Wednesday 29/9/60, Location:53.12637, -168.67578, Time 08:21

Shimazu flipped the viewing prism around so he could look out of the port side of the craft, spotting the bright forms of the elementals rising up swiftly towards them, the nature spirit just behind.

"Elementals and spirit closing fast. They look pretty powerful, bigger than the ones Tads normally calls!"

"Shimazu, swap over. I'm probably more use on the prism, and if they try and get in here, we're going to need your sword!"

"Agreed." He pulled the headset off and thrust it at Tads, then tottered over towards the doorway with tiny steps, balancing against the sharp turn of the tilt-wing. "Whoever is down there is covered by some kind of big invisibility spell as well, really bright on the astral. Can't see anyone inside it." He clipped into the safety harness and then drew his sword, waiting by the door.

Tads frowned – that didn't sound like the kind of invisibility spells she knew about, which covered a single person or thing, rather than an area – so she scrambled to pull the headset on and get the eyepieces adjusted, bringing the outside world into focus. It was made all the more difficult as the craft suddenly banked to ninety degrees, reefing around in an incredibly tight turn. Cries of alarm sounded from the rear compartment, but were silenced as the cabin glowed red for a moment, the large bolt of fire ripping past the front windscreen at only a few metres clearance.

"Ok, they're not messing around – neither should we." Kai's voice had none of his normal levity to it and as the sharp turn eased he unbuckled from his seat and lurched over towards the port side door, swiftly attaching the harness to his belt and making a grab for the gun release handle.

"I'm not sure that fire spell would have damaged the craft, even if it had hit us – we're too solidly built. But I agree, it's not a friendly act." Aswon grabbed his spear and looked around him, working out where to go. With Kai manning the starboard door, and Shimazu standing by the port, he'd run the risk of crowding either of them if he joined them – so instead he waited for the aircraft to level out a little more, then started to work his way past the cargo towards the rear ramp.

"Shielding is up on the aircraft – if they're casting spells it's likely to be more useful!" Tads called out, then swung around to re-acquire the targets, having been thrown well off balance by the tight manoeuvres from Marius as he neatly dodged the firebolt strike. "Ahh right – ok, they're covered with a spirit concealment, just like we use… and it's not an invisibility spell, it's a trid-phantasm of the area. Not that it makes much difference, I suppose, it hides them either way.

The noise in the cabin intensified as Kai slid his door open, letting cold moist air swirl into the troop bay. With a slight grunt he lowered the Tormenta de Fuego heavy machine gun into place and squinted down at the volcano below. They were a good six hundred metres away from the cone, and a bank of cloud or fog was partly obscuring it. He gave a little shrug to himself – it wasn't like he was a good shot anyway, and he just aimed the gun in the right general direction and pulled the firing spades back, sending a long stream of fire down to the target area. He had no idea if he'd hit anything, but at least they'd know they were taking fire – the noise of the machine gun rang in his ears and he had no doubt that the impact on the ground would be equally loud and clear.

"I can't see what I'm shooting at here!" He called out, swinging the back end of the gun back and forth to spray fire around indiscriminately. His hair suddenly whipped backwards as Shimazu also opened his door on the far side of the craft, causing the air to twist and turn violently between them. It also opened a large hole in the ward built into the aircraft – an inviting portal for any spirits to easily enter…

"I'm on it." Tads shouted back, looking down through the optics at the bright mass of mana shaped into the illusionary dome that covered the caster and their companions. She extended her senses, plucking at the dome with her powers, trying to rip the spell apart and disperse the magical energies. In her mind she imagined long astral fingers tugging at the threads and weave of the spell material, trying to find a loose end to unravel, or a weft to poke between. The spell was resistant, though, shrugging off her efforts to rip it asunder, and a moment later there was a backlash of power rebounding to her to deal with as she failed to dispel the enemy illusion. Fortunately she'd been prepared and channelled the mana safely through her. "Ok, that's going to be tougher than I thought. Their caster is pretty good – we're definitely looking at an initiated mage of some kind!"

Hunter poked at the display in front of him, trying to make sense of the radar screen and electronic signal monitoring equipment. He felt like it should be easy – he could surf the matrix like a pro after all, and that was just interpreting electronic signals… but the notation and code used on the sensor feed was shifting too rapidly for him to keep up and make sense of, and he found himself stabbing at the controls in frustration.

A build-up of mana flared down at the volcano, and Tads saw the spell starting to form. She checked to ensure that her magical defences covered the craft and gave a slight smile as the powerball splashed harmlessly off her shielding, the mana dissipating off in all directions as its cohesion failed. Two could play at that game! Her smile faded away though as she squinted down at the trid-phantasm again, still unable to make out the figures inside the concealing illusion.

Aswon reached the rear ramp and slapped the safety hook through his belt with one hand, while the other hit the catch on the gun system, pulling it out of the stowed position on the long articulated recoil arm. As the rear ramp descended he took a few steps forward until he felt the safety harness pull tight, then placed his legs wide on the ramp, bracing himself while he readied the gun. As he looked downrange, he manged to partially pierce the illusion, at least for a moment.

"I saw them! At least five. There's some kind of ski-sled or motorised transport with a driver, and two more on skis behind them, travelling fast. A little way back and further out were two more, gone to ground. I think one of them had a rifle. A big rifle."

"Oh shit…. Marius, you'd better be ready to do some of that pilot magic!" Hunter called out, remembering the sleek and deadly shape of the military grade ammo they'd purchased back at Ivan's bay. "If he's loaded with that mil-spec stuff, it's going to punch straight through the engine. Or us."

An earth elemental swooped down from above them, travelling fast and aiming for the hole in the ward in a pose more akin to a superhero. The massively-hewed body rivalled Hunter for physique, rippling stone muscles and rocky tendons layered in slabs that formed a powerful form. Huge club like hands thrust forward, aiming towards Shimazu's face, intent on smashing into him. Amidst the wind and gusts of rain that swirled through the doorway, Shimazu stared at the approaching form, ignoring the damp locks of hair that were plastered over one side of his face, gauging the distance and speeds. At the perfect moment the sword sliced up, his grunt of effort sounding like a shout. He thought he'd misjudged the attack for a moment as the massive fists came perilously close to caving his face in, but his sword arced through the body of the elemental and slicing it neatly in half, causing it to crumble and tumble out of the doorway, falling in a thousand pieces across the landscape below.

"The elemental summoner is powerful! They've enhanced their elementals with improved combat ability! We're looking at someone who's achieved at least four circles of enlightenment!" He adjusted his stance to better deal with the next creature, assuming that it, too, would be similarly enhanced. Behind him Tads shook her head, momentarily disorientating herself as her ears moved but her vision remained still. 'Fourth circle of enlightenment?' She wondered where Shimazu had picked up that description. It sounded like some kind of hermetic nonsense for sure – but that fitted with the elementals. Perhaps it was something he'd learnt from his bodyguarding school? But, while she'd never think of her own or Vadim's power in that way, she at least understood what he meant, and it went some way to explaining why the illusion was as strong and hard to dispel as it was…

She was distracted by another long string of fire as Kai aimed down at something and pulled back the trigger, sending round after round of 12.7mm fire down towards the target. She glared down at the scene below her and saw nothing still – not even the faint glow of the bullets as they lanced through the illusion and disappear.

"Contact! Two additional targets. Drones, rotor drones. One climbing out of the illusion on each side. I estimate they are carrying personal rifles, ammunition unknown."

"They're not going to damage the aircraft much, though, are they?" Hunter called out in derision.

"Nein. But if they shoot at you through the doorway, I do not believe you will enjoy the experience!" Marius had a good point, and the smirk on Hunter's face disappeared as he readied his rifle and aimed down at the mountain, too, getting ready to engage any enemy that became visible. The range was a little long for his own assault rifle, but that hopefully meant it was equally long for the attack drones too.

Kai fired another long burst of fire, walking the rounds across a ten metre stretch of the volcano in the hopes of hitting something. Maybe he did hit someone or something – or maybe he just provided enough of a distraction. Whatever it was, for a fleeting moment Tads found that she could see through the illusion and spot the large motorised vehicle as it climbed the snowy slope, the driver hanging onto the handlebars tightly as they snaked back and forth. She concentrated and threw mana down towards them as quickly as she could, not sure how long her sight was going to last. The mana coalesced into an ethereal hand, a construct that replicated her own hand but remote from her body. With a twitch, the hand slapped violently across the rigger's face, sending them sideways as much out of shock and surprise as from pain. They skidded sideways, veering off course and started to bounce up and down over some rougher terrain.

Distracted, the rigger stopped monitoring their drones, the auto-pilots taking over and their previously erratic flight smoothed out as they climbed in a nice, smooth, predictable arc as they followed their programming. At least the one on the left of the scene did. The one on the right found itself hammered with heavy machine gun fire as Aswon neatly bracketed it and hit it with multiple rounds. The drone exploded as a round penetrated the battery pack, reactive metal gels vaporising in a large fireball as the chassis disintegrated violently.

[Fracker!]

Marius felt the pulse of the transmission over the enemy rigger's network, feeling the backlash as the drone was destroyed. He quickly locked onto the frequency, keeping the tilt-wing pitching up and down in irregular patterns with part of his attention while he tried to compromise the security protocols of the other rigger's network with the rest of his concentration. He caught the edge of a transmission, encrypted and low power – probably a communicator or radio of some kind, and worked to try and get a bearing locked in. A moment later he felt his threat warning sensors lighting off, a light tickling sensation as if someone was rubbing the tips of their fingers down his ribs.

"The sniper is trying to lase us, get a target lock. Evading!" He swooped downwards, then pulled up sharply, sending them on a path that resembled a roller coaster more than an flight. Behind him in the troop bay, Shimazu struck out twice more, dealing with the second earth elemental and then the sky spirt as their concerted attack was thrown into disarray by the wild manoeuvre, separating them enough to allow him to engage them one on one.

"You're really upset them, I think, Shimazu! Got three more earth elementals and a fire elemental coming up now, all in a tight group! I'll try to slow them down!"

Aswon looked down at the scene, and was hit by a dawning realisation. The enemy team, whoever they were, where still effectively invisible, covered under the powerful illusion spell. But they were no longer concealed… he wasn't sure why – maybe Kai had managed to hit their spirit somehow, hard enough to damage even a creature of magical energies. Maybe the spirit had been told to do some other task… but whatever the reason, he could see the tracks the vehicle was leaving behind now, no longer smoothed away by the protective magics of the nature spirit. He could see the snaking path as it wound up the mountain, the little hop to the side where Tads had poked the driver, then the resumption of that smooth slalom up the mountain. He elevated his gun, past the blank area that he thought was covered by the illusion tracking upwards what he thought was a spell's width worth of empty area from the tracks…

Tads reached out with her magical aura and singled out the rearmost of the earth elementals, trying to banish it back to the elemental realm. It staggered under her assault but fought back with tremendous resolve, and for a moment a brief trickle of fear washed over Tads as she felt the spirit try to diminish her magic as much as she was trying to diminish its. Either way though, it fell out of formation, leaving the other spirits to approach.

Kai fired again, sending another long stream of fire down into the apparently empty mountainside, bullets vanishing into the illusion. There wasn't even any signs of impact, no puffs of snow exploding up where the rounds impacted – just nothing, his fire swallowed up by the powerful spell and giving him nothing to go on.

To the rear, Hunter caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of his eye and his rifle swung up and fired in an instant. He was beyond the maximum effective range of the rifle he was pretty sure, and the lightweight rifle rounds had lost much of their power by the time they reached the target, but he at least had the satisfaction of seeing the rounds impact onto the armoured form of one of the skiers. They lurched to the side, confirming his hit – but remained upright and zagged sharply to the side, disappearing a moment later behind the concealing magics once more.

Aswon looked at the tracks, mentally spacing out the sweeps and curves of the S shaped path the rigger was taking. If they'd turned here, they were due to turn again….there! And that meant that if he fired *here*, and walked the fire down – the enemy rigger should drive right into it. The gun thumped away and the belt of ammunition flew through the breach, catching him by surprise as his fingers reflexively clutched at the triggers, his brain having calculated the perfect firing time without conscious thought.

Marius managed to crack the encryption on the enemy network, and caught a brief snipper of conversation. 'Shoot them! Why aren't you shooting them?' That voice sounded a little like Aswon's, though the accept was sharper. His mind went to the description of the tall black man that had annoyed the shopkeeper back at the bay. 'I would but I can't see them. Can't you do something?' Frustrated, and with a definite Russian accent. Deep, and gravelly. Maybe a dwarf, certainly someone with a large build. A physique that would lend itself to a booming voice. But it also told him that they hadn't seen through his own defences yet, and that was reassuring…

Down on the mountain side, the driver of the skidoo saw the impact of the fifty calibre rounds stitching a neat path towards them, snow exploding as the powerful bullets drove into the rockface. They had no doubt at all what they'd do to the vehicle, or their own body. There was no time to do anything fancy. Barely time to react at all. But, just like Marius – their rigger interface made them part of the machine, a gestalt being that was more than the sum of their parts. Brakes slammed on and the handlebars twisted, suspension ducked and flexed, weight was thrown from one side to another. Within the space of two metres the skidoo swung around and the engine powered up way beyond the safety limit, sending a massive roostertail of snow up into the air as they reversed direction.

While the rigger executed the move perfectly, they were too concerned with their own well being to consider the fate of the two team-members on skis that they'd been towing. As they roared downhill, the skiers continued uphill, shedding speed as gravity did its best to steal their energy. But they hadn't slowed much as the skidoo rocketed past them, heading downhill. Their tow lines went slack and then started to whistle as the excess was taken up. Both were busy concentrating – one on dealing with the wounds that Hunter had just inflicted upon them, the other on modifying and rotating the illusion spell to keep them hidden from the firepower erupting from the tilt-wing.

Neither were thus prepared as the lines snapped taut, and they went from travelling at thirty kilometres per hour uphill, to being wrenched downhill at closer to forty. The lines were fixed to harnesses around their waists, and the sudden impact bent them both double in an instant, spinning them around and yanking them from their feet to fall upon the snow in a tangle of skies and broken legs.

The wounded one to the right shrieked in pain, their body twisted and grinding against the numerous bullet holes that had stitched them. The 5.56 millimetre rounds had not had much energy left when they struck, not over the six hundred and fifty metres between shooter and target – but it had been enough to puncture the skin and cause a number of painful wounds. Their attention was shattered, and the massive fireball they'd been drawing power into collapsed and disintegrated harmlessly around them.

The second mage was less fortunate. Tall and slender, their physical form was weak, under-developed. Almost emaciated. They relied on their prodigious magical ability to prosper, their control over the minds of those weaker and less self-assured – that and the large stable of elementals they kept on hand to do their bidding and enforce their will. None of that helped against the sudden whip-crack force as the line went taut and wrenched them around. They'd never experienced a pain quite like it as the sudden torque spun them around, dislocating one leg and snapping both as their skis hit a rock. Their concentration foundered, and the trid-phantasm faded away, exposing them all…

"Targets! Multiple targets!" Marius called out, his amplified voice drowning out the identical cries from Hunter and Aswon. They could see the scene plainly now – the skidoo now heading down the mountain, the two mages bouncing along behind them in an uncontrollable tumble. Further down, the sniper was crouched on the ground, questing through the sky with their rifle, scanning back and forth, while to the right the fifth member of the enemy team crouched, waiting.

The elementals arrived, swooping around to get at the open doorway and diving in to attack. Shimazu had been waiting and his sword flicked out, striking at the fire elemental with fury and precision. He had in fact learnt about them at his bodyguarding academy, and he'd had it drilled into him that fire elementals were the most significant threat. Not only was there the risk of fires of course, but their very nature made them quick to flicker about, constantly moving and relocating and they were considered the most combative of the four elemental types. Best to get rid of that threat first, and then deal with the remainder.

Behind him Tads concentrated on the elemental she had stopped in its tracks, battering at its essence with her own. She felt it buckling, starting to collapse in on itself and felt the strange and peculiar rush of combat as she defeated her foe, compressing it down into a tiny mass of mana before she pushed it through the veil between realms and sent it back to its own plane.

The two remaining earth elementals piled in through the doorway, crowding in together to batter at Shimazu. Huge club hands smashed down at him, swinging wildly as they swung and writhed to get past his frantically parrying blade. He'd had to extend too far out to assure a quick kill on the fire elemental though, and he couldn't stop the flurry of attacks, feeling those massive hands striking at his shoulder, arms and ribs, raining heavy blows down upon him. His thick armour helped absorb much of the impact and he weaved and dodged as best as he could, but there was no way to absorb those blows without something giving way, and he felt a rib or two crack under the assault despite his efforts to bend and sway with the impact.

Aswon swung his gun round towards the sniper and steadied himself before sending a moderate burst of fire down – trying to gauge the number of rounds fired and balance it against the recoil absorption of the gun arm and the gas vents that were drilled down the barrel. The rounds slammed into the dwarf, centre mass and sent him sprawling back, arms windmilling as he struggled to avoid falling. His armour must have been as heavy as Shimazu's though, as he stagged to the side, flopping out of the line of fire. Injured, but most certainly not out, and very much still a threat.

Hunter shot at the other figure, the one that had done nothing yet. That concerned him and he wondered what kind of mischief they were up to. Perhaps readying a powerful spell, or loading a rocket launcher – either way he was determined not to let them get the time to carry out their plan. Marius had moved in, bringing them all closer to the mountainside now that the concealment and illusion was gone, and he fired a quick burst to the left first, testing the target. The rounds hit them in the torso, and they flung themselves right, dropping prone and hunkering down. He adjusted his aim a tiny bit, then fired another short burst, smiling as the rounds punched through the body armour and decorated the snow behind them with a spray of crimson. He wasn't sure if they were down for the count, but they'd certainly be distracted by that!

As the elementals fighting Shimazu gathered themselves for another attack, Shimazu braced, getting ready to try and defend himself against both of them at once. One froze mid-strike though, peering past him towards the front of the aircraft, grinding its teeth together furiously as it quivered. Shimazu didn't have time to discover why, and turned his attention to the second spirit, engaging it swiftly and matching his magical blade against the huge crushing limbs, darting in and out to strike at the softer spots of gravel and shale that made up parts of the core. Behind Shimazu on the far side of the aircraft, Vadim sat buckled into his seat, both hands raised and clenched into claw-like rigidity as he engaged the elemental, trying to banish it just as Tads had been teaching him. His face narrowed and teeth elongated, eyes becoming black and hard as his totemic mask intensified, the sharp and predatory visage of a Wolverine, and he could feel his pulse beat loudly in his ears as the thrill of combat overcame him.

Down on the mountain the rigger realised they were exposed, and flung the skidoo into a sharp turn, continuing to apply power as they swung around in circles, throwing up snow and ice around them in a whirlwind of obscuring cover, trying to remain hidden from the attackers who remained stubbornly out of sight. The sniper continued to look for them, frantically swinging the rifle back and forth, scanning the sky without success. Twenty metres to the east the badly wounded shaman gathered her strength and cast a spell, a low force and simple trid-phantasm, directly over her head – a simple white flag waving from side to side…

Within a few seconds Shimazu had finished off the elemental, dealing with the active one first and then getting ready to deal with the one still locked into combat with Vadim – until it popped out of existence all on its own. He turned as the crumbling rocks fell from the doorway, looking back and wondering why the guns had stopped. On the other side of the craft, Aswon, Hunter and Kai all had their guns aimed down at the mountain, each following a separate target, ready to fire but examining the scene. It was Marius who took action first, invading the opponents' communications network and broadcasting a simple message in cold and precisely delivered English.

"Surrender, or be destroyed."

"You killed my drones!" The voice was accented, reminding the team a little of Top-shot, the French sniper from the Ares team they'd encountered over near Tashkent.

"Not me personally, and you attacked first." Marius responded flatly. The other voice paused for a moment, the responded in an almost contemplative voice.

"Fair. They did start it, I suppose. If I stand down, will you guarantee my safety?"

"If you stand down, we will leave you alone and just be on our way."

"I accept." Within moments the wall of snow and ice faded away as the skidoo slowed to a halt, revealing a large and powerfully-built woman hunched over the controls. She glanced back behind her and did a double take as she saw the tangled lines and mangled bodies behind her, intertwined at the end of the tow line. "Oops."

"Be aware. We have your magical signatures. We are familiar with your methods. We have gathered information on your activities from the townsfolk at Ivan's Bay. If you attempt to cause trouble, we will return and deal with you." Kai's voice was cold and hard, far from his usual light-hearted banter." He stopped transmitting, and changed to the team frequency and looked around, and then in a much more normal voice called out to the team. "We have got their sigs, right? Right?"

Aswon and Tads looked down at the figures below, quickly working through them. The sniper was similar in some ways to Hunter - powerfully built, he was riddled with cyberware, black spots filling his body and draining away at his life force. The rigger echoed Marius, a large mass of 'ware concentrated in the back of the head and down the spine, and with a grey sheath implanted under the skin all over the body. The two mages tangled in the lines were either unconscious or nearly so, and their masking had dropped. The thin, tall, black figure was a hermetic, powerful but with a pure body, such as it was. While unpolluted with cyberware, it appeared to be horrifically damaged and the soul flickered and wavered. The other figure was wounded, though nowhere near as badly, and appeared a touch more powerful, a boar shaman who likewise had no implants.

They both tried to assense the last figure, and found themselves unable to get a read on them, and the figure appeared to be just a normal human being. The spell waving over their head still gave lie to that impression, and they tried again, focussing with all their might to penetrate the defences they had gathered around them. It didn't matter if they felt the probing – in fact it probably made more sense for them to know, to be absolutely sure that they had been assensed and their defences ripped apart, to know that someone would categorically recognise them on sight again.

Tads gave a gasp of surprise that changed quickly to outrage.

"A bear shaman? They're protectors! Not… not this! That's…. WRONG!" She still had the viewing goggles on, but they could see her lower face, and the look of distaste that distorted her features.

"If you require medical assistance, we can supply it." Kai had switched back to the other teams frequency. "At a reasonable cost, of course…" he added, twisting the knife in the wound. He waited a moment, but there was no response – but he could see the rigger climbing off their skidoo and grabbing a first aid kit, heading for the two mages. Once more he swapped frequency, and called out to Marius. "Take us back up to the volcano please, but slow and steady – I want to make sure they're not trying to follow us."

The tilt-wing heeled over and headed for the summit of the volcano, keeping the enemy team on their starboard side. Shimazu slid the door closed on the port side and staggered back to his seat, gently squirming a hand in under his armour and probing at his ribs and trying to establish the damage.

As they flew overhead they could see the scene more clearly – the sniper was still looking for them, aiming back down slope in the position they'd been in. He wasn't holding his rifle in a firing position anymore, but clearly wanted to locate them still. The bear shaman was laying in the shallow depression they'd thrown themselves into, and was trying to hold a bandage over the wounds to their torso, laying with their eyes closed and face turned up to the sky. Aswon gave a gasp as he saw the rigger though, who had reached the pair of mages lying twisted and tangled in the tow lines. The burly woman knelt down – straight onto the neck of the hermetic mage, choking off the air and blood supply to his head. Apparently unconcerned, they applied first aid to the shaman, ignoring the body of the first as it thrashed and quivered below them, until finally it was still.

"Guess they weren't a close team after all."

"Maybe just individuals all hired to do a job, Aswon?" Tads suggested. "It might explain why they didn't work together very well."

The others were silent, watching the screens filled with the images of a cold-blooded murder of a team-mate, relayed through the sensors from the tilt-wing. Some of them remembered making idle threats to murder Kai after he'd volunteered them for another job or extra mission, and suddenly that didn't seem quite so funny after all…

"Marius – can you patch me through to town, to Ineak?"

"I will try. One moment." Marius fired up his sat-link, patching it through to their tilt-wings comms systems and then interfacing it into their radios. It was ramshackle, and the encryption didn't work over the mashed up link – but it should be fine for a short conversation. They heard the ring tone sound half a dozen times before someone answered, the gurgling of a baby sounding close to the phone's pickup.

"Ivan's Bay general store?"

"Ineak – it's Kai. Just wanted to give you an update on a situation we discussed. The individual who caused you an issue won't be doing that anymore. They unfortunately had a tragic accident on the volcano they were climbing."

"How sad." She didn't sound at all sad – but neither did she sound joyful about the news. On reflection, that was probably a good thing, as that was probably a good indicator of a psychopathic streak, and Kai wouldn't have found that reassuring.

"Just wanted to check as well – the volcano we're flying over. It's not sacred ground or anything right?"

"No, just a big mountain. Nothing special."

"Good. Well, now you know. Take care and we'll see you on the way back."

"Stay safe, chummers!" The call disconnected just as the baby started to cry, saving them from the wailing sound.

"Ok, thanks, Marius. Now – question. Do we go and help them or leave them be?"

"I'm actually tempted to go down there and ask the bear shaman for help. Shimazu, you're wounded, right?" She saw him nod. "Yeah – I'm tempted to go down there and point at him, and demand she fix it."

"What's got a bee in your bonnet?" Kai asked, eyebrow raised at the visible anger and frustration.

"It's not right. Bear Shamans help people. It's part of their code. They shouldn't be going around hurting people! Not like that anyway. Only when they're threatened."

"Maybe they were protecting their team." Aswon suggested. "Come to think of it – I'm not sure I saw them actually do anything. I'm not even sure if the spirit that came up belonged to them or the other shaman. I'm not sure it matters, either.

"I say we leave 'em – they'll either make it or they won't. No skin off our noses." Hunter disarmed his rifle, carefully working the mechanism on the grenade launcher to eject the loaded round and return it to storage. "We won, they lost. We're not likely to ever see them again. What's it to us?"

"I agree with Hunter. We have a mission, and little time to carry it out. And they didn't affect my plane, so I do not care."

"Hey! What about me?" Shimazu cried out, glaring forward towards the pilot's cabin.

"Kai and Tads will fix you up, I am sure." Marius replied. "Hang on, gaining altitude." The craft tilted back a little, and the team grabbed hold to steady themselves as they rose towards the summit, heading into the low hanging clouds once more. Just as they were disappearing into the clouds, Aswon caught a flash of golden light down behind them, from the position of the bear shaman. It was a rich, warm, golden glow, intensely bright and lit up the greyness around the area, and he compared it to the healing spells he'd seen Tads used – it was brighter he thought, stronger, and seemed to have more power behind it. The edges of his mouth turned up slightly and he gave a little nod of satisfaction. It didn't matter if they went down to help them or not – he was pretty sure they were going to be ok.

Two minutes later they arrived at the top of the peak, finding a large relatively flat area. Marius scanned it with his sensors, but it was Tads having a look through the prisms that told them what they were looking at.

"It's the vent of the volcano, full of compacted ice and snow. If they're not active for a while, the snow collects and settles in the bowl, sheltered by the rim. Over time it gets compacted down by the weight above it, slowly turning to ice and forming a solid plug. If we were further south I'd suspect that it would turn into a lake in the summer, but up here I bet it stays frozen."

"But its safe?" Kai asked.

"Well, yes – as long as the volcano is quiet. When it becomes active, if any of the lava vents open up beneath it, the heat will flash that ice to steam, and it'll turn into a giant bomb waiting to go off. It's just a matter of time then before a huge chunk of ice and steam is violently thrown up into the air. We don't want to be anywhere near it when that happens! But until then, it should be fine…"

Marius found an area near the rim where a few massive boulders the size of a small car had fallen from the rim down onto the ice, creating a small sheltered area between them. It gave them somewhere secure to plant the token, knowing it wasn't going to get washed or blown away, making sure it stayed within the allocated search area. Hunter and Aswon climbed out of the craft to place it, taking less than two minutes to wedge it into a crack in the rocks and get back aboard. Sheltered by the rim of the volcano and wrapped in thick clouds, there was no way anyone had seen them – even if the rigger from the other team had abandoned the rest of the Shadowrunners, she couldn't have made it up here as quickly as they'd flown.

A minute later Marius was taking off, banking to the east and laying in a course to their next stop – the smuggler base known as "The Ice Box", located at the end of the Cook Inlet, near the city of Anchorage.

"One thousand four hundred and thirty six kilometres to the next stop – I would estimate about three and a half hours flight time."

"Thanks, Marius. Hunter – do you have any info on this place?"

"Let me jump into the matrix, Kai, and have a look. Back in a bit…" Hunter fired up the sat link and hooked it up to his deck, and then connected the fibre optic cable to the datajack on the side of his head, pouring his conscious mind down through the link and into the brightly lit neon reality of the Matrix, heading for the unlisted nodes that would give him access to Shadowland, where he could start his search for information from other smugglers, mercenaries and Shadowrunners on what to expect there.