"I had another dream last night. Well, nightmare, really." Tads pushed a piece of fruit around her plate, eyes downcast as she watched the streak of juice it left behind its passage. "Started off with a small flame, like a torch or someone lighting a cooking fire. But it grew, got out of control. Got larger and larger, spreading all around me. Then I could see the chums on fire, flames leaping higher and higher, people trapped inside. Flames leaping from one to another… smoke spiralling into the sky. That's when I woke up…"
The rest of the team studied her for a moment, until Kai spoke.
"What's a chum?"
"Probably the equivalent of your yurts? It's a design of reindeer-hide tent, built around a wooden frame arranged in a conical shape. It's what we live in, back home."
"Ahh. Got it."
"I guess you flew home to check things out?" A`swon looked at her the top of her head, concerned about the vision she'd had and the obvious effect it had upon her.
"Yes. It all seemed fine. The tribe was settled, the herds grazing the edge of the forest. Just as I'd hoped to find it. But… somehow it didn't make me feel any better. I may need to go home to check things out, once we've finished our current mission."
"Well, we've only got this job, right? Nothing lined up afterwards?"
"Yup – just this spy job at the moment – the one to the space launch place. Though we probably need to look for something else after that to make sure we keep the cash coming in. Nadia's expensive…" Kai gave a wry grin and glanced at Marius, who just scowled at him and sipped at his coffee, refusing the bait.
"So, just this job, which was for your friend Sato, right?" Aswon turned to glance at Shimazu, who nodded to him.
"Yes, that's right. I should check in with him… oh, I've got a message." Shimazu studied his comm for a moment then continued. "Right, I've got a set of co-ordinates to head to, a smuggler stop called Muynak. We go and ask for Mister Grok, and he'll put us in touch with our contacts and gear for the actual mission."
"Send us the location, I'll have a look at the map." Hunter pushed his plate back and pulled up his tablet, waiting for the information to arrive from Shimazu, and then did a quick search. "Right, got it. South end of the Aral Sea, about eight hundred and fifty kilometres from here. Yeah, town called Muynak. Map shows it as near the sea, probably a couple of thousand people living there, small airport to the south east of the town, and a highway running straight through the main built-up area, then skirting around the sea. I guess whoever runs the smuggler stop has an understanding with the local authorities. Landing fees might be steep there…"
"Hmm. Well, we should be covered for now. That does make me have another question, though?" Kai glanced down at the map, then back around the table at the others. "Is there stuff we shouldn't be taking? I mean, it's likely that a lot of the area will have a high Muslim population, though that far north they tend to be quite relaxed and tolerant compared to the ones in Iran and Iraq. And I'm guessing we're not going to make friends if we walk around with heavy weapons on show. But does anyone know of anything else we shouldn't be taking?"
"I think it depends on the politics of the area – and I don't know anything about those." Aswon shrugged his shoulders.
"Well, I've not visited either. But I seem to recall that the steppes are ruled by 'hordes' vast nomadic groups that are the descendants of the old ethnic groups from the countries they're mostly based in, before they merged together to make Turkestan."
"Hordes? That doesn't sound friendly."
"If you're not their friends, probably not. We've met one of them I suspect – the Turkmen Horde, or at least a group belonging to it – the tribe with the wolf shaman. So unless we're allied or at least friendly with them, then I guess we'll be seen as fair game for looting and pillaging, or at the very least being 'taxed' for being on their land."
"Taxes, I'm fine with. Looting I draw the line at, and cannibalism is right out…" Aswon declared firmly, getting nods of emphatic agreement from Hunter and Shimazu. Tads almost certainly would have been nodding firmly as well, if she hadn't been staring into the distance remembering the night her totem had made its presence known to her in such a dramatic fashion.
"Yeah – that wasn't a fun night, not to start off with anyway. But I would suspect the other hordes operate in a similar manner. Mobile camps, wandering the wastes – preying on or using the New Silk Road, operating in large armed groups that meet up every now and again. So we want to keep a good watch and avoid trouble as far as we can. They can't be everywhere – we got unlucky with the patch of road they were staking out last time, but we're a lot more mobile now. But we might want to avoid towns and villages – they probably keep an eye on those, or have informants there. So we may want to make sure we take all that winter camping gear we got, so we can stay out in the wilderness." Kai stopped talking and watched Aswon, who was rubbing at the side of his head with one hand, massaging his right thumb in circles around his temple. "Something wrong with that plan?"
"Humph? Um… probably not. Sorry. Aral Sea. I'm sure I remember hearing something about the Aral Sea. Something to do with…rivers?" He frowned, and his thumb started to massage his temple again, as if it could squeeze the memory out of his brain.
"The Aral Sea is fed by two very large rivers if that helps Aswon? The Amu Darya and Syr Darya." Hunter connected up the datajack to his tablet again and concentrated, highlighting the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers on their long journeys west from the Tibetan Plateau towards the sea, snaking back and forth for over two thousand kilometres.
"Ahhh! That's why I remember it. Let me see that map again. Where did you get this, Hunter?"
"It's an old map, one of the free ones I found on the matrix. All the other ones were behind paywalls or on corporate hosts, and that's far too much trouble."
"Right – well, it might be worth paying for them. I'm pretty sure that the Sea that's marked down there isn't actually there anymore." He saw the looks of confusion on their faces. "Look, I know it sounds strange, but the sea is pretty much gone, I'm sure of it. Let me see if I can get this straight… it was back before the crash, back before the megas even, if I'm remembering right. Some kind of irrigation project kicked off, taking huge amounts of water from those two rivers. Before that, they dumped most of their flow into the sea, and that replaced the water lost by evaporation and kept it stable. Lots of people lived by the sea, and fished it, lots of stuff grown nearby. But when they put these canals in, they diverted a lot of the water away to new fields where they were growing cash crops – stuff like soy. That led to the water levels in the sea dropping, and the shores shrinking, putting lots of people out of work and decimating towns and villages all over."
"Ok, so it shrank a bit? So what?" Hunter asked, looking at the blue blob on his map and estimating the size of it. "I mean, come on – it's nearly seventy thousand square kilometres. Something that big doesn't just vanish…"
"Not at first, no. But it turns out the weather in the region made for a closed loop. The rivers put enough in to counter the evaporation from the surface of the sea. But when the sea shrank because the water was diverted, it had less water to evaporate – and that slowed down the rainfall high in the mountains to the east. And that lowered the flow of the rivers. But the farmers still wanted the same amount of water, so they had to divert more of the river away from the natural course – and that stopped even more water getting to the sea, making it worse and worse. And as the sea shrank, the fishermen were put out of work and had to look for other jobs – so they joined the soy farms and other new businesses. And those in turn wanted even more water, so the rivers got lower and lower. The sea's been shrinking steadily for years, and every year the rate of change increases.
"So it's small. But they can still fish in it, so I don't see the issue?" Kai said.
"Nope – it's a horrible mess. Because of the lack of fresh-water, and the nutrients from the river, they had to up the chemicals they used – fertilisers, pesticides, all that kind of stuff. That and the increasing salinity from the smaller sea made life pretty much impossible, and that killed the rest of the fishing industry off."
"So they all moved over to soy and stuff?"
"Probably tried to – but that was a cash crop for export, not for local use. I remember hearing about widespread starvation, malnutrition, international efforts at relief. So it's likely to be a bit of a mess up there."
Hunter pulled out his deck, replacing the lighter-weight tablet with some heavier firepower and dived into the matrix, looking for posts on Shadowland about the area. While Aswon continued to describe the ecological nightmare that had befallen the area, he found a number of posts that corroborated what Aswon was describing – or amplified it further.
"Guys, on top of all that shit, there's a major problem – bioweapons. Not confirmed, mind, mostly just scuttlebutt – but the rumours on Shadowland say that the Russians used some of the area for bio-weapon research, long time ago. When the sea was still big enough to have islands. Then the water went away, and those islands are all linked up now, and that let critters in, who dug into the soil and stuff. Found a bunch of stuff that had been buried after a leak, and that shit spread, carried far and wide. The posts don't seem to agree on what it was – varying between smallpox, anthrax and some other nasty stuff – but none of it's good."
"Oh, great. Well, that's just our luck. Best to stay away from the local food then!" Kai shook his head, but then brightened a little. "Guess it's more oatcakes for us then, right, Tads?"
"We'll see. The whole area sounds nasty. I think I should go and have a quick look." She passed over her plate to Aswon to stack with his own, clearing the space in front of her, then laid her head down on the table, arranging her arms comfortably around it , before sending her spirit vaulting out of her body and up into the air, before darting northwards through astral space, the world flashing by at an unreal speed.
Kai studied her slumped form for a moment then turned back to Aswon.
"So, sounds like we need to take survival gear for sure."
"Yes, tents, sleeping bags, power banks, water purification gear, weapons, ammo, med-kit – but we might want to add on respirators, filters, chem-suits and some other hazardous environment gear as well."
"Hmm. Well, ok – where can we get that stuff at short notice?"
"Baku should sell it somewhere – they do enough work with the oil and refining industry around here to need all of those kinds of things."
"So, if we stop on the way out there, we can probably get the stuff in the city, then continue our flight onwards?" Kai saw Aswon nod in agreement. "Good. Well, let's finish breakfast then and wait for Tads to get back."
"At least the border in should be nice and pliable." Marius set down his coffee cup, speaking for the first time. "After all, with an environment like that, and these 'hordes' controlling vast swathes of the land – they will not have a strong central government and the funding required for an extensive sensor network or border surveillance system. We know the border to the south is somewhat tough, having crossed it ourselves – but that is clearly all from the Iranian side of things. If we cross over from the Caspian, I think it should be a very easy task."
The slumped figure suddenly jerked upright, her eyes opening wide and the pupils shrinking with the sudden ingress of light. She coughed twice, her face screwing up in disgust and she grabbed at the closest glass on the table, taking a huge gulp of milk and swilling it around her mouth, before spitting it out into her own empty cup.
"Sorry, that was…" she coughed violently, then took another drink of milk, swallowing this time rather than spitting it out. "That was horrible. The whole area up there is ruined. Death and decay everywhere, the land itself is dying. Astral space is twisted to the point of breaking. If that's where we're going, then don't count on ANY magical support. No spells, no spirits, no astral recon."
"It's that bad?" Aswon asked, careful to keep his voice calm and non-confrontational. Clearly the shaman had had a bad journey, and he wasn't trying to second guess her – more seek clarity on what they were facing.
"I thought I'd have an idea of what we might be looking at from your description – but it's far worse. That town you could see, Hunter, a few thousand population, you thought? I'd put it more at a dozen. The place is in ruins, and there are mana blackspots dotted around the place that feel like mass graves. Buildings are shattered, some burnt down, others just collapsed. Decay everywhere. But there's not even dogs or cats or rats there – it's just a horrible desolate, barren waste. You can see the remains of the docks, where it used to be on the sea – but now it's just desert, a lifeless barren wasteland. Dust everywhere, but it's tainted with chemicals and even the bacteria have given up."
"Crap." Kai pulled a face. "So, is that going to affect us too then?"
"Almost certainly, Kai." Aswon looked around at the table, then grabbed a few things. "Hold out both hands." When Kai did, he balanced a bunch of the breakfast crockery on his outstretched hands. "That's you normally. Those things are all the powers or abilities you've learnt to master. Right?" Kai nodded, and Aswon unloaded his hands. "Now put one hand down. Good – can I balance all of this stuff on just one hand?"
"No, not all at once."
"Right. But you could still choose to hold any of the things, right?"
"Yes… ahh, I get you. So the area will stop us doing everything at once… but we can still choose what to do?"
"Yes, pretty much. It depends how bad it is though – and from the expression on Tads' face, it's pretty bad. So you might find things working less well than normal alongside not being able to do everything all at once. The mana is going to be twisted and polluted, and it's going to make everything more difficult. But that cuts both ways – we don't have to worry about someone tracing Hunter anywhere near as much, the warping will interfere with that."
"Ok. You feeling better now, Tads?"
"Yes. It's not a nice place up there, though. Like I said, don't count on magical support."
"It looks like we need some more up to date maps. Let me give my friend Julius a quick message, see if he can help us out." Hunter checked the time and then queued up the message, sending it off to his personal address and hoping it would catch him before he set off to work – he certainly didn't want to attract any official attention that might lead to complications. When the message was gone, he pulled up a couple of addresses and forwarded them onto the team. "By the way, I found these suppliers for respirators and hazmat suits and stuff. All say they have stock in, for whoever ends up going into Baku…"
The team finished breakfast and loaded their gear, packing the tilt-wing carefully and strapping everything down tightly. The border crossing was likely to be smooth and hassle-free, but it was possible that they could encounter another of the 'horde' elements wandering the deserts or rolling plains, and though it was unlikely they would have surface to air missiles, it wasn't impossible – so it paid to take care.
While the rest of the team were loading and securing the supplies, Tads went hunting for Nadia.
"Hey, about the digging and burying things. I just wanted to let you know about the spell I have for making people remember things differently. Really, it needs to be cast just after the event happens, to change the memory before it takes hold and bed in. So if you're getting something done, and you want people to remember it differently, I need to be here, ok?"
"Huh. Marius did not know that. Very well, I shall make sure that you are here if that becomes necessary, or make other plans. Now, excuse me, I need to feed Marius." Tads watched Nadia for a moment as she adjusted Marius Junior – she wasn't sure that she liked the sound of 'make other plans' – but she didn't have time to press the issue now, and she made a mental note to discuss this with Marius when they had a quiet moment. She turned and headed for the helipad at a jog, finding the rest of the team having just finished the loading process and strapping in for take-off. Sliding the door shut behind her, she slid into her seat and started the strap in to the safety harness and get ready for take-off.
Shortly afterwards, they were in the air and heading north, flying around the city of Baku to land on the east side, where they unstrapped one of the motorbikes and did a quick run into the industrial district on the edge of town, closest to the oil terminals to pick up the respirators and other gear they'd identified. Being designed for the safety industry, it tended to come in neon orange and various shades of luminous yellow, but a few cans of spray paint in dull browns and ochres would hopefully take care of that.
An hour later they were back in the air and heading out of the Trans-Caucus League and over the Caspian Sea on a heading of zero-six-zero, crossing the three hundred kilometres of sea that split the east and west coasts. Marius kept fairly low, avoiding the known shipping routes and oil drilling vessels that dotted the area, and crossed the coastline on a narrow spit of land just north of Sarydepe, then over the Garabogazcki Basin. The basin was split off from the sea by the narrow rocky outcropping in all but a few places, and the waters around those spots was turbulent, showing a flow of water from the sea into the basin. It was a sizeable piece of water, and they flew another hundred kilometres over it until they abruptly transitioned to a rocky cliff that rose at a steep angle up and away until it had risen thirty metres above the water, transitioning into an arid steppe that seemed to reach the horizon.
Marius followed the course Hunter had worked up for him, heading along the shortest route possible directly for Muynak, four hundred and eighty kilometres away. The ground underneath them was arid and unwelcoming, with very little vegetation or growth, and no signs of animal tracks. It also lacked roads and villages, certainly on the course they were following, and the area felt oppressively lonely and inhospitable.
They were about a hundred kilometres away from Muynak when Marius twitched, his rigger-senses translating the sensor feed into a feeling of someone lightly stroking his cheek. The passive sensors adjusted in response to his thoughts, questing to the north and trying to get more information, and he briefly thought about an active sweep. Whatever it was though was beyond visual sight, and right at the extreme limit of the sensor system – so hopefully he was likely to be equally vague and difficult to read on theirs – at least until he decided to go active. If he did, he'd radiate his position to everyone inside a forty-kilometre bubble. Instead he studied the information carefully, trying to determine what it was he was seeing.
The sensor information was difficult to decipher though. Whatever it was seemed to be an airborne signal, obscured from his direct line-of-sight though, but generating a loud electronic footprint. Signals were scattering all over the place, leaking from whatever the source was… no, the sources – whatever it was, there were multiple point sources, all radiating a variety of signals. The cloud of noise was also spread out over at least a kilometre or more of space. He banked to the right, gradually turning them south and adjusting his route to compensate. It would only add a minute or two to the flight time and use a negligible amount of fuel, but would put more space between himself and whatever it was to the north.
"Trouble, Marius?" Aswon called forward, detecting the unexpected banking of the aircraft.
"Possibly. Large signal source to the north, multiple point sources, spread out over a kilometre or more of airspace. Possibly an entire wing of helicopters or other VSTOL aircraft. Too slow moving to be jets."
"Ahh, that doesn't sound good. Swinging around to approach from the…. south?" Kai butted in, taking a moment to work out in his head the directions from the map he'd only glanced at earlier.
"Ja."
"How long will it take us? Extra, I mean."
"No more than two minutes."
"Oh, right. No worries then. Shimazu – who are we after when we land?"
"Gronk – they're the operator of the smuggler stop, according to Saito. They should have the details of where to find our contacts to get the equipment and final mission briefing."
"Cool. Sounds easy enough." Kai put his head back against the thin cushion and closed his eyes, trying to relax as they crossed the desert below them.
As they closed in on the destination, Marius fed the imagery from the forward sensors to the screens in the back, and they saw the indistinct blob of the town slowly start to resolve into discernible shapes as they approached. Even without the benefit of astral feedback, they could see that the town was in poor shape, with collapsed buildings visible all across the arc of view, and a general look of despair settled over the settlement like a weighted blanket. The airfield lay to the south east of the town, with the runway rising from south-west to north-east, and looking to be nearly three kilometres long and more than fifty metres wide. It was an impressive sized bit of tarmac to find out in the middle of the desert, and Kai expressed as such to everyone.
"I do not disagree." Marius responded, "But I have a theory. If you look at the position of the airport, it is relatively close to a lot of routes flying from western Europe towards the far-east. It is easy to find – from the Caspian Sea there are a number of protruding landmarks that are easy to get a visual lock-on, if your instruments were down. And it is also an area that has no people around to complain about fuel dumps, noise or to panic if there is an aircraft coming in with mechanical issues or even on fire. Surrounded by miles of plains or steppes, it would be an exceptionally easy airport to land at if you were having trouble with your mechanical or computer systems."
"So it's an emergency stop?"
"I believe so, Aswon. No doubt the city would benefit from short city-hopper style aircraft as well, but I believe the runway length was probably funded by larger airlines or other countries, forming a known and easily navigable emergency stop for their own aircraft to use on longer routes. But for now, it means we have what appears to be a reasonably good landing strip in great condition, with no trouble."
The came in for a conventional landing, Marius gently depositing them on the runway and letting the plane coast down the runway and bleeding off speed until he could turn into the apron area. A single building appeared to serve as the arrivals and departure area, a pre-fabricated blocky lump that would only have room for a single aircraft's worth of passengers at once. As they rolled up towards the building, a single figure emerged from the structure, walking out a few paces then stopping to observe them, with his hands on his hips. The ork was shorter than Hunter, and considerably less well built, but both arms were cyber-replacements and he was clearly cast in the same mould when it came to physical attractiveness – though Hunter probably had him beat here as well.
"Come on, Shimazu – your contact, you can make the initial greetings. The rest of you might want to stay put." Kai unfastened his seat-belt and stood, with Shimazu joining him a moment later.
"I am going to keep the engines warm until you have made arrangements." They heard from the front, as they were climbing out of the door and dropping down to the tarmac. Loose shifting sand blew across the grey surface, sparkling in the pale March sunshine. The temperature was surprisingly cold still, given the apparent desert conditions, and the wind made them both pull their jackets tightly closed before they headed out around the wing and towards the waiting ork. As they got closer they could see the arms were not only obvious cyber-replacements, but also old – their design was probably thirty years and several generations behind the current tech curve, and they had a very primitive and visceral look to them.
"Are you Grok?" Shimazu called out, getting a nod in return and something that might charitably have been called a smile. It revealed a mouth of rancid tusks and teeth in an advanced state of decay, the lips pulling back to reveal gums that had clearly lost the battle with gingivitis and were in full retreat.
"Yeah, me Meester Grok. You land here, you pay landing fee." The accent was thick and the word choice and syntax made it clear that English was not his first language – but he could be understood clearly enough.
"A friend of mine sent me, for some work. Goes by the name of Saito. I was told to ask for you."
"Saito? Oh, him known. Ok. Landing fee twenty bottle then."
"Sorry? Twenty what?"
"BOTTLE. Buh oh oh ta la eh. Twenty bottle."
"Of…. Water?" Shimazu guessed
"Of course, bottle of milk not long lasting out here." The ork guffawed to himself as if he'd just made a masterful pun.
"Perhaps I can take over now we've said hello." Kai smiled at Grok, who returned his grin widely, revealing an abscess and at least two rotten molars to join the diseased gums. "Hello there, Mister Grok – I'm Kai, the team leader."
"Don't care, still twenty bottles."
"Mister Grok – do you have containers? We can probably help out with the water situation…"
"No, no have bottles. Need you to supply bottles. You stupid?"
"Well, do you have a tank then?"
"No, no army here! No tanks. What want tank for?"
"No, a tank to put the water in?"
"Why put bottles of water in tank? Let army drive off with them? You ARE stupid!"
"No, a water tank. A tank to hold water – not a tank that drives around with a gun."
"Ahh – no. No have tank. Not want tank. Want bottles. Do you know why Grok ask for bottles? Because GROK WANT BOTTLES."
"One moment." Kai turned away, taking a few paces back towards the tilt-wing and spoke over the comms. "Tads – can you create water here? I mean in the area, given the warping?"
"It's held at bay somewhat by the ward, so if you can get containers in here, I can probably fill them. I wouldn't want to do it outside though – it's very unpleasant."
"Ok, no problem." He turned back towards Grok. "If you don't have a tank, do you have empty bottles? We could get water put in them for you."
"No, no empty bottles."
"Well, where do people put the bottles when they're done with the water?"
"In bin." He gestured to the desert scrubland that filled the horizon. "Just drop, out there. In bin."
"Well, do you know where we can get some empty bottles?"
"Yes". Kai waited to see if Grok would amplify or further his explanation, but he just stood there with his hands on his hips.
"Well, where can we get empty bottles?"
"Gonna cost you. Need information Grok has – cost you five bottles."
"Oh for fraks sake!" Kai threw his hands in the air in frustration and turned around again to face the tilt wing before lowering his voice significantly. "Maybe we should let you take this guy's hand off." Shimazu stared at Kai, his expression inscrutable. "That was a joke. I think." He turned back to Grok.
"Ok, look – we'll go and get your bottles then. We'll be back."
"You go and come back, you land again. You owe twice! Wear and tear on runway!"
"Fine – whatever! Marius, get ready for take-off. Come on Shimazu – let's go get some bottles from somewhere!" Kai's shoulders slumped in defeat. How could you negotiate with someone so bone-headed?
"Nearest place I can see that is a major population centre we could get to is Nukus, another large town about one hundred and seventy five clicks from here, bearing one-seven-five." Hunter supplied helpfully. The rotors picked up speed as Marius started to bring the engines back up to full power, and both Kai and Shimazu hustled back to the door before the aircraft started to roll forward and turn back towards the runway. Two minutes later they were in the air, turning south and thundering across the desert towards the town.
"What is this place, Hunter?"
"Pretty big town, on the Amu Danya river – that's one of the two that feeds into the Aral Sea. Or used to, from what Aswon was saying. Map shows it has an airport to the east side, showing as International – though that may date back to when each of the 'stans was its own country and even local flights would count as international. But anyway we're looking at a sizeable city with lots of agriculture around it – in fact the whole place looks like a pretty fertile valley.
It didn't take long to get to the city, arriving on the west to avoid the airport and their radar, and it was clear that the map was as out of date here as it was for Muynak. The once prosperous city had shrunk significantly and there were the same signs of collapsed industry and abandoned housing as to the town to the north. The most obvious thing they could spot though was the river – or rather the lack of it. What had once been a fairly massive watercourse, splitting the land with a hundred metre wide barrier was now no more than a trickle, some sections showing isolated ponds of still water amidst swampy looking exposed river bed. Feeding off from this they could see a network of irrigation canals, all equally empty, that connected to barren farmland and ruined fields in which crops had not grown for many a season.
Dust and dirt were everywhere, but one building dominated the landscape – a huge factory that squatted over the centre of the town, belching smoke into the air from massive stacks. The factory was half a kilometre long, an ugly soot-stained building made from local bricks and stone, but the walls shimmered in the light somewhat. Aswon recoiled as he turned the viewing-prism around to survey it, clawing at the viewing headband to pull it from his face.
"Don't look at the factory, Tads. And don't go near it if you can help it. The mana there is twisted worse than anything else we've seen. It's a proper warp over there." He glanced around at the others. "Even for us, don't try and reach into the astral there. The magic is so corrupt and toxic it'll hurt you. Make your eyes bleed and eardrums burst kind of hurt. Not joking." He shook his head as if to try and shake out the image he'd seen. "Lots of death over there. Lots of crap into the air, too."
Marius found a place to set down on the western edge of town, a little way back from the highway, and pointed out that there was a fuel stop right at the edge of the built-up area, selling gas, methane and power bank charges – and from the size of it, likely to have a small supermarket built onto the side as well. Once more they unlimbered a bike from the back of the tilt-wing, using it to cross the broken terrain leading down out of the hill they'd landed on towards the fuel stop. Hunter made his way down, sampling the air as he did and detecting the horrible mess of organophosphates, bleaches, acids, complex hydrocarbons, and a mix of poisons and toxins that must be halving the life expectancy of everyone in the area. He switched over to his internal air supply for the journey, rather than taste anything else brewing in the thick, smog-laden air, checked out the supermarket and headed back to the tilt-wing as quickly as he could. Along the way he saw that EVERY single person visible had a mask on of some sort – some with proper chemical respirators, while the poor made do with a t-shirt tied around their face or some other improvised barrier.
When he got back, he filled in the team on what he'd learnt.
"So – the water here is pretty extortionate. We're talking more than ten Nuyen a bottle, for small bottles as well – like the size you'd give to a kid. Works out at fifty Nuyen a litre pricing – except you can't buy that. Max of three bottles per customer. So even if we all went down one after another, we still couldn't buy enough. Had a chat with the guy working there – he doesn't like metas much, but he at least told me the supermarkets are much the same. All the water is bought in, and is way expensive, and hard to get all the way here."
"Well, that's just peachy. So – where's the closest place we know we can get water? Like trays of water bottles, enough to pay off the landing costs?" Kai watched as Hunter pulled up the map, scrolling around and making a few notes.
"Ok, three choices. Closest from here to keep fuel costs down is Ashgabat. We've shopped there before, it's not the cheapest, but they'll have stock."
"Ashgabat! That's… a long way!" Kai seemed appalled at the idea, but Hunter continued, making him feel worse.
"Next up is a bit further, but larger – and that's Tashkent. Or we can go all the way to Baku and shop there. Baku is the cheapest, but will use the most fuel. Tashkent in the middle. Ashgabat has the most expensive supplies, but the lowest fuel bill. And with the cost of fuel, that's probably still going to save us money…"
"Fraks sake…" Kai looked around at the others. "So, Ashgabat then?" It wasn't hard to make the decision, and soon they were once more in the air, burning fuel as they headed south towards the walled enclave of Ashgabat. At least the journey was quiet, and they found their local knowledge hadn't drifted out of date – they could set down out of town and use the bike once more to get to one of the local supermarkets where they found copious amounts of water available, both branded and 'local'. The bottles here were two Nuyen each when bought in bulk, but at least were half a litre in size, so much better value for money. They bought about seven hundred bottles, a pallet's worth of water overall, divided into slabs of twenty-four bottles and wrapped in a tight-fitting paper binding. It took two taxis to split the load between them and carry the supplies back to the aircraft, parked in a shallow defile out of sight. Of course, by the time the taxis got there it had been masked by a spell and looked more like a large articulated lorry, but the curious drivers still exchanged gossip about the strange destination, wondering how the big truck had gotten there. Once they were safely away, and with the tilt-wing now carrying several hundred kilos of additional load in the rear, they dropped the spell and Marius lifted off once more, now heading back north towards Muynak. At least he'd had chance while the shopping was taking place to transfer fuel from their reserve barrels into the tank and top them off, cursing as he did so.
With the water loaded up, they got airborne again, flying the six hundred and forty-five kilometres north to Muynak, across the steadily more and more arid and polluted landscape. Coming in to land for a second time, Gronk came out and assumed the same stance – cybernetic hands on his hips and a vacant and insincere smile on his craggy lips. Kai and Shimazu climbed down, with Hunter joining them, two of the slabs of water tucked under his arm.
"Right chummer, here's two packs. That's an eight bottle tip. Now, where's the people we need to see?" He asked bluntly, returning the grimace. Grok looked him up and down and his smile widened.
"Nice. Well, they're waiting in the lounge there. Come on in!" Grok checked the bottles and gave a nod of approval as he saw all the seals still intact and the paper wrapping still sealed around the body of the bottles.
"What about these bottles then? We have more. How much would you be willing to pay for them?" Kai interrupted, before Grok could lead them to the 'lounge'.
"Nah. Bottles is bottles. Nuyen is Nuyen. Separate things."
"What about buying fuel?"
"Oh, fuel is Nuyen. Fuel man wants Nuyen, not bottles." Grok shrugged. "He be sorry when he have no bottles!"
"Give it up, Kai." Aswon muttered as he approached, Tads and Marius in tow. "I'm not sure it's worth the effort. He walked around Kai, leaving him to stand with a miserable look on his face, and his long-legged strides let him catch up with Hunter and Grok quickly, leading the way towards the single building set back from the apron.
The door to the building wasn't secured, pulling open easily and revealing a darkened room inside. The windows had been blocked up, and it took a moment even for enhanced eyes to adjust to the gloom inside after the bright day outside. What had once been the combined boarding and arrivals area had been gutted, and now a rag-tag of odd furniture was strewn around the place – looking like it had been looted from the local town, given the mis-matched styles. A few vending machines sat in one corner, along with a lashed-together computer terminal and uplink, while several couches and beds were strewn around. Down one side, though, were a number of booths, ripped out of a diner somewhere. All were empty bar the last, and the three people sat there were watching them carefully.
There was a dwarf, with blond curly hair and an equally blond curly beard that seemed to escape in all directions from his chin, apart from a hairline scar that ran just to the right of his face, creating a gap where no hair grew at all. He wore dungarees with several large pockets full of tools and bits of equipment, and sported visible rigger jacks on the side of his neck. Next to him was a human, slender in build but with a long face and a messy mop of hair that was combed over to one side. He wore a fairly standard set of armoured clothes – if they weren't the SecureTech leading brand, they were one of the many knock-off copies and imitations that varied between pretty good and absolutely hopeless. Last in the booth was a large orc, built from the same mould as Hunter – though they managed to avoid the lop-sided and distressing features that Hunter managed.
Shimazu dropped into astral, wincing a little at the background count and quickly checked them out – nothing too direct, but a quick look over their auras and the area around them. He immediately detected some active protection – the dwarf was defended against spells and magical attacks, with the source being the slender human. That in itself wasn't alarming – in fact it was quite prudent when in a place like this, and he concentrated on the 'vibes' they were giving off. All three of them were nervous and very wary, and the ork in particular looked to be twitchy and ready for a fight.
Kai caught up with Shimazu and the rest as they came to a halt a few metres away, and gently pushed him in the small of the back, giving him a nod of encouragement when he glanced backwards.
"Hi, I'm Shimazu. I think we have a mutual acquaintance – Saito. He told us we should head over here to collect some items." The team saw the three strangers relax, the ork in particular winding down noticeably, as soon as Saito was mentioned. "I've known Saito for some time, so I've been making initial contact with people – but this is Kai, our team leader." Shimazu gave a nod of the head and then stepped to one side, for Kai to take his place.
"Good afternoon! As he said, I'm Kai, and this is our team – Aswon, Hunter, Marius and Tads. So – I understand we're here to pick up some gear?"
"Yeah, chummer. And some intel. You wanna come take the weight off?"
"Thanks, I will do." As Kai moved forward the ork slid out and left one side of the booth empty, taking up a position against the wall a few metres away and watching them with interest. Kai slid into the vacant spot, feeling the warmth of the seat from the previous occupant. He glanced up at Shimazu, but he'd taken position just behind and to the side of him, and made it clear he was going to stay there. The rest of the team moved closer so they could hear, without crowding them at the table.
"Good to meetcha. I'm Hoshimo. Now then, I've got a chip here for you…" he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small optical chip, then slotted it into his tablet and angled the screen up for Kai. "This here is the general area you're heading for…." The screen displayed a large scale satellite shot, with some overlays added – three areas marked as being under the control of 'hordes' and two areas next to each other identified as Cosmodromes. "Off to the west you have the Kuchuks, to the north east is the Orta range, and to the south west you have the Buyuk. None of the hordes get too close to the spaceport, but they'll be found anywhere in the surrounding areas, and sometimes fight each other. As you can see, there's two launch facilities. Baikonur is the northern one, and that's used by SK to launch their own stuff – the main company and subsidiaries. Tyuratam to the south is also an SK facility, but they launch commercial stuff for smaller corps, for anyone that can't do their own lifts. So lots of weather monitoring stuff and communications relays, from what I understand."
Hoshimo looked up from the screen to Kai, then round at the team to make sure they were following him, then clicked a button, zooming the screen in. The horde controlled areas disappeared out past the border of the screen, and they could see the shape of the cosmodromes now, with the commercial side of things forming an L-shape that bent around the slightly smaller northern facility. Another click and they zoomed in further, most of the commercial port disappearing off the bottom of the map, leaving only a small area on the right of the screen visible.
"This is the area you need to be in. However, you can just about see the runway at this scale – this is where the local defence force and patrol elements are based, so it's good to know which way you need to look." He zoomed in again, and the airbase disappeared out of view, closing in once more. Now they could more clearly see roads criss-crossing the area, and some of the terrain features started to appear. "This is what you need to get near – Pad 162/36. There's a launch scheduled for the twenty-second, at 10:15 Zulu. You need to be in position by then, ready to capture the data."
Another quick look around to ensure they were keeping up, and he advanced the display once more. The satellite image disappeared, showing instead a large rocket with ancillary boosters strapped to the side, along with a mass of technical information.
"This is the Ikarus IV Heavy Lift system. Two solid rocket boosts and a multi-stage main vehicle with some fairly exotic cryo-fuels. Also toxic as all hell. But who cares out here, right? But, this spot here, just above the line where the boosters finish… this is what you need to look for." He zoomed in, and once the rocket filled the display it swapped over from a plan view to a photograph – or a very high resolution painting or drawing. He continued to zoom until the rocket width filled most of the display horizontally. A pop-up box of text appeared at one side, showing some measurements. "This is the aiming point for the measuring equipment. You gotta be accurate, it seems!" The tolerances shown in the text box gave them only 250mm of horizontal wiggle room, and 85mm vertically. Aswon leant in a little and winced as he worked out the maths in his head – from any kind of decent range, the target was going to be tiny, and require sub minute-of-arc accuracy even through a scope… The page disappeared, and showed a large and complex looking optical device mounted on a tripod, painted a drab military green.
"This here is the AN-PED-01 designator. It's been adapted for the job, but it's still only got a max range of twelve and a half kilometres from the target – and that's the absolute max. Weather might cut that down a bit, so you need to be careful and make a call on the day. But this is what that range area looks like…" The view shifted back to the satellite image, and zoomed out from the launch pad, until a green glowing circle appeared. Centred on the launch pad it reached over to a larger collecting of pads and facilities to the west, and just touched the security airfield to the east.
"Hang on a minute – what's the scale on this? How big is the facility?" Hunter looked confused as it didn't seem to add up right.
"Oh, the place is massive. The Baikonur part has a perimeter of over two hundred kilometres, and covers more than two thousand square clicks. They've got like forty launch pads here for different types of rockets, or facing different directions and stuff."
"Then those roads don't make sense, they're all out of scale."
"Not roads, mate. Railways, so I'm told. Huge wide things, non-standard track gauge. But they move everything around on their own dedicated private rail system. EVERYTHING. Hard to find a road in the place at all. So all the security is either airborne or love their off-roaders."
"Yeah. That figures. Ok, railways and no roads."
"What about magical defences. Any word on that?" Kai asked.
"Huh.. not really. Ain't much mojo out here, and what there is tends to be all fragged and twisted. Makes Devron sad, it does…" The dwarf nudged the slender human in the ribs, and the man looked up, giving them a sorrowful stare. "So no magic for us chummers, that's for sure. Probably ain't much for them neither."
"Well, thanks for the info." Kai accepted the chip as Hoshimo ejected it and passed it over the table. "I guess we should get the equipment then?"
The dwarf nodded, and then packed his computer away into a large pocket on the front of his dungarees, while the mage, Devron, slid out and stood up, dusting himself off. The ork pushed himself off from the wall as well, and padded over to the doorway, pushing it open and checking outside suspiciously, then leading the way out and around the side of the building. Hoshimo glanced over at the tilt-wing and gave it an appraising look, then called back towards Marius.
"Nice wings, man. Sweet looking ride." Marius gave him a nod and a brief smile that was barely forced as the rigger complemented him.
Around the back of the building they found the other teams vehicle – a light striker, the kind of recon vehicle used in Desert Wars and for scouting in many armed forces. This one had clearly seen some action, having several rows or lines of bullet holes and dents in the lightly armoured panels to the rear. It wasn't a large vehicle, with a minimalistic chassis perched on top of the high-suspension chassis and large knobbly tyres. Gear was stashed, strewn or strapped all over the vehicle, and it didn't appear to have any spare cargo space at all. In the back area though, surrounded by rucksacks and personal items were two large military transport cases, one stacked on top of the other.
The ork, that still hadn't been introduced or named, slung his rifle over his shoulder after one last suspicious look around and then hefted the boxes down, giving a little grunt as he did so. Hunter moved in to help move the box away from the vehicle a little – wanting to see just how heavy they were and to gauge his strength against his opposite number. They were surprisingly heavy, and he too ended up breathing out hard – though not as hard as the other guy had, and he gave a little smile as he 'won' his competition. Once the boxes were down out of the vehicle, he flipped open the top, revealing the designator in one along with the tripod mount, while the other was full of batteries or fuel cells of some sort.
"Well, there you go. If you're happy to take it from here, then we are O-U-T out of this miserable little shit-hole and back to somewhere with a bath and a bed. Good luck!"
"Thanks. We'll let Saito know we've taken delivery and are moving towards the target." Shimazu responded, and the other team climbed aboard their vehicle and quickly started it up. The engine roared into life and they quickly took off, turning in a tight loop around the building and driving off to the south-west.
"Guess we load those up in the bird and head north towards the target then… come on!" Kai gestured for people to grab the boxes, and started to lead the way back to the aircraft.
