Date Saturday 17/04/2060, Location 50.10234, 43.23581

By the time they were back at the pod, their attention had drifted away from the strange newcomers and back towards the vicious Russians they'd run into. Aswon tapped Kai on the shoulder, ensuring he had his full attention.

"I am concerned over our take-off. When we rise up from the quarry, we will be vulnerable – we will have no sight until we clear the walls, and if someone is waiting with a missile or designator, we will have little warning of incoming fire, and little chance to dodge. And from what I saw of their craft, such an attack is not beyond them."

"I don't think we have too much to worry about, the speed they seemed to leave at, and how long we've been here still – I just can't see them lying in wait that long, hoping we're going to be the next ones out."

"Are you prepared to bet – bet your life, and the life of everyone else on that, Kai?"

"No, actually I think he's right," Shimazu interjected, "I think the captain of that ship ruled through fear and brutality – and we humiliated him and caused him to lose a lot of face. He won't want to take us on unless he's got the deck stacked and can guarantee success. I think they headed off to easier pickings and have decided to attack some target that they can crush with overwhelming success, to show that he is a good leader. Or actually someone who can crack a nut with a sledgehammer, I think the phrase is – but can lead his men to an easy victory."

Aswon listened as Shimazu explained, and could certainly see the logic behind his words. He snorted and shrugged his shoulders – he'd raised his concern to the boss, and made him aware of the issue. He'd done his part, and it was up to others now.

Instead he pulled out the list of remaining tasks, and went through them with the rest of the group: Picking up the four by four, the winter clothing and supplies, getting some plants and greenery to go in the back of the chopper and finally but most importantly collect the temperature-controlled box from whatever fabricators was making it. They worked out a rough order to do this in, and then Aswon trotted out to the front entrance with a phone to make the arrangements to collect over the next day.

Hunter meanwhile padded down toward pod one, stopping short of the stripe line and calling out for permission to enter. At a shout from Noodles he crossed into the pod itself and headed over to their aircraft, where he found all three of them relaxing in chairs, sipping drinks with a plate of nibbles by their side. Striped toasted him with a glass and a beaming smile, and told him to pull up a chair and grab something to eat. Noodles meanwhile was looking him up and down carefully, before pushing herself up from her reclining position and reaching for a container.

"HMM… I SEE YOU AS A BEER DRINKER PERSONALLY. IS BEER OK FOR YOU?" Hunter nodded his agreement, pulling the chair around to put himself on the other side to Stripes, away from where Noodles was sitting. He'd only experienced her volume once, but he'd listened to Tads carefully…

Noodles handed him a glass of clear brown alcohol with a small head on top, and Hunter tested it carefully, then smacked his lips in appreciation and gave a sigh of pleasure. A nice light ale, not too hoppy, smooth and served at the perfect temperature. He toasted Noodles with the glass and took another deep gulp of beer, trying not to end up with froth on his lips. Settling down on his stool, he turned to face Gemini, looked into her eyes and stared at her for a moment before he spoke. His voice was quiet, and flat; lacking emotion and range.

"I only got a little of the story from the others, about what you said. But I got enough I think. I hope you enjoyed the fight, and I'm sure the symbolism wasn't lost on you."

Gemini looked at him, continuing to chew her mouthful of food slowly. Her jaw worked around, crushing and masticating the mouthful of sausage she was chewing on. Slowly she swallowed, washing down the food with a sip of her drink.

"No, the sentiment wasn't lost on me at all. I enjoyed it, a great deal." She raised her glass to him in a toast, then took another sip, her eyes fixed on him all the time. Hunter toasted her in return, then let his normal grin resurface, and took a deep draught of beer himself. Blinking, he looked away from Gemini, and saw Stripes watching him with a considering and thoughtful look. Stripes smiled at him, and gave him a nod that could have meant anything.

Shortly afterwards Hunter made his excuses and headed out – well supplied with "for the road" food from Noodles, of course. He munched on the goodies as he wandered back through the tunnels towards their berth, part of his attention watching the caves and rocks to the side, part of him replaying the scene in his head, examining the face and expression of Gemini. The way her lips had parted just a tiny fraction, the tiny uplift at the corners. He knew of course that she had cybernetic replacement eyes, so any depths he saw there were purely artificial – but the face was such a mobile thing, and could tell you so much. Yeah, he'd definitely scored some points there. He smiled to himself, thinking about what that probably meant. As he strode through the darkness, another thought crossed his mind as he concentrated on his memory of her. She was a big woman, not far off his size, with well-defined muscles and a toned physique. Kinda hot really when he thought about it. And she certainly had some moves and some skills. Interesting…

He caught up with Shimazu just as he got back to the pod, who apparently had also been out to the entrance. Getting back to the rest of the team, Shimazu told them he'd just checked in with Sato – who had found a new place to set up. He was now in Estonia, somewhere in one of the bigger cities and was sorting out a new network of contacts and fixers there, setting himself up with work again. In turn Shimazu had told him they were in Russia for a while, working on some jobs and would keep their eyes and ears open for opportunities for him.

"Good job too – helping him out got me into enough trouble!" Tads grumbled. Shimazu thought for a moment about coming to the defence of his friend, but nobody else seemed inclined to put too much store by their shaman's grumbling, so he decided to leave it alone. Besides, now that he'd started to really experience the astral realm for himself, he had a much better understanding of the risks she might have taken in flying halfway across the continent to get to him and finding some awakened enemy there. Yes, perhaps better to let her have a grumble and get her feelings known and heard, rather than to shut them away.

At the front entrance to the cave system, Aswon settled down and turned on his phone, waiting for it to finish its boot sequence and display the steady stream of messages, updates and adverts from the carrier. Deleting them all, dived into his contact list and found the number for Spook, double checked the time difference and then called her up. He heard the normal couple of chirps and beeps as the call routed internationally and then rang the far end. Two rings, three rings – then she answered. It sounded strange – lots of hard echoes. Aswon frowned and had a suspicion…

"Spook, its Aswon. Are you in the toilet? I can call you back?"

"Oh hi, Aswon. Bathroom, but its fine. What can I do for you?

"Just checking in with you really, making sure you're ok – last time I spoke you were… upset about something."

"Oh that, no no, that's all fine now. Well, it's not fine, but it's dealt with. I hate to get heavy with people, but sometimes you have to let people know that if they dick you around, you'll turn around and shoot them in the face. Well of course I won't shoot them in the face, but I'll send round some people I know to get the job done." She sighed heavily, and Aswon could picture the look of regret on her face at decisions made that had to be lived with – he'd seen it once or twice himself after all. "But, it's done now. And I'm lining up new people in the pipeline to fill the hole, so it shouldn't affect things much. So what's new with you?"

"Well, we're just about to head out on a mission, out into the land. Likely we might be off grid for a couple of weeks where we're going, maybe a touch longer. We should be back inside a month though, much beyond that and something has gone horribly wrong."

"Fortune shine on you then, and be careful. I'd hate to lose my investment!" Aswon frowned at the phone as he hung up. She wasn't being serious was she?

He headed back to the pod, re-joining the rest of the team and starting to sort out their kit and make space for the new purchases to be stowed in when they hit Volgograd. He'd just started when they heard a shout from the entrance, asking if they could come in…

At the check line were the three smugglers from Repatriation Inc. With a wave, Kai beckoned them over, and the team formed a loose gaggle around them to see what they had to say. The tallest of the three, 'Doc' spoke, his voice deep and somber, but with a hint of mischief in the edge.

"Hello, and thank you. I just wanted to come and introduce ourselves properly and apologise for Gank. He's very emotional sometimes, especially when he meets someone he admires."

"HEY!"

"Admit it, it's true. That's why we don't feed you sugar before a border crossing. Well, not unless it's one of *those* border crossings anyway. But forgive me, I'm Doc, this is Kitten, and as you've gathered, this is Gank. We run a quiet little business bringing back the poor unfortunate souls that perish whilst in foreign lands, ensuring dignity, respect, discretion and due care is show to the recently deceased, so they can be repatriated and returned to their family." Kai cocked an eyebrow at the taller man. "Oh, and occasionally we find some random piece of cargo that happens to be bought back with us, where it's stored out of the way under the coffins. Where it won't inconvenience anyone or be disrespectful to the deceased."

As he spoke, he made gentle sweeping motions with his hands, and sincerity oozed from him. It was easy to see how he would pitch the tale to the average border guard, and his sad voice was convincing – at least until the last sentence where that sense of mischief came out in full force. Kai motioned to the seats, and they passed around a bottle – several of the team wondering if Repatriation had ever experienced Noodle's hospitality and wondering if they were being judged…

Doc introduced his team, giving a very shallow history of them and their business, listening as Kai responded in kind. Doc had a very dry but engaging sense of humour, and was soon regaling them of tales from their past business, border crossings gone awry or complications with packages. With additional input from Gank and Kitten, he made an engrossing storyteller whose body told a good third of the story. Even Marius was seen to crack a few smiles at some of the tales, but they also picked up a little background information on several border crossings, learning just how widely Repatriation Inc had travelled.

Once he had a feel for them as a group, Shimazu wrote down the details for Saito and passed them over to Doc, giving them a little information on his business and how useful he might be in fixing or arranging things, hoping that Saito would appreciate the possibility of getting a new customer.

"Thanks for that, Shimazu is it? I'm sure we'll look him up sometime, if we're passing through the country. So – where are you all heading next then?"

"We're heading east mostly, over towards China/Japan kind of way." Kai responded, flashing a glance around the others. They realised he was being a little less than his normal forthcoming self deliberately, rather than just being confused, so kept their peace.

"Ahh, really? We've just come from that way, well, the northern part of Turkestan via Grigories. I guess you're stopping there?"

"Grigories?"

"Oh, you've not heard of him? Well, I guess he's the 'next stop over' in the general sense of the word. He's about fifteen hundred kilometres to the east of here. Not as nice, mind, but cheaper. Much cheaper. You can taste the cheapness, in fact. But it's a hard day's drive but doable – I guess much easier for you if you're flying direct."

"No, we've not hooked up with him. Could you show us where he is please?"

Doc tried to describe, but in the end just asked for a map, which Hunter duly furnished – making sure to turn off all their private layers and annotations first. Doc marked an area next to the New Silk Road, the corporate highway that ran for thousands of kilometres from west to east, providing an easy route for goods to market for millions of people. The location was a mile or so off the main highway, but looked easy enough to get to, and they could see the appeal for anyone driving up the Silk Road.

Doc and his team stayed for a while longer, swapping stories and anecdotes about running borders and smuggling cargo, before they made their excuses and headed off back to their pod. Hunter and Marius spent a few minutes poring over the map, looking for additional information or issues, but the data given looked reasonable, so they added it to their database, and updated the route they were planning on taking. By air the much more direct routing made the journey about 1200km, giving them a comfortable reserve in case of trouble, and made a convenient jumping off point to continue east towards Tara.

Whilst they were doing that, Kai wandered off to go and find Vishtar, Shimazu padding along silently behind him, hand resting loosely on his sword while he scanned the area ahead astrally, looking for trouble. The journey to the rec-area was uneventful though, and they found Vishtar talking with Chef about supplies and managed to grab his attention. Kai double-checked that there was no outstanding work to be done, and that they were good to pull out soon. The only thing Vishtar asked him to be on the lookout for was cheap cooking gas and soy for their supplies.

When Kai got back to the pod he found Hunter and Aswon deep in conversation around the computer, researching something and apparently at odds about some major issue. He drifted over to listen in to their conversation, which seemed incredibly cryptic and obtuse. It took him a good few minutes to get to the bottom of it – they were trying to work out what the critical factor was in the taste or smell of food that made it 'authentic' and considered a luxury item. It appeared that they were still working on a grand scheme to get hold of some luxury food like caviar for Tads, and invest some serious time in making some magically and opening a door to a possible money maker. At the moment they were working mainly on the relative importance of taste, smell, texture and look; trying to decide what the critical ratio was.

He left them to it, and settled down with a phrase book, continuing to work on his Russian, and slowly the pod fell quiet as one by one they finished their work for the night, settled down and grabbed some sleep. Other than the occasional patrol by whoever was keeping watch, the pod was quiet and still.

On the Sunday, they breakfasted in the rec area as normal. Aswon finally succumbed to curiosity and tried the entertainment system there, donning the VR headset and picking up the tacky plastic rifle to try his hand as "Master Assassin". Five minutes later after a truly awful display of marksmanship, he dropped the headset in disgust, announcing that the game was quite clearly flawed and inaccurate….

They drove into Volgograd after breakfast, heading to the private home from the classified listing they'd found and purchasing the UAZ off-roader first. Hunter drove the truck back to base, while the rest drove on in the four by four, Marius getting some hands on time with it. It was basic, and drove like a jelly on the road, the soft and deep travel suspension making it very wobbly and mushy around the corners – but that boded well for how it would handle off road.

It took another hour to pick up the winter clothing and survival gear that Aswon had ordered and reserved, go to hydroponics centre and gather some plants and feed and finally pick up the specially fabricated box to keep their rather unique plant in. Their shopping trip was pretty uneventful though, everything going according to plan, and the purchases going smoothly.

They got back to the quarry and offloaded their supplies, stowing them into the chopper and getting ready for final departure. Kai and Shimazu made a quick detour to pod 4, dropping off another contact card for themselves and Saito to Chrome-Flame, handing over to cards to an unspeaking centaur who looked as likely to eat the cards as to pass them on to his boss. After a few moments of uncertainty though he trotted off towards their craft, leaving Kai and Shimazu to turn away from the pod entrance and return back to their own cave.

The tow vehicle arrived, slowly tugging their giant helicopter out of the cave and down the long tunnel to the exit, then through the illusion and out into the quarry itself. Moments later, Marius had the rotors turning, his pre-flight checks having been long completed during the lengthy tow. Slowly the massive rotors turned at first, picking up speed as the mighty turbofan engines built up power. Once more they reached a point where the downdraft started to throw up dust, causing a white-out – but this time all they had to do was go up. Marius fed power to the engines smoothly and the mighty craft started to lift up from the rocky ground.

"Tads, any chance of a quick astral scout over the top – just to make sure that those Bogwotsists aren't out there?"

"If you want an astral scout, you stick your head out of the window and have a look – I'm not putting myself in harms way of a blood mage, out on my own."

"Awww, come on Tads, its VERY unlikely there's anyone there."

"If it's that safe, you can do it yourself then…" Through all of this, Kai ignored Aswon who was staring at him, thinking about their earlier conversation when Kai had seemed 'sure' the Bogbuster crew would be long gone…

The chopper rose above the protection of the bermed walls of the quarry, revealing only the quiet and peaceful landscape beyond. In the dusk they could see the mass of lights of the town to the south, and in other directions the scattered lamps from farm houses, cars on the road and industrial facilities, stretching out to the horizon where the stars took over. The skies were crystal clear and visibility was excellent, though this bode ill in a way – the weather was a result of a cold front pushing down from the frozen north, and that meant temperatures were due to drop sharply for a while.

As Marius banked the helicopter over to the east and picked up speed, a ripple passed over it, a wind spirit summoned by Tads to guard and protect them as they flew. The nose dropped and their forward momentum built up, Marius being careful to handle the craft carefully through the new rigger interface as he felt how the craft handled and gathered sensory input from the massive hull.

Behind him, in the crew section, Aswon leant over towards Tads, having to raise his voice considerably to be heard over the roaring of the turbojet engines.

"So Tads – I know you have a lot of things we have asked you to do, or that you want to do yourself. Just how much time do we need to get you to make it all possible?"

"Well, I've made good progress on the design for Shimazu's sword. I think another five days or so, and that will be ready. Then I need to make some Orricalcum from that gold we got, to use in the actual enchanting process. After that, I need to work on the enchanting itself of course, then another three weeks or so on a foci to help me concentrate. So…" she counted mentally, then added a bit of slack time to cover herself…"about four months or so, altogether. But three of those months, I need to spend in one place continuously. Three one month stretches that is, not one three month…" Aswon nodded in understand and leant back in his chair, trying to work out how much cash they needed to earn to keep themselves happy and healthy to have that much time "off" or working on their training. This job for Ludmilla might cover it if they were careful, but he suspected they would need another after it, equally high paying.

Hunter patched his phone through the craft's electronics bay, making a call to his friend Julius from the Ares data processing centre. After the usual greetings and pleasantries, he asked Julius to have a little look around for the name Ivan Ramius, an ex-KGB officer, now smuggler. Hunter nodded as Julius explained that he'd try, but information like that was probably not on their system, forgetting that he was on an audio only link for a moment. Hunter also told his friend about the fight and the footage doing the rounds, wincing as he described how much of his face was on display during the aftermath.

"Guess I might not be as dead as I wanted to appear. Oh well, we'll just have to see what happens." He broke the connection and went back to checking his map, following their progress. As Marius got happier with how the craft handled and performed, their average height dropped steadily, until they were flying around hills and through valleys that masked them from mapped radar installations and kept them hidden in ground clutter from airborne sets. They flew for around four hours, mostly over fields and woodland, having plotted their route to avoid major settlements and any facility that might have a guard force or response team.

The journey took a couple of minutes over four hours, and by then the team were more than a little uncomfortable. The seats were no better or worse than the truck, but the journey was considerably more noisy, and the vibrations and movement of the chopper made sleep much more difficult in comparison – so they were glad when they crossed over the New Silk Road near Bogetsay – it meant their journey was nearly over.

They crammed to the sides of the craft, looking down as they flew over the road, watching a heavily armed and armoured road train trundling along with lead and chase APCs – sure that they were being watched closely, just in case. As they flew over the small village, they saw where the road detoured south, a new section of multi-lane highway veering away from the town and taking a direct route through some blasted hills that were in the way. The old road ran parallel to this, but the part leading out of the town had suffered some mishap – a massive crater had torn and wrecked the highway, and it was impassable to most vehicles. Whether that had happened before or after the new road had been built they couldn't say – but the road beyond was clearly not maintained, and had cracked and weathered badly.

A few miles out of town they saw an old gas stop straddling the now derelict highway, while a mile to the south the traffic rumbled down the new road. The building was faintly lit, and they could see a couple of vehicles parked up in the car park surrounding the rundown buildings – a large box van and a small but still heavily armoured t-bird. Marius set their chopper down a good way distant from the other vehicles, landing with a delicate touch and slowly reducing power, checking the surface of the car park would take their weight. The ground dented and deformed slightly, but held and he reduced power further, then went through his shut down list and post flight checks. Aswon grabbed his rifle and announced that he would stand guard and look after the chopper, providing long range fire if need be while the rest went to check out the buildings.

They armoured up, wearing what could be hidden to a reasonable level under their clothing, and grabbed side-arms and personal weapons, then headed over towards the building. The truck stop had clearly seen better days, with faded and torn paintwork, peeling signs and filthy windows that probably wouldn't let those inside see much of anything through them. As Kai pulled open the door, he realised that the outside was a good indicator of the inside.

The surroundings, never the highest of quality, were distressed and torn, plastic tables delaminating, floor tiles curling up into a mass of raised corners, broken light fittings more common than those working and a layer of greasy dust over much of the surfaces. It had an air of neglect and abandonment about it. Along the back wall were half a dozen vending machines, selling 'flats' the prepacked clothing worn by the lower class, bottles of water, alcohol and other drinks, confectionary, instant foods and other non-perishable supplies. Everything looked cheap, nasty and about as low in flavour, use or desirability as it was possible to get. As they surveyed the scene, a scratchy voice hailed them from the counter at the far end of the rest stop.

"Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck do you want?" The voice was odd, clearly male but higher pitched than was normal, and delivered almost in a pant.

"Well, a quiet place to stay the night, and about three kilolitres of aviation fuel would be cool, and we can pay cash for both." There was a whine from the counter, and a machine came around the end, jerking and crunching across the floor. It was some kind of motorised wheelchair or drone chassis, but mounted on top was a gnarly looking dwarf, now fixing them with a slightly less hostile look than his opening comment would otherwise have suggested. Much of his body was chromed, certainly both legs and one arm was, and he had clear cyber replacement eyes – the red glow looked deep and dull compared to most of the styles they'd seen.

He rolled forwards, and as he did so they noticed a trailing power cable spooling out behind him, connecting him to some hidden power socket. It was unclear if this was for him, or his chassis, and with the look on his face and general demeanour they didn't bother asking. A quick look in astral confirmed that there was very little meat left, and probably even less humanity. It would certainly explain the attitude.

"Gas will be twenty large, in advance." Kai winced and pulled out a credstick, pushing it into the proffered reader which removed the vast majority of their remaining working capital. The cyber hand manually pushed a few buttons, and they heard a drone starting up outside, dragging a fuel tanker and hose boom over towards their craft. Marius headed out to supervise the fuelling operation, ensuring they didn't get poor quality fuel or short changed on the amount.

The door had barely swung shut when it was wrenched open again, and a couple of people entered. The first two were orcs, a female and a male. Both glided in with that unusual smoothness that screamed "wire"" to those in the know – the implanted cyberware effectively gave them supernaturally fast reaction speed and smoothness of motion in combat, making them lethal killing machines. Both wore swords slung over their shoulders, similar in size to Shimazu's, and both had SMGs dangling from friction straps by their sides. The third figure was a human male, who looked slender and frail next to the bulky orcs. They stared at the team for a moment, then headed over to the vending machine, keeping a suspicious eye on them. After making a few purchases, they headed out, equally carefully and walked over to the t-bird, disappearing into the hold.

Kai turned round to speak to their host, but found him already heading back behind the counter, the spool of wire bouncing and jerking like a skipping rope as the mechanism wound the slack back in. Clearly not one for conversation, Kai decided not to push the issue, and after a closer look at the contents of the vending machines, they headed back to their chopper. Once more they set the watch schedule and settled down for the night, frost slowly forming over the glasswork as the temperature dropped.

The morning was equally clear, the sun struggling over the horizon and showing a clear blue sky on high – with a brown smudge over the lower levels from the industrial pollution. Once again they saw no clouds – other than their breath when they exhaled. A few of them climbed out of the chopper and limbered up, gently jogging around a bit of the car park to get muscles moving and warm themselves up a little.

Three figures climbed out of the box van over to their right, and watched them for a moment, then frantically waved at Kai, striding over towards him. Shimazu closed up on his boss, hand on his sword and the rest of the team subtly dropped back into covering positions, whilst inside the chopper Aswon reached for his rifle and slapped a round into the breech.

As the figures closed, they could see they were… elves? Almost to exclusion, elves were slender or slim – some part of their genome or DNA it was supposed. Much envied by many around the world, elves seemed to have a figure that was designed to be fashion models or poster figures. Not these three though. The first one was decidedly plump, to be charitable.

"Pie-elf" Hunter coughed, pitching his voice to hopefully only just reach Kai and not the figures closing on him.

"Se'seterin! Cirolle ke goro'imri!" the one in the front said, the words rolling from his tongue fluently and without pause.

"Sorry, do you speak English?" Kai responded. The leader of the trio cast a glance over at Shimazu, and his eyes flicked up and down him for a moment.

"Of course, and my apologies, I should have realised you would have wanted to communicate in lower tongue." Kai kept his face serene, though he was sure he'd just heard the subtle creak as Shimazu gripped his sword hilt. "Tell me, fair traveller, from which side are you from?"

"err. The south side?" This seemed to confuse their visitors greatly, but Kai was rewarded with a slow relaxation of Shimazu's sword arm as the tension leeched out.

"Greetings then. I am Greenbough, and this is Moonsong," he gestured at the figure to his left, dressed in glitzy coveralls, "and this is Quicksilver," a gesture to the right, and the elf dressed in loose fitting clothes that reminded them of a training suit for a martial art. Kai nodded at each of them with a sincere face and a slight bow of respect, which was returned in kind.

As they bent over to bow at Kai, Shimazu spotted the subtle signs of scarring on the backs of the ear. Almost as if… ahaha! Cosmetic alteration. Elf posers. That explained the physique. Rather than being elves, they were humans who'd been surgically altered to take on the appearance of the elven genotype. Now he knew what he was looking for, he spotted several other very subtle signs of alteration – cheek reshaping, a bit of work on the jaw, implanted hairs to raise the arch of the eyebrow.

"I'm actually a Prince of the Tir, you know, but away from the court on a sensitive mission. I trust I can rely on you to keep that confidential?" Greenbough lowered his voice in a conspiratorial fashion, and Kai had to work hard from letting a smile break out on his lips. The idea was preposterous – but he decided to humour these strange folks.

A click on the comms alerted Kai to action, and he saw another "elf" climb out of the panel van, through the front door. As he did so, Tads spoke quietly over the earbud.

"Door open, no ward visible. Nothing visible magically about the vehicle at all." Shimazu turned slightly away from the visitors and coughed explosively into his hand, doubling over a little, and coughing again. He keyed up his transmitter and added his own appraisal quietly.

"One physical adept, not initiated, the one called Quicksilver." He straightened and turned back, making a show of clearing his throat and wiping the corner of his mouth.

"Target armed, on target." Aswon's deeper voice cut over the end of Tads' speech, and Kai watched the newcomer saunter over towards them with his guns in hand, wondering he was aware just how fleeting his life might be at the moment. As he approached, he displayed at least some semblance of awareness though, as he shifted his grip on his weapons, until he was holding them by the barrels, in a clearly non-threatening manner.

"Ahh, here comes Bluewater, with his fine selection of Tir weapons." Kai and Shimazu glanced at the guns, which looked odd – strange curves and flutes being prominent on several of them, and a recurring theme of leaves and subtle vines. Kai settled for a nod and another small bow, not quite knowing what to say.

"Uhh Kai? Those elven weapons?" Kai could hear the air quotes Aswon was using, and fought back a smile again. "That's an Ares Predator mark II, I'm certain of it, with some kind of weird after-market addon kit. About as much from the Tir as my left foot."

Kai could hear the growing muttering over the comms net as the team stepped back from high alert, but shifted their sarcasm up a gear, wondering just who these jokers were. He tuned out the background chatter, and instead asked 'Prince' Greenbough what they were doing so far from home. Moments later he regretted his decision.

Greenbough launched into a description at once, as if he'd been waiting for that very question. With much animated waving of arms and long rolling descriptions he described their quest to find an ancient elven burial ground to the north east, where they suspected they would find relics of a bygone era, history that would further add to the knowledge of the Tir and prove elven ascendency in a previous era of meta-humanity.

Despite their glaring craziness, there was something about them. Slowly the sarcasm died down as the team picked up on their descriptions, finding that they actually seemed pretty knowledgeable about history, culture, socio-economic development and current cultural thinking. Those magically active confirmed their theories on magical defences, traps, significance of items and power, and the team soon found themselves horribly confused. These were clearly crazy humans dressed up as elves, pretending to be elves – yet they knew far more about elven culture than anyone in the team did, and seemed incredibly switched on as to the significance of a number of archaeological factors. It just didn't make any sense! Or it made a great cover story for a crack team of Shadowrunners from the Atlantean Foundation or the DIMR – the two most well-known magical research think-tanks in the world. But even then, the streak of crazy felt too 'real' to be just an act.

They chatted a while longer, with Kai referring to Greenbough as "My Prince" a few times, which seemed to hit the ego button pretty hard. The elven team revealed more about their location, narrowing down the area to a few hundred square miles with some geographical references. Kai mentioned that they were flying over that way themselves, and exchanged contact details with them, just in case either team needed a hand with some ancient threat. Shortly afterwards, he made his excuses, and returned to the chopper, with Shimazu in tow, and they started the pre-flight sequence.

"Kai, I've been looking at the finances by the way. If we put as much fuel in the tanks at Tara, that's pretty much going to wipe us out. We'll have enough fuel to fly the border, get the plant and get back to Tara and land, but we'll be forty grand short for the fuel needed to get us back to the quarry, let alone onwards from there. Do you actually have a plan for that?" Aswon sounded somewhat world-weary, almost as if he was expecting some kind of glib answer.

"Yeah, yeah, got it all covered. I have a plan." Silence met his statement. It wasn't that they were surprised by this – just somewhat sceptical it seemed. The roar of the engines drowned out conversation for a few minutes as the chopper lumbered into the air and set off to the east again. Finally as they reached cruising speed and the noise levelled off enough for them to get acclimatised, Kai called out again. "Besides, I think I found a team of absolute crazy bat shit weirdos that might be in the area. If we get desperate, we can always kill them and take their stuff."

Everyone stopped and considered – wondering just what Kai meant by that. He was joking – right? Suddenly they weren't so sure…

They flew east, daylight zipping past as they covered kilometre after kilometre, the mighty turbojets driving them forward far faster than any ground transport would have, and over the top of most of the terrain features too. Marius kept low, occasionally bending around hills or following a river for a while, still avoiding conurbations and corporate facilities. The ground underneath and to the right of them changed in tone, becoming browner and sparser as they neared the top edge of Turkestan, while the ground to the left of their craft became more broken and rough, rising upwards in a series of endless undulations, with the glittering white of snow on the horizon.

It would have been a beautiful day for flying high and sightseeing, with visibility up about as high as it would go – but on average they travelled at a hundred metres or less, severely limiting what they could see.

By mid-morning, they had angled to the north, rising in latitude and leaving the arid land behind. The undulations continued below them, but now the greenery took on a number of different hues, and they started to see lakes, ponds, rivers and bogs below them. The density increased the further they went, until it seemed there was never a moment without water in sight. Fields took on odd shapes as they fitted in around the hills, bogs, lakes and escarpments, the native farmers taking what they could get and making the most of it.

They overflew a few farms, watching farmers struggle to keep draught animals under control, pulling old fashioned plows, scattering the odd herd of goats or mountain sheep, and zipping past plantations of trees slowly being logged by hand – and the quality of the housing fell in line with the industry, most of the buildings being ramshackle affairs and likely not to have electricity or running water. The occasional village was more modern, and they crossed decent roads from time to time – but it was clear that away from the developed areas, the technology backslid quickly.

Early in the afternoon they arrived near the town of Tara, which at least seemed a decent size – maybe twenty thousand residents or so. It lay spread out on the western shore of a large winding river – apparently a good size and deep too, as they caught a flash of a mid-size cargo vessel carrying containers up river before their chopper disappeared behind a hill and took away their view. The town was definitely provincial though – their brief glimpses of it between natural features showed a town that was almost entirely comprised of single story buildings, spreading out widely to the north and south, though hemmed in to the west by the broken terrain that Marius was using to cover their approach.

They swung North West, travelling another kilometre or so past some forestry and a few fields tended by farmers – noticeably the draught and herd animals here didn't seem upset by the noise, even travelling as slowly as they were now. They crested a shallow ridge, missing the trees by a good metre or so, and saw the airport ahead of them. The 'runway' looked to be made of compacted grass and tamped earth, and didn't look that long – but straight ahead of them were four very large cermacrete landing pads, marked out with the traditional circle and cross of a helipad. Marius slowed further, getting a read on the windsock fluttering to the side of the buildings that presumably serviced the pads, then slowly coming in to land.

Again, with a deft and light touch, the chopper landed bang on the mark, the wheels settling down onto the reinforced surface and the hydraulics slowly compressing as the weight settled. A final look around to confirm everything was clear, and Marius reduced power to the engines, letting the full weight of the bird settle on the pad, and went through the remaining portion of his landing checklist. Nothing moved at the airport, and nobody immediately appeared from the buildings or anywhere else. Tara airport appeared to be a little like a ghost town…