Date 07/01/2060, Location 39.79745, 54.50386

Aswon raised a query, looking at Tadibya through his dreadlocks.

"This Tiger. It saw you, in astral space? It had the sight? You are certain?"

"Yes. It definitely looked at me, tracked me as I passed. I'm certain it was watching me. I didn't pick up any hostility from it, but it was definitely watching me."

"I do not like this. I feel… I feel like it is judging us. And I do not know why." He shrugged, and then shook his head, the thick mass of dreadlocks flowing around his head like a miniature maelstrom.

The sat phone rang, before anyone else could speak. Marius checked the code, and tossed the handset to Hunter.

"Your friend in Denmark." Hunter caught the phone deftly, and squeezed through into the back of the truck, thumbing the answer button as he did so.

Whilst they waited, the rest of the team queried Tadibya on what she had seen – was it the same Tiger that Aswon had seen just before the assault that lead to their breakout? Tadibya said no – this one was far larger, like a full grown adult – perhaps three metres long from nose to tail, with an off-white fur and black stripes – and most definitely not like a zebra. Luminous emerald green eyes, and fangs a good fifteen centimetres long.

They chatted for a few minutes, then Hunter reappeared from the back.

"Ok boys and girls, I have good news, and I have bad news… hope you're sitting comfortably, as this news may change things a little."

"As we know, Dekita Oil is owned by Fuchi, a triple-A megacorporation. All is not well with Fuchi though. Started some eight months ago or so, when some security manager at Fuchi got hold of four million shares of Renraku series-A shares, and jumped ship. Renraku in a few weeks started pumping out some nova-hot software. But slot this – in nearly every case, they stole the thunder from an upcoming Fuchi release, pipping them to the post, and costing them Billions of Nuyen. BILLIONS. A month later, they start doing the same with hardware. Fuchi went ballistic, accusing Renraku of corporate espionage in the courts, saying that this dude Lanier was responsible. All kinds of political shit throwing going on, and in the end Lanier was forced to sell his shares and quit from Renraku to avoid the issues. In the meantime though, Fuchi had lost a massive amount of their market share, and the rest of the megas had stepped up their efforts to poach from them. They've lost something like fifty percent of their corporate assets over the last six months to black ops and runs."

The rest of the team listened carefully, their eyes getting wider as they listened to the account of the corporate raiding going on, and the amounts involved. This wasn't so much a Corporate war as the circling of the weak by predatory animals.

"Now bear in mind, they're still a mega-corp. Fingers in every pie, massive assets. A cash flow that can buy small countries if they need to. They're suffering, but they're still in the fight, still dangerous. Desperate sometimes, but still with a nasty punch. Anyway, after this dude Lanier got sorted, Richard Villiers who was one of the head honchos, in charge of all the American assets, made an announcement a while back, saying he was resigning. Turns out he was one of the three big wigs with most of the prime stock – the other two being two Japanese guys. They fell over themselves to try and buy out the assets from Villiers, but there's some crazy levels of inside trading going on. Dust is still settling from this one, but it seems that Villiers has managed to keep most of the plum assets himself via some shell corporations and ventures, and has set himself up some new company called "Novatech" and is busy working on some new high tech gear – with the best facilities that Fuchi used to own in the UCAS and CAS. So following that, they've lost about twenty-five percent of their company to this guy. Oh yeah, and he's got himself a new security director…. Goes by the name of Lanier. Yup, the dude with the Renraku deal. The whole thing smells like Billingsgate on a sunny morning."

Several of the team looked confused at the reference.

"Take me word for it, it smells bad, ok? Right, so all this has been going on, and now the blood is really in the water. According to Julius, black ops against Fuchi's remaining assets are at an all time high, and they're really suffering. And they're being hit everywhere. Globally. So that's going to have some serious implications for us. Whatever we do, they're going to respond very violently, and harshly, as soon as we kick off – they have to. But, balanced against that, they've got the local assets, and that's it. There is no reserve, no one they can call for help. Everything Fuchi has, is out in the field, trying desperately to hang on to what they have. So, any assets we can take out of action, is effectively irreplaceable."

Hunter glanced around the group, seeing nods and agreement on their faces, and paused for a moment to take a drink. Nobody asked any questions, so he resumed his briefing.

"And now the bad news. You know Espirit? The third company down here? I've just done a little digging into them, to find out what they're up to. Turns out they're a subsidiary, too – of Saeder Krupp."

Marius fixed Hunter with a stare, his lips pursed thin.

"Yep, your friends from Germany. I've picked up a little scuttlebutt about them – for one thing, they provide the security force for Kum Dag as part of their corporate police business. Explains why Johanna doesn't want us anywhere near town. But the forces around their business assets are also equipped pretty well, and work on an armoured cavalry model – very fast, hard-hitting and precise strikes. They don't have the armour or defences for a stand up fight, but if they get the drop on you, or are the aggressors, they'll hit you like a hammer. I scanned a couple of documents, and their strike vehicles are more like the Maersk one we saw – very fast and manoeuvrable but lightly armoured, but equipped with top end electronics and weaponry. Small teams, responding fast and patrolling aggressively. I don't think we want to go near these guys personally. On the other hand, if we can get in and launch a hard strike against Dekita, and then pull a fade, it will be EXACTLY the kind of operation that Espirit would do, which makes it a much better cover. Anyway, I transferred over a grand to Julius for the information, as he's also sent over some high resolution maps of the area for me. They don't show the pipelines – they're just too small to show up on the sat scans he has access to, but the pumping stations and well heads do. And they match with the information Marius got from his flight."

Hunter sat back, taking another slurp of his tea and relaxed as the team digested this information.

Shimazu looked like he was just about to speak when Tadibya sat bolt upright in her seat and gave a cry of alarm. Eyes snapped to her, and several of the team snatched at guns when they saw the expression on her face.

"Something's attacking the wards! Astral intruder, on the truck, NOW!"

She scanned the inside of the truck, and then bolted for the door, clambering over Hunter who was reaching to the weapons rack on the ceiling to recover his assault rifle – for all the good it might do.

Aswon followed suit, calling for Shimazu to follow him, jumping down to the sandy floor below. Tadibya spun around and glanced up at the truck, and saw the large spirit on the roof, clawing at her ward and battering it down out of the way. It was quite large – as powerful as her, she estimated. It was also not a spirit she recognised. It definitely wasn't an elemental – they were easy to spot and quite similar. But this didn't fit in as a spirit of the land, or of the air – it seemed like a strange mix of the two. It glanced over at her as she probed at it astrally, but didn't seem to react to her presence or take any action – and as she assensed it, she detected no hostile intent from it. Despite which, it finally ripped a hole in the ward big enough to fit through, and vanished into the cab. She grabbed the ladder and climbed up quickly, pulling the door open and climbing back into the cab as fast as she could, leaving a startled Aswon and Shimazu outside, both of them looking at the hazy air that showed where the powerful spirit had been.

Inside the cab, the spirit pointed at Hunter.

"Ahah! Found you! I succeed!" And with that, it started to claw at the ward which had sprung back into position behind it. Tadibya tried to engage it with conversation again, but it ignored her, forcing itself through the ward and then once outside throwing itself into the air and disappearing at high speed.

Thoroughly confused, the team were all trying to talk to Tadibya at once, trying to work out what was going on. The babble of voices rose as they talked over one another in the confusion, until she shouted at them to be quiet. She held her arm out, as accurately as she could in the direction the spirit had departed, and asked Hunter to work out a bearing. He busied himself, taking a reading from his internal GPS system and trying to work out where it was going. It certainly wasn't towards Dekita or Iran, his two biggest worries at first.

The noise subsided, and Tadibya recounted what she had seen, describing the spirit and its appearance, and saying that no, she didn't recognise the spirit or the signature of the spirit or its owner. Hunter pulled up a map on the screen, indicating possible locations, assuming the spirit was going straight and not flying a deception pattern – and straight in the middle of that bearing was Tashkent.

Ideas were thrown out – the Chinese Triads? The Mafia? The strange Frenchman? Almost certainly not the weird mountain spirit from Iran. Before they could get much further with the discussion, the spirit appeared again at the front of the truck, decelerating from its top speed with a suddenness that was only possible in the magical realm. A split second later another form arrived, obviously tailing the first – and this one Tadibya did recognise – it was Spangles, the brightly-dressed mage from the team they had been observing at the temple dig site. A moment later she was joined by another astral form as Wee-Woo joined them. They hovered in front of the truck, facing towards it and waited with an expectant look on their faces, and then one after another they manifested, their astral forms appearing on the physical plane, visible to the mundane members of the team.

"Helllllooooo? You in the truck? Where's your captain? We need to talk, it's urgent!" said Spangles.

Hunter pushed open the top hatch and turned to Kai with a big grin on his face.

"I think it's you they mean. Time to do the diplomacy thing, boss!" With that, he grabbed Kai around the waist, and with a heave from his arms, propelled him up out of his seat and out of the hatch.

Kai flung his hands onto the hatch sides to steady himself, and looked down at the trio of visitors.

"Hi there. So, um… how can I help you? Excuse me one moment," with a look down into the cab, "can you get your hand out of the crack of my ass, thank you," then back at the trio, "sorry about that. You need some help, you say?"

"Yes. There's been, well, um…. there's been an incident back at the dig site. We need some help. And seeing as you already know about it… it seems like you're the best option. Can you come back to help us out? We'll pay… well!"

Aswon and Marius stared at Kai, waiting for him to turn down their visitor, informing them that they were in the middle of a job, and not available. Their faces turned to one of horror as that refusal didn't come.

"What sort of help do you need?"

"We need you back at the dig site. There's been developments, and some of the team are trapped. Please, we need help as soon as you can. Will you come?"

Kai looked down into the cab, then back at the visitors.

"Just give me a minute." He ducked back inside the vehicle. Marius and Aswon were already shaking their heads, but Hunter, Tadibya and Shimazu were just watching him.

"We know these guys were better equipped than us. Sure that means whatever they need help from might be above our weight. But if we can help them out, they'll owe us a massive favour. If we can get their problem fixed, and they come to give us a hand with this, we can mess Dekita up like you would not believe…"

The team looked at him, Marius and Aswon aghast at what he was proposing. They looks turned even sourer when they saw the others nodding in agreement with Kai and his "logic". Kai popped his head back up and turned to face the three astral images.

"Ok, we'll come. But we're going to need some assistance afterwards."

Spangles nodded in agreement.

"Hurry though, please. As fast as you can. We'll be waiting for you."

One after another the three astral forms departed in the blink of an eye, speeding to the east.

Hunter and Marius were plotting a route, though Marius looked again like he was sucking a lemon, obviously not enthralled at the idea. Soon enough though, the reverse route was plotted, and they were on the way, heading down the main road at their best speed. They hadn't gotten far when the astral form of Wee-woo appeared on the road before them. Marius swore and slowed, pulling over to the side of the road in response to her frantic waving.

"Is this as fast as your vehicle goes?"

"Ja. Is there a problem?"

"I will help you travel faster. Be ready to accelerate." With that, she was gone.

Marius pulled out again, a definite look of displeasure on his face now, and pushed the accelerator to the floor, working up through the gearbox as the truck lumbered up to its top speed. Just as he hit third gear, the engine noise changed, and the truck lurched forward as some force started to push on it. His readouts started to flash red as the engine reported data out of normal bounds. Somehow the engine was sucking in twice as much air as before, the high pressure ramming through the engine and increasing the power available.

"Tads? Is this you? Or that Wee-woo messing with my truck?" Tadibya looked in astral space, and saw the powerful spirit behind the truck, pushing it along, its legs a blur of motion. As she extended her senses she detected the spirit at work all over the vehicle, lending its aid to improve the movement of the truck. It deflected the air ahead and reduced the drag felt by the flat face of the truck, and rammed more air into the engine intake, providing plenty of oxygen for combustion, as well as working to reduce friction against the road.

"Err.. thank you. Did Wee-woo tell you to do this?"

"QUIET! BUSY. PUSHING."

Tadibya let Marius know that yes, it was Wee-woo messing with his truck. He was probably going to go pretty quickly, and there wasn't really much she – or he – could do about it. Quickly the speed shot up, far quicker than normal. The truck accelerated past 70kph, 80, 90, 100. By now it should normally be at top speed, struggling to accelerate the mass of the vehicle at all. The readout continued to climb, up past 130, topping out there for a second before displaying "Err". They continued to accelerate for another minute, until the night desert was whipping past them at a ferocious rate. Hunter checked his GPS, watching the numbers update, and tapped some figures into his Pocket-Secretary.

"I reckon about 160kph. Ish. Bends are going to get interesting." He reached round for the seatbelt and buckled in, cinching it nice and tight. The rest of the team followed suit silently. "Still, we've got about sixteen hundred klicks to go, so about ten hours, if we keep this pace up. Should be interesting. And we should get there about dawn tomorrow, I reckon."

Tadibya nodded. "Good. The spirit will almost certainly disappear at dawn, so we'll lose any aid it's giving us. Unless she summons another to send as a replacement. In the meantime…let me see if I can help conceal us to give us a smooth passage." She concentrated, summoning a spirit of her own, and asked it to conceal the truck from outside view. It was not as powerful as the one pushing the truck, but every little helped she reasoned – and she did not think that suffering an ambush at this speed would go well.

The night was still, the desert calm. A few creatures were startled from their night time scavenging as the five tonne truck hurtled past at an insane rate. They passed little traffic, the few vehicles they did mostly crapping their pants as their sensors reported the truck advancing at an improbable rate when they finally detected their passage past the spirits concealing magic. Marius' physical body flopped in the seatbelt, the slackness of his body belying the concentration as he kept the vehicle on the road as it twisted through the desert. Thankfully it was mostly straight or smooth sweeping bends. There were some tense moments as they passed through the occasional town, and Marius had to back off the truck's power almost entirely to bring them down to a manageable speed.

As the sky turned to a slightly lighter grey, the "nautical twilight" where you could just start to tell the difference between colours, the truck took the hard right turn from the main road onto the route up into the mountains. The rest of the team which had been dozing were jolted awake as Marius fought against the laws of physics, taking the corner on three wheels and trying to stop them from tipping over. As they wound their way up into the mountains, they flashed past the mine and the dam, alerting sensors on both sides and drawing the attention of watcher spirits as they flew past at twice the speed limit. They were gone before they saw any response though, leaving scrambling security teams on both sides to stare at each other across the no-man's-land between them. Shortly before eight, they arrived at the valley again, and the engine pitch of the truck sank several octaves as the spirit withdrew its power before vanishing entirely. Up ahead, they saw the dune buggy driving towards them, driven by Mamma-Bear, with Spotlight, Spangles, Wee-woo and Topshot riding along. They pulled up sharply, waiting for the truck to approach. Marius drifted to a halt, checking over his systems and watching as temperature and pressure gauges slowly started to return to normal. Nothing seemed to have broken, but some of the readings reported on the diagnostics seemed a little off. He could probably do with getting the truck up on a ramp somewhere to check everything out and make sure he hadn't over stressed the chassis. For the moment though, everything seemed more or less ok – but it was not something he cared to repeat in a hurry.

The other team waited for them to climb down out of their truck, then greeted them. Aswon stood back a little, giving himself some space just in case something kicked off.

Spangles took the lead, and started to explain what was going on.

"We've got half the team down there, trapped, and we can't get them out. There's something down there, something tough – and we can't get to them to rescue them. We need some help, and we need it fast. And you guys already know what we were doing, so you're the best option at the moment."

Kai nodded at her. "What are you facing? And whereabouts are they?"

Spangles started to talk, then waved to the camp. "Come on up to the base, it's easier to show you."

They climbed back aboard their respective vehicles and headed up to the tents, Aswon riding the outside of the vehicle and looking around the valley with interest as they drove the short distance to the camp.

As they moved under cover of the tents, they spotted the large tripod-mounted autonomous gun systems had been moved, and were now facing the temple entrance, rather than guarding the valley. They exchanged glances, whilst Spangles bought up a trid-display, showing a computer-generated sensor map.

"As you know, we were excavating down into the temple complex. We'd cleared the first sub level out almost completely, and made that safe." As she talked them through the activity they had watched, they saw the computer-generated map build up as more sensor data was fed into it, with a time stamp rapidly advancing and showing their progress over a few days.

"We'd cleared around here, and got to the spiral staircase here, and had cleared down that. That's where we found the first barrier and the trap – released a jet of caustic acid that snarled up Blaster pretty good…" she glanced up and saw the team nodding, "… ahh, I guess you were watching our response on that bit. Anyway, we were done with that and were down on the second level here, and had found a strong ward across here. Wee-woo and I had dealt with that, and we'd found some more artefacts and information here, and here." The team peered at the map, noting the spots she described, and the twisting subterranean tunnels of the complex.

"We found another barrier, just across the entrance to this room. We'd just taken that down, when it attacked.

Aswon spoke up first. "When what attacked?"

"It might be easiest to try and show you, rather than describe it."

She concentrated hard, and the air above her shimmered as she gathered the energies of the massive trid-phantasm that shielded the valley, and reshaped it. Across the side of the valley, a shape erupted from the scree slope. It was vaguely bipedal, with long spindly arms ending in vicious looking three-clawedhands. The legs had multiple joints, and bent in disturbing ways, as it bounded across the rough ground between them. The faint morning light reflected off the green carapace and the spiny protuberances, and a spray of black ichor erupted from the slavering mouth. It accelerated hard, and figures appeared between it and the team, spraying fire from rifles and machine guns. Rounds could be seen impacting on the carapace and ricocheting wildly off, the carapace apparently being incredibly tough and resistant to damage. A figure burst into the scene, bearing a resemblance to Slapdash. It flipped and spun past the arms, delivering a mighty strike to the thorax of the creature, but the blow seemed to have no effect. The creature swiped at him, catching him across the chest and spinning him like a limp rag doll to the side, where the body slid into a wall and fell in a crumpled heap. It continued to bound in great leaps towards the team, and just before it reached them it exploded into a million tiny pieces, which floated up and into the air, before they once again formed the magical phantasm above them.

"That's… that's pretty much what it looked like. And that's how much effect our guns seemed to have on it. It drove us back, separated us. And it's got half the team down there. We think they're still alive, down in that chamber. But every time we try to get back in there to get them out, it drives us back."

"Who's trapped down there then?" asked Kai. "Everyone not here?"

Spangles nodded. "Yes – Rocket, Digger, Blaster, Slapdash and Geo."

They talked some more, the team trying to find out what was in the temple, where exactly they were, and how long ago this happened. Spotlight, Spangles and Mamma-Bear seemed pretty despondent, obviously distressed about their missing party members. Wee-woo seemed strangely immune, but also had a very odd outlook on life – seeing things in very black and white terms. They were not dead, so they were alive. Alive was good, so there was nothing to be upset about.

Topshot, too, seemed distant… or possibly emotionless. She wandered over to Aswon, and pointed at Aswon's rifle, slung over his shoulder.

"Your rifle. Show it to me". Her French accent lessened the abruptness of her words, making them sound less harsh. Aswon unslung the rifle, and with a small hesitation, handed it over, keeping a careful watch on her. She grasped it carefully, checking the safety was on, but still keeping her hands away from the trigger. Her hands brushed over the embossing gently, and she caressed the walnut stock, fingers gliding over the aged wood in a sensual manner. She turned away from the group, and bought the weapon to her shoulder, letting it naturally fall into place, and sighting down the barrel, held the pose for a moment, and then relaxed, and turned back to face him. "It is beautiful."

"Yes it is, and I'd like it back, please." Topshot gave a tiny little smile, and handed the rifle back to Aswon. With a shrug, she loosened the sling on her own rifle, and then swung it around, reaching with her arms to grasp the body and lifting it over her head and round to her front. She grabbed the monster rifle in both hands, and held it in front of her.

"MacMillan, TAC-Cent. Rotary bolt action, custom fitted. Thermo zoom scope. Smartlink-2. Extended magazine. Class 3 muzzle break. 1.5m, under 13kg loaded, guaranteed under 0.4 MOA with approved ammunition. Plasti-compound stock and body, immune to thermal creep. Accurate, and efficient. But sometimes, I wish to have some soul, too."

Aswon nodded, and tried not to stare hungrily at the beast of a rifle held just before him.

Hunter meanwhile was being much more mercenary. He'd spoken with Mamma-Bear, and was checking the other team's ammunition stocks out. All of their heavy weapons had a copious amount of anti-vehicle ammo it seemed – Teflon-coated tungsten penetrator cores in lightweight aluminium/magnesium cases. Unfortunately, the team didn't really have any weapons they would fit in. He did find some anti-personal rounds, and without asking, grabbed two full magazines worth, one for him, one for Aswon. He and Marius did a quick check of the drones, establishing their capabilities, and checked out the remote gun turrets as well.

Marius tried to remain impassive, but couldn't help but be a little impressed. Each of the tripod turrets was a fully autonomous robot system, with a highly advanced "smart-frame" piloting system. Designed to operate on their own, they could be programmed with multiple mission parameters and could make complex decisions about when and how to engage. The picture fed from the gun cameras back to the central station were sharp, clear and very detailed, and the sensor data was top notch – these were clearly top of the line units, lifted from some military catalogue.

Over the course of an hour they thrashed out a plan. Spangles was a powerful mage, it seemed, but not skilled with combat spells – her talents lay more in hiding and obscurement, and making magical defences. Wee-Woo was much less powerful, except when it came to her spirits – some kind of Aboriginal ancestor spirit that seemed to capture the essence of old miserable people perfectly.

The temple crew had powerful fixed defences, miles of fibre optic cable – but not enough warm bodies now. Under cover of a horde of spirits and summoned magical wisps, they would try to get one or two of the gun turrets down into the second temple level, and set them up to cover the corridor, then slowly push down to try and engage the enemy – whatever it was. If they couldn't kill it, they would try to supress it long enough to dash in and grab the rest of the team, and do a fighting retreat back outside. Spangles had indicated a large quantity of explosives on a pallet, and signified her willingness to blow the entire place and seal whatever it was underground – once she had her friends back.

Nobody seemed too happy, but it was the best they had.

As they were preparing to go inside, Topshot tapped Aswon on the shoulder.

"You are going in there? Your rifle, it will not 'elp you much."

"Yeah, I'm going in there. And no, I'm not happy about it. But I'm going anyway."

She studied him for a moment, and then began to undo her clothing. Aswon stared at her for a moment, completely befuddled.

"Is this really the time for…" he started, but was silenced with a stern look. Topshot wriggled out of her ghillie suit and held it in her arms, pulling out the control box to show Aswon.

"Here. Controls for the imagers. Push 'ere…" she pushed, and the scanners on one side of the suit gathered the picture, and relayed it to the ruthenium polymers laced into the other side. A split second later, the suit vanished, as if invisible – perfectly recreating the scene on the "other" side of the fabric. She pushed the other button, and it reappeared. "You can give it back to me when you return."

Aswon took the proffered suit in silence, his mouth agape. Their eyes made contact, and Topshot nodded, as she saw the gratitude in his face.

They started to make preparations for the descent into the temple.