<<Be bloooody useful i' t' wogs could cooont eh? 'specially hoow many gooons we be facing.>>

Knocker sighed and slotted a big question mark into her ARO opforce data updates. She couldn't find an icon for snakes anywhere.

<< It seems she's a step ahead at this point. I'm pretty sure she won't let us waltz in and "borrow" what we need. I think we've left the nice talking part of the job behind us. >>

Yi can feel the tension building in her body, soon blood would be spilled and violence unleashed.

<<Now the question is whether she has found what we seek. I'd rather sneak in my self, I left my dancing shoes back at AFH.>>

There is a shaking sensation as the dragon lurches up into the sky, heading towards the location they were given. Mickey begins looking over the early telemetry from Cirio's sensors. While he is sure that the dwarf will have a plan, the Russian is also pretty sure her idea of a safe place and a fun afternoon was very different from his own.

Cirio slouches in the seat, arms folded across his chest. In his mind's eye, he is the Dragon, slowly beating its way across the dry savannah towards the general location given. He strains to pick up any signal on his lonely and isolated network.

The high altitude visual scan had picked out a likely candidate, good enough to retask the blimp to orbit it. Next Knocker requested a close scan and put the orders into Cirio's queue. The trog was probably safe enough where she was for the moment.

She highlighted the primary camp area, <<Primary Base, let's secure it, Dragon orbits till we clear it. Charlotte do ye be wantin' a ride ooot now, or lollygagging wit' t' wogs till we clear the LZ?>>

While the Dragon soars to make an initial recon of the site indicated, Charlotte takes part in the meal happily, stretching her poor command of Bambara with the crowds of children that materialize once business is done. Laughs all around.

<< Keep your eyes peeled for awakened threats. Cirio, when you're done with the route, set down well clear of the village and crack compartment Delta. >>

Compartments Delta through Foxtrot were where the team stored 'courtesy goods.' Bribes. Delta had an assortment of foodstuffs, medicines, survival gear and a small cache of weapons. Typical fare for a foray into the bush. Any two members of the Team could - together - open compartment Delta. Compartments Echo and Foxtrot were ...more secure.

Yi's posture remained vigilant, taut. The childen swirled around her, hoping to touch the beautiful mask. Charlotte did her best to keep them away. Yi didn't like to be touched under good circumstances - though what would qualify with 'good' for Yi was debatable - and that many, earnest and endearing faces... and so insistent, if nothing else, it was distracting, and Charlotte needed an undistracted Yi.

The majority of the area is flat, arid, and untenable, by most accounts. A few farms thrive right on the banks of the river, but years of corporate and government exploitation and Corp Wars™ has left the area desolate and undesirable. The ruins the head of the village spoke of are easy enough to locate with his information, and there is exactly one spot with enough standing masonry to be considered defensible. The majority of the ruins are subsumed in the grasslands, existing as no more then ankle high walls of crumbling stone in vague outlines reminiscent of walls and buildings.

A brief flair of radio traffic, faint and garbled, washes across the sensors of the drones and the Dragon, brushing across Cirio's network like an electronic ghost...here, and then gone.

The team piles out of the helicopter in their assigned order, each moving according to the disembarkation plan Knocker had laid out previously. The area in and around the walled space was undisturbed by man or beast.

Normally she'd have tasked a couple of fire teams to run through and secure the site while she chivvied the rest of the unit up into the area. Now Knocker was the fire team. Not only that, she was going to have to run point, out of the bodies here, she figured she was the one might make it if there was something bad, and whatever chewed her up was going to take some time. Enough time for the rest of the team to get away.

With a huge grin she dropped the last couple meters, tucked and rolled up, and without looking behind to check the others were following assignments, she started the clockwise circuit.

This sacrificial lamb had a combat shotgun with buckshot, a snubby sub machine gun full of charged up stick an shock, a warhawk chambered with explosive shells, a handful of grenades, and a cybernetic fist to cram down some idiot's throat. It would be a while before this little halfer was going to resort to using her teeth. She really hoped it wouldn't come to that, her last visit to the dentist still made her feel her latest set of teeth ache.

Cirio pulls the Dragon up and into the skies, waiting on their signal to return.

To Charlotte:

Compartment Delta, affirmative. You might be interested to know I've picked up some radio traffic. Local, but not close.

Cirio - The garbled static and white noise of intentional encryption gradually begins to disappear, replaced with bits and pieces of conversation until you're able to decipher the entirety of the portions of transmission you received.

"Check down that left corridor, and get that damn elemental down here. I've got another...the path. Keep your voice down, don't get the bitch queen...Yolandra will chew our asses up and..."

All - The walls around your chosen campsite are the only thing resembling a structure in the vicinity. Slipping through the grasses that touch your waist at places, you move through the ruins. Ahead, a low tent and a pile of modern looking heavy duty supply crates rise out of a small depression.

Mickey jumps down out of the craft, tangling his arm in the strap and lands with a quiet thud face down in the grass.

Smooth Mickey, real smooth...

With a grin at Charlotte and the others which clearly shows he is trying to play it off as he meant to do that, the Russian quietly rises and looks around. Under the beating sun, thermographic and lowlight were nearly useless, but at least his glasses cut through the worst of the glare. Moving away from the Dragon, along the wall, he begins to filter out the sound of the helicopter to pick up quieter sounds of footsteps in the grass.

Yi shakes her head slightly at the sight of Mickey hitting the ground. Moving with a fluid grace she exits the craft without a sound. Moving quickly she crouches near a wall, getting out of sight as she begins to scan their surroundings. The feeds from the sensor tags in her mask begin processing the area. All of this feels at once both familiar and strange, though this time she trusts everyone of her teammates.

<<What's the plan boss-ladies?>>

Cirio pipes the radio traffic to Charlotte.

Looks like company...

Knocker hopped up on one leg to get a view over the grass, then after off handedly marking the camp on her map checked for the others in the team. Positions confirmed, she piped out her instructions.

<<Friendlies, we be doing them a favor securing the camp from the t'ieving wogs, hostiles, we be doing us a favor securing t' supplies fer ourselves, so either way we check the camp and secure it. Worst case we make a small sacrifice to thrice bedamned gods of war and make sure no one enjoys the pleasure of the supplies.>>

At the village
Charlotte makes her goodbyes, leaving behind the crate she'd requested from Cirio. It had ammo and medicine and some non-perishibles. Basic survival goods. Probably an uneven trade, the crate more valuable at face value than the information imparted - certainly it was more valuable to subsitance-level agarians than to Charlotte and her sleek, well-fed team - but such things generally came out in the wash.

And if the lead turned into putting their hands onto the Spirit Mask, it was very cheaply bought indeed.

She turned at last to her hosts before trotting the distance to the waiting Dragon, "If there is anything we find we can do for your people, we will do it. Aw ni wula."

With the team
Charlotte falls into step behind her partner, pistol drawn, remembering the buck of Knocker's 'artillery' piece. Glad to be carrying this again. Her real weapons certainly were not the kind that hurled lead or fire...

<<Immediate area astral recon commencing...>> She breathes in deeply looking around, the switching of her senses to Another Sight twitch her brain like an ant-bitten worm.

Cirio returns to the Dragon with Charlotte, having helped her move the crate. He 'listens' to the comforting hum of electro-magnetic radiation around him, ever alert to new networks and the implied meaning...

<<Hey Cirio, How's the wind? A small grass fire might help draw out whomever is trying to hide. If we light and ride, we won't even need to deal with the smoke.>>

Cirio blinks, kilometers away, at the question.

He responds carefully:

<<Windspeed is 8km/h, southbound. Ah...listen, I don't know that lighting a fire in a place that has an annual 25cm of rainfall is a good idea. I think we'd draw out a whole lot more than expected. Charlotte, ah, what do you think of MQ's idea?>>