{How do you want to play this?} Lisa asked Taylor, who was staring at the Merchant's base. {Any changes to the plan?}

{No, I don't think so,} Taylor replied absently, scanning the building carefully. {We've sealed the sewers, so they can't get away that way, and the other preparations are ready.}

They were being circumspect about discussing anything that might come back to haunt them, even in Famtalk, since there was a very good chance that the PRT, or Armsmaster at least, would be recording it when he was close enough. The Varga thought if very unlikely that they could work out the language without years of study at the least, since it had no common reference point to anything on Earth, but why take chances?

The 'other preparations' had been rather unpleasant, she thought. Amy had prepped the former body of their new friend very carefully, removing all traces of suspension gel and triple-checking that nothing unusual was present, then they'd re-dressed the soon-to-be corpse in the clothes the woman had been wearing when she'd arrived. Taylor, as Saurial, had taken the body and the gun to a suitable location that they were certain would be searched by the PRT when this operation was complete, under cloak, then rather regretfully put five bullets into the still-breathing but non-sapient decoy.

"Sorry, Abby," she'd sighed, before aiming and pulling the trigger. The sound of the reports was hidden by the cloak, so no one would notice. It was a shame to ruin all Amy's hard work, but it was the whole point. Giving the now-cooling body one last slightly sad look, she'd switched to Raptaur, eaten the gun, and met up with her friends over here. That had been about ten minutes ago, and a number of PRT and BBPD vehicles had just arrived, the leaders they'd met at the yard having been joined by the rest on the way.

It was quite a large number, in fact.

Looking around, she thought it was probably all of them.

{I hope someone's still back at base in case anything else kicks off,} she commented. Amy and Lisa followed her eyes and grinned.

{We do seem to have attracted a lot of backup,} Amy chuckled.

{Armsmaster incoming, by the sound of it, and Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery just got out of one of the trucks,} Lisa added.

{Good. OK, then, we do it the way we discussed. When we're ready, you guys start advancing slowly. Make it fairly obvious. They already know we're here, I heard their guards call the people in there when we turned up, so I bet they start shooting as soon as they see you. Let a few of them get past for the PRT to deal with.} They were working on the basis, confirmed by Lisa's power, that the assumption would be the PRT missed some when they discovered 'Abby'.

{It'll work, I'm certain,} Lisa said with a nod.

{I sure hope so. Anyway, as soon as they either bring out some heavy weapons, or it gets too dangerous, we go in. I'll take out the power, then Metis, you take the middle, Ianthe, get the right end, and I'll go in through the workshop at the other end. Drop everyone you see, we can sort them out later. Don't forget to put restraints on them.}

{Do we look like amateurs?} Lisa asked with a smirk.

{No, you look like incredibly dangerous lizards from some human hell,} Taylor grinned. {I like that look.}

{So do I,} Amy giggled. {Don't worry, we'll collect them all. You have to, you know. Metis, use the soporific, the paralytic is probably a little too horror-movie, we don't want to traumatize the poor bastards too much.}

Lisa grinned evilly. {If I see that one we were told about, Lee, I'm not promising anything. He sounds like a bit of a shit.}

{Be good. Or as good as you can manage,} Taylor laughed.

Amy handed her a dart, which she looked at curiously. {What's this for?}

{I improved the soporific a bit. This is a sample.}

{Oh, OK, thanks.} She ate it, the Varga quickly analyzing the drug. {Cool. Great, that will help. If I go for a sleeper hold like Saurial does I might just snap their necks. These humans are pretty fragile.}

She manifested a pair of dart pistols, based on a radically cut down version of the Athena-lite rifle, and sighted down the barrel of one, firing it into the air in the direction of the bay. A soft phut! sound, the noise barely audible due to the expansion chamber she'd put on the end of the barrel, heralded her own version of Amy's and Lisa's built in weapons deploying a dart at high speed. {That works. No need for anything excessive, these are only normal people. I don't want to hurt anyone.}

Dismissing the pistols, she nodded. {OK. We're all set. I'll go and talk to Armsmaster and make sure they're all ready. Keep an eye on those idiots in case they kick off early.}

{Got it, commander,} Lisa grinned, saluting smartly.

{You've been hanging around Zephron too much,} Taylor snickered, turning to head over to the recently arrived backup, who were setting up their own equipment. They were just around the corner from direct line of sight of the Merchants base, but she could both smell and hear some of their people in the buildings surrounding them, most of them slowly and carefully retreating to their main stronghold. Behind her, she heard her friends quickly climb the outsides of two old warehouses on opposite sides of the road to get a better view from the roof.

Dismounting from his bike having parked next to the transport his colleagues were in, Colin turned it off and watched Raptaur, Metis, and Ianthe discussing something fifty yards or so away, just around the corner from where their data indicated the Merchant's base was. His HUD was picking up movement in the buildings surrounding them so presumably the Merchants were aware of their present. The heat sources were moving away, heading back to the main building, thereby proving they weren't total idiots.

The three reptiles had gone on ahead after they'd finished going over the plan at the DWU yard, to reconnoiter the area and double-check that nothing had changed since Metis had formulated the attack scenario.

Wondering what they were talking about, he activated his directional microphones, then listened in bemusement to what sounded entirely unlike anything he'd ever heard as a language. Analysis software scanned the sounds and quickly showed that it was a language, probably a very information-dense one from the audio bandwidth, which seemed to incorporate frequencies both above and below normal human range, but drew a total blank on what they were saying.

If it was a true alien language, that didn't surprise him, it would have almost no common points of reference to even begin a translation. Without some sort of reference they'd probably get absolutely nothing beyond very simple basics even after a lot of work.

"I have nothing at all on file that's even vaguely related to that, Colin," Dragon's voice whispered in his ear, his friend still on the Rig and watching through his cameras. "It's entirely unrelated to any language anyone on this planet has ever spoken. Either it's a constructed language, or it's one that came with them from wherever they originate from."

"I'd say the latter, they seem totally at ease with it, which suggests familiarity," he noted through his sub-vocal microphone. "The sounds used also fit their accent quite well, which would fit. Presumably this is the Family language."

"It's fascinating," she replied. "Bearing in mind the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypotheosis that the language you speak is closely related to how your mind works, or vice versa, learning this could shed some interesting insights into them and their culture. It might also show whether the 'strong' variant of the concept holds water, as the 'weak' version has been shown to do."

"We're very unlikely to be able to learn it without their cooperation, though," he pointed out. "Especially without a common reference. A code is one thing, a true language is something else entirely."

"That's true enough," she said, sounding mildly disappointed. "None of my translation programs can make anything of it at all. I might get a few simple words with a large enough sample set but it would take weeks at a minimum."

"Irrelevant at the moment, although it might be an interesting research project at some point." He saw Raptaur motion to him, then say something else to her cousins, who nodded. Metis saluted her larger relative in what even he could see was an ironic manner, making the large armored reptile grin, then both she and Ianthe split up and zipped up the outside of two warehouses, making it look easy. The one left headed towards them, raising a hand in greeting.

"Hi, Armsmaster, guys," she said as she arrived, Ethan and the others, including the man in charge of the PRT troopers, joining them. "Looks like it's a go. Nothing has changed, and we've locked down all the sewers and drains under the place so the can't get out that way, even if they know how to get into them in the first place. Their sentries have called ahead, so they're well aware we're here. We'll give them a chance to surrender peacefully, but if they don't..." She shrugged. "We'll go in after them."

"My men have already established an outer perimeter a quarter of a mile back," the PRT captain said. "We'll set up an inner one at this range as well."

"Great. We're expecting that a few of them might get past us in the confusion, of which I expect a considerable amount," Raptaur smiled. The captain nodded, looking like he did as well. "Be careful, we know they have a hell of a lot of AK-47s and that sort of thing, and I can smell some sort of explosive as well. I'm guessing grenades at least."

"What about booby-traps in the buildings around here?" Battery asked, looking up at them.

"Possible, but I can't smell any explosives out here, so they're probably fairly simple if they exist," the large reptile replied. "We can have a look afterward. For now, I think we need to round them up as smoothly as possible. We're going to do what we discussed. Metis and Ianthe are watching them to make sure no one is rude and sneaks off early."

Assault snickered, gaining a mild glare from his wife, and a smirk from Raptaur.

"Are you certain that you don't require aid in this part of the operation?" Colin asked. "I'm quite prepared to help, as are the others." He looked at his colleagues who nodded. Hannah's power had manifested as a large sniper rifle, which she was holding over her shoulder. Battery was glowing with power, fully charged, and Assault cracked his knuckles.

"Thanks for the offer, but we can handle the base. I don't want you guys getting hurt over our problem. Just make sure none of them we miss get away and I'll be happy," she replied with a smile.

A shot echoed around the area, making everyone whirl and reach for weapons. Raptaur looked over her shoulder and called out something in that odd language, which seemed to make Hannah twitch. A reply came back from Metis, even through the incomprehensible hissing sounding amused.

"What was that?" Ethan asked.

"One of them took a shot at Metis, she said it tickled. Maybe a fifty caliber rifle or something? Heavier than an AK anyway."

Colin stared at her, then exchanged a glance with Hannah. Her gun changed, growing larger and heavier. Raptaur looked at it and smiled a little.

"I doubt they're going to cooperate but we need to give them a chance, I think," she said. "OK, let me know when you have your perimeter set up."

Captain Peters raised his hand to his ear, tapping his headset, then talked quietly to his people for a moment. "Five minutes," he reported when he was done.

With a nod, Raptaur looked pleased. "Great. OK, we go in six minutes in that case. Good luck, and don't get killed." She looked around at them all. Everyone nodded, it was a sensible sentiment.

Colin went out of his way not to get killed.

With a quick wave she trotted back to her original spot, Metis jumping off the roof of the four story warehouse and landing next to her with a crunch of compressed concrete, saying something in a low voice. Raptaur nodded, then they all waited.

"Does anyone else feel like we're in a horror movie, only on the side of the monsters?" Ethan whispered after thirty seconds. "We're standing around in the dark, waiting for three enormous scaly monsters to go after a building full of normal humans." Everyone looked at him, his wife sighing loudly.

"It's just a little weird, that's all I'm saying," he added defensively.

"They may be enormous and scaly but they're hardly monsters," Colin replied in quiet tones. "I consider them friends."

"Don't get me wrong, so do I, but..." His colleague shrugged. "Still weird."

Ianthe also jumped off her building, landing in a crouch next to Raptaur, who was almost invisible in the dark. Except for her eyes, Metis was completely invisible, having apparently somehow turned off her red highlights and leaving only the remarkably light absorbing black of her scales. Even the violet one merged into the background appallingly well.

Colin understood what the other man meant. He just felt it was inappropriate to say, especially as he was certain all three of the Family members could hear them just fine.

"Two minutes," the PRT captain said in a low voice, listening to his earpiece. Around them, Colin could hear weapons being readied.

A short burst of rapid clicking sounds emanated from the direction of the reptiles. He tried to work out what caused it, realizing after a moment that Metis and Ianthe were now wearing armor very similar to Raptaur's customary garb. It seemed to have grown out of their necklaces, which was fascinating. He made a note to ask about how that was done, as it would seem to have some interesting applications.

"Our people are ready," Captain Peters announced. Even fifty yards off, Raptaur looked around, then nodded, proving she could hear them perfectly. She said something to her relatives, who separated and moved off to opposite sides of the street. Colin looked at Hannah, then began moving into a position to let him observe their attack, his colleagues and Peters doing the same. Making sure his helmet camera was recording, he stopped next to Raptaur. She glanced at him for a moment then went back to waiting.

At the final second, she issued a command to her cousins, who looked at each other before disappearing around the corner towards the Merchant's base, heading to different position. Raptaur stepped around the corner and raised her hands to her muzzle.

"Merchants! This is Raptaur of the Family. You have two minutes to surrender and come out. We will not harm you, but you are all under arrest. If you don't surrender, we're coming in," she called in a firm and remarkably loud deep voice.

There was a short pause, while the echoes of her shout died away.

Then the shooting started.

"Eep," Hannah said, pulling back quickly. Colin did the same, the others also taking cover. He could see PRT troopers crouching behind various wrecked cars and other bits of detritus as bullets spanged off everything in the area, ricochets whining overhead.

Raptaur simply stood where she'd stopped, not moving, as bullets bounced off her. After a pause, she raised her hands again.

"Sixty seconds," she called.

He stared at her. Apparently the lethal hail hadn't dissuaded her from her ultimatum.

"RPG!" one of the troopers on the other side of the road screamed, diving flat. Everyone bar the huge lizard followed suit as there was a screaming roar of rocket exhaust immediately followed by a massive blast, orange flame lighting the entire area and a huge concussion rolling over them all. Horrified, Colin uncovered his head, turning to inspect where the warhead had hit, which was directly on Raptaur's chest.

She looked down, then up at the building, her eyes narrowing under her armor. The huge lizard looked entirely unmarked, her armor not showing a hint of where the rocket propelled thermobaric explosive had hit it. "Thirty seconds!" she shouted.

"Girl's nuts," Ethan grinned. "That was very impressive. And cool."

"That's a high level Brute if ever I've seen one," Battery muttered.

Everyone ducked again as another RPG round screamed out from the second floor of the building, this one missing her by a couple of feet.

They all stared as she snapped out a hand far too rapidly to see the motion and plucked the rocket out of the air as it went past.

"Fuck me," Peters muttered in shock. He went silent as she ate the round. So did the Merchants, the firing suddenly stopping. Colin got the impression that there were a large number of people staring out in horror, since he could see a large number of his own people doing the same.

"OK," Ethan mumbled when he recovered a little. "Now she's just showing off."

"Excellent psychological technique," Colin noted, nodding approvingly.

"Time's up. Our turn now," Raptaur called, sounding suddenly very predatory. She looked to each side, calling something else in her own language, then moved so fast she basically disappeared from view. Metis was totally invisible in the dark, Ianthe was just a blur. Three synchronized crunching sounds echoed as they all punched straight through doors and walls, disappearing into the large building.

"We're Heeerrree!" Ianthe's voice sang gaily.

There was a long pause.

All the internal lights went out, the entire area going completely dark except for reflected sky glow and various tally lights on equipment the troopers had.

Then the screaming started.

"Definitely a horror movie," Ethan quipped. His wife slapped him on the back of the head.

{Make sure your cameras are on,} Taylor called. {We're up. Don't hurt them too much, but make sure they remember this.}

Amy grinned in a dark and unpleasant manner. {They're not going to forget, believe me,} she called back, accelerating towards her target, the wall next to the door at the end of the building. Lisa was aiming right at the main entrance and doing the same, charging forward and looking like she was enjoying herself.

All three of them hit at damn near exactly the same moment, Amy bursting through the brick wall in a cloud of debris and dust. She called a happy greeting at the top of her voice, grinning at the four Merchants who had been aiming at the door with their weapons. Raising her arms and double-checking she'd selected the soporific, she dropped all of them before they had a chance to do much more than gape in horror.

Moments later the lights went out, Taylor having found the power feed to the warehouse and sliced through it as they'd planned. Screams of terror and yelled orders echoed around the building as the Merchants went berserk.

She heard shots all around her, as well as several of them jumping out windows in showers of glass and shattered wood as they broke out the boards they'd covered most of the openings with.

{Let them go, the PRT will get them,} Taylor called.

{OK,} she called back.

{Try to get the ones who are shooting first,} Lisa added, {before they kill someone. I'm healing one of them who caught a round in the chest, his friends are all down.}

{Got four already,} she yelled, smiling, then firing at a group who came around the end of the corridor, shooting at her, the muzzle flashes lighting the area brightly. She could see fine in between the shots, of course, but they obviously couldn't, and the strobing light was playing hell with their night vision. {Make that nine,} she added, after firing a few more darts.

{Twelve for me so far,} Taylor reported from the other end of the building.

A very loud explosion shook dust from the walls. {Watch out, they're chucking grenades around now,} their friend called. {They're going to kill themselves at this rate.}

{I found their drug lab,} Lisa said after another thirty seconds, and three more victims to Amy's darts. {There's about two dozen of them in here hiding behind all the equipment.}

{Be careful, a lot of drug manufacturing uses volatile solvents,} Amy warned, climbing up the wall to cling to an exposed concrete beam as several Merchants dived out of a room next to her looking wildly around in every direction but up. She aimed and dropped all of them. {If you spill anything, or they do, a shot might set off the vapor and the whole place will go up.}

{Yes, I know that, but thanks for stating the obvious. I'll leave that for last, I can go over the roof and come in the window behind them,} her friend called out, sounding like she was trying not to laugh.

{Looks like they were trying to finish Squealer's latest invention,} Taylor said a moment later. {Doesn't look like they improved it, though. I've cut it in half just to be on the safe side.}

Shots and screams echoed around the corridors and rooms of the building. Two more grenades went off, one outside and one inside, then there was the whoosh of yet another RPG round being fired from somewhere upstairs.

Amy looked up, working out where the rockets were being fired from, before charging up a ladder that had been crudely although solidly attached to the wall and went through a hatch in the floor that led into what was once some sort of loading area, a crane attached to the ceiling in a way that would let it swing out through a large opening at the side of the warehouse. Five men and two women were crouched over a large crate that had Cyrillic lettering on it, from which she could smell the scent of high explosives.

Two of them were reloading a pair of launchers, while one was holding a small flashlight on the operation, and another pair were feeling around in the crate for more rounds. She found it very satisfying, knowing that she could see them as clear as day, and they could see practically nothing.

This was fun.

Almost unfair, but still fun.

Watching for a moment, she grinned.

"I see dead people," she hissed as menacingly as she could, in a low inhuman voice, thinking that the Varga would approve.

They froze, one of them literally pissing himself in horror.

Lifting the flashlight, the wielder turned it towards where her voice had come from, screamed in terror, threw it at her, and dived towards the window. She put him down before he'd got two feet, worried that he'd kill himself with the forty foot drop.

When one of the ones holding a loaded rocket launcher turned it towards her, she rolled her eyes and shot the rest of them as fast as possible, watching in satisfaction as they toppled.

"Haven't you ever played computer games, you idiots?" she muttered in English. "You never use the rocket launcher at close range. Especially on something that can tank it."

Checking them all, she nodded, then kicked down the door at the end of the room and headed deeper into the building, humming to herself under her breath and having a hell of a time.

'We should have invited Cloak, she'd enjoy this,' she mused as she started shooting back at the crowd of addicts who fired manically at her from various hiding places. 'Maybe next time.'

Twitching as a bullet bounced off his power armor, Colin whipped his halberd around and tapped a switch, the taser round he'd cued up and locked on target with his HUD zipping out in a cloud of propellant, arcing over the car the Merchant had ducked behind, then sharply altering course to hit him. There was a muffled crackling sound and a faint yelp.

Satisfied, he looked around for more targets, his target acquisition program searching the thermal signatures of the various people in the area.

Hannah was up two stories behind him in a warehouse, firing precise shots from a beanbag gun at some of the two dozen or so Merchants who had fled the total rout taking place in their base. As she knocked them down, the PRT troopers dashed out and foamed them, or launched containment grenades at them. There were patches of solid foam with limbs sticking out all over the area. Ethan and his wife were charging about corralling other escapees, having already stopped two of them going into the water, which was cold enough to be a very significant health hazard.

Splashing sounds and a scream made it apparent that they'd missed one, so he sighed and headed over, readying a line-throwing cartridge in his weapons. Moments later he was reeling in a shocked and soaked man, who one of the troopers relieved him of in short order. The Merchant almost looked happy at the act.

More explosions came from inside the warehouse, along with screams, yells, and shooting. The sounds were steadily dying away, they were clearly taking large losses. He wasn't surprised. The three reptilian capes worked as a team with remarkable precision, and there was little any of the Merchants could do to slow them down, certainly nothing they could do to stop them.

He strongly suspected that they could, in fact, have wrapped this all up themselves much faster, but didn't want to tip their hand to everyone about how dangerous they really were. Colin approved, it was strategically sound, but he was still very curious to know just what they really were capable of if they went all out.

That said, with any luck it would never become necessary to find out.

He could hear them calling to each other, coordinating their attacks in that weird language. The firing intensified for a moment, then abruptly dropped off rapidly. Presumably an internal stronghold had been breached and cleared out. Checking the time, he saw it had only been forty-five minutes since the first shots were fired.

It seemed much longer, like battle always did.

Pondering the mysteries of subjective versus objective time, he deflected a club wielded by a screaming drug addict who dived out of a doorway with his halberd shaft, then adroitly spun the thing a hundred and eighty degrees and zapped the man with the built in cattle-prod, watching as his attacker lost consciousness.

'Two seconds. Not good enough, I need to up the voltage perhaps sixteen percent.'

He made a note.

A descending scream made him look up, then shake his head in disappointment, as another Merchant plummeted out of a top floor window and arced neatly into the bay. Metis appeared in the window, peering down at him, shrugged, waved, and vanished back inside.

He went to retrieve that one as well as she splashed around in the water, coughing and spluttering, waving a trooper after him.

Honestly, some of these people were just stupid.

Smiling grimly as the two Merchants ran out of ammunition, then looked horrified that she was simply standing there, Taylor raised a dart gun and carefully shot each of them in the chest. They stiffened, then slumped, their empty weapons clattering to the floor. Satisfied that there were none left in this part of the building she looked around, tracing the heat sources and the scents, then began tracking the ones that had fled when she'd removed the door with a slap of her tail.

She could see footprints glowing with heat leading up a flight of stairs, so she followed them, hearing people running around above her. {I just had an idea,} she called, the sound of her voice making the remaining Merchants yell again.

{What idea?} Amy called back, somewhere fairly close. She could smell Lisa down at the other end, and up on the next floor.

{We need some one shot symbiotes, like field bandages. We could all carry them with us in case we had a lot of people that needed healing, and make them part of the first aid kits at the yard too. Think it's possible?}

There was a pause, followed by the sound of Amy's dart launchers firing three times. {Should be, yes,} she said over the sound of several bodies hitting the floor. {Good idea. I'll think about it and see about a prototype.}

{You could make them as darts too,} Lisa added from the other end of the warehouse. {Then we could shoot people with our healing guns. That would be cool.}

{And a little weird,} Amy laughed.

{So are we, no one would be surprised,} Taylor snickered. {That's actually quite a good idea. Do that.}

{I'll put it on the list.}

{You know that even if we live forever, we'll never actually finish that list, don't you?} Lisa asked, just before someone screamed.

{Maybe not but we'll never be bored. How many do you think are left?}

Taylor thought, then called back, {I'd guess about fifteen at most.}

{I make it thirteen,} Lisa corrected.

Another scream, abruptly cut off, came from somewhere.

{Twelve.}

{Ten,} Amy said with a laugh in her voice, two more dart shots sounding off.

They were finished five minutes later, all meeting up at the middle of the building on the top floor. {That's it, I think,} Taylor smiled. {All done. I can't hear anyone moving anymore, or smell them either.}

{Nope, neither can I,} Lisa replied with a look of pleased contentment. {That was a hell of a lot of fun. You invite us to all the best events.}

{Good practice as well,} Amy put in, grinning. {I think about twenty-four or twenty-five of them made it outside. The PRT and the capes put them all down pretty efficiently.}

{They do know what they're doing,} Taylor nodded. {Great. Mission accomplished. Let's find them all and take them outside, hand them over, then sweep the place carefully to make sure we didn't miss any. Once the PRT are finished here, I'm bringing the whole place down. Skidmark is out of business for good.}

{Fine by me,} Amy nodded. {Fucking drug dealers.}

{I wonder if anyone's found Abby yet?} Lisa asked.

Taylor shrugged. {Don't know. The spell was canceled right on schedule, so the body is just lying there. They'll find it sooner or later. Come on, let's finish this up, I have plans for later.}

{Going flying again?} Amy asked with a smirk.

{Damn right I am. Once I've worked the bugs out, we need to figure out how to build something for you guys.} They headed off into the building, locating each of their captives.

{Now that I'm looking forward to,} Lisa smiled, sounding eager.

Hannah watched as the troopers loaded the last of the unconscious Merchants into the remaining truck, making it a grand total of one hundred and nine.

"This has got to be some sort of record," Ethan said with an impressed look. "I need to look it up."

"It's certainly a very good outcome," Colin said approvingly. "Very efficiently done as well." The door closed on the truck, then the engine started and it drove off.

Metis and Ianthe had gone over each Merchant carefully, healing up any injuries, of which there were surprisingly few caused by the raid. The three lizards had been very cautious in their work. They'd also removed all the restraints they'd applied, the troopers replacing them with disposable zip ties. Ianthe told them that the prisoners would begin to regain consciousness in an hour, which would be enough time to get them into cells. The police were taking about half of them, the PRT the remainder, since neither organization had enough free spaces alone.

The Merchant base was currently over-run by both BBPD CSI techs and their PRT counterparts, camera flashes going off nearly constantly and a flow of material being carried out and packed away. The evidence was enough to put the leaders of the gang away for years, decades in some cases. They'd also worked out the identities of Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush, based on papers they'd found. That would come in handy as and when they managed to capture any of the three.

Raptaur was still intent on destroying the building when the techs were finished, which Hannah was slightly against, but she wasn't going to argue the point. She could understand why the reptilian cape wanted to do it, and at least half agreed. It sent a very powerful message if nothing else.

She was also curious to see how it would be done.

One of the BBPD officers who had been on a squad that was sweeping the surrounding buildings for Merchant holdouts came over to them, his face somber. "Sir, we found something you need to see," he said quietly to Colin.

The Tinker looked at him, then Hannah, before following the man. Ethan trailed after them out of apparent curiosity more than anything else.

Shortly they were in a building a street away from the Merchant base and a couple of blocks further away from the water, watching two other officers take photos.

"ID?" Colin asked, scanning the corpse that was lying on the floor in a pile of old cardboard, in a pose that suggested she'd been raising her hands defensively.

"Nothing we can find, sir," one of the police techs said. He pointed to a small collection of odds and ends in a container on the floor. "That's all she had in her pockets."

"She hasn't been dead long," Ethan commented, examining the blood surrounding the destroyed face. "No more than a couple of hours at most based on that."

"Shot at fairly close range as well, perhaps ten to fifteen feet," the officer who'd brought them over pointed out. "Powder burns on her clothes. Looks like 9mm rounds."

Squatting down next to the body, Colin ran another device over her, frowned at the display, then fiddled with it for a moment. "Yes, 9mm hollow point rounds. Two in the chest cavity, one in the heart and one through the right lung, three more in the brain." He changed the settings on his device and waved it over her head again. There wasn't much left. "Interesting."

"What?" she asked.

"This person had a corona pollentia and a gemma."

Hannah stared at him. "She was a Parahuman?"

"Yes." He straightened up, studying the body with a grim set to his mouth. "I suspect this is, or was, Squealer."

"Ah." She nodded slowly. "Yes, interesting, definitely. I wonder who shot her?"

"The bullet data is consistent with records of other crimes that were associated with the Merchants," he replied thoughtfully. "I would suggest that implies it was most likely them. We'll need to extract the rounds and run a full ballistics test, but I would be unsurprised to find it is a perfect match to a known Merchant gun. It seems likely that either she was recaptured and executed by them, or her initial disappearance was the responsibility of someone in her own gang. I suspect at Skidmark's orders in either case."

He sighed a little. "Pity. She was a good Tinker. If she'd chosen differently I suspect she could have made something of herself."

Hannah shook her head. "Tinkers do have a short life in gangs," she noted. Turning to the police officer, she added, "Process her fully, you know the procedure. I'll arrange transport."

"Thank you, Ma'am," he said respectfully, nodding to her. They looked at the body once more, then left.

Back in the street, Battery was talking to Raptaur and her cousins. They all looked up when Hannah and the others joined them. "We found Squealer," Colin announced.

Raptaur looked at him closely. "That didn't sound good."

"No. She's deceased, I'm afraid."

"Oh." The reptilian woman glanced at her relatives. "Are you sure it's her?"

"Almost certain, but it will require DNA tests. We have the tools from her workshop as a match. But the body the police found is that of a blonde Parahuman woman of approximately twenty-five to twenty-seven years of age, which is consistent with known facts about Squealer. She appears to have been executed at close range and some attempt made to obliterate her face."

Metis looked slightly appalled. "That's... unpleasant."

"Very. But it's one name off our list." Colin sighed. "A shame in a way, but if all this went off with only one casualty, and that apparently an act by the gang itself, I think we can mark it down as a success. Thank you all for your work, and involving us."

"It was our pleasure," Raptaur told him. She looked over at the warehouse, which was still disgorging people and evidence. "How long will your people need to finish up?"

"Another half an hour," Hannah said.

"OK."

Just over that time later, she watched with the others as Raptaur went back into the building, re-emerging a few minutes later. The large reptile joined them. "Well, I think that's it for tonight," she said with a smile. Pointing at the warehouse with one finger, she added, "Bang."

The entire building rumbled, then collapsed in on itself, as the lizards looked pleased and everyone else gaped. "Jesus," Captain Peters muttered.

"Impressive," Colin said after a moment, watching the remains settle in the light of the diesel-powered floods set up around the place. "How did you do that?"

"Something I've been working on for a little while," Raptaur replied. "I haven't decided what to call it yet. But it removed all the internal supports and walls and ground them to powder. There's nothing left in there except dust now."

"Very effective," he nodded. "I would be interested in learning more at some point."

"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement," she smiled. Holding out her hand, she shook his, then that of the other three Parahumans and Captain Peters. Metis and Ianthe did the same. "If you need anything else, you know how to get hold of us. It was interesting working with you all." With a slightly evil grin, she added, "Perhaps one day there will be a reason to call in the real combat members of our family, but this was a good training exercise."

She looked at her companions and said something in that weird language as Hannah tried to work out if she was joking or not, coming up blank. "See you around," she added in English, before all three turned and jogged off into the dark.

"Well, that was weird," Ethan said after twenty seconds or so of slightly appalled silence. He glanced at the remains of the Merchant's base, which was a low mound of rubble with dust rising from it and blowing into the bay in the chilly breeze. "Remind me never to upset them."

"If you need reminding of that there's more wrong with you than I realized," his wife sighed, making him grin.

Hannah agreed fully with the sentiment, staring at the pile of bricks and shivering a little.

She was very glad when they finally packed up and left.