Back in Ukraine, Part 4

 ....

One of the monks sat on a bench while the other man stood nearby next to a pond, tossing bread to the ducks that are floating around in lazy circles. Spark joined the man on the bench and initiated a conversation. The man, speaking Russian, took up the talk. He offered the names of monks taken, noting that some came back but were unstable. They couldn't, he said, mediate anymore, unable to maintain calm and connection. Those who returned had greatly improved power but were chaotic, unpredictable and dangerous. He also confirmed the black site's location: the campus we'd been to. It wasn't the only site, they noted. Spark asked about other sites but the monk said the other one he knew about didn't seem to operate anymore. "We do know of another one, though I'm not sure how active it is now. It was the site of the first meeting we ever had. The main one know is attached to the school."

The monk asked Spark and Blitz some questions of his own. First he wanted to know our involvement in the situation. Spark recalled to him how the Russians stole tech research secrets from her. The subject of Blitz's mother's story also came up. It didn't seem to ring a bell with the monk. Blitz seemed to be detached, likely drifting in Astral space during the exchange. My teammates also confirmed how to return to them any monks we rescue. Spark tried to offer them a secure comm unit but they rejected it, saying the method we had already used to communicate with them was adequate. With that, the monks wished us well in our mission and took their leave. "I hope you are prosperous in your endeavor."

We stayed in the motel room the rest of the day and night, scheming. What to do with Albina? How soon do we hit the black site? Because I wanted to flee the city basically as soon as we hit the black site I suggested we follow the lead on Albina first.

Using his computing skills Blitz found Albina's home address, corp housing on site at the company complex.

Meanwhile, Spark did some research about the campus, and found a side entrance to the building we wanted to raid. She did some digital casing of the site to find it. She plotted a course that would allow us to move around the campus stealthily based on a knowledge of the security.

My job was to plan a route out of the city once we'd hit the black site. The important part was to make pursuit as difficult as possible in case we were followed. I found a winding path that used some local wetlands to cover our getaway. There was even a good spot to drop off any monks we rescue. The key was not having to go back on the ferry after the mission so we were limited to leaving the city on that side of the river.

The next morning I took Blitz to Albina's corp complex. He was exceptionally nervous so I urged him to go Astral. He got out of the van and headed her way, and I circled the area in the vehicle. He approached her as she walked to the office. When she saw him she reacted in a visceral manner. "No, no, no, no....." backing up and walking fast away from him. Her messenger bag swung as she accelerated. She weaved toward other pedestrians. "Please, Albina," Blitz begged. "I need to know. I need to talk to you."

Albina stopped and turned back to him. She looked him square in the face. She warned him off with a hand gesture, keeping him five meters away from her. Blitz went to sit at a nearby bench. She stood close to the bench without engaging, looking around with her hand in her pocket working at her phone. "I don't know if you want to know," she told him. Blitz: "I have to know. If you know something about Emilia, please tell me." Albina replied: "She's out there but I don't know if you want to see her this way." She shook her head sorrowfully. "I've probably said too much." She turned to go and a small cred stick fell from her pocket as she fumbled with her phone. Blitz left, and scooped up the cred stick with a fake shoe-tying maneuver.

Back in Ukraine, Part 3

Now we had to find a way out and somewhere to take this stolen van and our hostage. I recalled some of the details of how I extracted Blitz and Spark when I first got them out of this city - the way we met. I was using the GPS to help. It was a slow process, full of paranoia, with Blitz following me in the stolen van. He kept bugging me over the communications, asking where we were going. At a traffic circle I got separated from the other two. I caught sight of Blitz as he veered off in a different direction. After that they seemed to have swapped seats, putting Spark in the driver's seat. I sent them my GPS coordinates.

I headed for the side of the city opposite of the airport, where far fewer vehicles leave the city. There was a small DIY rest stop out in the sticks. Blitz and Spark showed up, and Blitz swept the stolen vehicle for devices (tracking, homing, bombs, etc.) while I hopped up on the roof of our rented van. Spark filled a canteen with her piss, and then she showered our captive with its contents to wake him up.

"Ugh, what the frag?! Where am I?" our captive shouted as he came around. He went for his gun but Spark had it. "You looking for this?" she asked with some sass. In a calmer voice and with his Ukrainian accent more discernable, he replied: "You guys think you're pretty smart, pretty slick."

Spark: "Why you follow us?" Him: "I work security. Part of the job."

Spark: "Who is the employer?" Him: "It doesn't matter."

Spark: "Where did you follow us from?" He pauses but doesn't answer. Spark piled on with some threats, including suggesting she might take some of his fingers off. Him: "When you left the school. That's when I started following you."

Spark: "Who are you working for?" He provided the name of a small independent firm in the city: Kamin Security. I wanted to know the name of the company.

We \zip tied him and threw him in the back of the rented van. We scuttled the stolen vehicle in the woods and headed back to the city. He tried to suggest we let him go way out here and he'd walk back, and that he wouldn't say anything to anyone. No dice, chummer.

Back at the motel, Blitz stunned him and we carried our 'drunk friend' through the lobby to our room. I put him in the bathtub and closed the door. Long day, time to hit the sack.

The next day I found an unobtrusive place to park near the Buddhist temple where I could see the other two as they went in to find the monk Spark had already spoken to. They track him down. The convinced him to get us a superior monk to talk to. They set up a meeting with some representatives of the temple. Meanwhile, Blitz uses the temple's Matrix access to search for the teachers from the list he found, still in the system but not actually working on campus. His search resulted in one hit: Albina Kalyznyk. She works in the Recruitment Department. The search showed that she works now in the city as a consultant in the private sector. Put a pin in that.

They called me for a lift, as they were leaving. I told them, in order to disrupt surveillance I'd meet them inside a nearby three-story parking garage. No drones or guys with mag-vision cyber eyes would be able to see us meet up. Next we were headed to Albina's office.

It's a tall modern glass building, corporate but modest. The name on the side: Zaporizhia Automobile.

It's the same tactic: the other two go in and I sit behind the wheel. Here's how it went down....

A central hub of a front desk. Albina's not in, sorry. Spark and Blitz would have to head up to the floor she works on, in order to make an appointment. Which they do NOT do. Soon they returned to the vehicle. No luck yet.

The monks made contact so we headed to their preferred location, a wide open public park. We met at the benches by the pond. Two men were already there, and it's obvious they're who we were looking for. Shaved heads covered by their hats. I watched the exchange from the car. Here's what happened....

Back in Ukraine, Parts 1 and 2

 I still wanted to keep a low profile after recent jobs where we were a little too public. One option was to get work out of town. Spark contacted a colleague, Kresk, to find more information on Maxim. Where could we find him? We needed some answers. She pitched him on a revenge plot and though he wasn't interested he did help us. "You had a run in with old Maxim? How did he look?" Spark said, "Cool as a cucumber and doing better than I'd like. Which is to say: breathing." Kresk said Maxim is operating close to the old lab and school in the Ukraine. Seems he and others are working for a branch of the Red Army in Cherkasy along the River Dnieper.

Spark proposed selling any recovered research to finance the mission. She was going to work on how to put cyber tech in Awakened soldiers, so any information she could steal would accelerate the process.

Interesting. The academy where Blitz was enrolled is active again.

I talked to Oskar before leaving home to see if there were any contacts known to International Spotlight where we were headed. He said he'd look into it. He also noted that where we were going, they put on a veneer of being OK but the place was simmering. One point of interest is the Temple White Lotus, a modern Buddhist temple where the lab had obtained Physical Adepts for test subjects.

I rented a vehicle for the trip and planned a route through Poland and about three-quarters of the way across Ukraine. The 20-hour drive was uneventful but no 20-hour drive is enjoyable. We arrived along the river. The forest landscape showed more maintenance the closer we got. There was a ferry ride across the river to the city proper. The city was surprisingly nice, almost disarmingly so. We settled on a motel near the airport to keep a low profile. Of note: there wasn't a big metahuman population, so two Orks and an Elf might stick out a bit. Spark got a room and we Orks share another one. Boots on the ground to do some recon and look around. First stop: the temple, which is on the waterfront. We walked around the garden for a while until Spark got the attention of one of the residents, a monk by the look of him. She chatted with him, trying to get an opportunity to find out if they could be an ally. If the Russians were still taking Physical Adepts maybe we could rescue them? Hard to tell how it was going from our vantage. Eventually the priest moves with Spark to a more secluded spot, where they spoke quietly. He was looking around nervously. "Our next tour is at 3:30! Thanks for visiting!" he said overly loudly as he walked Spark back to us, trying to avoid suspicion. He then hurried off.

Spark confirmed that the monk told her it was still happening, the kidnapping. It happened as recently as six months ago.

We headed out to catch the ferry across the river with our vehicle. It's autumn so our cover story was leaf site seeing. The main road eventually branched off into smaller roads as we got closer to the school. Spark was riding shotgun with a cover story for the school of being an architecture magazine writer doing an article about the campus.

As we arrived on campus we crossed paths with a delivery van. There was a gate with an attendant. I stopped so Spark could talk to the middle aged man with a rather informal windbreaker who approached the vehicle. In Ukrainian, he said, "Can I see your parking pass?" Spark: "I'm Maria Skovo, a reporter with Eastern Architecture Weekly." And blah, blah, blah. "Oh, OK. That's nice. We do have a nice campus." He ducked into the booth and came back out with a day pass. He pointed us to an administration building, showing us on a map. I recorded the campus layout with the camera in my cyber eyes and saved it. The buildings were an old style and austere, just as Blitz remembered them. A distinct difference was the lack of usage in certain places, formerly busy buildings now vacant, wilder growth of vines in places. The other two in the crew got out at the admin building so Spark could get access or get a tour. Blitz was intent on finding evidence of his mom's old department or leads on her former co-workers. I found a visitor parking lot, parked and tried to keep a low profile until Spark and Blitz got back.

Here's what happened to Blitz and Spark inside the Tulyakbay Academy:

Spark came out with the hard sell, attracting attention with her over-the-top art house flamboyance. It seemed to draw a little too much attention.

Blitz got into the computers and found his mother still listed on the staff with a dead link to her faculty profile. He noted the others with dead links and then, after attracting the attention of an employee for accessing what was supposed to be off-limits to students, he got out of there.

There was a black golf cart  with the school insignia coming my way while I waited. Another security guard was at the wheel. He stopped and was eyeballing me and making notes. Then he drove closer, looking for a parking pass, which I had displayed. He headed back out along a narrow path, too narrow for a full-sized vehicle, I noted.

Meanwhile Spark got a pair of students on the quad to tell her about an incident a few months back when there were vans on site working from "that building over there," they said, pointing to one of the seemingly unused older buildings. The people in the vans were speaking Russian, they recalled.

We got back on the road soon after, as it was evening at that point, and we needed to get to the ferry. It was a quiet ride to the ferry. We used the noise of the boat to cover our chat to catch each other up on the day's results and what our next steps should be. I saw a man on the level above us lock eyes then take off toward the stairs. We decided to follow him. I split off to go to the vehicle, to make sure the guy doesn't frag with it by putting a tracking device on it, damage it or otherwise tamper with it. I shouldn't have let my ride out of my sight in the first place, I chided myself as I moved. Spark tagged along then split off to follow the stranger. I got to the vehicle and went over it looking for signs of tampering, but found none. I looked around for another parking spot where I could move the vehicle to throw off pursuit. Soon after I had moved it, Spark showed up and looked around, confused that the vehicle was not where we left it. I flagged her down but was distracted because when I relocated the vehicle it was making a grating noise for which I could not discover the cause. A quick review had shown me nothing, so maybe I was just being paranoid, I thought. Then the ferry's horn went off and people started heading toward their vehicles.

Blitz apparently encountered someone trying to obstruct us. Spark used the comm to tell him to knock the dude out and take the van he'd been using. We could steal it and meet up later to see if it held any useful clues. Blitz hit the driver with a spell and the guy went slack, dropping a camera and comm. Spark hopped in the guy's van on the passenger side as Blitz took the wheel.

Spark pulled the guy into the back of the van as Blitz waited for the green light on the ferry that would allow us to take the vehicles out onto dry land. The all-clear was given and we headed out.

Help for the Trolls, part 2

With the Queen defeated and the Nexus closed, a swarm was incoming.

Blitz said they'd be less resistant to mundane weapons since the Nexus was destroyed. Could we lure them to a spot where we can detonate the explosives Spark had brought along? Yeah, there was a place back toward the front, where we came in - a depression with water in it. I led the way, slipping a bit on the crumbling dirt. We got a good head start but the beetles were gaining on us and more were arriving from other directions. A couple bugs made wild jumps at Spark as they closed in. They emitted flames but they seemed weaker. Another tried to spew flame at Blitz, and cooked his armor pretty good. I took another glance at the digital display and we were where we wanted to be. I threw on the brakes as we arrived at the confluence of a few tunnels with a 20-meter drop off straight down. Spark set the explosives and then pointed out an access ladder we could use to get out of harm's way.

Spark headed up first then Blitz. Then me, of course. Blitz sent a blast of energy at the rear of the swam, to send them steamrolling toward our trap. It worked, as they started piling up on themselves in the bowl-shaped area below us. Spark activated the explosives. Nothing. A few agonizing seconds went by as we clung to the access ladder. Our hearts sank. Then the explosives went off. BOOM! Smoke ripped up toward us and a strange smell of burning assaulted our noses. It seemed more chemical than death.

Then the ladder started to loosen. I frantically looked for a place to connect my grappling hook in my climbing kit. I saw part of the infrastructure above us that I could loop onto. There was a separate I-beam that ran parallel to the one the ladder was on. I fed the stable rope to Blitz after I'd secured it, then I leapt five meters to the ground. Blitz got down safely. Spark followed but none to gracefully.

We retreated back the way we came, with Blitz checking out Astral space to see if there were more bugs out there. "Let's get out of here," he said. "These things are toast." We got back to the place where the Nexus had been. Now there were piles of carapaces almost fused into the "altar" as if they climbed onto it as they died. I found a "smaller" beetle shell intact. Its legs were gone but the rest of its Rhino beetle-style body was there, albeit fragile.

After we'd collected some material we headed back to the surface, realizing it was hard to process how long we'd been down there. Ben was there waiting, feeding wood into a big iron cooking stove. "Do you bear good tidings?" he asked. "Yes," Blitz said, pulling out a beetle horn and tossing it to the Troll. It landed on the ground near his giant feet. "Done." Ben shouts a hurrah and called out to the camp to rally to him. "Our home is saved, and we have these little fellas to thank!" As more Trolls emerge, a few grabbed me and Blitz and tossed him in the air in celebration. It hurt our sore bones so much. Elias poured something from a gas can into a tin cup for Spark. "Drink up! It's a good day!" Grain alcohol by Trolls.

I uploaded the footage from my cyber eyes to Ben's tablet so they could watch the Run. A young female Troll hooked it up to a widescreen TV that had been hidden under a tarp. They played it like a movie.

Later Schroeder broke the material link on the glove Blitz had acquired so he can use it in the future without being traced by the former owner.

Help for the Trolls, part 1

Owing to getting the drek shot out of me in several recent jobs, I went under the knife to get dermal plating. The things are visible under the skin so I guess we're doing this all the way now. No looking back; this is my life.
After showing our asses on the last job, I was keen to lay low for a while. Spark and I had to convalesce after surgery (she got dermal plates too).
Blitz was trying to trade the glove he got of that mage on our last job, guy named Schroeder. A Troll fixer he knows of offered to help him, perhaps to acquire it perhaps to help him retool it so it was attuned to him and NOT traceable by the old owner any more. Blitz was also trying to find a way to get a SUV in the deal, since he wanted a functional vehicle. The Troll offered him a job too, something about helping some other Trolls who got chased out of their warren. What the fuck chases a Troll out of its home?! Bugs, he told Blitz. Yikes, some bugs! We take the gig. Healing goes well and we were finally ready to hit the streets again.
It was time for some legwork. We had the name of the contact and where his warren is. Their crew is called The Little Guys. Cheeky.
We headed over to the address, a place on the edge of the city where they started to build infrastructure like a subway stop, but it seemed they abandoned it. There were big, man-made 'hills' and piles of debris and materials like scrap metal that sat between buildings. The place smelled like a cafeteria - cooking and smoke. A big Troll sat on an economy car like was a couch. "Who goes there?" he asked, as if he was under a bridge in a children's story. He tapped a metal staff against the pavement. Blitz introduced himself and us. "Thought you'd be bigger," the Troll bellowed. Blitz motioned to me: "That's him." The Troll replied: "Thought you'd be bigger too. And you have a wee one too," he said of Spark, the Elf. He goes by Ben, with Leon and Elias by his side.
They showed us footage on a tablet of meter-long beetles with large jaws chasing Trolls! Their movements seemed not quite corporeal. Then their mandibles shot out flames! Another clip showed a nest. How many were there? "It's hard to say," Ben said. "Those seem to come and go. Maybe a dozen? Two dozen? They also seem to be of the same mind. It's hard to explain."
The warren was a couple stories below ground. Ben drew me a crude map of the tunnels, rooms and the bug nest.
We did some research that showed that the beetles - Insect Spirits likely - could be harmed by mundane weapons but magic worked far better. So we grabbed some mission-specific gear. Spark wanted explosives. We all got flame-retardant clothing.
A couple days later we returned, to find plenty more Trolls milling about. Ben gave us a pep talk and then we headed in.
I led the team down the subway stairs to where passengers would get tickets and go through turnstiles. The Trolls had ripped out those same turnstiles and decorated with wild street art mosaics of all kinds of found items. Blitz was trailing me and Spark was covering our six. The plan was to protect our magic user, as he was the one would likely do the most damage to the spirits.
Up ahead I saw and heard a burst of flame. Paused; no movement. Then scuttling. SmartLink rangefinder said targets - three of them - about one meter tall each were advancing on us. I fired off probing shot at the smallest and it went down dead. Blitz went astral and saw the others coming, spurting flame. They were scary fast. Blitz blasted another with magic energy, and it too went down for good. Spark fired a shot too, at the last one as it jumped at us. It hit Spark then hit the ground injured.
I broke into a jog as we fled toward the nest. There were mounds of dirt that I wasn't prepared for, which lengthened our route. We saw a downward stairwell covered in a crust of wispy material, though it wasn't spider's web. Man, I don't know much about bugs, I realized. We could hear them skittering about down below. I rushed down the stairs and quickly headed for the door we were seeking. It smelled like earth, where the Trolls were digging. But right above me in the beetles' wisps was one of them, and it sprayed us with the flame attack we'd prepared for. The fire-retardant gear helped soak up some of the damage though I could feel the effects seep through to my armor. The other two team members seemed to dodge it. Spark peppered it with gunfire and it fell from the ceiling. Spark rushed past me and through the door, taking point. It looked like inside the Trolls were making some kind of aquifer. We had to get across, and the place where we were headed was flanked by a group of smaller beetles. Spark headed at them, spraying bullets to chase them off. Blitz moved quickly to the door, taking the lead.

We arrived in a Troll dwelling, with big stuff all around. Blitz was practically face-to-mandible with a much bigger beetle with many legs and prominent insect features as it sat in a multi-tiered nest made of mud. The nest had a geometric pattern quality to it. The bug rose up, a prominent ridge on its head. It's times like these that I'm glad I can't see in Astral Space. The thing was the size of a step van and that's enough for me to know.
It raced at Blitz, with flames starting to manifest. Spark unloaded another spray of gunfire. I checked around for any other beetles hiding, and found none. I pushed against the door we came through, in order to keep any other beetles from getting in.
The queen raked Spark with her mouth as the Elf back pedaled and grabbed her with her mandibles, crushing her in her grip.
Blitz yelled "This is the source!" and motioned to a gaping black hole of nothingness beyond the nest. He hurled magical energy at it. "Keep her off me!"
Spark slipped from the queen's grasp, clearing me for a shot. I dropped to a knee, bracing my back heel against the door to keep it jammed shut. I swung my rifle up and poured all me focus into the shot. With the queen's 'crown' in my scope I fired, tearing a layer away to expose an interior with an orange glow.
It washed flames over Spark and Blitz but they seemed to weather the attack. Blitz then unleashed another spell, pouring so much effort into it he wobbled, nose bleeding and spent.
A howling noise and air rushed toward the darkness. The queen stood up tall, fire licking, then she froze in place. As the noise stopped, I could hear the sound of a distant stampede coming at us from beyond the door.

Stealing the tech, part 3

We only had an address for where we were going to find Kurtis. So we didn't really know what we were dealing with. The place was basically a nice neighborhood apartment complex. I asked Oskar, a contact of mine, if he knew anything - perhaps how to get in, physically or electronically. All he knew is the area is packed with international corps and a lot of in-and-out traffic. Also, those in town for extra-governmental work wind up there - as Crescent Moon Tower.
We took the subway to the site, walking there and noting possible getaway vehicles we might steal later. The tabled we stole from the first site connected to the Matrix and seemed to give indications of a general location to seek. We found a maintenance man we bribed to get information on any new arrivals with serious medical equipment. He told us the room we were looking for and we headed off to the 12th floor. We tried to walk with purpose past a lounge full of suits who glared at us as we passed. I saw one nudge another and make a note of us. We went to an intersection and headed left to a locked door. Spark buzzed the intercom and said she's from Alder Tech and was verifying security because of the incident at the other facility recently. A doctor answered the door and let us in. Spark gave her a once over and saw she was of similar build and size. Then she stunned into unconsciousness her with her Narcojet pistol. Blitz and I dragged her inside and shut the door. As we went past the bathroom, there was a bodyguard sitting on the toiler - not shitting, just sitting there with the lid down. He held a Ingram SmartGun on us, almost casually. "Why don't you put the lady down," he said. "Guns in the tub." I did, walking slowly toward the tub and putting my gun in. "You next," he said to Blitz. He opened his jacket to show him he was disarming. The merc tossed a black hood at Blitz and told him to put it on. "I know guys like you. Put it on." Blitz tried to hem and haw and buy time. I looked away for a second and thought he was complying, but then he managed to cast a stun bolt. The merc wobbled and dropped his gun, then collapsed in a heap. Spark saw another bodyguard come at us from a room deeper in the apartment unit, and she fired a stun capsule at him, knocking him out cold.
We rushed to the bedroom to find Kurtis in bed. "I'm not going to resist, just make sure my doctor is able to care for me," he said. We told him we were not there to hurt him. We grabbed the wheelchair for him and found another to put the still-unconscious doctor in. We scrammed, and I suggested we go the opposite direction of the lounge on the way out. There was a corridor that circumvented that area, so we took that way. It led to a service elevator. It went down and opened to a direct access to the back way out of the building and onto the street. The maintenance man who we'd bribed earlier was standing nearby. He told us the way was clear and stepped aside. We spotted a small utility vehicle just inside the building. I told the man to act like I'd tased him as I raised the Taser at him, telling him it will look on the security cameras like he tried to stop us. I pretended to zap him and he went down. We loaded up the truck with the two wheelchairs and I grabbed the wheel while Spark rode shotgun. Blitz headed off on foot, splitting up with us.
A quick call to Mr. H and he gave us a place to meet to make the money drop and exchange of the tech.

Stealing the tech, part 2

Drones started to come to life around me. Not good. All alone on the first floor.
I hustled to the back, looking for another way out. There was an emergency door but it was welded shut. "This is not up to code!" I yelled in sarcastic frustration.
The other two came back down the stairs. Blitz was in a bit of haze, though I wasn't sure why. We headed for the tower, which was how to access the subterranean tunnel to the building we were seeking.
The tunnel's motion lights kicked on as we entered, showing a five-meter wide hallway that extended for a ways. There were all kinds of parts and equipment strewn all over, including hardware that included vehicle-grade weapons. We raced down the tunnel toward our destination. Halfway there the tunnel bent toward the other building. But just beyond the bend were targeting barriers. I strained to move them out of the way of my two companions with the intent of pushing them back into place to dissuade pursuit. Far ahead of us we saw two red lights come on and the sound of electronic pinging. Seemed like two entities. "You have anything for this?" I asked Blitz. He sneaked toward the lights, using some wrecked targets as cover, cutting the distance. We were about 35 meters from the red lights, whatever they were. Blitz moved up about half way; threw out a hand and the sound of metal smashing echoed from where the red lights sat. The other one whirred and moved to track Blitz. There was a muzzle flash and the sound of gunfire from the other threatening light source. Hard to tell but it seemed like a pair of sentry auto-guns. Blitz got hit but the plates in his armor seemed to absorb most of it, staggering him.
I ran up to Blitz and tried to shoot the red eye. I only winged it. I was close enough to see it at that point, a sort of tripod. It returned fire and a bullet ripped through my hip and some of the plates in my armor.
Spark stitched up the other gun emplacement and it went quiet. She came over to me while taking out a medkit. "It's not bad enough to waste time on that," I told her.
We went past more equipment and came to another set of double doors. Spark took over point since I was not in top form anymore, hobbled by the wound. The area was strewn with junk - shipping crates, boxes, parts - almost a small landfill. Up the stairs we went stealthily. Spark moved a crate but misjudged its weight and basically threw it out of the way with a crash. "Sorry," she whispered sheepishly. She moved up to the first floor door. She paused with the door open and leaned back to tell us someone was in the room. "That's you," I said to Blitz, waving him up. He went through the door tumbling as he went. All I could hear was gunfire but I couldn't see what was going on. In I rushed to see someone running up on Blitz, but the person's back was to me. He turned as I entered, then I hit him with the taser zap and it seemed to disorient him. Spark hit him with a Narcojet pistol shot and he went down in a heap.
While Spark broke out the medkit for Blitz I headed past them into the building to find Kurtis, our goal. I headed for a door leading to a service corridor, ignoring the mess hall. I passed a stairwell and the hall opened to a lobby, which seemed unkempt as evidenced by the cobwebs. The double doors are open at the front of the building and there were two men just inside. They were talking to each other so I used their distracted state to make my move across the large lobby. I got to another stairwell and headed up. This area - a barracks, by the look of it - looked more lived in. I heard far off movement and approached quietly. As I got to the door I saw an orderly with his back to me at the door. I pushed him into the room, closing the door as I followed him in, my gun out. "Follow my instructions and you live," I said deadpan.
"Whatever you want to do," he yammered. "What do you need?"
"Throw your common the ground and tell me where Kurtis is," I replied.
"Kurtis? Kurtis isn't here. They moved him. I don't know where they moved him. That's above my pay grade. Just leave me alone." I spied his tablet on the table. I grabbed it and his comm, then I tased him unconscious.
Leaving the room I could see my teammates below me in the stairwell. Blitz motioned me to a room where Spark and I can set up an ambush on a foe I don't see yet. Spark brought the comm they also stole. She began linking them by another secure channel.
The trap was sprung. One guy went into Blitz's room. Another straggler came in later, and Spark moved out to attack him with the Narcojet. The capsule hit him but a wave of energy rippled and the capsule seemed to fall away without effect. The man turned to Spark and make a finger gun, seeming to cast a spell. I leapt out, tasing him. He turned his attention to me, splitting his two fingers to send two tendrils of energy - one at each of us. At the last second, Spark threw out an arm and literally grabbed at the energy lancing toward me, snatching it and absorbing some of it instead of me taking the full power of the attack. She shot him again and this one hit him right in the chest. He jerked back violently, stumbled and fell. Spark ran up and checked him for weapons. She motioned me toward Blitz.
"You called?" I yelled to Blitz as I walked toward the guy holding him at gunpoint. The guy turned to face me and I fired the taser at him. Seeing he was surrounded he surrendered.
"Otto's stepping up their game and not just in scrap metal anymore, eh?" he said, pointing to my cap.
I handed the tablet to Spark. "Maybe this well help us find the asset."
Spark said it showed a transfer to a safe house....in Hamburg. The asset was awaiting the Russians, a team led by a Maxim Sidorov. Spark blanched at the name but said nothing.
We headed for the door, double time. I led our exit out to the wood line while successfully evading security.
Eventually, back in Hamburg, I contacted Mr. H to give him the update. He paid us 80% of the fee and said he expected us to complete the job.
"Unfortunate but out of your control," Mr. H said. "We're knee deep in this so complete the mission and contact me then."

Stealing the tech, part 1

A little down time after the Poland mission. I spent some time trying to establish a safe house. I needed to be able to put people up in Hamburg after they are extracted but don't have a final destination - yet. After three weeks I found a place and purchased some air mattresses and food, etc. It's a studio apartment in a big building in a not terrible neighborhood. It's not done, but it's livable.
Blitz told me he was trying to track down those who could teach him Ritual magic, which he wanted to use to find his missing mother. I know a little about the story; he lost track of her when he was at the military academy attached to her work in the Ukraine.
Spark was busy building a shop for her cybernetics - a lab in her crappy dwelling.
I got a call from Oskar. He had a job: infiltration, recovery of tech, extraction. In Germany, fairly close by.
Code in hand I was off to make contact. The guy wanted to meet at the Blonde Scorpion, a bar we've met contacts at before. He said he'd be in the reflective vest. "See you tonight." Once we were there, it was easy to find him at the end of the bar. Fashion is strange.
I made introductions and he found us a table, though it was in the middle of the room. I did not approve, but he was paying for the job. Luckily it was too loud for eavesdropping. "You can call me Mr. H. I'd like to know the others I'm working with."
The target would be Alder Tech, a German development company that is under Saeder-Krupp. The item we were stealing was a bit of rigger tech, a platform, a prototype that had just been completed. It integrates multiple items at once, and is funded by the Russians unbeknownst to the devs.
"We don't want this tech in the reckless hands of the Russians," Mr. H. said. He wanted us to snag it and bring it to a drop point.
In my amateur style I tried to suss out his loyalties but I'm bad at it and he's not dumb. He didn't give away anything.
The terms were arranged, including a bonus if we didn't harm any civilians or damage the facility. I tried to negotiate a little better payday and lo and behold I did squeeze better terms out of the client. He complimented our professionalism and agreed to up the price of the job.

We were given an address for the lab, which is off the beaten path in a decommissioned Army depot. We had three to four days before the Russians arrived to collect the prototype.
There is a highway nearby, with an exit 15 kilometers from the site. There's a truck stop, gas station, restaurant and motel.
Spark did some computer shenanigans and got us cover IDs for the small scrap company that goes to the lab site to get waste metal.
Blitz went to Otto's, the scrap yard, to get hats with their distinctive patches on them. I had to help buy a few of them. I was so charming! But we had to wait two days for an order to be put in so we were a little nervous that the timing would be too tight. It worked out.
After that I walked the route between the motel and the lab compound to see if there was a path we could take if we needed to hoof it in and out. There was, through the woods to the back of the facility via a northwest approach. There was a four-meter tall perimeter fence with vines growing on it, indicating that it was NOT electrified and that it was not maintained. There was gravel for about seven meters to the scrap pile, with a gate at the yard. There was also a building, two stories in concrete with a guard tower on top. Another building sat on the other side of the yard.
I scrambled to borrow a Tiffani Defiance Protector stun gun, so that I had a non-lethal option to get the bonus pay.
In the morning, I kitted up with pistol, taser, knives, climbing gear, wire cutters and medical kit. On the way to the site, I stopped about a kilometer out and stashed my crossbow in a tree in case I needed more bang on the way out.
We walked in via the route I scoped out previously. It was 5 a.m. We heard the echo of a car door closing from the front of the facility. Next came the sound of tires on gravel, which faded away. After that, it was all quiet.
I led the team quietly to the edge of the fence. We went in through a sliding gate and were into the scrap yard. We used the debris as cover to sneak to the rear of the single story building at the back of the site. There was a security camera affixed to a swivel but we ducked past it.
While I guarded our six Spark was looking for an external cyber-terminal to hack. What she found was an air conditioning unit with a camera honing in on her movements. She ducked it and stumbled onto the terminal, and got access.
There was power to both buildings, and they were connected via underground tunnel. There was also a single-wide trailer toward the front of the site. Blitz did his astral thing - the sight-beyond-sight move - to see if there were people in the buildings.
There was one person in the trailer-building. We considered sneaking over there intent on capturing the person inside and use the tech inside to find the prototype. WAIT, instead... why not walk right in as Otto's employees with a question for personnel? Maybe we can barge in and neutralize the person.
Spark entered, shoving a device in the man's face to get him to sign off on a work order. When he went to sign, I jabbed the taser in his ribs and shocked the drek out of him. He went down in a blubbering heap. Spark had already found a computer linked to the facility's network. The idiot at the desk was auto-logged on. Spark went to work cutting security then on to a complex layout.
We headed for what the computer calls The Garage, the two-story building with the tower on top. There was a big garage door on one side and a set of conventional double doors on the other. Taser in hand, I pushed open the double doors. There was an anteroom with more double doors beyond that. Through the glass it was dark though it was obvious there was a large area, perhaps the entire first floor.
Dimly glowing LEDs and my cyber eyes show it to be a room full of drones. Blitz's magical senses didn't detect any life inside. Spark and I started looking around while Blitz went to check out the tower upstairs.
"What does a rigger platform look like?!" I asked Spark as I rummaged through desks and drawers. She showed me the headware and associated tech from the data Mr. H. gave us. There was hardware and software. Our focus would be hardware, Spark noted. The hum of Blitz's open channel droned in my ear. There was a 3-D printer that tipped me off that I might be in the right place. Spark found a digital paper trail identifying Kurtis Blomkampf as the person the prototype is installed in, and that he was convalescing in the other building, the one we'd been hiding behind earlier.
Spark headed upstairs to get Blitz. I gripped the taser in my off hand and drew my Ares Predator, ready for whatever trouble was bound to come.

Back to Poland, part 2

Spark and I turned back to the camp, having chased off the Russians. Blitz had taken the other two Russians prisoner and dispatched the dog creature.
Now we turned our attention to the truck, to get it unstuck from where it had become essentially a potted plant. All the Poles would fit into it so we wanted to get it operational and then head off for our vehicle. Then would could GET OUT.
Blitz had restrained our captives, who were unconscious. The two dogs were dying in smoldering piles. The woods felt like they were closing in on us.
Blitz and Karl, the leader of the Polish refugees, got back to work on the truck. I grabbed a few Poles and headed out in front of the truck to clear a path. Spark started helping the sick and elderly into the back of the transport truck. We were struggling to move a log that had fallen into the path.
Some kind of small drone came flying out of the brush ahead of where Spark had gone out to have a look around. She took a shot at it and struck metal. It swerved off course and ducked into the canopy of trees, but it was still functional.
I could hear the mechanics when something snapped and broke on the truck though I could not tell what. What ever it was, I was sure it would cause complications later.
A few Poles arrived to report fires spreading in the underbrush, probably the after-effects of the paranormal dogs and what they were spewing.
Panic! I rushed to the back of the truck and pushed with a mighty Ork roar! It finally started to roll out. I ran up to the driver's side running board and Karl shoved over so I could jump behind the wheel. As I pulled away, out of the smoke, a few more people in Russian uniforms arrived on the scene. They fired off a few shots but missed the truck and passengers.
I could hear the team shooting and slinging spells at the pursuing soldiers.
A shot hit one of the rear tires. The handling became rough but I steered off the trail to get out of the shooters' scopes.
We got clear and used the GPS to find my buggy. I hopped out of the truck and Karl shoved back over to re-take the wheel. Blitz and Spark stayed in the back of the big truck. We were off to the rendezvous shelter via a local highway. It was an old airfield, with an ancient hangar and out buildings. It looked abandoned until a few people came out to receive us. Among the refugees, everyone was a little sick and groggy but unhurt.
I promised to help with any further expediting of the Poles to future homes.
"I heard you guys were good," the leader at the airfield said. "Looks like you are." He looked at the three of us. "Motley crew just like us!" We all offered to help with our connections in the future, such as the Polish Army.

Back to Poland, part 1

Oscar, a mechanic I knew in Hamburg, called me about interest in a job - rescue/repair/extraction.
I got the other two on board and he sent me the information. A guy named Cordero wanted to meet at the Blonde Scorpion, a local bar that caters to ex-military/paramilitary down near the docks.
I hopped on the train to go meet my mates and the contact. It was evening. The place reminded me of the Outpost, the veterans social club we went to during the last mission into Poland. Cordero, a human, was in the bar in a corner booth. I grabbed drinks for all of us. Cordero was drinking a beer so I got a pitcher of the same stuff and three more glasses. He seemed wary, standing to shake our hands.
Straight to business. Said he'd heard of our successful jobs in extraction. He had a group out in the woods of Poland, in a makeshift refugee camp where they'd gone after escaping the Russian Army. They were camped around a power station nationalized by the Russians.
"We just got word that they might be in trouble," Cordero told us. The Red Army was out to find and crush them. Their transport was broken down and though they had mechanics they needed parts. Our job was to get them operational, protect them and get them out. "We're all allies against the invaders."
Cordero provided us with a GPS unit and coordinates to the power station. The terms were good and he covered the costs of any equipment we needed that was mission-specific. I made a note to get woodland camo and more rations.
We took the regular roads most of the way but then there was forest that even my buggy couldn't get through. We walked the rest of the way using the GPS, visually scanning the horizon for the tower. I was on point, Blitz carried the parts and Spark watched out six. The canopy of the primeval forest blotted out the sky. We could still hear drones in the air so we hugged the trees and kept the canopy between us and the mechanical spies.
Soon we spotted a land mine, which I stopped just short of. There were more traps as we got closer to the camp site. GPS got us to within sight of campfires, and there was a building too.
Spark took the lead and I moved to rear guard. She is better at talking to strangers, so we relied on her to keep us from getting shot right away. A big guy on guard chatted us up and said they were fleeing to Germany but the truck had broken down.
Blitz asked to see the truck as we exchanged concerns about the sound of dogs approaching, perhaps Russian patrols.
Spark and I started passing out the ration bars we brought. I passed out food to the children while Spark attended to the wounded. Blitz was working on the engine repairs. The truck was wedged in the mud here and had become overgrown, so getting it out was going to be more complex.
After that I talked to some of the Poles about exfiltration. Spark helped repair some of the small equipment in camp. But the dog sounds were getting close now.
I called Blitz up to help and we attempted to sneak closer to the noises. About 50 yards away in a gully there were two men in long coats and goggles leading a giant dog thing, probably paranormal based on its glowing red eyes. It was sniffing the air. The men had Russian military insignia on their clothing. There was another pair of men and a 'dog' further beyond them, farther from the camp.
Spark and I ran low through the woods to the enemies farther away. Blitz and the Pole who'd been on guard attacked the nearer team.
By the time we'd gotten into position Blitz had cast two spells to attack the dog, beast, thing. A pair of fists made of energy rushed out at it and knocked it over.
I shot at the other dog's handler while Spark fired on the dog. My Remington 950 cracked the air and the bullet ripped into the handler, hitting him in the flank and staggering him. Spark shot and killed the beast with a machine pistol. The animal began to smoke and spew. The other Russian shot back at my Elf friend with his assault rifle but missed.
I took another shot as I heard the other team of allies exchange fire behind us. But I had no clear line of sight and my shot went wide. Spark fired at the Russian who was unharmed, hit him and staggered him. The man took a knee and returned fire.
The dog handler took out a device and put it to his ear. Spark saw the movement and dashed toward him to knock the device away, which she did successfully. She then shot him in the side and close range. I tried to shoot the other Russian but he was withdrawing and I missed. He returned fire but missed me too. I fired again but the underbrush was causing havoc with my line of sight and my shot went astray - again.
The target of my attacks started to move deeper into the trees and I took what I figured was my last shot. I fired another round and missed again, and I saw him disappear into the undergrowth. I dropped the rifle into the low ready position and sagged in embarrassment. I could not have been less efficient, and it might cost people their lives, I thought in the moment. If the Russians come back soon we'd be in trouble.

Revenge at the gated compound

We were on the road in the stolen van, headed for the home of her employer. She was out for revenge for a betrayal. I was at the wheel, headed to a nice neighborhood, an enclave really, one I've never been to. We were looking for a walled lot in a neighborhood of similar compounds. At least we didn't expect to see any more of the big boss' goons since our employer said she thought we'd killed them all when we broke her out of her apartment complex.

the stolen van

Oh, and she finally told us her name, which is Gray.

So, I asked over my shoulder to where she was sitting in the back while being healed up by Spark. "What went wrong?"

"You guys ever been double crossed by a Johnson?" she asked in response. She said she was aware we were pretty new to the Shadows, so she had to ask. Blitz was picking her brain. Her summation of the game: do a job, get double crossed, they kill you and they don't have to pay you for the work.

I pull the van into the neighborhood, and it's quiet and clean, a narrow stretch of streets with no vehicles parked on the street. The house was at the end of the block. It was wreathed in a high wall of shrubbery and a concrete wall with a driveway that disappeared into the compound.

I parked a few blocks away. We walked in and found a spot to climb the wall. Blitz went over first and saw two little dogs in the yard nearby. Gray went over with help then I hoisted Spark over and followed.

I opened a ration bar and we tied a bloody rag from Gray's wound to it, then Spark launched the nasty thing at the dogs to distract them. She threw it toward the front of the property as we sneaked to the rear of the house where the pool solarium was.

As we approached, motion sensors went off and the old man who owns the place froze where he was in the pool room, looking out at us in his swim trunks and robe, but with a rifle in hand.

Gray said she'd go settle the score. Blitz cast a spell and he became invisible to go along with her. I tossed Spark my silenced pistol and the two of us moved to flank Gray and Blitz. I got the rifle out and put on the supressor.

"Why don't you lower the weapon, Mac?" Gray called out though I couldn't hear the rest of the exchange. She nudged the door open with her foot and put something there to prop it open. Steam escaped the room from a hot tub.

Later Blitz told us Gray demanded her money or Mac would send the wrong message.

Spark sneaked off to deal with a threat, telling me there's another guard inside the pool house. I heard the muted pops of gunfire from where Spark had gone.

Blitz must have cast a spell because the thug in the pool room just goes flying through a copse of bamboo trees.

"Your goons are gone!" Gray yelled in a sing song voice to the boss man. He eased back into the building, withdrawing to the shadows. He asked to go to his pocket secretary and get money to pay Gray. The transaction is complete.

Spark came back as the guy went into his house, locking up. We retreated back to the front gate. Blitz tried to recruit Gray. Who knows where that will go?

We cruised off into the night, dropped Gray off and got a perfectly professional send off from her: "Don't call me. I'll call you." Later we all got 3,000 Nuyen each in bank transfers to complete Gray's payment to us.

A job back home in Hamburg

Spark's contact Ana got at her about an urgent job, a pickup, if the crew was ready and available ASAP. We'd have to go to the dock ward. Of course.
A woman answered the comm pickup at the dockside bar Wolf's Den. "I'm wounded and need discreet transportation to my safe house. Directions on pickup."
Linus, an Ork mechanic who runs a shop near my house, is not answering his comm so I couldn't get us a vehicle conducive for the job. (I only own a dune buggy and a heavy duty motorcycle.)
Great. Blitz went invisible and headed out of Spark's flat looking for a car to swipe. The two of them hacked a car. And it worked. Huh. Guess they're worth keeping around. I pushed Blitz into the back seat and grabbed the wheel.
It was a crowded night at the professional bar. The Human woman we needed to collect was in a back booth shielding an injury and nursing a drink. Her long ponytail spilled out from under her shooter's cap and she was in nondescript clothing. "What took so long?" she said in German. We handled the terms and the plan.
In her attempt to leave she doubled over and grabbed the table, her satchel swinging into view. We left, Spark leading her with me near our guest. I had Blitz hang back and cover our six. "The Johnson I just did a job for, his goon squad," she said when I asked her who I would be trying to avoid on the drive to her place. In the back seat on the way there, Blitz peeled off the woman's jacket, and there was a lot of blood. As we got closer to her place, she said: "Um, the neighborhood we are now is really 'haggard.'" She asked us inside to get paid. Yes, please.
The apartment building was a concrete pre-fab hell hole. Deep in the bowels of the building it seems to transform into a reasonable place to live. Once she got into her unit she sat down at a desk with a lamp on and her laptop open. "What's your fee?" she asked us. Spark said: "Four thousand for quick extraction. Four thousand for the patch up." "Done," she said, adding to Blitz, "Hey, big boy, can you get me a beer from the fridge and get one for yourself?" I sat on my haunches near the unit's front door. The room is stocked with boxes with the logos of high tech armament companies.
She wanted to go get the money for the job she had just done, to be able to pay us. Before we could leave, she shouted: "We've got company!" as she saw people moving in on the building from her laptop security camera feed. We all grabbed some payload, me getting a Remington bolt action rifle.
Two idiots came down the stairs toward us. "I want to get us out of here, through these fools, find that fucker and get our money," she said. "I appreciate the assistance you offer but you are our meal ticket so stay behind me," I said to her. We headed out of her unit into the hallway.
Blitz sent out a blast of stun energy that knocked the first two enemies onto their asses. We head for the vehicle, hugging the walls of the hallway. It was dark.
More foot falls were coming toward us. Spark snuck up to the corner and flipped a grenade (courtesy of our current employer) around the corner. Whoa. I hooked an arm around our employer and pressed her against the wall to protect her from any blast. She urged me up to the two stunned goons, then executed them. Whoa again.
The grenade rolled away from us, and the intended victims panicked and ran, well, right at us! BOOM! Dust, debris, smoke and trash all sandstorm'ed the hallway. Blitz threw a hand out at one bad guy, and flung him at the wall. I flipped my cyber-eyes over to thermographic mode, shot the lone remaining threat and rounded the corner. The hallway area ahead was clouded with debris. An engine (or more than one?) was revving outside and the sound of more footfalls could be heard. I peeked up the stairs to the surface and natural light was poking into the building. There's one bad guy crouched at the top of the stairwell.
My attempt to indicate to Blitz that there was one foe at the top of the stairs was lost in the fog of war. He advanced past me, unlimbering his borrowed shotgun and firing up the stairs. Spark followed, firing her pistol and killing the man at the top of the stairs. Return fire hits Spark from an unseen shooter. Blitz continued running crouched over up the stairs, slinging his weapon, swinging his head in pursuit of the threat to neutralize it. We strode up the stairs and saw that there was a guy in the driver's seat of an Escalade-looking truck in the alley. Another dude was between the truck and us. "Take them out!" I yelled to Blitz, pointing at the two targets. Our employer nudged me aside and gunned down a bad guy who was hiding up the fire escape. Nice.
Blitz blasted the foe standing outside the vehicle but he stayed up. Spark shot him and advanced on the truck. The vehicle lurched backward, trying to flee. "We need to take that truck!" I continued to yell. So Blitz strode up to the truck and sent a stunning concussion at the driver. It slammed him out cold, but the air back went off. Regardless, the four of us hopped in.

The team does the leg work // Then the job

Spark ducked into the alley I was in, drew her Ares Viper and pulled the trigger. A flechette round exploded from the barrel, back out into the street. It didn't miss but it was hard to tell how much damage the victim took.
Blitz yelled: "What's going on out there?!" His magical energy continued to crackle. I spun around and shoved my gun barrel into the skulker's back to make sure he didn't go anywhere. I couldn't see Braun from where I was.
Out in the mouth of the alley the garbage of the street stirred as an elemental manifested. The Elf shot at it. (I wasn't even sure if it would work.) But the flechettes seemed not to harm it.
I screwed the silencer on the gun and did little more than execute the skulker. "GO!" I shouted at Blitz so he could deal with the elemental. And, oh, did he ever.
An arch of electricity ripped down from above, struck the elemental and seemed to affect it. The elemental came at us, a swirling mist of barely tangible mater. My vision went hazy and I felt my breath stolen away. Black spots grew in my sight line, compounding the slight sense of nausea I felt from killing.

The Elemental that attacked us

I fled back to the main street, looking for the mage but instead I saw an armored patrol van of the Army. So I stepped back into the alley and yelled at the crew to flee down the way to the other end, to get away from the elemental and the patrol van.

Blitz cast another spell at the elemental, shattering it, then backed down the alley away from me. I hugged the wall and raced to catch up with the team, past the elemental clinging to existence.

I led the team stealthily toward the objective. I say 'stealthily' because that was my intention. But...

Well, it went fine but it took sooooo long and was quite stressful. We ducked under an obstacle and got back out onto the thoroughfare.

The Outpost loomed in front of us; I expected Braun to clue us in but he was in a shell shocked haze, like was just idling along next to us.

The Outpost

The battle scarred neighborhood showed all the signs of combat. In a reasonably unaffected area, a sign blinks: The Outpost and Open below that. Upon entry the silence was deafening. A number of older male veterans of combat sat around while a bartender cleaned glasses. Spooky quiet. I scanned for Powzu as the Elf led the way to the bar. Braun stayed outside, with a comm channel open.

The other two retired to a booth while I approached a lone dwarf at the bar. "We are on a bit of a look around and I hope someone might be able to help," I said, then motioned to the bartender to get us a round. A surprisingly dance-able tune came on the digital jukebox, courtesy of Spark. I slid 100 Nuyen to the Dwarf under a napkin.

Once I got a chance to talk to the others Blitz told us there were several enemies here, including one in a side room near the bar. I blustered into that room, and deflected an attempt at my legs by someone there. I shoved my gun into their chest: "We talk or you die," I said. But it's Powzu. He told us he didn't have the materiel but knew it was still in the place Braun thought it was. We went back into the bar and Powzu went out to talk to Braun, and the rest of us went back to the booth.

A drink to calm the nerves

I toasted to the Dwarf's good favor, for in Poland it is known that Dwarves are lucky in finding things.

Braun headed home to the hostel and Powzu came back into The Outpost misty-eyed. He bought a round for us. He confirmed that the cache was weapons, electronics and high tech stuff, including a laser gun!

The Russians still didn't know but they're basically on top of it, he told us. It's in the floor boards of a room in a functioning hotel that sees a lot of Russian guests staying there. I asked for his blessing to go get the cache. He nodded, and told us that it's on the third floor of a four-story building. He gave us a secured comm. He also said he knew about the mage that summoned the elemental as the only threat they hadn't been able to neutralize. "He's on over watch most of the time," he told us.

We took a different route back to the hostel, gave Braun the update and got some shut eye.

The next day we cased the hotel. Spark went through Powzu to rent a panel van for several days. I drove it around the area with Blitz in the back doing astral things. I saw a lot of security cameras. Blitz and Spark went inside the hotel, the Ork invisible and the Elf as a Russian tourist type. I found a spot to park the van within sight. On stake out in the van I saw no cops or security. The people who stay in the hotel seem of various blue collar professions, mostly of ill repute. A few delivery vehicles come and go during the day, using the loading dock out back.

After all the legwork we made a plan. Spark will go in the door of the hotel room in which the cache is secreted within the floor. I will go up on the roof and repel down to the room's window by rope. Blitz will go invisible again and be at Spark's side, ready to sneak in when he can. The Elf will talk her way in under the cover story of being a hotel manager looking into reports of leaky pipes. Blitz will get the window open for me so I can get the cache out through the window later.

During the infiltration we all get into the room without a hassle. A husband, wife and their boy and girl are staying in the room. We tried to talk them into cooperating, noting that we were there for gear and NOT to harm them. Spark hustled them into the bathroom and I ripped up the carpet to get to the gear. Once I got the cache open there's a laser weapon and a six-pack of beer. I cracked a can and poured some out for the members of the Polish Army who'd been lost in all this, especially the members of the Black Star.

I secured the weapon and some of its accessories then repelled down to the street. I got to the van while the other two fled the scene. The mage finally makes their presence known when my mates appeared outside the hotel and were waiting for me to pick them up. We made a fighting retreat with Spark firing a round at the mage.

We contacted Powzu, dropped off his comm and the 'five-pack.' He sent us on to meet Braun at the alternate rendezvous after he'd left the hostel.

Braun took the laser and gear, and told us to split up and go back to the helicopter, the crew together and him with the weapon. He met us at the helo and we extracted back to Hamburg in a strictly uneventful exfil.