over a hundred thousand loyal Renraku citizens. Or at least it had been, until late in 2059, when something had gone wrong. Suddenly the blast barriers had descended, sealing the arcology off from the outside world, and the defence grid had attacked anything and everything that tried to enter. Renraku had suffered an incredible loss to prestige – losing their headquarters, regional matrix hosting facility, a major industrial node and a considerable part of their corporate population – but also being constantly associated with a very public and visible blunder, right where the world's media could see it. The UCAS army had been called in and established a perimeter around the massive building, and the trid-broadcasters had lapped up the scenes of main battle tanks cruising the streets of the city, keeping the denizens of the arcology at bay. Strange new robotic systems had tried to wage war on the UCAS for months, along with heavily cyber-modified residents launching apparently suicidal missions at times, fuelling the media frenzy still further. When it had emerged publicly that neither the Seattle government, UCAS army or Renraku actually had any control over the nuclear reactors buried deep in the basement of the building, it had sparked a panic that spread way beyond the confines of the city.

Conspiracy theories abounded, of course, from other corporate strike teams, little green men from Mars and everything in-between – Hunter had done some digging and found a whole bunch of activity on Shadowland indicating that teams of 'runners HAD managed to get in and out at various times, corroborating the stories about cyber-zombies and modified metahumans, controlled by some kind of overlord intelligence. The current theory that seemed to hold the most water was that it was the arcology's expert systems, the massively powerful computer that had run the entire system that had gone haywire, and had thought it was under attack, taking measures to keep the citizens inside 'safe' from external aggressors. Of course, like everything else, the conspiracy boards were aflame with different ideas and interpretations of the facts. But now, Renraku claimed that they had control of 'most' of the facility, and were making rapid progress in reclaiming the rest – though details of exactly who or what they had recovered control from was very noticeably absent…

Later that month, Saeder-Krupp launched a new probe towards Halley's comet, this time from a fairly secretive launch facility off the coast of southern Africa. Unfortunately for them, the probe lifted off into a test area where Ares Macrotechnology was busy testing beamed microwave power, at least according to the press releases, and the high-power beams had fried and then destroyed the probe utterly. Saeder-Krupp was livid and demanding restitution from the Corporate Court, claiming it was a clear act of war from Ares, but it seemed that SK hadn't notified anyone about the launch window and trajectories, while Ares had filed notifications about the testing and had issued no-fly warnings to keep the area clear – at least according to the computer logs released by Ares and backed up with initial findings from the Zurich orbital habitat, the location of the Corporate Court.

SK claimed the records were falsified, which of course Ares disputed, but so far the Court seemed to be siding with Ares. Marius had summed up the team's feelings quite succinctly when he announced that he was glad they hadn't had anything to do with THAT one, but it had sparked another intense debate amongst the team about their role at the cosmodrome, and if this was all part of the same operation, designed to force SK into launching from somewhere that Ares could arrange just such an 'accident'. That of course made Ares the prime mover behind that mission, which potentially put them at the head of the queue for whoever had shot at the tower the team had been using with missiles. Countering that was the fact that they had met Damian Knight, in person – and that he'd arranged for Marius to receive his cyberware upgrade on the strange request from Ehran the scribe…

Either way, it was clear that major corporate activity was underway, as barely two weeks later, another of the probes due to launch and head to the comet was damaged, this time belonging to the Shibata Construction company. Their probe was due to launch from the Spindle orbital station maintained and operated by Aztechnology. When one of the probes thrusters exploded, it wrecked the probe sufficiently that it was impossible to launch, as well as destabilising the station's orbit enough that Aztechnology had been forced to launch an emergency rescue mission using a heavy-lift rocket from their facility at Oaxaca, carrying rocket boosters and fuel up to the station and working to restore and stabilise their orbit before the station started to break up.

Clearly, the race to land a probe onto Halley's comet and claim the prestige of being 'first' had hotted up considerably, and the team could only guess at how many other teams like themselves were busy infiltrating the various launch facilities around the world, or working to corrupt the massive logistic chains required to build the cutting edge technology that each of the probes required.

The tempo of events showed no sign of slowing down, and it was that tempo that had prompted Kai to gather the team together and get back to work. Clearly work was being done, and they couldn't afford to rest on their laurels – they needed to get back out there and snag some of it for themselves, or at least take advantage of the chaos and confusion it was sowing to get some good quality smuggling work done. He'd quietly sent out a bunch of messages to their various contacts, just letting them know that the team had been working hard on their skills and facilities, but were once again available for work, should anyone have need of them.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he glanced over as Rusudan headed to the front door to see who was there. When he returned a few moments later, an elderly Japanese man was following him, walking slightly off-centre as he struggled in with a large toolkit. He was short, being about 1.6m tall, though he did also have a bit of a stoop that might make him seem smaller than he was. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and was a mix of silver and grey, though part of his sideburns were still fairly dark. A neatly trimmed beard and moustache decorated his face, and he wore an antiquated pair of spectacles, which rode fairly low down on his nose, letting him peer at the team above them.

"This man is a tinker, and wants to know if we have any work for him?" Rusudan called over, and the conversation between the team petered out as they turned to look at him.

"Ahh, good day to you. Please, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Aginowa Horishota, and I am indeed a wandering tinker. Many people however just choose to call me Uncle Agi." He smiled at them, revealing a full set of pearly white teeth, neat and straight, in a pleasant and welcoming grin. He gently set down his toolbox and then straightened up, rolling his shoulder a little. "I am wandering, travelling around the world you see, and barter my services to those I meet in exchange for a roof to sleep under, a little food and a place to stay for a while. Might you have anything in need of fixing?"

Tads dropped into astral and observed him, looking at him closely, but refraining from actively poking and prodding his aura. He didn't give off any signs of magical activity, and there were no foci, talismans or telesma about him as far as she could see. She flicked back into normal vision, and saw the man give a deferential bow towards them. As Kai got up from his seat to approach the man, she tapped out a quick message on her commlink.

[Seems ok, no obvious magic]

Kai moved to stand in front of the visitor and then returned his bow, lowering his head to below the older man's in a sign of respect.

"Welcome to the ranch. I'm sure we have something that needs to be worked on, but regardless of that, you're welcome to stay at least for the night, and to share some food with us. Please, come over." He gestured towards the table, and the team shuffled around a little, making space for him at the end of the large wooden slab. Agi picked up the toolbox again with a little grunt of effort and then moved over, and after giving them a little smile, dropped down into the seat and settled the toolbox by his side once more. "Rusudan – do you have anything broken at the moment?"

"I have a screwdriver that just refuses to charge, no matter what I do with it? Can you look at that?"

"I would be honoured. Let us see if we can earn our supper!" Another warm smile broke across his face, and he leant over to the side and flicked open the toolbox, splitting the cantilevered sections apart and then reaching in to pull out a roll of canvas that had a red ribbon tied about it. He laid the roll onto the table and pulled open the bow of ribbon, then unrolled the canvas, revealing a toolkit neatly laid out in pouches and pockets inside the roll. Marius leant over a little, then zoomed in his vision, examining the toolkit with a critical eye. The canvas was clean inside, no stray threads or spots of lint or fluff, and the workmanship on the stitching and general construction was good. He gave an unconscious little gasp though as Agi started to pull out the tools he might need, and he saw that each of them appeared to have a hand-carved wooden handle, carefully shaped and polished.

When Rusudan returned with the screwdriver, Agi took a few moments to examine it, twisting and turning it in front of him and looking at it from all sides, before he selected a fine-tipped screwdriver of his own and started to disassemble it. Each of the screws holding the case of the electric screwdriver were carefully removed, laid out on the table in a carefully considered pattern that mimicked the position they had come from. When the casing had been removed, Agi again paused and examined the device before him, studying it carefully – peering at the electronics through his glasses.

"That is a most excellent set of tools you have there. Are they all hand-made?" Marius asked.

"Indeed they are. All manufactured in my workshop." Agi gave a sad little sigh, pausing in his work for a moment and staring straight ahead. "Alas, I will not be able to use that again."

"Why not? If that's not a personal question…" Kai asked. He was watching Agi work, and his brow furrowed slightly as he studied the deft movements the old man made in disassembling the innards of the tool.

"As I am sure you are aware, the Japanese islands are prone to great shaking and quakes. The land sits atop a weakness in the earth, and it tests our people and our resolve, bringing great destruction at times. It was one such quake that damaged the town that I lived in, making many buildings collapse and setting many fires. I was not home when the quake struck – I was working in the city. But when I got home, I found that my house and workshop had been broken, collapsed when the earth moved, and then destroyed in the fire that sprang up when a gas line broke." His voice lowered and became a little croaky, and his eyes glistened slightly with unshed tears. "My wife and our children were inside, and they did not survive. I take solace in the news that it was quick… they were crushed when the building fell, rather than burnt."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been very hard." Kai offered his condolences, sincerity colouring his own voice. Agi certainly seemed to be genuinely upset, and his voice and body language was very consistent with the story he was telling. "Please, if you don't wish to speak any more of this, we understand."

"No, no. Time is a healer, as is telling the tale. I was distraught, of course, wondering how I had angered the ancestors so, that they would take my family from me. I cursed my choice to go to the city that day – but I know in my heart if I had not, I would have been killed, just like they were. But once sanity pierced my grief, I knew that it was time to go. I could not face rebuilding my life there, not without them. Perhaps it was the ancestors telling me to go, to move on. So I took my toolkit and what other possessions I had, and left the home islands. I worked my way across some of the Chinese states, then headed south, visiting my different lands. Then west, across India and worked my way north-west towards the plains, beyond the foothills of the Himalayas. I was advised to avoid the lands of Iraq and Iran, and headed further north instead, then worked passage across the sea. Baku was too big, too noisy, so I headed south, and that bought me here, to this lovely place." He gestured up at the exposed beams in the ceiling above, and the table he was working at. "I can see that this place was made with love. Somewhere that Agi can appreciate." He smiled, and then gave a very delicate shove to his glasses, raising them up his nose a millimetre or two, before concentrating once more on the circuit board and components before him.

He reached for a tool and knocked a smaller screwdriver slightly, setting it rolling towards the edge of the table. After two revolutions it dropped off the edge, falling towards the ground – until Marius's hand shot out to catch it.

"Oh, thank you. That was good reactions!" Agi took the proffered tool from Marius with a nod and placed it back into his tool roll, then continued with his work.

"So, how long have you been travelling?" Kai asked, still watching Agi's fingers move as they disassembled the innards of the screwdriver.

"About three years now, give or take. Sometimes I move faster than others, it depends on the place."

"And how long are you going to travel for?"

"Who can say? Until I've seen everything, or until I'm too old to travel!" He gave a little snort. "I suspect the latter will come first. I was not uneducated, but travel has broadened my mind, and let me know just how interesting the world is. We get taught much of course, but equally I have realised there is much we are not taught about other places and people. It's much better to go and see, to learn and experience, what other places have to offer."

"You're not a dragon, are you?" Tads asked, out of the blue. She'd been watching him closely to start with, but Kai's intense scrutiny had her watching the team leader now. There was certainly something that had caught his attention, though she couldn't see what it was.

"A dragon? Oh my… how amusing! Uncle Agi, a dragon!" He let out a deep chuckle, then gave her a broad smile, tipping his head down so he could look at her over the top of his old-fashioned spectacles. "No, I am not a dragon. But what a thought! To be able to fly, to swoop through the air. Twisting and turning, high above the world, to be free, able to travel where you wish…" He paused for a moment again, staring ahead into the middle distance, and the skin next to each eye crinkled as he smiled, imagining the freedom he was describing. A quick shake of the head and he returned back to his work, lifting up the motor housing and then giving a little grunt as he discovered a loose wire. Carefully he worked the wire back into the tiny screw hole that was supposed to keep it in place, and tightened the screw, then once more twisted and turned the tool as he examined all the other parts.

[Pretty sure phys-ad. Got a faint flicker when he was using tools. Like when Aswon stabs] Kai sent the message out, keeping his hands under the table as he tapped out the message and otherwise kept a faint smile facing Agi.

"A dragon though – very distinctive creatures. Some seem better than others, and they all seem to have very different personalities. I am no dragon, but I could perhaps carve you one?"

"Oh? You carve as well. In wood?" Agi nodded to Tads and she cocked her head to one side. "How about an Elk?"

"I am not sure. Can you describe one?" Agi asked, while his fingers deftly reassembled the screwdriver, carefully sliding back all the parts back into their original positions."

"Of course. Well, a normal elk is about as tall at the shoulder as you or I…" Tads launched into a detailed description, painting a picture of the elk of her homeland, including some of the variations found on her travels south. Agi listened carefully, nodding from time to time and asking a few questions here and there, as he finished assembling the parts before him. When he was done, he passed the screwdriver to Rusudan with a smile.

"I believe that it will need to be connected to the charger, as the loose cable was from the charging point. But it should now work correctly." Rusudan thanked him and headed off with the device to find the charging cable, leaving Agi to roll up the toolkit and carefully tie the ribbon around the canvas once more, securing it with a decorative bow. He placed the roll into the tool box, and then pulled out a similar roll, slightly smaller and secured with a different colour ribbon. When this was opened, it revealed a number of chisels, awls and rasps, along with other tools that could be used to carve and shape wood. Fishing around in the tool box again, he found a small disk of wood, about the size of the palm of his hand, and he set to work, marking out positions with the awl, building up a collection of indentations and depressions. As he worked, he asked Tads a few more questions, getting details on the elk, a better description of their fur, how the antlers looked, if the nose was wet or dry… while under the expert fingers, a carving of an elk started to appear in the wooden disk.

A few minutes later, he passed over the wooden disk, upon which was a carving of an elk head – or at least a very good representation of one, especially if he hadn't ever seen on in real life. Tads accepted it from him and thanked him profusely, while she examined the wood carefully. It looked to have been hand-sawn from a log, too – and that meant it was entirely hand-made, and suitable for adding to her lodge.

"So, how are you with firearms?" Hunter asked.

"I am not one to carry weapons. But they are just machines, like any other. Do you have a faulty one?"

"We have some older weapons, that are not well maintained. I'm sure you can have a look at some of them…" Hunter went to go fetch one of the old AK series rifles they'd accumulated during their travels. He passed it over to Agi, then laid the magazine down on the table next to him and watched as Agi gingerly took the weapon and examined it. Something was nagging at him as the old man examined the gun, and he stood still, concentrating on the situation, wondering what had set off his radar…

After a quick examination of the rifle, Agi turned in the seat slightly and held it out, giving it a little shake to find out if anything was loose, before lowering it gently to the table and starting to poke at the retaining pins and bolts, as he disassembled the weapon, carefully separating out the parts.

"I see what you mean. Much rust inside here… and some dirt. Someone clearly does not love this…" Agi started to mumble something under his breath, singing quietly to himself as he worked on the rifle, breaking it down into parts and then pulling out another roll of tools from his box.

Hunter suddenly realised what was bothering him and backed away from the table, keeping his face composed.

"Just going to get some cleaning supplies." He headed out to go and get a cleaning kit, and paused once out of sight to send a text to the rest of the team.

[Claims he's not a gun guy – but he knew how to disassemble the rifle really well. Also, I watched him hold it. Never once put his finger on the trigger. Never let the gun face towards anyone. That shit don't happen without training. He definitely knows guns.]

He returned with some cleaning fluid and rags, and placed them near to Agi, who had set to work on the rifle with gusto and was well into the process of removing a few years' worth of gunk from the mechanism.

It took a while, but an hour later Agi had the rifle as clean as it would have been when it had left the factory, reassembled and back into operation. He didn't stop there though, but pulled out his wood carving kit again and spent the next hour fashioning a small handle and some other parts to make using the gun cleaning kit much easier. Once he'd done with that, Rusudan had a small pile of things that were broken or non-functional, and Agi set to work on each in turn, his deft fingers disassembling each device and working to restore it to full function. While he was working, he asked the team who they were and how they had come to be here, politely pointing out that it was clear that they were not natives to the area, and appeared to have very disparate backgrounds.

Aswon picked up the conversation, deflecting slightly and instead describing some of the things they had done together. He was careful to abstract some of the stories – recounting what they had done, but glossing over specific details that would identify exactly where they had been, or who they had been targeting, or working for.

Agi responded in kind, telling them tales of the various places he'd been through, covering his journey across Asia and describing the people and places he'd encountered along the way, and some of the things he'd fixed. He wasn't good with computers it seemed, but was a dab hand with small mechanical and electrical devices, had a good knowledge of plumbing and was pretty good with both wood and stone carving. As the afternoon wore on, he demolished the pile of broken appliances and items, returning each to full function, before heading outside with Aswon and started a survey on the ranch grounds, discussing with him the state of the barn and stable doors, the fences and various other parts of the infrastructure, indicating that he would be happy to help fix all of these items…

Early in the evening Kai twitched as his wrist buzzed, the commlink displaying a message from Ludmilla.

[Are you free for a call?]

[One minute and I will be.]

"Agi, please excuse us. Business call. Come on guys, time for a quick huddle." He led the way towards the stables and well away from the house, before hitting the speed-dial for Ludmilla and configuring the commlink for loudspeaker mode, watching as Agi headed back into the house.

"Kai! How are you, my dear. It's been an age!"

"Good afternoon Ludmilla, indeed it has. You look and sound exquisite, as ever! So, how can we be of service? I have the team with me, listening in."

"I have something of an urgent job – I have some supplies that need delivering, with a fairly tight time-frame. I know your man is an excellent driver, and this should be fairly simple for you to do – and well within your capabilities."

"Well, that's encouraging. What kind of job is it?"

"I need a few boxes shifted from here up to a trans-shipment point quite far north. I would send them up with my normal driver, but there's something going on to the north and the roads are… problematical at the moment. So I need alternative transport."

"A problem with the roads?"

"Yes, indeed. It appears that some trouble is brewing, and there's a major movement of troops to the north at the moment. Many of the roads are closed, and there's a lot of official attention that way. And that simply won't do – I can't have these boxes being seen by people."

Aswon waved a hand and then quickly tapped out a message and showed it to the team.

[Is it live cargo?]

[And do we need anti-venom?] Tads tapped out herself.

"M'lady… the cargo. Is it live specimens, and do we need to make any special arrangements for their transport? Just want to make sure we have adequate transport to do the job."

"Oh no, not this time. It's finished goods. I have three boxes, each about half a metre to a side. Not particularly delicate, though I'd much prefer them to be handled carefully to avoid damage."

"Well, that doesn't sound like a problem at all. And where are we taking them?"

"To a contact on Yuzhny Island." As soon as Ludmilla gave the name, Hunter started tapping away and doing a search, then flashed up his results on the teams commlinks. The island was an eight-hundred kilometre long shallow crescent, stretching up from the northern edge of Russia well up into the Arctic Circle. Marius peered at the island, and did a quick look at the distances involved, giving a thumbs up.

"That looks very doable. Now of course, the unpleasant part of the conversation…"

"Of course, Kai. I'm looking at payment of twenty thousand – but stop, before you or anyone says anything, I know, I know. That's the payment for the delivery. I will also refuel your vehicle on arrival here and on return, free of charge. I know how much fuel factors into your overheads, so let's just take that out of the equation, shall we?"

"Oh, well yes, that does change things a lot." Kai flicked his eyes around the team, getting a thumbs up from most of them. "Now, you mention some activity to the north that made the roads a little inhospitable. Twenty thousand for a rush job is something we can look at, but the margins are a little fine. How about an insurance payment? If we run into trouble, and we'll do our best to avoid it, I assure you, you cover the cost of any ammunition expenditure and repairs as well."

"Hmm. That could be quite pricy… but ok. If you make the delivery as requested, I'll cover any chips to the paintwork, too."

"Excellent. Well, we're not doing much right now. I guess we can start loading up, grabbing some warm clothing and make preparations for travel. We should be able to be with you in a few hours…" he glanced over at Marius who thought for a moment, then glanced down at the map once more, did a quick mental calculation and then held up a number of fingers. "We should be with you in six or seven hours potentially?

"That's entirely acceptable. Until later then, ciao!"

"Well, sounds like a job then – guess we should get ready!"

"Twenty thousand is a little low, don't you think. Even allowing for ammo and repairs." Hunter frowned at him, but it was Aswon that answered, not Kai.

"It's not great – but Ludmilla has given us jobs before, and she's a decent enough employer from what we've seen. More importantly she's very well connected and clearly powerful and rich. This is almost certainly going to lead to more work in the future…"

"It had better. I don't know if you've looked at the map properly… but if you go west from that island a bit, see that there?"

"Murmansk?"

"Yeah – that's the major deep-water port for the Russian navy. Lots of military assets there. That entire area is their back yard. Might get a bit tense."

"There's something else you might want to know as well." Tads added. She fiddled with her commlink for a moment, then gave an exasperated sigh. "Hunter, go east a bit, will you… bit more. Stop! Right, from that bit there, the bit that sticks out into the water… all the way to a bit east of the island… well, that's all Nenet lands there. That's my home."

"And that's a problem because?"

"Well, that's what I keep having visions of, being on fire. Of danger. That's where I was going to be heading anyway, so it's convenient you're flying past. But I need to stop there – on the way back if not before, to check things out."

"Are there local politics at work here? Things that we should be aware of?"

"Not that I know about, Marius. We don't tend to do politics much, far too busy hunting and fishing, and herding reindeer. But I can't imagine what would set everything on fire either, but that's what I keep seeing in my visions…"

"Well, let's go drop these boxes off, and we can stop at your village or something and investigate on the way back." Kai clapped his hands together and glanced around the team. "Ok, let's go get packed. If it's just a quick delivery job, we can go out, do the drop, pop in at Tads' village and then head back here. No reason to disturb Shimazu, I think… we should be back before he misses us!"

Once they headed back inside, they stopped at the kitchen table, as each of them looked at uncle Agi, their new visitor. He sensed something was up and laid down his tools and let his eyes scan over them, settling onto Kai's face and his face wrinkled.

"Is there something wrong? Perhaps I can help?"

"No, no, it's fine Agi. Thank you. We have a little job to do, a quick delivery – shouldn't take us more than a day, maybe two. But we're all fine. I wonder, would you be happy to stay here, as our guest, until we return? Like I said, we shouldn't be gone long, and you've been very helpful so far."

"I would be most pleased to stay. There is much here that I can help with."

"Very good. That ok with you, Rusudan? And the family?" Kai glanced at the ranch owner, but he knew it was pro-forma. Rusudan still considered himself to owe a 'life-debt' to the team, and rarely voiced any kind of dissenting opinion to them. Kai knew that some of the team felt bad about that from time to time – but he looked at the broader picture. Sure, they'd sort of appropriated Rusudan's home as their base, but on the other hand they'd utterly romped through the local Mafia, bringing a level of peace and security to the area they hadn't seen for years, as well as bringing in enough investment to turn the ranch around and actually make it a viable holiday proposition – as the booking schedule showed. The family were certainly not doing badly out of the deal…

The team got to work, loading up the tilt-wing with supplies, weapons and ammunition. Despite Kai's assessment of a two day mission at the worst, they loaded up with gear, knowing that things had a habit of going sideways on them without a moment's notice – and after their last chain of missions had them going from one hot-spot to another, they weren't taking any chances.

While they were loading up, Agi ended up coming out with some supplies, heading towards the tilt-wing – at least until Hunter intercepted him, taking the box from his grasp at the edge of the helipad. He still was unsure of the old man, and wasn't keen on him getting on-board or even looking inside if he could help it.

"Marius, watch out for the dude, he looks like he's trying to get onboard for a look around."

"So?"

"I dunno. Something about him. I just don't think it's a good idea." Marius looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. He wasn't picking up any vibes along that side of things, but on the other hand, he often found himself allied or at least aligned with Hunter on many things, particularly when the rest of the team were doing some weird kind of mystic mumbo-jumbo. He climbed out of the cockpit and headed out of the side door, crossing the helipad towards the old man.

"May I show you my workshop? If you are staying here, it would be better, I think, for you to have proper facilities, rather than the kitchen table." He led Agi over to the large shed that lay alongside the road leading up into the hills, and slid open the door to reveal the large workshop inside. When they'd first arrived at the ranch it had been a run-down and dilapidated space, full of cobwebs, dirt and rust. Now it more closely resembled a clean-room, with the inside painted a brilliant white, while overhead lamps bathed the area in a constant level of illumination. The old rickety shelves had been replaced with a purpose-built tool bench, and the walls had large panels hanging from them with a wide variety of tools laid out on hanging pegs, each one with a faint outline scribed around them. Other tools were located in the cupboards under the worktop, or in large rolling cabinets, neatly nestled into foam cut-outs that mirrored their shape.

"Oh my, what a clean and tidy space! Such organisation!" Agi beamed at him, then headed over to the nearest rack and leant in close to look at the tools. Each was spotless, well maintained and arranged with meticulous perfection. "Are these your tools? I can see you, too, are a skilled craftsman then…" All of the tools Marius had, or had purchased were modern – made of high strength composites or premium grade metals, rather than the hand-crafted array that Agi had, but they were all the best quality he could obtain. "Are you sure? And are there any tools here that hold significance to you? That I should not use?"

"No, none at all. They are all to be used. And I have no issue with you using any of them – seeing how you keep your own tool rolls, I have no doubt that you will care for them properly." Marius realised as he was saying it that he meant it – he had the feeling that even if Agi wasn't all that he seemed, his attention to detail and craftsmanship was a core part of who he was, and that he would no more leave a tool out and dirty, or dull a blade and put it away than he would suddenly turn into a fish and fly away…

The team finished loading and preparing a little before 20:00, and took off into the night sky, turning north and accelerating smoothly towards the Russian border. As they closed on the mountains, Tads had her spirit conceal the craft and Marius engaged his defensive EW systems and they slipped through the highlands like a thief in the night, evading detection by both the TCL and Russian forces entirely. Marius flew as economically as he could – Ludmilla's dam was right on the max range for the tilt-wing from the ranch, and he had zero margin for fuel on this one. Flying at a steady speed and altitude, he kept them on an arrow-straight course, keeping a watchful eye on the sensors as they crawled across the map.

They arrived at the dam just a minute after midnight, Marius spiralling in quickly and putting the aircraft down at the southern end of the dam in the same spot they'd used last time, warily keeping an eye out for the criss-crossing power lines and transmission towers that littered the area. Moments after landing, he could see workers pulling out a fuel hose and dragging it over towards the aircraft, and he headed aft to jump out and show them where the fuel port was – and to keep an eye on the process itself.

Another bunch of workers had emerged from the heavily reinforced door leading into the dam's internal structure, pushing a small pallet truck. Three identical boxes were strapped down onto the pallet, stacked one atop the others. The wooden boxes were unadorned, lacking any kind of markings at all, the roughly-sawn lumber looking almost furry as the floodlights illuminated the mist in the air, catching on the fine wisps and shavings that stood proud of the surface. Kai jumped down to meet them, while Hunter lowered the cargo ramp to allow them easier access.

"Not meeting the Lady of the House?"

"Nah mate, she's not here. We just got told to fuel you up and load these, then let you be on your way. Oh, and to give you this?" The man pulled out a small chip from a pocket, passing it over to Kai.

"Right, fair enough, then." He moved to the side while they pushed the small lifter up the ramp, watching as they released the pressure and lowered the pallet down onto the load bed, then pulled the hand truck out and back down the ramp. Once they were clear, Hunter raised the ramp again, sealing the bird back up. Kai moved to the side and caught him on the way back to the cockpit. "Hunter, check this out, will you?" The ork grunted at him, taking the chip and heading for the cockpit, to insert it into his reader and do a scan.

"Got co-ordinates here for the delivery, Kai. 71.11705 by 53.62217. That puts it towards the southern end of the island, sheltered inlet from the western side. Maybe a good place for a boat to moor up, but some nasty cliffs and bluffs around there. Going to be interesting visibility. Also have a contact frequency, some code names and challenge-response keys to authenticate with. Best news is that it's only seventeen hundred klicks from here, so that gives us better fuel state."

"Good stuff. Marius – how long on the fuel?"

"About ten minutes at the rate we are going."

"Ok. Tads – can you get a look at the location from Hunter, maybe go check it out? You can get there and back in ten minutes, right?"

"Easily. I'll check with him now." Kai saw Tads twist to look at the monitor on the bulkhead, her face suddenly illuminated with blue light as Hunter showed her the broad view of the area and the coastlines, then gradually zoomed in to show the area she was heading for in context. A moment later her face slumped forward as her astral form rose up and out of it, rising up a hundred metres in the air, turned to face north and then vanished. Kai felt a very quick stab of envy, wondering what it must feel like to be able to do that, then wandered around to the other side of the aircraft to check on Marius and the fuelling team, and to see if he could extract any gossip from them.

She hadn't vanished, of course – especially not on the astral plane. She was just moving incredibly quickly – her astral form not having to worry about irritating things like g-forces or inertia, allowing her to go from a standstill to fourteen thousand kilometres per hour….

She covered most of the journey in a couple of minutes, but as she closed in on her homeland, she stopped more often, making sure she was orientated correctly and also looking around her. On her third stop, she saw something below which gave her pause, and she dropped down lower, examining the life signs scattered across the plains. There were thousands of them, hunkered down in small groups, scattered across the landscape for kilometres either way. She flicked momentarily into the physical world, appearing as a ghostly form hovering up in the night sky – and all the life-signs pretty much disappeared, leaving only a few large vehicles visible. Fading into the astral again, the life-signs could be easily seen, and she realised that they were all camouflaged, hidden by their clothing and partly dug into the frigid earth. She swooped down lower, trying to get a better feel for what was going on. Groups of a dozen were clustered tightly together, laid out in a repeating pattern, with most of them seeming to be asleep. One or two in every group were awake though, watching to the north and being somewhat alert. In between most of the groups of men was a vehicle, some kind of armoured transport, then another gap of a hundred metres and another dozen men. The pattern was repeated, off to the west and east, and there must have been thousands of them laid out. She zoomed along the formation a little, confirming her suspicions, and then pulled up short as she 'felt' a particular aura below her. In this group of men, a platoon if she had her memories of Samara base right, she recognised one particular astral signature. She racked her brain, trying to remember his name, and peered at his aura again until the memory bubbled to the surface - Iosi Lebedev.

He was one of the men who had held pagan beliefs, a gaia worshipper who had hidden his religion to avoid persecution. At least until Tads had arrived at Samara. Once the team had defended the base against some of the attacking spirits, and had used magic to heal the wounded from the base hospital, suddenly people were less keen to persecute people over their beliefs in magic, and a small group of them had come forward, asking Tads to lead some services and meetings where they could share their beliefs.

And if he was here… that meant this group of soldiers were the same ones from Samara… the 38th Motor Rifle Division. And that probably meant the Brigadier was down there also… She had no idea why they were approaching her homeland, but she had a pretty good idea of where she could get some answers. She swooped down and 'landed' next to Iosi, then manifested once more.

"Iosi. IOSI. Wake up. I need to talk to you."

As the man grumbled in his sleep and started to wake, the sentry ahead of her turned, seeing a ghostly figure stooped over the sleeping soldier. He shouted in alarm, shouldering his rifle and triggered a round, the rifle shot barking over the quiet landscape and travelling for some considerable distance. That woke up everyone in the platoon, and no doubt every platoon for hundreds of metres on either side.

"derzhat ogon! DERZHAT OGON" Iosi called out as he stared up at Tads, her face rippling slightly as it reformed in the wake of the bullet passing harmlessly through it "Hold fire…". The platoon radio sounded as someone demanded to know what was going on, and Tads could see astral forms rising up from their scrapes and fox-holes on either side. Iosi struggled out of his sleeping bag and hopped across to the radio operator, grabbing the handset and activating the transmitter. "Stand down, stand down!" he called out in Russian. As the sentry continued to train his rifle on the glowing astral form of Tads, Iosi raised a hand and pointed a finger at him and scowled. "Pull that trigger again Sven, and you will regret it!" He depressed the transmitter button once more "It was just a wild creature, nothing to worry about. Spooked the sentry. It's dead now. Stand down." Other members of the platoon were awake now, weapons clutched to their chests, many of them also pointed at Tads.

"All of you stop it. This is a friend. She's not a ghost – she is a powerful shaman, a healer of the land. Remember her? The one who came to Samara, and helped the Brigadier drive off the spirits? It was her and her team who found the infiltrator that was spying on us. Hold your fire!" He moved around, physically pushing down gun barrels as he spoke, and a few more of the platoon seemed to recognise her shape and appearance – now they weren't quite so terrified. That in turn was enough to convince the rest of the platoon to relax, though they clearly had no idea what was going on.

That made for both sides, thought Tads. She smiled at them though, keeping her hands out to her sides, palms spread, trying not to appear threatening.

"What are you doing out here? And where are you heading?"

"We've been working north for a few days now. Looking for people, taking them into custody."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Orders. We haven't killed anyone, not yet anyway. But we have found some locals. They're taken away in trucks, to a camp somewhere." Tad's face rippled again, as emotions washed over her, distorting her self-image.

"These are people. My people. People who have been here for generations."

"I'm…. sorry?" Iosi looked confused for a moment, not understanding quite what he was feeling. "I don't know what's going on… we're just following orders."

"I need to go now. But I'm coming back. I'm not happy about this… not at all." The ghostly form of Tads rippled again, smoothing out as she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. "Is the brigadier we dealt with still in charge?" She saw Iosi nod and breathed a sigh of relief. "Tell him I'm coming back. We need to talk about this. He needs to explain what's going on."

Iosi nodded again, then flinched back slightly as she shot up into the air turned to the north and then vanished from sight. He exhaled, suddenly realising he'd been holding his breath, and the sighed deeply. He wasn't quite sure why, but he'd felt a mounting fear crawling up his spine while she'd been talking to him.

One of the other soldiers, a little braver than the rest walked over to where Tads had been manifested, and looked down at the ground. Looked down at the small patch of frozen ground, spreading out in a circle around two perfectly formed hoof prints. A faint crack of expanding ice disturbed the silence, and he looked at Iosi, wondering just what was going on – but Iosi had no answers for him.

Tads flew north, feeling uncharacteristically angry. She sped over the landscape, taking no joy in the return to her homeland, just noting how empty and alone it felt. Moments later she was over the ocean, flitting across the ice-sheets and choppy water, speeding towards the island. Once there, she looked around, quickly finding the steep-sided cove that Hunter had indicated, and spotted the huge airship nestled into it. Long ropes hung down from each side, tethering it in place with some kind of anchor that was dug into the gravel, and she saw a couple of critters rooting around in the cliffs, some of them vaguely magical – but no other signs of activity. She pulled up, took a moment to check for anything or anyone else, and then turned to fly back to the dam, letting her anger course through her astral form as she travelled back as quickly as she could.

"Tads is back! Good to go!" She heard as she lifted her head, and felt the engines building up speed as Marius fed power to them. "Everything ok, Tads? You were gone a little longer than expected?" Aswon looked over at her with concern, his fingers drumming on his spear.

"There's trouble ahead. Big trouble." She made sure she was transmitting over the team frequency, so they could all hear her, glad that the comms system filtered out the sounds of the engines and the airflow. "I saw the Russian army, all spread out in a line, moving towards home. They were camped for the night, with sentries out. At least some of them are the Brigadier's men – I recognised some of them. And they're rounding up people, and taking them away. Driving forwards, further into Nenet lands."

"Russian army units? Why? What are they doing?"

"I don't know. But they're rounding up my people and taking them away. They're just following orders." The angry bite and tone of frustration came across clearly, and Aswon saw the corner of her mouth twitch as an angry tic formed. He sat back in his seat, looking across at the shaman, trying to get a good read on her, and was more than a little concerned at what he saw. Glancing over, he saw Kai was watching Tads carefully as well, and his smile had faded just as quickly. Tads looked more than a little annoyed, and Aswon had a sudden flashback to the first day they had worked as a team, escaping from the Chechen camp. When she'd casually put up an illusion and caused a vehicle full of people to plummet over the side of a cliff to their death. That wasn't worrying – not really. They would have been just as dead if she'd smashed their vehicle with a fireball, or super-heated the metal until it had fried them. What had stuck in his memory was the statement she'd made on observing their deaths, when she'd said that they 'shouldn't go around kidnapping people then'. Without a shred of remorse, or pity, no compassion or regret.

Aswon had a sudden image of Tads enraged and driven to fury, defending her homeland. Using her powers to smite and destroy, with the same lack of pity or compassion. Summoning spirits like Pebble and turning them loose – but not with a request to defend, but to destroy. It wasn't a comforting thought…

"I got some info for you on that. Just getting some results in now."

"Results on what, Hunter?"

"Oh, when we were leaving the ranch, I jumped on the sat link, and I've had some searches running across the matrix and particularly on Shadowland, looking for info. Since Ludmilla mentioned that shit was kicking off up north – I wanted to know what was going on."

"And?"

"Still getting info back, but I've got a bunch of reports from various smuggler or runner teams who've been operating in or around the area. Apparently there's a big troop movement heading north, multiple divisions, operating on a wide front. They travelled up motorised until they were at sixty-four degrees north – that's about level with the southern end of the White Sea. They dismounted then, and have been sweeping north, it seems, spread out over a front hundreds of kilometres wide, sweeping up everyone they come across. Nobody seems to know where they're taking them – not enough people to hit the news, and nobody seems to care. But they've been pushing north ever since, advancing steadily ever since."

"But why?" Aswon was confused – this was a massive operation, with no seeming motivation behind it. What was the Russian army, or government gaining from displacing loggers, peat diggers and small holders?

"Well, I got another hit here. Seems there's been some kind of agreement between Mitsuhama and Russia, according to rumours. Someone saying there's been all kinds of Mitsuhama survey vessels working up in the Barents Sea, especially along the coast line. Found rich deposits of ores and minerals up there. Someone did a run on a facility, says they found some pay-data indicating that the Ruskies had done a deal with the corp, turning over control of the area to them in exchange for a cut of the profits from the mines."

"Oh. No no no…. No!" This time it was Kai that responded, and as Aswon and Tads looked over at him, they could see the colour draining from his face. "It's Tsimshian all over again." He saw the others look at him, not understanding. "Look, a good while back, after the Great Ghost Dance kicked the UCAS out of the western parts of North America, relations started to break down between the different Native American Nations. Tsimshian in particular didn't like what the Sovereign Tribal Council was up to. So they broke away from the rest of the NAN. But apparently they realised they couldn't go it alone… so they brokered a deal with Mitsuhama. Bought in the corp to help buoy up their economy. Except it didn't work out so well for them."

"What do you mean?"

"Take a deep breath, Tads – you're not going to like this. They invited the corp in. Mitsuhama Computer Technologies right? MCT – we think of them as being fairly high tech… but they're a mega corp, just like the others in the big ten. Fingers in all the pies. And one thing they do very well is mineral extraction and natural resource harvesting. Except they don't care about what state they leave things in afterwards. MCT gave the Tsimshian government a crash course in what happens when you sell your soul to the devil. They came in, embedded themselves into every part of the country's economy, and subverted it. And when they owned it, they raped it. Strip-mined entire mountains, logged out valleys and left them barren. Turned mountain springs into corrupted rivers laced with vile compounds. They pretty much trashed the country over the next decade, taking everything of value and turning it into a hellscape. Imprisoned half the population, enslaved the other half. We were lucky we skipped around the edge of it when we were touring the volcanoes. Nasty place, so I've heard."

"That makes sense. If there are resources up in the shallow coastal waters, the Russians will need help getting them out. And a mega like MCT, with decades of mining experience would let them do that… but the cost…" Aswon shook his head, imaging the devastation that would be wrought. Tads didn't discuss her homeland that much, but what she had painted a picture to them of a fairly pristine land, where her people, small in number and migratory, worked across the land and tended to it carefully. The impact of large-scale mineral extraction would be horrific. "Tads, I'd already said after your visions that I would come with you. But I tell you know – I will not let this happen to your land or your people." He rapped the butt of his spear on the deckplate twice. She couldn't hear it over the sound of the engines, but she nodded in acknowledgement of the symbol.

"Well, shit. This is going to get interesting." Kai scratched the side of his head. "Maybe I should send Shimazu a message, get him to head towards the airport or something. If he gets on a flight up, maybe he can get close enough for us to go pick him up from a commercial airport…"

"Tads – did you say the Brigadier is up there? That his unit is one of the ones doing the sweep?" She nodded to him, still thinking about the situation Kai had described and suddenly feeling sick. "Well, that's something. We've got history… we should be able to get to him, speak to him. Find out what's going on, and why." He pointed over to Tads. "At least we have a Hero of the Russian Federation with us. That has to count for something."

"I'll be back." Tads went limp, before anyone could argue with her, shooting north once more, her astral form leaving the tilt-wing in her dust. A few minutes later she was searching through the forest, north of the advancing line of Russians, searching for her people. Any of her people. But the forest was strangely quiet. She flitted around some more, eventually finding a small group of Nenets, camped out in their chums. And some of them were awake… she manifested before the shaman, taking a few minutes to talk with him, before leaving and heading south once more, trying to find the tilt-wing. It took her longer than she would have wanted, but eventually she spotted them, recognising her spirit concealing and protecting the craft as it cruised through the night sky. Getting back aboard proved equally hard, trying to merge with her body as it zoomed through the sky at the tilt-wings cruising speed. On her third attempt she managed to get lined up right, grabbing hold of her meat-body as it flew through her astral form and letting her re-integrate them.

"The tribes are pulling north. They've had word that the Russians are coming, and are pulling back, trying to avoid them. But there's only so far they can go…"

They flew onwards, on alert now, studying the maps and hoping that Hunter could discover something else on the matrix that might explain what was going on. As they got about a hundred kilometres south of the border with her homeland though, Marius raised the alarm.

"Air search radars. A lot of them. Fraaak…." His voice trailed off. "I count more than forty point sources, current generation defence radars. And I can detect launch vehicles as well, a lot of those too."

"Send me the data, please." Hunter asked, then watched as the contacts started to come over to his deck. He crunched the numbers as quickly as he could, feeding in the information into the database he'd already assembled so far on their flight. "It's an air-defence regiment. Frequencies and pulse repetition match that of a SA-27 Goblin launcher. Deployed with battalion strength formations for defence against hostile attacks. I think this is an organic unit attached to the main formation. I can't see any reason for them to be here though… it's not like Tads' tribes have anything that can fly, let alone fighters or bombers."

"That makes no sense at all!"

"Unless it's some stupid by-the-book kind of orders. The division goes somewhere, well so does the air-defence team, even if there's no use." Hunter shrugged. "The layout I have here from the sensor sweep is right out of doctrine too. Exactly the same spacing between all radar vehicles. Launchers laid out in a perfect star around them. Textbook."

"I think I know why they're here though. Once the army has pacified the area, they'd provided cover to the MCT workers. Protect them against other corps, or runner teams coming in to steal their shit, or to do sabotage runs." Aswon shook his head. "We're going to be up against it… Marius – can you get us through this?"

"It will not be easy. But I can… hang on." They felt the tilt-wing bank sharply and then descend as Marius looked for landscape features to match their approach. For several minutes they swept back and forth, hugging the landscape as they shot across the ancient woodlands, ducking behind bluffs and rises until Marius had worked his way through the defensive line, shivering slightly as he felt the caressing touch of the radar slide off his absorbent skin.

"Coming up on the border now. Clear of the Russian forces." The tilt-wing crossed over the notional line on the map, entering the Nenet Autonomous Region, a subdivision of the Arkhangelsk Oblast, or administrative division. In the back of the tilt-wing, Tads suddenly tensed, her body straining in the harness as her back arched, and her head bashed backwards into the headrest. Her eyes bulged, her fingers splayed and she started to pant violently, a little froth escaping from the corner of her mouth. Aswon quickly dropped into astral as he saw the strange behaviour, and spotted a massive astral presence wrapped around her. It wasn't the group totem, the guiding spirit that had formed when all four of the magical members of the team had pledged to work together. It was her personal totem, the primordial Elk. He recognised the power of it, remembering when they had been captured by the wolf tribe on their journey to Tashkent. It had wrapped itself around her body, engulfing her in its form. The wards around it were intact, and he assumed it had arrived directly from whatever plane or zone of magic it called home, following its link to her unerringly to work around the protective wards.

He saw Kai starting to unbuckle and grab the medkit, and raised a hand towards him.

"No, Kai! She's ok. Well, mostly. It's her totem. I guess we've got a new job to do now…"

"Well this is going to get interesting…"

"Fraking hell. More mythic stuff…" they heard from the cockpit, as Hunter and Marius shared a deep sigh.

Why couldn't anything ever go smoothly?