Kai awoke as Aswon shoved at his ribs with an outstretch foot, muttering and trying to roll over for a few more minutes sleep. The insistent foot pushed at him again though, refusing to let him rest.
"What, what, I'm awake."
"It's coming up on dawn, Kai, and I've collated the information from everyone's observations."
"It's not dawn, it's still dark!"
"Well, the sun is coming up on the other side of the volcano, so that's hardly surprising. But look the top is just starting to get a halo. Dawn. See."
Kai sat up, rubbing at his eyes and stretching to work out the kinks in his back, then checked his watch to confirm how little sleep he'd gotten. As he looked around the rest of the team he saw that they were all in the same boat, though – except Aswon of course, who was looking fine on the two hours of sleep he'd grabbed around his watch schedule.
"Ok, go on then. What do we know?" Kai grabbed for his water bottle and took a few sips, moistening his mouth and gullet while Aswon relayed the information that the team had gathered and commented on over the last three hours while they'd studied operations on the volcano.
"First of all, we've seen absolutely zero magical activity. No astral travellers, spirits, magical effects or presences of any kind. That's pretty unusual in itself. The area has a nasty background taint to it, almost certainly from the ecological destruction and pollution caused by the mining, and the misery of the people doing the job. But it's still very unusual not to see spirits or critters around at all. But, the upside is that their magical defences seem to be pretty much non-existent, which should give us a big advantage."
"We're about seven hundred and fifty metres from the sensor line, and past that we estimate another five hundred meters to reach the outer limits of where we need to drop the token, though preferably more to ensure we're inside the area specified. All of that terrain is rough, and either covered with fairly dense foliage or has been stripped clean and is bare rock. The mountain is covered in scars and gashes, and as far as we can make out a lot of them have been blasted clear fairly recently. By the looks of things, explosives have been used to clear trails and areas, and to shatter parts of the volcanic surface."
"The drones appear to have a base or refuelling depot on both the north and south slopes. We don't have any line of sight to them, but their positions have been determined by following drone patterns and seeing them go in for landing to presumably refuel and get maintenance. The drones are fairly low speed as these things go, moving not much faster than a man can typically run on flat clear terrain – but that's probably more than enough out here. They also appear to have long loiter times and are armed with either an assault rifle or a small machine gun – they're too far away to determine which."
"The whole area is covered with the electronic sensor bubble and good coverage for the rigger network that controls the drones. Signal analysis points to that network being encrypted with decent quality security-grade software – it would be crackable with the right equipment and some time, but we don't have the first and probably don't want to use the latter. We've seen enough drones that it's likely there are at least two riggers on duty, or they have a single rigger and drones are added to and removed from the deck's control list as needed – but there's probably too many for a single rigger to control all at once."
"On the downside, we've seen a couple of drones doing manoeuvres that indicated they were under the riggers direct control rather than their on-board pilot software, and Marius estimates that the rigger is competent and was flying the drones at least as well as he could manage – so that's not someone to take lightly."
"We've observed four processing facilities in our line of sight, and its our assumption that there are more scattered around the volcano on the other faces. We could confirm with an astral scout, if Tads is willing to go. But each site has a pair of large and blocky buildings – one appears to be where the raw materials are taken in to process, the other may be some kind of utility area. Again, the range is long, so it's hard to tell, but we think they're connected in some way. Each one of these processing sites is within a few hundred metres of areas blasted clear, sitting at the bottom of a steep section of the volcanic slope."
"Each of those areas has a constant cloud of gas being fed out of some pipes – we think they are funnelling the gas out of vents and it's being cooled on the slopes and condensing at the bottom in the pits, where it solidifies and can be broken up and mined. Hunter seems to think that various types of sulphur compounds are the most likely candidates here. The work crews break up the material, load it into baskets and carry them to the processing stations where they're deposited."
"Again, details are a little vague due to the range, but we've seen guard forces at every processing plant, somewhere between six and twelve guards with long arms and full body armour – though I would guess the armour is lightweight given the conditions we're in. At least a couple of the guards have heavier weapons, so it's probably a full squad of riflemen, a pair of heavy gunners, a sergeant and a corporal forming a guard at each location. Either way it's some reasonable firepower to take on."
"Each site also has between fifty and a hundred workers, probably prisoners, hauling material back and forth from the dig areas to the processing sites. Everyone we have seen at the right angle to get a look appears to have a bracer on their right arm, which we think is either an explosive or an electronic tracker. Possibly both. All of the workers look impoverished and poorly-dressed, so our current guess is that they're indentured or just outright slave labour, working on the mining operation."
"Either way, it looks like the fence security is more about keeping people in, than out. The place is covered very well with electronic sensors and airborne monitoring equipment but is magic-light, and based on the firepower present we need to emphasise our stealth and focus on not being detected, rather than overwhelming with force. If those drones find the chopper, they've got enough firepower to keep us grounded."
Kai blinked a few times as he digested the information that Aswon had relayed, and then glanced around the team, watching as they all mulled over the information they hadn't been aware of.
"Ok, thanks Aswon. Good brief. So, we're looking at high-tech defences with good drone coverage, they're keeping people in – not out, they don't seem to use magic at all, maybe because of the background warping of the manasphere – but that means we might need to watch out for toxic spirits and creatures?"
"That sounds like it, yes. Nobody has mentioned spotting any creatures overnight, though it would have been tricky – but the area does seem quite devoid of animal life as well."
"So, Marius?" Kai turned to face him. "Is there any way we can find out if there's more than one rigger over there?"
"Not really. Not without engineering a situation to make them respond, and raising the security level might be a very bad idea indeed. The number of drones you can actively control and monitor is a function of the power of your hardware. It is quite rare to get a control deck than will happily handle more than half a dozen units at once, but we are seeing more drones than that. As Aswon said there is a way you can cycle through those drones, but it can be a bit clunky to manage. So either the drones are set on random patrol paths mostly, with the rigger controlling a few personally, or they are cycling through them in a pattern, or there is multiple riggers controlling different wings or sets of drones. But we cannot tell which without more information."
"I would reinforce what Aswon said though – we cannot be seen here. If this is a Mitsuhama facility, and from what we have seen it appears to be – those drones will overwhelm us if they detect us, and can destroy the chopper with concentrated fire. Over this kind of terrain, it does not matter that they are slow for drones – they will still be fast enough to catch us and deal with us. I would remind you that Mitsuhama were the pioneers of the 'zero-zone'. If they make an area secure, nothing that gets in, gets out alive."
The sky had continued to lighten as they talked and went over the intel, the slopes of the volcano now more visible in the dawn light and revealing the ant-like figures of slaves carrying heavy loads to the processing facilities.
"Can you get a better read on those dig areas, magically I mean? If we're going to have to infiltrate, I think we could do with some more information on where we need to avoid or bypass, for starters."
Tads, Shimazu and Aswon grabbed binoculars and scopes, and zoomed in on the closest dig site, spending a minute examining the people and environment there, and then had a quick discussion, before Aswon turned back to the rest of the team.
"They're nasty and warped – but our general consensus is not because of the gas or the venting – that's a natural process. It's more the forced labour and harsh working conditions. The people there are suffering, and in great distress. There's no gas masks or protective equipment that we can see, people are breathing in fumes that have got to be toxic, and they look mistreated and badly-fed – they're generally unsteady on their feet and carrying what looks like heavy loads. So there is a background count there, but from the people, not the place. Certainly, wherever they go to sleep is likely to be horrific in astral space, as it will twist their home into a toxic realm. Tads certainly shouldn't try to conjure a hearth spirit, in my opinion. Outside though – we might get a mean spirit, but we won't necessarily get a toxic one…"
"Ok, thanks Aswon. Tads – do you have any spells that allow you to control animals in any way, to make them do what you want?"
"No – nothing like that. Were you thinking about using them for cover?"
"Yes, something like that. Hmm."
"I have been thinking about that actually, Kai." Marius rested his head on steepled fingers as he thought through the chain of logic. "If there are animals around, I think they must have tuned the sensors to ignore them some way. Otherwise their alarms would be going off whenever an animal wandered too near to the fence. Either that, or they have a lot of false alarms, which will dull the edge of any response team. The perimeter is over fifteen kilometres long, and covers a large area – I cannot believe that there is no wildlife nearby that they need to factor in…"
"Hey – we're pretty sure it's dragons we're working for right, on this job? Are either of them likely to get on well with Mitsuhama? Are they going to get easy access to the site?" Hunter looked around at the team, getting mostly shrugs in return. Only Aswon seemed confident enough in his knowledge to respond.
"If they are dragons, one Chinese and one Japanese, then the Japanese one will have an advantage with the Japanese corporation at the minimum. They tend to look out for each other when threatened by outsiders, before they go back to cut-throat corporate warfare between each other. But, if it is a dragon, then there's persistent rumours that he uses the Japanese Yakuza clans – or at least some of them – as pawns, so that's another possible way to get access. A site like this, with miners and soldiers guarding a prison work-force… would be ripe with black market goods provided to keep them happy, I'm sure."
"So, we need to infiltrate through several hundred metres of jungle, get past the fence, get through a couple of hundred more metres of jungle and volcanic rock, plant the thing, then get back out past the same stuff. That's going to be a problem…" Kai looked glum, ending up with his gaze flitting from Hunter to Aswon and back again as he considered options.
"I could perhaps try and levitate the token, and fly it over to a suitable place to drop. With no magical observers, it would be difficult to spot for people. I can't move it very fast, but if I can see it, I can move it."
"Do you think that would get it past the sensors?"
"I don't see why not, it's not a thing that's alive at all. I mean, Marius and Hunter might know better. But I would guess so, unless they've found a way to detect magic with technology. And I've never heard of anything like that…"
"Alright, that seems like it might be workable. So you just float it up in the air and then over there. How fast can you move it?" Tads demonstrated for Kai and the others, rather than describing, concentrating for a moment on a small section of broken branch until it floated up into the air and then moved it horizontally through the jungle away from her. It was perhaps as fast as a long-distance runner setting in for the long haul – a steady pace, but one that would take quite some time to cover the distance to the right area of the volcano.
"And that's as fast as you can go?"
"Yes Kai, that's it. It's not a powerful spell formula, so that's as much as you're going to get, regardless of how powerful I might or might not be. We could get a stronger one, but then I've got to have time to learn it, back home in the lodge ideally. So, it's going to take a while for me to move it to where it needs to be, and I need to keep it in sight, all the time and concentrate on the spell."
"I like this idea. The sensors and drones should have a difficult time spotting the token, and though it will take some time to accomplish, I feel this gives us the smallest chance of being detected and attacked. Tads – could you place the token on the roof of one of the processing facilities perhaps? Would that give you something easy to spot?"
Tads grabbed the binoculars and studied one of the buildings, then nodded in agreement to Marius.
"I'm thinking we might be better up near the rim of the crater personally. I know it's further, but it looks a lot quieter up there. Less chance of it being found by some random person or spotted by a drone or something." Hunter had his eye glued to his sight, but pointed towards the top of the volcano with his off hand.
"Is that an option? Can we just fly over the top and drop the token down as we do so?"
"No – not safely anyway. Quite apart from the idea of dropping something that small and easy to blow away out of the tilt-wing into the downdraft from the rotors being very risky, while we have the flight ceiling to get over the top of the volcano, we would be in the middle of all of their sensors. The bubble of surveillance they have goes up as far as it comes out from the volcano, and we are not getting up to twenty thousand metres to get over that – and even if we could, if we dropped the token from that height it could get blown kilometres off target by the time it hits the ground."
"Well, to levitate it up to the top of the volcano would take even longer. Would we need a distraction – maybe someone round another side to blow up some of the sensors or something?"
"I don't think so, Kai – doing anything like that will make them look but also raise the general alert level, and make us much more likely to be discovered. I don't think we can risk them mobilising those drones to actively hunt down threats – the risk is just too high." Aswon looked around the ground, and found Marius nodding in agreement with him. "If anything, I would favour a slow insertion…" Hunter sniggered, but Aswon ignored him. "…with us waiting if need be, watching for a few hours to establish a pattern or get more data on their operations, and then doing the plant and getting away nice and quietly."
"I think we should do a test first, though." Kai looked at Tads, then continued. "Get a pebble, or a stick or something of the right sort of size, and send it in over the fence somewhere, and see what happens, just so we know if it's viable without risking the actual token. "
"We can do that. We should find something easily enough. I'm worried though, that if we just drop it on top of one of the buildings, wind or rain could dislodge it."
"Maybe we can use some kind of resin or something, to stick it in place? I'm sure you or Aswon can find something…"
Tads looked at Marius with confusion for a moment, wondering why she should have to find some glue for him amongst the supplies used on the chopper, before she realised he was talking about something naturally occurring in the jungle, and that as the two 'outdoors' people, she and Aswon were best suited to try and work out which trees might have the stickiest resin.
"Well, Aswon, maybe you can look for something sticky then, while Tads makes the first run with our trial token." Aswon nodded to Kai in agreement and headed down the slope a little, out of line of sight from the volcano and started to examine the plants for a suitable candidate. "Otherwise, if they do somehow detect the intrusion, I think we're going to need some defences to cover us – so please, if it's all going wrong, throw one of those illusions of yours straight up, don't wait for us to ask for it. We'll do as you tell us, depending on what the spell is going to cover."
Tads had just found a suitable pebble, approximately the same size as the mystic tokens they were planting, and was preparing to levitate it up and towards the fence when there was a faint rumble and a tremble of the earth. It lasted just a few seconds, but it made the team freeze in position and look around them carefully, fearing the worst.
Over to the east, and the northern most camp they could see a huge plume of yellow gas rose from the ground, boiling up in angry bubbles before it started to dissipate into the air. A moment later they heard the rising and falling pitch of a siren, carrying faintly on the wind towards them. The team froze in place, training their scopes on the scene and trying to see what was going on.
Within a minute they could make out a rush of people moving away from the pit or quarry that they were gathering raw materials from, scattering through the trails and clambering over rocks to get away from the rapidly expanding morass of yellow fog that was filling up the basin. The security team at the processing centre had kicked into gear, and was moving around with a purpose, doing something at the edge of the building – the range was just too long to make it out, but they all seemed very busy.
Less than five minutes later they saw a helicopter rising from behind a fold of the volcano, heading towards the processing centre. It was an ungainly beast, a bulbous nose with bowl like windscreens that bulged outwards on both side, and a massive engine and rotor assembly just behind it. Where the body of the chopper should have been though there was nothing – just a spine running back towards the tail rotor. The strange looking aircraft flew over to the processing centre and stopped in a hover over the top, then a winch was lowered down towards the building. The soldiers grabbed the cables, attaching them to the corners of the building, and moments later it was tugged gently aloft, spinning in the wind as the heavy cargo chopper picked the entire module up into the air.
A second chopper was launching, just clearing the ridgeline and starting to turn towards the processing site, while the first headed northeast away from the pickup zone. Two minutes later the second module was also collected, revealing to the team as it spin in the wind that it was a large generator and water storage tank, along with a small building module all on a solid base. Just like the first, it was taken northeast away from the site and further away from the expanding cloud of sulphur and ejected matter.
A third chopper appeared, this one carrying a large sled or base of some kind, following the course of the previous two. It set down the sled in the clear area where the processing centre had been, holding a hover while the soldiers below loaded up anything left onto the large flat area, then mounting themselves when all the gear was assembled. They hung onto the cables and spread out across the platform, riding up into the air as the chopper bore them away to safety.
"Ahh, that makes sense. I did wonder what they were doing to keep the equipment running in the event of quakes or slips. I guess they've got everything designed around the modular cargo format and weight capacity of those choppers, and if the volcano starts to look dangerous, they just relocate the heavy machinery until things have calmed down. Tough luck on the slaves, though." Hunter watched as small knots of slaves worked their way across the volcanoes surface, through trees and undergrowth, or across the exposed rockfaces. "Yup – looks like they just have to run and hope that whatever's going on doesn't catch them…"
They sat and watched for a few minutes, as the cargo choppers lifted the base up and out of the danger zone, relocating it over to another part of the volcano several hundred metres north and west, well out of range of the wind-borne pollution. They noticed the drones had drifted over to have a denser coverage over the area, though no part of the volcano was left uncovered – it looked like they were keeping tabs on the location of the different groups of slaves as they scattered away from the toxic yellow clouds spewing from the vents.
Tads grabbed her pebble and cast her spell, watching it through the binoculars and increasing the zoom as far as she could while she directed it northwards from their position. The team could see her brow furrow as she concentrated hard, squinting to keep the pebble in sight as it got further and further away from the team. When it was what she thought was a safe distance, she started to move it eastwards instead, closing on the centre of the volcano. It drifted over the sensor fence, with no sign of alarm or disturbance to indicate it had been detected, and she kept it moving just over the tree canopy across her arc of vision, slowing turning her torso while her arms clamped the binoculars to her face. She had the pebble about halfway up the slope when one of the drones over-flew the position and swung suddenly off its patrol route, doubling back and scanning over the same area again.
"That must have been a lucky hit – the pebble is tiny and those drones cannot have a sensor suite that advanced." Marius exclaimed, watching as the drone circled the area again, starting to fly a search pattern for whatever contact it had detected but then lost. "You might want to cancel your spell, Tads. It did detect something, and the longer you leave it in the air, the more chance of it reacquiring an anomalous signal." The pebble dropped, and Tads gave a sigh, slowly lowering the binoculars from her face and placing them in her lap, before rubbing gently at the red areas around her eyes.
They waited for another few minutes, and then spotted a new chopper rising up from the location of the hidden air base. This one looked to be more like a standard troop chopper, and they studied it as best they could as it flew towards where the pebble had been detected. A number of troops were crammed into the doorway, weapons pointing out as they scanned the ground before them, and the pilots orbited the site, performing three full circuits at a slow speed.
"Well, it looks like what you said about Mitsuhama is true. Zero zone alright. I mean, they didn't even know what they saw most likely, but their response is to send a chopper full of goons to blow it away. That's…pretty extreme. But, I want to go back to my point from earlier – don't drop the token on a building, now we know they can move. They could end up carrying it clear out of the zone, and that might make us fail the job. Better to find a solid bit of rock and plant it there." Hunter moved his viewpoint up the volcano and then did some quick mental maths, working out the relative distances. "There's a rocky escarpment about six hundred and thirty metres down from the peak, with an orange stain to the exposed rocks. That looks like a good place."
"I agree. Also, I noticed that you flew in-between the sensor posts with the first pebble. I would suggest going straight over the top of one instead. While it may appear counter-intuitive, the sensors probably have a good degree of overlap, and flying between them gives two separate systems a chance to spot you, rather than just one." Marius used a twig to scrape out a rough picture in the earth before him, drawing concentric circles to show the sensor reach. "I would fly straight over the top, at a good height and as quickly as you can, then drop down to tree height to get lost in the clutter of vegetation."
"Would it be worth flying high once past the fence Marius? Over the tops of the drones, instead of underneath them?"
"No, I do not think so, Aswon. The sensors for detecting heat, movement, and other such readings are just as likely to be omni-directional, as downward facing only. They probably concentrate their efforts on a certain arc, but the software may filter out signals and raise the alert for something nearby anyway. I still think just above the treetops is the best option, so the movement may be obscured by the wind moving branches and such like."
"Well, is it worth staying here and watching for a day then, to see if we can spot a pattern for the drones?"
"I don't think so – I mean Marius can probably give us the technical specifications on exactly how it works, but I remember when we had defensive drone networks, they're often put on a semi-random pattern to stop exactly what we're trying to do here." Aswon glanced over and got an affirmative nod from Marius, but the pilot declined to add any further detail, correctly summarising that nobody would understand him if he started to talk about atmospheric noise sampling and quantization algorithms to generate randomness…
With a suddenness that startled them, Vadim collapsed to the floor behind them, making the team spin in place and draw weapons, looking outwards for a threat. The jungle around them swayed in the wind, while targeting sensors and lasers quested for something to lock onto. Then Tads gave a little snort, and reached down a hand towards Vadim, to help him get up.
"Don't worry folks. Vadim's just managed to summon a spirit – a pretty nice one, too. But perhaps one that's a little more powerful than he's actually able to cope with, at this time. If anyone has some headache tablets handy, I think I know someone who'd quite like a couple now…" Her smile took the sting out of her words, but Vadim glanced up at her through bloodshot eyes and nodded, hearing the warning she was trying to give him. Kai, Shimazu and Aswon glanced into astral space and saw the spirit hovering just over the prone soldier, glaring at them through knotholes in his bark covered form.
"So, if we're not going to wait because of random patterns, shall we just get on with it? I mean, they're sort of on alert a little, but they've also got some kind of eruptions or gas leak to deal with, which has got to distract them. If they might pick it up anyway, we'd be as well to go now as any other time, right?" Kai looked around for comments, then reached down to grab the binoculars and passed them over to Tads.
"Fine, ok. Hunter, hold the token out on your hand, please, on the other side of the clearing. Too close and all I can see is blur through these things. I'm going to send it south this time, away from us again before I try to cross the fence. And I'll go straight over the top of a post this time, Marius." Tads worked her way into position, leaning against a tree and raising her knees in front of her to rest her arms on, so she could support the heavy binoculars against them while she guided the pebble to its location. Taking a deep breath, she focussed on drawing and shaping the mana, and across the clearing the yin-yang token lifted up from Hunter's outstretched hand and started to float away to the south, flying a dead straight course away from them over the canopy of the trees that dotted the lower slopes of the volcano.
The team settled in and waited, observing the volcano before them and the several camps they could spot. Drones still concentrated to the north around the venting clouds, and they saw the troops doing a careful sweep of the area, looking for whatever had been detected by the drones. Elsewhere they could see the lines of slave labourers trudging back and forth from the mining areas to the processing centres, carrying baskets laden down with yellow slabs of rock balanced over their shoulders, heads bowed as they struggled under the heavy loads.
The minutes flew by, Tads remaining glued to the eyepieces and concentrating hard on keeping the token under control and in view, before reaching a point she was happy with and turning sharply to the east, heading directly for a sensor post. She lifted the token up high, passing ten metres over the post and then lowered it gently back to just above the canopy as she proceeded to direct it up the slopes towards the rocky outcropping they'd picked.
"Tads, just to let you know, you've got a drone about to overfly the position. Ok, coming up from the south, heading northerly, it's going to be within a few metres horizontally." Hunter's voice was calm and quiet as he described the drone's movement, giving her information about the wider view that she couldn't see through the tightly focussed optics. "It's flying over now, looks ok, continuing on…no, wait. It's turning. Banking to the left, it looks like it's detected something. Yes, definitely turning and going back for another pass. Ok, keep it moving, it's turning the opposite way to your travel, so it might not pick you back up."
A bead of sweat trickled down Tad's cheek as she concentrated on the spell. The token was tiny and almost impossible to see at this range, even through the powerful binoculars, and she was guiding it as much from the enveloping trace of magic as her visual sight of the token now. She wanted to refocus her eyes, scrub at her face and rest her leaden arms – but she knew that if she lost sight of the token and it fell somewhere, she'd never manage to spot and levitate it again.
"The drone's going into a tight circle over the previous location, but you're clear of it now, keep it going. Keep it going. Ok, some of the other drones are drifting over that way – not random movement, they're crossing your path now – that can't be a coincidence."
The team watched as the drones upslope started to sweep across the path, focussing their search efforts on a vast swathe of land past the initial drone which was still circling the area. Tads wove the token up the volcano, winding a course up and around trees, rocks and sometimes over bare ground, trying to avoid the closest parts to the drones' locations, coached by Hunter who kept up a running commentary. Thirty minutes after she'd started, she finally got the token to the rocky outcropping, and pushed it into place in the rock face, holding it there for a minute to hopefully let the sticky sap bond it into position. With a sigh, she let her head fall back against the tree, the binoculars still held in place by cramped arms that refused to move.
"I think we should wait, for at least five minutes if not ten, just to see what happens with the drones and if anyone goes near the drop point." Aswon murmured, sweeping the side of the volcano with his own scope, looking for reactions.
"I agree. Let's stay where we are and check things out." Kai responded. "Here Tads, have some water. Let me take those from you…" he peeled the binoculars out of Tad's hands and passed over some water, waving for her to rest and try to get some blood flow back into her arms.
"This may be a bad thing, or it may be a good thing." Marius was staring at a patch of jungle to the north, back in the direction that they had first been examining and testing with their test pebble. "It looks like a small bunch of slaves are heading for the fence line. They are hard to spot – doing a pretty good job of taking advantage of the cover, but their clothing is not helping them. One of them has a white shirt, and I keep catching little flashes of movement through the trees from this angle. I do not think the drones will be able to spot them though."
"How many, and are they heading for the fence?" Aswon queried.
"There are four of them, moving in a single file line from what I can see. And yes, they are headed for the fence. They have been heading in that direction for the last ten minutes at least. It certainly looks like a breakout attempt."
"Well, that's definitely going to raise the alarm them. Are we ready to leave?" Kai checked his watch, seeing that it had been eight minutes since they'd placed the token on the rock face, then nodded to him. "Ok, Tads – can you guide the rest of the team back. I'm going to run on ahead and start stripping the camo netting off and making sure we're clear." Aswon slung his rifle over his shoulder, grabbed his spear and then rolled to his feet before setting off down the slope at a fast lope, heading back the way they'd came several hours ago.
The rest of the team got to their feet too, helping Tads up and checking on Vadim, who at least looked mostly recovered after half an hour to recuperate and let the painkillers work their magic. After checking the clearing for litter and any signs of their presence, they started to head back along the trail, following Aswon at a more sedate pace.
Halfway back to clearing where they'd left the chopper a sharp barking sound rolled over the forest, sending birds up into the air from the trees. A moment later three more booms sounded, one after the other.
"Gunshots?" Kai asked, drawing his pistol just in case. The commlink activated and they heard Aswon's voice, out of breath and labouring as he struggled with the heavy netting on his own.
"That sounded like an explosion, not a gun shot. Anyone want to bet that was some explosive collars going off?"
"These people are animals. I think we should add Mitsuhama to the list of people we try never to work for." Marius muttered, getting various grunts of agreement or approval from the others. They pushed on through the jungle, Tads keeping an eye on them and making sure that they didn't drift off course or take the wrong trail in the dense foliage, until they made it back to the tilt-wing. Aswon had been hard at work and the camo nets were all off the craft, laid out to the sides of the fuselage as he tried to bundle them up ready to stow.
Marius climbed aboard and jacked in, starting the pre-flight checks and warmed up the various systems, wary of a response to whatever had happened over the ridge, but not wanting to do an emergency start-up if he didn't have to. The rest of the team pitched in and rolled up the netting, making short work of it between them, and getting them and all their kit back aboard and stowed into position.
"Ready to takeoff – all secure?"
"We all look ready, Marius. Do you want me to ask the spirits to conceal us as we launch?"
"Yes please, Tads. Stand by, powering up now."
Debris skittered across the clearing as the propellers thundered through the air and the tilt-wing rose up into the sky, fading into the background as the spirit wrapped it in magical energy to conceal it from the outside world. Once above the canopy, Marius swung the nose around and flew north-west, heading directly away from the volcano and looking to open distance as quickly as possible between them and the flotilla of drones that kept watch on the activities below. A quick sensor scan showed new behaviour, and he concentrated for a moment, trying to use his passives to gather information and relay to the rest of the team.
"Just to make you all aware, the drones have shifted again. There is at least six of them now down by the fence area, where those prisoners were heading. I can see the troop chopper heading that way too."
"I've got them," Shimazu said, manipulating the prism and viewing optics so he could examine the situation. "The troops are firing down into the jungle." His voice twisted, leeching of emotion as he picked up on the astral auras the security force where giving off. "It looks like they're enjoying themselves." He carefully manipulated the controls, moving the viewing angle slightly. "Yes, I can see little areas of taint appearing over the forest. People are either dying or in agony down there…"
They fell into silence as the chopper bore them away, wondering how many of the slaves were being executed behind them, wondering if they should have done something, but then forcing themselves to face up to the reality of taking on a guard force that vastly outnumbered them. Even if they had done something, what would they do afterwards with the slaves? They couldn't care for them, or even transport that many, not without dropping a lot of cargo off.
Once he had a few kilometres of distance from the volcano, and the bubble of sensor coverage, Marius adjusted course slightly to starboard, heading in a more northerly direction towards the coast. They were just crossing Lake Lanao when Shimazu gave a cry of alarm.
"Astral travellers! Moving fast, very fast." There was a scrabble amongst the team as they grabbed hold of weapons and seatbelts, expecting either trouble or evasive manoeuvres very shortly. "Ok, sorry, sorry. I don't think they've spotted us. But it looked like a mage with a whole pack of spirits with them, moving incredibly fast and heading south east. Parallel course to us, but opposite direction."
"But they didn't see us?" Aswon asked.
"No, I think they were moving too fast. Like when Tads goes off on a very long distance journey sort of fast. But they felt hostile, or at least expecting trouble."
"Which side of us were they, Shimazu?" Hunter called from the co-pilot's seat.
"Right hand side, crossing the narrower part of the lake."
"Hmm. There's a city called Marawi according to the maps. Or beyond that, right on the coast, there's Iligan City. Either might make sense for a mage to be stationed at. But on the reciprocal course, there's only the volcano that's nearby. Unless they were going all the way to the southern edge of the islands, to General Santos City."
"Well, they're well out of sight now, and no sign of coming back to look for us." Shimazu continued to scan behind them, looking for any spirits or mages trying to locate them as they barrelled through the air.
Marius flew onwards, keeping low and using the terrain to keep them concealed, until he flew out into the Iligan bay, where he turned due north and flew across the water until he was equidistant from the land each side, well into the Bohol Sea. He turned then, flying north east and mapped out a course that kept him roughly in the centre of the water, zig-zagging through the channels and keeping clear of the smaller islands that littered the area and followed the Canigao Channel to the north. Ninety minutes passed as they flew on, only fifty metres above the surface of the water – just high enough to avoid any ships that might be lurking down on the trade routes, or birds hunting for fish, who would easily shred themselves in an engine and could bring their journey to a sudden and deadly end.
As they transited the San Bernardino Strait he warned them they were approaching Bulusan, feeding through the sensor footage to the screens. It was 11:35, and the autumn sun was about as high in the sky as it was going to get, illuminating the land below it. The ocean met the land at a shallow beach, no more than a few metres wide before it sloped upwards and turned into a mass of palm trees and low lying scrub, stretching inland in a green blanket that wrapped over the island. Maybe a kilometre inland the green changed colour as palm trees gave way to a broad-leaf variety, changing into a tapestry of green that stretched inland, punctuated with the ugly strip of brown where areas had been clear cut and despoiled. About ten kilometres inland, they could see the lone peak of the volcano rising up sharply from the lowlands that surrounded it, a windswept and barren pimple on the surface of the land.
"That's location number four." Hunter informed them. "Bulusan, about sixteen hundred metres in height. Here's what I've been able to find out about it…" He cleared his throat and pulled up his notes, then started to read. "Bulusan is classified by volcanologists as a stratovolcano, or a composite cone, and covers the northeast rim of Irosin caldera that was formed about 40,000 years ago. Located around the mountain are four craters and four hot springs, mostly fairly small in size, but some quite deep. Bulusan is generally known for its sudden steam-driven or phreatic explosions. It has erupted fifteen times since eighteen eighty-five and is considered as the fourth most active volcano in the Philippines after Mayon, Taal, and Kanlaon. It is one of the active volcanoes in the Philippines. So, we might want to keep our eyes open and stay upwind, based on what happened at the first one!"
"I'll fly around the peak then and we can have a look, do some observations. The last thing we need is any more ash or particles in the engines!" Marius flew towards the south-western corner of the volcano, and then banked north, aiming to fly around in a counter clockwise route. Trees covered the lower slopes, giving way in an abrupt line about halfway up the steep slope and revealing bare rock with deep channels running through it.
The team examined the scene carefully, and as they flew up the eastern side of the volcano, rising up to examine the upper slopes, they saw several shapes moving across the bare rock, darting from chasm to chasm. The low slung bodies were lizard like, their bodies a brownish-red and covered in scales.
"Salamanders. We should avoid them – they're almost certainly poisonous. And as we've already established several times, poisonous shit does love to feast on me…" A chuckle ran through the team, with Vadim turning to examine Aswon, wondering what had happened in the past to get that reaction.
They flew on, circling the summit and leaving the pack of creatures behind. The sixty-degree slope afforded them no apparent landing spots at all, and Marius wondered if he'd have to try and hold the chopper in a hover for someone to plant the token somewhere – wondering what that would do to his fuel consumption and the damage to his engines. He did spot a small plateau right on the lip of the crater that was probably big enough to land on – but it was not far from the Salamanders, so he discounted that as a safe position.
Around the northern face of the volcano he found nothing better, and the western face was much the same. With a sinking heart he checked the southern side and found it too was steep, windswept, barren and totally unsuitable for landing on. He reversed his bank, looping around to start travelling clockwise instead. If he was going to have to hold a hover for some time while a volunteer got out, he might as well do it as far away from the creatures as possible.
"Marius – have you found anywhere to set down?"
"No, Kai. Nothing, apart from one spot on the east, and that was just above the pack of creatures."
"I can help. If you trust my magic that is?"
Marius fell silent for a moment while he wrestled his initial emotional response with a much more logical answer. He didn't like magic, still struggled to deal with it in the world. It disrupted his orderly view and belonged to a system that was outside his understanding. Gifted as he was, and used to inherently 'getting' things, if anything the sheer apparent randomness and fickle rules made it worse, a series of things that he could not explain or rationalise clearly. Countered against that he had the proof of his own eyes of fantastic feats carried out by the others in his team. Aswon and his unnatural ability to shoot at very specific tiny locations. Shimazu and the deadly dance he could weave with his blade. Kai's ability to sway hearts and minds with his voice – when he wasn't accidently giving people deadly insults. But of them all, Tads was the most visibly wonderous of the team. He'd seen the golden glow of her healing magics. Watched as she levitated people off a tower block. Had his vehicle overlooked as she wrapped it in an illusion that fooled everyone around him. It was undeniably real, valuable and had been instrumental in their success.
Logic won in the end, and he keyed the transmitter.
"Of course I trust you. Honesty compels me to say I might not like it much. But I trust you."
"Then if you can stay on this side of the mountain please, and just fly as steady and slow as you can for a short while – I will be as quick as I can."
In the back, Tads undid her seat belt and moved towards the doors, then fastened her belt to the restraining cables on each side of the craft. She threw open the side doors, letting a torrent of wind into the fuselage, her hair whipped back and forth and her clothing rippled in the gale-force air that was driven through the chopper. She looked out of the sides, working out which way Marius was turning and lined herself up before raising a hand to point at the volcanic slope. Her hand formed a claw, and slowly she raised her arm, lifting from the waist slowly and carefully until her arm was stretched out before her, intense concentration furrowing her brow.
A long spire of rock started to extrude from the slope, rising upwards, a pillar of basalt thrust out of the volcano with slow, steady implacability. A metre across, it was roughly hewn, lumpy and warped, but it rose vertically up as Tads shaped the earth below it with force of will. As they turned, she stopped and took a few deep breaths, spinning around to face out of the other doorway, waiting for the turn of the chopper to bring the volcano back into view. Once me she concentrated, raising a second spire up, further upslope and slightly further around, bringing it up to the same height as the first. The third pillar was at the same height, but offset in the other direction, but when she was done three large stone pillars made a triangular shape that was broadly level, the pillars spread out to match the location of the landing gear.
Marius transitioned to hover mode, and then coaxed the chopper down, placing it precisely on the middle of the pillars. Despite his assurances to Tads that he trusted her, he still lowered the engine power carefully and slowly, watching his sensors carefully in case there was the slightest movement or sign of collapse. The pillars held though, solid and unmoving, literal bones of the mountain thrust upwards and as solid as the runway at a commercial airport. As the engines cycled down, Tads unclipped and wiped her brow, moving to the side of the doorway to allow others to see out. It was a couple of metres drop thanks to the height of the pillars and the angle of the slope, and after a brief look, they started to clamber over the supplies to the tail door, which would be much closer to the ground and less likely to lead to a one-way slide that would send them over a kilometre downwards.
"Right Vadim, if you have a look out, you can see my spell signature all over these rocks… let me show you how we can try to dissipate that to avoid leaving a trail or astral fingerprint behind, to help avoid being traced or tracked…"
"So, where are we putting the token?" Hunter asked. "I was thinking we could just do a short climb up to the crest, and then throw it down into the water in the middle. That should stop it getting blown off or falling down."
"Sounds good to me, Hunter." Kai looked around. "Aswon, Shimazu - you up for providing some cover? I don't think shouting at any of those beasties will help, so I'm going to stay here, and I'm pretty sure Marius is best staying jacked in and ready to go."
"I'll go with them. Vadim is watching my signature decay, and learning to spot how fast it dissipates, but I can provide some support to the others."
The four of them climbed over the supplies strapped down behind the troop bay, worming their way back to the tail ramp. The ramp dropped, but only far enough to open a one metre gap at the rear, wedged as it was on the slope of the volcano. It was enough to get out though, and they crawled sideways out onto the scree, taking a moment to look around and get their bearings and then starting to scramble up the slope.
Hunter and Shimazu were at the front, with Aswon and Tads just behind them, and as they moved up the slope they saw what had at first glance appeared to be rocks suddenly flow and morph into more of the giant lizards, who waddled towards them at great speed, their bodies sinuously curving, tails whipping back and forth while their head was locked onto their prey.
The sound of the cocking handle echoed off the defiles as Hunter slapped at his gun, and was followed a moment later by the swish of steel being drawn from the scabbard. Hearing the noises, Tads and Aswon stepped to the sides, digging their feet into the scree to steady themselves and preparing for combat, as the pack of Salamanders closed on their position quickly, fangs bared and gaze locked onto their prey…