Date 13/01/2060, Location 39.88207, 54.24499

Hunter jogged forwards through the darkness, picking out the boulders and soft sand as best he could by the faint starlight, his breath misting in the cold night air. He moved quietly, despite his size and the amount of gear he carried, having packed and stowed his equipment carefully to avoid rattles and clinking.

He never really knew what alerted him, but he was halfway through a controlled fall to the ground before his conscious mind picked up that there was something wrong ahead. His eyes processed the dark shape ahead of him – "APC" – just as he fell to the floor and pressed himself into the cold sand of the desert, holding his breath and praying that the motion had not attracted attention.

Luck was with him through – the Dekita troops standing in the back of the APC's open rear compartment were looking through their thermal viewing sights, and had a narrow field of view. He eased back down the shallow rise he'd been climbing, putting solid ground between him and the troops, and then keyed his microphone – sending dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot.

In the truck, Aswon and Marius had been plotting a circle on the map, showing the maximum range for the radio transmitter for the explosives. They then marked a smaller circle, giving them a buffer area where they hoped communications would be guaranteed, so they had a last place they could trigger the last explosions. Suddenly the speakers activated, delivering the SOS message as a series of tones, interrupting all conversation. The rest of the team exchanged glances and looks of concern. Marius keyed up in response after a few seconds.

"If that's you, say your last again."

They listened, and the SOS was repeated again after a few seconds, but with no further explanation.

Then the speakers activated again, playing back the intercepted and decrypted communications.

"This is unit 15, we have a point electronic source near map point 39.88 by 54.24, no visual on source, no DF, we are investigating further, unit 15 out."

Marius reduced power and let the truck drift to a halt, and powered down his sensors and radio to minimum settings, checking to see if any other electronic equipment was transmitting that might betray them.

A different voice sounded over the radio, a quiet and calm voice that spoke with some authority

"SCADA shows a fire on pipeline Bravo-2. Roll the fire units and response force. Weapons free, ROE-Alpha. All units go hot. Sit-reps on five."

Aswon winced, and turned to the rest of the team in the truck.

"That's bad news, friends… they definitely think they're under attack as a deliberate act. Very similar to the protocol we used when I was contracting. The weapons free bit isn't too much of a worry, they were probably always happy to open fire on units. But the change in Rules of Engagement means they are probably going to kill anything that looks even remotely suspicious, then ask if there are any questions. Going hot normally means loading your armour-piercing ammo – so we can't count on body armour being as effective. And they probably want status reports every five minutes from a unit, so if we take someone out, we've got a very limited window to clear the area before they notice they're down."

Shimazu nodded in agreement.

"Yes, when I was body-guarding and we got a call like this, our protocol was to go all out, and ensure the safety of our charges. We would let nothing stand in our way, and would attack anything that looked like it was interfering in our mission or escape plan."

Kai and Tadibya nodded in understanding, and looked at the map. If they were guessing right, Hunter was no more than a few hundreds of metres from them, just over a small ridgeline. Tadibya let her body collapse, and headed over astrally, looking for Hunter – but after thirty seconds or so of searching, she could not see him at all, and returned to her body, reporting the negative contact. It was obvious that Hunter had gone to ground and hidden himself thoroughly.

Marius was pre-flighting his EIS-200 drone, inflating the balloon and checking the drone was fully charged. The size of a dustbin lid, and about ten centimetres thick, the drone had a number of sensor systems deployed across the bottom face, and the outer edge was ringed with small variable pitch electric fans. The balloon gave it lift, and the motors could actually move it at a fair turn of speed – but the main advantage was that the drone was incredibly stealthy.

"Going to do some recon?" asked Kai.

"Nein. Rescue mission. Will fly over, Hunter grabs drone. Fly back. As long as he doesn't break it."

"You think that thing can carry him?" Kai asked sceptically.

"According to rated capacity – no. Probably over design weight by nearly 70%. Almost certainly going to break parts, and shorten lifespan on others. But it won't be for long, and I'm pretty certain they won't see the drone. They might see him though. Not a lot I can do with that though."

Tadibya heard the conversation and rapidly summoned a new spirit, asking it to accompany the drone and aid it in its task. Marius nodded curtly to her in thanks as she explained, and then slumped back into his five point harness as he jacked into the drone. He lofted into the air, feeling the wind rushing past him as his lungs inflated and lifted him into the air, and his rotors gently propelled him upwards into the night, with just a quiet electric whirring. He flew around the APC, sticking close to the escarpment and making sure he didn't crest the top and silhouette himself, and when he reached the location that he thought Hunter was in, he lowered the drone and slowed himself, casting back and forth and trying to spot him.

Hunter saw the drone descend and crawled over to it, then waved in front of the sensors. The drone wobbled as he watched it, then bobbed up and down a few times, until he got the message. Hunter leaned in close and pitched his voice low.

"Are you serious? You want me to what – climb on this?" The drone wobbled from side to side. "No. Oh, you want me to tie on to this?" The drone nodded up and down. "Are you out of your mind?" It shook from side to side again.

Hunter grumbled, but pulled out a couple of slings and carabiners from his climbing kit and looped them over the drone's body, trying to keep clear of anything that looked fragile or that might need to move, and clipped them together underneath the drone. Carefully crawling under, he clipped on to the carabiner from his harness, and spread his arms and legs wide, hoping to use them to balance and avoid spinning.

"Ok, I'm ready – or as ready as I'm going to get."

Marius ramped up the throttles, climbing to 100% smoothly. The drone swayed slightly and pulled taut, applying pressure on the harness and taking some of the weight of the burly ork slung beneath it. Marius entered the over-ride code, accepting the warnings in the control software and ramped the power up further. Jacked into the drone as he was, he felt rather saw messages, feeling his heart rate accelerate as he "ran" harder. The feeling of the great weight suspended from him manifested itself as a feeling of someone grabbing his earlobes and hanging from them with their full weight. He gritted his teeth through the pain and flexed, and slowly the drone lifted from the ground, motors making a high pitched whine as they ran at 135% of their rated "max" speed, and the battery pack draining at a worrying rate. Once he got a couple of metres from the ground though, the pain eased slightly as the weight decreased – the spirit had moved underneath Hunter and had used its power to aid his movement through the air.

As he continued to claw for altitude though, Marius became aware of a nagging pain down his left side, a dull ache that didn't ease. Something had clearly been over-stressed on the drone, and was not happy. He put the ache to the back of his mind and focussed on trying to stay close to the escarpment, and with cover between him and the APC below. Hunter swung on the end of the short ropes, grimacing at the high pitched noise just over his head and the faint smell of overheated components being given off by the drone. His attention was pulled away though, when a string of bullets sliced through the air past him, no more than a metre away. Completely unable to dodge or turn under his own power, all he could do was bring his rifle up and try to sight at his attacker. The random movement of the drone and the ropes made this almost impossible, and he held fire – not wanting to confirm his position.

The drone drifted behind cover again, rose a few more feet, but then once more became visible to the APC as it reached the top of the escarpment. Alerted by the single trooper that had spotted "something", the machine gunner on the top hatch had swung his weapon onto the right bearing and was waiting. He didn't so much see the drone, across the intervening distance, more he saw the occlusion as a number of stars disappeared behind the lifting bag. Depressing the spades on either side of the gun, a long string of fire arced up into the air, tracers burning a path of fiery light to mark their passage. Marius dodged as best he could, but the terrain was the crucial factor – as he cleared the ridge, a strong gust of wind blew him sideways, causing the rounds to sail harmlessly past. With a mental flick, the motors blew the drone over the ridge, and out of line of sight once more, picking up speed along the ridgeline as the spirit assisted.

Back in the truck they heard the sound of gunfire over the speakers a moment before the sound was heard outside as it was relayed from Hunter's pickup. Tadibya quietly slipped from her body, and shot over there as fast as she could. She took no more than a second to assess the situation and put her plan into action.

Back in the truck, the rest of the team flinched as a massive burst of gunfire ripped the quiet night apart. Multiple guns, all firing multiple rounds – lighter barks from assault rifles and a deeper chatter-chatter-chatter noise from the vehicle mounted machine gun. Aswon was halfway out of the door with his rifle, convinced the APC was about to crest the ridge and engage them in battle, before Tadibya stirred in her body and shouted for them to wait. With a big grin, she announced that it was probably her fault, as she'd just manifested in front of the gun and shouted at him, and he appeared to be somewhat highly strung.

Seconds later, they spotted Hunter, dangling below the drone as it crested the escarpment again, rapidly dropping height to get into cover. It bottomed out just above the truck and Hunter swiftly uncoupled, dropping to the roof and looking pleased to be back in contact with the ground and able to move under his own steam. It took Marius two attempts to dock the drone into the rack on the top of the vehicle, the manoeuvring thrusters clearly misfiring and not working as they should. As soon as it was docked though, and starting to deflate, he jumped out of the drone and back into the truck's systems, starting it up and pulling a sharp turn and heading south east.

Aswon pulled out the radio detonator stick and with a nod from Kai sent the activation code. A moment later they were rewarded with a loud explosion from the north, and a brilliant fireball arcing into the sky, the roiling clouds of red and yellow fire lighting up the sky over the installation. Rather than dissipating though, the fireball continued to roll through the air, obviously being fed by a high pressure source of fuel from below. Marius put his foot down, easing the truck up to its maximum speed and sending it bouncing across the rough desert terrain. Even with the off-road suspension and the metre-high tyres, the vehicle movement was extreme, and everyone grabbed hold of seats and stanchions, or strapped themselves in.

They drove for perhaps a minute in silence, cutting through the darkness until a strange look of concentration washed over Kai's face. He turned towards the speakers, thinking, "It's awfully quiet… when did we last get an intercepted message?" The speakers suddenly boomed into life – but the voice was that of Marius.

"Alarm! Chopper, bearing 273 degrees, range 1200, altitude 150, closing on us. Closing fast. Faster than we can go."

Hunter and Aswon pulled the roof hatch open, and stood up to get a good view to the rear, being thrown repeatedly into the lip of the opening as the truck hammered across the uneven ground. They could see the anti-collision lights on the chopper flashing behind them, and caught the occasional glimpse of the body as the starlight caught it at just the right angle. The others crammed into the side seats, watching through the side mirrors, for what good it did them.

"Sensor readings indicate this is almost certainly a Dekita craft. It is very likely to be at least as heavily armoured as us, and will carry auto-fire weapons on the nose turret, and may well also carry rockets or missiles in addition. It probably will be at least twice our speed and can carry a squad of troops, as well as having plenty of range as well. The only thing we have going for us is that it's not that stealthy, or agile." Marius relayed over the speakers, then returned to concentrating on the driving. With no integrated weapons, he was only able to act defensively. The best he could do was to drive erratically to throw off their aim, and be ready to dodge if he saw incoming fire.

Kai hastily reassembled the phone, sliding the carrier card into the body and examining the display. It seemed to take ages to start up, but then immediately told him there was no signal. Nothing. The pursuing chopper was obviously sporting a decent jammer, and had shut down their comms in the area.

Aswon looked at his Purdey rifle, and Hunter at his Alpha combat gun, and shared a look. With regular ammunition, they were pretty much guaranteed not to do any damage to a target as heavily armoured as the chopper. Maybe if they could strike a vital component, something not so heavily armoured – maybe then. But the odds of hitting a tiny target like that was pretty slim in a truck bouncing across the desert pushing a hundred kilometres per hour. Tadibya suddenly squirmed her way up into the opening, and spent a few seconds wedging herself in place. At least with the three of them, they didn't bounce around as much. She focussed behind her, then waved her hands theatrically – and nothing seemed to happen.

"It's one way – you can see in, they can't see out. They're just looking at darkness." she shouted at them, fighting to be heard over the slipstream. Aswon and Hunter just stared at her for a moment, and at first she thought they hadn't understood her. Then she realised it was because they were watching the blood seeping down her nose and across her lips, and starting to trickle down each of her earlobes forming a spray around her neck as the wind caught the droplets. Maybe she'd thrown a bit too much power into that last spell…

The chopper was obviously affected, and started to slew violently across their course, pulling up slightly and weaving like a snake. The pilot presumably could see nothing, and had to assume they had some heavy weapons on board and were lining up to take a shot, and was making the best of it that he could, and trying to avoid planting his craft into the ground at high speed.

Tadibya used her sleeves to wipe away the blood, then paused mid-motion, staring at the chopper. In astral space, she could clearly see the twelve metre diameter sphere of magic she had cast, centred on the chopper. Though not visible from the outside, she knew that the inside of the sphere was a myriad of flashing lights, streamers of sparks and glows in all colours, whistling and booming noises and a horde of bizarre shapes flying out of nowhere towards the front of the cockpit as if in a head-on collision. But she could also see the magical energies being syphoned away as someone fought to dispel her illusion, seeking to shatter it. She studied it for a few seconds, and saw it decrease in effectiveness, easily losing half of its potency.

"They have a mage on board!" she yelled at them. "He's destroying my spell – it's not going to last long. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast!" With that she dropped back into her seat, strapped back in and asked her wind spirit to help them flee – using up the last service she had bargained for during its summoning. The spirit extended its powers over the truck, and the vehicle leapt ahead, suddenly accelerating wildly. Marius slewed and fishtailed slightly, but his recent practice on the journey back to the temple had given him lots of practice in this, and he quickly steadied. The truck accelerated up to nearly a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour, and the chopper stopped closing the distance.

Hunter ducked quickly and grabbed one of the LAW rockets they had picked up from the strange warehouse in Tashkent. He rapidly extended the tube and flipped up the primitive ladder sight, and drew a bead on the chopper, trying hard to keep it steady. He waited a few seconds, for the truck to catch some air as it hit a slightly larger dune, and then when the motion was steadiest, he gently squeezed the trigger – just as the spell failed completely. The chopper pilot had a split second to react – but it became clear that a split second was all he needed. Obviously he was also a rigger, like Marius – directly connected to his vehicle and able to perform astounding feats of control. In the time it took for the warhead to leave the tube and cross the six hundred metres, he'd managed to dip the nose of the chopper, just a few degrees.

Hunter had been aiming for the rotor shaft at the top of the craft, trying to hit the precision bearings with a shockwave that would transmit through the gears and engine assembly. Instead, the warhead was intercepted by the spinning blades of the heavy duty troop carrier. Rotating at over four hundred RPM, the heavy duty composite blades sliced into the warhead before it could be fused properly. The resulting explosion shrouded the aircraft in debris, but the areas struck were armoured against impacts like this, and the helicopter emerged from the explosion unscathed.

The pilot was understandably not taking this treatment kindly, and raised the nose, and a moment later a missile of his own erupted from the starboard under-wing pylon. The missile was a standard issue Block III design, popular the world over. It leapt from the launcher on a plume of fire, accelerating fast as it raced across the distance between the chopper and the truck. Marius equally had only moments to react, but slewed the truck hard to the left, and the missile zipped past, missing by mere metres before impacting the desert ground ahead of them and exploding violently, sending rocks and sand flying from the impact crater.

Tadibya, already suffering from the drain on her body from throwing the trid-phantasm spell, tried to clear her mind and reached out with her hands to touch the side of the truck. She wove her invisibility spell around it, trying to hide it further against the view of those shooting at it. The spell worked, but given her condition, was not as strong or convincing as she'd hoped. Still, every little bit helped, and it might make the difference between their attacker getting a snap-shot and a solid lock on them – and that could be the difference between life and death at this point.

Marius dodged another Block –III missile, swinging even further to the left, before he straightened course again. His angry snarls could be heard over the speakers.

"They are shooting at us! Those missiles will cut though our armour like its paper. Somebody do something – they only have to get lucky once and it's all I can do to…"

His voice cut off mid-sentence, and the team stared - some at his unconscious body, some at the speakers on the cab wall.

"New target, almost dead ahead. Fast moving, under stealth. No idea what it is?"

Tadibya peered ahead and saw something magical, in the distance. A spell of some kind. As she struggled to focus and pay attention through the pounding headache, she recognised the distinctive "flavour" of another invisibility spell. She was about to speak, when instead she let out a startled yelp as a watcher spirit pancaked into the ward over the vehicle, slamming into it and splaying over the passenger side screen. It crawled over the side of the vehicle, appearing badly wounded from the high speed impact with the magical barrier, and rapped furiously on the side window. This seemed bizarre enough that curiosity got the better of her, and she flipped the window hatch open for a second.

The break in the continuous boundary of the truck created an opening in the ward, and the watcher spirit oozed into the cab. It was moderately powerful for a watcher, which were simple creatures at the best of times. This one manifested in front of her, causing more yelps of alarm from the team and several weapons to be pointed at it.

"What did you ask the colour of?" it demanded, in a vaguely Nordic accent.

"Eyes," Kai said, examining the spirit carefully.

"Oh good, I'm in the right place then. My boss says stop shooting, and head east, as fast as you can. Be ready to hide, and look small and inoffensive!" With that, the spirit popped out of existence, its message delivered.

The magically-shrouded target ahead closed, and Tadibya pointed at it, trying to describe what she saw. It streaked past them on the left, and was gone from her view – but whatever it was, it didn't attack them.

"Definite contact, airborne, fast moving. Ten seconds!" came Marius' voice, sounding stressed. Trying to split his attention between contacts front and rear meant that he was likely to miss another launch, but whether he got shot from the front or the rear, they were going to be equally dead.

The forward contact grew at a frightening rate, and then flew over them. In the split second they had before it swept through their field of view, they saw the lean, vicious and predatory shape of an attack chopper travelling at full speed – easily three hundred and fifty kilometres per hour. As it passed overhead, they saw the red and white flash of the Espirit logo, then it was gone. The attack chopper lit up its weapons systems, targeting the slower-moving and larger Dekita craft still pursuing them, and a nose-mounted laser ripped out rapid fire shots that scored and burnt the outer layer of the troop carrier. The armour held however, resisting the Megawatt range pulses of energy. It distracted the pilot however, who swung sideways, trying to clear the line of fire. The attack chopper followed up by launching a pod of rockets, the 40mm fin-stabilised tungsten rounds slamming into the side of the troop doors like the hammer of a Norse god. The pod held dozens of rounds, and most of them hit, and the Dekita bird broke apart under the withering fire, exploding violently and crashing to the ground in a tangled mess of burning and twisted metal.

Marius detected more choppers to his rear, the second wave of birds from Dekita, and saw the Espirit chopper moving to engage them, a furious dogfight breaking out behind them. He kept the throttle jammed to the stops though, and left that behind – knowing they had no weaponry or ability to make a difference, and not sure that the Espirit chopper would see them as friend or foe. Instead he raced across the desert, trying to put space between them, and wondered just what was going on. Not that it mattered – the only thing that really mattered was that nobody was shooting at them anymore.

An hour of driving saw them get back to the ridge east of Kum Dag, and they threaded their way through the canyons and gorges, back to where they had left the trailer. Shutting down their systems, they listened and checked – but they had apparently evaded any pursuit, and could rest a while. Slowly the team unwound, several of them finding they needed to wring out clothes coated in sweat as the stress of combat bled out. Tadibya got a damp cloth and slowly scrubbed at the dried blood around her nose and ears, and gratefully swallowed a handful of painkillers offered to her.

It looked like their mission was a success, and they were away from the area – though they still didn't know what had caused the Espirit chopper to arrive. Their best guess was that it was something to do with Hans – but that could wait until they debriefed – and more importantly, got paid.