Date 22/01/2060, Location 40.31723, 51.69616

Kai put down his glass and looked over the room to the other bunk, where Tadibya was sitting cross-legged, her eyes glazed over as she meditated.

"Feel that? Engines have stopped. And I've got a bad feeling…"

Tadibya blinked rapidly as she came out of her trance, and then called her spirit to her. It answered at once, the sea spirit appearing astrally by her side – that meant it wasn't dawn yet. Couldn't be far off though – the sun should be up soon. Kai pushed himself out of his chair and opened the door into the passageway, crossing it swiftly and pushing open the door to Aswon and Hunter's room without knocking. Aswon was performing some kind of calisthenics, but paused mid-movement when Kai leant around the door. Hunter was dozing lightly, but woke and sat up rapidly as Kai spoke.

"Engines just stopped, and I've got a really weird feeling. Grab your gear, just in case."

They didn't get chance to speak to him, as he ducked out of the room straight away, crossing back over the passageway and to the next room to his, entering the cabin assigned to Marius and Shimazu. Shimazu was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cabin, with his sword laid across his knees. His eyes flicked up to Kai and then relaxed slightly, and his hand loosened on the hilt of his sword – until he saw the body language, and heard the message as Kai repeated the warning. Shimazu smoothly rose from his position and turned to the bunk, poking the foot sticking out of the bottom of the duvet. Marius continued to snore loudly, but the foot withdrew into the warmth, until Shimazu poked him again and roused him from his dreams.

Back in the second cabin, Hunter had glanced out of the porthole and then done a double-take, checking the time on his internal display and peering out again.

"Hey Aswon… its dawn. Should be light. But its dark out – can't see anything."

Aswon left the room, spear and rifle in hand and moved swiftly to the end of the corridor and one of the doors leading out onto the gantry that spanned the ship. Crouching by the side of the doorway, he pulled the large plastic lever that undogged the mechanism, and pushed the door open – ducking back as he did so. No gunfire or shouts of alarm greeted him – but a thick tendril of fog wafted into the ship swiftly. Glancing out, he could barely see ten metres through the roiling bank of dense water vapour. Everything was a uniform grey, with barely any light making it through the bank of fog, and sounds were deadened and flat. He reached out and pulled the door shut, and locked it again, then returned back down the corridor, heading into Kai and Tadibya's cabin.

Everyone was there now – Shimazu strapping on his armour, Hunter with his assault rifle cocked and ready to go, Marius passing out the tactical comms system from the padded travel case.

"Fog outside – crazy levels of fog. Can't even see the back of the ship…"

"Stern," interrupted Marius.

"Whatever you want to call it, you can't see it. Everything's quiet and visibility sucks!"

Tadibya quickly crossed to sit on a bed, and then projected out of her body – she flew outside the superstructure quickly, and looked at the fog, did a quick circuit of the superstructure and then returned to her body moments later.

"It's not magical, not so far as I can tell anyway. Think it's just a crazy foggy morning. I'm going to ask my spirit to go do a better look around though." She concentrated for a moment, imparting her wishes upon her spirit, and then focussed again on the room, seeing everybody bar Marius leaving in a line. With a shrug, she leaned back on the bunk and waited, keeping an ear open and checking the area around them astrally.

Kai led Hunter, Shimazu and Aswon up the stairway to the top deck, ignoring the warning given previously by the crew when they had boarded to stay away from the bridge. Reaching the landing outside the bridge, he was confronted with a sturdy security door made of toughened metal, with small security-grade polarised windows. The door was locked shut, and with no way to peer through the windows, he was forced to push the small intercom button next to the door.

A very testy-sounding voice demanded to know what he wanted. It was the voice of a woman who had a whole heap of problems, and really didn't want any distractions at the moment. None the less, Kai persisted.

"Listen, we may be able to help. Tell me what went on, from the beginning. We're stuck here with you, you make as well make use of us."

"Alright. Look, I've buzzed the captain, he's on the way. Everything was fine overnight, but a few minutes ago, we started to lose speed, but the engine room commed us to say the engine revs were going up, and they needed to throttle back to avoid damaging the engines. We're looking into it."

Kai leaned over to Hunter and spoke quietly.

"Why not go get some more stuff from the truck. Lots of things that go bang and such like". Hunter grinned, and headed back down the flight of stairs to their initial deck, and out of the forward hatchway into the dense fog, heading for where the truck was securely chained down to the anchor points.

Down below in the cabin, Tadibya suddenly sat up as the badly mauled remains of her spirit limped into the room, flakes of magic falling from the deep wounds inflicted upon it. It was barely cohesive, and had obviously taken a thorough battering at the hands of some force.

"Strong beings, all around the back of the ship, under the water. Around the churner. The big one saw me and attacked, but I ran away to come and tell you. Quite strong, many beings of water, full of angles."

Tadibya told the spirit to wait here, in relative safety and shot up astrally through the deck and manifested next to Kai and the others, making them jump slightly with the suddenness. She swiftly recounted the news that there were water elementals around the propeller, and then shot back to her body.

Kai was just relaying the information to the watch officer via the intercom as the Captain of the vessel appeared, running up the stairs in a tracksuit and fleecy top rather than his normal uniform, and clutching a pistol holster and belt in his hand. He heard the back end of the conversation as he stopped at the top of the stairs, buckling the belt around his waist before he popped the stud and opened the protective waterproof flap, drew the pistol, checked the magazine and chambered a round.

As he did so, there was a quiet but deep "boom" and a faint shudder through the deck plates. The lighting flickered and then died, to be replaced by the emergency lighting. Leaning past Kai, he depressed the intercom button.

"Knudsen, it's the Captain. I'm outside with our guests. I'm heading down to the engine room to check things out. Send out the distress call, it sounds like we have boarders."

There was a second boom, and then the emergency lights went out too. The captain turned and headed down the stairs, with the team following him. As he reached the next staircase, his entourage grew larger, as Tadibya and Marius joined them. Marius looked at the team with a frown on his face.

"Whassup?" asked Kai, seeing the frown on the German's face.

Marius tapped his ear first, then pulled out one of the tactical radios. When he turned up the volume, howls of static could be heard from the speaker.

"Jamming. Pretty powerful. Point source is close – but it's echoing and magnified by the ship hull. Somewhere inside seventy five metres, but I'm pretty certain we can't call for help through this – it's on every frequency I've tried."

The Captain looked over his shoulder as he heard this, and scowled at them – clearly wondering if his passengers were the cause of this assault. Tadibya waved her hand, and then focussed on the astral, calling her spirit from the room and asking it to appear physically, and to describe what the elementals were doing. The spirit materialised, a wispy cloud of roiling green and blue, with small waves rolling over its surface. It appeared as a blob, not even taking humanoid form – just a ball of "stuff". It spoke, the sound distorted as if music was being played on land but listened to in a swimming pool – until the listeners realised that it was actually the other way around.

"The beings are gathered around the churner. They are working together. They are holding back the…"

The sun finally crested the horizon, signifying the end of night and the start of day.

POP.

The spirit disappeared, returning back to the astral realm, the bargain it had struck expiring with the cosmological start of a new day. It disappeared like a soap bubble growing too large, there one moment, but gone the next.

Tadibya sighed, as she checked her watch, then shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, there's a bunch of elementals, all as powerful as the spirits I summon, messing with your boat. I'm not sure how, and it's probably very dangerous to go and try and find out.

Tensing, the Captain looked about to say something, but changed his mind and closed his mouth, then resumed his pace, and moved swiftly and surely, racing down the stairway with the pistol held in a two-handed grip, his gait easily compensating for the slow wallowing of the ship.

The deck below was dark, the corridor being internal and all the lighting being out. Only the first few steps were vaguely lit by the grey dreary light filtering down the corridor they stood in. The Captain did not pause though, and barrelled down the stairs into the darkness. The team moved to back him up, following down the stairway in single file. As they did, the stairs got darker and darker as their bodies blocked out the light from the deck above. Shimazu led the way, followed by Aswon, Marius, Tadibya and with Kai bringing up the rear.

Just as the Captain reached the bottom of the stairs a single pistol shot rang out, and the Captain flew back into Shimazu with a cry. Shimazu caught him by reflex, and the lolling body flopped in his arms. As Shimazu's arm grasped the Captain, he felt the wide plastic mushroom of the gel round pressed into his chest. Whoever had just shot him was using "less lethal" ammo at least – but the impact had hit him in the sternum and the driven consciousness from him. Shimazu let him slide down his body and ducked around him, sprinting towards the corner with his sword held at the ready. Time flowed like thick viscous liquid as his reactions kicked into high gear, and he felt the others moving behind him.

His brain caught up with his reactions though as he reached the corner of the T-junction ahead. He knew his sword was raised in front of him, held in a close-high guard. His hands were inches away from his chin, the ancient steel blade rising up in front of him with the razor sharp blade ready to cut in any direction. And he couldn't see a single thing. He didn't even have any idea where his hands were visually. This… this was a dumb idea. He needed a light, or to let someone who could see go first. He flattened himself against the wall, on the right hand side of the corridor, making plenty of room for someone to leapfrog past him.

Aswon, rifle raised in front of him, followed up Shimazu, and leant around him when it was clear he wasn't moving forward. He paused at the darkness too, letting his enhanced vision suck in the light, trying to discern details. Being able to see in "low light" was no good in "no light" though, and he, too, paused.

Marius followed up, and with a cybernetic command switched to ultrasound. Tiny emitters built into the corners of his cybereyes blasted out high-frequency sound, and the receivers gathered the returning information, building a wire-frame 3d view that was sent over his optic nerves. As he moved round wider, trying to see past Aswon and Shimazu, his vision picked up an anomalous reading, just around the corner from Shimazu. Something small, about the size of a large fruit, on the floor, was causing the sound waves to scatter in odd directions. He was only picking it up from the bounced signals from the far wall, so it was an amorphous blob though, lacking any definition. He pointed it out to Aswon, then fell back, trying to clear some space.

Tadibya had moved around and under the stairs, and sat down with her back against the bulkhead, letting her astral form wash out of her body and got ready to move ahead and scout for the team. In the astral, the bulkheads, ceiling and floor were the washed out grey of manufactured items, but the air sparkled slightly with motes and bacterial life, and like everywhere in the astral realm, the lighting was a smooth, constant white.

Kai grabbed the Captain and checked him over, pulling out the gel-round from the dent in his chest and expertly probing the ribs. Cracked, not broken, and the breathing was ok. He'd been knocked out from the traumatic shock, and was going to have a hell of a bruise, but he'd be fine in a few hours. He struggled with the body for a moment, but then managed to liberate the keycard from his pocket and the pistol from his grip.

Back at the corner, Aswon threw a loose round down in the direction Marius indicated, and heard a dull "thwock" as it hit something – it sounded plastic, but dense. Shimazu pulled back away from the corner, feeling a shudder down his spine as Tadibya flew through him astrally and sped down the corridor. Shimazu looked around to work out what had happened, and saw Kai struggling with the body - moving to assist, he easily hefted the Captain over his shoulder, and started to climb the stairs. Tadibya flew on, unaware of the discomfort she had caused, and she saw the man who had shot the Captain just as he turned through a door most of the way down the passage, the astral form bright and clear as day.

Moments later the grenade he had placed at the corner went off. Rather than exploding, it released a high pressure stream of compressed gas, spinning and wobbling over the deck from the force of the expulsion. Marius retreated back down the corridor quickly, whilst Aswon backed off down the left leg of the T-junction. He was closer than the others, and unfortunately the edge of the gas cloud washed over him. The potent chemicals soaked through his clothing and were quickly absorbed by his skin.

Aswon exhaled sharply, gasping the word, "GAS!" as he did so. He backed off quickly, knowing he had only moments of clarity left before the chemicals took effect. Slamming into the door at the end of the short corridor, he swept the locking mechanism over, pushed through the door, and then pushed it closed behind him. A second later his vision exploded into coloured streaks that seemed to shoot out of the darkness ahead of him, his ears rang like a bad case of tinnitus, and muscle trembles and contractions made him twitch and sway in place. A throb across his temples made him smile though. It quickly wiped from his features as a second throb followed, then a third, then a fourth. The quick onset migraine was a tell-tale sign of Neuro-Stun VII gas – one of the most common "non-lethal" gas types. On the good side, it meant he wasn't going to die. On the bad side, he was going to have vivid hallucinations, balance problems, mild incontinence and a headache that felt like some small creature had climbed inside his skull with a mallet and was going crazy for some time.

He tried to remember the breakdown time for the gas… was it one minute or ten? Did the headache last for an hour, or more? He couldn't think clearly, what with the alarm bells he could barely hear over the rushing of the waves as the wall gently stroked him with pink fronds of warmed fur. He stood still, or at least he thought he did, and tried to ignore the crazed messages his body and mind sent him as the psychoactive drugs went to town on his nervous system – thinking back to training he had received when he first signed up as a mercenary. He remembered the grizzled instructor who had given them "a sniff" of the gas, so they knew what to expect, and how terrified he'd been when he'd seen his face melt and slide across the floor. But he also remembered that he'd been told the best thing to do was to hunker down and stay still. Sure you were not combat-effective – but you also then didn't wander off the edge of a cliff, into a minefield or out of your foxhole during a strike and into the field of fire. He swayed on his feet as his balance went, standing in the darkened room, unaware of the shit-eating grin plastered on his face as sweat ran down the side of his head and he giggled to himself.

Meanwhile, back on deck; Hunter had reached the truck and grabbed a pocket full of grenades, another assault rifle, several magazines, a little bit of demo and finally had slung two LAWs over his shoulder. Moving somewhat slower than before, he was just climbing out of the truck and locking the door, when a flash of movement from the bow end of the ship distracted him, barely seen through the fog. He crouched by the truck's wheel, and watched. Sure enough, thirty seconds later, he saw it again. A large, muscular man, with something large and heavy-looking clutched to his chest, staggering out from behind a pump and across the open part of the deck, before disappearing behind a mass of pipes.

Hunter locked and loaded, and then moved forwards, darting from cover to cover. He closed the distance and sighted the rifle, ready to attack if he saw aggressors. Slowly he closed the distance, catching glimpses of the man as he crossed and re-crossed the open deck area. What was he carrying that was so heavy? Gold? Demo? Ammunition? He continued to move up, cautiously – aware that he was out here in the fog, on his own, with no backup.

Kai and Shimazu ran up the stairs, back to the bridge, Shimazu with the unconscious form of the Captain slung over his shoulder. They reached the door to the bridge, but the intercom looked to be down, and they had to shout to get the deck officer's attention. They laid the Captain out next to the door, then ran back down the stairs and out onto the deck, going looking for Hunter and some more firepower.

Hunter was close enough now to make out the features of the man running back and forth across the deck. He was not that tall, but powerfully built, with thick muscular legs and massive biceps. Wearing a t-shirt and shorts, he looked more kitted out for morning run, than a boarding action. Finally Hunter worked out what he was carrying – it was a link from an anchor chain. The huge piece of metal must have weighed over a hundred kilos easily, and the guy had it clutched to his chest. As he ran back and forth, his breath came in short rapid gasps and his face was a bright red.

Kai and Shimazu ran past the truck, having spotted Hunter crouching by some deck equipment. As they closed on him, Hunter saw them and raised a finger to his mouth, pointing towards the bow. The moved forwards more cautiously, but not as quietly as Hunter – on the next pass the man spotted them and slowed to a halt. With a struggle, he crouched and let the anchor link slide down to the deck, where it landed with a resounding clang.

"What are…. You doing…. Out here…." he demanded, his chest labouring up and down, fighting for oxygen.

"We think the ship's been boarded. The lights are all out, including the emergency lights, the bridge door is locked down, and the Captain took a round – only a stun round, but he's out like a light. Someone's on the lower deck, and has planted some booby traps and gas grenades. And who are you, and what were you doing?" said Kai.

"Chris Harris, I'm the Cheng." He saw the look of confusion on their faces. "Chief Engineer. And I was doing my morning workout. It's like a beep test, but with a bit of weight."

All three of them looked down at the anchor link, and imagined what it was like trying to do timed sprints back and forth with that resting on their chest. Whilst they shuddered and wondered if he also liked being stabbed, or eating broken glass, Chris had disappeared out of view for a moment. When he reappeared, he had a large sledge-hammer held in one hand with the head resting on his shoulder. Despite being a full-sized sledge, it looked vaguely child-like in his grip.

"Now, who's been taking liberties with my engines and my Captain?"

They chose not to mention his choice of priorities, and filled him in on more information as they headed back to the accommodation block at the rear of the ship. As they neared the truck, Chris veered off towards the crane that had been used to load the truck onboard. With a heave of the hammer he smashed off the padlocked cover on the cranes lower portion, and started to mess with the mechanics inside. He asked Kai, Shimazu and Hunter to hold various bits, or pass supplies from toolboxes stored under the crane, and about two minutes later had a pair of jump leads bridging the gap between the crane and some exposed terminals next to a pump. He fired up the engine on the crane, and set the throttle high, wedging it in place with some chocks. Turning, he called over the noise of the engine to them

"The APU should kick out enough power to start the lights up for a bit, at least as long as the fuel lasts. Unless they physically start cutting lines, they won't be able to drop that."

They passed the truck, and once away from the revving engine, Hunter asked if there was an alternate way into engineering they could take. Chris told them there was – through the bilges. However, it was a long and slow journey, as they literally climbed their way through the sections one by one – and that they'd also need respirators for sure. With the mains power knocked out, there was far too much chance of a gas build-up in the enclosed spaces. As he described the technical difficulties, it became clear that while the route was possible, it was very much a last-ditch option.

In the darkened room below, the pounding headache started to recede, the colours faded away and the floor stopped feeling like a trampoline. Aswon took a few deep breaths, and moved to the doorway, pointing his rifle down the corridor, past the T-junction. He couldn't see anything, and his vision still swam a little, so he stayed where he was, spotting for movement in the darkness. Marius was crouching by the stairs, using the metalwork as cover, and keeping a watchful eye on the body of Tadibya, who was still maintaining astral overwatch. The corridor was quiet, dark, and full of menace. There could be just the one enemy down there, there could be a whole team of them, poised in the darkness and ready to assault at a moment's notice.

As the lingering effects started to drain away from Aswon and his mind cleared, he seemed to remember that Neurostun was heavier than air, and tended to sink. If he could get over – he should be ok. No physical light glowed and illuminated the compartment he was in, but in the astral plane the tattoos glowed quietly as he climbed up the wall and onto the ceiling, using the power of the Gecko trapped into his tribal markings. He padded down the roof of the corridor, like a scuttling insect, he gear all hanging from his harness and the rifle dangling on the sling.

Nearing the superstructure, Kai, Shimazu, Hunter and Chris pulled up short as a sudden clearing in the fog blew past them, and they spotted a large motorboat pacing the tanker. It was a good fifteen metres away from the ship, but seemed to be conforming to their movements. They couldn't spot anyone onboard – but it seemed likely that this was the boarders' vessel. After a moment's discussion, Shimazu shucked his armour off, and he and Kai leapt over the side of the tanker, crossing their legs and arms to try and minimise the impact into the cold waters below. They pushed up to the surface, and quickly swam over to the boat. Shimazu climbed aboard deftly, but Kai struggled to gain purchase on the hull, and after a short struggle, Shimazu had to reach down and physically pull him aboard, dragging Kai past the emblazoned name of the boat "High Roller" and onto the deck.

They checked the boat carefully but it seemed deserted. The wheelhouse at the rear had all manner of electronic devices turned on and operating, and Kai looked them over, trying to work out what was what. Shimazu made his way down into the boat, sword ready. There were four cabins below, all deserted, and all with gear scattered around. One room was obviously that of some kind of a mage, decorated with all manner of texts and magical looking gear, but the others had assortments of guns and random kit lying around.

Kai wished he could speak to Marius – but the jamming prevented that. So, almost at random, he started to flip switches and adjust dials, hoping to have some effect. His hopes were granted – but not in the way he wanted. Something he did disabled the autopilot, and the nose of the boat started to swing around, catching the waves and making it start to roll. It got worse as the boat turned, and soon the small craft was wallowing sidewise and rolling alarmingly as the waves smacked into the broadside. Shimazu shot out of the half-stairway leading down to the cabins.

"What did you do?"

Kai looked a little sheepish and pointed at the electronics panel, then flipped a few more switches as if to demonstrate, in case it wasn't abundantly clear. A small alarm light flashed and a buzzer sounded, the kettle started to boil, and the radio squawked into life.

Shimazu looked like he was going to punch Kai in the face for a moment, but then the realisation hit him. The radio was making noise. Somewhere in there, Kai had hit the jammer.

"Marius, Marius – can you hear me?"

"Ja? Shimazu? You found the jammer?"

"Yes. Well, Kai did. As well as the autopilot and some other stuff. You'd better talk to him."

Marius spoke with Kai over the radio, talking him through the controls slowly and methodically, and managed to get the autopilot re-engaged.

Aswon tensed as he heard Kai babbling about buttons and icons and displays, and turned down the volume on his earpiece to avoid the distraction. He took a deep breath and steeled himself as he crossed the area of the grenade, but felt no twinges or effects from the gas, and pressed on, climbing down the walls and back onto the floor once he figured he was past. The corridor was still pitch-black here, so having lucked out once, he decided to risk it again – pulling out his phone he used the torch function and cast the light around. The corridor was empty, with most of the doors sealed, and nothing visible until the end of the corridor on the far side of the ship. He called back to Marius and updated him on what he could see. Just as he did so, one of the emergency lights down the corridor pinged into life. Then the next. Slowly the lights marched towards him, one after another, as the energy from the auxiliary power unit on the crane ramped up and fed into the ships systems.

With the jamming now off, and some lights restored, Aswon ducked into a side room and pulled out his comms scanner, and started to look for other frequencies with traffic. He found one almost immediately, and listened to the hiss and pop of encrypted traffic flooding across the circuit. Tadibya returned to her body and melded with it, and guided Marius towards Aswon's location, whilst he continued to give remote tech support to Kai. When he arrived, he saw Aswon waving the scanner at him with the display flashing, the backlit screen showing 1593.3Mhz. He locked his decryption gear onto that frequency and started trying to decode the signal, whilst he finished with Kai.

Back on the boat, with expert help from Marius, they had reset the auto-pilot, which now had the boat running back on a parallel course to the tank, but only a few metres away. It was much rougher here, in the water disrupted by the bow of the larger ship, but the autopilot was more than capable of keeping them on course. Chris lowered a line to allow them to re-board the tanker when they were ready. Shimazu and Kai had a good look through the cabins, and made a quick assessment, which they flashed to the rest of the team. There were probably four boarders – maybe as many as six, but unlikely to be more than that. One was certainly a mage, though the presence of water elementals had already pretty much confirmed that, one looked to be a rigger, and two general purpose troops. Their gear looked to be good quality, and well maintained – so they were a very credible threat.

Chris had moved inside the ship now, descending down the passageway secured by Aswon, Marius and Tadibya, and caught up with them. After brief introductions, he showed them the quickest way down to the engineering deck, and they proceeded cautiously. The increased light levels helped, as did his expert guidance – warning them of doglegs, ambush points and dangerous areas. They quickly descended down the stairwell, weapons ready. As they descended they smelt and felt the change into the engineering spaces – exposed oil, grease, heat and vibration all became more apparent. When they arrived at the main hatch to engineering, it was closed – a large solid door that looked to be heavily reinforced.

Aswon placed his head against the door and closed his eyes, reaching out with his senses to try and listen to conversations on the other side. After a few moments, he pulled his face away from the metal panel.

"Frustrating… I can hear voices, several of them, talking. Can't make out what they are saying though. The walls are too thick, and there's too much interference."

Tadibya sat down on the bottom stair, wincing a little as the cold and raw steel dug into her, and the sharp edges pressed into her. Leaning back, she got as comfy as she could, and then projected, floating up to the door and examining it. A dense dark grey object astrally, it showed no sign of magical reinforcement – but would be resistant to magical attack or spells based on the highly technological nature of the design and construction process. She described it to the others as she checked the walls and door out, and then looked up and around, spying where large water or steam pipes entered the room.

"I'll try and hide in here and squeeze through, for a look."

She pushed through the pipework, trying to stay inside as much as possible and using it for cover, and to enter the room at an unexpected angle. Entering the huge engine room, her senses were confused by the massive space for a moment – huge grey boxes, grey lines, grey pipes, and grey walkways – all criss-crossing, interconnecting and passing through each other. For a moment her senses rebelled as they tried to make sense of it all. Then she saw the figures – a bunch of life signs all tucked in one corner, then four more, scattered around the room, standing by grey boxes. One of the four had a small group of elementals with them, and one of those elementals spied her – and flew to engage.

She backed off quickly, back through the wall and down to her body, and it foolishly pursued her. Back in her physical form she quickly turned to engage the spirit. It was powerful – no doubt about that. It was easily as powerful as she had been when she started her pilgrimage all those months ago. But since meeting up with the rest of the team, her experiences had shown her much, taught her much – and she was closer to her totem now than she'd ever been before. She struck at the spirit hard, using that new found knowledge and power, and swiftly dismantled it, banishing it back to the metaplanes.

"Well, that will have woken the mage up for sure – but we've one less spirit to worry about. There's a whole mass of bodies in there, a bunch that way," she gestured with an arm, "and a bunch scattered around, there, there and here."

Chris listened and then looked thoughtful. "One by the main generator panel, one by the control board, two on the far side of the main engine, keeping an eye on the crew, who are over near the transmission. If you storm the door, you can only see one of them straight away – the other two will have solid cover behind the engine or structural material."

"Maybe there's a better way to take them out. I presume there's a decent gas suppression system in there?" asked Marius. On seeing Chris nod, he activated his radio, and sketched out a quick plan to Kai, suggesting they contact the bridge who should have power to activate the gas system – at least as long as the APU in the crane held out.

"I wouldn't do that if I was you." The voice was not any of the team, nor the ship crew, as far as they could tell. It sounded somewhat similar to Marius – somewhere central European, with a strong dash of German.

"And who are we talking to?" asked Kai. Aswon, Tadibya and Marius shared a look and a brief smile, as they heard the voice change. All the irreverence was gone, as was the nervousness of the earlier conversations about the electronics. Now there was that honey-gold voice of reasonableness and compromise. A man you could trust. The sort of voice every politician envied and wanted, but so few were able to emulate.

"You can call me Bravo."

"Excellent. You can call me…" there was a pause, and the Kai continued, "you can call me, High Roller."

"Oh…"

There was a volume of understanding there. The change in pitch of voice was noticeable, even to those unskilled in negotiations. "Bravo", whoever he was, clearly understood that his opponent was on board their escape vessel.

"Well," the voice continued after perhaps thirty seconds of silence, "this puts us in an interesting position. I control the engine room, some hostages, and have enough demo to send this vessel to the bottom. You control the route out of here."

"I'll take your word for it about the explosives – but let us not be hasty. I'm sure we can come to some arrangement about this situation. I know you were shooting with stun rounds earlier. As far as I'm aware, you've not actually killed anyone, or broken anything so far? Perhaps we can come to a deal?"

Bravo considered this for another thirty seconds – perhaps conferring with his team. Then his voice came back over the radio again.

"Ok, here's our offer. You and your team, and any of the crew, go gather at the bow of the ship, locking the bridge and other stations behind you. Once you're all at the bow, we come up on deck with the hostages, and leave them in view of you whilst we transfer to our vessel. We leave, you take control of your ship back. Nobody wins – but nobody loses either."

Now it was Kai's turn to be silent for thirty seconds whilst he considered the deal. Then he keyed up the transmitter.

"Ok, that sounds reasonable. Give us five minutes to gather everyone together, and we'll do this thing."

Kai shook his head as he watched Shimazu immediately head down into one of the cabins on the High Roller and begin to look for the best hiding point. On the deck of the tanker he saw Hunter climbing up into the cab of the crane with his LAWs and assault rifle, looking for a vantage point. Shortly afterwards Aswon appeared on the roof of the superstructure with his rifle for a moment, then disappeared into some hiding spot.

Kai wondered if the other team was as distrusting as his was, and just how this was going to play out, and watched as the off-duty crewmen started to gather and head for the bow of the ship.