Waving away the flight attendant with a polite smile, Yoko pulls her deck out of its satchel and gets it half out when Max asks his question.

"Oh, erm...well...I put a new case on it, the last one sort of had too much, uh..." She puts a finger to her chin in thought, "we'll say 'ventilation'. You remember, right? It got shot up pretty darn good but better it than me is what I always say..."

Going on and on, Yoko unconsciously gets more and more into the different new peripherals and the explainations on them, constantly delving into the estoeric details of deck technology and long discourses on why she bought so and so part and what for and why.

"...And this is the ICCM Filter, a little add-on that I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have, you know," Yoko says with a smile, "But I like my brain staying how it is so I had it put in and- Oh, I'm sorry Max, am I boring you?"

Michael leans back in his seat with a chuckle, his eyes glancing around his teammates. He orders a bottle of water for himself and remains silent for the most part. He digs out a white noise generator from his carry-on and sets it on the tray before him. Once the plane is airborn, he'll active it so the team can talk without worry of anyone listening in.

Max, to Yoko. "Oh no, I'm not bored. I did consider decking as a profession at some point you know, but I had to quit it because I'm never too confident in myself when I have to react in the matrix and all... I've been told that it's because I have a very sensitive neural structure. Listening to you is like listening to what I could have become.. As far as I'm concerned you can go on as long as you want talking about it, I kind of know what you're talking about myself, but it's the others that might get bored." Max says with a smile.

"Anyways, I see that Mike wants us to talk about more important matters now. Where do we start?"

"Well, Yoko said she had a report for us, so lets give her the floor, so to speak."

I was sitting back in my chair, enjoying the view out the window while ssipping on the Tom Collins the flight attendant was kind enough to get me and drifting in and out of assorted daydreams. Sure, my ticket said I had an aisle seat, but there was no way I was going to miss the view especially when it looked like we were the only ones here in first class.

It wasn't until Michael mentioned something about a report that I shuffled off my woolgathering so I could focus on the here and now.

"Sounds like a plan. Whatcha got, Yoko?"

Kenjiro listens intently.

Illian had declined the initial offer for a drink, and was leaning back in his seat, scouring through the music channels looking for something decently tolerabe. When he sees Micheal place the white noise generator on his tray, Illian removes the headphones, shutting his eyes, though listening studiously.

"Well, thanks Max, it's always good to know that someone somewhere is living a life vicariously through me." She smiles sincerely.

At the prompting of her team, she reaches to a side pouch on the satchel and begins shoveling out optical chip after optical chip, eventually ending with a respectably large pile on the fold-out table.

"This," She gestures to a pile, a couple of chips sliding off to fall on the floor, "is what one night of poking around gets you. My semi-knows nearly killed me with how much information they dug up and I haven't even finished winnowing out the useful drek from the useless drek. But...I did find something...

Reaching into the pile, she withdraws a chip virtually indistinguishable from the rest and held it up for everyone's edification.

"And here we go. Okay guys, story time. There once was a man named Aslan Berdzenushivli, you might remember him as the Georgian Information Minister during '59, and he went to school at Moscow State. He was a fairly so-and-so student, nothing stellar but he was one hell of a tennis player. He had himself a partner for doubles, a man by the name of Anatolyevich Yakolev. They were apparantly very good because I found..." She pulls out chip after chip and hands them off. "...This many articles on various servers about how great they were."

"Anyway, back to Aslan and Yakolev. After graduation day and the drinking it entails, Aslan went home to run the tech business. Yakolev, though, got himself set up with a sweet comission as an intelligence officer with the Russian Army. Then, in 2045, Yakolev gets himself transfered over to the UGB...Russian Intelligence for those of you who didn't know."

"At about this same time, Aslan's political career goes from mildly unremarkable to the most damned nova-hot thing going on. Course, the rumor mill was all abound on this and there was the usual conspiracy talk of Yakolev pulling strings and breaking legs to get Aslan into offices. Might be something more to those than just rumors, of course, but if you want some more implausible rumors I have a couple dozen edited pictures of Aslan and Yakolev doing the nasty with everyone from Vice President Daviar to Prince Surehand in that pile. Only about...er...thirty percent of them were made by me. In my spare time. Anyway..."

"Aslan and Yakolev were seen more and more together and by 2051, Aslan was Information Minister of Georgia. As we all know, information equates to power nowadays so this made him naturally powerful. Course, we also all know that you never bite the hand that feeds you. Aslan and Yakolev had an arguement, in a restaurant, very public and ugly that one. Lots of face-slapping and shouting and the throwing of drinks in faces."

"After that, they weren't friends anymore and definately were not seen together again. All was quiet for a couple of years and then, in '53, Aslan and some friends decided to take a vacation. A week-long hunting trip, I think...Then the plane sort of malfunctioned en-route and crashed. Very sad, very tragic. Everyone died except for Aslan and his face was all mangled and his leg was...Well, I have the medical reports in there somewhere. Course, what's important is..."

Yoko taps the side of her head. "He also sustained minor brain trauma. Sort of destroyed a good chunk of his memory. Took him a year or so to recuperate but after that he was back in business. Misfortune tends to happen in pairs, as the saying goes, and at that time Yakolev was on a training mission in the Caucuses when he died of an accident. The body, sadly, was never recovered."

"Over the next five years, Aslan revamped the Georgian infonet. Made it the best hub in Eastern Europe. Course, the government wasn't none too happy that they had a wiz-bang infonet and it was all under the control of one man. The Georgian Parliament started passing laws to curb Aslan's power when '59 rolls around and Aslan acts as the inside man for the revolt in which we all met one another in one capacity or another."

"So...Phew, kinda thirsty now...I have a running bet that Yakolev killed Aslan, took his place, and started throwing drek around. Course, with a head injury like that, it could just be the real Aslan who just went rogue. In the end, how much do any of you want to bet that at least one of these gentlemen is in PUMA right now, probably running the show?"

Letting the question hang in the air, Yoko starts packing the opchips away.

"Good Job Yoko, as always. Do you have any other leads on who we're after? These two guys seem like very good candidates, but are there any other possibilities to keep in mind?"

"Mmmm...Nothing right now. But something is better than nothing, is what I say. Gives us possibilities so we hit the ground running. So who's up next, then?"

"Thanks Yoko, we will have to keep an eye out for that guy. Anyone know what are first steps should be when we get in?"

"Wow. Nice report Yoko. When we get into the area I'll be checking back in with my contacts and we can start to track down that weapons dealer I told you about. Once we have what we need off him, we can cross check all our intel with the CIA reports and take things from there.

Anyone else got anything to add?"

"After we touch down, I need to get to work setting up some of our recon and comm gear while trying to get Mike a date with Hashmir. That's about it for me."

"Nice report Yoko.... as usual" she says smiling at the other woman. "Got hold of an old friend from the Tblisi job, and well to cut out boring bits in the middle he met up with a friend of his who works for SK. Thing is she was learning Azeri and has since gone away on work.... with her team-mates of SK-Prime. So we're gonna have company in Az, unfortunately we really don't want to meet up with them, the squad leader's name is Lothar Schroeder. He's an ex GSG-9 major and a very VERY bad man, he's got a rep for leading one of the most efficient German counter-terror units in the world, as well as being a ruthless bastard."

"Thanks, Ophelia, all of you guys. It wasn't really much, all the hard work is still ahead of us. Saeder-Krupp's team in country, though...We all want the same thing on this mission, right? Corps are sending in teams to keep the status quo maintained. Unless S-K's boss is yanking their chains, I don't think we'd have to worry about them doing anything necessarily 'bad'."

"Course, any confirmation that there'll be other teams there helps. It'll keep us from bumping into one another in the shadows while we're all skulking around in-country."

"If an SK team is in the OP area we should probably stay clear of all SK properties, at least as much as possible. It isn't a big secret that we work for the Big A, so no need to threaten them."

Danny turns in his chair and peaks over the double stuffed back to look at Michael.

"Any chance of contacting SK and trying to work together?"

"Maybe. I don't know this Lothar character. We can do a little digging on him and see if it should be avoided or not."

Michael leans down and digs around in his carry-on, then pulls out a deck of cards. With a grin, he says ,"Now, if thats all the biz we got for now, whos up for some 5 Card Stud?"

"Talking to Saeder-Krupp might not be a great idea. Remember, what we are doing is technically illegal, and if it is found out that we are violating the government order not to take action against these terrorists, the government will have to punish Ares, or lose a lot of face. If we offer to partner with SK, they might just rag on us to get a competitive advantage in Azerbijan."

Yoko gesticulates. "Okay, okay. So having a friendly chat with the boys and girls from Saeder-Krupp probably won't be a good idea. We go around this keeping one eye on them to make sure they don't pull anything funny on us right? Live and let live and all that, right?"

Smiling Ophelia turns to Yoko "Live and let live, I like it. Anyway I'd expect that SK don't want us to know they're there either so it'll probably be a softly softly relationship... well I hope so anyway." And leaning back into the chair she sighs softly "Well I'm glad they didn't go with a SB, they always give me the worst headaches." and chuckles quietly at some memories of SB trips and gripes of the rest of the team at her lack of use after the trip.

"Hmmm, so what's our first move when we touch down boss? Oh, and Micheal I'm up for a game or two in a sec or two"

Not having much to add to the conversation, Dragos just unfastens his seatbelt and heads to sit over by Michael.

"Deal me in."

"When we're there, we still have to gather information until we know what we can do first. Deke might have ideas too, and some of us have contacts on the ground."

If Max sees that no one has something to add, he asks "Do you want to play 10 big blind?"

Danny pulls out his OD green bandana and lays it over his face, "wake me when we get there," he says with a grin.

"Headaches should be the least of your worries when travelling semiballistic," Kenjiro warns. "Those things burn all their fuel going up, and have none to maneuver or come around for a second try when landing. If the runway is obstructed, you are fragged. I once saw three semiballistics land at an airport in seven minutes. Not on the same runway, sure, but on crossing runways. It's a fraggin' game of Russian roullette. Anyway, given that this place we are going is basicly the asshole of the world, they might not even have semiballistic capabilities."

"Which is all really, really moot because we're in a HSCT anyway! Good thing we caught the early flight, too. Nice and empty, yeah?"

February 4th, 0800 Local (0400 Zulu)

The old-style 737's frame creeks as it taxies down the runway to the B terminal in the Baku International Airport. Finally we can get off this thing you think to yourself as you shift uncomfortably in the cramped confines of the 80 year old commuter aircraft.

The flight to Tokyo went off without a hitch, and was quite comfortable, although the 1 hour layover just barely gave you enough time to navigate the crowded airport and make it to your gate of departure. The ride to New Delhi wasn't quite as comfortable as the one to Tokyo, but at least the jet wasn't older than you are. However, boarding the ancient aircraft you now sit in was the truest test of your resolve. The seats are small and cramped, designed for a time before metahumans walked the earth, the ventilation and temp control is shoddy at best, and the service is nonexistant. But at least you made it here in one piece, despite your mode of transportation.

The view out of the window is a welcoming one, however. Despite the low temperatures and large drifts of snow, the sun is beaming down and the cloud cover is thin. This of course disorients your body's internal clock which seems to think it should be 8:00 pm. You're accustomed to the lag, and should be able to adapt within a couple of days.

You depart the plane, pick up your bags, and grab the keys to the two GMC Timber Wolf SUVs waiting in the rental car lot. You load up the vehicles, punch up the Ares plant on the GPS and head out. Looks like the ride is gonna take about an hour.

When Nikolai jumps behind the driver seat of the first SUV smacks the side of it and heads for the second. He taps his head and points to the road, "watch where your driving Omae, no hitting cows."

The cold air is crisp and unusually refreshing. Despite his earlier protest, Danny found himself liking the chill. It made him aware and alert. He buckled himself into the driver seat of the second SUV and fired it up. He slowly pulled the large vehicle up behind the first. Carefully nudging the rear end with his front bumper. Just enough 'bump' the vehicle.

"Brr...S'cold in this country. You guys weren't kidding." Yoko shoulders her begs and trudges out to the SUV's, throwing her stuff into the first vehicle and climbing in.

"So," She says, trying to spark conversation, "we're gonna pick up our stuff and then head for where? What hotel are they putting us up at this time again?"

Nikolai lifts a brow in Danny's direction when he mentions hitting cows. "I had no idea your mother was going to be in town." A huge grin finds its way onto the ork's face as he hoped into the lead truck. When Danny nudges the bumper, Nikos decides to go full-on passive aggressive by slowly pulling out and taking his time leading the miniature convey away from the airport.

Snuggling her hands and head further into the synthy fur edges of her jacket, Ophelia heads for one of the SUVs as quickly as she can, sliding a little but making it. "Second you on that Yoko, the sooner I get inside or into my form-fitting the better. I'd forgotten how cold it could get up north, brrr."

And smiling at Nikoli and Danny's driving antics "Woah, remember to get us there in one piece guys, heh!"

February 4th, 0945 Local (0545 Zulu)

The 30 mile drive to the Ares Arms manufacturing complex turns out to be a very slow one. Apparently, Monday morning traffic is the same here as it is everywhere else in the world, but a notch worse due to the lack of any gridguide system. At least it isn't snowing, though by the drifts you see piled up on the sides of the road, it has recently.

There isn't much to see outside Baku until you reach the Ares plant...if you can call it a plant. As your SUVs break the tree line, you can't help but stare wide-eyed at the sheer size of the facility before you. You stop your vehicles temporarily while your brain digests the enormity of this complex. At first glance, your best guess is something akin to the Renraku Arcology back in Seattle, though no more than 15 stores at it's highest point. The break in the treeline is probably some 300-500 meters from the facility itself, you'll have a better look once you get closer.

As you drive forward across the barren, snowy stretch of land between the treeline and the complex, you realize your brain has played a trick on you. What seemed like only 300-500 meters of clear land is actually more like 5000 meters. Using your rangefinders and some quick trigonometry, you guess that the front face of the facility is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7km, and the tallest structure probably about 50 stories.

As you approach the main gate, you notice a caravan of busses dropping off dozens of people. These must be the workers from Baku and surrounding areas. Nice of Ares to buss them to work. Then again, the labor probably costs them less than 10% of what it would in the states.

When you get within about half a klick from the gate, you are greeted by a security patrol on winter-camo ATVs. They check your IDs and give you clearance to enter at Gate 4W (4th gate, west end of complex). Security seems pretty tight, with lots of drones and emplaced weapons/sensors. Going through the checkpoints takes forever, but finally you make your way into the complex.

It's laid out like a small city, with well paved streets weaving between buildings. Amazingly, Ares has installed a fully functional gridguide system, which seems to have been expecting your arrival. The autonav on the SUVs takes over, and drives you to the north end of the complex. Once there, you spot several hanger-like structures near a full-length runway with it's own control tower. The SUVs pull into one of the nearby hangers and shut themselves down.

Standing about 10 meters away from you guys is Deke, who seems to be having a passionate conversation with a group of men wearing Ares jumpsuits and hard-hats. He is rapidly pointing to 8 separate stacks of boxes and containers, and shouting at the top of his lungs. Upon completion of his tirade, Deke strides on over to you and cracks his winning Texas grin.

"Morning folks. Welcome to your command HQ and staging area. How was the flight?"

Clouds of frost blow out from Yoko's nostrils as she breathes and her mouth as she speaks. She's seemed to acclimate well during the short trip.

"Fine as always, boss, fine as always." Yoko pulls her cap down further over her ears and looks at the boxes. "Is that our stuff? Cause if it is...man, you guys came along in fine style. Well, as always..."

"Hey, c'mon outa the car, Ophelia. You get used to the weather after a while."

Danny leaned his head back in the truck and closed his eyes. He ran his brain through a brief meditation, trying to center himself as best he could.

Theres always this moment, after you touch down, this moment of clarity. Before the drek hits the fan and people start dying. Where the mission is fun. Enjoy it Danny.

Danny climbed out of the vehicle and took a good look around, "Nice HQ."

After a moment of looking around,

"where's our guns?"

"I think that's them right there, Danny." Yoko says, pointing at the crates and then turns to Deke. "Nice country here, boss. Real...uh, nice weather. Could we go somewhere warmer, though? Please?"

"Each of you has your own stack of boxes. The lables are written in chalk on the floor. They contain all your requested gear, plus what you dropped off at Ares Arms Seattle. The GP large (pavillion size tent) and all associated power/network connections and living amenities were supposed to be setup before you arrived, but somehow that slipped through the cracks. I got some guys on it, and it should be up within the hour. In the interim, I suggest you unpack, inventory, and PMCS your gear."

Deke reaches in his pockets and pulls out 4 PDAs, each about the general dimensions of a credit card, though quite a bit thicker.

"Take these. I only have 4 of them, so you'll have to share. They have a map display of the facility and a GPS locator, so you know where you are. Each of the buildings is labled, and the ones highlighted in red are restricted access facilities. The blue ones you are clear to move around in. The sec system has your palm prints on file, so you don't need a key card to get around. Also, those PDAs function as Ares facility phones, so you can call anyone in the complex from anywhere in the complex. I've got one too, so you can get a hold of me no matter where I am. These only work here in the facility, and are no good anywhere else. Now, I have some other business to take care of. I suggest you grab some breakfast at the DFAC (dining facility) and by the time you get back, your HQ should be setup. Any questions before I go?"

Danny nods and walks over to the crates marked as his. He very carefully looks through them and inventories the items and compares them against the list he gave Ares. He also looks over each item to see it's condition.

Taking one of the PDAs, Nikolai quickly downloads the data into his storage memory before handing it off to whoever was nearby before he headed to the crate with his name on it.

Pulling out a stick of gum, he begins chewing it while surveying his gear requests.

"Nope, sir, got no questions."

Yoko heads over to her own allotment of equipment and does the inventory thing.

"So, so cool...Hope I got everything..."

Max takes one of the PDA and heads to his boxes.

"I guess we're gonna have to share, Yoko... ", Max says with a charming smile.

"Heh!!! I got all my stuff and all I asked for! Great! So did everyone get all the stuff he asked for? How about you, Yoko?"

"Sure did, Max. I didn't really ask for all that much, anyway." Yoko sits down on an Ares crate in her pile stenciled with the letters 'Portable Dish Kit - FRAGILE'. "So, let's go get breakfast if you guys are done. Weird, isn't it? Going from breakfast to breakfast."

Blinking at the looks she's probably getting, Yoko shrugs. "Don't worry, it's probably shock-wrapped or something..."

Michael has been quiet for the most part since landing, looking like he had a lot on his mind. He silently walks over to his crate and starts going through the contents. Frowning he looks up at Deke and speaks for the first time in what seems like ages, "No Gamma-Scope? You slippin' in your age, Deke?"

A flatbed drone hauler pulls up behind Deke, and several jumpsuited men begin unloading poles, canvas, and other tent components.

"Sorry Mike, we don't have any chem-tech plants within 1000 miles of here, and GS is hard to come by. The powers that be thought it an unnecessary expense to corral some and ship it here. I'll keep my eyes open in the local market, though, and let you know if I come up with anything."

Behind Deke, the GP large starts to take shape. A few other drone haulers pull up with various other boxes and containers. Looks like they will have your HQ up long before you guys get back from the DFAC.

Micheal shrugs. "I got a small stock of my own, I was just hoping to get some ammo instead of the few vials that I've got. No biggy."

Glancing around Michael addresses the team, "You guys go get some grub. I'll stay here and supervise the HQ Setup."

He looks hungery as well, but he still has about 4 hours to fast.

Kenjiro pockets the few items he ordered, and declines to take one of the PDAs, leaving them for the people with electronics training. He heads off to breakfast. Some fruit would be nice.

Stepping out of the SUV and smiling at Deke "You always come through don't you?" And with a final almost overdone shiver she looks like she's finally handling the cold properly again, well that and the air tastes just a little nicer for a short while until the plant's smog floats back in.

Heading over to the boxes marked out for her, she quickly rumages through them and then almost squeals with delight as she pulls out what at first glances is a heavy backpack, and then under a better is some sort of rocket launcher. "Wow, a Ballista! Haven't seen one of these since the army. I almost hope heavy stuff starts now.... well almost." Then digging a bit deeper she whistles as she pulls out a truely hefty rifle "Ooo, Deke I could kiss yah! heh"

Then at Micheal's suggestion she quickly stashes the gear back in the boxes "You sure you're okay on your own Mike? Well if your sure. Coming Yoko." She calls over her shoulder as she heads with the others towards the DFAC.

"Yeah, everything looks like it's here."

He nods to Deke.

"Anyone up for grub?"

"Oh yeah, I'm coming soon..." Yoko pulls out a couple of rolls of ubiquitous grey duct tape and kisses one of them. "Mmm. Duct tape. Decker's best friend..."

Throwing everything back in the crate, Yoko seals the container and heads off to get some grub with the team. "Got all your shopping done too, guys?"

Michael watches the team go off to eat, wish he could join them and end the ache in his guts. His body screams for food, but Michael just tilts his head back and looks up at the sky, letting his thoughts turn to the Lord.

I turn my mind to you, Lord, as I deneigh my body to put more of me into efforts for you.

He then turns and watches as the work crew sets up the teams new HQ. Every now and then he puts in a friendly suggestion as to what should go where, but for the most part he stays out of their way.

I know I hate it when people tell me how to do my job, why should anyone else be different.

Once things are setup, Michael spends some time moving all the equipment crates inside the tents and unpacking the groups gear. Once things are setup, he begins to make a few calls to let certain contacts know that he has arrived into the area.

A brilliant grin finds its way onto Nikolai's face when he sees Pavlov bundled into a ball in one of the crates with his name on it. He pops the canine's jaw open and seems to look for a switch inside. With a dinstinct click, Pavlov unfurls and becomes animated.

The ork ruffles the fur on the dog's head. "Enjoy the ride, boy?" Pavlov just barked in reply, causing Nikolai's smile to grow that much larger. "All right, initiate self-diagonostics and report." At that, the Siberian huskey assumes a sitting position and just pants quietly.

When Danny asks if anyone wants to grab a bite to eat, Nikolai simply sighs. "Nah. I need to get to work putting some of this drek together for the mission. It'd be nice if they'd quit issuing my fraggin' drones to their precious Ares Firewatch teams so that I didn't have to do it each and everytime, but nooo... that's apparently too much to ask."

He bitched in a subdued manner for a few more moments. "But if you can grab a couple of sausage and egg muffins for me when you get a chance, that'd be great."

Danny waves back to Nikolai as he leaves in search of grub. "No problem Omae."