Kai and Shimazu were first back, arriving at the hotel for around ten in the evening. Kai had sampled some of the local drinking establishments, and was a little merry – not drunk, but pleasantly inebriated, with a very slight wobble to his movements. Shimazu was sober, having stuck to soft drinks all night, keeping a watchful eye out on the people around him and his boss.
They settled into the deep luxurious settee and Kai started to surf the trid channels, looking for something to entertain him as he relaxed.
Hunter arrived about half an hour later, striding into the suite wearing a thick dressing gown and a broad smile. After Kai slurred out an enquiry, Hunter gleefully told him about his several hours spent on the beach relaxing, followed by a two-hour bath in the enormous tub in the master bathroom of the suite. After that, he'd gone exploring in the hotel and found that the gym had a steam room attached, and he'd spent several hours in there relaxing – much to the disgust of several other patrons of the hotel that had refused to share the facility with him.
Aswon returned around eleven, and made sure that the balcony was unlocked and clear, making sure that Tads had somewhere to land when she returned. After checking his arrangements, he flopped down on the settee too, staring at the trid in confusion as the weird musical number played out.
Marius returned just before midnight, also a little tipsy, though under far more control than Kai. He greeted the team briefly, then said his goodnights and wandered off to bed, collapsing into the sinfully soft mattress for a good night's sleep.
Tads returned about twenty minutes later, landing with a scuffle of claws and feathers on the balcony and dropping down to the marble tiles in a tired heap. Aswon heard her arrival, and hurried over to the door to open it for her, letting her waddle into the bathroom to change, retrieving the tube from the floor and setting it on the worktop in the small kitchen supplied with the suite. Tads emerged a few minutes later, looking very weary indeed, checked that everyone was ok, and then also headed for one of the bedrooms, finding a space to curl up in some blankets and fell into an exhausted sleep.
One by one, the team headed to bed, the trid playing a series of more and more inane programs as the hours slipped by, until it abruptly swapped to some educational program relating to a home university study course at six am – just as Aswon rose to get himself a coffee and check on things.
The team awoke gradually, grabbing coffee and making use of room service, having showers and baths and generally having an indulgent morning. Tads, normally also awake at dawn, wasn't seen until nearly ten, when she hurriedly shuffled out of her nest of blankets to the balcony to do some quite belated morning rituals and to summon fresh spirits to protect the team. They could see from her movements that she was stiff and aching, no doubt the result of the ten hours of flying she'd done the previous day.
By eleve,n though, they were all up and ready to go, heading down to the lobby to check out – and finding out that although Mr Kulkachev had arranged the room for them, he'd done nothing about the bill, leaving them to cough up the funds for that! Fortunately they were sitting on a very healthy balance of over eight hundred and fifty thousand Nuyen spread across their various credsticks, so that wasn't an issue – and even though the hotel was one of the nicest in Batumi, it still didn't compare to the kinds of prices they would have faced in London, Hong Kong, New York or other premium cities.
Once they were loaded back up into the truck with all their gear stowed, they started to head north, threading their way out of Batumi. Hunter threw open the armoured hatch on the top of the cab to let some air in as the day was another hot, sunny and cloudless affair, with the temperatures rising sharply. As they headed out of the city on the E70 highway, they could see the other side of the road was still very busy, with people heading to the coast for a day of fun and relaxation – but the road leading out was pretty quiet. No doubt by mid-afternoon that would change, and the traffic flow would flip, but they'd be well away from here by then.
The truck got up to speed and thundered along the relatively smooth surface of the national highway, the massive suspension eating up the cracks and odd pothole that jarred and shook lesser vehicles with barely any effect, the huge off-road tyres flexing and bouncing over the tarmac with ease. They kept an eye out on the surroundings out of general principle, but with the spirits guarding the truck and a fresh colour combo fed into the photo-voltaic paint system, it was a quiet enough journey that they could mostly relax, idly chatting about stuff or just being lost in their own thoughts.
They were most of the way to Tbilisi, just passing the settlement of Berbuki when Marius mentally twitched as his system registered an incoming message. He pulled up the details into his virtual interface, keeping one eye and all his sensors on the road while he scanned over the contents – before quickly engaging the auto-nav system and firing up the cab speakers to talk with the team.
"I have just received a message. It informs me that I am eligible to sit my first exam. Have one of you arranged this?" He listened to the chorus of negative responses, paying particular attention to Hunter. He probably got on with the ork the best out of the team, no doubt finding a common bond in their slight distrust of magic and its strange ways – but he was also well aware that Hunter enjoyed practical jokes more than anyone on the team and had a 'unique' sense of humour and self-awareness. "Hunter, I will forward this on to you. Please analyse it, and determine where it came from?"
"Yeah, null sheen. Squirt it over." Hunter pulled out his deck and started to connect to the sat-link, getting ready to do a quick matrix dive to try and analyse the message headers and routing information. Once the message landed with him, he started the task of trying to track it back to the point of origin. The truck rumbled onwards for several minutes, before he stirred and blinked, his mind focussing back on the physical world once more. "It's come from an Ares subsidiary over in the UCAS, some kind of accredited training academy, though it was shoved through half a dozen other accounts and bounced around a bit. I don't know what the academy does, though… want me to call my mate Julius?"
"Yes. I am unsure why this has come to me."
"Roger…" He focussed for a moment, then used his commlink routing through the deck and the sat-link lashup to make the call. "Julius? Hunter. Hope I'm not disturbing?"
"No mate, I'm just chilling out and watching some trid. Wassup?"
"Is it safe to talk on the line?"
"As safe as anything is, I think. Why, what do you want to discuss?" Julius's tone of voice changed slightly, audible to the rest of the team as they listened in over the truck's speakers.
"What do you know about the 'Huntingdon Academy'? Some kind of Ares subsidiary for training and certification?"
"Holy drek. Alright, this might have just become less safe. Um. Let me call you back, in a bit. From a different number, alright. Give me twenty."
"Alright, mate. Speak soon…" Hunter disconnected the call and looked around, sharing raised eyebrows and curious looks with the others, then noted the time and settled back to wait. Twenty minutes crawled by as they closed on Tbilisi, then the sat-link registered an inbound call from an unknown number. Hunter grabbed it, routing it through his deck again and fired up his evasion utility to try and scramble the call details as much as he could, just in case it helped.
"It's me. Ok, I just picked up a new phone, just in case. Jeez… who or what are you involved with?"
"We don't know, that's why I'm calling to ask."
"Alright. Look, I don't know anything for certain ok, this is all… round the watercooler stuff. Chatting in bars when maybe someone has had just one drink too many. That kind of stuff. Nothing certain, but when you hear a lot of stuff from a lot of people over a long time – things start to fall into place, right? I mean, they don't hire idiots for analysis work do they, it's literally what they want us to do."
"Yeah. Nothing worse than a company that gets surprised when clever people they hired to work stuff out work out other stuff and get upset." A slight edge of bitterness shaped the edge of his speech, but then Hunter was quiet, letting Julius continue.
"Right. So, Huntingdon is – I think – a black ops training program cover. On the surface it's an elite school that teaches sub commanders and engineers, Navy graduates, fighter pilots, that kind of stuff – all the top end military trade schools. The Firelance teams cycle through there for certification in advanced weapons and tactics. So there's a lot of security from the military side of things, and a lot of transit and throughput. Top end systems. But the rumour mill says it's also the place where field operatives go to learn really clandestine drek, too. Poisons. Biowarfare. Asymmetrical engagements. Ninja crap. People go in for cyber implants using new cutting edge spy shit. All covered by the constant rotation of military personnel and goods and stuff like that."
"Ahh. I see."
"So yeah… you can't be involved in the legit side, as far as I can see. So if you're getting invites then you're involved with the seedy underbelly… and that ain't filling me with the warm fuzzies, my friend. Who the frak are you dealing with?"
"Bear with me a mo, Julius." Hunter placed the call on hold, the turned to face Kai. "I trust him. We're on a fresh connection – no sign of a trace or surveillance. How much can I tell him?"
"Um… you trust him right, a lot?"
"Yeah – Jules and I go way back. I trust him… with a gun to keep my back safe."
"Whatever you feel you need to, then. Just be careful, I guess?" Hunter nodded and resumed the call.
"Jules. I still don't think we should discuss this online. Maybe face to face in some dodgy bar sometime. But let's just say we've had some dealings with some fairly senior people in Ares in the recent past."
"How senior?"
"Peak? Yeah. Peak is a good word. It's hard to get much more senior." Hunter couldn't help but grin, letting a certain amount of humour slip into his voice. He wasn't sure if Jules would believe him if he said they'd done a deal with Damian Knight – CEO of one of the ten biggest megacorporations in the sixth world. Or if he'd just die of a heart attack right there and then. No doubt Jules was well aware of Damian's reputation in the world, but he also doubted he'd ever met the man in person, despite working for Ares for many years.
"When you met this…peak person. Where were you?"
"I'm not sure I should say… It would narrow things down a lot. Like probably far too much."
"It… nahhh, it can't be. Because if it was… naahhh. That'd be crazy."
Hunter waited a moment to see if Julian was going to give anything else away, but he went quiet, his mental cogs whirring away. Hunter felt that he'd perhaps provided some key piece of information or insight somehow that had unlocked a puzzle. One he certainly wasn't going to discuss over a dodgy phone line.
"Or maybe you should come over to see us some time. We've got a little place, out in the country. Nice and quiet. I could have a word with my boss, see if we can get you some plane tickets sorted or something." He glanced over to Kai and got a resigned nod from him. "Yeah, maybe you could do with a little holiday sometime. We'll see if we can sort something out. Be good to chat over a barbeque and some beers."
"Yeah, that'd be nice. But… be careful, mate. Alright? Some scary drek you're dealing with here. Big deep black hole…"
Hunter disconnected the call and turned back to the rest of the team, but before he could start talking, Marius' voice came from the speakers.
"Remember when we got home from our last big job. We found that a briefcase had been delivered to Nadia, while we were away? We took it out in the field to check over, but when we opened it there were books on Nuclear Engineering, and chips on High Energy Physics and various other disciplines. That sounds remarkably like the cover story for this academy. Do you think there was some kind of hidden code or program on the chips that we missed?"
"Maybe. I think you ought to call the number on the message to find out more. It sounds legit."
"Calling. Standby." The speakers gave some background whines and clicks, and the occasional brief electronic chirp – and seemed to take a while to connect.
"Good morning, Enquiries." The voice sounded slightly robotic, the tones just a little too even and consistent to be fully human.
"I have a message inviting me to an exam. I wish to clarify the details."
"Please enter the reference number on the invitation, and I will route you to the appropriate department."
As Marius sent the reference number over, the team heard the different pitches and tones of the characters forming a discordant musical riff, then were a few more seconds of silence before a new voice spoke, this one sounding a lot more human.
"Morning, exam team. How can I help."
"I have an invitation for an exam. I just wanted to check the legitimacy of the message, and what I needed to do."
"Ahhh, right. Remote exam. Well, just log into the address in the message, and enter your code. It will download the exam client to run on your system, which does include some anti-cheat systems. It'll then allow you to connect to the exam server to take the requisite tests."
"And this exam is for?"
"Well, certification for your studies, and to allow you to progress on to later stages of the course. And also…" the voice paused for a moment as if reading an additional note on their screen, "for entitlement to future software upgrades and developments as well, apparently."
"Ahh. I see. Very well. Thank you for the information." Marius disconnected and was silent for a moment. "It seems that I need to do some studying. I do not know for certain that they have remote access to my systems, but if they can disable my cyber-ware remotely, it would have…somewhat devastating effects."
"Yeah – action man no good without his karate chop attack" Hunter grinned, miming a very badly done strike in the cramped confines of the cab. "We'll get you checked out when we get back to the ranch. I've not see anything on the med-scans that would indicate a remote access capability," he said turning more serious, "but we'll double check. Even if they don't have remote access, locking out maintenance or bug fixes would be pretty gash, too."
"Hunter – I've been thinking about your friend Julius. I don't think you should bring him to the ranch."
"Why not, Aswon?"
"It might be dangerous. For him I mean. No doubt Ares will track him when he's on holiday. If his location intersects with ours, it provides a definite tie to us. Beyond whatever phone records they might already have. We've done a job for him already with that political hit that has a good chance of forming a tenuous link, but who knows. Maybe it's not certain yet. All I'm saying is that it might not be good for him or his career if he's identified as a leak in his department, or they question his loyalty."
"We can put a jammer on?"
"We can, and that would stop him broadcasting. But if he arrives in Batumi, and they check where the cab took him, or his device stops transmitting but only when he's within half a klick of the Ranch – well, it's pretty obvious where he's going, right. I don't want to stop you meeting your buddy… I'm just saying maybe a subtle meeting in the middle of Baku in a massively crowded area might be better, or some other city."
The truck trundled on, passing Tbilisi and stopping for a brief rest and stretch of the legs and to take on fuel and supplies. Tads offered to make some fruit, and some of the team took advantage – but it was also hard to resist the lure of freshly heated convenience food stuffed full of additives to make it smell irresistible and taste of heart-attacks and cholesterol.
Around half past seven the conversation in the cab was disturbed again when Kai's phone rang – though this time he relaxed immediately as he saw Ludmilla's number. He didn't punch the call up onto speaker, so they only heard his half of the conversation – but it was enough to piece the puzzle together. Ludmilla had some gear for them, and was happy to ship it to them rather than them fly up to her, and she was also finding out if they were available for work – and Kai had for once not just blindly said yes, but actually told her they were finishing up with a job at the moment and didn't know quite when they'd be free, but would let her know.
Onwards they rolled, cruising down the E60 still and heading towards the coast, closing in on the ranch. It would be late by the time they got back – but not too late. Enough time to get back and unload, and relax, and still get a full night's sleep. None of them were prepared for the sudden braking that made the front of the truck dip deeply down towards the road, brakes locking up as Marius tried to stop abruptly. All of them were thrown forward in the cab, folded around seat-belts and thrust into the dashboard as their bodies slid forward. With a hiss of air, the brakes relaxed, the truck settling back evenly on all six wheels as they came to a halt on the deserted road.
"Time to stop, Marius?" Hunter slid himself backwards on the vinyl seat, and the tugging at the seat-belt several times, trying to get the friction lock to release and give him some slack. "Or just testing the brakes for some reason?"
"Look at the road ahead." The team dutifully looked out of the front of the truck, gazing at the road that stretched out before them in the gathering dusk. They looked, and looked – but most of them couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then Aswon pointed at the area just ahead of them, finger angled down to a patch about ten metres ahead of the truck.
"That bit? Where the texture changes?"
"Ja. I do not know why. But it is most of the way across this half of the road, and I do not trust it."
They looked out of the side windows, checking the terrain in case it was an ambush of some kind, memories playing back to them of winding roads up in the mountains and bandits armed with RPGs. But this seemed like an odd place – the highway was straight, slightly elevated from the surrounding farmland, with a large river flowing down the left hand side, leading off into some irrigation channels for the farmland. Both sides of the road were pretty flat and mostly devoid of cover, not a great place for ambushers to try and hide – and it wasn't like they were going to catch traffic moving around a tight turn after a harsh climb, where they would be easily intercepted. Most of the traffic here would be doing over a hundred kilometres per hour, and it was doubtful that most drivers would be able to react in time to a situation, let alone be caught in the ambush – if that's what it was.
A cool breeze entered the truck as Aswon opened his door and dropped down lightly to the road, spear in hand and moved forward cautiously, his senses on alert and his head checking from side to side. Approaching the patch, he could see much more clearly now, a large area of tarmac that looked almost like it had been burnt by something, the black material crumbling and rough rather than the normal smooth surface. He poked a piece with his spear, and jumped back in surprise as a hole opened up where he'd impacted, the road falling away downwards and landing with a splash a moment later.
"Good work, Marius! I'm not sure what's going on, but this road surface is frakked – falling down into some kind of pool or underground water? Not sure." A moment later the ethereal form of Tads manifested next to him, then slowly floated down through the hole into the apparent void underneath. She appeared again a few moments later to the left of the road, turning slowly as she took in the scene before her.
"The river broke its bank, I think, and it's washed away at the dirt and stuff underneath. I can see it swirling – I don't know if its hitting something big that's deflecting the water, but it's like a little whirlpool down there and it's chewing away at the soil."
"Anything you can do to fix it?"
"Probably. Be right back…" She flitted back to her body, then climbed down from the truck, moving cautiously to the side of the road and checking things out physically. "Hunter! If I put the soil back under here, and compact it together, will it break the road badly? Or am I better building a mound to close the road off entirely? Otherwise the next vehicle that comes down here is just going to end up falling down into this hole and killing themselves!"
"The surface needs re-doing, that's certain. But if you can fill in the hole, they'll have an easier time of it. Until then it'll sound awful when someone drives over it, and it might make people panic or lose control – but that's better than the alternative!"
Tads nodded, and then moved halfway down the small bank, making sure she could see clearly where the sinkhole was gradually enlarging under the constant pressure from the river currents. She gathered mana to her and started to move things around, flowing the earth and rock up from the river back under the road surface and compacting it back into the hole, trying not to buckle the tarmac as much as she could, but also trying to get as much support as she could for it. The soil was rammed in, compacted by the magical energies and then tamped down until it had an almost rock-like consistency, before more magical power scooped out at the river bed, moving the unseen obstacle that had diverted the river flow enough to gouge away at the soil. She didn't see what it was, but after a bit of mental shoving and re-arrangement she could see the effects as the water stopped swirling and nibbling away at the bank, instead being redirected back along the path of the main water course.
They checked the road surface, giving it a few test pokes, then some stamping and jumping up and down, confirming it was solid and reliable, even if it wasn't pretty, before mounting back up in the truck and driving on – even then Marius opted to drive along the centre of the road, avoiding the damaged patch as much as possible. The delay ended up costing them a few minutes of time, but it still was only about eleven in the evening when they made it back to the ranch, driving around the back of the building to park up in the large lean-to shed that they used as a garage.
They were greeted by Nadia and some of the family, who helped them bring their gear into the house and got some food and drinks ready. Marius took Nadia to one side and passed over the photos he'd taken, along with some postcards, memorabilia from the various tourist shops in Batumi, a few new items of clothing that he'd found and then several pieces of jewellery that he'd found in a boutique goldsmiths set back from the town centre a little. Nadia's face lit up with a huge smile, and she almost dragged Marius upstairs to their room.
"Guess we won't be seeing him for the rest of the night." Kai grinned as the pilot disappeared up the stairs, and he and Hunter shared knowing winks. "As long as they don't have to worry about little Marius. Or the other little Marius, if you know what I mean."
"The baby slept well last night. His tooth has finally come through properly." Rusudan missed the double entendre, and took the comment at face value, which only made Hunter snigger and grin more.
"So, are you going to take whatever the job is from Ludmilla?" Aswon asked, settling down at the table and grabbing a large glass of iced water from the pitcher in the middle.
"If it's really lucrative – maybe. But first I want to work out what we're doing with Germaine. I want to let her know about the painting – subtly, of course."
"We've discussed this plenty, and I think we're all in the same place. As long as it's made clear that we can't be involved in going to do the retrieval, then I'm fine with that."
"I would agree also. Keeping Germaine happy will help us in the long run, and she's a good person to know, I think. But not angering Kulkachev is also important, and so is not betraying him. At least not directly." Tads still looked like she had some reservations and issues, but was clearly trying to work through them, and they weren't an absolute deal breaker for her. Kai turned to check with Shimazu, but before he could say anything, his commlink lit up.
"It's Sato." He hit the accept button and moved his hand so others could see the screen as well. "Hi Sato. I'm with the team, but we're at base, just relaxing."
"Hi Shimazu. And everyone else, too. Right… I've got some news. I've been nosing about, making some calls, doing some digging, talking with some friends. And I think I've found something – though I have to warn you I'm still making enquiries and it's not complete yet, not by a long shot."
"Ok, noted. What have you found?"
"Someone has been digging around, looking for you – for your team, it seems. I've had conversations with several people who all report that they've been spoken to about a bunch of people. Mongol guy, tall black chap, Chinese bodybuilder, Aryan dude, slim woman, ugly as sin ork… sound like anyone you know? But whoever it is has been spreading a bit of Nuyen around for information. Names, dates, places. Information on vehicles and weapons. Known skills and abilities. Always from a dude, mostly orks. Sounds like a private detective with how they've been doing it – lots of questions, listens carefully to the answers. But every person I've spoken to has given me a different description for who this person was."
"That's…concerning. Means we're dealing with someone who knows what they're doing."
"Yeah – professional. Maybe a spook. Maybe on behalf of a big client who can afford the bills. A lot of the people I've spoken to that have been grilled haven't met you. A couple have heard of you second or third hand, or maybe a bit by reputation or story. Some of them, it seems, from the fight up in Russia, where you had the guy's balls exploded. That's still doing the rounds on the underground fight scene, you know – seems it's a bit of a fan favourite. But someone is definitely out there looking for you, digging into your business."
"Crap. Ok, thanks for the heads up, Sato. I guess we'll have to get our ears to the ground as well. Maybe Hunter can do some searches on the matrix."
"I'm not done digging yet, I'm gonna keep checking this out. But when I find something new, I'll let you know."
"Thanks Sato – appreciate it. We all do." Shimazu saw the commlink screen go dark as Sato ended the call, but continued to stare at the screen for a few moments as he thought through the implications of what they'd been told. "Well… that really doesn't sound good at all."
"A different person every time asking the questions? That makes me think more and more that this is an illusion. Some mage is using a spell to conceal their identity, using a new persona to find out about us. That might even be a mistake now… the fact that so many different people all seem interested in us…if we find someone asking about us that's never been met before by anyone, chances are it's the right person!"
"I hadn't thought of it like that – but you're right. That could be a pattern that would help us."
"And we know that there's a good chance that the person who lured Shimazu off, using the woman, at the market – that they're likely using an illusion, too. It all fits together."
"It does – but just remember that it's only one possible fit. It might not be the truth." Kai warned them. "I agree, it does fit, and I'm inclined to believe it's likely what happened. But we should be cautious about becoming convinced that it's the only solution. Don't you think, Aswon?" Kai waited a moment, then turned when he didn't get an answer, only to spot the empty chair. A quick look over and he saw Aswon sitting over on the settee at the far end of the living room, watching the large trid display on the wall. "Watcha doing, Aswon?"
"Hmm? Oh just catching up on the news. There's a couple of probes still on course for the comet it seems – the Ares probe is the closest at the moment, with Novatech and Yamatetsu a little way behind them."
"What about the others."
"All the other probes seem to be out of the running. There's a little info bar here, detailing how many strange explosions, software failures and other weird mishaps have all happened in the last six months. But yeah – there's been a lot of work going on. We know what happened to one probe – and I'm guessing it's something similar elsewhere as well."
"Keeps us in beer and ammo, though."
"That it does. There's also been a lot of rumbling from the New Islamic Jihad as well, some agitation for a new jihad. Lots of angry people, all blaming either the west, mega-corps, dragons or all of the above for the conditions they're experiencing it seems. Lots of anger."
"More work for us if it does kick off?"
"Not so sure. Lots of merc work, for sure. I mean, you're seen Lionheart still policing Constantinople, along with MET2000, right? And the Eurowars have been over for decades now. The Alliance for Allah only were involved in the second war, but they managed to roll up through Greece and the Balkans, got as far as Vienna before they were stopped. The southern flank pushed up through the Iberian peninsula and got a chunk of Spain and Portugal involved, before they ran into significant resistance. We could potentially make a lot of money moving things around through a war, but there's a lot of people shooting, and we'd be making money off of other people's misery. Just bear that in mind…"
"Well, the news is full of joy this evening, then."
"I don't know if it will come to that. This Ibn Eisa chap is the spokesman for the New Islamic Jihad that he's trying to organise, but he doesn't seem to have enough support yet. Lots of sabre rattling, at least at the moment. Unlike someone over in the China Sea region who's gotta be spitting nails right now."
"Why?" Kai pushed himself up from the table and wandered over, trying to get a better view of the trid so he could see whatever Aswon was watching.
"Some big drug bust. Authorities in the Philippines had some kind of tip-off or intelligence, at least that's what the news reporter is hinting at. Raided a cargo ship, did a search and found over five hundred kilos of opium, all nicely bagged up and wrapped in cling-film."
"Five hundred? Whew… that's gonna hurt. Someone's lost a chunk of cash there!"
"Probably about two and a half million or so, at cost. Based on what we purchased at, anyway." Hunter added. "I mean, you're probably going to get a bulk discount at that kind of volume. But then you have to add transport costs, bribes, that kind of thing. So we're not talking chump change. But that means there's a lot of people going to be going without their fix soon…"
The team moved over from the table and found seats around the trid, soon getting caught up in the broadcast and discussing what was going on around the world, and trying to work out how much of it was true, how much was corp propaganda and how much was just outright lies…
One by one, the team headed bedwards, settling down for the night, and waiting to see what the new day would bring.
It turned out, that what the new day was going to bring was another day of glorious sunshine – clear skies saw the temperature rocket, and the pleasant morning turned into a scorching midday. There were a number of guests in the ranch, each of the cabins having a family or group staying, and that kept the family busy tending to their needs. The team stayed out of the way, or helped out a little where it was obvious what to do, but otherwise stayed clear of the tourists.
Around lunchtime a battered-looking van rolled down the front road, sitting low on the shock absorbers and delivered a number of large packages, all addressed to Kai. The team unloaded and moved them around the back to the garages, and after repositioning the truck to screen what they were doing, opened them up to check the contents.
First out were three large machine guns – Russian PKP Pecheng series fully automatic weapons, each with a one-hundred round box magazine provided with anti-vehicle armour piercing rounds. The black tipped bullets were surprisingly heavy, no doubt due to the dense armour penetrating sabots that lay at their core. The weapons had integrated bipods that looked to be made of fairly cheap pressed steel, and while they looked to be part of the original design, they would clearly not be sufficient to hold the weapon securely when firing rapidly. They did look to have a mounting point on the front of the receiver though, allowing them to be mated up with a conversion kit or mounting system, so they could be attached to a vehicle pintle or heavy door mount.
"Guess these are our replacements from Ludmilla. Not as big as the ones on the old tilt-wing though." Hunter hefted one of the guns in one hand, his biceps flexing, but not struggling. "About twelve, fifteen kilos maybe. Something around there. But they look like a standard Russian design, so that's good."
"Why?" Tads asked, not understanding the reference.
"The Russians have a history, or reputation for making simple weapons that are very reliable. Not high-tech. Not super performance. But you can get this gun and throw it in the bath for half an hour, then roll it in the mud, and probably kick it around the back yard. Shake it to get the drek out of the mechanism, slap a magazine in and it's probably still work. Unlike some other designers, they knew they were making guns to put in the hands of conscripts and idiots, so they made them simple and functional. Not pretty, not smart – but they worked."
"Oh, right… that does seem sensible."
They opened up the next package, and as soon as Hunter saw inside, he moved back out of the way.
"This one's yours, Aswon. Got to be." Aswon moved in and then grinned, reaching in to pull out the SVD-P rifle that lay nestled inside the packing material. It wasn't a pretty gun, or sleek. It also didn't look high-tech, or feature super-advanced polymers or exotic materials. But the one point two metre long gun was based on a tried and combat-tested, battle-refined design that could put down accurate fire in all conditions.
"Ten round magazines, look to have the same calibre as the machine guns." Aswon checked over one of the boxy magazines, confirming the capacity with a practiced eye. "Has a nice-looking scope on it too, very rugged. Not unexpected with a Russian design. Oh – and look. A whole box of ammo, too!" He opened the case of ammo and quickly checked the contents and quantity. "Looks like about fifty rounds of armour-piercing. Ok, this is nice – sits in a sweet spot between the Purdey and the twenty mill. Good for taking on people at long range and providing cover fire."
They moved on to the next package, opening it to reveal a slender composite scabbard, containing a one-metre-long sword. The tip of the sword was formed with a single sharply angled detail, and the blade was single-edged. No fuller ran down the blade, and it had a very simple handle.
"Monomolekulyarnyy razrushitel," read Hunter as he checked the packaging. "Monomolecular Destroyer? Hmm, think they're going a bit over the top here… but I'm guessing this is the equivalent to the Ares Monosword. Doesn't look as stylish and probably lower-tech… but it does have a certain brutality about it." He grinned and grabbed the scabbard, sliding the sword back in and checking how he could attach it to his kit securely.
The final box contained a large and heavy riot shield, detailed as a "Zashchitnik kreposti" or "Fortress Defender" according to the label. It was wide enough that even Shimazu or Hunter's imposing bulk would be well defended by it, and had a very thick and heavy duty viewing panel made out of some kind of transparent material located to allow the wielder to see what was going on, on the other side. Strangely enough it also had a section at the bottom that was hinged, held up with a pair of toggles. When they were released, a large flap could fold down, covering the shins and feet of the wielder, providing even more protection.
"Guess that's for me, then." Shimazu said, grabbing the shield and hefting it by the handles, practicing moving around with it and watching the team through the small eye slit. It was bulky and would take a little getting used to, but it promised to give extremely good protection if Shimazu ever needed to breach through a doorway or advance down a tunnel or other confined space.
Once they'd stowed away their new goodies and Kai had sent a message to Ludmilla to confirm delivery, they headed back into the house. Hunter fired up his deck, and much to the surprise of Kai, grabbed a credstick and made a pizza delivery order – for a branch located in Copenhagen.
"What are you doing?"
"Actually Marius's idea. Genius if you ask me… I'm sending Jules a pizza. Putting some special instructions on the order though – getting them to write a number on the inside of the box lid. It's the encryption code for the new comms line. I mean, if Ares want to crack it, they probably still can – but they're going to have to work at it, and spend a chunk of resources on it! But it means we can at least start with a secure line."
"You filthy monster." Kai looked down at Hunter, his mouth twisting in disgust.
"What?"
"Anchovies AND pineapple? On the same pizza? What kind of man are you?"
That, of course, started a whole new argument amongst the team on the merits of different toppings, and which ones constituted war crimes against metahumanity, and which were truly sublime. Unsurprisingly given their varied cultures and experiences, it turned out they had very different tastes and finding a consensus was remarkably tough, with the argument going on for some considerable time…