Sunday 03/04/2061, Location: 11.41808, 6.63022, Time 19:30

"I am going back to the tilt-wing to get her ready for launch. I presume that we are done here, and you just need to say goodbye?" Marius stared at Aswon, who just shrugged at him.

"Look, I get it, you're not keen on stuff like that. But I don't know…"

"Well, you know where to find me. I will wait until you are done here…" Marius turned and stomped off towards the aircraft. Hunter frowned for a moment, wondering if he should follow Marius, but decided to stay with the rest of the team, following them as they filed into the large hut at the edge of the square.

The chieftain sat in his chair, the shaman to his side, and gestured for the team to assemble.

"Excuse me a moment – I just have something to take care of." Tads gave him a smile, but then moved over to Aswon, laying her hands over the small wounds on his flank. The inside of the hut lit up with brilliant golden light for a moment as she healed his wounds, before she moved on to the next in line. Her efforts took a few moments for each person, preventing the light being regular enough to strobe in the darkened hut, but the villagers looked on in fascination and more than a little awe as she patched up the team one after another before taking her place in the line and nodding at him. "Sorry about that, please continue…"

The chieftain looked at the end of the line for a moment, at the conspicuous Marius shaped gap, but shrugged and continued, apparently deciding that they must have a reason for sending him away.

"I am told that your work is done, and the land is pleased."

"That is good. Remember, the mountain is guarded now. The spirit that lives there is a free being, with its own desires and wishes. It treated us fairly, and we helped it as best we could, so it SHOULD be friendly. But it will require continued efforts from the local people to treat it with respect and honour to maintain that friendship. It would be good to let people know that."

"You have not shown us how to fight - we knew that." The chieftain bent forward in his seat now, wizened old hands gripping at his spear haft tightly. Lines covered his face, but his eyes were clear, and bored into Aswon. "But you have shown us that we can win, and that was perhaps lost to us. Now word of what has happened has spread throughout the tribes," he smiled a little, then continued, "quietly, and somewhat abstractly – do not fear. People who need to know will know. Others will just know that it was one of the people, who loved the land. But the people of the land know the invaders have been hurt, badly hurt. And now the embers of resistance have been fanned. But this is OUR fight now." He took a breath, then lowered his voice a little. Speaking with great gravitas, he looked at all of the team, one after another. "But the tribe remembers. The tribe will not forget those who answered our call. Go now, with our blessings and thanks."

"I am Aswon. We are one. Call and we will answer. But, if you are serious about taking the fight to the likes of Novatech, then you're going to need bigger guns. Lots bigger. That will help you a great deal."

Aswon nodded respectfully to the chief and the shaman, then led the way out of the hut, into the darkened square.

"Thank you to you and the tribe for your protection." Tads said, as she headed out of the hut last, catching up with the rest of the team outside. The evening breeze took off the last of the heat of the day, and it was fairly pleasant. The minimal light pollution and clear skies let them see the vast constellations of stars overhead, and they took in a moment to savour the peace. They were disturbed by a quiet scraping noise, and looked down to see Kai kneeling in the square, scraping up a sample of the soil and sliding it into a bag. He looked up and grinned at them, but didn't explain himself – and while nobody knew what he was doing or why, nobody really cared either, and they just shrugged and left him to it. The day Kai stopped randomly and chaotically doing things, was the day they probably shot him in the face to get rid of the possessing spirit that was trying to play it cool…

It took them only a minute or two to get back to the tilt-wing, finding Marius on the tail end of a phone call to Nadia, and much to his satisfaction they informed him they were now ready to go home. As the team strapped in and secured the contents of the tilt-wing once more, Aswon looked over at Kai.

"Are we going to check in with Hestaby? I think it's probably better for us if we call her and check, rather than her having to call us…"

"I was thinking of calling Phoss and Ury, as we've dealt with them more. And it's less hassle – I've got their number."

"Wait until we are in the air, then please, preferably about twenty minutes into the flight. That gives us more than enough time to hop cell towers and be away from our initial location." Marius called back. "Starting engines, everyone get ready." He didn't wait for acknowledgement, just starting the flight-sequence and carefully bringing the tilt-wing systems online. Kai waited for twenty minutes as requested, then hooked up his commlink to his throat-microphone and earpiece, and made the call.

"Hello?"

"Phoss? It's Kai. We just wanted to let you know we're heading out of country now, and wanted to check in with you."

"Ahh, good. Ok, we're out – we're at Casablanca right now, waiting for our flight."

"Good, glad you're ok. So, how are things?"

"It was a little exciting getting out of the city – I think you definitely upset them. Drones all over the city for quite some time, and the police went berserk. Patrols all over the place and all the main roads were blocked and people had their IDs being checked. I think that was because of the assassinations?"

"Assassinations? What… who?"

"Some of the protestors, the organisers, got assassinated. Well, it was supposed to have been an accident, with a fall from a hotel balcony. But the windows were sealed shut to stop burglaries, so nobody believed the press release. Caused a bit of a stink, and the protestors turned a bit violent it seemed, which triggered a crackdown from the police. But that just stirred up a bunch of unrest amongst the people, and some riots."

"Well, that definitely wasn't us – nothing to do with me or my team at all."

"Us neither. Made getting out fun though, but we made it."

"So Hestaby… she's happy with the job, I take it?"

"Well, we got told we can come home. That's normally a good sign."

"Ahh, ok. If that's how it works. So – when you get home, how about dropping us a line, letting us know? And we can set up some future contacts and stuff?"

"Probably not."

"No?"

"No. I'd imagine these phones will go straight into the incinerator when we get back, along with most of the other gear from the mission. Or they'll be cleaned and disposed of in some way."

"Ahh, I see. Security. Makes sense I suppose. Well, it was good working with you!"

"Indeed. We made a difference."

Kai disconnected the call, then relayed the information about the assassination to the others. With little to go on, they realised that speculation was all they had, and it wasn't really worth discussion – nothing they could do could bring back the dead or really avenge them, and it would only embroil them back in a situation they'd worked hard to get out of.

Hunter spent the next two hours working over the sat-link, getting some permits sorted and inserting flight details into regional control systems, building them a cover story and the required authorisation to fly back via commercial routes, while Marius kept them low and out of sight over most of Africa, avoiding trouble and official attention. They landed at N'Djamena airport as their first stop, refuelling for the longer hop over to Khartoum. From there, a few more hours got them to Riyadh, and then onto the last leg of the journey back to the ranch. The six thousand kilometre journey took them over eleven hours when they had to factor in waiting times at the airports for refuelling and lift-off clearance – but their filed flight plan made crossing the borders considerably easier, building up the legitimacy of their 'doctors without borders' corporate SINs still further.

The journey hadn't been silent by any stretch of the imagination. Tads had launched into a lengthy discussion of astral quests, trying to describe some of the quests she had undertaken, and how they compared and contrasted with their recent experience in Nigeria. She didn't notice that Marius muted her feed after thirty seconds – the pilot already incapable of forgetting the details not wanting to rehash them or learn how 'lucky' they might have been.

Coming in to land just as the sun was climbing over the hills to the east, Marius could see that Nadia, Marius Junior and most of the other ranch occupants were waiting for them, safely standing behind the perimeter markings of the helipad.

"Looks like she's been busy!" Hunter remarked, highlighting the dozen new cabins that had been built around the base of one of the hills, forming a fairly tight circle. Each of the cabins looked big enough to hold a family or small group, and appeared to made of natural logs slotted together to build up each wall. "And I don't know what all that stuff is off to the side…" He slewed the sensors over a little and they could see a large number of half-pipes made of some brightly coloured material, glossy and shining in the morning light.

Marius bought them in for a smooth landing, despite the extended period of time he'd been in the air, settling the aircraft down with his usual precision at the exact centre of the helipad. The team did one last check around to make sure everything looked good, then cracked open the doors and started to unload themselves and their equipment, while the family moved up to meet them.

With that many hands to help, unloading their gear didn't take long – even with a heartfelt and tender reunion between Nadia and Marius. Soon enough they were all piled into the dining room, boxes of gear piled up against the wall to be dealt with later, while they settled down for a hearty breakfast – at least once Tads had reassured herself that there were enough supplies laid in and that she didn't need to conjure any foods up before then!

"Oh, Marius. A package came for you while you were away. Big briefcase thing, got dropped off by a courier. I couldn't get it open though, it has a biometric lock." Marius paused, his coffee cup halfway to his lips as Nadia casually mentioned the delivery. He looked at her, and his skin itched, wondering what it was.

"No delivery details?"

"No, just the courier turned up at the door one morning, and said he had a delivery for you, but that I could take it as they knew you were away. Let me go fetch it…" She pushed herself up from the table, then slid Marius Junior over to him to hold while she went and fetched the package. It turned out to be a large briefcase, made out of some kind of shiny metal, with conspicuous ribbing, very sturdy hinges and a complex looking biometric locking system on the front. It was heavy – making a significant thump when she placed it on the table, and several of the team gave a wince.

"Thank you. I think I should go and open this… outside." He looked over and saw both Hunter and Aswon pushing back from the table to grab equipment. "Yes, outside. Please wait." He lifted the case up far more carefully than Nadia had handled it, then headed out of the kitchen door and into the field adjacent to the house, walking a good fifty metres away, before gently placing the case down on the ground. Hunter moved in and started to run the bug-scanner over it carefully, while Aswon crouched down and examined the case carefully, looking for any tell-tale signs of booby traps or charges.

"Looks clear, no sign of any signals." Hunter bent down and sniffed carefully, his gas-spectrometer and chemical analyser going to work, feeding data into his headware systems. "Not getting anything suspect off it either. Definitely no traces of plastic explosive, accelerants, poisons or toxins – or none that I know about anyway."

"Thank you. Ok, I will try the lock." He carefully placed a finger over the sensor pad, watching the green panel light up and scan his fingerprint. A moment later, a tiny sliver of a needle sprung out of the side of the lock, lancing into his finger and releasing a small drop of blood. The needle withdrew, presumably carrying a miniscule sample with it to compare to whatever data was located inside the locking mechanism.

Click.

The briefcase lock sprang open, and Marius very carefully started to open it, pausing when it was a few millimetres raised. Hunter examined the insides from one side, while Aswon was peering in from the other, but they both gave him the thumbs up when they failed to see anything suspicious. Slowly he continued to raise the lid, opening the case up fully and examining the contents. Inside were two books – actual old fashioned paper books, that looked to be fifty years old at least. Alongside the two text books, each of which was several hundred pages long, was a chip folio, containing about a dozen chips in protective cases, each neatly labelled and locked into the folio by a small restraining clip.

"US Navy Department of Defence. Restricted material. Top Secret. Nuclear Reactors: Engineering Operations Manual for S1B reactor, Columbia Class submarines" Hunter read out loud, then reached in and grabbed the book, flicking idly through the tome, revealing page after page of dry prose and small engineering illustrations. "Sounds like fun bedtime reading."

"Pebble bed reactions: Design considerations for Ultra-High Temperature sealed reactor operations" Aswon read out the title of the second book, but declined to reach into the briefcase to examine it. "Those… are not light general reading. Why have you been sent these?"

"I have no idea." Marius flicked through the chip folio, reading out some of the titles. "Nuclear materials storage, Radiation Hazards and Mitigation factors, Nuclear medicine, High Pressure water exchange systems, Electrical generation techniques for high pressure turbines, Nuclear Epitaxy, Quantum diffusion bonding… these are clearly aimed at a very specific sector." The chips went on, with more and more esoteric high-energy physics topics listed, along with a smattering of very narrowly focussed chemical and engineering texts. He pulled out the chip folio and the other book, then checked the rest of the briefcase, examining it for hidden compartments or additional items, but finding none. Satisfied, he loaded the items back into the case and closed it, though he didn't engage the locking mechanism. "I think we can go back inside."

Leading the way, he tromped across the field in silence, wondering who could have sent the package, and why. Behind him Aswon and Hunter exchange glances and shrugs, wondering the same thing. Back at the table, the team stopped their current discussion as the trio returned.

"What's in the box? Nice presents?"

"No, Kai. A whole lot of information on nuclear power and high-energy systems. I have no idea who has sent it, or why."

"Hmm, lemme see the chips again will you? I have an idea…" Hunter held out his hand, and Marius grabbed the chip folio and handed it over to Hunter, who started to quickly search through the chips physically, examining each one carefully before then putting them back into the folio again.

"Nuclear-powered? Is that better than gasoline-powered? Are you upgrading the tilt-wing?" Tads asked innocently. She'd often heard them grumbling about the cost for fuel, and the recent fuel bill of thirty-six thousand Nuyen for the fuel back from Nigeria had had Kai grumbling for half an hour on the journey.

"Nein! Absolutely not. That is NOT what we are considering."

"Why not? C'mon, live a little. It'd be so much cheaper! And think of all the power you'd have for your systems!" Kai grinned at him, while Marius shook his head firmly.

"No. I do not wish to crash at all – but crashing the aircraft after taking damage is marginally survivable when we have normal engines fuelled with aviation gas. Crashing a nuclear reactor into the ground at five hundred kilometres per hour? THAT is a fireball you cannot outrun. Not even with legs as long as Aswon's."

"Hmmm. All of these chips are physically made by Hirens Data storage LLC. And Hirens is a subsidiary of Ares Macrotechnology. Not conclusive on its own, sure. But the contents of the chips are published by six different research organisations, think-tanks or publishing houses. And every single one of them also is either owned by, or has a major funding sponsor of Ares, too…"

"We are NOT putting a nuclear reactor into the tilt-wing. And that is FINAL." Marius put down his coffee cup firmly and glowered at the team, making it clear that this was not a topic for discussion.

Tads didn't really understand why this was such an emotive topic, but she quickly changed the subject, asking Nadia about the changes at the ranch. Nadia in turn then spent a while bringing the team up to date on her recent changes.

The new lodges were pre-fabricated kits, delivered and quickly installed from a supplier she had found with a surplus that was offering them for a reasonable price. Each would sleep four people in relatively high levels of comfort, and took the ranch to a capacity of over fifty with no problems at all. That was good, as bookings had picked up remarkably well – apparently Germaine's glowing review had sparked some interest amongst her companions, and a number of people had enquired about quiet and discreet holidays and a chance to 'get away from things' for a while. The season was just starting, but the ranch had a good number of bookings all the way through to September, and would bring in enough money to keep the family more than solvent.

Alongside the accommodation, Nadia had found some equipment from an old water park, and had arranged for the slides and various other features to be shipped over. She was of course well aware that there was no pool and the hill was completely the wrong shape to support a lot of the tubes and rides she had in mind, but she expressed that between Hunter's engineering knowledge and Tad's ability to literally reshape mountains, they could build a world-class water slide into the very bones of the hill, ending in a spectacular lagoon style pool at the base, which would then front onto the new lodges, leaving just enough room for a bar and BBQ area. The lagoon of course would be the thing that Tads created after she'd finished carving the hillside into a suitable form for the thrilling downhill waterslides.

Other than that, things had been quiet since the team had headed off. The number of salespeople out on the road had increased again, with several stalls setting up almost a permanent presence on the main road to try and capture passing trade. The locals, it appeared, had firmly realised exactly who was responsible for the Mafia being run out of town, and rumours had spread around the town like wildfire – some of them laughably off the mark, while others grazed very close to the truth. Nadia and the family had 'encouraged' some of the wilder stories, with her personal favourite being that they were all illegitimate offspring of dragons, on a crusade to prove their worth to their immortal parents. Marius looked horrified, which set Nadia off into a gale of laughter, much to his chagrin. Other rumours included being KGB or Mossad agents, a rival Yakuza clan (no doubt due to Shimazu's presence) or even a voodoo cult – showing that the locals had more than their fair share of ignorant casual racism, as far as Aswon was concerned.

But, on the whole, the area was encountering something of a renaissance, with people having the feeling that they were safe and secure in the local town, under the watchful eyes of the "strangers at the Ranch". With more money in the local economy now that the Mafia weren't skimming twenty percent off the top of the town's income, and a sense of safety, people were spending money on small luxuries, or taking some risks on their business ventures, which in turn was feeding into the local businesses, making them more profitable and acting as a positive feedback loop. It wouldn't last forever, of course, but for now the town had a hopeful and optimistic air, and much of it was aimed their way.

Nothing was perfect, of course, and Nadia had encountered a few problems – nothing major, just some of the locals being a little intractable about providing services or not providing her the credit she wanted. It turned out however that in one case just throwing money at the people until they ceased complaining and went away had resolved the issue, and in the other the threat of, as Nadia jubilantly explained to them, asking 'you can deal with me now, or you can deal with my husband and his colleagues. But you know how they dealt with the last people that upset us…' had been enough to not only make the other person back down, but had also spread quickly around the town that Nadia was not afraid to play hardball.

Marius had his head in his hands, shaking gently from side to side and wondering just what he was going to do, and how many people he might need to deal with on his wife's behalf, but Kai was grinning like a lunatic – which also didn't help the pilot's disposition.

Nadia finished off by telling them all about the small zoo they now had… though 'zoo' was perhaps a little grandiose for the collection of sheep, goats, rabbits, hamsters and other small critters that were now located in a new fenced-off area to the side of the ranch. Apparently it was all part of her efforts to provide entertainment for the visitors.

"Well, at least we have fresh food on site if something goes wrong." Aswon whispered to Shimazu, getting a grin from his friend.

"Very good, Nadia. Very impressive stuff. So, otherwise, how are we doing?"

"I have invested pretty much all of the money you left me Kai, so if you have any spare, I can continue to expand things?" She looked hopefully at the team leader.

"I'm not sure – we had to pay a lot of cash for the fuel costs in Nigeria and the route back. And I think we're planning on having some downtime for a while, so there's not going to be any cash coming in for a bit. So we may need to be careful…" Nadia looked a little annoyed, but nodded her head in acquiescence.

"That's good, Kai. We've been on active operations for over a month, and done a number of fairly intense jobs back to back. Some downtime to rest, recuperate and train would be good. How long a break are you thinking?"

"At least a month, probably more. I think some of it will be guided by Tads and what she needs to do, Aswon." Kai turned his head to look at Tads, and his normal grin faded away, leaving him looking uncharacteristically serious. "I know you have a lot of things to do, most of which helps us all out. So we'll be guided by how things go for you. I think we could all do with a break through, so at least a good few weeks at a minimum, but let us know what you need."

"Thanks Kai. I do have a lot of things lined up, but I'll have to see how it goes. Some may go quickly, some may not. I'll try to keep you updated though."

"Of course. Mind you, if Germaine or Ludmilla calls, we might get an offer we really shouldn't refuse…" The grin returned, spreading wide across his face. "Or perhaps our new friend from Nigeria, maybe she'll have some work for us. She was such a lovely lady after all…" Kai smiled and watched out of the corner of his eye as Nadia's frown intensified and she stared at Marius.

"Right, let's finish breakfast, and then we can work out what we're going to be doing for the next few weeks…dibs on not doing the washing up!"