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"This is bad," Natsuna said grumpily as she held an ice-pack to her forehead, "Is there anything to stop them from pulling something like this off all over again at any time?"
"Not particularly," Jaeger, still in feline form, said with a shake of his head, "The only thing really stopping them right now, is likely manpower issues. Their second assault didn't call in a second, much less third or fourth, squad, so we can assume that they're hard-pressed for personnel."
"If what that Joe fellow told us is true," Natsuna said with a shrug, which was followed by a pained wince, "About all the magic-users' memories being affected as well, what will that likely mean for their available manpower?"
"Well," Jaeger said, pulling himself into a very 'proper' seated position as he spoke, "There will have been at least a few locations where anyone present was shielded from the affect due to the properties of the location itself. A ward strong enough to protect against a wish effect as powerful as Usagi's will be very rare, however, so that will be what could, in non-magical cases, be a minority so small as to be considered statistically irrelevant. The problem is, even users who are only moderately powerful may have a particularly potent ability or two capable of really screwing things up for us, like high-endurance long-range teleportation."
"I take it that's how they got their strike team to us so quickly in the first place?" Natsuna asked.
"Most likely," Jaeger said with a nod, "And it's also most likely that either the mage Lynette killed, or the Psychic we've captured, was their teleporter. Given what I know of the two different approaches to the same result, and our captive's apparent junior rank and lower level of experience, I'm guessing he's the primary move."
"Okay," Natsuna said, before nodding at Caitlyn as the younger woman entered the room, "So, back to the manpower issue?"
"Beyond the small number in protected locations," Jaeger continued, shifting slightly on the couch he was seated on as Caitlyn sat down beside him, "You will also have those who actively ward their minds against interference. I suspect our captive is one in this category; even low-level psychics can 'build' additional protections for their minds, though they increase in accordance with they psychic's power. There are also spells for such things, but they're more esoteric, more demanding, or both, meaning that fewer magic-users will have been capable of protecting their minds.
"That leaves us with, most likely, about a quarter to half of psychics, and a tenth to a quarter of all mystics, who resisted the affect due to their own prepared protections. More probably had mental wards, but were overwhelmed by the sheer power of Usagi's spell. After those, we come to the two most dangerous groups. First, those who are simply so powerful that they were readily able to resist the wish outright, and second, those whose will is so potent that they could resist it."
Jaeger paused for a moment as Caitlyn reached over to start scratching behind his ears.
"Unsurprisingly, these two groups tend to overlap a great deal, and probably comprise the leaders of the various magical factions throughout the world. Most of them will also likely be egomaniacs, now pissed off egomaniacs, who will be looking for whoever dared try to meddle with their minds."
"So basically," Natsuna said dourly, "We're dealing with a group of pissed-off archmages, and any number of minions. What level would you say the group we already fought was at?"
"They weren't archmage-level," Jaeger said, his attempts to shake his head interrupted by Caitlyn's continued skritching, "But they were high-up enough to have resisted in their own right, via either magic or psychic powers. To make a comparison, they're special forces, but not Delta Force."
"That is such an American comparison to make," Natsuna said with a faint smile, "I know what you mean by it, but I must warn you that most people in the East will not."
"I'm tired,"Jaeger said with a shrug, "I fall back on what comes readily to me. It could have just as easily been a Lord of the Rings comparison."
"And again," Natsuna said, her smile growing slightly, "Most who don't speak English have not read those books."
"Eh," Jaerger shrugged again, displacing Caitlyn's fingers back up to the base of his ears, "If the timeline hasn't been changed too much, the movies should start coming out in a few years, they'll get it then."
"If the timeline hasn't changed too much?" Natsuna ground out, suddenly deadly serious, "You're from the future?"
"Yes and no," Jaeger said, some surprise showing at her unexpectedly forceful reaction, "I'm from a different, mostly-parallel reality. It was 2010 when I was taken from there, and I arrived in Caitlyn and Lynette's home reality in the late eighties."
Natsuna opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, closed it, and then just stared at Jaeger with clear disapproval.
"What?" The cat said, some irritation showing in his own tone, "It's not like I've had the opportunity to sit down for a long, multi-day debrief with you."
Natsuna frowned, and sighed again before looking away.
"Don't mind me," She said sadly, "I'm just cranky because some of my men were killed. Kami know it was a miracle that more people didn't die, but they're always so eager to do something stupidly dangerous if they think it will protect me."
"That's a damn good reason to be cranky," Jaeger said with a small wince, before gently pushing Caitlyn's hand away with one paw, and turning to look up at the young woman, "What brings you here?"
"Lynette and Saeko are with the girls now," Caitlyn said, shifting slightly in her seat, "And I didn't think either of you would approve of me being the one to try to comfort Makoto."
"You're probably right," Jaeger said with a wince, before turning back to Natsuna, "Do you want us to send for someoone? Do you need some time alone?"
"Some time alone would probably be for the best," Natsuna said sadly, "Those whom I would normally seek comfort with are no longer available."
The dimensional transients withdrew from the cabin quietly, respecting her wishes.
"What do we do next?" Caitlyn asked quietly as she carried Jaeger up towards the liner's top deck.
"Strategically speaking," Jaeger replied, "We need to take the initiative. We've probably got at least eight or twelve hours while our foes analyze what they've learned from these attacks, and try to formulate a more appropriate response, and possibly quite a bit more than that, but there's no way to be certain as yet."
"They have seen most of our tricks by this point," Caitlyn pointed out.
"Yes and no," Jaeger said, shaking his head slightly, "I'm not as versatile as I used to be, what the Dragon did ultimately cost me a lot of power, but the only offensive power they've seen me use thus far is basically a Psychic Rail Gun. Speaking of which, do you know Balance On The Sky?"
Caitlyn nodded.
"Then let's head over to the sniper's nest I crashed," Jaeger said as they moved through a hatch out into the open night air, craning his head around to stare into the night, "It looks like the forensics teams are finished, and I want to see the aftermath for myself."
"I assume we're trying to not be noticed?" Caitlyn asked.
Jaeger nodded, and Caitlyn sighed. While there were no longer any police or port authority people directly on-site in the building, there were still plenty patrolling the area, not to mention the actual soldiers, and it took her a good twenty minutes to work her way across from the ship without being noticed. Once they reached the shattered room though, she decided that the trip had been quite worth the trouble.
Most obviously, and visible from well outside the building, was that all the windows on that face had been shattered. The room where the sniper had been itself, a small office, was missing most of both its outer and inner walls; force of Jaeger's assault had actually torn clean through the building, putting progressively-smaller holes through the next office, then the far wall beyond that.
"No chance of recovering the sword then," Jaeger commented as he nudged Caitlyn into walking further into the office, "If it even survived."
'Balance on the Sky' was the name of a ki-manipulation technique that allowed the young woman to literally walk on the air. It bore many uses (such as fighting flying opponents on more even terms), but the one Jaeger was most interested in for the time being, was being able to move about the crime scene without disturbing it. No need to make the job of legitimate local authorities any more difficult than it already was, after all.
"That was quite a trick," Caitlyn admitted as she studied the destroyed office, "It almost deafened me, even though I was in were-form."
"Look," Jaeger said, nodding towards a discolored spray of blood along the floor, "What do you think?"
"Not much here," Caitlyn commented as she stepped down to just above the floor, "It's more a thin speckling than anything else, but that's not exactly surprising given the speed of the projectile. Hypersonic?"
"Yeah," Jaeger said, "Something like Mach seventeen with the amount of power I pumped into it."
"Yeah," Caitlyn echoed, "Probably vaporized more blood than you took out. Whoever the sniper was..." Caitlyn trailed off for a moment as she bent over and breathed in deeply, scenting the blood, "Human female, whoever she was, she had to have been packing some pretty heavy defensive magics not to have been gibbed by this. Beyond that, even counting the speed of the projectile, there's not enough spray here to have taken her out with it."
"I agree," Jaeger said with a nod, "Every member we've fought so far has been damn tough. She'll be back again later, and I'm betting she'll either set her sniper's roost somewhere much further away, or not bother with one at all."
Caitlyn paused for a moment to stare out the hole that had pierced through the entire building.
"I'm going with 'not bothering,'" She said.
Leo Kazinski briefly felt a sense of relief when the door to his 'cell' opened, and rather than a military interrogator, the healer who had originally cuffed him entered the room.
Then he saw the look in her eyes.
"Your 'friends,'" Lynette calmly explained to the captured man, "Shot the head off of a young man I consider something between a little brother and a favored nephew, attempted to kidnap a barely-teenaged girl, killed several police officers, and attacked a group of civilians with a swarm of summoned creatures."
Leo winced.
"I would suggest that you consider," Lynette continued, "Very carefully, whom you wish to associate yourself with as this conflict continues. I can see that you are not a man wholly without conscience, but it appears that those with which you have associated are."
Leo said nothing in response.
"Right now," Lynette said, "The Malaysian Marines, the Kota Kinabalu Port Authority, and the Kota Kinabalu Police, are all arguing over who should take custody of you. It probably won't be resolved until someone in their upper government with real authority makes a decision, but I can tell you this much, you won't like the treatment you get in their hands. You were part of an attack on a hospital, you aren't carrying any identity, and I very much doubt any nation will claim you if you try to state it. I'm willing to be though, that if you decide to cooperate, the Superintendant General of the TMPD, or maybe one of the American flag officers, would be willing to take custody of you, and since we're technically in international territory here at the port, they'd actually be able to do that, so long as it's done before the Malaysians decide to move you."
Lynette opened the hatch, and turned to leave.
"Choose wisely," She said before she left.
"Wondered if we'd be seein' you again," Revy called as Caitlyn boarded the Black Lagoon, Jaeger riding on her shoulders in feline form, "Who's the chick?"
Jaeger blinked, surprised for a moment as he realized that Revy was looking directly at him, with a clear expectation that the 'cat' would speak.
"This is Caitlyn," Jaeger said, eyeing Revy curiously, "An old friend. The Port Authority giving you any trouble?"
"They demanded we let them inspect the ship," Revy said with a casual shrug, "But it's not like we're carrying anything illegal."
'This time,' was left unsaid, but all those present heard it clearly nonetheless.
"Speaking of carrying," Jaeger said as he jumped down to the deck of the speedy torpedo boat, "How much would you charge to move about two dozen people to Tokyo, maximum speed, moderate possibility of attack en-route?"
"That depends," Revy said with a shrug, before leaning forward to stare down at the cat, "Dutch'll make the call, but he'll want to know how many of the 'people' are like you."
"Ahem," Caitlyn half-said, half cleared her throat, glaring at Revy as she did so, and moving forward to stand directly behind Jaeger, nearly invading Revy's personal space as she did so.
"What's your problem?" Revy asked, straightening up and directing a confused look at the other girl.
"I don't like people inferring Jaeger isn't a person," Caitlyn snapped.
Revy recoiled slightly, looking up and down for a moment between the human woman and the facepalming cat, before a slow smile seeped across her face.
"You're sweet on him!" Revy declared with a laugh, reaching out to slap Caitlyn on the shoulder.
Her hand didn't go quite as far as she'd intended; Caitlyn moved with inhuman speed, snatching Revy's half-gloved hand in her own, and spit the mercenary with a stern glare.
"Don't touch me," Caitlyn said flatly.
For a moment, Revy's hackles rose, and she felt her instinctive response to a challenge rise up, but then she caught sight of something in the girl's eyes that made her hesitate for a moment.
"Girls, stop," Jaeger interrupted flatly, "You're both pretty, you're both badasses. If you want to have a pissing match, wait until we can do it somewhere that collateral damage won't matter."
"Her?" Revy said slightly disbelievingly as she yanked her arm free from Caitlyn's grip, "She's not even armed!"
"Do you remember a white-furred werewolf from yesterday?" Jaeger asked, twisting up into his human form and placing himself in between them.
"Yeah?" Revy said, stepping carefully back so she wouldn't have to crane her neck in order to look Jaeger in the eye.
"That was Caitlyn," Jaeger said flatly, "Now let's go talk to Dutch. My group needs to move fast if we want to avoid further trouble."
"He's on the bridge," Revy said absently, turning to lead them aft, "What kind of currency do you pay in?"
"Pure gold."
Dutch was more than willing to take gold, especially as I was willing to pay it up front, and in the form of something that could easily be disguised as a structural component of the ship. Letting people know you were carrying solid gold, especially several hundred thousand dollars worth, was very unwise in the circles the Black Lagoon Company worked. I had little doubt that some of their associates, like Hotel Moscow, would be smart enough to deal with them honestly regardless, but there were too many low-lifes in Roanapur with no discipline for that to make much difference, if them taking regular payment in gold became commonly known.
I could have paid them a hell of a lot more, of course. I could have literally sunken their ship with gold; Atomic Restructuring means Atomic Restructuring. I made the gold I gave them out of seawater. I was careful to temper my instinctive urge to abuse the ability to excess though; Dutch had wanted two hundred grand, I was giving him three. Fifty percent over was plenty to ensure the crew was happy to work with me; too much more and they'd just start to get suspicious. Or maybe realizing I was pretty much magicking up gold from nowhere.
Our transportation secured, all that remained was either sneaking out, or convincing the Americans and Malaysians to let us slip out. Given the reality of global politics, and that we were concerned almost exclusively with American and Japanese citizens, convincing the former would also function as convincing the latter, and sneaking out would have unpleasant consequences down the road. Which meant I needed to arrange a meeting with a Flag Officer.
Not the easiest thing to do, but not the hardest I'd ever attempted either.
"...You want to speak with Admiral Williams," The Lieutenant-Commander said flatly, "The Admiral is sleeping right now, why should I wake him up to speak with a civilian who has no credentials?"
Jaeger responded by pulling his legs up, and taking a seat on the air.
"If you'd like," He said pleasantly, beginning to slowly rotate sideways, "I could do something a little more drastic to prove my point."
"...That's enough for me to kick it up the chain of command," The Lieutenant-Commander admitted, "We'll see what Captain Shu thinks."
Dawn could be a spectacular thing anywhere in the world, but at sea, it held both a particular potency, and a particular monotony. Any day it was not overcast, one could watch the same sunrise, glorious streaks of color working their way across the sky, until the sun itself peaked up over the horizon, splashing brilliant gold across the surface of the ocean. The counterpoint to this daily display of splendor was just that, it was daily. Aside from those who held a particular appreciation for such things, the sight simply became routine, and unless one's duty shift made it convenient, one would rarely bother taking the time to watch it.
Admiral Williams wasn't one of those who made a point of watching sunrises regularly; his wife enjoyed watching sunrises together, so he tried to avoid becoming inured to them while he was on deployment. Married life was easier when common activities were mutually enjoyed, after all. Still, he was on the Forrestal's flight deck, alongside a detachment of marines escorting a shirtless man who appeared to be floating.
"I've had too little sleep for mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus," The Admiral declared as the 'guest' approached, "You've got one shot to prove to me you aren't just some trickster playing with electromagnets or the like, before I have you thrown either overboard or into the brig."
"Well," The man said with a smile, "If it's electromagnetics you want, perhaps a demonstration of what I did to the sniper's nest during the night?"
"That'd do just fine," Williams said with a snort, jerking his head towards the edge of the deck, "Just make sure you fire out into the open ocean. Wouldn't want a hole in one of my ships."
"Works for me," Jaeger said with a shrug and a smile, before pulling a lump of torn sheet-metal out of his pocket, then opening his palm with the object resting atop it.
Lowering his legs so that he was actually standing on the deck, he sighted over his palm out towards the open ocean, then paused a moment.
"You may want to cover your ears," He said, glancing back at the onlooking military personnel "This is going to be pretty damn loud."
Most of the marines ignored the shirtless man's advice; Williams didn't.
An arc of electricity jumped between his forefinger and thumb; Jaeger spread his fingers out, and the arc split and shifted, until they were collectively lifting the piece of scrap up off of his hand. For perhaps a second and a half, the little shard of metal floated there, while the crackling energy bands thickened and intensified, then Jaeger pushed.
The air shattered, a wave of force washing across the dect that felt like a sharp slap to the face to Williams. When the Admiral had been but a junior Lieutenant, many years ago, he'd been aboard ship when an Iowa-class Battleship's main batteries had fired, and the experience was uncomfortably familiar to him. He didn't hear the sound of Jaeger's psychic 'weapon,' mostly because he was too busy feeling and seeing it, leaving the sound lost somewhere in sensory overload.
What Williams saw was almost as impressive as what he felt, a white-hot lance of energy generated purely by friction as the atmosphere bled off the scrap metal's atrocious speed; the shot had enough velocity that it didn't visibly curve. Even adapted to the light of dawn, the intensity of light hurt Williams eyes, and left an after-image across the middle of his retina.
The marines, standing closer to Jaeger, fared worse than the admiral; two of them were knocked off their feet by the shockwave, and several almost opened fire. One marine did open fire, sending two bursts of 5.56 millimeter rounds into Jaeger's back; the shapeshifter twisted in place, and a previously-invisible screen of energy flared into view as it protected him. The first burst was completely deflected, the second wasn't, the three rounds grazing across his lower back, narrowly missing his spine.
Turning his evasive twist into a complete spin, Jaeger seized the Marine's M16, and crushed the barrel with his bare hand.
"Don't do that," Jaeger growled, though only the Admiral could hear him, his ears having been at least partially protected from the sonic boom that had washed over them seconds earlier.
"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Williams roared, glaring at the deafened man, then storming over and seizing the mutilated weapon still being held between the marine and the Psychic when no response was forthcoming.
The Admiral was able to wrench the M16 free with no trouble, the Marine recognizing the flag officer as soon as he touched the weapon, and Jaeger offering no real resistance. Jaeger stepped back warily, until he was able to bring the entire Marine detachment into his field of view, while Williams used simple gestures to order the disarmed Marine off the flight deck.
Long, tense seconds passed while the Admiral waited for his hearing to finish recovering; he waved off two separate groups of crewers that had showed up on deck as rapid-response teams before he felt sufficiently recovered to speak with Jaeger.
"I saw what that thing did to the offices at the port," Williams said, "What's the effective range on it?"
"The range is limited by the power of the Psychic using the technique," Jaeger replied, "And the durability of the projectile used. Theoretically, there is no limit, practically, someone substantially more powerful than me, or specialized in manipulating Electromagnetism, could get a shot out to a half-mile range, with enough punch to put a hole through just about anything. Maybe an Iowa-class has enough armor, but I doubt much of anything else would."
"You've got my attention," Williams said evenly, "Now why did you want it?"
"Two reasons," Jaeger said, turning to face the Admiral fully and raising a pair of fingers as he did so, "First, to make you aware of the kind of threat you're dealing with. Wizards, Psychics, Martial Artists who use Ki to a level where they can slice concrete pillars in half, sometimes with their bare hands, all of that is something you need to be wary of. The bad news is, an apparently unarmed man may actually be carrying the firepower of a sixteen-inch gun in his brain, soul, life force, whatever. The good news is, as these little scratches on my back prove," Jaeger gestured with a thumb towards the three visibly-healing grazes on his back, "Conventional weapons can hurt those with supernatural abilities.
"Two," Jaeger said after taking a breath, "I need you to get myself and a couple dozen others released ASAP, so we can get moving before our assailants attack again."
"You know of somewhere more secure than here," Williams asked, "Having an entire carrier battlegroup watching your back?"
"Secure for us?" Jaeger said with a shrug, "It's hard to call it one way or another. Secure for you? Definitely. I've no doubt you could blow the hell out of anything threatening us, but it's assymetrical warfare. Unless you've got a Seal team on board, anything you throw at the sort of hostiles we're dealing with will be at a huge disadvantage."
"How about a sub at bottom depth?" Williams asked, "Damn hard to attack down there."
"Yeah," Jaeger said with a sigh, "Unless you can teleport in."
"Teleportation too?" Williams asked with a raised eyebrow.
Jaeger disappeared from where he stood, reappearing five feet further back; he didn't bother with a verbal response after that.
"Son," Williams said, sounding more than a little disgruntled, "All of this is going to play merry hell with strategic thinking."
"I know," Jaeger replied, almost embarassed by what he was dropping on the flag officer, "There are counters to pretty much everything in the magician's bag of tricks, the problem is, most of them will require something else from that same bag of tricks in turn."
"That's not a lot of intel to work on," Williams frowned, "I'm going to need, and the Joint Chiefs are going to demand a lot more than what you've told us so far."
"They might already know," Jaeger said with a shrug, "The President should, at the least. I haven't been in con-"
Jaeger broke off, sighing, raising a hand to rub his temples for a moment before continuing.
"There's too much to go over in detail," He said, "If you want a detailed brief on what I do know, send a man with me, and I'll brief him with what I can while we're on the move."
"You're assuming I'll get you released," Williams observed, his tone inferring neither agreement or disagreement.
"I'm moving Beryl and the girls whether you want me to or not," Jaeger said simply, "The only way I won't is if they tell me they don't want to be moved. I'm simply trying to make friends as I leave, rather than piss people off."
Williams stared at Jaeger for nearly a full minute, carefully thinking over the situation before him, before speaking again.
"Just how powerful are you?" He finally asked.
"Directly?" Jaeger said quietly, "That railgun trick is my most powerful offensive tool. Indirectly? I can probably fabricate a working nuclear weapon from dirt in about five minutes. With practice, I could reduce that. And let me warn you, I am not the only one with the raw ability to do such, though I may be one of very few with the combined knowledge and ability. I could also turn this aircraft carrier into marshmellows, but that'd just be silly now, wouldn't it?"
"You just told me you're a nuclear delivery package," Williams said flatly, "And you expect me to just let you disappear somewhere?"
"Like I said, admiral," Jaeger replied calmly, "You're welcome to send a man with me, and if you've got a Seal team or the like, we could actually be secure around here. As it is, I can offer to make Okinawa my destination, and again, you can send a man to accompany me if you'd like. If I had the range, I'd just ask for a secure site to be set up, and teleport us all there, but for assorted reasons, that's not really possible just now."
"No anti-teleport defense in your own bag of tricks?" Williams asked.
"Not yet," Jaeger said, shaking his head, "But we should soon. It's part of why we need to be mobile before another strike can be mounted."
"How long do we have?" Williams asked.
"It's been about five hours since the last attack," Jaeger said, "I'm estimating eight to twelve minimum turnaround before they can get a new force together, or at least one with the intel they've gathered on how we already beat them off."
"Alright son," Williams said slowly, coming to a reluctant decision, "I'll let you out of here, but I will be sending a man with you, and I will be expecting you to show up at Okinawa. How soon will you be leaving?"
"Minutes," Jaeger said, "Have your man either meet me here, or have someone here to tell me where to find him, in ten minutes, and we'll be moving."
Then Jaeger disappeared.
"Lyn," Jaeger said, speaking the instant he appeared where she was camped out with the girls and Saeko, "We're moving. Get the girls ready for a teleport, and have them bring blankets and pillows."
Lyn looked Jaeger in the eye for a moment, reading his mood and intent, before nodding; Jager disappeared again.
"Miss Sakurada," Jaeger called once he was certain the Superintendant-General of the TMPD was awake, "I'm planning on moving the girls and Beryl to a safer location, and quickly, in order to try to avoid further attack. Do you wish to come with?"
Natsuna looked up at Jaeger with bloodshot eyes, tear-tracks still visible on her face.
"How many of my men can we bring with?"
"I've made provision for all of them," Jaeger said "There are roughly two dozen fit for travel?"
"And the injured?" Natsuna demanded, "The bodies of the dead? I can't just leave them here, their families deserve better than that."
Jaeger walked over to the bedside table in the small cabin Natsuna had been resting (crying) in, and picked up a plastic plate with the remains of a small meal on it. With a moment's concentration, he turned the piece of tableware to gold; it shrank considerably as its mass was condensed, but that still left several ounces of pure gold.
"I can leave payment with the local law enforcement to ensure that the bodies are cared for, and I'm sure the Americans would be happy to take care of your wounded men. We can meet up with them back in Japan."
"We'll come then," Natsuna said, pulling a handkerchief out of a pocket to wipe at her face, "There's no way I'm going to let these thugs keep me from protecting my people."
"Glad to hear it," Jaeger said, giving Natsuna a short, respectful bow, before disappearing.
"You ready to go?"
"Dammit!" Dutch shouted, almost hurling himself out of the 'captain's' chair on the Black Lagoon, shotgun halfway leveled at Jaeger before he realized who had spoken, "What you doing, appearing out of thin air?"
"Pretty much," Jaeger said with a small smile, teleporting halfway across the small 'wheelhouse' of the ship, "You're just lucky I can't do this over properly long distances yet, or I never would have needed to hire you in the first place."
"I don't want you moving up behind me like that," Dutch said as he recovered his equilibrium, "It's dangerous on a ship with Revy and me."
"Fair point," Jaeger said with a shrug, "Can we set a point below deck where I can teleport in? Because that's how I plan to move the passengers; don't want anyone seeing us board, the whole point of this is to cut as low a profile as possible."
"Go find Rock," Dutch said, "He'll show you the cabin we keep mostly empty for passengers. When do you want to leave?"
"Ten minutes," Jaeger said, "And as a heads-up, Admiral Williams insisted I bring one of his men with, to keep an eye on things."
"You've already got us carrying cops," Dutch said with a shrug, "Navy man makes no difference."
"Good," Jaeger said with a nod as he turned to head out on deck, "I'll go find Rock then."
By the time the sun had risen enough to no longer touch the horizon, the Black Lagoon was leaving port. Nobody on shore, or even on the other ships in harbor, had seen five Japanese girls, an assortment of young women, several vacationing TMPD officers, and one US Navy Lieutenant board the vessel. The only outwardly visible sign that it was carrying passengers or cargo of any sort whatsoever, was that it sat slightly lower in the water, though scarecely low enough to be visible to the unaided human eye.
Amongst the Malaysians and Americans involved in the aftermath of the incident, only Admiral Williams and a handful of Marines knew Jaeger's intended destination, and due to both dealing with a disciplinary issue related to lack of fire discipline and deliberate maneuvering on the Admiral's part, none of them even knew that the Black Lagoon had left port.
When Striker Teams Beta and Gamma arrived in Kota Kinabalu three hours after dawn, their targets were long since gone. All timely forms of scrying and divination revealed only a moving torpedo boat on the open ocean, and lacked relevant landmarks with which to derive an appropriate destination for teleportation.
Several more 'modern' magi who had been arguing for funding coordinate-based divination techniques made quite a ruckus over it.
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