They flew east, into overcast grey skies that promised more foul weather to come. Though the rain and sleet had stopped for now, the clouds were low, dark and full of moisture. Marius kept them fairly low, just below the cloud level so he could at least use his visual sensors as well as the electronic suite, but had the option of rising into the concealing clouds if required. They flew along the coast of the island for sixty kilometres, flying past larger but thankfully equally docile volcanos until they came level with the small channel that flowed between one island and the next.
White breakers and swirling currents below pointed to shallow waters, probably the remains of the land bridge that had once joined the two islands together but had been eroded by the incessant grinding of the waves and wind. They banked to the left and flew along the northern shore of Unalaska Island, heading for the narrow waist of the island and the low ground to cross over to the eastern shore, swinging around and below the settlement of Unalaska, and continuing their journey east. They'd hopped over the next two islands as well, and were heading for Unimak before Hunter unplugged and sat upright, blinking as the digital reality of the matrix faded away, the neon icons replaced with grey skies and windswept barren rocks.
"Ok, got a bunch of information, don't know how relevant it is." He took a swig of water, swilling it around his dry mouth before swallowing noisily, then let his eyes defocus slightly as he consulted his internal cyberware to access the notes he'd recovered. "Right – first of all, Anchorage International airport is on the western shore, and has a pair of long runways, three thousand five hundred metres or more. It's a major hub for a whole bunch of courier companies likes Fed-ex, JPS and UPS – it's the half-way point between New York and Tokyo, and a major hub for traffic doing the circle route between North America and Asia. Records show in excess of seven hundred flights a day, so there's plenty of traffic to hide amongst."
"There is a smaller airport, Merill Field, which is the local civilian and short-haul airport, about ten kilometres north-east of the international airport and closer to the city itself. The airfield is right next to the regional hospital, and looks to have some medical airlift capacity stationed there. There's also a deep-water container port that handles about 95% of all inbound goods to the area. It has a twice-a-week service to Tacoma Docks down in Seattle for tourists and vacations, an active fishing fleet and plenty of movement. Rail transport is limited – though if you look at the terrain inland, that's not that surprising."
"Now, the area is listed as under the control of the Athabaskan Council, and the major economic sectors are transportation, tourism and resource extraction – though the latter is very tightly controlled by the council. I found loads of stuff indicating jobs around forged permits and inspection records, quotas and environmental impact studies. There is still significant corporate presence here managing the extraction the NAN allow under strict oversight – I've found offices for all the major mega-corps, and a whole bunch of A and AA corps as well, a lot of them well-known names in the energy market."
"I also found a list of native corps based in Anchorage – these all seem to be run by the locals, and there's provisions for the sale of shares in a tribal exchange. But selling them to non-natives or disposing of them to outsiders is illegal. There's five big corps in the area like this. First off is 'The Aleut Corporation' – original name huh? Anyway, they do government contracting, telecommunications, environmental remediation, real estate management, trust management, sales of sand, gravel, mineral, and rock aggregates, and investments in oil and gas producing properties and marketable securities according to the blurb and reports. They're the biggest of the corps with the greatest reach."
"Then there's 'Bristol Bay Native Corporation', who cover fishing, land management, finance, education, construction and tourism. 'Calista Corporation' include oil well services, telecommunication and data services, secure data hosting, cybersecurity, business services, equipment leasing, computer consulting, real estate, environmental consulting, construction, marketing and advertising. 'Chugach Alaska Corporation' provide timber management and processing, fishing, pipelines and food distribution, and finally 'Cook Inlet Region, Inc.' provide power generation, resource mapping, PR, legal and media services."
"I'm sure it doesn't come as a surprise that the megas would love a slice of those pies, and to get their greedy little mitts stuck in – but it appears the council is pretty good at shutting them out and protecting the local corps. They do give some of the smaller A and AA corps more benefits, maybe as a way of staving off the AAA crowd a little." Hunter took another drink, then continued.
"Back before the UCAS was a thing, there was a Navy and Airforce base up here. The air force place was called Elmendorf, and they've got a couple of big runways, too – used to have strategic bombers and fighter interceptors stationed there. The base got handed over to the locals, and most of it was mothballed. Same thing with the Pacific fleet base for the Navy, but it looks like that was shut down much more. The Icebox is based on part of the old navy base, while I found loads of references to raids into Elmendorf to go looking for old parts, tech, info and supplies. The place is guarded by NAN reservists, so they're not front line units – but the scuttlebutt on Shadowland is that while they're older and less combat capable reserve troops, they're all locals with relatives or families in town… and tend to notice newcomers and visitors scoping the place out."
"The maps I've got are all for shit, there's nothing with a decent resolution that isn't behind some kind of paywall. But from what I've seen, the runway here is about six hundred metres long, and the best approach is to come in from the north, skim the waves and just rise over the junk at the end of the port the bare minimum to get down – that keeps us out of sight of all the other air traffic and most of the city. The place is run by a dude called Randy Riptide – he's an ex-professional fighter, and suspected 'runner with a reputation for bluntness and straight talking, but also honesty. So we probably can take him at his word but shouldn't be upset if he seems a bit direct."
Hunter stopped talking, and the plane was quiet for a moment – at least as far as speech went. The constant drone of the engines and whistle of the air past the fuselage had become a constant companion to them by now.
"Ok thanks, Hunter – that's…. that's a lot of information."
"I'm getting recognised more on Shadowland now, keep adding a few bits of info here and there. Don't worry, nothing that gives our ops away. But hopefully people have gotten something useful from some of our bits, so they're a little more willing to share their own info. Of course, it also means we're easier to find if anyone is looking for us, but that's just the way that goes…"
"Well, good work anyway. So – questions and comments, everyone?"
"Any suggestions on what kind of food I should create to use as gifts or bribes?"
"I would have thought a nice big fat juicy steak would go down nicely, either that or fresh fruit. Both likely to be hard or expensive to get up here, Tads." Aswon responded.
"I'm intrigued by the sea route down to Tacoma. Is that something we can make use of ourselves? Either on the way down, or back?"
"Not on the way down, Kai. We've got a couple of volcanos to hit between here and Seattle, so that wouldn't work at all. But we could maybe get back that way. But why?"
"I just think that we'd probably pay a lot less money for someone to carry us as deck freight on a ship than it would be to pay for fuel for us to fly." Kai answered. "And the more money we can save, the better. It's going to use a bucket of fuel to get back the way we came, across Russia or China, the steppes and then all the way back to the ranch."
"Is it worth looking at going the other way? I mean I've not looked at the map… but could we fly east more, and get over to Europe and then down to the Med to get back? We know a bunch of fuel stops that way. Isn't there a big canal at Panama that ships can go through?"
"Correct, the Panama Canal will allow transit from the Pacific to Atlantic oceans. But most of the Europe-bound trade will be departing from the eastern ports of the UCAS and CAS states, rather than coming from the west coast. That is mostly NAN territory now, so if they did have to ship something, they would probably use rail to get to the UCAS first." Marius's voice was precise and unemotional, but he sounded quite definite.
"Probably something worth bearing in mind for later." Aswon smiled at Tads encouragingly from across the troop bay. "We'll have to have a look at where we end up I expect. If we stop in Cal-Free, and there's a port there with a Maersk ship that could get us back to Egypt say – we'd have to be nuts not to take it. If we ended up flying inland for some reason, maybe it would be better to fly east. But given how much our plans change from day to day, I'd say let's not worry about it too far in advance."
The tilt-wing gave a little shudder, as if a giant had reached down and grasped them and then shook them firmly. Hunter gasped in the cockpit as a whole bank of lights flashed to red, warning lights indicating that someone had a lock on them. A moment later the speakers activated as Marius broadcasted the message he was receiving…
"I repeat, Unidentified craft – you are entering restricted airspace. Identify yourself or you WILL be fired upon."
"We have an aircraft on our tail, about five kilometres back. We are locked up on missile and gun radars." Marius sounded slightly stunned, and the instruments flickered as he ran a quick diagnostic on them, wondering why he'd not even picked up a sniff of anyone hunting them – or how they'd picked him up in this soup.
"Put on the dodgy transponder we worked out? The one that keeps flickering on and off?" Aswon suggested. Marius didn't wait for confirmation, but quickly activated the transponder and made sure all of his electronic deception and counter measure systems were locked down, cutting out any emissions that might potentially be seen as suspicious.
"Patch me through, Marius…" Kai paused for a moment until he could hear the slight hiss of static as his comms headset was patched through to the vehicle set. "Hello? Hello, are you receiving me? Sorry, we're having some issues with our electronics. Do we need to adjust our heading or height or speed? Happy to comply."
"India Golf Niner Niner, adjust your course to three-five-zero degrees, maintain height and speed." Marius heard the commands and banked the tilt-wing over in a sharp bank, quickly nosing around until he was on the specified heading. There was something bothering him about the voice… he replayed the radio communications back quickly as he manoeuvred, listening to the voice as it calmly but firmly told him he was locked up and entering restricted airspace. The accent was firmly UCAS, a native English speaker for sure. Definite in the commands given. No inflexion when it threatened to fire to him – it was like someone was just reading through a checklist or procedure of some kind – that implied a lot of training or repetition.
He checked the sensor feed again, trying to get a feel for the other craft – but even knowing where to look he wasn't getting anything on his scans. That implied that it had a good amount of stealth technology built in, along with electronic counter-measures and defensive systems. Ergo, it was likely to be a military-grade craft – and from the voice, a professional pilot in some military service. Someone who could afford top-flight fighters with full electronic suites that didn't care what the weather was doing… that narrowed it down to the ten mega-corporations and half a dozen countries at least, but any one of those could still be really bad news.
"Turning to match the course as requested. Um – we're heading for Anchorage, and we don't have a huge amount of spare fuel. How far do we have to divert?" Kai asked, trying to get a feel for the other party as much for fishing for information.
"Continue on course three-five-zero for seven-five kilometres, then resume heading of zero-eight-three degrees for Anchorage approach." As he listened to the message he saw Hunter fiddling with the map, and a moment later a swathe of the map flashed yellow, marking the rough exclusion zone identified. A few more commands and the area was mirrored to the other side, in a paler colour. It covered half of the peninsula heading towards Anchorage, but appeared to be centred on an island about fifty kilometres off the main landmass.
"Kodiak Island? That…. that rings a bell for some reason." Aswon's face scrunched up as he racked his brain, trying to figure out where he'd heard the name before. Kai watched him for a few seconds, shrugging as Aswon shook his head and then zoomed in on the map to look for any details or additional data that might jog his memory.
A few minutes later they banked to starboard, having reached the seventy-five kilometre marker, and Marius swung them back towards Anchorage. The area below them was growing more and more rugged, and ahead he could see several tall peaks capped with ice and snow, rising up and piercing the low clouds. From the data on his map, some of the range ahead of them was in excess of three thousand metres, and he'd need to find a pass or canyon to transit them – or work a fair way to the north to go around.
"All craft in range of this broadcast. Stand-by, stand-by. Final preparations are underway. You are instructed to stay clear of active operations." The voice was different, but similar. Sounding once again it like it was reading from a prepared procedure checklist, it was crisp and workmanlike. A moment later they heard Marius chuntering over the intercom and a muttered curse from Hunter. Every threat warning light that hadn't already lit up before did so now and somewhere to the south an incredibly powerful radar transmitter lit up and poured out power in an omnidirectional beam that sent hundreds of megawatts of energy down from their position.
"That explains how they found us – whoever they are. That is an AWACs – airborne early warning radar system. Imagine a small commercial jet plane, but loaded with nothing but sensors, communications gear and operators working to co-ordinate wings of attack aircraft. They are likely the ones that spotted us, and coached a fighter onto our tail so they did not even have to turn their systems on until they were ready to engage."
"What did they mean by 'final preparations', that sounds a bit dubious?" Kai asked.
"Ohhhhhhh crap!" Aswon's head snapped up, and some long-forgotten snippet of information surfaced from his memory. He was about to speak when the voice from the AWACs spoke again.
"Final launch sequence underway. Thirty. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight."
"I'm sure there's some kind of space launch site up here. Marius – you may want to dial your sensors back a bit!" The rest of the team looked at him quizzically. "I'm sure I worked with a team once who'd had some gig up here, providing security. Kodiak. Yeah… some kind of launch platform for hoisting satellites into polar geosynchronous orbit or something like that."
"Five, four, three, two…"
Marius had the filters engaged and the sensors protected as best he could, but was relaying the feed from their starboard flank to the monitors in the back. As the countdown hit zero, they saw a flash of light on the horizon. A second, passed, then another, then the flash on the horizon elongated and grew, climbing towards the heavens. A rod of actinic fire burned brightly, searing light that formed a stark contrast with the dull grey backdrop of endless clouds. A few seconds more passed, the bottom of the cone fading from brilliant white to a roiling grey cloud of launch exhaust that faded into the background, while the rocket continued to climb, then it was lost to sight as it penetrated the low clouds. For a few moments the clouds lit up, glowing a brighter pink colour as they were highlighted by the column of fire, until that, too, faded away.
"Well, that explains why they didn't want anyone in their airspace, I guess!" Kai waved at the map. "I suppose we'd best mark that as another place we want to stay clear of."
"Already done, Kai."
"How come that didn't show up on your search, Hunter?"
"Well, we're still over five hundred kilometres from Anchorage you know. I didn't know anything like that was up here to search for. If I need to start checking everything out within that kind of distance, it's going to take a LONG time to do flight preparations!"
"Ahh, fair enough I suppose. I didn't realise it was that far out."
They flew on, chatting idly until about a minute and a half after the launch countdown, when a deep pervasive rumble sounded, loud enough to overcome the drone of the engines.
"What's that noise?" Tads called out, her head turning left and right to try and identify where it was coming from, but failing as it seemed to envelope them completely.
"I think that's the launch we heard… yeah, that's the shockwave from the rocket engine. Taken eighty five seconds for the sound blast to travel the distance from the launch site to us through the weather."
"But it's so loud?"
"I'm not sure the maths is right here, but I make it about two hundred decibels at the launch site – so be glad you're not there. That's enough to damage your hearing permanently – and if Aswon was listening carefully it'd probably knock him out from the sound pressure. Yeah… maybe we should add ear plugs to our list of things to get, just in case!"
"Everyone – strap in. We have some tight flying ahead."
The warning from Marius galvanised them into action, and they quickly tightened their seatbelts and safety harnesses, and made sure that all their gear was secure. When Marius said the flying was going to be tight, that normally mean sharp unpredictable turns, terrain flying by with less than a metre clearance and the gentle sound of treetops brushing against the fuselage – and none of those were things to be taken lightly. He was true to his word, though, and barely a minute later he pretty much stood the tilt-wing on its side as he slid into a narrow canyon at four hundred and fifty knots, entering a series of twisting and turning ravines that threw the crew around sharply. Fortunately the ridge of volcanic terrain was only one hundred kilometres wide, and riddled with fjords and mountain streams. Marius threaded the needle and was soon heading out of the eastern side and into the massive bay that led to Anchorage itself. Once he was close to the bay he dropped them down to about twenty metres above the waves and flew north, then headed back onto the lowland plains to circle around the city so he could approach the Ice Box from the water.
As he was a few kilometres to the north, slowing and cutting down his height carefully he started to receive an odd signal on his sensors.
01010011 01001111 01010011. The signal paused. Then it repeated. He piped it through to the rest of the team.
"I am picking up a signal, coming from somewhere ahead of us. Low power, short range. It is being sent on a sub-carrier wave channel. Low bandwidth, but not commonly monitored. Any ideas?"
"It sounds like it's repeating. The third group is just the same as the first… could it be some kind of SOS?"
"I think you're right Tads. I'm just analysing the pattern… yeah. Wow, that's old… it's a type of encoding that dates back to before the crash – but the letters are S, O, S. Someone must have some kind of old tech that's doing the encoding somehow. Bearing 171 degrees, range must be less than 5 kilometres based on the power readings." Tads unbuckled and clambered forward to the doorway leading into the cockpit.
"Which way is that? The numbers don't mean anything to me, just point." Hunter muttered but raised his hand, carefully aligning it to as close to the proper bearing as possible. Tads sighted down it, and then called out to the others. "Catch, please!" Without waiting, she projected her consciousness from her body, the astral form leaping forward and crossing the distance of a few kilometres in the blink of an eye. Back in the tilt-wing Aswon and Shimazu lunged forwards as far as their harnesses would let them, grabbing at her body as it collapsed backwards and managing to scrabble a hold onto her clothing and stop her slamming into the deckplate.
Tads manifested and looked down, seeing the old port laid out below her. The mass of concrete shimmered with decay and pollutants, forming a haze that hovered over the whole area and conjured up a bitter taste in her mouth. Spellcasting was going to be difficult down there, to say the least, and the corruption of astral space would make simple perception more difficult. But she could spot only one thing moving in the area below, and it was in the area that Hunter had indicated. A medium-sized van was driving down the side of the docks, following the perimeter road to the south and the city beyond. She flitted back towards the tilt-wing and lined herself up carefully with it, grasping at her body as they flew past to merge thought and flesh together. When she opened her eyes she was disorientated for a moment until she worked out she was staring at the ceiling, but she managed to get her thoughts together.
"There's a van, driving down the road in the area Hunter showed me. Only thing moving – easily big enough to move us all in, but not as big as the truck was. Driving carefully but quickly. If we want it stopping, we're going to have to move fast!"
"Do it." Kai commanded, and Tads dropped back into astral space, calling to the powerful spirit that was concealing them and sending it off to go and stop the vehicle however it could and report back. She'd just finished detailing one of the smaller spirits to take over with the duty of hiding them when the first returned, telling her gleefully that the 'balloon had burst and the box had stopped'. She thought for a moment, then realised it had somehow managed to burst a tyre and bought the van to a halt.
"Ok, the spirit has stopped them for the moment. They didn't have a ward on the outside of the vehicle or any spirits on guard, but that doesn't mean they don't have magical support."
"Twenty seconds to landing. Hang on, it will be a fast one." Marius angled them downwards, aiming towards the pitted and scarred concrete of the old dock area. Rusted and battered cranes lined the waterfront in a neat pattern, and acres of concrete stretched back from there, the pitted and scored surface showing where a mountain of containers had once been neatly stacked. Down the eastern side lay the service road and beyond that a dense belt of woodland leading onto the western end of Elmendorf base – now a wild and overgrown area with houses concealed by decades of unmanaged nature. He bought them down to the deck and flared at the last moment, putting them down hard onto the concrete and swiftly applying the brakes while he cut power to the engines.
They unbuckled their harnesses and swung into action – Hunter and Kai grabbed the straps holding one of the bikes in place and started to pull them loose, freeing the bike and swinging it towards the rear ramp, while Marius had unjacked and was heading for the drone storage, keying the vector thrust drone into life with his remote control deck. Aswon grabbed his Purdey, checked the ammo and swung down from the doorway, taking in a view of the area, while Shimazu and Tads waited behind him.
"Everyone, remember the weather! Make sure your layers are properly stacked, stay out of any water, and watch for the wind-chill. Just because it looks like civilisation, doesn't mean you won't still freeze to death if you're careless!" Tads called out, tucking her own clothing in and grabbing her staff.
Aswon acknowledged her absentmindedly and set off at a lope, heading south east towards the perimeter road. Containers still littered the area, abandoned long ago and scattered haphazardly with moss and algae growing from them, and in a few cases small trees sprouting out of the doors or growing from the roof. As he ran across the massive grey expanse though his tactical senses were pinging away and he started to discern a few key details that indicated things were not quite so random. Far to the south there was a huge pile of containers, some on their ends, some at an angle – but between them they managed to block all lines of sight to the city beyond, forming an extremely effective privacy screen for the area. And other formations seemed to make areas covered on three sides – big enough perhaps to reverse a truck or lorry into and give a sheltered area to load or unload cargo or perhaps carry out a business transaction out of the wind and rain.
A moment later, Hunter and Kai sped past him on one of the scramblers, the engine screaming as Hunter worked through the gears and Kai hanging onto his waist tightly. A quick glance over his should showed Shimazu and Tads hot on his heels, Shimazu gaining quickly as his arms pumped by his side while Tads struggled along behind him. Looking around quickly he veered off to the south suddenly, heading for a pile of containers stacked four high that should give him a great vantage point. As he started to climb, he asked the spirit Tads had assigned to him this morning to conceal him - the last thing he needed was to be spotted against the dull grey sky with no real cover!
Kai couldn't see around the massive bulk of Hunter, and couldn't do much physically other than hold on – so instead he, too, called on his spirit, telling it to go to the vehicle that lay ahead and count the number of people there, then come back and report in to him. As he sent it off, Hunter cut the engine and let them roll, bleeding speed but now approaching the containers that lined the road quietly and hopefully without giving their position away. A moment later the spirit was back, reporting that one person was working on the vehicle, and two were standing on either side, with guns, keeping watch.
Aswon had reached the top of the containers by now and moved to the corner, taking a knee and sighting through the scope. He could see the top half of the van from his vantage point, the rest being cut off by the containers that lay inside the dock area. As he panned across the scene, he keyed his transmitter and reported in.
"Aswon in position, have partial view. It's a Bulldog step-van. Can't tell if it's the security version or not, but assume it is, and has reasonable armour. Facing to the south, and I can see one person at the moment, standing on the far side of the vehicle, facing in the direction of travel. Armed with a sub-gun of some kind, actively looking for targets."
"My spirit just reported back, says there's three of them, one working on the vehicle and two on guard."
"I guess one is crouched down changing the wheel then, and the second guard is a little further back, covered by the vehicle itself and facing to the north. The van is big enough to have up to five or six more people in the back comfortably, along with any cargo or kidnap victims. And on that note – we don't know who we're dealing with here, do we? These could be from the Smuggler base, dealing with an infiltrator for all we know…"
"I… can't…..keep…..up….. going…..to…scout…..pleh." Tads sounded out of breath and fed up, and she stopped running, dropping to a jog as she looked for the nearest pile of containers to go collapse against. Shimazu looked over his shoulder and gave her a thumbs up, then concentrated on running, picking up the pace a little more as he raced after Kai and Hunter. She found a corner that was out of the wind and collapsed into it, made sure her coat was tucked under her bum to try and insulate her from the frigid ground and then projected out of her body. She wasn't happy about leaving it unguarded, but equally she wasn't happy about going and scouting out the van without a spirit with her – if there was someone magically active in the back of the van, she didn't want to face them alone.
Back at the tilt-wing, Vadim helped Marius carry the drone down the rear ramp and connect up the wing struts, then stood well back as he fired up the engines, the miniature jets howling as they sent spikes of hot air downwards, making the concrete ripple and start to melt under their fury. A few seconds later the drone wobbled into the air and took off, racing after the rest of the team. Marius sat down and concentrated on controlling the drone through his remote control unit, while Vadim stood guard over him, keeping a magical watch for intruders.
Kai tensed as the bike wobbled slightly then slid forwards into the solid back of Hunter as he applied the brakes sharply.
"They should be just round the next corner, Kai," the big ork whispered, dropping his feet to the ground to steady them as they finally stopped. Kai slid off the back of the bike and found himself in the lee of a large container, the side pitted and scored, covered in rust and flaking paint. A few paces forward of them there was a gap of a few metres before the next container, allowing access to the exterior fence and the road. While Hunter carefully and quietly put the bike onto it's kick stand he crept forwards and peered around the edge of the container. Sure enough, there was the van, about ten metres away on the other side of the sagging fence. It was slightly raised at the front on the driver's side, and he could hear the sound of grunting as someone struggled with wheel nuts and tools, trying to change the shredded wheel over. He eased back and whispered into the radio, asking for a sit-rep.
"Eyes on the front guard still. Nothing on the other two. No sign of other hostiles." Aswon was quiet, calm and collected, his heart rate steady and the rifle held solidly in a firing position.
"Closing, there in thirty seconds," gasped Shimazu.
"Drone support in thirty seconds." Marius sounded as calm as Aswon, and slightly detached as his response filtered through the machine interface onto the radio.
Kai paused for a second, then called out for Tads.
"She's out of body, saw her flop by a container. She's probably watching from overhead though." Shimazu gasped. Kai leant out again and glanced up, and sure enough he could spot her astral form hovering a hundred metres above them, looking down at the van and examining it for signs of magical wards or guards. He watched as she dropped swiftly to the van and hovered outside for a moment, examining the back doors and then poking her head slowly and carefully through the doors, her astral form phasing through the solid material.
Inside she saw a single body laid on its front, arms and legs secured behind it with cable ties in a tight and uncomfortable hog-tie. Crimson fingers struggled vainly to get a purchase on the ties that secured the wrists, writhing in pain against the slender plastic strips that were embedded deeply into the flesh. There were no other people in the back though, so she eased back out and then shot over towards Kai, manifesting briefly.
"Stop them!"
"Ok, going to try the concerned dockworker approach. Stand ready." He stood and smoothed out his clothes, made sure his gun was tucked away and then strolled around the corner, whistling a pop tune and pulling his pad from his pocket to have some random activity to be able to do. As he 'saw' the van he gave a brief jolt of fake surprise then called out loudly. "Hello there? Everything all-right? Do you need a hand?"
The guard at the front of the vehicle spun around, leaning on the snub nose of the van to steady himself and bought the submachine gun to bear on Kai's head. The barrel had barely lined up with Kai when Aswon's shot arrived. The hollow-point round struck just above the mouth, penetrating the skin and striking bone a moment later. The dent at the front of the projectile did its job, peeling back like the petals of a flower opening and spreading the round wider and wider, tearing through the flesh of the man's head, shedding kinetic energy and slowing quickly, but causing a massive and thoroughly fatal wound. Aswon saw the fist-sized wound tearing open and mentally marked the target down, and started to scan for anyone else in sight.
The second guard dropped to the ground, and quickly fired off a couple of bursts through the gap between van and concrete, and a few rounds impacted in the general area, making Kai skip and dance back towards cover. He almost made it when the last of the bullets penetrated his boot, ripping through the thin armour and smashing into his toes. He cried out in pain and fell to the floor, rolling into cover and swearing profusely as pain lanced up his leg.
Hunter rolled out from his position, assault rifle ready and sent the mental command through his smart-link to fire, then snarled as nothing happened beyond a metallic clunk as the bolt snagged on a malformed round, jamming it into the breach at an angle. Somehow one of the 'cheap' rounds had found it's way into their supply of good ammo, and fate had conspired to have it jam at the most inopportune moment. He rolled back into cover before someone could target him and grabbed the bolt, racking it back and forth quickly trying to dislodge the errant ammo.
Tads dived back into the van then called to her spirit, giving it hasty instructions. A moment later the mountain spirit materialised, a huge slab of rock with smaller boulders grinding together noisily as it approached the man, causing fresh muffled grunts through his improvised gag as he tried to recoil in fear. Tads manifested herself, and called out to him.
"Be quiet and be still. We're here to get you out. There are friends the other side of the containers, run to them when the doors open!" The man froze, and the spirit reached down, sharp flakes of slate delicately sawing through the cable ties holding him captive. A moment later they snapped, and his arms and legs flopped outwards with some force and an involuntary cry of pain. The spirit ignored this and carried out the second part of its orders. Bunching together until it formed a small mass of dense rock, it struck the rear doors like a cannonball, smashing them open and sending them flying outwards with a scream of metal from the abused hinges.
Shimazu heard the gunshots and the cry of pain from Kai, and his features hardened. One hand drew the massive hand-cannon from his hip, while the other smoothly drew the sword. He continued to sprint forward, gun and blade flashing as his arms pumped, closing the distance on whoever had hurt his boss.
"Movement, driver's side door opening. Looks like someone trying to get inside from down at ground level. No sight line." Aswon sounded frustrated, and dropped his point of aim a little, then pumped a few rounds into the passenger side window. The hollow point rounds slammed into the armour-glass, but the soft rounds spread and shattered against the material, doing nothing more than creating a few pits and scars and some minor starring. "The van is armoured, changing mags!" He ejected his mag of hollow points and reached for the explosive rounds – they still weren't the ideal round against a reinforced target like this, but they'd do better than the hollow points would. And, whoever was down in the van or climbing into the cab couldn't have missed the sounds of his rounds hitting the window, and knew that there was someone out there with a bead on them, and that would hopefully put them under pressure.
There was a roar of jet engines as the vector thrust drone arrived, a deft mental command sending it spinning in the air as the nozzles swivelled and redirected the engine thrust, and it slid through the air sideways in front of the van. The two assault rifles mounted to the front opened up, stitching fire down into the engine bay. Armoured or not, at this close a range the 5.56mm rounds still managed to penetrate the screen at the front of the vehicle, shattering the radiator and sending fragments of metal ricocheting around the engine bay, while a plume of steam vented from the cooling system and escaped through the metal panelling.
As the sound of automatic gunfire echoed through the van, the captive burst from the back, staggering as he hit the ground with blood starved feet but driven on by a grim determination not to be there anymore. He lurched from side to side as he tried to get some distance, and Tads sent the spirit after him, using its last service owed to conceal and guard the man – it wouldn't do to have him shot in the back now, after all!
The crumpled and malformed round finally ejected from the breech, and a good round slid into place instead, and Hunter rolled back out, firing off a controlled burst. The rounds struck the leg of the second guard, sending him tumbling to the ground and Hunter walked the last rounds of the long burst into his torso, making him dance and thrash on the ground as the rounds mulched their way through his vital organs.
The driver of the vehicle took one look at the shattered console and fragments of metal that had been driven into the cab from the engine bay and bailed out, making a run for the tree-line about twenty five metres away. He didn't zig-zag – he saw the crumpled bodies to either side of him and correctly deduced that armed assailants definitely had those areas covered. Instead he concentrated on moving as quickly as he could, trying to reach the trees and concealment from whoever was out there. Aswon saw him emerge from the vehicle, just the top of his head at first, but getting more of the body in sight as he moved away from the cover of the van. He didn't appear to be armed, and was clearly fleeing for his life – and Aswon's finger gently uncurled, taking the pressure off the trigger.
Unfortunately for the fleeing man, while Aswon wasn't prepared to shoot an unarmed man in the back, Marius had no such compunctions. The drone span round and the guns fired again, a much shorter burst this time, but sufficient to shatter both of his legs as rounds impacted through the calves and smashed the shin bones to pieces. He collapsed to the floor with a terrible shriek that undulated through the air like an air-raid siren.
The kidnapped man skidded around the edge of a container and slid to a halt as he spotted Shimazu charging towards him, pistol pointed at his face and sword rising overhead.
"Get down!" The man saw the angry Japanese street-sam bearing down on him with grim resolve evident on his face, and hope left him. He collapsed to the floor, limbs trembling and consigned himself to his fate, wondering if it would be a quick and painless death…
"Target down, but still alive. Recovering drone." Marius had the drone wheel over and head back towards the tilt-wing, bringing it down low to fly around a few of the containers and break any line of sight from the city. It wasn't quiet, and neither were the guns – and he didn't want to have it in the air any longer than he had to. As he flew away he saw Hunter running forward with his rifle raised as he checked on the three enemies, confirming two dead and one severely wounded.
"Can I have a hand on cleanup over here?"
"On my way." Aswon gave one last look around the area, but saw nothing else moving and no signs of alarm, so he slung the rifle and carefully climbed down the container stack, then jogged over towards the conflict site. Tads likewise shot back to her body, then climbed to her feet and headed over to join him. Kai meanwhile had crawled back to the container and was sitting on the floor, wresting with the boot on his left foot and clawing at his medical kit. A big shot of xylocaine into his ankle started to numb the pain from his foot, and he could start to work the boot clear and look at the mangled stump of his toe amidst a sea of blood. Unhappily he carefully moved the tattered flesh around then called out over the radio.
"See if you can find me some new boots as well. Bastards shot a hole in mine!" He grumbled some more and started to spray the area with disinfectant and swab at the wound, before slipping a micro-tourniquet over the stump of his toe and clamping it down.
Hunter approached the driver cautiously, who was now lying in the middle of the left hand lane, breathing heavily as the pain from his destroyed legs rippled through him. Probably going into shock Hunter thought, without any twinges of sympathy. He scanned around him and couldn't see any signs of a weapon, but he was careful none the less – the last thing he wanted was a concealed pistol to the face or being stabbed with a boot knife. Moving around cautiously he got ahead of the man and carefully placed his boot down on the exposed fingers of his right hand, slowly increasing pressure until he got a response. The driver looked up at him and his features twisted in disgust as he saw Hunter, spitting at his boot. The blood stained spittle fell short, but it was enough to tell Hunter what he was dealing with – one of 'those' Japanese racists.
"Go back to your island, devil!" the man hissed. Hunter just smiled down at him and rocked forward on his foot, then ground from side to side, driving the hand into the gravel and squashing it under his weight. Once he'd made the man shriek in pain a little, he backed off then quietly called for Shimazu to pop over and see if he could get any sense from the man.
Shimazu encouraged his prisoner up onto his feet and marched him round to where Kai was sitting, and after checking that Kai was ok, more or less, left him in his care and headed round to see Hunter and their captive. The driver was now deathly pale, having lost a lot of blood, and was struggling to remain conscious. Shimazu holstered his pistol, and moved around to replace Hunter in front of the man, then looked down upon his fellow countryman.
"You. You have no honour." He studied the man carefully, watching his faces and trying to filter out the reaction from his wounds and to gauge his response. The man looked up at him hate in his eyes, but didn't respond to the barb. Instead he started to breathe heavily, psyching himself up for something. With a heroic effort he pushed himself up onto all fours, turned to the south and started trying to crawl away, heading towards the city at a pitifully slow rate.
Kai finished dealing with his toe, wrapping it up in a large bandage and then pulling a dressing over the end of his foot. He couldn't get his foot back in his boot with the bandage wrapped around it, so he pulled out a knife and started sawing through the boot sole, separating it from the upper and fashioning a crude sandal, then taping that to the bottom of his foot. With that done he staggered to his feet and hobbled around the van, gesturing to the rescued man to come with him. Somewhat bemused, the man followed, looking at Kai's back and wondering just what was going on, and why he didn't even have a weapon drawn or trained upon him…
Tads caught up with them and joined the pair as they rounded the van, watching as Shimazu studied the man crawling away from him while Hunter grabbed the corpse of the one Aswon had shot by the legs, leaving the bloody shoulders for the tribesman to grab hold of so they could sling him in the back of the van.
"Stop toying with him, will you, we need to get this lot cleaned up and out of sight, and get back to the base and introduce ourselves." Kai called over to Shimazu, who pulled out a taser and swiftly shot the man in the back. He collapsed to the ground in an instant, not even twitching that much as the shock overwhelmed his already taxed system. Tads scowled at Kai, then jogged over to the man and knelt down by his side and gently laid a hand on the back of his head. She'd have to work quickly… she gathered the mana in the area, flinching as she felt the corruption and malaise of the background being sucked into her along with the 'good' mana, and cast her mind probe, trying her best to cut through the static and noise to get the information she needed. It was hard – already the man's brain was dying, the lack of oxygen slowly shutting down synaptic activity as his body and mind failed, and she didn't want to still be connected to him when he stopped. She'd never done that before, but something told her it wouldn't be a pleasant experience.
Fortunately, his state made him completely unable to resist her efforts, and she soon located the information she sought, and could start to extricate herself from his thoughts before he faded away.
"They're a Mitsuhama snatch squad, sent to get him." She gestured over at the man they'd rescued. "He's associated with the smuggler stop. Mitsuhama lost a shipment a week or two ago, jacked by some runners that they suspected were either working from here or associated in some way. They put pressure on the base via a fixer to give up the operatives who hit their shipment, and got snubbed – so they decided to do it the old-fashioned way. They had an aircraft waiting down at the Merill airfield and were going to take him to Tsimshin for interrogation and disposal." She turned to face the man they'd rescued and smiled at him. "Glad we got to you first."
"Team, I have been monitoring the conversation. If they had no magically active operatives, check them for cyberware. They could well have opticam eyes and headware memory. We do not want to leave behind any evidence."
"Good call, Marius." Kai flicked into astral and stared at the bodies, and saw a bunch of black spots throughout their heads and bodies. "Yeah, look like they're all packing. So, we need to torch that."
"Don't worry, just get them all in the van. I'll rig up a small charge to torch it and destroy the van and the bodies, along with any electronic evidence." Aswon stated.
"I hate to raise this – but when we find magical gear on other team members, we take it and use it or sell it, because it's valuable. And we have skilled physicians. Could we… "she gulped and tried not to think about the mechanics of what she was suggesting "could we take out the things in their heads and bodies? And sell them? Is that a practical thing to do?"
"Ugh." Aswon looked at Tads, his eyes opening wider as she came out with the suggestion. "Whilst it is possible, that kind of activity belongs to a special kind of person or organisation, and not one that I would choose to deal with. And unless you have a good market lined up, the value on second hand things like that is low… I mean, you wouldn't want to put anything inside you and ruin the purity of your body at all – but if you did, would you want to use a second-hand thing, that had been ripped out of someone else?" He saw Tads shudder as the thought crossed her mind. "Exactly. Let's leave them alone, and just consume them with fire. Take their gear, THAT can be recycled easily enough, but leave their bodies."
They got the bodies in the van and heaved the van over towards the trees – a quick look at the engine and the damage from Marius's strafing attack had shown them it was never going to be operational again – then Aswon prepared a charge on a five minute timer and set it up in the back of the van, nestled next to the heads of the three corpses. They cleared up any obvious signs of combat, collecting whatever shell casings were obvious and recovering the medical supplies that Kai had littered next to the container, then headed away from the scene and back towards the tilt-wing. Tads managed to pin Kai down for a few seconds and magically healed his toe, at least closing the wound and preventing any risk of infection and letting him walk without a limp.
As they headed off, Kai grabbed one of the sub-machine guns they'd recovered and offered it to the rescued man.
"You need one of these?"
"No, thank you. My weapon is a jack and a virtual keyboard – and normally that does the job for me. Thank you by the way, I've not had chance to say it yet. I appreciate the rescue."
Kai nodded and smiled at him, and gave the man a good look. He was fairly average in height and build, but his skin was a fairly dark olive complexion – clearly not a local, he would have looked more at home in the Med or the southern parts of the CAS. His black hair was matted with sweat from his exertion, but he seemed to have relaxed a little, and had an easy-going smile as he glanced around the team one by one, sizing up his rescuers.
"The name's Iceman66 by the way, and as you're already sussed, I work at the Ice Box. Let me introduce you to the boss." Kai saw Hunter's head swivel and stare at the newcomer in recognition at the name, but the man didn't see it, and fortunately was distracted as Aswon spoke.
"So, if you're a decker, and work at the base… does that mean you might be able to help us with paperwork, perhaps. Of an international border crossing kind?"
"Maybe… it's one of the many interests I have. Let's get back to the cabin and we can discuss! That way!" He gestured towards one of the cranes that was surrounded by a large pile of containers, a couple of hundred metres from the tilt-wing, and they adjusted course slightly to head for that area.
