Hunter looked from Aswon to Kai and back, then somewhat uncharacteristically hesitated.
"So – I get what you've said. I just want to point out that this dude is a serious player in the matrix over here. It could be a very, very useful contact to make. And it could be someone that if we piss them off, they can make our lives a digital hell."
"What do you mean?" Kai looked over at Hunter, pitching his voice carefully to indicate that he was willing to listen – but might not change his mind.
"Well, imagine if our rep gets slandered all over Shadowland by someone who's in a lot tighter than we are. Or if they start tracking our movements, and publishing them out to interested parties. Or track our movements and do tracking on our phones and start listening in on all our conversations, deciding who to sell that information to. I'm not saying we should go talk to them – but we want to think about it, and if we're still saying no, then we want to be careful and polite."
"That's a fair point Hunter – but I still don't like it. It could be a very slippery slope we're on." Aswon remained just as firm in his speech, leaving everyone in no doubt as to where his thoughts lay.
"Just as a thing – it's possible the two things may be unrelated. Our job and the people we met, and the contact from Digital Flower." He held up his hands as several of the others opened their mouths to butt in. "I'm not saying it's not very unlikely. All I'm saying is that it's possible that they're not directly related. We should keep an open mind, so we don't get blindsided."
"I don't believe it. But, you're right – we should consider the possibility that it's not related directly. It could be some third party that we're not even aware of yet. But I think the odds are so small that we can discount it." Aswon stared at Marius as he spoke, and the German shrugged under his gaze.
"The other thing is that it could be a test – either of loyalty or character. If the two we spoke to are Dragons, then it's possibly they're prepared to go beyond the rules they mentioned to us. If they're the agents of Dragons, then I actually think that's a lot more likely. And if they're something else, then perhaps we're less likely to get caught, but I think it's even more likely that someone would bend the rules to get an advantage."
"Right – points noted and accepted." Kai held up his two hands, spread apart and between the people talking, almost as if he was creating a barrier between them. "We drop a message saying we've discussed, and we're heading down to refuel and to negotiate. But, when we get close, we send an apology and tell them we need to get to our next flight point which is time critical and we unfortunately can't stop, but that we'll try to come back later. We don't say what we were going to do there, or on the way back, but we at least make out the door is open to negotiations in the future and try not to commit ourselves. That good with everyone?" As he looked around the rest of the team he saw either agreement or at least acceptance on everyone's face.
"Speaking of which, if we are going to make our meeting point with the ship, we need to be taking off pretty soon. So I'm going to go and start getting the engines warmed up." Marius made his way back into the cockpit, joined a moment later by Hunter as he quickly dashed off a message to Digital Flower. When that was complete, he started to lay in a course for the island of Miyake, about one hundred and eighty kilometres to the south of their present position.
Everyone else checked the cargo bay and secured their gear before cinching themselves in tightly into their seats. If their journey out was anything like the journey in, it was going to include some tight turns and sharp manoeuvers to get them clear.
Two minutes later the engines were at speed, the gauges were all in the green and the tilt-wing lifted off, rising smoothly from the park and emerging from the trees in a graceful movement. The engines and propellers twisted forwards and they transitioned quickly into forward flight, Marius kicking the craft round to a heading of one hundred and fifteen degrees as he headed for the bay.
As soon as they cleared the tree tops they started to get hit with sensor sweeps, and despite the best efforts of the spirit concealing them and Marius' careful positioning, the threat warning lights started to flash at them while the speaker chirped and bleeped in alarm. Police drones started to aim towards their position as their robotic pilots registered an air target without a valid transponder code, and Marius picked up more sensor sweeps as video cameras were trained in their direction.
"Hang on…" The craft shot forwards as he threw maximum power to the engines, taking off like a scalded cat and rocketing across the trees. A squawk of surprise came from Kai in the back who'd been looking through the viewing prism and suddenly got a view full of tree that made him flinch backwards as if his face was about to be hit before he realised that Marius was rising the ten centimetres necessary to clear the obstacle. In seconds they had cleared the park, a slew of drones altering their headings to pursue the intermittent signature they had detected.
Any one of the drones only got enough of a signal return to be certain that there was 'something' there – but there were enough of them that whatever control net was aggregating the data was seeing enough hits to be sure of their general heading and speed – which meant that there was a possibility of ambush ahead, especially if a call had gone out for the on-duty rigger to jump in and take control of the situation.
Marius hunched his virtual shoulders and shot down the main road leading east, flying over the early morning traffic and sending cars rocking on their suspension as he zoomed overhead. The team were alternately compressed into their seats and then pulled up against their harnesses as the tilt-wing rose and fell in a demented fashion, easily the equal to the most exciting roller-coaster. The world tilted crazily to one side, as the chopper banked at an eighty degree angle, Marius missing a tower block by no more than two metres as he turned off onto a side street moments before a drone equipped with zapper nets blocked off his escape routes.
Chaos followed their trail as Marius threaded through the streets, leaving behind strewn rubbish and sprawling pedestrians as the downdraft from the rotors pummelled the ground, while traffic was slowed to a crawl as pursuing ground units tried in vain to keep up with his manic progression through the city. A few minutes later he burst out of the urban jungle, leaving behind the cover of office blocks and high rise apartments, and streaked across the sky.
"Marius – they can see us! They've got direct line of sight!" Kai called out, watching as a bunch of drones appeared from the streets, pursuing them through the sky. The drones were split into four clusters now, each having had to fly their own parallel route down the busy streets, chasing after the target only vaguely glimpsed thanks to the radar absorbing design, electronic deception systems and powerful magical concealment.
The drones suddenly banked away, splitting into two groups that gracefully turned at right angles, spreading north and south. Second by second, the distance increased as they raced away on diverging courses.
"The drones. They've stopped?" Kai called out, his eyes glued to the viewing prism. A moment later he realised why – as the wide-bodied jet swung down into view on final approach to the airport, strobes at the wing roots almost blinding him and anti-collision lights blinking at the wingtips. Marius angled down, matching the glide slope and pulled away, ending up streaking across the airport perimeter at a height of no more than four metres as he raced through the controlled airspace, while the guard channel was filled with strident warnings and cries of alarm. The chopper gave a lurch as he swung to the side, and then shuddered violently as he flew through the jet-wash of a sub-orbital plane taking off from the runway to their right, before steadying as he cleared their rear aspect. They swung to the side sharply again, as Marius interposed the body of the rapidly accelerating jet, using them as cover against the powerful short range radar transmitter located on the tower.
Moments later they cleared the runway, and Marius dropped further, until he was shooting across the bay leaving a huge wake in the water from his passage, dodging around boats and merchantmen as he streaked towards the horizon, leaving the babble of angry voices and hooting of klaxons behind them. As he spotted larger vessels he bobbed and weaved around them, using the multi-thousand ton hulls as cover against the desperate attempts to locate him on sensors, gradually moving further out into the bay and making his way south.
A few minutes later they were free and clear, darting across the ocean, a flash of grey light reflecting and bouncing off the water as they lanced through the air leaving their pursuers far behind them in an angry ball of confusion as they tried to work out just what had happened. As they increased the distance between them and the sensor net of the country, Marius eased up on the controls, dropping speed slightly to a slightly more economical level and slowly gaining altitude to reduce the risk of hitting some unspotted sailing boat out for a pleasure cruise.
"Ok, Hunter – let's get logged on and chatting to Digital Flower, let them down gently." Kai waited for Hunter to set up the connection and log into the host, and then relayed his conversation through Hunter and his deck, as he once more virtually sat in the subterranean meeting room.
"Ahh, Digital Flower. Thank you for seeing us again."
"It is good to see you. Does this mean that you have reconsidered our offer?"
"Yes, and at the same time, we have some unfortunate news."
"Oh?"
"We had chatted amongst ourselves, and reconsidered, and it has been raised to my attention of just how powerful and useful a set of friends you could be to us – and us to you, of course. And it would be very unwise and foolish of us to ignore such an offer."
"Indeed."
"So we had been planning to come and visit you, and at least open negotiations with you, and establish some common dialogue. However, we are slightly pressed for time this morning, and unfortunately we have had to move up our schedule – which means that we just don't have the time to stop and have a business meeting with you, as we had hoped."
"Most unfortunate."
"Yes, most unfortunate indeed. But I wanted to contact you and let you know, and perhaps see if we can keep this line of communication open, and discuss things with you when we return. We'll be coming back this way, you see.
"Back, this way?"
"Yes, we have some deliveries to make, but will be returning back along much the same route fairly shortly. And perhaps then we can come to meet you and discuss matters of mutual interest?"
"Very well. We shall await further contact then."
"Great. Then we shall look forward to meeting you, at some point in the future. But for now, we must be about our business."
Kai waited for Hunter to confirm that he'd logged off ok and that there weren't any trace or hacking attempts against him or his deck, then let out a long breath of air as he relaxed. Hopefully that had held them off at arm's length without alienating them completely.
"Hunter, how long until we reach the island where we're meeting the next contact?"
"About ten to fifteen minutes at this speed!"
"Tads, we still covered magically, yes?" Kai raised an eyebrow to her, but she didn't answer immediately. Instead she poked Shimazu until he took off the viewing headset and passed it over to her, so she could check the light level on the horizon.
"I think we've got about twenty minutes before dawn, so yes we're still covered. But that does mean that potentially the spirit will depart while we're in the middle of the meeting or exchange or whatever we're doing, and I'll need to resummon one. Or we can delay for an extra five minutes or so before we go in, and we'll land with a fresh spirit for the day."
"This should be a friendly meeting – we'll be ok. Aswon, you didn't get any sense of a problem or anything did you?"
"No, Kai – Mr. Wu set this up, so we should be dealing with some professionals. As long as we don't cause any problems, the meeting should be smooth."
"Right. Marius, take us down then please, let's get ready and try to make this one go by the numbers." The chopper angled down as Marius applied a little more power to the engines and surged forwards, the nose pointing down towards the eastern side of Miyake Island and their rendezvous point.
As they closed on the island, the sensors revealed more information about the destination – a large stratovolcano, thrusting nearly eight hundred metres up from the surrounding ocean. A large crater dominated the centre of the island, barren and rocky, with a belt of green tree growth and fertile land ringing the edges. As they approached they could see a small municipal airport to the east side of the island, and slightly north of that was a pier and small harbour, containing the dim shape of a merchantman at anchor, only just visible in the grey pre-dawn light.
Hunter checked and double checked the co-ordinates, and then directed Marius down towards the ship – not the airport. As they closed in they could make out a small helipad on the back of the vessel, barely big enough for the tilt-wing to land on. The ship was about twenty metres wide and over one hundred and thirty long, and looked to be kitted out as a small container ship – certainly they could see hundreds of containers scattered over the deck area.
Closing in, Aswon was on the optical system and stared at the ship and the unusual silhouette that was starting to resolve out of the background as they flew ever closer.
"That is an ugly ship! It looks like some kind of weird sex toy…"
The others frowned and their imaginations raced as they tried to work out what he meant. A moment later the screens in the back lit up as Marius piped the forward sensor feed through, and the unusual lines of the ship could be made out. The bridge and accommodation section were right at the bow of the vessel, rather than set at the stern as was more usual, and the forward superstructure formed a large bulbous shape rising up from the bows.
"I don't know about that, Aswon, I think it looks quite nice. Smooth and rounded, and almost organic. Much prettier than a lot of other things." Tadibya studied the picture carefully, and then pitched her tone of voice towards what she hoped was an 'innocent curiosity' as she called over to Aswon. "Is that what shape your sex toys are then, Aswon? I'm confused as to how you'd use it…" A peel of laughter filled the back and Aswon decided that the best answer to give was none at all… instead he stayed glued to the optics and scanned the area, looking for magical threats.
"This is the MV Natori, a container ship belonging to Imoto Lines. Does small to medium cargo hauls throughout the western pacific. Holds over fifteen thousand tons of cargo and has a sustained cruising speed of thirteen knots. At least according to the public section of their matrix site…" Hunter had clearly jacked back in to his deck as they got close enough to make out the details and had gathered a little extra information.
Marius transitioned to a hover, and then slowly lowered the chopper down onto the helipad, landing dead centre and swiftly cutting the power to put some weight on the landing gear and making sure they wouldn't slide or shift along with the gentle rolling of the ship. Within seconds they saw activity up ahead at the bridge, with several crew members appearing out of hatches and looking to the rear. Marius fed the sensor image back, and they could see the crew were all ethnic Japanese, most wearing tough-looking blue overalls that had the appearance of a ship's uniform or company-issued clothing, but there was at least one person that came out in a set of pristine white clothing, with flashes of gold on the shoulders.
"Drop the ramp please Aswon. Let's give them something to see. Hunter, you'd probably best..."
"I know, stay out of sight. Don't worry, I wasn't planning on going out there."
The ramp was starting to descend, and Aswon walked down to stand on the deck as it slowly dropped away, ducking so he could emerge through the gap and past the concealing magic of the spirit guarding them. As he appeared, there were shouts and pointing from the crew at the bow of the ship, and he could see them start to race down the steps and travel down the companionway towards the stern.
Two crew appeared up the ladder to the helipad first, spreading out to either side and studying Aswon intently, their features squinting through the faint light at the imposing figure before them. The figure in white appeared next, travelling at a somewhat more sedate speed. Now that he was close, Aswon could easily make out the multiple bars of gold embroidered on the shoulder boards, and guessed that this was either the captain or a senior officer of the ship. He drew himself up to an upright stance and then bowed deeply.
"Hajimemashite," he said gravely, hoping that the inflection and pronunciation were correct – from the sincerity of the answering bow it appeared that Shimazu's tutelage was spot on. "I am Aswon. Please forgive me, but my grasp of your language is still limited."
"Then we will continue in English. I am Captain Sarosi. I take it you are the gentlemen from Mr. Wu."
"Hai," Aswon continued with what he knew, hoping that his attempted useage of the language would indicate respect and a willingness to learn. "Mr. Wu told us that we were to drop off goods, and pick some up in return."
"Hai." The captain nodded, and then barked a string of rapid fire Japanese at the two crewmen who braced to attention before diving into action. One ran over to a locker on the edge of the helipad and unclipped the hatch, sliding open the metal shutters and pulling out a large fuelling hose – much to the relief of Marius watching from the cockpit. He trigged the release mechanism on the fuel tank, and watched as the crewmember started to attach the hose and verify the connection before heading back to the controls to start the fuel transfer.
The second crewmember slid down the short ladder to the deck below and headed over to a container near the back of the cargo area. With deft movement he slapped the handles and locking bars until they released from the hasps, and then swung open the doors to reveal a container no more than half full. The main cargo looked to be robotic vacuum cleaners of some kind, restrained with a thick net to the forward section, while in the back part there were just four small containers, lashed to the wall by another smaller net.
Kai and Shimazu emerged out of the craft as well, and Kai made his introductions to the captain, with Shimazu translating for him. The captain continued to respond in English, clearly making an effort to be hospitable to his guests, as he welcomed them aboard his vessel. Tadibya, Vadim, Hunter and Marius stayed aboard and out of sight, leaving the others to carry out the transfer.
As Shimazu and Aswon struggled with the mortar system, heaving the boxes of ammunition and parts down onto the deck, Tadibya watched the steadily lightening horizon then sent a message to Kai.
"Dawn in a few moments. We're about to lose the spirit."
"Excuse me, Captain. But just to warn you, our cloaking field needs to be adjusted. Our craft will be visible for a few moments while we take care of things." As Kai finished his explanation to the Satori, Tadibya released the spirit, thanking it for its service over the course of the night and letting it return to the metaplanes. The concealing wraps of mana faded away and the chopper emerged with an abrupt suddenness. Even forewarned, Captain Satori's eyes widened as he took in the large craft perched precariously on his landing pad.
"No wonder our sensors reported an unexpected weight shift!"
Kai smiled and made small talk, and less than thirty seconds later the craft vanished from sight again as Tadibya called upon the spirit of the land to conceal them once more. The mountain spirit she got felt impetuous to her, and seemed to radiate a restlessness about it that made her cast an apprehensive glance up at the volcano that dominated the view to the west.
More crew were summoned, and the boxes were slowly eased down the ladder and stowed in the cargo container one after another, with the four boxes being bought back up in their place and handed over. By the time the cargo had been exchanged, the refuelling was also complete and the hose was being decoupled and carefully stowed away.
"Many thanks, Captain Satori, for a most professional exchange. We will take off imminently to avoid disrupting your schedule. Please be aware that the downwash from the rotors can be quite significant." Kai tried to word his warning politely, and the captain gave another faint smile, before shaking his hand politely and heading down off the helipad, calling out to his crew to secure all of the cargo areas and ensure there was no loose debris.
With the team back aboard and the area cleared, Marius started the engines and ran through the full checklist and warm-up cycle, taking advantage of the controlled circumstances to do things by the book – saving the chopper from as much stress as possible. The launched back into the air at 06:30, still half an hour before the Captain's departure time and the deadline that had been issued to them. Marius eased back up and over the volcano, dropping down into the crater for a few seconds as he crossed the peak to completely clear any radar screens he might have been on, before racing down the western slopes for the ocean and heading away from the island on a bearing of 225 degrees.
The journey to Okinawa was scheduled to take about three hours, the islands lying nearly fifteen hundred kilometres from their current position. Hunter dived back onto his deck and pulled up his flight logging software and started working through the forms to register their flight and craft with Japanese aircraft control and get the journey details squared away. He ran into some problems when he discovered that certainly over here, English was no longer the universal language of the air – and that the Japanese megacorporations and control of the new world currency had led them to also insist that all paperwork was completed in Japanese too.
Sorting out the details took him most of the journey, along with much cursing and swearing of the Japanese bureaucracy that had spawned around the industry – but eventually he had their fake IDs and the vehicle's transponder code cleared and logged, while they were still two hundred kilometres short of Okinawa. Identifying themselves to the air traffic system, at least the automated controls and landing slot allocation system was willing to send out instructions with English subtitles, and Marius had no problem bringing them in for a silky landing on the island, touching down on runway two-hundred-L and coasting gently down it until he reached the taxiway.
Hunter's preparations had included the refuelling request, and a large bowser pulled up along side them on the end of the landing apron and rapidly filled their tanks up, while Shimazu was able to wander outside as the most socially acceptable face and pay using a certified cred-stick, watching another seven thousand Nuyen disappear from the balance. The stop was short, with the team staying aboard the aircraft and doing nothing more than shuffling up and down the cargo area to stretch their legs, trying to limit their exposure to the inevitable surveillance systems in the airport surrounds.
With refuelling complete, they restarted the engines, received permission to take off and were soon back in the air, taking off from the same runway and then turning south on a course to take them down towards the Philippines. Hunter reached for his deck once more, preparing to do battle with the mound of paperwork that a commercial flight entailed.
Rather than choosing to fly into Ninoy Aquino International airport in the centre of Manila, he instead aimed for a flight to Legazpi City, slightly further to the south and on the east rather than west coast. It was near one of the sets of co-ordinates for a drop off – that of Bulusan Volcano – and hopefully they could use the stop on the way down as a way to sound out the airport and perhaps build up some flight history there, which may help with legitimising their travel. They also hoped that security would perhaps be slightly more relaxed at a regional airport when compared to the main international strip.
The flight distance was one thousand five hundred and thirty kilometres from Okinawa, so he figured that it would be easy with the practice he'd had from the first flight plan – but he soon found out how wrong he was. The islands had been occupied by six divisions of Imperial Japanese Marines back in 2021, and ruled as a Japanese prefecture since then – despite the violent and vociferous complaints of a considerable part of the country. With a Japanese appointed puppet governor and the last election a year back having been won comfortably by the Japanese supporting candidate Carlos Consuni of the Liberal Catholic Voters party, the local population were just as under the thumb as they had been for the last two decades. It came as no surprise to Hunter that the recent elections were run on voting systems supplied, maintained and operated by Fuchi systems - of Japan. Although of course, the last six months had shown how even the mighty mega corporations were not beyond challenge.
All of that added up to effectively flying into a low-intensity warzone, with the very real prospect of guerrilla action, a police state that ruled with an iron fist and a number of additional details to fill in to satisfy the paperwork gods. Hunter set to with a will, finding that it eased the burden somewhat when he made it clearly it was a refuelling stop only, with no offloading of cargo or trans-shipment of passengers. He set the onward destination as being further south, into the independent Kingdom of North Maluku, so at least their heading would be correct.
While Hunter got on with the painful paperwork, the rest of the team took advantage of the clear air and smooth flying to examine the boxes they'd picked up from the Natori. The first box contained a cylinder, somewhat similar to a fire extinguisher or scuba tank. The regulator on the top had a pin through the valve handle with a small padlock on the end – something that wouldn't have withstood much effort from a pair of hand held wire cutters. Kai examined it and scoffed at what he saw was the security, until Aswon explained what it was.
"It's not there as a security measure, Kai – it's a safety feature. According to the packing note that's one litre of highly compressed Neurostun Seven nerve gas." Kai stopped throwing the bottle from hand to hand and stared at Aswon, then clasped both hands together around the cylinder. "Yep – that's enough to gas considerably more than this chopper – probably enough to take out a full building if you got it into the air conditioning system. The padlock is there to make sure the pin doesn't fall out by accident. So please, can we be gentle with that?" Kai nodded and set it back into the box he'd pulled it from, much to the relief of everyone else in the area.
"So what can we do with that stuff? Other than gas a whole building?"
"We can, if we have the right equipment, decant it out into gas grenades if we find any, or use it to fill temporary containers, tap some off to fill gel capsules maybe, or fill smaller cylinders that can be attached to a drone to deliver. But we can knock out a room full of people in a few seconds with that stuff if we're careful. We just need some tools and a bit of quiet time to set that up."
"Neat, what else do we have?" Aswon sealed the cylinder of Neurostun gas away first, before opening up the second box and having a look inside.
"Looks like some shotgun shells. We've got two plastic containers, with different shells in each, both twelve gauge in size – so they should fit most shotguns we can find. Let's see…" He opened the first box and examined the round carefully, looking at the letters stencilled down the side of the round. "Huh – think these are shock lock rounds. Explosive, with a high metal content that makes a high impact but low distance cutting action."
"And what do we want those for?" Vadim piped up before Aswon could answer, joining the conversation somewhat atypically.
"They are fantastic for breaching. We would use them in training for blowing hinges off doors when storming a building. Just aim the shotgun at the hinges, pull trigger and blam – door is no longer a problem. But setting fire to the room is also no problem. As long as nobody is right next to hinge, they will not be hurt. But even very strong doors don't work so well if they have no hinge to hang on."
"And this second lot…. Ohhh yeah! Oh baby, we need to get ourselves a decent combat shotgun. Thank you, Mr. Wu." Aswon broke into a broad smile, showing off his fangs as he did so then holding up a shell from the second box. "Look at these bad boys! Chromium-Tungsten penetrators with a macroplast kicker charge! Not seen these since I was stationed in Prague."
"So what do they do? I take it its good, as you look happy?"
"Let me put it this way, Kai – these are some pretty powerful rounds here, about the most powerful you're going to get from a hand-held weapon. Military-grade, very expensive and very hard to get hold of. But if I put these in a shotgun and fired at the side of the truck, the penetrator would likely blast clear through the armour. We can potentially take on APCs and stand a chance of getting through their armour with these things – not that I'm suggesting we do, mind you – just saying that we could."
Aswon replaced the shell in the container, and then both containers in the outer box, sealing it up tight before he looked in the next box. A quick look inside, and he passed the whole box over to Kai.
"This one's for you. And the next, I suspect." Kai took the package and opened the lid, looking down at the bundle of high grade aluminium arrow shafts contained within, each with a small screw hole at the end of the shaft. The next box contained three sets of ten screw in tips, allowing the user to swap and change between them.
Ten of the heads were miniature smoke grenades, small volume but still reasonably aerodynamic and capable of being shot to specific points on the battlefield to provide some obscurement of a key position. The next ten contained the tell-tale twin prongs of a taser charge, with a small capacitor bank behind the striking tip. It was doubtful they would pack the same charge as a dedicated taser pistol, but they should be capable of being fired over much longer distances, too. The last ten were wicked-looking broad-head tips, designed to cut through flesh and penetrate deeply into a target. Kai picked one up and examined it, looking at the rippling colours visible on the surface as he rolled it back and forth in the light – right up until he yelped and dropped it on the floor as blood started to run down his fingertip.
"Bastard, that's sharp!" On reflection it was probably one of the most redundant statements he'd made to the team, and he covered his embarrassment as he reached for a plaster to seal the puncture hole in his finger. Aswon leant over and very carefully examined the arrowhead, handling it with much more respect than Kai had.
"Ahh – I see. It's dikoted! Very nice!" He could see Tadibya, at least, was confused by the term, and thought for a moment. "As I understand it, it's put in a special chemical treatment chamber, and they somehow coat the surface in a single layer of artificial diamonds – creating a series of cutting edges that are insanely sharp, as Kai has just found out. They're often used to coat knives and cutting implements and can do horrific damage when put on something the size of Shimazu's sword."
Shimazu looked more closely at the tip, then at his sword, and Aswon could see the question forming on his mind (and probably that of the others as well).
"No – not easily. As I understand it, it's a very complex and high-tech process involving plasma and things, and will more than likely destroy the magical nature of an item. You'd have to make the sword first, and then enchant it later – and after being heat-treated by lasers and chemicals, the item isn't magically pure and it's much harder for someone like Tadibya to work their skills into it. Sorry." Shimazu made a face then sat back in his chair, the interest in a possible upgrade fading away now he understood the risks a little better.
Not long after they'd finished looking at the new supplies, Hunter called back to them to advise them of a problem. He was making progress with the paperwork – but it looked like he was coming up short with airports to land at in Papa New Guinea. Though the area was riddled with landing strips on the maps he had managed to find, they were all little more than long strips on the beach, or clear cut areas of forest – literally landing strips for local planes with no towers, air traffic control or other facilities, most noticeably no fuel depots. They could leave the Philippines and head over to the western end of the country, and find themselves landing at an airport then becoming stuck – until they managed to arrange for eighteen hundred litres of aviation fuel to be delivered to them…
The team in the back started to study the maps and information while Hunter went back to filing his flight plan into Legazpi, working through the options available to them. They could hunt around and try to find a supplier for drop tanks or some external fuel tanks to fix to the chopper – and as long as they didn't run into combat or a risky situation they'd be fine. Or they could detour further south, hoping across Indonesia to Bali, then down to Australia and along the northern shores until they reached Queensland and the relatively short hop back across the sea – but that would be a journey of nearly seven thousand kilometres, more than double what they were currently planning.
For several minutes they tried different combinations of routes, working out what airports were within range of what other airports and how much difficulty they were likely to run into with each one, based on their country of origin and destination. They knew that the there was a weird risk to reward ratio at work too – the more often they filed a flight plan successfully, the more of a history they built up which would add to their legitimacy. Conversely, the more times they got their identity checked by the systems of various nation states, the more chances there was of an anomaly being detected and their IDs being burned.
After thirty minutes of working the problem, the best solution they could find was to try and on-load several additional barrels of fuel at the next stop, assuming they could get hold of them, carrying it as cargo towards their destination. If they travelled down to the southern end of the Philippines and stopped at the smuggler base there – Sarangani Free Port – they could reach well into the western parts of Papa New Guinea on their normal fuel load. From there, with the fuel onboard, they could refill the tanks and have enough range to reach across to the only main airport in the country that was shown as having guaranteed fuel available. It would break the journey up a little while they hand pumped nearly two thousand litres of fuel into the tanks, but after a long day of flying, that wasn't sounding so bad…
With their best plan in place, Kai called to Hunter and updated him, setting him onto the additional task of locating the fuel supplies at Legazpi as well as the landing permits required. The team in the back then started looking at their route around the rest of the ring of fire, trying to anticipate where else this was likely to be a problem.
With a little time to spare, they were granted landing permission at Legazpi, and Hunter had found a local supplier who was able to deliver four five hundred litre drums of fuel, along with a hand pump to the airport – although they were going to pay a premium for the service. Each of the drums was a little over a metre high, and a little under a metre in diameter, and ate up even more of their precious cargo space – between the equipment they had onboard already and the new fuel supplies they were going to be effectively full, so there was no real chance of picking up cargo to supplement their pay for the job if they retained this facility. Still – it was the only practical way they'd found so far to make it feasible…
Approaching Legazpi from the sea, they overflew the large river at the end of the single runway, and came in for another silky smooth landing. Once more Marius let momentum carry them down the runway, gently coaxing the chopper into a gentle turn at the end to approach the landing apron. Only one other plane was at the airport, a short-haul airliner that probably fed directly back to Manila, and that was undergoing servicing at the other end of the terminal.
When he'd coasted to a halt, they saw the fuel bowser start to trundle over towards them – along with a nondescript sedan that had a yellow light rotating on the top which indicated it was at least some kind of official vehicle.
"Flight Kilo Tango one one niner, be advised that customs inspectors are en-route and will require access to your cargo hold, passenger bay and flight manifest."
Marius relayed the message over the speakers and waited for Shimazu to translate, and the mood sank as the team looked around them. Okinawa had just relied on a transponder interrogation of their bird and checking their flight plan – nobody but the fuel tech had come close to their craft. It looked like they were not going to be quite so lucky here!
The team burst from their seats and started to try and tidy the craft up, covering weapons racks and supplies with items of clothing, burying boxes of grenades under a pile of camping gear and doing whatever else they could to try and disguise the mound of highly illegal ware they were carrying. As they did, they realised the futility of the action if the inspection was a serious act – but they carried on regardless. You never knew, it might be that a suitably large bribe and some sweet talking from Kai was all that was required. Though – given Kai's level of skill with the Japanese language, that was perhaps not that likely!
"Maybe we can come up with a good story, Kai? Tell them we're looking for rare medical plants to the south, and that we're a gathering expedition – that's why we need the gear?"
"Maybe, Aswon. I think we'll try and keep it simple though, head off the vehicle to talk to them and see if we can persuade them not to look at all…"
The car pulled up to a halt outside the painted lines on the apron, and two security officers climbed out of the vehicle along with someone in a suit wearing reflective shades. They waited patiently behind the thick yellow warning light as the rotors slowly wound down, along with the fuel technician who sat in his cab tapping his fingers idly on the steering wheel.
Aswon jumped onto the viewing optics and spun the prism round to examine them, and risked dropping into astral space and very deliberately and carefully assensing them. He didn't detect any kind of magical ability at all, though he did pick up some cyberware in their heads and bodies - the guards looked to be equipped with SmartLink weapon integrations and the guy in the suit had a datajack and some other ware implanted in his head.
"Tads – they're not magical. We need an illusion back here, to disguise all this crap!"
"I'll see what I can do." She concentrated, and as the last noise of the rotors faded away and the men approach the tilt-wing, the inside of the craft rippled and changed as she crafted her trid-phantasm over the space. The combat drones turned into medical surgery bots, capable of remote operations. Guns turned into cleaning lances attached to steam compressors, boxes of grenades turned into sealed plastic crates of bandages and medical supplies. The light level increased and the inside of the craft became a pale lemon yellow, decorated here and there with the logos and instructions written in French.
A bang on the hull at the port side door let them know that the inspector had arrived – but instead of opening the side door, Kai dropped the back ramp and then leant around the corner and smiled broadly.
"Sorry, side door has supplies stacked against it. Hello there! Would you like to come aboard?"
The inspector walked down to meet him and climbed aboard, saying something in Japanese.
"So sorry, um. I think I can manage hello and good bye, but that's about my limits. Konishy-whaa. Soyonara. Dreadfully uneducated of me I know, but we're just passing through, heading for humanitarian work to the south on some of those smaller islands."
Frustrated, the Japanese man repeated his speech, looking around at the passengers in the back before fixating on Shimazu and spotting what he must have perceived as a friendly face. Shimazu worked his way forward to stand next to Kai, and began to translate.
"The customs inspector needs to see the full passenger manifest that was filed and the IDs of everyone here to check them against. And he needs to speak to whoever was responsible for the flight plan."
"Is he sure?" Kai glanced and Shimazu, and the inspector nodded vigorously – indicating he at least understood English even if he wasn't prepared to speak it. "Oh, very well then. Hunter, could you come aft for a moment, and bring the flight plan please?"
"Really?"
"Oh yes, there's a gentlemen here that MUST speak to you. He insists, in fact." Kai gave a broad smile, watching as the nodding from the Japanese man slowed somewhat. He had no idea why, but he recognised smugness when he saw it. A moment later Hunter appeared through the door to the cockpit, his huge body squeezing sideways as he advanced down the centre of the craft towards the inspectors. All three of the waiting officials took a half step back as they saw his face, and there was a sharp indrawn breath.
Officially, the Japanese policy made no special notice of which sub-species of Humanity you were. Officially, that was the line accepted by most of the corporate world and other countries. Unofficially of course, nobody could miss the fact that there were almost no Orks or Trolls in Japan. Unless their weird genetic traits that made a significant part of the world 'express' or 'goblinise' around the globe with the return of magic had somehow missed Japan, everyone knew that this was so much bulldrek. But nobody had enough power and fraks to give to do anything about it – so nothing was done.
Those in the Shadow community who listened to rumours that flitted around in the darker and less well-regulated parts of the matrix knew about Yomi Island – the massive internment camp where children were dumped by Japanese parents ashamed of their offspring, who displayed such a lack of racial purity. Stories did the rounds of the horrific genocide and savage death rates that came from the brutal regime. Precious few metas escaped from the Island, and those that did hated the Japanese people and culture with a passion that burned within them like a white hot flame.
So when the Japanese inspector was faced with a tall and powerfully built 'un-person' whose face cracked into a horrific smile that made him look like the very devil himself, he lost all composure for a moment, his face twisting into a visage of disgust. He took a deep breath, and then his features calmed as he refocussed himself, turning instead to stare at Kai, then speaking again.
"He would like to see the first page of the flight plan." Shimazu translated. Hunter keyed alive the data slate in his hands and displayed the first page, and the man glanced over and studied it for a moment, then turned back to Kai, saying a short phrase.
"Tsugi no peji."
"He says next page, please," Shimazu helpfully translated.
The pantomime continued for several minutes as the inspector asked for details – addressing Kai in all instances and refusing to make eye contact with Hunter as he stood in front of him. Hunter slowly shuffled in half a pace as he advanced the pages, until he was close enough he could breathe heavily towards the man, watching a little angry tic form at the side of his mouth – but still he refused to even acknowledge his presence.
A smile formed on Hunter's lips as he started to really enjoy the man's discomfort in his presence, and with his free hand he reached up to the side of his face and worked a finger into his ear, slowly twirling it around until he got a satisfactory squelching noise out of it. Once he'd found the right spot, he continued to work his finger back and forth, making a rhythm out of his earwax and staring down at the man before him.
"Enough! You are cleared to depart! Immediately!" The outburst was in English, and he turned on his heel and pushed his way past the two men, striding down the ramp as he quivered with rage. Both of the security officials span on the spot, wanting to leave equally quickly, as if Hunter's very presence could infect them some way.
As soon as the men were gone, their car speeding back towards the terminal Hunter returned to the cockpit and got himself back out of sight, and they called in the fuel bowser to refill their tanks and the delivery agent with the four barrels of additional fuel. While their normal tanks were refilled, the rest of the team worked to move the heavy barrels up the ramp and secure them to the side of the chopper, leaving only a torturously thin gap to squeeze through if they wanted to use the rear ramp.
As soon as they were loaded, Marius restarted the engines and signalled for clearance, getting ready to taxi and take off to clear the area as quickly as possible. Hunter had their exit flight plan logged to the island of Palau, about thirteen hundred kilometres to the south east, and as soon as they were airborne they banked over to assume the correct heading. They stayed on course for about a hundred kilometres, but as soon as they were sure they were clear of shore based radar, they turned due south, running parallel down the coast of the Philippines the eight hundred kilometres to the southern tip of the islands, before turning west and heading back towards land.
Sarangani island was about twelve kilometres from the mainland, an island that ran roughly north to south just as far. Comprised of a single massive ridgeline, it looked to be the results of crustal displacement rather than raw volcanic activity, and the island was covered with dense foliage. Just to the west was another island called Balut which clearly was volcanic in origin, with the now characteristic cone formation. Hunter flashed up the course, showing them coming in from the east side of the island, roughly halfway down the coast, where there was a shallow spit of land that stuck out into the ocean. Marius bought them in nice and low, keeping just above the wavetops and hopefully well out of sight of shore-based sensors – though anyone on Sarangani Island would have at least a chance to spot them coming regardless.
Closing in they could make out a small jetty that had been constructed in the shallows, with several medium-sized cruisers tied up alongside – though none of them seemed to be marked up as naval or security forces. A host of smaller boats were also present, and a number of people were working on the docks. Their destination lay a little to the north, though, a long wide sandy beach that looked to be just about large enough to land a light aircraft on – and the co-ordinates given to them neatly coincided with a large log cabin set back from the beach. Marius bought them in, dropping quickly and powering down as fast as he could as the rotors threw up sand and debris everywhere, blanking out visual and sensors equally.
By the time vision had returned, a slender Filipino man had wandered out of the hut and was heading down the beach towards them – apparently not concerned about the massive dust storm with no apparent source. He had black hair and carried a large machete of some kind over one shoulder. While Kai squeezed through the narrow gap between the fuel barrels and the drones, Aswon checked out the man approaching them.
"Ok, he's not magically active at a quick glance, but I'm not going to probe him, just in case. No sign of cyberware on him either. He's looking pretty calm and confident, tiny bit of curiosity. And the knife that he's got on his shoulder – that's some kind of Bolo I think. If I recall correctly there's a whole bunch of different knife fighting styles based around here, so assume he's as good with that as Shimazu is with his blade – just to be on the safe side."
Shimazu moved to immediately follow Kai outside, but Kai waved for him to stay where he was, then ducked out of the rear ramp. As he headed up the beach, he called over the comms.
"We need to establish some kind of trust here, as well as capabilities. Tads, can you drop the spirit concealment please, let him know how well we can hide?" Kai watched the man carefully, and could spot when Tadibya carried out his request – his face probably wasn't quite as impassive as he wanted it to be, but on the other hand he kept himself pretty much under control. As Kai closed in he could see there was a nasty looking scar that worked down the side of the man's face and around the neck, his dark skin marked with pink scar tissue and puckers.
"I am Kui Hai Loo. Do you have a landing permit?"
"Um, sorry, no I don't. But I am happy to pay for one if that's something we can arrange?" Kai opened his hands out to the man, showing they were empty and schooling his body to adopt a friendly posture.
"Ok, we can arrange that. How many ruins you want to dig?"
"Sorry, ruins? Dig? I'm not familiar with the terms?"
"You're not here to do a dig? Oh, why are you here?"
"A mutual contact recommend that we land here, Mr. Harry Wu. A lovely gentlemen that we did some trading with. He mentioned that you'd be a good place to stop on our journey along this way."
"Ahh ok. Wu is ok with me. How long you wanna stay, and do you have trade goods with you?"
"We don't really have any trade goods – but we can do delivery or courier work perhaps? And we probably just want to stay one night."
"Arright then. One night is five hunner. But you and your crew come to the big house to sort out. Have food, drink, stretch. Talk business. At big house." He turned on his heel and started to head back up the beach, not looking to see if Kai was following him.
"Ok folks, you heard the man. Let's deplane, stretch the legs and lock the bird up, and go talk business."
One by one the team worked their way out of the chopper, stretching and working out the kinks as they did so. It was just after half three in the afternoon, which meant they'd been in transit for nearly ten hours, and were looking forwards to a break – Marius especially.
Last out was Hunter, who was staring at his data slate with concern, as he reviewed the data being beamed over from his deck. It showed the southern part of the Philippines and the mass of islands to the south – and a huge red mass just appearing to the far right of the screen. Indicators showed a steady but slow advance to the left, as the weather front moved in.
"Kai, everyone. Just a heads up. Looks like Monsoon season is moving in – gonna hit either tomorrow or the day after. Just so you know."
A sudden gust of wind from the east delivered a gust of warm moist air, a foretaste of what was to come…
