[b][u]Asia China Xinjiang Region The Kunlun Mountains G219[/u][/b] Ran decided that he hated these mountains. Under normal circumstances, Ran was fine with mountains. He had even lived on a few. The surrounding slopes and ridges were entirely unlike any other king of mountain range Ran had ever heard of though. Where the ground didn't have the texture and color of dead, pockmarked flesh, it the color of dusken rust. The air was freezing, but also dry and stale. These mountains had more in common with the Lunar surface than with anything else, and having to be in them was so far proving to be a thoroughly shitty experience. They wouldn't have even been here if it hadn't been for the old-world roadmap they had found, showing a convenient route leading straight from Xinjiang to Tibet, the only road in all of China to do so, cutting a more or less straight path straight through the mountains. The only other route through the Qinghai region looped around and was more than four times longer. At the time cutting through the mountains on the G219 'highway' had seemed like a good idea, given the convoy's limited fuel. Looking back, Ran was of the opinion that they should have just forgotten about going to Tibet entirely. Calling the G219 a highway was a generous description for the single-lane, eroded, winding road. Steeply inclined, winding and turning so often Ran was convinced they weren't even heading South, and frequently the whole thing would simply vanish into dead rock or mud without a trace. Had it been up to Ran, the entire convoy would have turned around days ago. Nailtooth was adamant though - the convoy was to push on. The one grace was that the mountains, at least for the moment, seemed devoid of mutants - the scouts Nailtooth sent out every time the convoy stopped at a dead end to rediscover the trail never saw anything strange. A few hours ago, the road had vanished into bedrock again, sharply inclined and ridged. The road reemerged just a few dozen meters down, but then turned into a U and vanished again. Nailtooth had ordered the entire convoy down the ridges, which were too steep for any of the trucks to go back up - and so now they were all stuck until the scouts could find the road again. And so Ran leaned against the front of the idling truck at the head of the convoy, trying to steal what little warmth remained from the rapidly cooling engine as he stared at the great natura masterpiece that was [i]Empty Night Sky over Barren Hills of Rocks[/i]. He readjusted the strap for his AK-74 uncomfortably as he tried to keep it steady on his back while folding both hands under his arms. Another factor contributing to his dislike of the mountains here, he had drawn the lot for guard duty the entire last week. He'd only had scant break shifts in the truck where they kept all the food, and every night he had slept in ragged blankets instead of one of the sleeping bags. He wasn't going to complain - Nailtooth didn't take any shit. The last people to complain had been stripped, tied up, and then rolled down a crevice. But if things didn't change soon, one way or another, Ran was seriously considering making a break for it with as much food as he could carry. If there was one thing he would miss, it would be the women they had picked up being kept in the rear van. Surviving for future conquests was more appealing still than being stuck in a rut, but nonetheless, for now he just waited. Last time he had looked at the map, they had been nearing some kind of station just before the convoy had run across the dead end. Perhaps things would start turning around soon. There was a distant series of cracks, and Ran felt three small objects thud into his chest. He slumped, fell, and died before he hit the ground. The entire convoy erupted into chaos as gunfire began to crisscross from both sides of the road, muzzle flashes blooming seemingly from thin air. A few of the convoy guards managed to unstrap their weapons and return fire, but in the darkness they couldn't see the forms of their attackers, blending in with the mud and the rocks almost perfectly. Even the flash from their gunfire didn't help, as it came and went in bursts and waves, improbably coordinated to deny the convoy any chance of drawing a bead on their attackers. In the end, only three of the raiders survived. Their assailants, numbering five in total, were dressed in roughshod fatigues and mismatched ballistic armor - but they all carried seemingly pristine TAR-21s, and they moved in completely silence, using only brief hand signals as they swept through the line of stalled trucks. All of them wore bands of dull, intertwined green and yellow cloth wrapped around their necks, but otherwise lacked any distinguishing marks. Once they had disarmed the three raiders that had surrendered, they executed them on the spot and spent the next ten minutes checking every body to make sure each of the intruders was truly dead. They left the various affects and items the corpses carried untouched. Next they searched all four of the trucks. They opened the heavy rear doors, briefly scanned the interiors, and then closed them. When the five came to the final truck and found the women inside, they finally paused in their otherwise relentless sweep. One of them spoke a number of short, curt phrases in numerous languages. Mandrarin, Hindi, and Mongolian - when the women only returned blank stares, the leader shrugged and closed the doors again, securing the lock that had held them shut. He pulled out a short-range radio and made his report. "Mazha Palace Actual, this is Haungdi Seven Lead, please ready to copy, over." [i]"Roger Lead. Ready to receive, over."[/i] "Interception is successful, no casualties, twenty four confirmed takedowns. Bandit liquid assets include four trucks, bulk shipment, twenty gallons of gasoline, several provision crates, eleven sleeping bags, two space heaters, various small arms, ammunition, affects, and seven slaves. Over." [i]"Roger Lead, copy is complete. Yali force will converge on the asset site via the Zenith pathway and will secure the recorded materials. Your orders are to recall to Mazha Palace Zulu immediately, over."[/i] "Wilco, out." The leader pocketed the radio and made a gesture to the other four militants. They all fell into single-file and tracked off the road, vanishing into the steppes. [center][s]888888888888[/s][/center] [b][u]Kunlun Mountains Mazhada La[/u][/b] The Mazhada lamasery, even in its glory days, had never been anything more than a small stone shack next to a stone bridge traversing the muddy end of a mountain rapid. Being so small, its few occupants had vacated shortly after the end of the world to seek refuge in one of the larger lamaseries. Now it was simply being used as a Squad resupply and rest stop. Haungdi Seven shuffled in one by one, silently picking out space on the floor to sit down and start stripping their rifles for maintenance. "The trucks had Russian markings." One of the militants said conversationally. "Didn't Fenghuang say there was a city of survivors up there?" "Was. Recent survey says somebody dusted them." The squad leader replied. "May even have been our departed friends. There aren't many other places they could have gotten the gas to run those trucks." "Either that or they ran through after the place was torn down. Personally, I say it was mutants. I keep hearing about twenty foot tall demons that breath lightning." "There has been trickle down regarding mutants somewhere far West. Apparently the closer you get to Central Europe, the bigger and meaner they get. Makes me glad the worst we have to deal with is other people." "Don't get complacent. The militants to the Southwest may be our primary concern, but there have been mutants migrating into Kunlun from every direction for years now. You don't hear about them often because the only places with food tend to be the valleys..." "Which we occupy." The leader finished. "But I am of a like mind. We can't be everywhere at once. There are plenty of crags and crannies where there could be whole nests of mutants. We could search for decades and never find them." The newest member of the squad, fresh out of basic training, finally spoke up. "Also, I think we're all forgetting what's important. Everyone knows we're the last bastion of civilization for thousands of miles in every direction. Eventually everyone will realize it's better to come to us and join rather than fight us. The Yellow Emperor will soon be posed to emerge from Jade Palace Zulu and start reviving the old world." All four of his comrades burst out laughing. "Hey!" He protested. "What's the joke? Everyone knows about that." "Kid, I don't know what you heard in the villages or in training, but there is no Yellow Emperor." The squad leader said, rolling their eyes with a half smile on their face. "There is a Jade Palace Zulu, but it's just a regular Lamasery. It's about fifty klicks from here. Our actual ops center is Qilin Base, in the Aksai Chin." "Wait, that's not what I heard. My last squad leader said Qilin Base was here in Xinjiang." One of the other militants said, frowning as they looked up from their rifle. "Both of you settle down, I've actually been to Qilin Base. It's wedged between Xinjiang and the Chin. It's where all the real action goes on. Most marauders and the worse mutants come from that direction, so that's where the bulk of our forces are mustered. I even saw a few artillery pieces when I was stationed there." "That sounds right. My mistake." The squad leader nodded. "But what about the Yellow Emperor? If he doesn't exist, who leads the Jade Palace?" The rookie asked. The squad leader shrugged. "Some local militia leader who probably managed to convince everyone to work together. Reason it worked here instead of everywhere else is because Kunlun was not burned by the great blaze." "You don't actually know?" The rookie asked incredulously. "No, I don't, but it doesn't matter. You were still at least half right. Eventually, people will realize the Jade Palace is the future, and come to us. And if half of them are as gullible as you, maybe the history books will even have their own Yellow Emperor." Perched lazily on a mound of rock several meters outside the shack, a Qilin lazily flicked its forked tongue at the shack, listening curiously to the barbling animal noises from within. After a few moments it snorted, a small arc of electrostatic energy streaking from its horns and across the surface of the boulder it was resting on. It then leapt forward off into the air and flew away.