Through his telescope, Roman Darossa could see nothing but the snow-covered mountains overlooking the taiga-like landscape of the northlands of Aquarius. He was fairly sure he was somewhere within the vicinity of the compound, but couldn't see any ships or aircraft or any sign of them or the elven marshals despite having a pretty large field of vision on a short mountain he was on. As the minutes of looking turned to hours, he was not far from deciding to give up when he saw it…a bipedal tank walking slowly that had to have been twenty feet high. Luckily, it wasn't on the far side of the lake. He started jogging briskly to the southwest where the tank was. When he got down from the small mountain, he could no longer see it. He would have to rely on his extrapolation of where to go to cut off the tank. Roman figured he had run for just over a mile when he once again saw the tank and the elves, and noticed that they'd stopped. There were about 20 or 30 marshals, and with them was the one elf he recognized as Azari Yuler, who grabbed a microphone from the leg of the tank. They were at the side of a large cliff side that had been hollowed out.

"Attention, humans" Yuler said over the loudspeaker on the tank "we know that you are here. Come out with your hands on your heads, and no one will get hurt." Roman moved closer so that he could see more what was in front of the tank. It looked as if there was a hideout within the cliff that they were next to. Was he too late?

"What are you doing!" Roman said shouting to Azari.

"Hands up in the air!" shouted one of the marshalls shouted at him as one or two other marshalls turned to point their guns at him.

"Stand down!" Yuler shouted. "This guy here is one of my new buddies." The marshalls put their guns down and turned back to face the compound. Azari walked over to where Roman was standing, with a look on his face that seemed more amused than angry.

"Does your commanding officer know that you're out here by yourself, private?" Yuler chuckled.

"You're making a big mistake." Roman said ignoring the comment. "You're not going to find anything here."

"Oh, so now you are going to tell me that you know things" Yuler remarked. Their conversation was interrupted by an impact against the tank, which nearly caused it to have to shift its standing position to avoid falling over.

"Plasma batteries!" Yuler shouted. "Take cover and open fire!" The marshalls all ran for whatever cover they could find and started firing back.

"Yuler!" Roman shouted. "Don't you think you should call for backup!?"

He didn't answer, but ran straight ahead into the front entrance of the compound as if knowing he wouldn't be hit. Without even hesitating to think, Roman run as fast as he could while keeping his body as low as he could, knowing he wanted to keep up with him. Roman drew his gun and went inside. He ran along the walls quickly in the dark and empty antechamber inside and found a staircase and made his way up the upper level . He could hear Yuler shouting at whoever he was talking to. Roman made his way through the dimly lit hallway with rock walls to the room where the noise was coming from.

"What do you know about this guy?!" was the first words he could make out. Roman walked into the room and Yuler noticed he was there, but said nothing. The guy was tan-skinned, bald, and laying on the ground. It looked like Yuler had buzzed him the same way he himself was buzzed, and he was bleeding on his leg.

"He told me he had a rare weapon he could trade for some kind of artifact I had" the man said seeming short of breath. Roman noticed that he was apparently shot in the leg. "But he told me that I didn't have the right artifact." One of the marshalls ran into the room.

"Azari" the marshall said, "we've taken out all the plasma batteries."

"Good" Yuler said. "Contact the crew of the ship we're going to be bringing back our new friends here and their weapons and artifacts." The marshall turned around and left.

"What was this guy's name and what was he looking for?" Yuler said as Roman began disinfecting and sealing the wound.

"He never gave me his name. He just said he's part of an order serving a power higher than the Union or the kingdom. One of the guys working for him was bragging about visiting secret gray bases on Zenithala or something. He told me nothing about the artifact he was looking for other than it was a one-of-a-king thing." Roman finished sealing the wound.

"A mistake, you say?" Yuler said to Roman walking past him out of the room. Roman walked over to where the guy was laying. Sweat was popping out on his forehead and face.

"I'm with the CIA" Roman said in a low voice.

"Can you help me?" the guy asked trying to stand up one time but failing.

"Perhaps" Roman said intentionally equivocating. "Can you tell me what these elves are after?"

"I don't know, man. I think they're just here to take all of our things. If we've got anything really valuable or powerful here I don't know anything about it."

"So you don't know anything about whether or not a particular artifact was taken from the Morian wreckage?"

"Nobody seems to" the guy said softly swallowing hard. "You're not really going to help me, are you? That figures. The CIA is just another head of the royal hydra these days."

"If I had the time and the permission I would completely shoot down that ridiculous notion" Roman scolded him. "If I were you I'd just tell Azari and the marshals the entire truth and everything you know. They aren't going to do any more to you than they have to." Roman put his gun back in the lower-right pocket of his shirt and left the room, wanting to get out quickly before the elves ship arrived.