I wish all of you a very merry christmas and an enjoyable time with your loved ones.

It was the wee hours of the next day, barely half past one in the morning according to the chrono, when Myn and Kirney found themselves at the foot of the western side of the L-shaped hill, their black clothing merging them with the shadows thrown by the thick undergrowth in which they were currently hiding.

"Com check," he spoke quietly, "Three, do you read?"

"Loud and clear," his father's voice came back through the comlink. "On standby for extraction two blocks away in a dead-end. No activity so far. Four is monitoring the cam and also standard comlink frequencies. Just in case."

"Affirmative. One out," Myn replied and clicked his back teeth to switch off the comlink channel. Dropping onto his stomach he crawled forward, in between two conveniently planted rows of undergrowth which shielded them from both sides and joined his wife who had brought out her datapad and was running through a series of programs.

"You okay?" he whispered.

Kirney turned to look at him and even though the balaclava hid most of her face he could see the puzzled frown she was sporting. "I'm not picking up anything from that fence."

It was his turn to look puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not picking up any energy readings," Kirney whispered back. "If that fence was connected to some kind of proximity or audio-visual sensors my scan would have registered tiny energy flows. Even a simple anti-breach system should show up. But here I found nothing."

"But that's good," he muttered. "Isn't it?"

"I don't know. Maybe they have more powerful sensors placed more centrally where we can't spot them until we're spotted ourselves."

Myn bit his lip, but he had to ask. "Do you want to abort?"

Kirney snorted, quietly that is. "Sith, no. We've come this far, we'll see it through. Get that cutter ready, will you?"

At four meters of height and a very narrow pattern the mesh fence was too high to climb over. Myn reached onto his back and pulled the cutter from the buckle loop he'd used to secure it. "Cover me," he whispered and crawled the last meter towards the fence while Kirney brought up her blaster rifle and rose to a knee. He began clipping the thankfully thin mesh wire about half a meter above the ground, wincing every time the wire gave way with a metallic click, and methodically proceeded to cut just one particular strand until he reached ground level. Because the lower edge of the fence was buried deep in the soil he cut additional strands at ground level to the left and right of his original cut, just half a meter in total, wide enough for them to squeeze through but narrow enough to temporarily seal the hole after they'd crawled through. Not that he feared discovery, because there was a tree growing just behind the fence and its trunk was thick enough both to cast a deep shadow and to shield it from view. Unless someone came looking at this spot specifically chances of spotting the cut were low.

Myn was the first to crawl through the hole. He swung up his blaster rifle and checked the narrow lanes between the stacks of containers to the north and south but then he bolted across the barely lit passage to melt into the deeper shadows thrown by the row of containers facing them. He waved at his wife to follow.

Kirney scrambled through the hole in the fence, but remained on her knees in the shadow of the tree trunk where she used thin strips of wire to temporarily close the gap they'd opened. Once she was done she joined her husband in the shadowy corner.

"So far so good," she whispered and brought her datapad out again. "No ultrasonic spikes, no obvious alarms." Then she stuffed it back into the small satchel she was carrying and pulled the blaster rifle from her back.

Her husband nodded. "Three, we're in. Anything to report?" he asked his father over the comlink.

"As quiet as a graveyard," came the terse reply. "No movement in the north-eastern quadrant."

"Understood. One, out."

"This way," Kirney muttered pointing towards the southern end of the compound. They moved stealthily, one after the other, from shadow to shadow. The compound itself was as deserted as the late - or rather early - hour suggested but still they remained cautious, suspicious even, and prefered the slow but secure pace of the bounding overwatch they'd chosen. Thankfully the facility was rather small so not even five minutes had passed when they found themselves in yet another shadowy area, a narrow gap between two stacks of containers, separated from the container with the hidden entrance only by a relatively broad but just dimly lit passage used by the cargo haulers for loading or unloading containers during the day.

Just then the com cackled to life. "Heads up," said Selan. "The door of the common room has just opened. Two, three, four people emerging."

"Sithspit," Myn swore and looked around. "We can't stay here and let them move past us," he said gesturing at the somewhat-lit passageway behind them and the barely-lit track ahead of them. "Three, what's their ETA?"

"Three, maybe four minutes at best."

Myn looked at his wife. "Can we get down there?"

Kirney was staring at the area where the access hatch to whatever was below them was hidden. Then she slowly shook her head. "I'd rather not risk it. First I'd have to find the mechanism to open it, then I'll have to find and bypass whatever security they've in there."

"Okay, okay." His forehead wrinkled in concentration. "Then we relocate to a more secure spot and wait them out. I don't want to take them out unless we really, really have to."

"Follow me," Kirney whispered and brushed past him towards the southern end of the compound where the undergrowth had begun to spread inside the fence as well.

They had barely made it to their hideout when voices grew louder from the direction of the south-western corner of the facility.

"I can't see the point," an obviously bored male voice said.

Kirney and Myn shrunk underneath the bushes that were hiding them.

"You want to argue with the boss?" another man returned dryly. "Be my guest."

"No, thank you," the first voice answered and this time it betrayed a serious dose of unease. "But I don't like his tactics, either. First he's had a go at the old fool Solant, and then ..."

The second voice cut him off. "Be quiet, you moron! We're not debating this, not here, not now. Got it?"

"Yeah, okay." The unease of the first speaker was still palpable. "Consider it dropped."

Then the two men were past and disappeared around a corner a short while later.

Myn and Kirney remained motionless in their hideout for another two or three minutes. "Interesting," he whispered. "Solant was mentioned."

His wife nodded, the motion barely visible in the darkness. "Whatever else is going on here seems to be connected to Vhinntar's recent shopping spree."

"Indeed," he agreed before clicking his back teeth to activate the com. "Three, status report."

"One patrol is at the central illumigrid pole on the eastern fence. Looks like they're smoking. The cam shows the glowing dots of cigarettes. The other ..." The com went silent briefly. "The other has just moved through a gap between containers in the south-eastern corner and is heading towards the central loading area."

"Thanks. One out." He closed the comlink channel and looked at his wife. "Seen anything remarkable about these two?"

"Heavy blaster pistols in tigh holsters," she returned quietly. "But no lumas or glowsticks. And their minds were on other things instead of being watchful. Fine with me, but that's not real security."

"Yeah, you won't hear me complaining, either." Then an idea struck him. "And if this is their security strategy?"

Again Kirney's forehead creased in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

"Remember your surprise at the lack of any kind of sensor grid at the fence? Maybe they're trying to conceal that there may be something unusual about this place by not having any kind of security beyond some patrols at night for show. Maybe this is about hiding in plain sight."

Kirney didn't seem to be fully convinced, though. "So what exactly are they hiding here?"

Getting to his feet he held out a hand to her. "Let's find out."