Minutes away from re-entering Sioux airspace, your clearance is revoked.

While you were busy blowing up a radar installation, the UCAS was busy arresting Senator Hollensfeld on suspicion of having CFD.

The Sioux Office of Military Intelligence (OMI) has concluded that the nanoforges you just blew up were also infected with CFD. Your team has been quarantined and are not allowed to return home for the moment.

Your new orders are to get to St. Louis, where there is a safehouse with further instructions.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:03, Wed 19 July 2017.

UCAS Western Military District Crisis Ops Center

COL Broglie was having a proverbially interesting night. As the chief of operations for the WEMDCOC (an unfortunate acronym) he had been one of the first people dragged in when the watch officer was alerted to the incident. He was not, however, the ultimate authority over all the assets being marshaled. He technically was the man on the scene and acted with the full weight of his superiors, but there was a fine line between taking decisive action and overstepping your bounds. Plus, there were about three ranks between him and the point where all the people actually in command of the assets would go along with his say so just because of who he was. So he was left balancing the need to handle this with the need to keep his superiors and peers - though, being in actual command, his peers tended to think of him as as seconnd or possibly fifth among equals - and keep in mind an ever increasing demand for more infortmation pouring in as well as the general who would be arriving in 45 minutes but still had the occasional good idea. And while his watch was full and ready, most UCAS units didn't have the A team on duty at 3 AM, slowing down everything that wasn't kept in specific crisis response status. Back to work then...

"SITREP".

A major leaned over from his desk to answer.. Everything was presented in AR and the center's common made the motion irrelevant, but human habit is hard to break.

"Sir, BANDSAW is tracking the bogey by RADAR and has confirmed the course reversal. BREAKERS 1 and 2 reverified FM intercept, are running decryption now. We're still assuming they got turned away because of this CFD thing. ANGELs 03 and 07 have the unmanned platforms closing for intercept in five and will be there in ten themselves. It'd be quicker, but we're trying not to boom the cities. Only problem is the ANGELs are loaded for air to air and missile busting. They can knock them down, but only have guns for the ground attack. Nothing to burn up the CFD. ANGELs 45 and 42 are being quick loaded with napalm...but time up is still unknown. 30 minutes was last guess"

The Major looked away. It didn't need to be said that he was glad he wouldn't be the one deciding on whether or not to saturatie Kansas farmland with fire if it looked like the CGD might run amok.

"CRF reports it's ready for wheels up as soon as you commit them, and the CYBER RF reports they got connection with the bird, ready to try to break in on your go. Duty mage got watchers on it still, with that unknown fire spirit trailing on the astral. Still think it's theirs, so mace is holding off. We've got Tomas and Clarke ready to add their spirits as well, but after that we're on the mercy of other units or WEMD releasing stuff. Tier 1 has a ready team coming in as well, but they haven't been released to us yet..."

The Colonel cut him off.

"Brevity major. You don't need to say it all every time..."

The Colonel sighed inwardly. Sometimes you don't get the A team at 3 AM eve in the COC.

He turned to give his orders. Time to tread that line.

01:01 Sunday, January 31st, 2075 - The White House

INTERLUDE

"Angie, are you INSANE??" the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff asked as he slammed his hands onto his desk. The dramatic effect was somewhat lessened by the fact that he was in his pajamas and that the conversation was a video call rather than in person. The President, for her part, was wearing a nightgown and a robe in the Lincoln Bedroom.

"That's the same thing you asked me last time," the President responded calmly.

"I have two gunships inbound that will be there any minute. I have a fire elemental on the scene, not that it knows what the frag it's looking at. WEMDCOC says that we can have napalm onsite in 30 minutes. We can effectively drop a north-south curtain that keeps them contained and you want me to let them go?!"

"I said 'loosen the leash'," President Colloton corrected.

"Explain the difference to me!" the General demanded, exasperated.

Angie looked equally exasperated. How could such a fine military mind - not as fine as hers, certainly, but so much the better - be such a political novice?

"George, don't you see how this plays into our hands? We have foreign operatives on UCAS soil conducting a clandestine raid that could, quite frankly, be labeled as an unprovoked act of war. What's our KIA count?"

"ZERO! Some spiders with dumpshock and a few boys that have been tazed. They stabbed a guy but then paused to stop the bleeding!"

The President tutted appreciatively. "Counting coup. The Sioux always did know how to singe our beard. Well, no matter. The scene of destruction is impressive enough, and I'm sure we can drum up some casualties, one way or another."

"So what's the play?" the General asked, hands in the air, still not getting it.

"George, you really are a black hole sometimes. The play is that we can shelve all the tangential horror stories from Boston that we were going to run as cover. Now we have dangerous terrorists on the loose instead. We have a legitimate excuse to shut the borders and declare a state of emergency."

"I can turn them all into a smear in the next five minutes you want me to string them out?" George asked, starting to grasp the concept if not the full logic.

"Just for a news cycle or two, until Hollensfeld is in the rear-view mirror. Send the local authorities to intercept them. Explain that the platoon at the radar installation is now under quarantine - which they are now if you haven't done it already, by the way - until we have specialists onsite to 'decontaminate' the area. Until we can bring up additional resources from McConnell - which will be slow in this storm - we'll have to rely on local assets.

"In fact, how do we know that the Sioux operatives weren't the original source of the CFD, hmm? Perhaps they intentionally infected the nanoforges during a prior op; OMI would know full well that Hollensfeld was planning a visit. In reality, this was all a Sioux effort to infect a sitting Senator to disrupt the UCAS government and undermine our democracy. Once we pinched Hollensfeld, they figured they would blow things up to cover the evidence and spread the CFD strain via the storm coming out of the northwest."

The general shook his head, his uncombed coiffure untamed and flopping about. "Angie, we pinched Hollensfeld at the same time as the op. OMI is good but not so good that they can drop six Wildcats on our doorstep with only ten minutes of notice, which is what we gave the press."

Angie gave George a pitying look that said 'like the truth matters'. "We'll let's put it out there and see how it plays anyway. Let the talking heads chew on it before the press hammers out the exact sequence, which will take weeks anyway."

"So what are your orders?" George asked, not wanting to get this one wrong.

"Track and observe with the watchers and fire spirit. Keep them in sight. Call off the Gryphons." Angie smiled. "Send in the sheriff, and the Kansas National Guard too. Their orders are to capture, not kill. We need prisoners to interrogate, after all." She paused and tapped her lips for a moment before another thin wisp of a smile appeared. "And don't give them too much armor. That should up the body count nicely."

END INTERLUDE
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:57, Wed 26 July 2017.

Chante cursed.  This was just the sort of bullshit that happened in the trids and here it was in real life.  They'd have to sort it quickly.

"Dan, whats the status on Ite.  Can we move him?  How much time do we have to get him to medical?"

While she waited for and then processed his answer, she looked back.  The Fire Spirit was there, somewhere.  She sent a mental command to her own.  Task change.  Engage the Fire Spirit trailing us.  Intent is to distract it so that we can lose it.  Service complete if you destroy it or if grievously wounded.  So not succumb to obliteration.

Always better to give her spirits an out.  She thought no less of them than she did the men under her Command.

"Shiriki, count to 5, then begin whatever ditching operations you've worked out.

"Shiriki, count to 5, then begin whatever ditching operations you've worked out."

<<It'll be a quick count.>> Shiriki comms, with the fuel gauge dipping into dangerously low territory.

To his astonishment he sees a pair of incoming UCAS Gryphons peel away from the north east, and incessant beeping from the air-to-air missile lock subsides, leaving him with only the howl of the wind.  Hell, I haven't even done anything yet.

He takes a south-easterly course, their avenue of escape slim with the powers that be deciding that while home is on three sides of them, practically close enough to hop down and into, the only direction left to turn is right back into the UCAS' maul, right back in the general direction of the base that's currently a cloud of CFD.  He drops in altitude, zipping across the plains and just over the tips of the occasional copse of trees.

<<Captain, UCAS Air Force is pulling back.  Repeat, UCAS air support has withdrawn.  I need a general bearing.  North, south, and west are out.  Current distance to St. Louis is approximately 1080 KM.  CAS border is closer at 350 KM.  I can pull us out about 80 before she drops like a stone.>>

<<I recommend a 75 KM jump toward the CAS border, and hoofing it out at ground level from there.  Fire spirit is still trailing us.  Can I get an update on additional astral surveillance?>>

Shiriki pulls an interior feed from the Dragon's cameras, and zooms in on Ité.  This is going to stay complicated.

Swoopy sat strapped in to the troop compartment, feeling it as Shiriki tipped the bird over and hauled back around. The gees weren't particular bad, but being tipped 35 degrees on your side and 20 vertical was more than enough to leave you pushing against the straps.The doors were closed at this speed,  and of course that was for the best, but part of him wished they were open. Couldn't tell you why, but maneveuring always seemed less drastic when you could see the outside world. Some guys preferred it the other way, and wanted nothing to do with seeing vistas at unnatural angles. Whatever worked for you in the end, and if nothing did...well you were in the wrong profession.

Regardless, it was more than enough to fling anything not secured across the troop compartment. Which gave Swoopy a purpose, holding on to whatever Doc needed next, restrapping instruments and getting others out of the kit when needed, ideally without causing any to smash against the far wall - serving as a human holster for Doc as he worked on the ratchet strapped (probably not medically optimal, but when needs must) Ite.

This was a nine tenths activity. The other tenth was watching the others and listening. Well, watching Chante. Partially because her words meant future life or death, partially because she was still exorbitantly female and you're never quite as horny as you are after a life and death  fight. He saw her space out which probably meant she was doing some magic thing. She probably valued those spirits as much as her men.

Swoopy paused on that thought: It was sobering. What if she ACTUALLY DID value them as much as her men? They, after all, couldn't really die...but men can.

The Spirit of Earth didn't last long.  Chante hadn't expected it to, but she thought it would at least buy them a little more time.

<<I recommend a 75 KM jump toward the CAS border, and hoofing it out at ground level from there.  Fire spirit is still trailing us.  Can I get an update on additional astral surveillance?>>

She sighed.  "Do it, I'll try once more to lose that spirit."

She closed her eyes and steadied her will.  The jostling of the vehicle didn't help, but she had trained herself to work her mojo in tougher conditions.  She thought of Ite dying in the hold, the betrayal of her squad, the difficulties that lay ahead and she funneled her frustration into her call.

Another fire spirit appeared, ready to perform the requisite service.  Chante wobbled unsteadily and then offered her command.  Behind us a Fire Spirit is trailing.  I need it destroyed or at least to lose our trail.  Preferably destroyed.

Dan looked up from where he was monitoring Ite.

Ideally an hour. Metrics drop after that to about six hours, then 12, 48 and 72. This is all approximate. Ideally I want a full trauma team with cerebralvascular specialists on site. They're standard at any military facility and with most field units.

Next best, I can perform the operation myself. I'm happy to give it the old college try and slice into him a bit. I've had the training but not the experience, so his odds drop. Should be interesting. But I need a few quiet hours and better diagnostics. Any hospital, clinic or street doc will do. Heck, a vetinary or pharmacy will do. A vets could be best, looking at him.

If there's no prospect of recovery in an hour I'll induce a coma. It will cut the hour as an option and complicate the six hours treatment time frame but should buy time with the rest.

For the rest, let's cross a border. Complicate things for them. If there is CFD, and I haven't detected it - not that I have the equipment to do so, then a massive EMP burst will help. It's not a cure or immunisation but it will briefly slow the vectors buyong time. Of course it'll fry all unshielded electronics within the blast radius, there's and ours but it will slow infection vectors. Something for the experts to do though. Let's go dark.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:48, Wed 02 Aug 2017.

Shiriki finds a good tail wind, and temporarily leaves Hot-sim, rubs his temples.

"Experts?  Drek, chummer, I got cyberware older'n'you, some of which has survived two matrix crashes.  I'll be fragged if some little microbots are gonna do me in.  If we wanna go the EMP route, I've got a jammer, and we still have some explosives.  With a little doing,
 I bet we could rig something up good.  Just have to make sure my babies are all powered down before it blows.

"Speaking of which, there's some cargo in the back.  Can I get someone to check to see if there's anything useful there?"

Swoopy works his way out of his harness, and starts digging around the back of the dragon.  He pulls the tarp off a box, and pops it open, whistles low.  "Looks like we got a doberman, loaded out with twin Alphas.  No launchers, though."

"That'll do just fine.  Probably take me about five minutes to relieve it of being official UCAS property, and we've got ourselves another gunner on the team."

One crate of Doberman...nice bit there. UCAS musta landed this bird in a hurry, didn't even bother to offload the drone. Made you wonder where else it was supposed to go that night. Not that it mattered now. Nice advantage to have, at least during the initial E&E. After that, well, smaller land based drones never were quite as mobile in real conditions as they were on the manufacturers rugged seeming demo courses that artfully played up strengths and concealed weaknesses. Kansas was pretty flat though, with hard soil his time of year. The drone would make it a good ways before it broke down or got inextricably stuck. How far the team would want to carry a UCAS platform with a UCAS root OS, known parts and ports, and the all those other advantages to a counter-attacking decker. Well, that was now Shirik's business.

E&E was Swoopy's. A bit of duct tape later, a couple of the internal cameras were blind enough to give him working space. Shiriki might be a solid pilot and rigger, but it was hard to ignore Ite's mute testimony to just how good UCAS decker's were. Then he memorized the projected landing point, turned off his link and started scrawling on a laminated map while studying his SERE packet. Several alcohol pen marks later, he brought Chante the map with a big blue circle on it and a hand written note:

25 KM FROM LANDING - TRUCK STOP - DAILY DELIVERY X CAS-UCAS BORDER - ORANGE BISON MOVERS - COYOTE - 1000 A HEAD.

Dan looked up from where he was monitoring Ite again. He stretched his back and groaned. It was done.

To the eye he looked, well pretty much the same as before. Which was a shame, since he was. The procedure (basically a few choice drugs, mostly opioids) and a good hard shove at his chakras, simply hadn't worked. Ite was not dead to the world.

His vitals ticked along at his normal rate as his metabolic processes failed to shut down or slow to a crawl. He was not in a controlled coma.

There were downsides of course, but it would have bought them some time to get him somewhere they could treat his injuries.

"Well, Ite's not dead to the world. Now, don't give me that look. He's as good as he's getting without better facilities. If he were comatose, he'd be very hard to see on the astral. But he's not.

Now, talking of the astral have we got anything to shake off those watchers yet? If not, I've an idea.

Chante, could you pollute or aspect the astral a little bit? I'm sure I can help. They're only it itty bitty spirits. If we raise the background count I doubt they'll cope with it.

Even better if we could aspect it. For stealth, which we surely need, let's dedicate it to Cat. It's a bit more work, but even if it doesn't last it raises the count some and might help us across the border anyway.

Well, what do you think?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:41, Mon 07 Aug 2017.

"Well, what do you think?" Dan Dan says.

"Whatever you're going to do, do it," Shiriki answer before popping back into Hot-sim.

<<@Team [Shiriki] We're running on fumes here.  If I don't set us down soon, it won't be me setting us down.>>

Shiriki scans the plains looking for a suitable landing spot.  Flat, and flat.  Looks like one hunk of snow-covered plains is as good as another.

Chante puts two fingers to each of her temples and closes her eyes.  The effort of summoning the Fire Spirit had given her a headache.  Or made it worse.  The whole situation was bad.

<<@Team [Shiriki] We're running on fumes here.  If I don't set us down soon, it won't be me setting us down.>>

"Dammit, Shiriki, just put it down!  Find the spot and land it... south... or east... or southeast, drek!  Just don't cross the border.  Besides our... 'orders'... they're ready for us to try and I don't think we want to test that."

She chided herself internally for cursing at the rigger.  They were all confused and looking for something solid.  She wished she had something to give them.  Still, he was the one best suited to find a place to put the bird.

As for Dan-Dan's suggestion, she had no way to do anything like that.  A large enough explosion could do it but they didn't have anywhere near what they needed...

Then she made a sudden realization.

"Scratch that, Shiriki.  Northeast.  Heading..."

She pulled up a map, "Forty Five degrees.  Coordinates... 40.206443°N 100.964598°W.  Something like fifty miles.  Can we make it?"
This message was lightly edited by the player at 15:15, Wed 09 Aug 2017.

the captain screams at Shiriki, and the elder elf shurgs internally.  Flat, and flat, alright then.  A moment later, before he's had a chance to slow by more than 50 kph, she screams again, this time throwing coordinates at him.

<<@Chante, [Shiriki] This would go a lot easier if you'd just comm the damned pin>>

Followed by:

<<@Chante [Shiriki] nvm got it>>

Shiriki takes the turn sharp, but cools the rotors, not wanting to waste any of the precious fuel sloshing in the Dragon's reservoir.  Finding a good tail wind, Shiriki adjusts his altitude slightly and increases speed.  He double-checks the fuel gauge, but with the buffeting and irregular wind, getting a direct read is impossible.

<<@Team [Shiriki] Estimated ETA bearing 40.206443°N 100.964598°W. in 8.5 minutes.  Quicker if the tailwind holds.  Estimating 8.75 min of fuel.  A breeze this way or that will be the deciding factor.>>

A hush falls over the interior of the helicopter, if you can the Wildcats' silence a hush over the blizzard and screaming engine.  Even inhabiting a 15,000 kg Dragon Shiriki feels small, impotent, rudderless. Ité is barely clinging to life.  They're alone, unsupported, and now the team is all counting on him to make it -- the what? -- 65 remaining km to their landing point. And Shiriki's piloted enough rigs to know that will has nothing to do with. The rotors will take them there, or it won't. And if it doesn't. . .

And then it looks like it won't.  Their tailwind dissipates like so many prayers whispered through smoke, and the interior of the Dragon begins blaring emergency sirens and red flashing lights.

48 km to go.

<<@Team [Shiriki] That doesn't mean we're going down, only that the sensors can't detect fuel.  A subtle but important difference.  Attn: all personnel, the pilot has turned on the seatbelt lights.  Strap in.  Things are about to get a lot less comfortable>>

<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Secondary Sensors // Completed>>
<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Weapons Systems // Completed>>
<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Alert Systems // . . .>>
<<WARNING: Alert Systems are necessary for -- // Command Override>>
<<COMMAND OVERRIDE: Accepted>>
<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Interior Systems // Completed>>

The interior of the Dragon becomes pitch black as first the alarm lights and then the interior lights blink off in quick succession. The whine of the engines gives the only sense to the rest of the team that they're not yet falling, or already dead.  The helicopter rocks violently as a crosswind hits, and then lifts considerably as it becomes a tailwind, urging them toward the canyon.

37km to go.

The engines don't stutter necessarily, but their pitch rolls like a wave as the fuel-starved rotors buck against the limitations of the internal combustion engine.

<<@Team [Shiriki] Shutting down comms.  You won't be able to reach me, so I hope to be speaking with y'all chummers in the meat shortly.  ETA 3.75 min>>

<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Communications Systems (All) // Completed>>

With secondary sensors down, and comms disabled, Shiriki is in the void, only the radar and map softs left to aid him.  The silence is like being in a dream, no wind, no rotors, no horizon. Without the pressure sensors to aid him, the ride becomes much rougher than before,
 as he doesn't know when to keel or otherwise brace the craft. All he can do is fly straight. Where in the drek are we going anyway?

22km to go.

Just east of Trenton, by the Republican river, at least it's still pretty flat. Wait, that fragger's taking us to Massacre Canyon. Not now, Shiriki, let's get this bird down. Shiriki scans out their heading, drift, distance, and elevation, stores it in the working memory of his cerebral boosters, and takes another gamble.

<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Radar // Completed>>
<<ISSUE COMMAND: Power Down Primary Sensor, Exception BowV1,BowV2, BowV3 // Completed>>

14km to go.

When Shiriki first learned to fly, this is how it was done.  With the border disputes, the thought that war could break out again at any moment, and before the wireless matrix, they'd often have to shut down their radar for intrusions as well as patrols. Only way to keep out of sight, and even then only if he could keep his altitude down. Of course, that wasn't often done in blizzards. Even a minor squall could push you a few km here or there, and that would make all the difference between coming home or being scattered across the countryside if you were spotted. He's grown lazy, relied on the tech too much. He notes that his heart rate is approaching 180, and he's not even moving, just sitting there throwing the Dragon, and hoping it'll stick. Well, hoping it won't depending on what one might mean by "sticking." He adjusts his approach by 4 degrees, noting the rocking of the craft, hopes he's reading the wind correctly.

8km to go.

Just under a minute to go, and they're still airborne. So far, so good. Shiriki powers on comms, sensors, and radar with a quick mental command. The sudden power drain takes its toll on the engines, which whomp with less regularity, but he can see it, a break in the clouds and to his east Trenton. The radar places them almost on top of the destination. The tailwind held.

<<@Team [Shiriki] Brace yourselves.  Touch down in 20 sec>>

He eases up on the rotors, and the craft drops at an alarming speed. A little power, and it slows, riding the wind, and the process is repeated. Only 35 meters up now, and the Dragon slows, slows, holds steady as he eases it down. In the end, there's barely a pop when they touch down on the frozen grass. Shiriki exits hotsim immediately, pops his harness, and stands to face the team. Flight time: 8 minutes, 52 seconds. His head swims as the sensations of hotsim recedes, made worse by the vertigo of his feedback coming in from so few sensors. He takes a knee and vomits, his empty stomach giving up little more than a string of bile behind the pilot's chair.

"Sorry about that, cap. I don't know what, I don't know. I. . ."

The good news was that the blizzard was 20 klicks ago, and that they were on the ground in mostly one piece. Besides Shiriki vomiting and Ite being in a coma, and Chante and Dan having some enroute discussion on the principles of magical ethics or some such shit which had just made their route a bit longer. Still, no one was going to be sending Swoopy's parents a pine box of sand and instructions for a closed casket funeral, so things were generally looking better than one had any right to expect after a VTOL transport runs out of gas while you're riding it.

The bad news was that the blizzard was 20 klicks ago, and while landing in one piece is certainly preferable to the other options, a nice cover of howling wind and snow to help conceal the team's movement would have been pretty helpful right about now. Wouldn't have that long before the eyes in the sky picked them up here.

Speaking of which, where was here anyhow? Besides another set of random coordinates with a lot of flat land, few trees, and, actually, a few free standing buildings that looked kind of commercial?

Link on then. Ah. "Massacre Canyon". A few seconds of AR scanning showed that apparently this place was worth well, massacring over. Sure, it was flat and barren and miserable, but since when did you need anything but people in a place to start killing?

More importantly, at least two local businesses would let you tour the... historically important battlefield? War crime scene? Seems like the tours were possibly slightly biased...on either ATVs (glorious victory version) or SUVs with probably more rugged appearance than actual ruggedness (despicable crime narrative).  Swoopy figured that bent might matter to the "real" Sioux, but he was more concerned with the option of slower, cross country, hard-to-handle-Ite transport versus faster, easy-Ite, SUvs that would mostly be confined to the roads.

He tossed the option to Chante over the link, then set to work checking if Ite had any demo on him to blow the dragon with. Swoopy hadn't saved any after all.

He passed a puking Shiriki and tapped him on the shoulder as he went by.

"Good work"

Chante nodded as Swoopy passed Shiriki.

"Yes, excellent work, really.  No one could have done better.  Take your time, Swoopy and I will figure out what's next..."

She let Dan handle Ite for the moment and walked with Swoopy.  "Hijack the tour guide vehicles, at least in the short term?  Probably doable.  We can't haul Ite all over the Ancestors' lands, so we can go ATV, if need be, we just gotta figure out how to take care of him... do right by him."

She looked back at the comatose troll and frowned.

"Dan-Dan, what's going on?  And any ideas?"

"Thanks, Chante," Shiriki says after a few deep breaths as he stands. "Why the Ghost'd you send us out here anyway? I thought we were heading south? We gonna make use of Trenton?"

The captain nods.

"Alright, considering we're out on here on our lonesome, I may know someone who can point us in the direction of a doc to help with Ité. She's not exactly on the up-and-up I don't think."

"Your smuggler girlfriend?" Swoopy asks.

"I don't know that for sure," Shiriki answers, maybe too defensively, before adding, "She's not my girlfriend."

Shiriki declines to do the mathematics in his head, but in all likelihood Ms. White Owl could very well be his granddaughter. He fires up the jammer, the satellite uplink, hooks his comm in and dials. On the third ring she picks up, the sounds of revelry of Mineewah Kon loud in the background.

"Taŋyáŋ yaúŋ he?," she answers, her words slurring heavily.

"Wašté," he answers, before continuing in Lakota, "Can you get somewhere we can talk?"

"We can talk here, crazy kitty," she answers and laughs, a brief pause as she must be downing the remainder of her beer, and then her laugh turns to a chuckle, accented by a loud pounding on her table. "What's up?"

"Ok, I'm going to talk, and you're not going to ask any questions, scan? Ok, good. My recent travels have brought me to Trenton, Nebraska. Got a chummer with me who found himself on the drek end of some dumpshock, and is in some need of medical assistance, the hold you overnight or more kind. I'm under the impression that you may have been out this way a time or two. Can you recommend any docs who are both good and discrete?"

"What?" Margueritte asks as the sounds of the bar become subdued somewhat, as if she's just moved to the women's room.

"Can you point me to a doc near Trenton that won't go asking any questions?"

"What in the hell did you -- or right. Yeah, there's a clinic in Trenton, but it'll be closed, and not really what you're looking for. Umm, I know a doc named Hernandez who isn't too far off. He can keep his hoop closed when he needs to, and he needs to a lot. Shiriki?"

"Yeah?"

"Guy's a bit of an egghead."

"Good. I want somebody good, somebody smart. This chummer's important to me."

"No, not smart, egghead, like Ceraprax."

"Oh. . ."

"Yeah."

"Anybody else?" There was a brief silence, and Shiriki could only guess that Margueritte was shaking her head, forgetting this wasn't a vid call. "Alright. Where's he at?"

"I'll forward the details. Shit, Shiriki, I had no idea. Thought you were a boy scout for chip and all that. Be safe, chump. Fly low."

Shiriki severed the call, and waited for the contact to come through before he unhooked the uplink, and powered down the jammer.

<<@Team [Shirki] Got a line on some med care for Ité. McCook hospital, 40km east of our location. Guy will keep it off the books.>>

Dan looked up.

"Well. Better facilities is what I need for the hunk of meat here. Particularly diagnostics. Failing that a full body brace to minimise movement.
What we have is an improvised neck brace... that's for moving him of course.

Shiriki, your friend's acquaintance should be OK, even as an egghead (I hope). Self medication is am occupational hazard after all. I much prefer to experiment on my subjects myself. I need his facilities more than his skills. Like I said a pharmacy or veterinary practice would suffice, though a clinic should do nicely.

As for tramping through an Indian graveyard, forgive the pun, that should answer nicely.

Any ranger stations they have should be well stocked with supplies to loot, ahem appropriate of course. It tends to be older equip but very well supplied and cared for. I used to go out with my father with the city slickers and you never knew what you'd need so the rangers were fanatical about supply. Plenty of surplus stock donated as it's superceded too. Nothing too fancy, but expect it to be serviceable. They look after their kit."
 
This message was last edited by the player at 15:35, Mon 14 Aug 2017.

Swoopy looked up from affixing a small primer charge to what was left of the dragon's ammo supply and fuel tank. Empty fuel tanks made the biggest explosions, what with all the vapors.

"So boss, it's like this. Ite's down and not coming back up from what I'm hearing. We're gonna drop him somewhere unless we start moving on roads. If we drop him in the UCAS, I've got no doubt that Shriki's contact might not ask questions, but someone is gonna. The only question is when they'd pick him up and skull-fuck his parts until they compromise us entirely. Any way we look at it, even if we bring him along it's 1600 klicks to St Louis  or 650 to the CAS. Maybe we'd make it, maybe we wouldn't. The odds won't be great. Or...well, Colonel Howls at the Poon is kinda a pussy. We're damn close to the border. Nothing saying we couldn't drop link, silently tell him to fuck off, and then cross over to our side. They aren't looking for us and they'll assume we've gone quiet while we E&E. We can slip back around through the CAS and avoid this whole goat rodeo...plus we can stash Ite with a Sioux doc trust we don't have to bring him with or leave him to be mechanically exploited by the UCAS.

Simple enough. Get to Trenton, buy a few cheap links, turn on some fake SINs and we can slip pretty easy past tribal police. Way easier than seeing if we can get through sovereign UCAS territory with a shoot on sight status."

<<01:30 Sunday, January 31st, 2075 - Massacre Canyon, Nebraska, UCAS>>

The fuel in the Dragon was good for 50 nautical miles, but you'll be damned if Shiriki - through effective resource management and crafty use of tailwinds - doesn't squeeze another 10 out of it.

You broke out of the blizzard ten minutes ago. Now, you're treated to a full moon beaming brightly down on you like the Great Satan's own spotlight.

The Dragon coughs and sputters, and Shiriki sets it down in the snow as gently as a tired head coming to rest on a cool, down pillow. Except "cool" in this case is hypothermia and the "down" is going to leave highly obvious tracks that point in your direction.

You climb out of the Dragon. Now that the rotors have come to a stop and the storm has passed, you realize that it's the first silence you've had in a while. But why is it so aggravating? Instead of tranquility, all you feel is angst, like something is scratching at your brain.

Per Chante's instructions, Shiriki has put you down on the lip of Massacre Canyon. The Republican River runs down the middle of it, except that the river is a pathetic rivulet that's been choked off by the dam about 10km upstream. What's left of the stream is frozen.

There's a highway about three kilometers to the north. Given the terrain, you have little difficulty spotting red-and-blue flashing lights approaching your position from the direction of Trenton to the west. The small hamlet might number 1,000 souls, but only if you include pigs and cows in the final tally. You're impressed that they have two cops, let alone two cop cars. Shiriki sends his drones aloft to get a better view.

He actually finds three vehicles approaching. In the lead there's a Toyota Gopher with a make-shift snowplow attached to the front. It's clearing the way for the two Ford Americars trailing behind. The Americars have the flashing lights while the Gopher looks like a civilian vehicle. There's little doubt they're headed in your direction but they aren't moving very quickly. Shiriki estimates that you have a 10-minute head start, maybe 15 minutes if their progress slows once they turn off the highway.

Swoopy considers the canyon. It is spooky, there's no two ways about it. Ghostly images flit in and out of existence, slowly sweeping along the canyon floor. Swoopy is as mundane as a brick, so if he can see it then he knows that the Awakened will have their sixth senses screaming.

Mogwai recoils and cowers closely to Dan-Dan's chest. There's a feeling of foreboding emanating from the canyon. Dan-Dan can't shake the feeling that if the team goes down there, there will be violence. Given the approaching law enforcement, that might be unavoidable, but it feels like this time there will be blood.

Edit: grammar
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:29, Tue 15 Aug 2017.

Dan-Dan steps off the cooling bird, the hissing cat slinking around his ankles before jumping up his back and clinging to his shoulders and neck.

He looks down at his arms. They're covered in blood and he can feel it cooling as it drips, to fall splat in the snow. Splat. Splat. He's certain it's not his blood but that of his victim, from when he'd gutted her. Her hot stinking viscera spilling at his moccasins.

He looks up at Shiriki. And takes a half step towards his next victim, before his iron control asserts itself. Shiriki bears a ravaged expression. A face of grief and dread.

Chante has a rictus snarl on her face, trophies from her fallen foes dangling at her hip. Her warpaint is crude and savage. Blood is smeared around her lips, her own from where her teeth hat cut her lips. A bloody froth from the savage points she'd filed her teeth into. She didn't seem to notice or care.

Slowly, the vision faded. It was not at all ghostly, but filled with colour, sound and stink. This was at the edge of the massacre site. If Chante summoned a spirit now, it would not doubt be a bloody spirit. At least for her. The same might not be the case for the Anglos, if they could summon anything at all. Her face was still a snarl.

"I don't think the watchers will be an issue."

Swoopy looked over the situation, waiting for six to make the big call. She still seemed to be chewing on that one though, and sometimes you needed a bit of action right now.

"Shiriki, jack some of those SUVs from "Massacre Canton Reflections" and send them screaming toward the cops. See what they do. They bite, we swing back out of here along 6 while they deal with that. They don't bite, we know they're bee-lining for the crash and we slip west on the ATVs cross country.

Dan, get Ite ready to move, rough.

I'll set the Doberman to autonomous engagement pointing down that road if you tell me it's good. If the cops do arrive here, that'll bog them down for a bit while we bail. After that I'll be back with an ATV."

Chante nodded at that.  "Also, let's see what we can do to light this bird up.  If it's a blazing inferno, it might take a while to confirm we're not dead in the fire."

She thought a few moments about their medical options.  Drek, they're right, we need to get Ite someplace safe.

"Alright, we take Ite to the border, get him across, then we make the move to St. Louis.  I don't like it, but I knew the risks when I signed on with the 'Cats and I'll be damned if I'll dishonor that right out the gates.  We give the Council a chance to fix it.  Lay low and reassess when we need to."  She looks at the team evenly.  "Any objections?"

Shiriki doesn't like it. The canyon seems off, and while it's keeping the watcher spirits from getting a bead on them, he's worried that it's affecting the processing power of the mojo slingers' domes. Everyone on the team knew exactly what they were going in for when they signed up for the Wildcats, to say nothing of this particular mission. If things had gone sideways at the base, they wouldn't have expected a rescue mission. No, they'd be disavowed, labeled by their own government as some sort of extremist faction, terrorists, maybe even shadowrunners out doing the bidding of some third party.

They'd all signed up for it.

And Shiriki doesn't know if he buys all this CFD drek, but what if it's true? If the OMI was right, then Chante has just ordered him to put the entire Sioux Nation at risk for Ité, and Ité wouldn't want that.

And if OMI's wrong, it's the best chance he's got, he weighs on the other hand.

Regardless, the first steps they need to take are the same: rig the dragon to blow, get some of those ATVs running, deal with the approaching militia. Shiriki finishes transferring ownership of the Doberman, and starts to work on rigging some explosives to his jammer.

"I don't like it, Captain," he says as he works. "We get Ité across the border. Fine. Then what do we do with him? We've got no support, nobody we can call, and once we blow the bird, my jammer's going with it. And let's say we get somebody down to patch him up, bring him back to civilization where he's got a shot at making it, what if he ends up being a headcase? We've just brought CFD to Cheyenne, or Rapid City, done the UCAS' work for them."

"It's the best chance he's got," Chante answers.

"Are you giving me a direct order?" Shiriki asks.

Dan-Dan considered.

On the one hand he didn't much care for rules, especially other's. He did care about doing the best for his patients, as he saw it, though that was more to do with pride and the challenge involved. Also, the colonel was a political idiot who the top brass would happily throw under a bus if it was expedient (and he likely knew this, though you could never tell). Being forced to cart Ite around with them would be he'll on morale if it got back to the wider Sioux military (and they could do that easily) even with the threat of him being a headcase. Dan himself had detected no sign of infection, though he couldn't rule it out without the equipment available, especially in the early hours of contagion. This all argued for giving the colonel the bird, which had a certain appeal to itself.

On the other hand, Danyes didn't like getting caught or facing whatever repercussions might follow from breaking orders. Some of that would fall on the captain and his medical oath would Shield him some. He could also play the religion card as a follower of cat, though that had its own risks and downsides. On the other hand, CFD was serious mojo and not something that you took risks with. Though as a new issue, studying it would put him at the forefront of research and he'd never seen an actual case live. That was all a bit too risky though. Dan liked being well Dan. On balance he'd probably follow orders this time but use it to fling drek at the colonel. Not his call. For now at least he'd follow the Captain. If he voted against and was overruled that would give additional cover.

"I've mixed feelings to  be fair. It's best for the slab of meat to get him to medical facilities, which are best back home. But CFD is serious and no mistake. I've detected none, but can't rule it out without a better facilities or an autopsy. The colonels a worm of course. Even so, he may have a point. Getbme to better diagnostics and I can do s heck of slot more for him. I'd follow orders for now I think, though frankly Cap it's your call. Time to earn those pips."

"On the local yokels, let's send some cars towards them but have them be caught in the blast if you've the skills to do it. That should cause plenty of confusion to exploit. The Cap could add some illusions to further complicate things nicely. We drive off in the muddle. Pets not kill any just yet, we're still under mission parameters and counting coup. Record it if we can, a little keystone cops plays well. I'd like to get that EMP if possible, but not my field. Whatever were doing we need to hustle now."

Chante considered.  It wasn't a good look to waffle, but in a situation like this, it was better to take into account the thoughts of the Soldiers she was with.  No easy answers.

"Two problems on this side.  We don't have any way to confirm and we can't be sure he won't get picked up, in which case we may as well put a bullet in him."  She scowls as those words pass her lips.

She shakes her head, then looks at the troop.

"Alright, we drop him off locally.  I'll give someone a call and hope they can be ready to move him if the time comes.  Beyond that, we leave it to the fates."

She sighs deeply, unconvinced but surrendering to the reality.

"Let's not waste anymore time," she says, then turns, looking at the helicopter.  "Frag it."

She grabbed her gear and, as she did so, pulled up her contact list and made a call.

Swoopy frowns when Chante goes to make the call. The CSAR folks are dead set against electronic emissions, as they often make you dead. But in this instance the watchers are already following you, and the Dragon is about to explode, so your current location isn't exactly a state secret, even though it should be.

Why did those gunships veer off at the last minute? Probably so that the UCAS can get their hands on you to practice some of their enhanced interrogation techniques. The techniques won't be physical, or least not external. They will need you looking nice and intact for your public trial. Hell, they might even spot you a lawyer. Maybe there is some JAG who needs his or her career flushed down the toilet for the same reason that soldiers jump out of perfectly good airplanes: because they are assets, and they are expendable.

Chante dials up Paytah 'Peter' Venom-Spitter, a Tiošpaye Smuggler. He has a strong sense of family loyalty, and the good news is that he considers Chante to be family.

Unsurprisingly, Venom-Spitter's voice is sharp and direct. "What."

Chante responds in kind. "I need an exfil. I'm on the wrong side of the border."

Peter isn't fooled. "Negative. You wouldn't believe the lead wall that's been dropped in the last half hour."

"I would, actually."

Peter is no fool. "You usually have people for this. If you don't, that means you're off the rez both literally and metaphorically. And that probably means you might be the reason for that lead wall."

"No comment."

"I can get in but I can't get you out. What's you second choice?"

Chante scowls. The alternative is so much more complicated. "I have a man down who needs to go underground. If you can't get him back, then at least come to us. Take him off our hands, lay low with him, keep tabs on what's going on, and get him to a doc when the coast is clear. We have a doc ID'd. Get him out when you can."

"That sounds horrible. What's the catch?"

"He's a troll and he's non-responsive."

Venom-Spitter lets out a low whistle that almost sounds like a hiss. "What's wrong with him?"

"Biofeedback. He was busy punching Anglos in the throat."

"My man. But this isn't your standard job."

Chante cuts him off. She figures she'd better name her price in advance, then leverage whatever familial - and nationalistic - feelings that Peter has. Her fingers instinctually go to the hard coin sewn into her cold suit.

"I have five American Gold Eagles. Current market value is ¥2,000 a piece. Don't ask for more because that's literally all I have." She figures large numbers will sound more impressive. "That's $20,000 in UCAS dollars," she adds, guessing at the conversion rate.

There's a long, uncomfortable pause. The flashing lights are getting closer to your position. Shiriki is busy hacking ATVs while his new Doberman sets a perimeter with Swoopy. Dan-Dan is busy trying to keep Ité on the right side of Wakan Tanka.

"Alright," Peter says at last. "Where are you."

"Here," Chante says, dropping a pin. "Five klicks east of Trenton."

"No!" Peter almost shouts. "Nonononono, not Massacre Canyon. You keep me well away from there. Where's the doc you ID'd?

"McCook."

"That's fine; I'll meet you in McCook. I need two hours to get to you."

"Two hours?" Chante complains.

"There's a blizzard between you and me, you know. Besides, you got 35 klicks you need to cover yourself. I'm guessing the name of your game isn't to stop and wait for things to catch up to you. Get moving and I'll meet you there. 03:30."

"03:30," Chante confirms and disconnects.

<<Roll call>> she comms.

<<Contact in five minutes>> Swoopy reports.

<<Seven ATVs>> Shiriki adds.

<<Dragon's ready to breathe fire one last time>> Dan-Dan responds.

<<We're going to McCook. Let's move.>>

 The roar of the heavy machinegun bellowed through the night, and it looked like that pick-up truck, no doubt the pride and joy of it's owners, wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Looked like the local law still used the grand old tradition of a posse and deputies, or maybe isolated rural areas just generated brave men who would band together when the community was under threat. Dad, had he still been allowed to teach history in the NAN as he did at Chicago, would have probably commented on the poetic justice/irony of a bunch of hyper-masculine, courageous, and aggressive Anglos charging over the plains only to retreat ignominiously in the face of industrial grade firepower manned by Sioux.  The role reversal was, if you thought about it, pretty perfect.

Then again, referring to things like that was one of the reasons Dad wasn't allowed to be so much as an adjunct in the NAN.

Swoopy, unburdened by a doctorate or any likelihood of getting one in the NAN, simply took a bit of primal pleasure in watching the other guys run in fear. Well, his professional self noted the sheriffs themselves were making a perfectly reasonable effort to pull away the wounded and fall back in something approaching control, but instinctively it was the other guy running bloody and afraid - and no one got to be amongst the Sioux's elite shooters without the instinct that told them this was a glorious thing.

An ATV rolled up. Swoopy got on, Doberman in tow.

"Let's go"

As the UCAS militia-men tick closer to the helicopter's landing site, Shiriki sends up his Fly Spies to get the lay of the land and plan their exfiltration to McCook. They start their orbit, and Shiriki grabs Ité's cyberdeck, and sets its scanner to long range. He picks up the patrol cars from Trenton, a pickup with some crude Mr. Plow ARO, and last a number of ATVs they must rent at the site of his forefathers' massacre.

That their opposition wasn't running Wireless Off showed just how out of their depths they were, but in the present circumstances there wasn't much Shiriki could do about it. Ité on the other hand, that fragging troll could've hacked one to crash into another while the third vehicle started to believe itself a toaster and just frag out quit while it was trying to figure out how to turn the two metas in the front seat extra crispy with the woefully inadequate heating system.

Not that Shirki was without his own charms. Dan-Dan finishes with the improvised explosives while the elder elf pops into hot sim and gets to work on the ATVs. If the owner of the rental service wasn't such a historically insensitive hoop fragger Shiriki might almost feel sorry for milking the guy out of seven of his 8 most prized ATVs, but seriously, who stores their ATVs where you don't even need to pick a lock after sleazing a few MARKs on 'em? He has a hard time thinking it's because of some sense of honesty or rural code this side of the UCAS, and instead directs two to scream north-west on a full throttle while the remaining five rendezvous with their present location.

As if those UCAS boys will be that stupid.

As if two screamers will be more loud than five on a stroll

<<Roll call>> Chante comms.

Shiriki comms back with the number of ATVs he's purloined, and then adds,

<<Exfil mapped. Takes us within earshot of unfriendlies. I can slow them down, but can't promise less-than-lethal.>>

Hardly a moment passes before Chante comms back:

<<Take the shot>>

There are some boring particulars, some effort on Shirki's part of disconnecting from his, no Ité's, deck to jump back into a dual-prop murder machine rigged for suicide, and then he's got that Toyota Gopher with the snow plow in his sights.

Here's the way Shiriki likes to think it happened: the driver, some poor slob named Braden Jean, or some equally unfortunate hick name, sees a flash from the helicopter. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know if death is coming for him, or not, or if he should get out of the way, or even if he should which way he should go, and if he does go is he just gonna drive right into the lane of fire, but in the end he jukes right, but all that was wasted anyway because the rounds strike home before he even finishes thinking it, before his hoop-hole even has a chance to fully lock down in fraggit-this-ain't-what-I-signed-up-for mode. The armor piercing rounds make soy cheese of the front plow and bury themselves in the engine block, which seizes and makes all manner of whines and fire-spitting protestations before it simply quits. And Braden Jean feels a stinking wet trickle, and thinks he's hit, and dives out of the Gopher, and fumbles with the trauma patch the good ol' UCAS boys gave him before he signed up for this shit-show of a mission, and he's got the thing applied before he even realizes it's just piss running down his leg.

Shirki doubts it went down that way.

The Dragon's camera can't zoom in that close, but there's something in the way the Gopher grinds to a halt, the immediacy of it portends something more in the way of grave injury than complete engine failure. When it does come to rest, the Gopher shoots a spout of flame out of its front grill, and Shiriki sees the icon disappear from the matrix. Close enough.

He walks out of the Dragon to find the ATVs pulling up, and the rest of the crew getting Ité situated.

"Alright, we're heading northeast until we hit the riverbed, and then it's pretty much straight east along that little rivulet of ice until we cross south to the mountain range.
 So, keep your eyes out for a good crossing spot. We aren't likely to find anything tall this time of year, so the next best thing is something that won't leave tracks. I'll take point."

As the team heads out, Dan-Dan gives the command for the Dragon to self-immolate, which it does in spectacular fashion. The command is given while they're still close enough to benefit from the EMP, so for a brief moment all is quiet across the canyon as they shut down the ATVs, their comm gear, 'ware, cyberdecks, and all that drek. For a brief moment, they're out there alone, how it must have been for chummers back in the fifth world. And then the explosion hits, and they're rocked in their seats, and the heat wave smacks like the business end of a GMC Gryphon, and it sounds like the kind of explosion that will wake up the sheriff of Liberal, KS UCAS, but it passes, and they fire up their snowmobiles, and drive off into the night, bucking east at the river.

*******************************
*******************************

"But why in the spirits would you stay on?" he demanded, his face red and features twisted in both confusion and frustration.

Chante let out a massive sigh, the exaggerated sort that served as a message that you were over it, that you wanted to move on to something else, anything else.

It was her third such sigh in the past five minutes.

"Ahté, I told you, it's what I feel in my heart.  My duty to use this gift the Spirits gave me to safeguard our home.  I don't expect you to understand, I'm just your little Chante, but you have to let me go.  I'm an Ozuye and I mean to fight.  For me.  For you.  For our ancestors..."

Her father didn't concede.  He never would, Chante was beginning to realize.  "Chante, the ancestors don't need you to fight for them.  And I don't need you to fight for me.  I need you here to--"

"You need me here to cook and clean and be the wówaši wíŋyaŋ... but you had your tȟawíču, remember?  And what did you do?"

"Chante!  Don't talk to your father that way!" came a voice from the next room, rising above the volume of the trideo that was on in there.

Chante glowered for a moment, then turned on her foot.  "Yes, know my place.  I must always know my place.  Well, I know my place.  It's not here.  If I'm not fighting for the ancestors and I'm not fighting for you, then I'm fighting for me.  ME.  And that's all i should need."

She walked out the door and into the quiet night.

*******************************
*******************************

Her father hadn't come to anything after that.  Her basic training graduation, when she was accepted into the SDF Medicine Lodge, the things that were part of her required duty he had been at, all smile; a proud daddy.  But after that night, he never came.  Not when she was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant, not at either promotion.  She didn't even know if he realized she was with the Wildcats.

Now she was 'off the reservation' and reaping her rewards.  She wondered if, at the end of it all, her father would be proud of her or if he'd spend his entire life rejecting the service she had felt called to.  Might not matter.

She looked back at Ité, secured as they could get him but still jostled, each pump forcing Chante to clench her teeth with anxiety, hoping beyond hope that everything they did would be enough to bring him home when all was said and done.  Spirits, she thought, enough to bring ALL of us home...

<<Status of our pursuers?>>

Braden "Handfishing" Jean pushes his Toyota Gopher to its limits. He's a skinny whelp and the man riding shotgun, Wilbur "One Punch" Bailey - who, not coincidentally, is loading a shotgun - never lets him hear the end of it for owning a Japanese truck. "One Punch" is a big beast of a man, as large as Handfishing is skinny, and with more body hair than a boar. One Punch thinks that his nickname is a reference to his knockout power, but everyone else knows that it's a reference to his glass jaw.

"C'MON, Handfishing!" he says, slamming his hand down on the dashboard repeatedly. "Sheriff says the reds are coming!" He racks his Krime Boss shotgun for emphasis.

Handfishing nods. He's not much for words, so he remains silent even as he pushes the gas pedal harder. Behind him, on his gun rack, is his pride and joy: a Marlin 3468SS. The classic .45-70 Government cartridge is powerful enough to bring down most fauna - paranormal or otherwise - and should bag him a Red Man or two.

The Gopher sends up huge rooster tails of powder snow. Normally that would provide an effective smokescreen, announcing the Gopher's arrival while simultaneously obscuring its precise location. Unfortunately, the Gopher is driving straight at the Dragon, and there's no real question about where it is laterally. As long as Shiriki can get the Dragon's guns elevated correctly, their fire should strike home.

<<Take the shot>> Chante orders. Shiriki complies. The Stoner-Ares M202s fire their last 10 rounds due north into the oncoming vehicle.

The APDS rounds chew through the snowplow as if it were papier-mâché. The rounds slam into the engine block, which seizes up and throws a rod. A few of the stray rounds coast through the upper part of the plow and pepper the windshield instead. They rip into Handfishing and One Punch. The Gopher grinds to a halt. Handfishing grimaces and puts a hand to his chest with gritted teeth. One Punch bleats like a goat.

"They got me, Braden!" One Punch whimpers. "They got me!"

The doors open as the sheriffs drag the men out into the deeper snow, just in case the reds resume fire to finish the job.

"I'm dying, Sheriff! I'm fragging dying here!" One Punch whimpers.

"Don't worry, Bailey, we'll get them for you," Sheriff Rosco promises.

The Dragon erupts in a fireball reminiscent of its name. The sheriffs dive on the civilians out a noble instinct to protect others.

Sheriff Coltrane sees the Marlin sporting rifle and grabs it. He fires off four rounds toward the snowmobiles he can see retreating in the glow of the Dragon flames. The rifle, while powerful, has abysmal accuracy, and he hits nothing but snow. He finds a box of rounds rolling around and manages to reload and fire one extra cartridge before he turns his attention to the ATVs barreling in his direction! The sheriffs drag Handfishing and One Punch out of the way shortly before the ATVs plow into the Gopher with a metallic CRUNCH.

"I'm dying!" One Punch bellows. "Tell Pa I love him!"

In the distance, the remaining ATVs recede into the Canyon.

---

Down in the canyon, the coast looks clear. The Dragon and the ATV diversion have accomplished their purpose.

<<Status of our pursuers?>> Chante asks.

Shiriki sends his Fly-Spies up to get a high angle. The full moon provides more than enough illumination to see that the pursuit has halted.

<<Neutralized. Two wounded.>>

Shiriki takes the lead. The others follow his course. There's a flash of movement off to his side that catches his eye. It's nothing, just a reflection of the moonlight off the snow.

Dan-Dan felt his blood stir as they leapt into the waiting vehicles, dragging Ite with them. If he survived the poor slob could look forward to a medical discharge. Frakker.

Behind them, the Dragon breathed its last immolating spectacularly as they brought their electronics back online.

The thunder of their tyres screetching along the asphalt, then cobbles, then dirt track thrummed in his blood, arousing feelings of lust and rage in him. Bloodlust and bloodrage. He glanced over at Shiriki, the Pawnee dog, a cruel smile at his face as his ancestors called out for his blood and terror. The dried scalps at his hip seemed to drip fresh blood.

"Shriki, I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is the local spirits demand a sacrifice to appease them. The good news is it's you, Pawnee puppy. Now, I won't lie. this is gonna hurt like a sonnofabitch as it's your pain and terror they want along with your blood. You may be scarred a bit or mutilated some but you should survive, more or less, probably less. Now I'm just going to scalp you. Feel free to scream. It won't hurt me a bit."

Dan-Dan approaches with his knife reflecting the burning Dragon behind them as he approaches, smiling.

Chante growled.  The spirits here were bloodthirsty and pushing her to behave as they would, in their time.  She focuses on the spirit and asserts her will.

It is not your time, Warrior, the two tribes are at Peace.

The Spirit frowns.  "You are a Traitor!  Ride down our enemies or fall with them!"

Gritting her teeth, she reaches down into her rage.  The sacrifices she has made on behalf of her people, no one had the right to question her loyalties.

Silence in the presence of your betters and speak only when spoken to.  The Tribal Leaders have spoken and conflict between the Lakota and the Pawnee are no more.  If you stand against this peace, you stand against the tribe and I will indeed strike someone down today.

The words themselves were unimportant; form given to emotion.  She was only just aware of the words Dan-Dan was speaking and their relevance to the astral forces at play.  Steeling herself, she infused her next command with all of the force of her shamanic power.

STAND DOWN

Dumbfounded, Shiriki coasts to a rough stop, right in the middle of the Republican River. He stares off to the south, horrified, until a shadow crosses from behind him. When he turns, Dan-Dan is approaching with a knife in his hand. "Shriki, I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is the local spirits demand a sacrifice to appease them. The good news is it's you, Pawnee puppy. Now, I won't lie. this is gonna hurt like a sonnofabitch as it's your pain and terror they want along with your blood. You may be scarred a bit or mutilated some but you should survive, more or less, probably less. Now I'm just going to scalp you. Feel free to scream. It won't hurt me a bit."

The look in his eyes is unsettling, but mostly for the way Dan-Dan is appraising Shiriki, regarding his scalp like a proper surgeon. Shiriki instinctively reaches for his Predator III, a trailing thought in his mind about how the Sioux really were serpents.

"Turn around, wasicu witko, or I'll turn you around," he says before glancing south again to the pair of figures, blood lust in their eyes.


Shiriki holsters his sidearm, pulls up his balaclava, and grips his medicine back tightly. "Old enemies. Old grudges. Howling Coyote would have never carved out a land for us with such thinking. You failed because you would always look behind you even as you walked forward," he says to the south, and then turns to Dan-Dan, "And you will fail because you're looking nowhere at all. Get on the fraggin ATV Dan-Dan. Let's get out of here."

So. Mojo. You saw that on Trid. You saw it, kinda, at some points in normal life. You saw   enough in small fights, preferably on your side. Or you geeked the make first, because hey, he was still only a man.

That was not the same thing as Ghostbusters VI coming alive in front of you with no apparent source. Just rows of spectral ancestors during it, the old ways not being any appreciably more noble than the new despite what NAN legends would say.

If this was how the mojo heads saw the world all the time, no wonder they were mostly cracked.

Swoops felt himself almost reliving it , silently mouthing words

"Captain, sir, let's jis killem all. The only good injun is dead or tame ones. The boys are spoiling fer a fight. Ride a hundred miles for this, and barren waste no nistake. Fer what? Let e go and have the same redskins put an arrest in us from behind a rock two weeks from now. Kill'em all capn".

A spectral figure turns towards him in a suit of blue and gold shoulderboards, tipping his Stetson.

"No sergeant, I think not. We are here to do God's work with the savage, and they will only meet kind with kind. Deploy the company sergeant, and make it clear to fire upon each other is as tonfiring on the US Cavalry."

Swoopy oft handedly motions to a spectral bugler, a ghostly red and white pennant flaps in the wind.

"Company will advance at the trot. The man who fires without the Capn's say will spend a day on the wooden horse! Forward....." Thwbghaotly echoes..."Frowaaaaaaarrrrrdddd".....MARCH!" "Preaent!....pressseeeent....Arms"

Swoops levels his rifle at Dan Dan. "By god and the 7th, stand down!"

As Dan-Dan stalked towards Shiriki, he saw a rifle levelled at him by Swoopy. It looked antiquated. Unlike the old trids, it was not all walnut and precision but a regulation piece, all stamped metal and gunoil. It was questionable whether it would do any damage, though the modern weapon that presumably underlay it certainly would. Swoops was wearing a dusty uniform, a bit weatherbeaten. It looked in considerably worse shape the  the rifle. His new beard did not suit him at all.

"By God and the 7th, stand down!"

Dan-Dan paused in his advance, rocking on the balls of his feet.

"Now Swoopy, I'm a doctor. There's a good chance Shriki, the cowering Pawnee Cur over there, will survive this. It's a sacrifice to the spirits, but not of his life. Merely, a little blood, pain and terror. It's the emotion they want. I've scalped dozens in my time and at least half of them are still alive and more or less whole. Let's be reasonable, whilst I cut him up a bit.... "

Shirki looks around to his companions in turn, wondering who is and is not in control of their faculties. Chante looks more or less herself, and Swoopy's talking all kinds of drek, but also seems to at least recognize that they're all on the same side. And he's offering good advice to boot, Shiriki reasons.

He takes a moment to delete Dan-Dan as a "friendly" and has his roto-drone begin targeting the Wildcat as he pulls away at a quick clip. With any luck, Dan-Dan will follow, and they're bound to get out of this hellscape eventually. And if he doesn't follow. . . Well, the captain's just gonna have to live with it. The Sioux are obviously not suited for command in the present environment.

Tearing east across the riverbed, Shiriki notes the Pawnee mother and child following in his peripheral vision. Ghost she's disconcerting, but if nothing else the ghostly pair should give him an idea of how far the weird mojo of the canyon extends.

<<@Chante [Shiriki] We need to keep moving. If Dan-Dan doesn't follow, I'm going to tag him with some stick-and-shock. Get your boy in line, or I'll do it for him.>>

The few seconds that it took for Chante to come back to herself was almost forgiveable, with the distraction of the astral aspect.  Almost, if the consequences weren't potentially catastrophic.

"DAN-DAN!" she snarls.  She takes a tomahawk and hurls it, the blade tumbling end over end before burying itself in the dirt at the medical officer's feet, just where his next step would have fallen.

When he looks back her direction, everything in her stance and in her expression demands to be given nothing less than unwavering compliance.  "You will get a hold of yourself.  Carry yourself with the Honor of a Sioux Wildcat.  Shiriki is no less than your brother.  Is your will so easily subsumed?"

The mental shout echoed around Dan-Dans skull. Briefly his eyes seemed to unfocus before snapping sharper than before.

"Thanks Captain, I can use that"he snarled, leaning over and scooping up the tomahawk. He charged!

Running over the snow, he danced through a hail of rounds that spat from above, impossible for them to miss him. Yet, he danced. Pirrouetting, he spun through the air, jumping into the ATV to catch the fleeing Shiriki,  the rounds impossibly missing as he twitched past them. His grin twitched wider in the thrill of the chase.

Gaining, he kicked himself into the air, leaping between the vehicle's. He threw the axe straight at Shirikis back! Before lunging forward and plucking it out of the air an inch from him as he tossed his knife... into his free hand.

Snarling, he slammed into Shiriki. And kissed him roughly, before dancing back and plucking a single strand of loose hair from him, hard.

I told you it would hurt... he laughed as he jumped back onto his idling vehicle. And bowed.

Shiriki guns his ATV, but Dan-Dan closes in fast. The roto-drone dutifully follows orders and lets loose with a burst of stick-and-shock, which the adept dodges expertly a moment before making contact with Shiriki's vehicle. In hot-sim, Shiriki tenses, sees the axe midair, waits for the searing pain, and then, somehow, the pain never comes.

Theatrically, Dan-Dan bows, and Shiriki seethes. He exits hot-sim, and draws his hand up to his head. <i>That sonofaslitch</i>

Swoopy rises out of his fugue state, a spectral Calvaryman replaced by Chante-definitely-not-a-man. Them Dan is streaking towards Shiriki, slipping through a hail of drone fire like a god damned trid. Swoopy angles in behind him as Chante tosses a tomahawk. Not going to give the dumb son of a bitch a chance to "dance", just going to murder him while he's not looking if he keeps it up.

Swoops hits the selector from gel to FMJ, ready to make sure his first shit is also the last one as Dan plucks a hair. He holds the last ounce of trigger pressure as Dan Dan does his theatrics. He leaves the goggle integrated sight picture on Dan's neck from the rear- no armor there good enough to stop a rifle round - and glances towards Chante for how this is all going down.

Unless Dan acts up of course. Then this is going to be a tragic day for Dan's parents, knowing he was killed by the dread anglos.

Heh, it'd even be partially true.

Chante's jaw literally drops as Dan-Dan completes his ludicrous antics. She shakes her head and jumps on an ATV, gunning the engine and catching up.

As she passes Dan-Dan, she snatches her tomahawk from his hand, belting it.

"Can we get our heads out of our asses and get moving now?" she asks tersely.  "Or you got some more fuck fuck games you wanna play?"

Dan-Dan turns to the captain with an innocent smile.

"Hubba hubba"

Then he winks.

"Let's roll..."

Not going to be a fight then. Swoopy resolved to stay behind Dan-Dan for the rest of the mission. And never to let him be the only man on watch. Maybe it was just the Mojo of this place.

Maybe Dan-Dan was secretly just a unstable problem waiting for the team and the Mojo had just helped to highlight it. No way to know for sure.

Which was a problem, the regular NAN military had plenty of fail safes, systems, standards, procedures. That wall of bureaucracy that everyone hated. But it served it's purpose. Dan-dan would be happily on his way to a trial or psychotherapy, possibly both. Another medic would slide into his place and the unit would keep on rolling on.

The wildcats, apparently, liked to live on the idea they didn't need that extensive bureaucracy because they were the true warriors, capable of selecting their own, the elite. They didn't need the bell curve flattening discipline because they  were internally disciplined.

Dan-Dan was a living example of what happens when that philosophy fails. What was a potential national level crisis was now resting on the shoulders of an unstable prick. If word of this got out, the Sioux Wildcats were going to find that all of a sudden they had little funding, no political support, and a ton more oversight. Policy makers would rapidly point out that whatever strategic gains one might get from a pinprick commando raid, they could easily be overturned by a rogue agent - and that really, wasn't military force mostly for posturing and negotiations these days anyhow? No one wanted a real, live, war because some shithead who couldn't be counted on not to try to scalp his own team decided to do his own thing.

The regular forces would happily take another swing their perennial efforts to re-subsume their renegade brethren, happy to cut down the over-funded prima donna's who had too many bad trid deals and got all the glory while someone else did the muddy, boring, slog work that made up 99% of the NAN's actual military security.

All because of Dan Dan.

Well, Swoopy thought, good thing Chante gets to head up this de-brief.

<<01:50 Sunday, January 31st, 2075 - Massacre Canyon, Nebraska, UCAS>>

There's an uneasy calm, if you want to call gas-engine ATVs plowing through the snow "calm". Nobody is shooting at you, and that's nice, but there's still a notable ache of menace in the air, like a bloody lip flavoring your mouth. Maybe the violence of your mission is clinging to you like guts on a blade. Maybe the canyon is seeping into your skin.

The visions don't recede. You have control over your faculties - you think - but there are still images of horror surrounding you. Of course, they're not there when you turn to look directly, but in your peripheral vision there is violence. Dan-Dan sees a Pawnee man struck down with a war club. Shiriki sees a Pawnee woman impaled with arrows. Chante sees a Sioux warrior felled by a hatchet, then chopped up mercilessly in retaliation. Swoopy sees cavalry men opening fire indiscriminately, letting God sort them out, should God want any of the heathens.

Riders on horseback ride alongside you. They lurch into your path and take swings at your faces. You duck, only to look and see nothing there. It's a waking nightmare.

Perhaps Dan-Dan was right. Perhaps the spirits aren't satisfied with Shiriki's haircut. They are clearly agitated by your presence. The air here feels fragile, like there is the thinnest crystalline veil separating you from the astral realms. The two worlds seem to bleed back and forth into each other.





There's an audible CRACK that pierces your hearing, even above the ATVs. It's not gunfire, nor a lightning strike. No, the astral veil is shattering directly in front of you. Cracks spider out of thin air, sprinting from snowflake to snowflake, splitting the sky. All at once the astral window explodes, lashing you with shards of ice as four spirits rush forth on horseback to meet you in battle.

Swoopy watched as the cluster of spirits charged forth, shattering their way through whatever veil there was here. The largest and most fearsome seemed to go directly for the finger-wagglers, while what was "merely" the living manifestation of a long dead native - don't tell the others, jokes aside, Swoopy really can't tell them apart when portrayed in spectral translucence - charged at him, hatchet in hand.

Good U.S. Steel there, helping the redskins finish each....no, that's not right...

Swoopy very quickly realized the assault rifle by his side was likely to be useless against this thing. Also that spraying automatic fire around indiscriminately as the spirits got into close quarters was likely to end badly for the cats. Fortunately there was someone quite capable, apparently of killing the hell out of a spectral Indian.

He gunned the ATV engine, pulling the charging spirit off to the right...

...just as on the far side of the veil a section of cavalrymen fired another ragged volley. Half in this world and half in it's own, the lesser spirit reacted much as he probably did in life, which is to say he staggered back with a hole in him pulsing...blood? The metaphysical manifestation of pain as blood? Not that it particularly mattered.

So. That worked. Swoopy immediately began scanning his periphery for the largest, most violent group of cavalry he could find. If he could tell the native tribes apart, that would probably work too...maybe Shiriki would have better luck with that.

Chante squeezes her eyes shut, shakes her head and reopens them.  The spirits are still there, charging.  She sways unsteadily to the left, then catches herself before rolling off the moving ATV.

Spirits! she thinks to herself.  Now is NOT the time to fall apart.

She readies her Tomahawks and and steels herself, answering the charge with her own.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Tue 10 Oct 2017.

As the spirits gallop toward the group, riding their spectral horses at an unnatural speed -- the speed of the dead -- Shiriki continues to gun his ATV. He's not sure what that haze was, or what that crash was that followed it as the haze crackled and splintered, and Ghost, he didn't even know what else. The Pawnee takes a brief moment to command his drones to fire, and then on a brief straightway, Shiriki opens up the throttle even more.

He's well outside the safety parameters of their purloined vehicles at this point, but he's making good time. He keeps his turns in small, planned-out adjustments, skidding from the frozen river's surface and into the relatively much more traction-friendly snow here and there as he makes his way east. Behind him, both drones focus fire, trying to take out the horse beneath its rider, but neither connect. There's an exchange of blows as the spirits and the rest of the wildcats pass one another in mounted combat, and then the spirits have turned and advance on them, Shiriki holding a nearly seventy meter lead by this point.

He runs through his options mentally, dodging a twist in the river by taking a felled log as a ramp. His body hugs the profile of the vehicle, as Shiriki sails in a brief arc before coming down hard on the shore, and skidding back onto the ice covered Republican. Another turn up ahead, and another felled log, only this time, Shiriki sees his error while he's airborne. The twist in the river guarded a little eddy of a pool, and Shiriki prays that the ice will be thick enough.

It isn't. while the front wheels of the ATV hold fast on the ice and spin looking for purchase, the back wheels crash through and into the river. For a moment it looks like he's going to be thrown off the back, and the ATV is nearly vertical. He slips in the river down to his waist before the tires find something to grab onto and pull Shiriki out, the engine sputters once before the exhaust port is cleared and it roars back to life in full force. It's only for a moment, but Shiriki feels the air pulled out of his lungs. It takes him nearly a full second before he can draw a full breath as he roars down the riverbed. As his faculties return, they return in pieces, and Shiriki notes how clinical his mind is working.

He's in shock. Certainly.

The cold's not that bad. Not on its own. His adrenaline is already kicking in, and while he'll lose some fine motor skills in the short term, his heart'll be pumping like mad, and that'll keep him upright.

His insulation's good, but traveling across open terrain in an ATV is going to more than counteract it. His increased speeds will accelerate the evaporation process, and that will decrease the temperature of the water clinging to his lower half. He figures in the next few minutes hypothermia is forgone conclusion.

Swoopy concentrates hard, trying to find more of the spectral cavalry to solve his redskin problem for him. A thought process which, particularly, might bear some re-examination when there's not a spirit horde trying to kill the shit out of him. Conscious thought would never abandon his comrades-in-arms. Sub-consciously though...well...Anglo spirit's on this mission have been happily responsive to him, the native spirits have tried to tomahawk him on sight, and as soon as Dan Dan was allowed his true nature, he tried to scalp Shiriki. Fucking savages...

...is the last thought to go through Swoopy's mind with the other side of the veil visible. Then something lashes back. Maybe the land doesn't want him here, especially not when his thoughts coruscate it's original owners. Maybe mundane mortals were never meant to see the astral this closely. Maybe being a walking composition of biotech and 'ware is allowing the fruits of human rationality to beat down what can't be, what isn't, what is utter paradox to millennia of human thought.

They all disappear from Swoopy's vision. Everything. The spirits on the far side. The spirits on this side. Chante and Dan look like hollow men, barely connected wireframes that just shouldn't be here. Only Shiriki and the snow are brilliantly crisp, more real than they were a moment ago.

Swoopy has no clue what just happened, and reacts on instinct. Time to punch out whatever-the-hell-is-going on. He slams the throttle on his ATV and it seems like engineering just responds better. It leaps forward - rocks, snow burrows, crevices that would have unseated him a moment before just seem to roll into the wheel and it's glorious civilizing influence. Swoopy's caught up to Shiriki by the time he plunges through the ice...and can only hope that he isn't about to be blindsided by a spirit.

The veil tore.

Streams of aether seemed to howl a gale as the whipped out of the invisible tear. The veil may have been unseen ,it's effects weren't.

A host of spirits poured through the orifice. Twenty, thirty? It was hard to say. Most weren't interested in the mortals, no matter how hostile.

Most was not all. Four spirits coalesced on the material plain. Native of aspect.

One was a great beast, a veritable king. Mustang. Not a mustang. Mustang.

Steam poured Off its heaving flanks and breath snorted from flaring nostrils. It saw Dan-Dan tossed it's mane and charged!

Quick as lightning, thunder drummed as it's hooves beat out a staccato rythem.

Dan-Dan danced, flicking his knife and dodged.

Crimson splashed as the horse wheeled round, saddle and girth dropping away. If anything this made the spirit angrier as Danyrs laughed...

The astral maelstrom whipped at Chante, a cyclonic fury of rage and violence.  The spirit of beast was infused with the stuff, gleaming red eyes piercing into her.  She swung out with her tomahawk, one hand gripping the handlebar of her ATV, willing it to continue driving past.

Angry sparks scattered from the contact between tomahawk and spirit.  It reared up and struck out, the hoof catching her shoulder.  She grunted, the impact was jarring and she nearly lost hold of her weapon.  Through force of will, she maintained her hold and rotated her arm back, swatting the spirit and scoring a deep line along it's haunches.

Then, she was past.  She leaned in and pushed the ATV, looking back to maintain her visual if the creature decided to turn and charge after her still.

Having put a couple hundred meters between the fray and himself, Shiriki plots in a rudimentary course for the ATV to follow, reduces his grip on the throttle from "death" to "knuckle-cracking," and slips his consciousness into the waiting doberman drone. The first thing to strike him is how much easier it is to navigate than the ATV. He can run circles around the other ATVs, though likely not the opposing spirits, with much greater ease relying on the individually articulated legs. He careens past Swoopy, avoiding Dan-Dan, and levels the integrated Alpha at the smaller and wounded spirit of man.

The assault rifle roars to life, sending two long bursts at the initial target, and then a single shorter burst at the larger of the two horse spirits. The Sioux warrior reels from bullets, even though the majority of them simply pass through his ethereal form, but to Shiriki's dismay, he holds firm.

The last burst misses, not that Shiriki notices. Somewhere, somehow he feels an upending of himself, a brief lurch in his stomach as his equilibrium falters. He spins the primary sensor of the doberman east in time to see his ATV going end-over-end in one direction as his meat sack is tossed loose and falls unceremoniously in some shrub brush in another.

Dan laughed. It was an eerie screeling thing, that raised hackles. It seemed to fit the aetheric atmosphere.

The ATV bucked on a loose bit of scree, so Dan rode it away from the naked horse beast towards its wounded companion. He practical kiss as it tossed it's mane angrily, he's return for it in a bit, lightly slapping it's rump as he passed.

Dan then charged the wounded beast, with a come hither motion. Angrily, it went for him. Simple, brutal, direct. Dan stabbed it in the eye, head blood containing over him as it died in agony, or was banished. An interesting point.

Covered in blood, none of it his, Dan-Dan glanced around and saw a cavalry officer, some Yankee dandy and blew him a kiss as he made him the same come hither motion, grinning. The screeling laugh continued to sound from his lips.

Behind him, the first beast, Mustang kicked his ATV hard...

Swoopy isn't one of the finger-wingling wizzer types, but it's couldn't be more clear to him that Something Isn't Right about this place. He guns his ATV, trusting in the good engineers of GMC or Yamaha or wherever that their ATV will get his hoop out of there, or at least far enough ahead that Whatever Isn't Right eats Dan-Dan instead. He races away, but doing so creates a weird dissonance between his brain and his head. His mind feels pulled back, as if it were tethered behind him. Swoopy could swear that his brain is squishing into the back of his skull, as if the Canyon won't let him go, or at least not without feeling like he pushed his brain through a sieve.

Shiriki is similarly fighting with these damn Anglo ATVs. If this were the NAN then he'd have a proper Thundercloud product to work with. A Mustang or a Morgan would be wiz to work with right now; hell, Shiriki would settle for a Thundcloud Pinto off a used car lot somewhere. Instead, this unruly ATV insists on breaking through the ice, and then once it lurches free it manages to buck him off as certainly as a eight seconds on a bucking Brahma bull. It's a strange sensation, watching himself remotely as his body cartwheels through the air ignominiously. The equilibrium in Shiriki's inner ear tells him that Something Isn't Right, but there's no physical sensation of tumbling or crashing other than the sinking sensation of his pride going before the fall.

Chante and Dan-Dan are still in the thick of things. A red-eyed paint Appaloosa charges at Chante, rearing up and striking her with the intent to knock her off the ATV. Her armor absorbs the shock of the block - to the detriment of her armor - but her hands, icy from the cold, retain their deathgrip on the ATV and her tomahawk, respectively. In retaliation, she drags her tomahawk along the Appaloosa's spotted haunches, creating a shower of magical sparks and astral screams. She guns her ATV, seeking to regroup with Swoopy and Dan-Dan.

Dan-Dan, infused with the murderous spirit of Massacre Canyon, races in to finish the job that Chante started. With a laugh as cold as the wind, Dan-Dan sinks his Cougar Fineblade into the Appaloosa's eye. It screeches horribly as its essence shatters in the snow. Dan-Dan cackles, triumphantly slapping the hind of the Mustang as he passes. It lashes out with a kick that connects with Dan-Dan's back, knocking the wind out of him as he folds forward over his handlebars. The Warrior spirit races to the Mustang, mounting it and spurring it on as it pursues Dan-Dan down the riverbed.

Somewhere in Swoopy's head there is the dissonance that since there were spirits and Chantes and Dan-Dan's entirely physically present just moments before, they must still be there, and that clearly what he is experiencing isn't "real". Unfortunately that small part is losing heavily to a combination of primal instinct in trusting what you see and the fact that magic is busily tearing rationality to mush. One constant stands out though: Shiriki and his Drones stand out stark as neon, clearer than UltraHD, which passes the human eye in resolution decades ago (that said, every year citizens in developed countries line up to buy even higher resolution ways to watch Utban Brawl, and swear they can tell what a difference it makes). That last Shiriki shaped touch point goes cartwheeling through the air and there's really only one action Swoopy can take. It has to be saved. It's the last thing that maes sense.

Swoopy guns his ATV that direction. It won't go into the annals of great driving, but it doesn't have to. He yanks a prostrate Shiriki onto the ATV.

"I can't see the others! What the fuck is going on?!"

The problem with sticking around, Chante realized, was that they'd eventually be overrun by a nevernending spout of whatever the astral storm threw at them.  It was best to retreat, in this case.

She hoped the others had the same idea.  Soldiers weren't bred for brains, but Wildcats were supposed to be smarter than the average groundpounder.

She twisted her wrist back and gunned the engine, accelerating with the intent of just getting free.  She hoped the others were wise enough to have the same idea.

"I can't see the others! What the fuck is going on?!"

Shiriki hears Swoopy as if he's right to next to him, which he is physically, but the sound comes piped in tinny and heavy with wind static through his jumped in senses.

He hopes nothing's broken.

Not wanting to distract Swoopy with his irregular cargo, Shiriki dictates an audio text, the voice sounding similar to his own, but delivered in an emotionless deadpan inside the rookie's helmet. "One horse and rider on our six, pursuing Dan-Dan. Chante's still up."

Before he can address the charging Mustang, Shiriki directs a long burst of fire from the doberman's assault rifle at the Sioux warrior blocking his path. One or two of the bullets would flatten harmlessly against the spirit's defenses, but the whole lot burrows its way through and the warrior pitches backwards, gone from this plane before he strikes the ground. As the doberman, Shiriki wheels forward across the riverbed, and directs a third burst of fire against the Mustang's haunches. He hits and draws a thin trickle of blood.

Above, the roto-drone descends from its bird's eye view and fires a barrage of stick-n-shock, but the Mustang leaps up almost to meet it, and the rounds go wide.

Swoopy makes his way over to Shiriki's fallen form, which is draped ignominiously over a stiff scrub brush. Swoopy takes a moment to make sure that the plant itself isn't a spirit, or paraflora, or otherwise malevolent. He wouldn't put it past Massacre Canyon to produce man-eating bushes, not that there aren't plenty of those at home. (There's a bar near base where the officers have been warned about the local "wildlife" - mostly succubi patrolling for child support - but Swoopy digresses.)

The ice is slick - more slippery than normal ice? - but Swoopy's footing holds as he clumsily gropes Shiriki's inert body. He almost fumbles the elf, not that dropping someone in full body armor would hurt them in the least. It would be embarrassing for them both, so Swoopy is pleased that he doesn't add to Shiriki's miseries.

Chante guns her ATV. Let no one accuse her of leading from the rear; she will be at the front of the charge. The charge might be a retreat and her men might be fighting a rearguard action behind her, but Chante will always be in the lead.

Behind, Dan-Dan is dueling with a mustang and a man that seem hellbent on tag-teaming him. His armor is a bit worse for wear but so far he is holding his own. The mustang rears up to trample him and Dan-Dan calmly takes the opportunity to relieve the spirit of its family jewels. The mustang screams and tries to smash Dan-Dan into the ground with its front hooves, but fails to do so.

Shiriki decides to put the beast out of its misery. Jumped-in, he sends a wide arc of automatic rifle fire at the spirits. The spirit stoically and suspiciously watching the proceedings from a distance is cut down. He sinks to his knees, grasping his belly, then slumps forward into the snow. He's gone before his face can complete the snow angel. The mustang catches hot rounds in the hindquarters, pushing it past its breaking point. Its rear legs cave as it goes to the ground, similarly dissipating into the snow being kicked up by Dan-Dan's ATV.

The man on the mustang's back lands on his feet. He looks up, sees that he's outnumbered, then charges at Dan-Dan with a smile on his spectral face.

Steam rises off the body of the mustang, its hot breath in the chill air. Rearing, it screams as it lashes with it's hooves at Dan-Dans head. The officer, spirit of Yankee mounted on it's back whips out his sabre for the return.

Dan-Dan sings...


"Two little boys, had two little toys. Each had a wooden, horse!"


... before lunging in with his sacred knife and castrating the beast, lopping off its testes.

Blood spurts out, spraying all over Dan and his ATV as the horse really screams, its hooves crashing into the frozen ground as Dan dances out of the way. The horse crashes to its fore knees.

Rounds rip out of the air from over Dans shoulder, kicking up snow and sending the apparition back to its plane of existence.

The Yankee picks himself out of the snow, glances round, then grins and charges at Dan-Dan.


"GAILY THEY PLAYED EACH SUMMER'S DAY, WARRIOR'S BOTH OF COURSE!" It wasn't very good singing, but Dan's eyes almost seemed to shine...

The spirit sees something in Dan-Dan's eyes, or aura. In the end, the spirit decides that it is more fun to massacre than it is to be massacred. It retreats into the astral rather than finding itself on the wrong end of Dan-Dan's Cougar Fineblade.

A hush falls. Looks are exchanged. The storm has died, as has the wind. It's a clear, cold night; what you wouldn't give for some cloud cover!

Dan-Dan checks on Ité.

This is so fragging bad, Chante thinks to herself before deciding she needs confirmation. "Is it bad?" she asks.

"As opposed to good?" Dan-Dan shoots back.

Shiriki comes out of VR in time to hear Chante say "mount up". He gets back on his ATV and prepares to set off.

<<03:00 Sunday, January 31st, 2075 - McCook, Nebraska, UCAS>>

The team cautiously exits Massacre Canyon, stopping their ATVs just beyond the curtain of mana static. The Awakened visibly relax; Dan-Dan doesn't feel bloodthirsty for the first time in an hour. Chante spends a moment on the astral, looking for their pursuit. She finds none.

"No spirits, no watchers," she says with a bit of a slur. It's still unnervingly quiet.

Shiriki has been scanning the airwaves, looking for hidden signals. "Skies are clear."

"Seems suspicious," Swoopy says. "Not a single Dalmatian looking for us?"

There's no explanation, but rather than dwell on the group moves on. Chante's armor is pretty ragged and the effects of hypothermia are starting to set in. Dan-Dan is cold too, with the damage to his suit doing just enough to make him uncomfortable.

You reach the edge of McCook, population 8,000. It's 3am on Saturday night / Sunday morning so the only people out are the cowboys who are drinking.

"We have half an hour before we meet my contact," Chante tells the team. "He'll help get Ité underground.

"Metaphorically," she clarifies, after thinking about it for a second. "Shiriki, how do we make contact with your egghead?"

"My contact says he works the night shift at the hospital. I don't have a commcode."

"Then we'll have to do it in person." She looks around the group. "Swoopy, you look the most like a local so you'll have to initiate contact." (Swoopy might be offended, but she's right.) "We need to go native. Dan-Dan, Shiriki, go steal us some clothes. Something warm, and hurry." She shivers violently.

Dan gives thanks to the spirits for those he'd slaughtered. Their gift was appreciated.

Later, listening to Chante on the outskirts of McCook, Danyes shivers slightly as he looks around the town. With Mogwe with him, he propels off, unseen, in his element.

Quietly he looks around suburbia. There are plenty of washing lines around, but it's far too cold at this time of year for the lower middle classes to be hanging out the laundry. The thrift shops are a better bet. Going through half a dozen charity outlets Dan quietly breaks in gathering a rather random assortment of bric-a-brack. Some of the combinations look off and it's post luck on the sizes, but they should suffice.

Slipping his tools away discreetly he heads back, before coming across the mother load and finding a recycling centre. Quickly, he breaks into the clothes bins, pulling out sacks of used clothes. There's even some surgical scrubs (from who knew where). It was far tougher tgan the charity shops. As he climbs out, exhausted, he spots the clothes around the back of the dumpster, before mskimg off with them too.

It takes several trips, but the cat dumps his haul a short distance from the rendezvous where Chante has taken shelter. Searching through, he smiles before taking some selections to the team. They can go through the rest of the haul themselves to find something a bit appropriate.

......


Captain, I've got everybody some swell duds... the medic smiles, passing around his collection. They can search for themselves later if they choose of course.

He passes out a crimson feather boa, leather skirt and fishnets to the captain together with a long fur coat. It's surprisingly warm and looks like something a hooker would wear. It's not a perfect fit, but tgat doesn't really matter.

He also passes out a stylised Amerindian outfit, complete with plastic bow and arrow that looks to have come from a fancy dress shop (it did). It is tacky in the extreme.

There's also a police officers outfit, with sergeant stripes from the same source.

With a stretcher for Ite (who gains a 1930s gangster suit with purple fedora hat), he looks like a comic book pimp. Unfortunately, there truly was little available in his size unless Shiriki found something.

He himself has a fairly complete set of medical scrubs. They're a good fit too. For warmth there is a long overcoat, such as you could find anywhere.

"We need to go native. Dan-Dan, Shiriki, go steal us some clothes. Something warm, and hurry." She shivers violently.

Seriously?! Shiriki can't help but shoot Chante a look that screams out with how nuts he considers her request. He'd have better luck by himself than with some psycho gymnast coiffeur. Lost to her shivers, Shiriki shakes out his wet pant leg -- he's not in particularly great shape himself -- and lets out a sigh.

Might as well get on with it.

The streets are mostly deserted in McCook, which works to their advantage . . . somewhat. Under normal circumstances, the traffic cams here are probably watched more by paranoid parents with a cheap starter deck than law enforcement, and McCook isn't exactly the kind of place where a lone ATV or two will be unusual on the road, even at this time of night, but the early morning following a UCAS military facility being compromised and firebombed isn't exactly "normal circumstances."

Shiriki holes himself up in a blind spot, and sets up a fly spy to keep an eye on Dan-Dan's six. Aided by cat, the adept makes his way through a thrift store, and then another in short order. More like rat, the little sneak. Looks like he can get in anywhere. All he's missing is a bald, scabby little tail hanging out of his hoop. Shiriki finds himself actively fantasizing about shooting Dan-Dan with his suppressed Alpha as the man exits another thrift store, holding what looks like stripper wear and an even more offensive racist costume, when he finally has to catch himself and face up to their situation.

Dan-Dan didn't leave us out here on our hoop with no friends. Neither did he open the rift in Massacre Canyon. Neither did he choose Massacre Canyon as their escape route to begin with. And if they are going to make it out of this, it's going to be because Shiriki and Dan-Dan do it together.

But he can't be trusted, Shiriki counters to himself, as Dan-Dan slips past another maglock, this one to a recycling centre. There's no helping that, though. Besides, maybe Shiriki is being to hard on the adept. There was some strong mojo going around there, awakening all those old tribal animosities, the same ones that had probably kept Shiriki out of the Wildcats for so long.

Doubtful, the elf reasons, touching the bald spot on his crown. Dan-Dan gives the sign that they should head back, and Shiriki continues to pilot the flying eye behind them, in case any tails should develop. When they get to the rendezvous point, Shiriki sets eyes on the haul for the first time. It's not exactly what he had in mind, but most will be workable. Chante looks disgusted, but the warmth of the coat is enough alone to make the trip worthwhile. And then Shiriki sees that there's nothing in Dan-Dan's bag for him, as if fitting an elf with ancient cyberware is really all that difficult.

"Ahh, frag this," Shiriki says, before taking a closer look at Dan-Dan's scrubs.

"Hey, that might work," he muses. "Let's get to the hospital, Dan-Dan. You head in first, and see about lifting another pair of those scrubs. When it's safe to follow, we'll see about our doc on the night shift."
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 18:05, Tue 16 Jan 2018.

Chante snatches the clothes angrily. "A skirt?" she hisses at Dan-Dan, debating whether this is worthy of a field demontion. "A skirt?"

She considers her full body armor. She can't stand the thought of taking it off so she pulls the skirt on over the top, then does the same with the halter top. She pulls off her helmet and angrily wraps herself in the hooker coat and crimson feather boa. It might just work if non one sees under her coat.

"It's a conservative town," Swoopy says. "They'd never ask a woman of... certain repute to open her coat."

Despite the extra layers, Chante shivers violently. She turns to Ité. Undressing him would likely be impossible so she adopts the same approach of pulling on the purple people-eater suit over Ité's armor. It's ridiculous, but also incredibly difficult given that you're losing sensation in your extremities.

"A police officer's uniform?" Swoopy asks Dan-Dan incredulously. "It's not Halloween and this isn't a costume party. Don't you know that it's a crime in the UCAS to impersonate a police officer? No, of course you didn't. Well in a town this size, everyone is going to know the entire police force by name; no sense in trying to impersonate one."

"Agreed," Chante nods. "Swoopy looks like a local, knows a lot about medicine, and is the best talker among us." She's being modest. Chante is the best talker, but she's also dressed like a strumpet. She's right about Swoopy being a gifted medic too. He's not as good as Dan-Dan, but's he's an accomplished combat medic.

"Dan-Dan, lose the scrubs and give them to Swoopy," the Captain orders. "He'll make contact for us."

Dan-Dan hesitates.

"NOW!" Chante responds sharply, the cold clearly wearing on her nerves. "That's an order!"

Swoopy swaps his armor and helmet for the scrubs and the long overcoat. He loses his Browning Hi-Power, Colt M23, and Ite's grenades, but manages to slip his knife into the coat.

"I'm going in," he says. "Shiriki, loop the cameras for me, would ya, and maybe pop the side door." With that, he stomps off through the snow to the emergency exit of McCook Hospital.

<<03:14 Sunday, January 31st, 2075 - McCook, Nebraska, UCAS>>

Still nearly four hours to sunrise, which should be plenty of time for unloading Ité, negotiating payment, and ghosting before they have to worry about more than thermal scanners in the surrounding valleys. As Swoopy makes his way toward a small emergency exit at the east entrance of McCook hospital, Shiriki goes full VR, and leaves his meat sack -- and thankfully the sensation of a frozen solid pant leg -- behind and approaches the hospital's host. He's able to sleaze some credentials easily enough, enters, looks around, and hastily constructs a persona to match the 1950s decor. Not wanting to be bothered with signing patient paperwork, or anything else that might get him noticed, he chooses a candy striper outfit, complete with hat, which must be used for orderlies and the like.

The host is nearly barren, owing to the town's population and the time of day. He would expect to see a representative from Knight's Errant, or the UCAS military, considering their raid, but he sees neither. Curiouser and curiouser, he muses to himself, parroting some long-lost children's story his mom used to read to him.

Dealing with the door doesn't pose a problem, even if the code is a little rusty, but Shiriki has issues with the cameras. For a moment, Shiriki wonders if the latter is being monitored by a spider running silent, which would most likely mean a pawn or Joe on the premises -- electronically anyway.

Before giving it another go, Shiriki sends a text Swoopy's way.

<<@Swoopy [Shiriki] I don't have the cameras yet, so act accordingly.>>

He keys into Swoopy's mic, and tries again to gain access to the camera feeds. This time, instead of trying to spoof a keycard code to the camera "room" of the Host, he tries an old trick from his Tir days. Giving a quick look left and right to make sure that a patrol IC or Spider isn't spying him, he pulls a large black cartoon hole out of his pocket and slaps it on the wall, then attempts to walk through.

He slips into the camera room easily, and finds Swoopy with a quick reference check.

<<@Swoopy [Shiriki] You've got cameras at 6 and 8. Head down for a few more ticks, and I'll get you looped.>>

Before he can do so, Shiriki notices a security guard heading toward Swoopy's position, and fires off another text to alert him. Holding off momentarily on looping the footage -- should the sec guard go to review it during his walk, Shiriki starts digging through patient records in case he needs to form a diversion.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:13, Thu 01 Mar 2018.

Shiriki sends the footage of the guard to Swoopy, who sizes up the situation and decides to confront it head-on. He strides confidently out of the stairwell.

"Uh, excuse me..." the guard asks timidly.

Swoopy sees that his initial impression was accurate. The guard is a portly human male, probably early 60s. The night shift certainly isn't where you find the ambitious up-and-comers, so this guy is just marking time until retirement.

"Yes, what is it?" Swoopy asks impatiently.

"It's just, I don't recognize you," the guard whimpers.

"And I do not recognize you, but you don't see me interrupting your work, do you?" Swoopy shoots back.

"N-no," the guard admits.

"Now look, Ned," Swoopy says, flicking the man's nametag dismissively. "If I don't work, people die. And every minute I spend talking to you is a minute I'm not working, understand?"

"Y-yes," Ned agrees. He steps back, head bowed.

"Very well. Continue about your business."

Swoopy strides off confidently, pleased with himself. Shiriki almost hates to break his mood.

<<@Swoopy [Shiriki] Bad news, a nurse overheard you. Ork, African. Doesn't look like she'll be so easily cowed. She's watching you go, looks like she's doing something on her commlink.>>

<<@Shiriki [Swoopy] Ah, drek. Better move fast.>>

<<@Swoopy [Shiriki] Contact is in the last room on the right. Dr. Balter.>>

Swoopy hastens his pace. He turns into the room at the end of the hall. "Dr. Balter, I'm -"

"I know who you are." The man stands and smiles. He's a human, maybe in his 50s, and has a kindly look to him. "Or I can deduce. I don't recognize you and your scrubs are ill-fitting. And, by the quickness of your step I can conclude that you have been detected, likely the vigilant Nurse Hanna. You no doubt are accompanied by friends."

He glances at the nearest camera and smiles in a friendly fashion.

"I would encourage them to credential you as quickly as possible. Come, bring the patient to the back loaded bay where deliveries are made. It will be deserted at this hour. Describe his condition as we walk."

Swoopy also glances at the camera. <<@Shiriki [Swoopy] I guess that settles that. The good doctor is 'on' tonight.>>

The two stride out into the hallway and try to avoid eye contact with Nurse Hanna as Swoopy does his best to parrot what Dan-Dan told him.

"The patient has an intracerebral haemorrhage, which an auto doc incorrectly diagnosed and treated with clopidogrel by default. An emergency trepanning -"

"Dr. Baltar," Nursa Hanna says firmly.

"Not now, Nurse Hanna," he says, attempting to wave her off.

She squares up directly in front of him, using her considerable mass to block the hallway.

"DR. BALTAR," she repeats with an authoritative tone most commonly used for uncooperative patients. "I must insist."

In reply to TecGM (msg # 65):

Dan-Dan taps in on Swoopys microbead. A senior nurse is an issue that needs careful handling:

Hey Swoops, you need to interrupt that nurse and tell her exactly what I tell you. I'll walk you through it. Tell her: you've got a Never Event. A SHO gave a medication error through autodoc. If she asks which SHO (she's likely to), give her a look. There's no way you'd tell her that. Then tell her, you need her to liaise with any relatives or press, if they turn up. Tell her the patient is a stroke, as an aside add he's a troll.
Turn her from an opponent to an ally. It should work, I'll explain as I can. The doctor next to you should play along.

That should put the wind up her a bit. A small community hospital like this should have half a dozen never events a year (Not that it should have any of course), an event that should never occur. They wrecked careers and killed people of course. Hopefully that nurse should now he on damage limitation.

Saying it was an autodoc and an SHO, played nicely to her prejudices (as a nurse). The Senior House Officer responsible was a junior doctor. The other doctors would always cover for them and there was no way they'd tell the nurse who it was. She'd be able to find out easily later and probably had an idea already based on who she didn't respect.

Finally, adding it was a troll should tug at her heart strings. The doctors might not care and be indifferent but she was a nurse. She'd care, and fight for her patient. That she was another trogg helped too.

Dan-Dan then contacted Shiriki.

Did you catch all that Shiriki? Regardless, I need you to alter some hospital records quick. They'll need to stand some scrutiny.

Make Swoopy a locum Registrar hired on call for the weekend by the medical staffing office at short notice. Make him hired from a non standard contractor and pay him an obscene amount of money. The standard checks won't be in pace so the paperwork won't need to as right. Just make sure there's a valid medical number attached to the file and that it has been checked by the hospital. It explains why nobody knows him and why he's dealing with the incident. He was on call. Naturally he got a consultant as soon as what happened came to light. They're always short staffed, especially on a weekend at little places like this, so it all hangs together. For his medical specialty give him general medicine.

For the respinsible SHO to pin this on, you're looking for one with a smooth record, nothing untoward showing. There won't be many, it won't look quite right. Don't worry, whoever you pin it on will have their record hacked to smooth things over again. There's bound to be some. It's how the system works. They'll have good test scores and be known to be arrogant or overconfident. They'll make a good senior doctor no doubt, but as a junior they're lethal. All this hacking should cover your traces a bit more too.

This was the crisis management side of Dan-Dan. When it hit the fan, he stepped up.

Now, if it all hung together....
This message was last edited by the player at 16:07, Sat 20 Jan 2018.

Swoopy looked at the nurse, listening to Dan-Dan's advice. He had no idea what, exactly, he was telling the nurse organizationally, but then when you really thought about it, prior to the cats he'd told plenty of people higher and lower things that were hopefully confidence inspiring if not actually fully understood by him. Officers needed to hear mil-speak to feel like they were in charge. The boys needed to hear mil-speak to feel like the people in charge of them actually knew more, and really should be listened to when you said if they just went over that hill everything would be fine. It didn't actually matter if you were hazy on the mil-speak yourself...

"Look, we've got a Never Event here. SHO pumped the wrong meds into this guy...Autodoc, course." Swoopy puts the sort of resigned look on his face usually reserved for telling new officers about new privates, and telling old soldiers about new officers. One that says: the people below us are immature, and the people above us are equally immature, but for some reason we're paid to listen to them - really, it's people like us that make the organization run. "Anyhow, I need you to liase on this. The SHO in question is filing...paperwork".

Dan-Dan's story works beautifully. Swoopy repeats it faithfully and watches Nurse Hanna melt notch by notch until she's a puddle of butter. Shiriki jumps into action, finding and forging the suggested files per Dan-Dan's instructions. The hospital's host rolls over and exposes its soft belly to Shiriki, as its tail wags happily. The plan is coming together.

Swoopy brings Dr. Baltar to Ité, and the good doctor goes to work. Things are touch-and-go for a while but the doctor's Cereprax seems to be winning out over Ité's intracerebral haemorrhage.

<<@Team [Chante] 03:30, ride is almost here.>>

Paytah 'Peter' Venom-Spitter, the Tiošpaye Smuggler, is a good rigger and a good rigger is never late. He touches down on a golf course just outside of town. Shiriki boosts an ambulance, the team piles in, then drives out to meet Peter.

Peter doesn't even bother to say hello. "Do you have any idea what's out there looking for you?" he asks with a wild look in his eyes, pointing to the west.

"Yes," Chante says. She stuffs the five American Gold Eagles in his hand before he can object, or refuse.

"You're coming with me," Peter says, jabbing his forefinger into Chante's chest. It's unusual to see the Captain being spoken to this way.

"What?" Chante asks. "We have our orders. We just need you to take him off our hands." She juts her chin at Ité.

"There's a drekstorm you wouldn't believe back there," Peter says. "I need a caster or I won't make it fifty klicks."

"I can't leave my squad," Chante protests.

"Hop in!" Peter gestures grandiosely at his Ares Venture.

Shiriki and Dan-Dan exchange a look. Shiriki knows that the passenger capacity is six, but the truth is that Ité probably counts as four by himself, and Shiriki's drones just weigh things down further. But it doesn't make any sense to split up the squad either. Plus, Dan-Dan can still see the symptoms of early-onset hypothermia in the Captain. Getting her inside something, anything, would be better than continuing to freeze her hoop off in the snow.

The team piles in. Chante, her strength draining, summons a spirit of air to keep watch over the LAV. It lifts off.

Trouble finds you almost immediately.

"We're lit!" Peter shouts as klaxon blare. "Evasive maneuvers!"

"Shirki, go VR and see what you can do!" Chante commands. Shiriki complies, slipping out of his body - and the massive G forces of the LAV in a huge banking turn - to find two GMC Banshees closing quickly. Swoopy and Dan-Dan can do little more than hold on for dear life. Mogwai cowers next to Dan-Dan.

"We'll never outrun them!" Peter bellows.

"The spirit!" Chante shouts back, concentrating on mental commands to the spirit to help the LAV eek out every knot of airspeed that it can manage.

"We'll run to CAS!" Peter says, either optimistically or unrealistically or both. It's 300 klicks to the border, which means that you have to dodge two Banshees for half an hour. Oh, and the fact that they're probably calling in spirit support of their own probably won't help matters either.

<<@Shiriki [Chante] We need jamming, stat!>>

Shiriki hacks as fast as he can. He slips into the first Banshee just in time to disable its targeting protocol. The heavy machine gun fire sprays wide.

"No missiles, at least," Swoopy notes to nobody in particular. "If they can't have us alive, they at least want our corpses whole to show to the world."

Shiriki can only hack one Banshee at a time. The second gets a bead on the Venture.

"We're locked!" Peter exclaims moments before a burst of AV rounds from the non-hacked Banshee rips into the Venture and cuts him in half.

The Venture goes into a steep dive. <<@Shiriki [Chante] Take the controls NOW!>>

Shiriki manages to jump into the Venture and pull it out of its dive in the nick of time. The G forces are tremendous and the hull is under duress. More rounds rain down into the Venture, slicing it through.

<<@Team [Shiriki] We're losing integrity fast>> Shiriki explains in that strangely dispassionate voice of people in VR. <<The spirit is pushing the bird beyond her limits. She's flying apart.>>

<<@Shiriki [Chante] Put us down now then!>>

Before Shiriki can comply, AV rounds rip through the Venture's engine, which explodes. A huge gash erupts in the hull and the cabin is instantly depressurized. Dan-Dan and Swoopy hang on for dear life as loose gear and drones are ripped out of the breach.

The Venture disintegrates. Pieces fly off in every direction. The seats detach from the floor and are sucked out into the night.