Whilst the rest of the team settled down in bed, Tadibya returned to the truck and climbed into the back, pulling out her stick of chalk and began to draw. Writing long flowing lines of Nenet text in tiny and precise strokes, she worked for three hours continuously, circling the truck with slow, methodical movements. As she finished, the last characters flowing back into the first, she felt the magical ward spring into life, summoned into existence with the tale of her forebears now etched into the trucks interior. Cracking her back and stretching, she staggered out of the truck, locked the door and then collapsed into the bed in her room for a dreamless sleep.
In the morning, the young man on the reception desk bought them hot, freshly baked sour dough bread that had a very peculiar flavour to it. Aswon stopped eating when he detected it, waiting 20 minutes and watch the rest intently to see if they became ill. When all proved to be ok, he tucked back in… it wasn't a bad flavour, just…odd. Different. Maybe it was a local recipe, or some variant on ingredient that was a trait of the local area. As they ate breakfast, they looked over the medical supplies that the motel clerk had bought. He'd clearly oversold his abilities somewhat, and had just been to every garage, convenience store and vending machine in a several mile radius and had purchased a variety of small, travel and car based first aid kits. They contained just generic materials, plasters and small bandages, some eye wash, micropore tape – most of which they had in abundance in the back of the truck already.
After they quizzed him, he shrugged and said that if they wanted anything more, they would need to go to the hospital in the middle of Ashgabat.
They got back on the road, and headed in towards Ashgabat. As they drove into the more built-up area, they realised that they were driving through a ghost town – most of the buildings were abandoned, ravaged by time and the encroaching desert. The occasionally inhabited dwelling was heavily boarded and shuttered, and people moved quickly from place to place, hoods and masks hiding their faces as they leant into the wind.
The road continued east, and they spotted the wall – at least five metres high, a big solid mass of heavy construction material, like a fortress or prison wall. The team slowed, and scanned ahead cautiously – checking for gun and sensor platforms, patrols – all the time wondering what they had missed. After a careful examination however, it appeared to be just a massive wall, solid and imposing. They closed on it, slowly and carefully. As they approached, the massive blast door across the road slid open a lane – revealing a shiny corporate enclave behind. No buildup of sand, no desert encroachment. As they drove in, they relaxed slightly amidst the densely-packed housing, corporate towers, warehouses and other signs of civilisation.
They quickly located the hospital and found a parking space, then Kai and Hunter headed for the entrance, Kai grabbing his doctor's coat and pass on the way. Asking the bored receptionist for directions, they soon found the pharmacy and Kai made enquiries about the anti-coagulants needed. Again they had the choice of cheap no-brand supply or a much more expensive and named western brand – which is what they chose. When the pharmacy technician asked for his ID card and the patient code to update his system Kai leaned in slightly and turned on the charm. The ID card, ahh, must be with the paperwork, all the way back in my office. Such a long way. Perhaps…. a quick scan of the technician's name badge… perhaps Umar could help me out, just this once. Umar looked over the counter, up and down the hallway. Seeing no one around, the price suddenly jumped an extra thousand Nuyen. Kai smiled, the credit stick was slid over the desk and the transaction quickly processed, the extra thousand sliding off onto Umar's personal stick. They picked up the two trays of drugs, and slid them into the packing box provided, taking the sixty day supply back out to the truck and mounting up. Hunter was good for another seventy days now.
As they drove through the small central business district, they spotted a large department store, and pulled over to check it out. Inside they found a trove of gear – the small enclave obviously stocked a "little bit of everything" due to the limited choice of outlets in town. They picked up a sun-cell sheet to place on the roof of the truck, to help recharge their gear and keep the vehicle power topped up without having to use a generator, a whole bunch of spare clothes and then found down in the rear of the basement, a small gun section.
Aswon picked up some hollow point ammo for his rifle, Shimazu grabbed a Ruger-manufactured "Super Warhawk" heavy revolver, and many of the team topped up their supply of regular ammo. They also grabbed some armour plated vests and combat jackets from the racks, uparming themselves considerably. When ID checks were requested, Kai once more leaned in and explained that they were in the truck… perhaps they could do a deal? They haggled a little, but the price was still steep – the sales clerk obviously taking a bigger risk with multiple items to cover in the inventory shortfall. They also discovered that the sale of taser weapons was absolutely prohibited – there seemed to be no stunning / incapacitating weapons allowed at all. They also bought some sundries – Aswon buying a couple of chips with details about flora and fauna, and a tourist guide of the area – such as it was.
Resupplied and with a smaller credit balance, they headed south east, leaving the central walled area via another massive blast door. Once outside, again many of the houses were abandoned and choked with the encroaching desert. The southern side of town had more scattered farmhouses with marginal plots trying to survive in the desert scrubland. After fifteen kilometres of scattered suburbs the housing vanished, leaving just trackless wasteland, rocks, gullies and defiles, with the cracked and poorly maintained blacktop cutting through the sandy backdrop. Kilometre after kilometre passed, the truck the only moving thing in the brown landscape, until nearly four hours later they entered the oasis city of Tejen, two hundred and twenty kilometres from Ashgabat. Just like the previous town, the suburbs were choked with sand and the encroaching desert, and many of the houses were abandoned to the wilds. The centre of town was again densely populated – using the surrounding houses to shield them from the desert winds, it appeared. The team pushed on, not even stopping for fuel, and pressed on towards Mary.
An hour out of Tejen, Marius noticed a little twitch in one of his sensors, and spotted a drone approaching, following the road but flying about thirty metres up. The drone swung around them, pursuing them at a distance, keeping them locked up with its sensor system. The team prepped weapons, and checked around them, wondering where the attack would come from.
They spotted a huge dust cloud approaching down the road, and first to appear from the heat haze was a security vehicle, a boxy APC. As it grew closer, they could make out the livery – it was emblazoned with the logo of Saeder-Krupp. Marius tensed, and his face betrayed his discomfort, but he restrained himself from any action stronger than just pulling over as far as he could to the right hand side of the road.
The cloud continued to grow as they proceeded along the highway, eventually turning into a massive convoy – all told there were forty-eight vehicles, with a variety of heavy transporters with trailers between ten and eighteen meters long, a fuel tanker, two low-loaders with massive tractors and other agricultural equipment, three large aggregate haulers and a drilling derrick on a specialist truck. Many of the trucks showed signs of having some armour, and a few had turrets on the cabs that looked to carry light machine guns. Marius tried to "drive casual", sticking to his side of the road and giving the huge column of heavy vehicles as wide a berth as possible – aware that any move might mark him as "suspect" and in this kind of environment they'd just open fire at the drop of a hat. The team watched carefully, clutching at weapons and waiting to see if anything happened.
At the end of the convoy was another APC, followed by a converted bus of some kind – both again in SK livery. As the convoy passed them, the drone peeled off and raced ahead again, scouting for more trouble on the road ahead. The team relaxed, putting weapons back to safe and settling down into their seats again and continued to squint out into the bright desert, illuminated by the low winter sun.
They pushed on through Mary, another oasis town in the Karakum desert, finding again that it was not walled but showing signs of semi-abandonment. Here the road swung north east, and they pushed on to the next leg of their journey towards Turkmenabat, three hundred and fifty kilometres away.
It was late afternoon, and they were most of the way to Turkmenabat when they passed a warning sign with a picture of a crocodile on it. Hunter pointed out the sign and laughed, thinking it ridiculous – surely there were no crocodiles in the desert! Aswon piped up suddenly, from where he'd been studying his chip.
"Hmm? Ahh, right – means we're at the Repetek Nature Reserve then. Yeah, desert crocodiles – been here hundreds of years. Famous for them apparently – some of them nearly eight meters long. The landscape of the reserve is mostly arid, with extensive ridged sand dunes, some fifteen to twenty metres in height and large areas of sand dune and valley-like depressions. Apparently Black Saxaul, rare to most part of Central Asia covers more than 1,470 km2, approximately 4.5% of the territory of the reserve. The soils have sandy subsoils, but there are at least twenty-one types of trees, a hundred and four grasses, eight mushrooms, one moss, sixty-eight soil algae and a hundred and ninety-seven different kinds of fungi grow within the reserve."
The cab went silent for a moment as people absorbed the image of eight metre long crocodiles, wondered what Black Saxaul was or pondered on just how much of a nerd Aswon was…
They drove on, into the dunes, banks of sand rearing up higher than a small building on either side of the road which swept in a shallow series of curves through the reserve.
A roar of engines was the first warning they got, as a dozen scrambler-style bikes cleared the top of the dunes on either side of them and started to slalom down the slope. The figures were wearing light armour, and all appeared to have some kind of machine pistol or gun on a friction sling. Moments after they started their descent, the heavier sounds of V8 engines echoed down the road as a selection of flatbed trucks followed the bikes – five to each side. Each of those had a body standing in the rear portion of the truck, attached via a combat harness and manning the roof-mounted weapon.
Down the road, a good few hundred meters away, two trucks pulled out from behind the concealing berms and came to a halt almost nose to nose. The truck bodies blocked the blacktop, and people could be seen raising the fabric sides up high to allow the inhabitants to see up the road.
The team scrambled for guns and slid into their positions, thrusting barrels out of the firing ports and getting a bead on the approaching vehicles. Marius made a quick assessment of the trucks ahead and then accelerated hard. The trucks ahead might prove an obstacle to the average car, but he'd be able to scatter them like skittles with the weight and power of the 6X6. Shots rang out across the early evening air as Aswon and Shimazu drew a bead on targets. As the truck accelerated hard, their first shots were not effective, thrown off by the movement – but they settled in and kept firing, and were rewarded with solid hits. Tadibya, meanwhile, was looking out across the landscape, looking at the cluster of bikers on the right hand side. She gathered energy into her hands, and flung a bolt of force out of the truck centred on the biker in the middle of the line, trying to stun and incapacitate them. The globe of power hit their auras, but they seemed too strong-willed, and threw off the attempt, continuing their descent to the road, and starting to sweep towards the rear of the truck.
With no warning at all, a large sheet of ice materialised on the road ahead of the truck, giving Marius no time to evade it. Wheels hit the sheet of slick ice, already melting on the hot road, and immediately lost traction. First one, then the others started to spin wildly while the differential fought to redistribute power. The truck slewed wildly across the road, Marius fighting hard to maintain course and speed, and somehow managing to avoid spinning out entirely. A few seconds later they cleared the sheet, the wheels regaining control – but it had cost them vital seconds and speed.
Ahead, the canvas had been thrown up and clear, and two figures crouched with tubes over their shoulders, firing within seconds of each other. The missiles flew along the road towards the truck, Marius wrenching the vehicle to one side to try and avoid the shot – but the attackers knew their business, and dodging one put him more squarely in the path of the other. About half-way to the truck, the back end of the rockets blew apart and a fine silvery mesh burst out, crackles of lightning arcing between filaments. Marius didn't have time to react, and moments later the zapper rockets impacted on the truck, sending thousands of volts through the sensors and truck systems, shorting out components, resetting computers – and driving a lance of pure power straight through the vehicle control rig into Marius' hindbrain. His body jolted and convulsed as it leeched away the power, and the truck lurched sharply to the side, losing power while Marius fought to regain control through the pain.
Hunter had moved to the rear doors of the truck, and had clipped in. With his weapon held tightly, he was ready to throw open the back door and spray fire at whoever was attacking them as they tried to board their vehicle. Kai remained in the centre seat, trying to co-ordinate the action around him.
A moment later a black globe appeared around the truck, encircling it and cutting out all light and exterior sight. The magical darkness was obviously centred on the vehicle, moving with them as they hurtled along the highway. The vehicle sensors were half blinded – relying on radar and inertial systems mostly to determine their location. Marius steered for the position of the trucks, and once again accelerated as hard as he could. Tadibya probed at the darkness, assensing the power and signature of the caster – and quickly realised that whoever it was, they were more adept at sorcery than she was. Expecting imminent close quarters assault, Aswon vaulted over the seat and moved to the rear compartment to support Hunter.
Outside the darkness, the two trucks were frantically trying to pull back from the onrushing 6X6, realising too late that the zapper rockets hadn't shut down the vehicle as planned. The missile loaders in the back were thrown from their feet as the drivers slammed their vehicles into reverse, spilling their reloads into the truck bed where they rolled around wildly. They almost managed to back up enough – almost. The heavy Russian vehicle ploughed through the gap between them, ripping off the bumpers and smashing lights, damaging radiators and shattering the windows from the force of the impact. The men in the back who had just managed to secure the loose rounds lost hold of them as the impact threw them from their feet again.
In the vehicle, the back door flew open as the truck shuddered from the impact, and Hunter dropped grenades out of the back door behind them, whilst Aswon threw additional grenades out at an angle. Moments later explosions rippled through the edge of the magical darkness – but they didn't see any bodies or cartwheeling motorbikes emerge… on the other hand, if the attackers were driven off by the explosions, that was just as good.
In the front of the truck, Tadibya picked herself up off the floor where the impact had thrown her, glad that at the last moment she had managed to raise her arms to stop her head slamming into the dashboard.
The truck continued down the highway, wobbling slightly from side to side and occasionally misfiring as the legacy of the zapper rockets continued to play havoc with both truck and driver. Shimazu peered out of the left window into the darkness, whilst Kai looked out of the right. Hunter and Aswon stared out of the back door, weapons ready, waiting for the attack….