Date 31/12/2059, Location 41.2936, 69.2118

Aswon grabbed a shower, and then surveyed his clothing. His base layers were ok, having been hand washed in the shower when he could get one and left to dry, but his top layers were…. well worn. He got dressed and headed in towards the centre of Tashkent, looking for somewhere open where he could purchase some new armoured clothes that didn't look quite so stained and battered. His journey was without success, though – it appeared that western culture had reached deep into Asia on this occasion, and nearly every shop and building was closed early for the New Year celebrations. Aswon returned to the motel and sprayed the armour jacket liberally with deodorant and scrubbed some of the stains with a cloth to try and smarten them up. Whilst he was working, he chatted with Hunter about weapons, expressing his desire for a telescoping spear. Hunter, waiting for people to be ready, started a search on the matrix for such items – quickly finding that the vast majority of telescoping weapons were "novelty" items and were not really that good. Hidden amongst the dross though were a few manufacturers that did specialise in such items, using high-tech methods and advanced materials. He identified one dealer in England that seemed to specialise in such weapons – they were highly restrictive in who they dealt with it seemed, but offered a wide variety of concealable and multi-purpose weapons.

Eventually everyone was ready, and they headed to Kiril's yard, Tadibya and Hunter on the bikes and everyone else crammed into the jalopy that Kiril had rented to them. The roads were pretty quiet, many of the people having left work at lunchtime it seemed, and they arrived at the yard quite quickly. The double gates were swung open, and the team could see a large mob of people in front of the office, milling around. There were at least thirty people there, nearly all of them male. A few dwarves and orcs were present, but they couldn't see any elves or trolls. All of the people there had that "manual worker" look about them, even the scattering of females through the crowd.

A crane on one side and a digger on the other side of the hut were positioned at an angle, their work lights aimed down in front of the hut, bathing the area in a bright light. Two large stacks of speakers on either side blared out some fairly hard Russian death-metal at sound levels bordering on painful, and nearly everyone had a plastic beaker in hand with some kind of beverage. A makeshift table was next to the office with the sound system and a large selection of bottles, mostly unlabelled, from which people were helping themselves. A bunch of cars were parked to one side, and it was apparent that most people intended to drive home later – something that made Marius wonder about their drive home, as he remembered his near miss in the north of Tashkent.

Kiril waved them to a parking spot when they arrived and then welcomed them to the party, ensuring that they all had a drink and offering a toast to something – the words mostly drowned out by the blaring sounds. The team relaxed, sampling various drinks and stripping the lining from their throats with a variety of moonshines and third-rate spirits. The team dispersed and started to chat or mingle with the crowd, finding out who was who.

Hunter soon found himself confronted by a large slab of a guy who seemed interested in the bike that he'd turned up on. His English skills were almost non-existent though, so communication was stilted – and it took Hunter a few minutes to realise that he was being challenged to a special race around the front section of the junkyard. It appeared that the objective was to race down to a turn, spin a quick donut, take a gulp from a hip flask, then move onto to the next object – first back over the finish line was the winner. Reading the mood of the crowd, Hunter agreed, and went to wheel his bike over. It was roughly similar to the opponent's bike – a decent-looking scrambler. He handled the bike well, but was also heavier than Hunter, so it was likely to be a close run thing.

They soon found themselves surrounded by a small group of others, and inevitably someone pulled out a pad and started taking bets on the winner. Hunter and the opponent set off, roaring down the first leg. The other guy was marginally faster, and spun his donut first, then had a large gulp from his flask, dropped the clutch and roared off. Hunter sent a mental command and engaged his nephritic screen, and the filters strained to remove the toxins and impurities from the spirit he consumed – which was by definition, most of it...

The race continued, with Hunter slowly gaining ground on each leg, as the other rider started to suffer more and more from the alcohol consumed. On the very last leg, Hunter was closing hard on his position, when the opponent hit a rock sticking out of the dirt at just the wrong angle. He lost the back end, over-corrected, and slewed the bike around hard, tilting too far and being catapulted off to slide into the bank of cars with a loud "oof". The bike he was riding flipped around, directly into the path of Hunter, who T-boned it at close to forty kilometres per hour, sending him shooting over the handlebars. He flexed in mid-air, spinning his body round and calculating the angles as he flew through the air. If he got it right, he'd be able to slide to a halt and look cool as frak. It was going to take all his control and a little bit of luck, but he knew he could do this. His body arced through the air and he braced for impact – which never came.

Tadibya had been watching them since they entered the back straight, and saw the carnage unfold. She stretched out her hand, muttered and concentrated. A bead of sweat popped out of her temple from the intense mental effort, but the mana was shaped by her will and invisible hands grasped at Hunter, suspending his plunge to the floor and bringing him down gently, at a pace that let him slowly walk into a landing. She released Hunter from her grasp, and then saw that everyone had taken a step back away from her. With a wince, she prepared to turn and run, expecting a negative reaction and cries of "Witchcraft". What she wasn't prepared for was a rush of drunken volunteers shouting at her demanding to be next to "fly like hero, yes?"

Kai headed over to the fallen biker with his first aid kit and examined him, discovering his broken ribs and bruised collarbone. A firm tone of voice and gentle pushes kept him from rising, whilst Kai applied some strapping and support bandages and then gave him a hefty dose of muscle relaxant and pain killers, before carefully helping him up from the floor to go and examine the bikes. Both were bent and broken, a mass of broken forks and ripped control wires, bent rims and ripped tyres. It seemed it wasn't just the truck that would need to be in for repair.

By the time he'd done checking and looked up, Tadibya had a selection of people floating around the front of the yard – not going that fast relatively speaking. None the less, they were whooping and screaming as she gave them gentle barrel rolls, loops, banked turns and flew them across the ground with scant centimetres of clearance. The crowd seemed entranced with her magical abilities, and kept trying to ply her with drinks to thank her for her "ride", but Tadibya had to refuse them – without Hunter's advantage, she'd have been smashed in short order, and would probably have flown someone into a car at high speed. The bruised biker, Erik, headed over to Hunter and agreed that perhaps the race was a draw, this time – to which Hunter agreed.

Marius had been over at the other side of the office, standing behind a speaker where the volume was not quite so deafening. He'd been introduced to a few of Kiril's guests, and was chatting away with them sociably, trying to find out what they did and what they liked. Jamshid was a tool merchant in the town, selling various bits of hardware to a variety of trades and businesses. He was a medium-built guy, with long brown hair pulled back into a pony tail and a face pock-marked with acne scars. He stood next to a very slender black-haired young man, with short cropped spiky hair and dark skin who introduced himself as Naufal, a parts distributor for the area. He had an office here, but spent much of the time travelling around the country dealing with his various businesses. Last in the group was a fiery red-headed guy with piercing blue eyes and a broad barrel-chest. Obviously not a local, Marius pegged him as a Russian immigrant in moments from his accent. Vlad ran one of the local metal recycling factories, and bought much of his stock from guys like Kiril.

All three were useful people to know, so Marius spent some time talking to them and ensuring their cups were never empty, entertaining them with some humorous flying anecdotes and stories of some of the people they had met on their journey.

Shimazu spent his time standing on the edge of the crowd, smiling and nodding at people, but not really getting involved. He sipped at his drink carefully, making it last and trying hard to limit his consumption. With no language skills here, and with the others off doing their various activities, he felt slightly out of place and uncomfortable.

Aswon had consumed a "social drink", but was also trying to limit his consumption. For some reason he felt a faint unease, and kept wandering the perimeter. He found the youngest of Kiril's employees, a youth named Walid, standing on the gate on "guard duty", though he mostly seemed to be keeping an eye out for latecomers to the party. With his limited linguistic understanding, he engaged him in conversation in-between bouts of wandering. He grabbed one of the cheap shotguns they had taken in Iran, and showed the lad how to use it, reasoning that if he was on guard, he might as well have something better than a spanner to use as a weapon.

Just before midnight, as the party was winding up towards the celebrations and fireworks, Aswon heard a couple of revving engines just outside and the vague unease solidified into outright paranoia. He broke into a jog, and then a run, heading to the gates with hands on his weapons as he rushed to check out the noise.

A moment later the gates exploded inwards as three large cars burst through them, one slightly ahead of the others with a makeshift dozer blade welded to the front. Aswon tackled Walid and threw him out of the way, rolling to clear the path of the southernmost vehicle, then running for the side of the workshop to seek cover. Over the other side of the yard, Hunter's reactions had driven him to a sprint as soon as the gates were hit, and he was more than halfway towards the car and his assault rifle. Shimazu was a few paces behind him, also heading for the cover of the cars. Tadibya was with the group of people still investigating her magical powers, close to the edge of the scrap yard. Kai and Marius were near Kiril, chatting – at least until the gates flew open. Kai started to move towards the workshop, but Marius drew his heavy pistol from inside his jacket and moved northwards a little, trying to get a clear shot.

As the cars crossed the space in front of the office, heading towards the crowd, Tadibya dispatched her spirit of the city to intercede. As it reached out with its powers, the three cars nudged into each other, amidst a screeching of metal. The northernmost car peeled off to the side, the driver overcompensating and spinning the wheel too hard, heading towards a stack of cars six high on the northern side of the yard. The back wheels locked up as he jammed the brakes on hard. The centre vehicle slewed around, and started to slide diagonally towards the office, slipping across the loose dust on the yard as the spirit influenced fate to cause an accident. The southernmost car had been nudged on the back quarter, and also slid diagonally, but facing north not south, lighting up the centre car with its headlights.

As midnight struck and fireworks and explosions started to ring throughout the city, shotguns were thrust out of the darkened interiors of the cars and joined the celebrations. Gouts of flame from the propellant illuminated the front of the barrels for moments, and shrieks of agony masked the screech of fireworks as the twelve gauge rounds packed full of razor sharp flechettes scythed across the yard and into the party goers. Several went down, hard, a pool of blood rapidly spreading underneath them as the metal needles sliced through flesh like a hot knife through butter.

Boom! A shot from Shimazu's hand cannon smashed the back window of the centre car, but it wasn't possible to see clearly inside the vehicle and determine if he had hit anyone. He struggled to cock the massive revolver and bring the cylinder round to a firing position again. Aswon pushed Walid around the back of the building, and then leapt up the side of the workshop, letting his tattooed spell secure him to the wall and climbing rapidly. Moments later a splatter of fragments peppered his side as a lucky shot from the rear window of the southern car caught him on the side – but his armour jacket easily deflected the shot. Marius tracked on the muzzle flash of the centre vehicle that had shot at the crowd and raised his pistol in a two-handed grip, aimed carefully just to the side and then gently squeezed the trigger. He couldn't see – but the ten milimetre round punched through the mouth of the assailant and blew out the back of his head. More shotgun blasts erupted from the cars as they continued to slide across the loose surface, hitting several of the team but bouncing off their armour. The tiny flechettes were lethal against bare skin, but even moderate armour stopped them in their tracks.

Aswon made it to the roof and ran down the back of the sloped roof, then spotted the colour change between two panels and worked his way to the front, trying to get into position to look down on the attackers. Marius took another careful shot – this time taking out the front tyre of the leading vehicle, causing the car to drop onto the rim, dig in and accelerating the turn it was in. Hunter popped up from behind the Traban, and aimed at the northern vehicle, stitching a long burst of well-aimed fire into the doors and hopefully the occupants too. Shimazu fired at the centre car, but saw his round ricocheted wildly off the armoured windscreen as the round impacted at a shallow angle.

Tadibya raised her arms in front of her, concentrating and drawing in mana from the air around her. The normal nastiness of the junk yard had been temporarily neutered by the party and the happiness of the people there, and pure mana flowed into her, making the spell easier to cast than it would normally have been. She muttered under her breath as the spell let rip.

"Etogo dostatochno!"

The stunball went off, centred on the vehicle to her front. All of the visible guns dropped out of sight as the owners were blasted unconscious from the force of the spell. About a dozen of the party goers who were in her line of sight and the blast area also dropped like rag dolls as the spell overwhelmed their mental defences and shut down their higher functions.

Shimazu and Hunter, also in front of her, leaning over their car and blasting away, also collapsed to the floor in a messy heap, as the spell ripped their defences apart, too.

"Vot der'mo!" The sound escaped from her lips as she examined the scene before her.

Kiril pushed past Marius meanwhile, heading towards the large digger that was currently illuminating the front of the office, climbing rapidly into the cab and starting the engine up. Marius swapped to the southernmost vehicle and another carefully aimed shot took out the tyre, causing this car to slew around further, then crash into the centre car. Aswon threw himself flat onto the edge of the workshop, quickly shouldered his rifle and aimed down through the windscreen at the driver's position – firing a shot that punched straight through the windshield and hopefully the body beyond. The driver of the centre vehicle tried to throw their car in reverse, but struggling with the flat tyre and the impact of the southern car, didn't make much headway. Walid appeared around the corner of the warehouse and waved the shotgun at the vehicle as he clutched at the trigger. More by luck than anything else, he blew out another window, showing the frantic driver and passenger trying to escape from the situation.

Spotting his moment of opportunity, Kai jumped out of the shadows. Raising his hands to either side of his mouth, he modulated his voice, shouting at the driver in English and hoping they understood.

"STOP! GET OUT!"

Twitching as their subconscious followed the command bellowed at them, they were halfway out of the vehicles before their conscious minds told them it was potentially a very dumb thing to do – but by that time they could see unwavering gun barrels focussed on them from Marius and Aswon. Fortunately they couldn't see the sprawled forms of Hunter and Shimazu behind the car…

With a mighty roar from the diesel engine, the digger shot forwards and slammed into the car, the bucket shearing off a chunk of the roof and pinning the wrecked vehicle in place as Kiril hit the lever and the powerful hydraulics smashed the reinforced steel teeth down into the frame of the car.

All of the attackers were dead, or under the unwavering guns of the team members. As the sounds of gunfire faded away, the sobbing and wailing of the injured could be clearly heard over the distant thunder of fireworks. Kai and Tadibya ran over, and started to triage. The two people closest to the assault had taken terrible damage, and were rapidly bleeding out from the massive lacerations taken from the sliver shots. Kai did his best, slapping on bandages and squeezing a bag of blood expanders into one person and stopping the blood loss – he was still in critical condition but wasn't going to fade out. By the time he'd got to the second person though, he was out of expanders and the bandages he slapped on barely covered half the wounds. He frantically rooted through the kit, looking for supplies, but was relieved when Tads crouched down and placed her hands over the body. Moments later a strong golden glow suffused her hands, and the blood loss stopped, and the wounds started to close. Colour returned to the skin, and the pulse steadied along with the other vital signs according to the monitoring program in the med-kit. Tadibya moved onto the other casualties, working her way through methodically and repairing the damage done.

Kiril had climbed down from his digger and had kicked the driver of the central vehicle to the floor, and now stood over him, legs on either side of his body, holding the man's hair in one hand whilst he held a gun to his cheek with the other, shouting at him and demanding information. The man retorted that the Red Lantern Triad was done with diplomacy, and that Kiril and his enterprise must bow to the inevitable.

Kiril squeezed the trigger and obliterated his face, dumping the body on the floor. He turned to the next captive and was raising his gun, when Aswon slithered down the front of the workshop, calling for him to stop. He advised Kiril to think for a moment – did he want war with the Triad, or just to be left alone. Better to send the attackers back in humiliation, rather than kill them all. Surely that would send a clearer message to the Triad who controlled the North-East portion of the city?

Kiril grunted, his anger cooling as he saw some sense in this, and a quick glance to his rear showed that nobody from his party had died. He lowered the hammer on his gun, and spat out agreement, before calling forward a number of his workers and telling them to get everyone out of the vehicles and stripped naked.

The men busied themselves carrying out his orders, collecting guns and stashing them safely to one side, and using cable ties to secure the prisoners once they were stripped naked. The prisoners curled up into balls, trying to hide themselves and protect their vitals. Aswon thought about the journey back to the Triad sector, based on the map that Kiril had shown them – the centre of Tashkent would be sealed up tight, leaving either the west or east circular routes – going through either the Vory zone or the Kabul Maffiyya zone. Either way, they wouldn't survive. He suggested a compromise to Kiril…

Over the next ten minutes, the seven remaining prisoners were hauled over to the vehicle pit and thrown down into it – none too gently. A few of Kiril's workers took the time to urinate on them whilst they were in place, further humiliating them. Then the heavy wooden planks were dropped over the pit, sealing them in place and the digger was driven over the top – trapping them into a damp, cold and uncomfortable prison for the night. In the morning, they could take their chances with the west or east route, or go through the middle of town where they were sure to attract attention. Either way, it would be a humiliating and punishing loss of face for the Triad.

Hunter and Shimazu were starting to come around by now, groggily rising to their feet. Hunter in particular seemed more than a little displeased by his state, and shot Tadibya a few dirty looks.

Kiril had checked everyone over and approached Kai, smothering him in a bear hug and a kiss on each cheek.

"I must thank you, my friend. Things would have gone very badly if you and your friends were not here. I must pay you… I offer you choice – goods or services?"

Kai considered for a moment, then said that they would be happy to accept goods in exchange for their help, but making it clear that he didn't feel they were owed anything, they were just helping out their friend – making sure to downplay their help and give Kiril a socially acceptable 'out'.

The party resumed, but in a much more restrained fashion, until about 03:00, when people started to leave and head home, their cars weaving all over the road from their drunken efforts. The team decided to stay, crashing out in the Traban and their truck. They arose late the next morning, as did most of the others, and spent the day helping to tidy up and secure the yard. They made themselves scarce when the prisoners were released from the pit and pushed out of the gate and sent on their way, deciding that they didn't need to be seen clearly by what was probably going to be their mortal enemies. Aswon spent time with Walid, showing him how to shoot safely, and trained him to stop looking down the barrel of the shotgun to see why it wasn't firing. During the afternoon, Kiril towed out a trailer from somewhere deep in the yard. It looked very similar in construction to their truck. Marius and Kai examined it – a Ural 57-10 trailer, it was indeed part of the same family of vehicles, and designed to mate up with their tow hitch and electrics. It was armoured to the same state as their truck had originally been, and provided a good chunk of extra space and cargo capacity for them to use. The only downside would be the slight degradation in the handling of their truck – the extra weight and the reduced off-road capability in some circumstances such as cresting a hill, where they now had to consider if they would "beach" on sharp changes in angles.

The rest of the day passed without notable events – they certainly kept their eyes open for the Red Lanterns, but there was no sign of them. On the morning of the 2nd of January, Marius received a call from his contact at Mossad. They wanted the data, and they agreed to pay the hundred thousand asking price. The data was set to transfer, and on completion and verification from their end, the money was transferred over into Aswon's bank account that he had set up in Azerbaijan. Within minutes, his phone started to bleep as he received spam mail offering him various upgraded accounts, insurance, special features, reduced price holidays and the like. As soon as Marius was certain the data was over there, the computer and both optical chips they had burnt went into a large bath of acid, never to be seen again.

Aswon sent a message to his contact in Hong Kong, asking her to start assembling the information required to set up a new fake ID – but this time for a company. She was to set up a medical charity, with the directors being Aswon, Kai and Tadibya, that they could use as a shell company to channel funds through.

Kiril and his workers laboured on the truck, attaching the thick armour appliques onto the truck and upgrading the armour in the doors and applying thicker sheets of armour-glass to the cab. Another pair of engineers worked to install the nitrous oxide system and tank, and all the compressor stages and convertors needed to make it work with a diesel engine.

By mid-day on the 3rd of January, the truck was repaired and fully upgraded. The trailer was hitched, and had been supplemented by internal personal armour – thin layers of Kevlar weave screwed to the walls. It was nearly time to get on the road again.