Seeming to have killed the raiders in the camp the characters begin to search the various buildings. Almost immediately after letting their guard down, three more raiders appear from the bunkers at the end of the fences. These are dispatched relatively quickly, and the searching begins again.
The camp contains mostly stolen supplies, ammo, a few heavy weapons and the raiders’ personal gear. Fred, however, breaks the lock on a desk drawer and finds a small box of well-worn dog tags, one of which seems to have been dyed blue. Oddly, there are no names on any of the tags, only numbers. Fred pockets the blue one and resumes searching.
As Jack is collecting the heavy machine guns, the dust cloud of an approaching vehicle is spotted to the East. The characters pause their exploration of the camp and prepare themselves for another fight. Wisely choosing to wait for a positive ID before opening fire, Nevada sees that there are two vehicles approaching one being driven by Brian Cooper and another, the one the characters took from Haierburg, being driven by an unknown person.
Cooper pulls up to the camp, congratulates the characters and introduces his assistant as Anton Bolkova. Cooper and Bolkova drove out from Haierburg to check on the characters early that morning. They found the vehicle Cooper had loaned the party and brought it with them once they had determined that the raiders had, in fact, been eliminated.
Fred shows Cooper the blue dog tag, and Cooper claims that his father had one like that, but he didn’t know the significance of it. Jack and the rest of the party load up the weapons and anything else then can carry and head back to Haierburg. Before leaving, however, Cooper explains that instead of getting a ride back to Mimere through Shiigus Downspin, German Reade will be picking them up from Khunimmam. He is, in fact, currently in orbit above the planet onboard the freighter “Helios Bright Beacon.”
The characters sell the weapons and other items they’ve taken from the raider camp, and Cooper give them a lift to the star port where the Bright Beacon’s shuttle will pick them up. Before boarding the shuttle, Fred gives the blue dog tag to Cooper who thanks him for it and wishes them luck.
Onboard, Reade tells them that his superior, Nolan Malik, has called him to Pryden for an unknown reason. Reade has decided that this may be something he could use his new recruits for. Plus he doesn’t need them talking to Darron Kampf about anymore “soil sample” expeditions. The characters settle in for the weeklong jump to Pryden and get to know some of the crew.
