Date 28/01/2060, Location 42.05439, 43.49212

The truck ploughed through the snow, the heavy-duty engine roaring and whining as it drove the mass of the truck through drift after drift. Marius kept firm control of the vehicle, his rigged senses feeling the road through his tyres, monitoring the suspension, the power and the hydraulics more by feel than thought. The spirit moved just ahead of them, throwing up snow ahead of it and breaking through the icy crust, dislodging a small path – but enough to give a channel that the bumper and front grill could enlarge.

The road twisted and turned as it hugged the spur of the mountain, dropping slowly from the peak, but running down the shoulder of the range, rather than dropping into a valley. Jagged rocks lay to one side, rising up sharply where the road had been drilled and blasted from the rock, and a sharp slope dropped away on the other, falling hundreds of metres to the valley floor below. At least it gave somewhere for the displaced snow to go…

They pushed on a few kilometres, until they spotted a valley opening up to the north, a sharp sided affair between two large ridges. Hunter confirmed from the map that they were at the right place, and slowly they turned, still smashing through the snow. There were no cars buried in the snow here, nobody caught by surprise with the sudden blizzard. Whether that was because they had more sense, because nobody lived here or because the people that did live here just couldn't afford cars remained to be seen.

As they descended into the valley, Hunter fiddled with the radio for a few minutes, before eventually sitting back in disgust, turning the set off.

"No signal. Place is a black hole for signals. Got nothing on my phone, next to nothing on the radio. I reckon even the sat gear will have trouble with the steepness of the mountains here – not much arc to get a lock on."

The others watched in silence as they lurched their way through the snow, staring out at the snow covered foothills. Densely packed conifers lay in ranks up the lower slopes, with large white falls weighing down their branches, the needles making green chevrons where the wind had caused them to sway and shed some of their load. Other than the trees, the landscape was almost featureless, everything covered in deep snow.

In the distance they saw a smudge – the beginnings of a town, several klicks down the valley. Tadibya said she was going to have a quick look, and squeezed through into the back, and lay on her bunk. Moments later, her astral form soared through the air, looking down on the landscape. The houses were all quiet and dark, and nothing stirred in the town at all at first glance. After a quick recon, she was just about to head back to her body when she saw a single figure emerge from a large building on the corner of the main square, and start to wade across the snow-filled opening, heading to the building diagonally opposite. She flitted back to her body and reported in.

"Nothing major moving, all quiet, no sign of trouble. Only saw one person, moving from one house to another." Marius pressed on, slaloming through the snow with the engine noise cutting through the quiet of the valley and echoing off the hills. They closed on the town, and could make out some details now. It was a small place, mostly laid out along the two "roads" that crossed, with the buildings stretched out on either side of them like a ribbon. The houses were made of stone and wood, and looked to be very old – certainly pre-crash. As they got closer, they could see – or rather they could not see – certain signs of civilisation. No phone masts. No satellite dishes. No aerials. No street lamps. This place was like falling back in time, and was just about the most backwards area that they'd seen yet.

Finally the truck made it into the large square, and Marius threw it round into a wide arc, snow cascading out from the wheels as he fought to keep up momentum and they span on the deep snow, flinging snow towards the buildings. As they turned, Tadibya pointed out where the man had come out from, and which building he had headed to – which was mostly obvious from the trail through the broken snow.

They slowed and then came to a halt, and Marius killed the engine. Other than the plinking of the engine rapidly cooling, there was silence – but it was a watchful and suspicious silence. Surrounded by buildings, there was no movement, but they could feel that they were under observation. Kai and Hunter climbed into the back, and grabbed the unconscious form of Nikolus, and they started to move him out of the back, climbing down into the snow and passing the body down to support between them. As they moved out from the gap between truck and trailer, a tall man emerged from the doorway of the corner building.

He was perhaps a touch under two metres tall, and wrapped in a drab grey winter coat. A large furry hat was pulled down over his head, and his face sported a large and bushy black moustache on pale skin. As he came out of the doorway, he reached inside his coat and pulled out a pistol, holding it in his right hand with the barrel pointing down into the snow. Kai stopped and examined him closely, looking at the way his shoulders hung, his position and demeanour, and studied his face for a moment, then lowered his face as if to examine the body slung between them and quietly spoke.

"Relax Hunter, it's a precaution. He wants us to know that he's armed, but he doesn't want to use it. Probably just worried that if we kick off, he can't quickly get at it otherwise. But there's something about him – authority figure of some sort."

Having said his piece, he raised his head again, put on his best smile, and started to labour across the square, towards the man in the greatcoat and called out a cheery greeting. The man raised his left hand in a wave of acknowledgement, and closed the distance with them, stopping about three metres away. He spoke, and the language was unrecognised to them. It sounded a little like Russian, with some similar sounds – but not enough to be clear. Hunter tried Russian, and the man perked up a little and responded in kind.

They exchanged greetings, and the man asked why they had Nikolus Harid with them, and what was wrong with him – he obviously knew the man by sight. Hunter explained that he was stupid, and had been caught in the blizzard and had nearly frozen to death, but that they'd managed to get to him in time and warm him up, checked his paperwork, and that the boss – quick nod to Kai – had decided to bring him home, as his car was not likely to ever drive again. During this, Kai tried to keep up with the conversation, and concentrated on radiating calm, open, and friendly vibes. The man in the greatcoat sighed in understanding, and then fought with his coat, eventually managing to get his sidearm back into the holster.

"Come, I show you his house. It is just down this side of the square. His wife Eva spoke to me last night – they were worried that something like this would happen. He is not known for his skill with driving."

He led them down the street leading off east from the square, heading towards one of the drab and solid-looking houses. As he reached the front door, he curled his hand into a fist and hammered on the door loudly, the sound echoing through the still morning air.

Hunter and Kai bought the body with them, and realised that the cold and wet were starting to rouse him from his stupor. He blearily looked around, his head lolling slightly, and they could feel him trying to take some of the weight on his own legs, just as they reached the side of the road and neared the house.

The door opened, into a dimly-lit and Spartan looking interior, and a women wearing drab clothes appeared. She gave a little gasp at the sight of the man struggling to stand, and moved to greet him with obvious relief on her face. Her eyes flitted over the forms of Kai and Hunter, but she seemed reassured by the presence of the man in the greatcoat. As her eyes looked around though, and she took in the complete absence of car nearby, her tone of voice changed, becoming sharper and more direct. He mumbled something, and the tone changed again, becoming angry and shrill. One of the arms previously raised in welcome became a pointed finger that started to jab him in the chest, and a rapid fire tirade of what could only be abuse started to pour out of her mouth.

The man in the greatcoat raised an eyebrow, and nodded with his head, and at his tacit suggestion, they moved away from the arguing couple, retracing their steps back to the square. They listened to the woman as she grew louder and more strident, until finally the noise receded as the door was closed behind them – though they could still hear her shrill voice as she obviously told him exactly what she thought of him, his driving ability, his life choices and his fitness as a husband. Hunter listened carefully, absorbing the language as best he could, whilst Kai just winced at the situation.

When they got back to near the truck, the figure turned to them.

"You should be careful. Many people around here, not like Russians. Russian truck brings bad fears, bad thoughts. If not Russians, then Chechens with stolen truck. Worse fear. Maybe find different transport?"

Hunter explained, briefly, that it's was all the transport they had, so they had to make the most of it – but thanked him for the warning. Kai tried to ask him about how they could make the truck look less scary – or at least that's what he thought he asked him, his grip on the Russian language was tenuous at best.

The figure pointed at the slabs of armour applique that had been fitted to the truck back in Tashkent, and let out a belly laugh, and managed to spit out some words between guffaws. Hunter thought he said something about painting balloons on the side, but decided not to translate.

As the man sobered up from his laughing fit though, Kai did ask him a question that even his language skills were up to.

"So, where are we?"

"You are nowhere. In the middle of nothing. But this sad collection of buildings is Alerrso."

Kai nodded in thanks, and decided not to comment on the quality of the town. There was a pause of a few seconds, with an uncomfortable silence growing. Kai decided to break the silence first, and thanked the man for his help in getting Nik back to his house, and bade him farewell. They mounted up, and resumed their places – Shimazu and Aswon lowering weapons that had been trained out of the vehicle "just in case". With a roar, the engine fired again, and the truck backed up a little. Marius gunned it, picking up speed, and then slamming into the snow once more, finishing the turn and trying to head back to his trail and heading south out of town and back towards the highway.

The journey back along the road was a weird mix. In some ways easier – the snow was disrupted and some of it had been pushed out of the way by their passage here, leaving them with less to cut through. In some ways it was harder though – the cool morning air had caused the exposed surfaces to freeze over, and the piles of snow had collapsed in places, causing a mix of drifts and wells, blocks of ice and compressed snow that hammered the vehicle. Marius found himself having to change driving style a little, not driving any faster than before – less battering from the mass of snow, but more skating on sheets of ice.

Slowly they left the village behind, following the gently winding road back to the south, a huge boxy green slab of a vehicle with the trailer snaking and sliding behind them, cutting through the white uniform surface of the snow blanketed valley, the only thing moving as far as the eye could see.

The only thing moving. But not the only thing…

Marius gave a start that translated into the truck giving a weird shudder as he "felt" the threat warning sensors trigger. He was being hit with LIDAR, short range tracking and range finders – military-grade stuff. He triggered the intercom and warned the others.

"Achtung! Weapons system, trained on us – somewhere close. Beware of attack!"

Aswon and Hunter peered into the mountains and hills on either side, and their trained eyes scanned back and forth – and at roughly the same time they spotted oddities in the snow. To the left of the road, Aswon caught a flash of blue light as a targeting laser swept over his sight line and laid on the truck - using that as a position, he made out a spider hole or scrape, the kind of thing he would have dug when out on operations and laying in an ambush. On the right, Hunter spotted a stick in a bank of snow that was just too straight and unnatural looking, and realised that it was the barrel of a weapon, where the cammo netting had either come loose or fallen off entirely, showing the weapon clearly against the snowy backdrop.

Tadibya meanwhile let her eyes glaze slightly as she extended her senses, and saw half a dozen faint life signs on each side of the road, concealed in the snow. The bright shapes of their auras leaked out around the blankets and snow they had used to conceal themselves. She spotted no tell-tale trails of blackness through them that was the sure-fire sign of cyber modifications, and they all appeared healthy.

Both Hunter and Aswon barked out contact sightings, scrabbling to get weapons raised and into the firing ports, but holding just before they did. The ambushers were still ahead of their position, and the firing ports built into the windows would only let them cover a firing arc of about a hundred and twenty degrees on the side of the vehicle. There was no way they could bring their weapons to bear – at least not yet. And pushing the barrels of their guns out would certainly make them a target and display their capabilities.

Kai looked left and right, but couldn't see what the others had from the front – but he trusted their word. He stood up and undogged the top hatch, pushing back the trapdoor and pushing a hand through first – making sure his head was not the first thing that popped into view. With the other hand on the rim of the turret mount, he pushed up through hole and looked ahead, took a deep breath and then hollered up the road to the unseen attackers.

"Hey! Stop lasing us! We mean no harm, we're just returning a villager we found that had an accident."

That's what he meant to say. Unfortunately, his grasp of Russian really was poor. What he actually bellowed into the frigid air was something a lot less complimentary.

"We see your lasers! We will kill you! Like the idiot in the village! We took his woman!"

A round whistled through the air, the supersonic crack echoing through the mountains like a whip, bouncing from one rocky escarpment to another. A flock of birds erupted from the trees and took flight, fleeing from the sound. Kai was just about to try and say something else, realising that perhaps that had not gone well, when something struck his midriff, knocking the air from him and dragging him down into the cab. Shimazu had dived from his seat and struck him in the stomach with his shoulder, forcing the wind from him and dragging him down into safety.

The engine roared as Marius opened the throttle full bore, and the truck leapt forwards, gathering speed at a ferocious rate of knots. Time seemed to slow for Marius as the vehicle control rig dumped signals into his hind brain, his thought processes melding with the vehicle completely as the interface kicked into combat mode. He felt the wheels slipping and sliding on the ice – getting grip one moment and then not the next – but with the level of control only riggers were able to exert, he managed the power transmission like a maestro, managing the power flow and moving his attention from one to another with a mental flick.

A couple of figures broke from their concealment ahead, rising from their shallow scrapes with snow cascading off their backs as they rose to one knee and a small flurry of shots hit the truck. These were not Chechen rebels or unskilled thugs though – the bursts were tightly controlled and precise, striking the truck on the armour plating encasing the engine. Sparks flashed as the rounds hit the thick composites, bouncing harmlessly off into the snow, and almost as quickly as they started firing, it stopped.

Two more figures rose, holding long tubes over their right shoulders, and steadying themselves for a moment.

"Oh frak. MISSILES!" shouted Hunter, as he caught sight of them. Tadibya drew a breath and then flung out a hand at the one at the left, her face concentrated in a frown. The figure far ahead of her fought and wrestled with his weapon, as her levitate spell tried to float it away. He was strong, and had gravity on his side – and her spell was not that powerful. But it was enough to delay his aim and firing, just a touch.

The figure on the right fired. It was a modern weapon – state of the art in fact – but based on an aged design. Originally firing an 84mm round, the Carl Gustav launcher was a weapon system from the middle of the 20th century. Refined and developed constantly during the decades that followed, it was a flexible system that could deliver powerful munitions. This version had all the bells and whistles from the march of technology – smart materials, millimetre RADAR/LIDAR guidance, smart-goggle link, laser-milled penetrators. It was a ferocious weapon system, designed to take out hardened targets such as heavily armoured military vehicles.

The round darted across the distance in the blink of an eye – the velocity of the shell over two hundred and fifty metres per second. But it did take a blink. In the time-distorted world of the cyber-enhanced, half a second was enough to aim and fire, to load a magazine – or in the case of Marius, to see a threat coming and fling the truck to the side. His reactions quivered and as neurons triggered, chemical energy was translated into electrical, firing the control wires and the computer built into his rigger interface sent out the commands to the truck's systems – at close to three hundred thousand metres per second. With his heartbeat racing in time with the pistons in the engine, the commands fired into the truck's computer, and the vehicle almost hopped to the side as the powerful suspension obeyed commands that were impossible to replicate for those not forming a gestalt with their vehicle.

The high explosive anti-tank warhead came in at an oblique angle, striking the side of the truck and sliding a little before the fuse activated. The desperate slew of the truck prevented the shaped charge from directing power as designed, and over seventy percent of the blast was wasted into the open air. Of course, that mean that thirty percent blasted into the armoured side of the truck. Metal screamed and twisted under the assault of the focussed explosive blast, cables and hydraulics sheared and ruptured, and fragments of white hot metal splintered out from the blast site. Marius grunted in pain as he felt the blow hit, as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his ribs and pounded the crap out of him. A ragged breath wrenched through his lips though, and he clamped down on the pain.

The truck's legacy came through – the redundant systems designed into it by some Russian vehicle specialist clamped down on the leaking hydraulic lines and breakers tripped, isolating the damaged circuits. Redundant control lines kicked in, and the engine roared as the tyres continued to thrash at the surface of the snow, propelling the truck along the icy road at over forty kilometres per hour. Marius had no time to consider this though, as the truck slewed hard back the other direction – the second gunner had wrestled his rocket into position, fighting off the effects of the levitate spell, and sent his round spearing down towards the truck.

If they had both fired at the same time, it would have been the end of them. Dodging one would have only thrown the truck either into the other shot, or given it a flat face that would have allowed the round to hit square on and penetrate them with ease. As it was, Marius was able to repeat the feat, sliding the truck sideways and taking the round at an extreme angle. Another blast of damage, another gout of flame, another grunt of anguish. More systems failed, and red warning lights lit up all over the cab of the truck, showing alarms and issues. More fire hit the truck – two long bursts from two of the riflemen. This time the rounds were not directed at the body of the truck – no, they had learnt that their guns couldn't penetrate the thick armour. Instead, the rounds savaged the tyres – carefully aimed and superbly controlled bursts of fire that struck the narrow band between the top of the snow and the wheel arches.

The rounds penetrated the tyres, and a small bark of explosive outgassing sounded, higher pitch than the gunshots and rocket blasts. But the truck kept rolling. Within a fraction of a second the compound stored inside the tyres activated, expanding rapidly and filling the void. The gooey white mess extruded from the ragged gunshot holes in the tyre wall, hardening on contact with the air and the run-flat tyres sagged, but remained usable.

Marius fought the truck now – the two rocket hits had reached, and then surpassed the levels of contingency manoeuvre controls installed, and the damage to the tyres only added to the trouble. He had to slow, lest he lose control of the vehicle entirely, and his ability to control the vehicle was much diminished now. Another attack from those fearsome rockets could well finish them off.

Shimazu had his pistol out now, and was clambering back into the front seat. Aswon had slid into the back, ready to try and decamp from the rear of the vehicle if they had to stop, so he could get a line of sight on the ambushers. Hunter was poised next to the weapon mount, ready to thrust the barrel of his Ares Alpha through the grommet and get some payback. Nadia had climbed down into the foot-well in front of Aswon's seat, and had braced herself in position as best she could, breathing rapidly and with her pupils dilated to twice their normal size, obviously terrified. Her senses were strong enough though to keep out of the way of everyone else, and not to engage in such useless activities such as screaming or crying. Kai was picking himself up from the corner of the cab, trying to draw air into his lungs after Shimazu had speared him so effectively. Gasping for breath, he managed to call out to the team.

"WAIT!" He spluttered, then drew in another breath. "Wait! Stand down!" Ignoring the danger, he clambered back onto the seat and emerged through the top hatch. Both hands waved frantically overhead, one of them clutching a white handkerchief which fluttered madly in the wind.

Time stretched out for a moment, and Kai held his breath. He was sure there was probably half a dozen targeting lasers laid over his body right now – all it would take was one slip, one careless clutch of the trigger. But somehow, he knew that these people were not likely to make that kind of mistake – not with the fire discipline they had shown so far.

Nobody fired.

The truck slowed and ground to a halt. The fires smouldering along the side slowly extinguished as the heat melted the nearby snow, the melt water sloshing down the side of the truck and lapping over the burning material. Aswon paused by the back door, looking towards Kai with one hand on the lock and the other on his rifle. Hunter kept an eye on the rocket troops – they appeared to be reloading, but not aiming – at least not yet. Shimazu fidgeted, watching Kai like a hawk. It was obvious that his training wanted him to bring Kai down out of the line of fire again – but rapid movement like that might make the situation explode.

One by one, the soldiers ahead melded back into the snow, pulling blankets and camouflage back over themselves. The team tried to mark their positions mentally, keeping a memory of where they had been – but it was hard, as the positions just faded into the overall mass of white. After thirty seconds or so, none of them could be seen visually, and only Tadibya had a sense of where they were through her astral sight.

Nadia had climbed out of the foot-well when they stopped, and was gently dabbing at the blood from the corner of Marius's mouth, cleaning it away.

"Now what? What happens next?"

Kai was about to answer her, when he cocked his head to one side, hearing…. Hearing the sound of loud and somewhat distorted goth-rock music? Mixed with a loud noise that could only be some kind of chopper – the distinctive thwoppa-thwoppa of heavy duty blades scything through the air. He turned in the turret mount, and looked backwards – spotting two things.

The first was a large black helicopter rising up from the other side of the village. Presumably there was some kind of cliff or slope not far out of town. Whatever it was, the chopper was rising up swiftly, with the nose angled down and was closing quickly. Short stubby wings were covered in death. He didn't consider himself a weapons man – not like some of the others. But he recognised guns when he saw them, and these all looked like they were designed to make live things into dead things with sudden speed. The second thing that caught his attention was the figure from the village, running through the snow towards them, great coat flapping as he did so. The arms windmilled around him to keep balance, and it would have looked amusing were the situation less dangerous.

The helicopter continued to close, and the speakers activated as Marius examined it with his sensors.

"Hind 2-J, late generation Russian heavy combat chopper. Armoured like a tank, good avionics suite and advanced sensors. Armed with 30mm chainguns under each wing pylon, and what looks like 57mm cluster rockets. I think the things on the outer pylons are the Russian versions of Hellfire missiles. Oh, and room for a squad of troops as well. Not fast, but nothing we have will take it down."

The rest of the team listened soberly. Marius might be young, and slightly arrogant at times – or perhaps just displaying a strong cultural bias, perhaps – but if there was one thing he seemed quite expert in, it was helicopters. And what he said was sounding like pretty bad news.

The helicopter overflew them, drifting by one side, and slowly orbited. As it did, they could make out more details. The cargo door was open, and what looked like four or five heavily armed and armoured combat troops looked out at them, wearing winter digicam. They were loaded down with bulky combat armour and liberal amounts of guns and equipment, and looked to be attached to thick ropes suspended from a gantry over the door. There were also large speakers mounted to the side of the cargo area, from which the music blasted out, loud enough to be clearly heard over the sound of the rotors. The chopper was painted jet black, apart from the nose which displayed a picture of a Valkyrie with wings of almost pure white, with red laser like beams from her eyes and a large golden sword – definitely not camouflaged.

The chopper continued to orbit them, and then slid backwards and lowered slightly, the rotors just starting to kick up snow. The troops fast-roped down and took up positions around the chopper, forming a perimeter with weapons trained on them, and then one last figure appeared in the doorway, dressed in civilian clothes. He looked to be a fairly generic European, about two metres tall and apparently in good physical shape. A bush hat was pulled down over his brown hair, whilst a check shirt flapped in the wind over the top of a plain green t-shirt. Blue jeans dropped down to sturdy looking black boots. With one hand clamping down the hat over his head, the figure leaned out and casually slid down the rope, using his feet to control his descent and letting the rope run through the crook of his free arm.

Kai turned to face the chopper, and the rest of the team watched in silence, guns and spells ready. The tension ratcheted up as the man stood there with his hands on his hips, staring at the truck. If he was bothered by the cold air and the wind whipping through his open shirt, he didn't show it. Finally he spoke, his voice loud and clear, and pitched to carry over the sound of the chopper which had risen away from them and was covering their position. His Russian sounded fluid and natural, and there was no hesitation in the delivery.

"Right, you dirty raghead sonsabitches. Get your asses out of the truck and tell me why I shouldn't execute every last one of your miserable hides!"

Kai considered his words for a moment, then called back. In English.

"Hello there! English? Can you understand me?"

"Yes, I can understand you." The figure swapped to English easily, and spoke with a faint American accent, as many did who had learned the language from the trid or from chip releases.

"Ahh, much better then. Err, hi. Sorry and all that. My Russian's not so good, see. I meant to tell your friends over there that we had just dropped off a villager that got stuck in a blizzard and needed medical aid. But I think it came out a bit wrong. So I thought I'd try English, otherwise it wouldn't be you killing me, it would be the rest of my companions…"

Kai smiled and pointed down in the cab, shrugging his shoulders as he reached the end of the sentence. Despite his casual language, Kai was concentrating hard, cueing his body language carefully and studying his opponent with care.

The figure listened for a moment, and looked to be grinding his teeth a little or chewing. Hunter called up from the cab, quietly.

"Think he's got a subvocal mic, might be calling in for a check. Looking through the scope, there's something around his neck that might be a transceiver. Assume he's in constant comms with his guys here."

Kai made a thumbs up gesture with his right hand, held down by his waist and out of sight of the man he was talking to.

"So, look – there's obviously been a misunderstanding here. As you can see, we're not Russians. Or Chechens. Just a bunch of people driving from place to place – we just happen to have a nice shiny truck. Or had a nice shiny truck. But no hard feelings – and we've not shot at any of your men, I hope you notice."

The figure considered his words for a few moments, then started to stride forwards through the snow, his powerful legs clearing a path. As he started to move, the rest of the squad moved forwards with him – at least until he waved them to a halt. Several of them glanced at him and each other, but they obeyed his command, and refocussed their attention on the truck. The man approached them, stopping about five metres from the vehicle.

"Yeah – I noticed. And that's why you're not a smoking crater. So, here's how this is going down. My name's Jenkins. This is my valley, and these are my troops. And you're trespassers on my land. So you're gonna get out of the truck, and get down here where I can see you, and then I'm going to decide what to do with you."

Hairs rose on the back of Kai's neck as he listened to this 'Jenkins'. Kai considered himself to be pretty good at reading people, and he'd talked to a lot of different people in his life. This guy was giving off all kinds of strange signals. What he said wasn't a request, and it wasn't a demand. It was a statement of how things were going to be. He wasn't going to negotiate, or bargain, or brook any discussion. Kai realised then what it was about the guy's eyes and demeanour that troubled him – this was a man who just didn't care about consequences. Borderline sociopathic perhaps. But that meant he would quite happily kill them all, bury them in the hills, and then he'd go home and watch some trid, and wouldn't have a single bad thought about it.

"Right you are, then! We'll just rack our weapons, and we'll be right out! Nice and carefully."

Kai dropped down into the truck and quickly spoke to the rest of the team.

"No messing now, weapons away. This guy gives me the willies. I'll get out, each of you get out then, I'll introduce you, then get back in the truck. He didn't say to do that – but he didn't say not to. If he says different though, don't argue, for all our sakes."

He climbed over Shimazu, who squidged to the side to avoid being trodden on, and then climbed down out of the cab. One at a time, he called the team out, and they carefully climbed down into view, leaving their weapons behind. Kai called out their name, and gave the briefest of introductions, describing them as his assistant, or magical researcher, or security specialists.

The man had snorted when Shimazu had climbed back into the truck after being introduced and before Hunter climbed down, but seemed more amused than annoyed, and didn't stop them. So they continued. Nadia of course climbed out with Marius, and kept close to him, so Kai introduced them as a couple, not that it seemed to make any difference from that point of view. However, when Kai described him as the driver, Jenkins held up his hand in a 'wait' motion. He looked at Marius, evaluating him up and down carefully.

"Good work, driver. Tell your boss you deserve whatever you're being paid and more, for getting him through those hits."

Marius seemed torn. On one hand, it was clearly a compliment and testimony to his driving skill and abilities, from someone who understood just how hard the manoeuvers had been. On the other hand, this guy – or his troops at least – had scratched his precious truck, and his desire was to start the engine, run him over and grind him to a mushy red pulp whilst screaming obscenities at him. Of course, the chance of that happening was pretty much zero, given the firepower they faced. Instead he settled for nodding his head in acknowledgement, before helping Nadia back into the cab and climbing up himself.

After the team had all been introduced, Jenkins waved Kai over to him. Kai approached, carefully – wondering where this was going, and trying his best to get a read on this guy. Jenkins seemed unconcerned though, and turned to face his nearest trooper, barking out a command. They pulled out a small package and threw it to him underhanded.

Jenkins turned back and unrolled the package, flipping out the screen from the small tactical style computer, and keying up the display.

"See this area. This is mine. All of this, from here, to here, and down here. You stay out of this area, unless you're invited. Clear?" Kai studied the area, several thousands of acres, covering a pretty big swathe of the mountains to the north, all the way to the main highway. He squinted at the names on the maps to either side, reading them out to confirm his understanding.

"Right. Be on your way."

Kai looked into his eyes – the dark brown, almost black eyes of the Mongol tribesman staring into the nondescript medium brown eyes of this random European. Kai studied him for a second, then nodded his head, not seeing any give in the other.

"Right. We'll head out then, go find somewhere to repair and such like."

Kai mounted up, and gestured up the valley to the main road.

"Come on Marius, nice and steady, before they change their mind. Let's not tempt fate."

The truck started up and started to fight through the snow again, following the road south, with Marius fighting to keep the truck moving now with the damage sustained. The run-flat tyres had fully cured now, and they gave the truck a weird wobble, the bubbles of foam throwing off the tracking significantly and making the truck vibrate in an odd fashion. As they struggled up the road, they kept a close watch on the situation behind them – aware that there was still a platoon of troops dug in to concealed positions, watching them, let alone the chopper and the other soldiers. The man from the village had closed to talk to Jenkins and was discussing things with him, occasionally pointing towards the truck – but nothing happened from that.

Eventually they made it back to the main road, and turned west, heading towards the coast.