The week-plus after the Battle of Radom is a time of consolidation and preparation for Ponikla’s denizens. The immediate security environment isn’t 100% – there’s still the issue of the marauders in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, the harvest isn’t looking great thanks to ongoing steady rain, and the area north of the Pilica is a major unknown – but it’s better than it has been for some time. This gives Ponikla’s defenders time to consider other matters.

Ellis and Pettimore are getting antsy. The Broadstreet Dossier suggested that if Pettimore really is displaced in time, several pivotal events are about to unfold down south. The first step to verifying this seems to be an expedition to where Pettimore’s memories and Broadstreet’s writing both indicate the Black Madonna is hidden: a defunct copper mine west of Czestochowa.

The solution, of course, is to split the party… err, to send a well-equipped expedition, posing as military stragglers/mercenaries. Ellis spends a couple of days organizing this, feeling out who’s interested in hitting the road for a while and who’s putting down roots in Ponikla. In the end, there aren’t many surprises.

A fair amount of logistics work is necessary, though. Red, Ellis, and Léonard put their heads together. The expedition will need a scout vehicle, a support vehicle, some combat power, and enough seats for the ten folks who’ll be heading out.

For recon, the team’s trusty-yet-nameless UAZ-469 gets a light makeover, finally completing the up-armoring job that Minka started when she bolted a gun shield on for Leks. This reduces its cargo capacity, but that’s not its job any more.

The main combat power for the expedition will come from Comms, the BTR-70K (command post variant). With a dedicated logistics vehicle in the offing, the tech team strips out most of its short-lived mobile base functionality, returning it to its original seating configuration with an electronics bay that’s mostly unpopulated… but there’s hope for future salvage.

Finally, the team will need a vehicle for a still, tools, supplies, and other cargo. They have a deuce and a half and a Star 266, but neither of those trucks is in the greatest of shape. Red puts out some feelers to the team’s allies and comes up with a few possibilities. The best option is a MAN KAT1 8×8, roughly the West German equivalent of a HEMTT. It appears to have been stolen by U.S. Marines and used for some time before being abandoned in an empty barn north of the Pilica, where scouts from Von Bahr’s Irregulars found it last month, dry on fuel but with an inexplicable recent oil change. The former USMC crew’s names were neatly hand-painted on the doors, along with custom art and the nickname “Industrial Light and Mayhem.”

ILM also receives some armor work and a mount for the team’s spare M249 SAW (some suppressive fire is better than none). A medium still is semi-permanently mounted in the bed, along with two drums of reserve fuel, a couple of rolling toolchests, a field kitchen, and the skeleton of a mobile medical clinic. There’s also space to tie down Thing One, one of the team’s two BMW K75S touring motorcycles.

The plan is to head southwest to cross the Pilica upriver of Tomaszow Mazowiecki, then pick up surviving highways toward Czestochowa. Once across the river, the team will be in uncharted territory – while they have a map, they have little reliable intel on who might be out there, and the map is not the terrain…