Date: Wednesday 8/9/2060, Location: -6.73577, 146.99199, Time: 18:10

Shimazu found a doorway to duck into and paused for a moment, getting his breath back, while Kai twitched and fidgeted on his shoulder. They were both drenched, cold water soaking into their underlayers and making them shiver as the combination of wind and water wicked away their body heat. Shimazu keyed open his comms and risked a quick update.

"Away from the initial location, just taking a quick breather."

"Shimazu? It's Tads. It's nearly dusk, and the spirit is probably going to disappear soon. I'd advise you to find a hiding place and lay low for a little while. As soon as we're past dusk, I'll summon a new spirit and send it over to you."

"Roger that." Shimazu adjusted Kai on his shoulder once more and then stepped back out into the rain, turning to continue his journey back towards the harbour. As he stepped out of the doorway, his foot slid on some rotting food that was laying in the shadows and his arms reflexively spread out to help balance him, nearly tipping Kai off his shoulder and onto the floor below. He managed to snag Kai, glad that he was of average size and weight, and when he had regained his footing, he bounced again, bringing forth a groan from Kai as Shimazu's shoulder exerted pressure on Kai's groin.

He jogged on, continuing down the back roads until he spotted the sign for Lings Freezers, and worked his way through the cluttered yards full of junk until he could see the back of the store. A large lean-to building had been constructed at some point on the rear, and he headed for the doorway set into the middle of the structure.

Up above, Marius tried to keep an eye on the situation, keeping his drone high to cover the sound of the engines. Sensor resolution was awful through the rain, but he didn't need details – just an idea of what was going on. As he watched the radio location for Shimazu and Kai move closer to Lings, he relaxed a little and expanded the sensor focus, checking out the area to see what the local police were doing. They'd found their stunned comrade and had converged on his location, and the three policemen remaining were carefully moving their colleague out towards the main road, moving slowly and cautiously as if they expected to be assaulted.

A sudden tickle in his side alerted Marius to a sensor reading, and he slewed the drone over to the east and looked into the dark with his onboard cameras and basic electronic scanners. As he watched, a nebulous electronic signature started to appear out of the rain, as another aerial drone appeared, flying towards his position. Without stopping to grab more than a cursory look, he threw his own drone into action, spinning around and powering up the engines, then dropping in a long arc towards the ground. Moments later he was flying along at barely more than head height, piloting down alleyways and using the buildings for cover from the predicted course of the newcomer.

Once he'd gotten three streets away and had drifted through several turns, he slowly raised the drone over the peak of a roof, raising his sensor pod and aiming towards where he thought the other drone should be. It wasn't quite where he expected, but was close enough to spot, and he watched for a moment as the drone flew a lazy course that took it from one destroyed police car to the other. When it was turned away from him, banking through a gentle turn that gave it a fairly predictable flight path for a few seconds, he risked activating his active sensors and ran a quick sweep.

With the more detailed response from his systems completed, he powered them down again and dropped back out of sight, then turned and flew north west, heading out of the town towards the open countryside. While the drone flew down the agreeably empty street, Marius replayed the sensor sweep, looking for information. From the engine profile it appeared to be a Suzuki vector thrust drone, somewhat similar to his own. The distinctive cowling and engine nacelles were particular to that manufacturer and gave him a good start on checking through models to work out what it was. From the limited signature file he'd been able to build up, he tentatively identified it as a quick response recon drone, supplied to the Australian-New Zealand military alliance.

"Just wanted to let you know, there's an AnZac recon drone now hovering over the police cars, checking them out. Looks like someone in the local police department has some pull or contacts in the military." Hunter and Aswon shared a look, while Vadim and Tads sighed in unison.

Back down on the ground, Shimazu made it to the back door of the building and rapped on the door with the butt of his gun half a dozen times. He had to wait nearly a minute in the pouring rain before it was carefully opened by the lady from the shop, who gasped as he strode forwards, gently pushing open the door and past her to get into the dry.

The structure appeared to be a stock room, tall metal shelves holding bulk products such as drums of soy-oil and massive bags of rice, piled up waiting to be moved through to the shop floor. It was just as dirty as the main shop, and had a musty smell to it, and the flickering overhead lights did nothing to improve the ambience.

"Samare! SAMARE!" the women called, backing away from Shimazu as he carefully lifted Kai from his shoulder and placed him onto the edge of a shelf so he sat mostly upright and could lean against the wall. Once Kai was secure, Shimazu turned to the woman and made a show of deliberately holstering his pistol and then spreading his hands wide open, showing he had no weapons drawn or ready. He snorted to himself, knowing that with the days and days of practice, he could draw his sword in the blink of an eye and move with a speed that defied most people's comprehension, so she wasn't actually any safer – but of course she didn't know that, and sometimes it was all about perception.

The daughter appeared through the doorway behind him, and Shimazu moved to the side, both to let her in and to be able to face both of them. "You came back?"

"Yes, we did. My friend here is hurt, and we need somewhere to hide for a while. Somewhere quiet, where we can't be seen."

"Does he bleed? Need a doctor?"

"No, no doctor needed. He just needs to rest a bit. Maybe an hour or two, and he should be better."

"Does he need tea?"

"Yes, I think he does. Tea would help him. Tea would probably help everyone." Samere looked at the older women until she nodded in approval and then left through the back door. Straining his hearing and trying to focus past the rain, he thought he heard her running up some stairs just the other side of the wall – presumably outside there was an external staircase that led up to the accommodation floor above the shop, that they hadn't seen the entrance to, yet.

Two uncomfortable minutes passed, with the older woman standing in the doorway to the shop, looking uncertain and nervous, while Shimazu wondered what she was planning. Communication was clearly not on the cards, so he instead focussed on making sure Kai was sat upright, and examining the various supplies in the room, seeing if he could even begin to fathom out the character set and linguistics of the language. By the time Samere came back with a small tea tray, swimming with water even from the short few seconds spent outside, he was no closer to comprehending the language, but at least he'd not been bored…

The green tea was hot and tasty, and he helped Kai sip at a cup in between large gulps of his own. The two locals also sipped at their tea, and when she was about half way through her own cup, Samere set it down on a shelf and turned to address Shimazu.

"So, why are you here?" Instead of Shimazu though, it was Kai that spoke, his face scrunched up with effort as he tried to concentrate past the muscle spasms and massive headache the taser has left him with.

"We went out to deal with the situation, with Gwok. We wandered the streets, and bad men ambushed us. It went...badly for them. We left them, but then the police came, so we had to run away and hide. We just need to hide from the police for a while, then we will be gone and out of your lives. You won't be hurt, and nothing will lead back to you. That's why it is important that nobody knows we are here."

Samere translated, and the older women nodded, and then started to turn away to head into the shop. Shimazu studied her, and his hand quickly dropped to his hip, laying a few fingers on the hilt of his sword, allowing him to drop into astral sight. He looked at her aura, which showed a certain amount of calmness and a lack of alarm. He couldn't pick up any of the tell-tale signs of anger, betrayal or duplicity from her, so he relaxed a little, watching as she returned to the shop and started to work through the freezers and shelves, tidying the place up.

"Which police came for you?" Samere asked, drawing his attention away from the mother.

"What do you mean? Just the police, as far as we could see."

"There are two police here. The old police for the town, and the new police from the soldiers. Different uniforms."

"Shimazu, what did they look like? I mostly just saw a dark shape as I was shooting at it…"

"Dark blue trousers, and I caught the edge of a light blue shirt under the jacket. And they wore Berets. Floppy cloth hats." He tried to describe the headgear, eventually miming as he tried alternate ways to describe the royal-blue berets the police had been wearing using words that Samere understood.

"That is not good. That is the town police. All bad. Very bad. Well, all police bad, but local police most bad."

"Why? Why are the police bad? Surely they look after the town?" Kai managed to get out, without slurring his words too badly. Shimazu watched as Samere's body language changed subtly. Her breathing intensified, and her hands tightened around the half-drunk cup of tea, and it appeared that she was trying to steel herself for something. He had an inkling of an idea of what might be going on and decided to take a stab in the dark.

"Clearly Gwok is a bad man, and the police are bad men. We should deal with Gwok then, the rest of my friends and I, when we're feeling better.

"But he has lots of men and lots of guns. And his men are very strong!" Shimazu looked around and spotted a thirty litre drum of cooking oil, and moved a step or two closer to it, grasping the handle between thumb and forefinger. With nothing more than a grunt, he lifted the drum up, raising it slowly to shoulder height, arm locked out at full extension. After he had held it still for a few seconds, he slowly lowered it, muscles straining under his coat as he lowered it millimetre by millimetre back down to the ground under absolute control.

"My friends and I. We can be pretty strong, too. Maybe he'll have less men and guns by the end of the night…" Samere's eyes went wide at the demonstration, and she set her cup down and moved over to the barrel, straining as she slid it over a short distance on the shelf, proving to herself that it wasn't an empty container.

The drone flew on through the rainstorm, taking a giant dog-leg route out of the town and then back towards the chopper when Marius was sure he wasn't being followed. As he brought the drone in to land, Hunter and Aswon braved the rain to grab it and manhandle it back aboard as soon as the jets were shut down – the hot fairings making a sizzling sound as the rain struck them and flashed to steam. As soon as the drone was safe to handle they collapsed it back into its transit case, securely stashing it back in their pile of gear.

With the drone safely recovered, Marius checked over the logs more carefully, then powered up his communications gear and slowly scanned through the frequencies, looking for signals matching the characteristics already recorded during his overflight. He quickly discovered the police channel, operating with a low level encryption system that was sufficient to stop random listeners, but would be easy enough to decode and break if he wanted to – though it wouldn't help him understand the language, of course.

Of more interest though was the second frequency – or rather set of frequencies. There were at least twenty discrete bands, occupying a reasonable chunk of the high end radio spectrum, and the signal seemed to hop across them in random order, giving him nothing other than static. However, this static had repeated patterns and structure, the sort of thing that might happen just by chance once in nature, but was definitely man-made when every time it hopped frequency there was the same pattern of data repeated over and over.

He bought all his systems online, and started pattern matching, trying to determine the frequency of the hops and see if there was any determinable sequence to the part of the spectrum the signal shifted to. Once he had a few minutes of data, he carefully started sending out packets of data over his rigger network, trying to infiltrate the communications channels so he could associate his deck to the system and have a stab at decrypting the data stream, hopefully finding out what was going on.

Feeling his way through the shifting mass of frequencies and data formats as much by intuition as much as training and skill, he worked on narrowing down the parameters of the system, sending data streams out and gauging the systems response levels. As he tried to send his first logon packet, he felt a sudden rush of power and a blinding pain that stabbed right behind his eyes as a massive 'zorch' was aimed at his receiver.

Marius blinked rapidly, fighting down the urge to cry out in pain, and instead rapidly disengaged his systems and shut down the signal. Whatever system it was, it had detected him as an intruder and the automated counter-measures had swung into action and instructed the transmitting device to focus their transmissions down a very narrow angle, straight at his systems, and then turn the power of their transmissions up way past the rated maximum of the equipment – no doubt shaving hundreds of hours off the rated lifespan of the components. It was a well-known technique for blinding or knocking out sensors, but that carried some risks to the attacker – it was entirely possible to burn our your own systems trying to zorch an enemy, leaving you horribly vulnerable in any conflict.

At least, judging by the insanely fast response time, he'd only been spotted by some kind of automated defences or system, rather than an actual enemy rigger. While the smart-frame systems had responses fast enough to give a bolt of lightning a run for its money, they lacked the empathy, intuition and emotions that made a meta-human enemy that much more unpredictable and flexible.

He jacked out and finished shutting down the systems, rubbing at the back of his neck and trying to ease the tenseness there as his body reacted to the stress of his near miss.

"That is definitely a military drone out there – protected with some kind of defensive ICE or countermeasures." In the co-pilot seat Hunter gave an involuntary shudder. Though he was no expert decker, his growing familiarity with the Shadowland community had exposed him to plenty of people who were – or at least claimed to be. And he'd seen enough descriptions of runners who had been reduced to drooling vegetables by a run in with enemy systems. In the constant arms race between the attackers and defenders, the corporations had developed intrusion countermeasures that had attacked the hardware and operating systems of the computers first – but after the development of the cyberdeck and the ability to thrust your own consciousness into the digital realm, Black ICE had been developed that rather than attacked the deck, struck at the decker instead, sending lethal levels of bio-neural feedback through the deck to directly attack the brain.

"Well, sounds like we don't want to tangle with that at all. I guess we wait, and see when Shimazu and Kai can make it back," Hunter murmured, scanning out of the window and looking for any movement or signs of life outside. "I wonder what they're up to?"

Samere finished her tea, and then hopped up onto a shelf, staring at Kai and Shimazu. They could see her take a deep breath, and her hands balled into fists by the side of her as she resolved to say whatever it was that was bothering her.

"The local police are bad men. Everyone knows that, and that they ignore Gwok's men. Sometimes they help them. That's why when Gwok's men came for me, I didn't tell the police. They would not have helped me, and would just tell Gwok, then I would be in more trouble."

It took Kai a few moments to process what she said, and even longer before he realised what she was alluding to, and trying not to say directly. But as his frazzled brain put two and two together, his lips thinned and his face hardened.

"Did they hurt you. Gwok's men. Did they…."

"They were going to. But father caught them by surprise. They were very embarrassed about being scared, so they went away. But they said they will come back and find me."

"Don't worry. I don't think we're going to let that happen. Are we, Shimazu?" The big Japanese man didn't answer verbally, but the shake of his head and the deliberate dropping of his hand to the sword hilt made his feelings on the subject clear.

Far to the west, the sun slid behind the peaks and crests of the mountains, and night raced across the landscape, heralding the end of another day. The spirits bound to Tads' will were released as the magical realm flipped from day to night, and in the chopper she sat up as she felt the spirits depart and started to call upon the spirits of the night to come to her aid. It only took her a minute to replace her small flock of spirits, and it took no more than a few seconds for those spirits to make their way into the town and find Kai and Shimazu, and get in position to guard and protect them.

"Guys, the fresh spirits will be with you in a moment, you should be good to continue moving when ready."

"Thank you." Kai released the transmit button, then turned to face Shimazu. "I think I'm a little steadier on my feet. Let's see if we can get back to the others and we can make a start on planning something.

In the chopper Aswon suddenly cocked his head to one side as he detected a faint noise. Nobody else around him seemed to hear it, so he concentrated for a moment, trying to isolate it. In the cockpit, Marius twitched as he heard the same noise, a high-pitched humming, almost beyond the range of audible sound. It intensified, then wobbled slightly, the pitch rising and falling smoothly then returning to the original note. Tad shifted uneasily in her seat – looking around and then scanning the area astrally. She couldn't hear the noise, at least not consciously, but she knew that something was making her feel uneasy for some reason. In the middle of town, Shimazu experienced the same feeling and half drew his sword while looking around for the source of the feeling.

Abruptly the sound ceased, and all was quiet – just long enough for people to question what was going on. Then the ground trembled violently, shaking the chopper on its landing gear and making everything inside vibrate. In town the building shook and foodstuffs on the shelves danced and wobbled, some of them falling off onto the floor. Aswon had been looking out of the optics, trying to find the source of the high-pitched hum without success, but as he panned over to the harbour, he could see the waves vibrating and spreading across the sheltered inlet with ripples and motion that reminded him of a glass of water placed atop a loudspeaker.

Samere hopped down from her shelf and ran to the door leading from the store room into the main sales area, and was joined a moment later by her mother. They waved for Kai and Shimazu to join them, standing under the sturdy lintel as they waited out the earthquake. Shimazu pushed Kai into place and realised there was no way he was going to fit in as well, so waited as close as he could get, with one arm protectively raised over his head.

The quake rumbled along for a few seconds, faded away then resumed with a much shorter but sharper effect, shaking everything and everyone in the town hard. A few moments later, a quieter rumble shook the town once more, as if smoothing things down and settling things back into place, then the movement receded and the sounds faded away.

Kai looked over at Samere and managed to raise an eyebrow at her.

"Is that normal? Does that happen often?"

"Hmm, sometimes. When it does, we got told to go and stand under something strong or in a doorway and wait. Hopefully the house won't fall down. Sometimes they do, though. I hope our house doesn't fall down. I saw one fall down once – it was sad because all the people inside got squished."

They waited another minute, standing under (or in one case, by) the doorframe, but no further aftershocks disturbed the evening. Samere's mother returned to the store and started to tidy up, moving stock back onto the shelving and tidying up the displays that had been knocked over during the quake.

Samere had just headed into the front of the building when they heard the bell over the front door ring, and Shimazu caught a flash of police uniform as someone pushed the door open. He sidestepped quickly, grabbing Kai and pushed them both flat against the wall to the side of the door, trying to keep out of sight. A moment later they head the policeman speak, barking out questions in the local language.

The mother responded quickly, and the conversation flowed back and forth, with Kai and Shimazu listening to the tone and style of voice, trying to determine what was going on. Samere appeared a moment later and placed her finger over her mouth, then gave them a tiny smile, before she grabbed a box of supplies and carried it out into the store where she started to stack a shelf next to the doorway, using her body to shield the view into the back area slightly.

The interrogation by the policeman seemed to be drawing to a close, and with what sounded like a final admonishment, he turned and left. Samere gave them the all clear when the door was closed, returning the box of food back to the shelf it had come from.

"He's gone. He was asking about two foreign people, wanting to know if we had seen anyone. They have a description for you both, but they think both of you are taller than you are!"

"Well, thank you for not giving us away. Give us a few minutes, for the policeman to be clear of here, and we will leave and head back to the rest of our team. And then we'll go deal with Gwok's men." Kai suddenly rummaged in his trouser pocket, then pulled out the remainder of his ready cash, about two hundred Nuyen in a variety of crumpled notes. "Here, sorry we have been trouble for you."

Samere looked at the selection of notes, but didn't make any attempt to grab them. When Kai proffered them again, moving them closer to her, she looked up at him with uncertainty.

"This…this is a gift? For us?"

"Yes. You helped us when you didn't have to. We're not like the other men, we prefer to trade fairly. So this is for helping to keep us safe."

"Ahh… ok, wait here. I come back!" She took the money and then left via the back exit, and Shimazu definitely heard her feet pounding up the stairs next to the storeroom this time.

"What do you think she's doing, Shimazu?"

"I don't know. But I don't think she's phoning the police or anything – both from her body language, and from what she said about trusting the local cops." They both settled down to wait, Kai gently rubbing his temples with his hands to try and ease the headache. A minute later they heard the sound of footsteps coming back down the steps, and shortly afterwards Samere appeared again through the back door, holding a bundle of something in her arms.

"Here! Take these. They will keep you a little dry, and help you hide!" She pulled the bundle apart, holding out one mass of fabric to each of them. As they took the bundles and started to open them up, they could smell a musty scent coming off of them, as if they'd been lying unused for some time. The bundles turned out to be hooded ponchos, made of a slick fabric that would cover them from head to about knee level, with two large folds at the side to cover the arms. The outers looked creased and worn, and it was doubtful they were actually waterproof anymore – but they'd certainly help, and would definitely disguise their appearance significantly.

"Thank you, Samere, these will help a lot. I think we're ready to go now. Please say thank you to your parents, too, and sorry if we scared them." Samere nodded, and they both rose to their feet and put the ponchos on. Kai was still nursing a killer headache, but his legs seemed steadier underneath him, and he was able to walk unaided now, though Shimazu stayed close just in case. Without any further words, they eased open the back door, had a quick look around them and then slipped out of the door and back into the torrential rain, disappearing into the night.

Sure enough, the ponchos were not fully waterproof, and the hammering rain quickly penetrated the fabric covering the top of their body, soaking their shoulders – but they shed a good proportion of the other rain and did break up their outline nicely. They continued down the back roads, working their way towards the port and the road that ran around the perimeter. About halfway back to the chopper they saw a car coming down a side road, and a moment later the lights swept over them, illuminating them briefly before continuing on their way. It looked like a police car through the rain – but that might have been their paranoia, painting in details to fill the blanks in their perception.

They made it back to the chopper in one piece, and climbed onboard, checking with the rest of the team to find out what had happened in their absence. Seeing the state of them, Tads and Aswon grabbed dry clothes from their bags, and helped Kai and Shimazu get out of their sodden garments. By this point, nobody had any problems getting changed in front of the others – after freezing water in Siberia, surgery, body scans for IDs and living in the same truck for weeks on end, body modesty was a thing of the past, and nobody batted an eyelid as they got changed. It probably helped that Vadim had spent a year living in communal barracks too, and he, too, just found somewhere else to look.

After getting into dry clothes, Kai sat back in his seat, drinking some water and washing down some painkillers provided by Tads. He briefly recounted what had happened to them over the journey, and what they'd discovered.

"I still don't understand why Gwok wanted a hand from these people though? I mean, they're just shop keepers as far as I can tell. You didn't spot gang activity or some underground facility or anything, I take it…"

"Well, there's one thing. From what we can work out, a couple of Gwok's men decided they were going to have their way with Samere. From what we can gather, they were either scared off or driven off by her dad, and that probably made them lose face."

"Say that again." Hunter's voice cut through the cabin. He didn't speak loudly, or particularly forcefully. Indeed, he was fairly quiet – but his voice had drained of all emotion and was flat and cold. His eyes had swivelled to focus on Kai, and his keyboard sat on his lap his fingers poised midway through typing.

"From the sounds of things, they were going to rape her, but they got driven away. She's a bit messed up about it." Kai repeated, while Shimazu nodded in agreement.

"Aswon, can you make me a demo charge please. Something that will give me a twenty to thirty metre blast radius?" He glanced over his shoulder and looked through the open cockpit door at the building beyond. "Yes, better make it thirty metres." Aswon glanced over at Kai, not wanting to do anything of the sort without some agreement from Kai and the rest of the team, but was surprised to see Kai consider for a moment, then nod his head in approval.

"Ok, I'll get right on that." He saw Hunter put down the keyboard and then pull out the box of grenades from his stash and slide them across the floor towards him. "Thanks. I'll just grab my bag of stuff. So, um… I guess we're not happy with Gwok then, and we're looking at resolving this situation?"

Hunter didn't say anything, but grabbed his assault rifle and a few spare clips of ammo, and started to check both, making his feelings abundantly clear.

"I don't like the sound of this man, but is blowing up his base while we're still here such a good idea?" Tads asked. "Wouldn't it be better to set it up so it happens hours after we've gone?"

"Well, I can rig this with a timer, sure" Aswon muttered around the screwdriver held in his mouth while his hands started to lay out his other supplies. "But that just means we need to place the explosive inside the building, which would be very difficult. Or try and blow the building up – which would need a lot of explosives."

"How about if we used a spirit to help us?"

"How?" Hunters voice had warmed a little, but his focus was still there, and his direct stare at Tads put her on the spot.

"Well…how about if we got the spirit to physically manifest, and fly up onto the roof with the bomb, and to wait there for two hours after we'd gone, before activating the trigger. If it returns to the astral realm straight away, it won't be harmed by the explosion at all."

"That still means the bomb is going to go off on the roof, rather than in the building. It might get some of them, but not enough."

"How about…hold it." Aswon grabbed the screwdriver from his mouth and then spoke more clearly. "How about we use two charges. First of all the spirit pulls the pin on a normal charge, starting the timer. It flies straight up, about twenty metres, outside the blast area, and waits for the charge to go off, making a hole in the roof. Then it activates the second charge and just drops it through the hole?"

The team considered this for a few moments, with nods starting to appear all around as they examined the plan. It should mean the main charge going off inside, where the walls would contain rather than shelter the inhabitants from the blast, and also let them get well clear of the area.

"I'm not arguing that this guy sounds like a psychotic retard," Marius called over the speakers, "but is this the best time to do this. What if we need to come back this way, for fuel or repairs? Do we want to burn these bridges? Because I tell you for certain – if we try and bomb this guy, we're never going to be welcome here again."

Ker-clak! The receiver slapped shut and the bolt shuddered as Hunter checked the chamber, then racked a round into the chamber, making his opinion clear.

"He has a point," Shimazu added. "From what we've seen and you described of the first meeting with him, this is a man who takes his reputation seriously. If we insult him like this, and don't kill him – we're not going to hear the last of it."

"Instead of attacking him, how about taking out his fuel store? Would that be a way to send a message without making it personal? We've seen how important it is…" Tads suggested.

"Possibly. I'd be concerned that it has a good chance of being horribly polluting though, this close to the harbour. I mean, the water isn't clean by a long shot, but adding a few tens of thousands of litres of fuel to it could destroy the marine life nearby. And I also think they guy would take it just as personally, from what we know of him." While he spoke he continued to fashion a device, using tape to fashion a complex string of grenades held in a pattern, then starting to intertwine them into a three dimensional shape, forming a crude approximation of a sphere.

"Why are we taking this on? I mean, the guy has not done anything to us personally. I do not like what he is doing, but is that any reason to interfere and get tied up in local affairs? Better to just leave him be and move on, surely?"

"How about that canister of sleep gas? The whatsit called? Neurostun? Can we fill the building with that and knock them out?"

"Hey! You leave my Neurostun alone, I've got plans for that!" Aswon exclaimed. "Besides, I don't think we have the right tools or environment to decant that from the main container. There's a good chance we'd just end up gassing ourselves, and that would be embarrassing. Just imagine if we were trying to get some gas grenades filled and another of those tremors struck, just as we were at the delicate part? No. Absolutely bad idea."

"How about someone wanders in then, with the canister. We tell him we have the hand, on ice. When we get close, we just crack the canister open and gas everyone. Wait a few minutes, then the rest of us go in, with masks on."

"First of all, it's not just inhaled – the stuff will work on skin contact. So you'd have to wait for it to dissipate before we can get inside. Second – again, I have plans for that stuff. And thirdly – I think anyone going into that building is wandering into a world of trouble. That seems like a really bad idea. The place is as dangerous as a nest of vipers!"

"Ok, so I go in and deliver the hand we have, and start spinning them a line about things, mention the police, talk lots of nonsense and confuse him, but get his defences down – then drop the neurostun. You lot wait outside until the gas has leaked away, and then come in and kill them all and carry me back here?"

"No, that's not going to happen." Now it was Shimazu's turn to speak in a flat voice that lacked inflection. But the look he gave Kai indicated that while he was willing to listen to any argument that Kai might want to make, he wasn't going to change his mind and it didn't change the situation at all. Kai was well aware, of course, that Shimazu was more than strong enough to sling him over his shoulder and walk off with him, and with his taser having exploded, that left him only lethal responses – and he wasn't quite at that level yet…

"Do we have to go in at all? I mean, can't we just leave? And if we have to leave the device, we leave that, too. Why put ourselves in more danger than we have to?" Tads asked. "It's after dusk, so the spirit we use will have hours and hours to carry out its requests if need be. But we can afford to wait for hours to do this if we have to."

"I can't believe you're still thinking of doing this. This is the only place in a thousand kilometres we know about that will refuel us without paperwork or questions, and you're looking to blow it up!"

Hunter, Kai and Shimazu seemed firmly on the side of the assault though, while Aswon and Tads seemed neutral. Only Marius strongly expressed the desire not to get involved, and Vadim was quite wisely keeping his head down and doing his best to blend into the background and not be noticed.

The team continued their discussion, working out the various pros and cons of each method, arguing over the exact delivery option, and what they needed to say to Gwok, how it would impact them and what they'd deal with later. Round and round they went, for five minutes until all of the team stopped talking as they heard the engines whine as the rotors started to lazily turn.

"I'm lifting off in about sixty seconds," announced Marius. "You've got that long to put your plan in action, otherwise we're going to be here all night. Either attack, or we're leaving…"

"Fine! Fine, whatever. Aswon, get the two charges ready. Hunter, stand by on the door. Tads, call the spirit to readiness, tell it to wait for about two hours after we've left." In his pocket, Kai's phone started to ring. He pulled it out, looked at the number and frowned. "And apparently I'll answer the phone to Gwok…" He took a deep breath, then waved to the others to carry on, before hunching back into the corner of the troop bay and angling the phone so the camera wouldn't pick up any of the activity going on around him. "Hello?" He stared down at the screen, and the unfamiliar face – whoever it was, it wasn't Gwok…

"Mr. Gwok wants to know why you're leaving," the caller got straight to the point, staring at his phone as if he could intimidate Kai via electronic transmission.

"Is he there?" Kai asked light-heartedly. "I could do with a chat, as it happens."

"He's busy. I've been told to speak to you."

"Well, there's military activity going on in the area, and that makes us a little nervous – so we're moving away a short distance. But we have the hand Mr Gwok wanted. I can send you a picture if you like?"

"Mr Gwok isn't worried about the military," the voice responded, but was quickly interrupted with Kai making a quick point.

"Does he have friends in the military? That's good to know. Who does he work with?"

"That's not your concern."

"Well, we don't know if we can trust them then. Who knows? Maybe Mr. Gwok's influence is only enough to keep him safe, and not us. I'm sure you can understand our caution, can't you?" Kai tried to verbally draw the man out, get him to reveal something – but he just continued along the same line of demands.

"That's irrelevant. You are instructed to power down at once. Mr. Gwok has unfinished business with you."

"Oh yes – business. Well, of course. One moment!" Kai put the call on hold, and then waved to Shimazu for the hand. He grabbed the cold and bloody lump of meat, and took a quick photo of it lying on the deck plate, then resumed the call. "Let me just send you a scan now. Here you are – please make sure Mr. Gwok sees this."

"If you don't land immediately, Mr. Gwok will be very angry."

"Is Mr. Gwok in the hut then? Can I come see him?"

"Mr. Gwok is busy, you can deal with me."

Hunter raised his rifle to his shoulder, and mimed aiming at the hut then working the action of the grenade launcher. Kai just had time to mute the call before Aswon hissed at him.

"We can, but there's potentially a lot of return fire from what you were saying about the building. Even if you take a dozen out, there's still nearly two dozen to return fire. That doesn't sound like good odds, even if we've got the door guns in action."

Kai clicked his fingers to attract their attention, then raised fingers and silently counted down from three before he resumed the call.

"Well, ok then. But I made my deal with Mr. Gwok. I'm sure I should be dealing with him."

"Mr. Gwok instructed me to resolve this situation. I assure you, you can deal with me!"

"Give me two minutes to speak to the pilot, then, and get things sorted." Kai hit the disconnect button and cut off the call before the other person could respond.

The rotors were nearing lift-off speed, and the chopper started to vibrate as the engines lifted the frame slightly from the ground.

"Ok, we've got one spirit moving the bomb. How many others have we got that we can use here?"

"Well, there's five more – normally you all have one protecting you."

"Ok, let's get one concealing the main spirit as it delivers the payload then, please, it won't do to start the party early."

"I thought the spirit was going to wait several hours anyway. Why would anyone notice?" Tads asked.

"I think that plan went out of the window a few minutes ago. Send them out please, let's try and make this as subtle as possible."

The chopper jerked slightly and lifted into the air, rising up until it was about twenty metres above the road. Marius slewed it around ninety degrees, turning the nose until the smuggler den was on his starboard side, and the port loading door was concealed from their view.

"Are we going or staying, Kai? Make your mind up!"

"Get the door open and the spirits moving. As soon as they're clear, spin us again and hover for a few seconds, then get us out of here."

Tads sent the mental commands needed to her spirit which collected the explosive bundle from the floor, just before it shimmered and faded away into the background as the second spirit concealed it. Moments later they were gone, sliding out of the unwarded door of the chopper and disappearing out towards the sea, into the rain cloud.

"Where are they going?" Shimazu asked, watching the two spirits in astral space, where their passage was as clear as day.

"I'm sending them out to get them lost from view in the storm, then they'll go up, double back and drop straight down on top of the hut. Hopefully nobody will see them then." Tads responded.

When the door was closed, Marius spun another ninety degrees, then hovered for a moment, then continued to repeat this until he'd done a full revolution – hopefully drawing attention away from any flash or glimmer of activity as the spirits disappeared into the monsoon rains. When the team could no longer see the spirits, Marius increased power and turned towards the sea, then lowered the nose and picked up horizontal speed, heading out from the area on a south-easterly course.

"Hunter, pull up the location of the first Volcano please, and then work out a course change for me if I fly three hundred and fifty kilometres on this bearing?" Hunter acknowledged Marius' request curtly and pulled up the charts, plotting the course change needed to complete the dog-leg.

"Kai – the spirits are well on their way now. Is it worth calling the person back, and having an 'argument' with Marius, as if you want to come back but there's some kind of trouble? Maybe that will give you some kind of way back?"

"No – I don't think we're going to get anywhere with that guy. He's pretty well trained, didn't give much of anything away. I'll send a text message, much easier for them to copy and show Gwok, rather than interpret." He pulled up the app on his phone and started to punch in text, assembling the message and checking it through before hitting send.

[Unhappy with location. In town, got into trouble with Anzac forces. Military drones in air. Felt unsafe, so leaving. Will be back soon. Let me know if you need hand posting to you.]

Marius accelerated quickly, flying on a straight and predictable course to begin with while he focussed his attention on the area behind. Just because they hadn't seen any SAMs or heavy weapons, didn't mean they weren't there. He was suspicious, but the outbound flight from the island was uneventful, other than the rain continuing to smash down on their craft as they headed out to sea.

They flew on, and the tension in the chopper slowly receded as Papa New Guinea was left behind them, with no missiles streaking up to catch them or interceptor aircraft lancing through the storm. Once they were a few kilometres out, Marius took them down to the surface, flying just above the waves and leaving a massive optical signature behind them as they ploughed through the spray and wavetops – but in the heavy rains there was nobody that could spot their trail without having already seen them and if they were on someone's sensors, the crashing waves and proximity to the ocean would throw off a sensor lock. Hunter called out to him when they were three hundred and fifty kilometres out, and Marius swung to the north, heading for New Britain.

One hour and forty-five minutes after leaving Lae, they crossed the coast and started to climb up to cross the ridge of hills and mountains that divided the island in two. They skirted well away from the charted positions of towns and stuck as far out in the countryside as they could – but that still meant buzzing through several villages and isolated farmsteads. At least out here, nobody was likely to have decent communications to anyone who would care…

"Ok Hunter – what is the peak height on this?"

"Ulawun shows as twenty-three hundred on the charts, but they're a little old. But it's a steep cone peak, and I'm seeing absolutely nowhere we can set down at that height. On top of that the winds are likely to be fierce up there. We might be able to stop or hover for a short while, but there's no way we can stay up there for a day."

"Very well – then we need somewhere to set down where we can rest up for the day and keep out of sight. See what you can find for us." As Marius finished the sentence, the chopper gave a lurch to port, that was quickly corrected.

"Easy there, tiger! I'm looking, I'm looking."

"That wasn't me – one of the engines just…never mind, responding fine now." Marius sounded distracted as he checked through his systems, trying to identify what had just happened. It wasn't wind shear or turbulence, and everything looked to be in the green now. Aswon pulled the viewing optics on tight and then rotated his view through the system, checking to make sure it wasn't a spell or spirit that was affecting them – but astral space was clear too…

"Right, I think I have somewhere. About ten klicks west of the peak, there's something on the map marked as the Ibana Plantation Compound. Looks low end corporate, massive fields and a small farmstead just in from the ocean. But there's a river running through the land, and that snakes back and forth a bit, including around some woodland, as it goes through the plantation land. There's a bit where the river forms a horseshoe shape, with dense woods by the looks of things, but a clearing of some sorts – looks big enough for us to set down in, and we'll be out of sight unless someone is pretty much overhead. Uploading coordinates now."

As Hunter crosslinked the data, the chopper made another lurch, this time to starboard. Just as Kai opened his mouth to call out and check to see what was wrong, they heard Hunter cry out over the commlink.

"Fuuuuuck!"

"What's up Hunter? What's wrong?"

"There's lightning crawling all over the windscreen – just appeared out of nowhere. And a bunch of the instruments are going crazy!" The chopper dropped ten metres, leaving everyone's stomachs at the previous altitude and with bile in the back of their mouths.

"Marius?"

"Checking! Systems are reporting multiple errors, then clearing. Nothing on sensors. No electrical storm activity. Now the engines are fluctuating. Running diagnostics!" Marius sounded very distracted, as most of his attention traced data through the choppers sensors and control systems, trying to find out what was going on. The door to the cockpit slid open as Hunter reached over, and the troop bay was lit with the flickering eerie violet and blue light as forks of lightning arced and danced across the windscreen. Red lights danced across the cockpit instrumentation as systems reported dire warnings one moment, then operational the next.

"I think we should get on the ground, as soon as possible. At least we've got a day to sort this out." Kai muttered. He looked up as Tads suddenly clicker her fingers and pointed at both himself and Shimazu.

"We didn't check you for bugs when you got back. Did you get close enough to anyone that they could have planted a bug on you?"

"Maybe? I mean the guys attacking at the marketplace were about an arm's length away. But they didn't know we were coming."

"What about the people in the freezer place?"

"The mother was a lot calmer when we came back, but I didn't get any signs from here. Did you, Shimazu?" Shimazu shook his head emphatically – he was pretty certain they had both been playing it straight, from their reactions and emotional read.

"Achtung! Strap in tight. Both engines are showing over forty degrees over normal temperatures and climbing slowly. I'm reducing power and altitude; it may get bumpy." They felt the chopper drop slightly, and the engine noise decreased in both volume and pitch. Marius felt the engines throttle back a little as he issued commands, but then his stomach tensed – he'd lowered to eighty percent power settings, but the engines were now giving him no more than seventy-five percent thrust…something was definitely wrong with his bird, but with the instruments and sensors flicking from one extreme to the other, he couldn't spot what it was.

He glided as gently as he could, nursing the craft through the air and flinching with every bump, sway or shudder as his systems reported contradictory information, while Hunter kept his hands well clear of the cockpit windows and anything metallic as the lightning effect continued to dance and hop over the windscreen.

Just after nine, he spied the landing spot and started to rotate the engines and lower himself down into the clearing, hoping to all the mechanical gods that the engine pods twisted into the correct orientation and locked correctly, otherwise they were going to spin uncontrollably and slam into the forest with little chance of survival. The controls were sluggish, but they did respond, and after a quick and very dirty landing sequence, he felt the shock absorbers compress as he slapped the bird into the ground. It was by far the hardest landing he'd done since getting together with the team, but there wasn't a murmur from anyone as they were jolted in their seats – clearly nobody wanted to be in the air any longer than they had to be either.

As the engines cycled down, he unjacked and blinked as he returned to his meat body from the vehicle system, feeling his legs cramp slightly as they always did as he moved them for the first time since jacking in.

"I'm going to go get a fuel sample. Make sure those bastards at Gwoks didn't give us doctored fuel."

He climbed into the back, and found Hunter following him with his assault rifle while Tads and Aswon were also gearing up, grabbing their weapons and getting ready to provide magical overwatch. Shimazu had moved to stand by Kai, standing so close in front of him that Kai didn't have room to stand up without bumping into him. The ancient blade was in his hand, reflecting the red light of the night-mode lamp that illuminated the troop bay and gave everything the look of a demonic hellscape.

Hunter got into position in the doorway and nodded, rifle ready to fire as Aswon slid the door open and cleared his line of fire. Ultrasound emitters fired from what would normally have been his tear ducts, sending high-frequency pulses of sound out to be reflected off the trees and other things in the environment, building up an echo-location map in his head. All clear…

Hunter jumped down, rifle rock steady in his hand, advancing out a few metres before he took a knee and started to scope out the clearing left and right. He sensed movement behind him as Aswon jumped down and looked to the left and ahead of the chopper, while Tads turned right and watched the rear, both of them with their weapon foci activated and ready. Marius jumped down last and headed to the fuel port, a length of hose and a container in hand.

All was quiet and still, no bird song, no sounds of movement. There was a cough and a splutter as Marius got a taste of fuel from the tubing as he sucked to set up the fuel syphon, but he spat out the avgas on the floor and carefully filled his sample bottle, concentrating on what he was doing.

Hunter smacked his lips together, and then ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth, wondering why it felt so dry. And why could he taste something… he glanced around the clearing one more time to make sure nothing was moving, then focussed on what he was sensing. Yes – his mouth was very definitely dry, and there was an odd bitter taste starting to form. Diffused over his whole mouth. As he started to fire up the chem sniffer, he heard both Tads and Aswon smacking their lips as well. He realised he was breathing deeply – too deeply.

"You guys, can you taste something bitter? Finding it a bit hard to breathe?" He heard both of them agree. "I think we might be in trouble…"