Wednesday 2/2/2061, Location: 44.63639, 33.55829, Time 18:15:00

They watched the guards patrol, listened to the hum of music, and observed through the spider drone as some of the staff busied themselves in the kitchen cleaning up after the earlier dinner party. As they updated the guard schedule and tagged the information they gained, Aswon had a thought. He considered for a few minutes, then checked the distances on the map and the doors on the proposed route.

"Hey, just a thought. But if Tads does the floor thing and we get into the utility room ok, and get at the security – there's nothing stopping us doing the same thing again to get in the museum, is there? I mean, sure, we should have knocked out the security system. But the more we can stay out of the corridors and stuff, the better, right?"

"If I can get the case off the security system without triggering the alarm, I am sure Hunter can sieze control of it, and we can make the corridors safe to transit, and the doors will be open. But that will not stop the human factor – so I would agree that going in directly if we can would be preferable." Marius considered for a moment, then continued. "As long as Tads finds herself able to carry out the task, of course."

"I don't think it should be too much of an issue. We can always review when we've done the first room. Speaking of which – when are we going in?"

"I'd suggest we wait until after the evening meal is prepared, so the kitchen staff have no real reason to go into the utility room," Aswon suggested, "but then if we hear the trid unit or the music system on, and the guard patrol has gone, we use the noise to help cover our activity and get in there. If we can sort out the security system, we can always pause then and wait until later if we have some reason to…"

They settled back to wait, watching the evening meal be prepared for the Admiral and officers. As dusk fell, Tads resummoned her spirits, and did a quick flit back to the tilt-wing to get it concealed and give fresh instructions, checking on it to make sure it hadn't been discovered. When she returned, she found the Admiral had met up with the three officers living in the smaller rooms, using the private dining room next to the museum. After a nice three course meal, they retired to the lounge, and appeared to settle in for the evening on the couches with brandy and cigars, watching something on the trideo.

"Are we ready to start?"

"I am, Tads. Is everyone else? Kai – do we want to do this now, or wait?"

"It looks like they're settled, and the kitchen staff have cleaned up, haven't they, and buggered off?"

"Yes, they were seen leaving a few minutes ago. I'm guessing he doesn't get waited on twenty four hours a day."

"Well, we can drop the distraction whenever we need to, or go."

"Do we need the distraction?"

"No – I'm just saying it's an option if we need it. We only need a few minutes for Tads to get in position at the end of the tunnel and get up the tree, so it should be easy enough to sort out."

"Well, sure. I'd much rather not do it, though. The less casting I have to do, the better. And along with Marius, I'm the one that's mostly going to be keeping us alive as we get out of here."

"Yes, yes, right. Well, let's save it then – and use it on the way out, if we need to. We can use it to cover our exit and escape. But otherwise then, Tads, whenever you're ready to do your stuff – let's melt that floor and stick the illusion up."

"No. Not that way, anyway."

"No?"

"No. I've got to get the earth out first, then we take the floor tiles out. Then I have to climb in and up through the ward, with nothing magical active so I don't set it off. THEN I get to put the phantasm up and hide us. But I'm not trying to put the illusion up through the ward – that makes it almost impossible."

"Ah. Right. Ok."

"Hmm, just a thought. We've not seen the guard patrols going into the private corridor have we?" Hunter asked.

"No, they walk around the perimeter – past our door, up past the cupboard, along past the bedrooms and bathrooms, through the kitchen, back down the east side and then back to the guard room."

"That's what I thought, Aswon. But they don't go into the lounge or private areas that we've seen – but it just struck me that maybe that's because the Admiral is using them. They might extend their patrol route or change it after the Admiral goes to bed. We've seen them be pretty thorough with their patrol, so it's something to bear in mind."

"Yeah… that might be Hunter. Well, short of doing extended observation in there, that's something we'll just have to watch out for. At least with the drone in and monitoring, if we see them turn down the corridor to the living area, we should get some kind of heads-up or warning from it to hide or conceal ourselves. One thing we won't know until we get in there, though, is if there's a spirit in the there. It wouldn't show up to the drone at all unless it materialised, and that's not very common."

"What can we do about it if it does? Myffic shit isn't my department." Hunter shrugged, knowing that if any magical spirits attacked, he was one of the least effective members of the team to deal with it.

"Tads could deal with it, I'm sure – and if it's immediately hostile, then Shimazu can slice it up quickly unless it's as strong as the one back in Papa New Guinea. I'm sure both Kai and I can take it on, too – at least hold it in combat long enough for reinforcements to arrive. But the main danger we have is it spotting us and immediately raising the alarm. So we'd better be careful about what we say and do in there, as it could be watching us. If there is one, of course. We just don't know." Aswon shrugged, uncertain on what else needed to be said about the matter.

"Well, a bit of good news. If you have to break into the cabinets to get the gun, I should be able to fix them afterwards – I have a spell that does just that. As long as it's not too big, I can fix damage up like new on simple objects. Maybe not on a computer, but a simple made thing like this should be easy enough."

"That's handy then Tads. Now, the museum has a glass roof, and we should be able to sort the electronic security out – but we need to make sure that we avoid any physical spotting of course – I presume you could do the same illusion over the roof as you do in the utility cupboard?" Kai smiled when Tads nodded in agreement. "And you can cast like a silence zone over the whole room?"

"No. I can make a single item or person very stealthy – making almost no noise. But not create a bubble of silence. I can ask a spirit to conceal an item as well, which will help – as long as there's no spirit already in the church that will take offence or attack us as a result."

"Ok, great. So, we go in underground. Hunter at the front, Tads just behind. She moves the earth, Hunter moves the flagstones. Then Tads goes in and puts the illusion up. Marius goes in and fiddles with the electronics, and we take the security system out. Then we come back down, dropping the illusion and putting the floor back."

"Drop the illusion first, then come down – otherwise I'm crossing a ward with a spell up."

"Right, that's what I said." Kai blustered and carried on. "Then we're sort of safe again, and we move to under the museum. We do the same thing again, but with a bigger hole, and then Shimazu goes in and picks the locks if they're physical, or Marius disables them if they're electronic, we swap the guns over, then we get out. Back down here, and Shimazu leads the way down the tunnel, then Aswon, me, Tads, Marius and Hunter brings up the rear. Back to the house, then we head back to the tilt wing. Sound ok to everyone?"

There were general nods of agreement, with Hunter and Marius exchanging a few odd looks, which Kai seemed oblivious too. That, or he noticed but chose not to look like he did, anyway.

"I'm going to leave a spirit on guard in the house behind us, to act as a tripwire. Just in case."

"Ok, can't do any harm I suppose."

"I'll have to tell it to come and sound any alarm with whoever is staying in the undercroft, of course."

"Of course." Kai nodded, then looked confused. "Why?"

"Because of the ward. It can't cross the ward." Tads said with an edge of exasperation.

"Right, got it. Well, unless there's anything else – let's go!"

They headed down the tunnel and got into position. It was a very tight fit in the spot that Hunter had mapped out. Tads had raised large earth and rock berms on three sides of the spot, supporting the arched roof thoroughly and ensuring it wouldn't collapse when she moved the stones at the top. Unfortunately that left only space for a single person to move at a time, and when one of those people was Hunter, that became even more marginal. Still, she crouched just behind him and cast her spell, arms raised towards the roof and Hunter watched as the stones and earth seemed to liquify before his eyes and just roll to the sides, opening up a space directly above him. As the earth moved, the bottoms of the flagstones appeared, and he quickly jammed his massive arms upwards, supporting the corners of the flags as Tads scooped away the supporting material. With quiet grunts of effort he lowered the flagstones with one hand, whilst he supported the remaining stones with the other, letting electric light filter down into the undercroft and illuminate his slightly dusty face.

A minute later he had lowered the stones to the floor on either side of his spot, and he turned to retreat back the way he had come, following closely on Tad's heels. As she got out of the area, he moved to one side, and let her move back in, closely followed by Marius.

She looked up through the hole and then carefully stood up, her upper torso sticking out of the hole into the utility room. Looking down at herself she could see her chest surrounded by the rippling chaotic swirls of the ward, flowing both through and around her. She climbed up as carefully as she could, but just as she was moving her legs free of the hole, her sleeve caught the handle of a saucepan stacked up with a pile of baking trays and other dishes, and she had to make a frantic grab for the metallic containers as they started to slide towards the floor. With their dash for freedom arrested, she took a deep calming breath and then wove a net of illusionary force over the roof of the room, blinding the cameras above to what was going on here, then squeezed over towards the door and listened carefully, making as much room as she could for Marius to climb through.

Marius in turn stood up and carefully moved the stack of pots and pans, exposing the blinking box of the security system buried in the corner of the room. He eased it forwards, checking for the amount of slack on the cables that ran up the wall and to the transmitters at the top, then examined the device. Roughly the size of a portable computer, it had a number of fibre optic ports arrayed along the rear, along with some copper-based access ports and the power supply. Looking at the power supply he could see the edge of the large battery that lay alongside it, hidden behind a cooling grille – presumably with enough capacity to keep the device running for a few minutes at least, so it could raise an alarm or signal a control centre about its' imminent failure.

He checked the case over, finding the screw points that held the top and bottom sections together, and tried to familiarise himself with the design. It looked mostly passive, with very little in the way of cooling fans or access ports, and was solid and very heavy. Painted in a dull grey, it lacked any of the polish and finish found in more commercial products – he wasn't sure if this was as a result of it being Russian – or possibly being of military origins. He hoped it was the former…

Pulling out his toolkit he set to work, stripping out the security screws holding the chassis in place and loosening the case. One the screws were removed, he gave a tiny little wobble to the case, then started to ease very thin shims up in the slot dividing the top and bottom parts of the system, working them back and forth and feeling around behind the opaque side panels. Where he felt resistance, he slowed further, exploring the area around the blockage and trying to ascertain what he was feeling.

"Tads, I need your assistance."

"You're hidden, the spell is holding. I'd be very surprised if anything can see though it!"

"And I appreciate that. But that is not what I was asking for. I need you to crouch down over here, and as I slide the case off, you need to hold this small plastic scraper firmly against the side of the case. There is a small switch behind it that must remain depressed."

Tads got into position, getting ready to press exactly where Marius indicated, and watched as he contorted himself further, moving both knees into position and one more hand, until he was ready to apply pressure in three other areas on other faces of the device. He warned her to be ready, then slowly worked the case off, and they both pushed in firmly, holding the anti-tamper switches in place and simulating the existence of the outer casing. As soon as he could put the case down, his free hand started to work around the case, either wedging a pin into place in the switch to hold it in place, or applying a jumper cap to just isolate the switch entirely.

"Definitely military. Paranoid and excessive in defence, but using very old, tried and true methods. If this was commercial, they would have tried to be cute, clever or both. That means decoding this could take some time…"

He did another check of the now exposed system, cataloguing the various circuit boards and modules, and his astonishment grew more and more. As he poked at various parts of the system with a stylus, gently lifting ribbon cables or flipping up shields to see what was underneath, he slowly slid away most of his tools, instead grabbing his rigger deck. Finally he sat back on his heels and activated his comm-link.

"This security system is very capable. Very capable indeed. It is a full Rigger CCSS device – but they are using perhaps only a third of the power available, and not taking advantage of most of the features."

"What's that mean for us?" Kai asked.

"If it was being used fully, then they would have a Security Rigger on duty, in the system. Like when I am driving the truck or flying the tilt-wing, they would feel when doors were opened, or when people stood on the pressure pads. They would see and experience through the cameras and other probes. The system would be almost impossible to sneak through. But – they are not. What they have is a decker interface module, connected to the main system, and that is transmitting the data over the link to the guard room. They will be seeing all of the footage and alarms, but not experiencing them in the same way."

"What's that mean for us?" Kai repeated.

"I can get access to the system, and provide a local admin account from the system board, to Hunter. He can loop, spoof or redirect streams of data, supress alarms, modify records and do other things to obscure our presence, and with access directly to the hardware, he should be able to do this with almost no chance of detection or failure."

"Oh – that sounds good. So Hunter needs to be up there?"

"Nein. I can connect a cable to the system board and run it down into the cellar. If Tads will oblige me with a hole in the stones, I can feed the cable through and he can operate it from down there. This should make our entry into the museum almost trivial…"

They got to work, Tads casting another spell to create a small hole in the flagstones at the back corner of the utility room and then feeding up the cable that Marius had provided. He, in turn, took the cable and ran it through one of the ports on the security system, then set to work directly attaching it to one of the I/O ports in the system, straight into the management interface. The minutes ticked by as Marius delicately soldered the ends of the cable in place, and just as he was finishing, he became aware that someone, or something was watching him. His eyes flicked up, and he saw the ghostly image of an elderly man watching him, half protruding from the pots and pans that lined the shelves.

"Alms? For the poor?"

"I'm sorry?" Marius understood what the figure had said, but by speaking he alerted Tads who gave a jump when she noticed the figure watching them.

"ALMS! For the poor and needy."

"Of course. I'd be happy to help. The poor are deserving of our aid." He thought for a moment, then a sly grin crossed his face. Checking his pockets, he pulled out a few crumpled notes from the bottom of his hip pocket, then spread the Iranian notes over the shelf. "Will that be sufficient?"

"Oh, well that will help some of the poor, of course. But not all of them. Money can't buy you happiness."

"Oh – I see." Marius flashed back to the meeting with the fire elementals in the volcanic lair next to the oil rig, who had struck some kind of bargain with Kai. He figured that's what the spirit wanted here – some tiny part of his soul or experiences, his will to improve and learn. He didn't much want to get involved, but the spirit seemed to have latched on to him and he figured it was up to him to resolve the issue. "I'd be happy to help you. May I just finish putting the case on this, and I'll be with you. I don't want to damage anything here, you see? And I'd wish to concentrate on helping you as best I can."

"That sounds like a good idea." The ghostly shape watched as he reassembled the case, screwing it back together and sliding it back in place, ensuring that it was well concealed. The figure had a large beard that seemed to have been woven in places, or had certainly been treated in some way, and his 'priestly garments' looked to be a little shoddy and unkempt.

"There, all done. Now, how do I do this? Do I just reach out to you?"

"Just pray and believe in the Lord. You ARE a good Orthodox, aren't you?" It squinted at Marius with some suspicion.

"I have a deep and abiding respect for those people who answer a higher cause and carry out work important to them, and for those that guide other people." His answer what truthful and honest – if not directly answering what was asked of him. The spirit examined him carefully for a moment though, and detected sincerity and the belief in what he said – not picking up on the subtleties of how Marius might not share his exact outlook. He genuflected and then laid a hand over the crown of Marius' head. Marius felt a little surprised by the lack of sensation, he'd expected to feel something, but he didn't get so much as a goosebump. The spirit removed his hand, smiled at him revealing slightly yellowing and twisted teeth, and then faded away from the room. Marius looked around, then went to pick up the cash from the shelf. Within a second, the spirit had reappeared, and was frowning at him. "The poor?"

"Yes, this is for the poor. Is there a bowl to put it in – or shall I just leave it there?" The spirit nodded at him, and Marius carefully put it back in place. "My apologies, I thought you would want it somewhere else. A misunderstanding. Right, well, thank you." He held his breath for a moment, then relaxed as the spirit faded away once more. "I am done here, Tads. I will check the cable at the other end, while you do any last-minute spell sorting here. I've set the camera to ignore this room for the next five minutes, so you can drop the illusion whenever you wish." He put action to his words, dropping down the hole and quickly checking the positioning and signals coming from the cable, then scurried down the narrow passageway to brief Hunter, while Tads carefully dropped the illusion and then smoothed away the signature from the spells, hiding any traces she'd been here, before she, too, dropped down.

Once more she swapped places with Hunter, then watched as he carefully lifted the flagstones back up through the hole, struggling with the last one as he tried to manoeuvre it through the narrow gap, before flowing the earth and rocks back into the place to support the floor above them, but it back to how it had been before their arrival as closely as possible.

"I could do with a few minutes of rest after that," she said over the team link.

"No problem. Hunter, wait for Tads to move out of the way, then I will come in and show you how to log in with your deck and control the security system." Hunter had his deck ready to connect by the time Marius and Tads had exchanged positions, and by the time Marius had run him through the operations needed to create a virtual environment on the security system and subtly shift the guard room into the invisible prison created, seeing only what the team wished, Tads had stopped rubbing her temples gently and supping at her water bottle, her mild headache responding well to the massage and a dose of painkillers.

"Ok, I've got control of the security systems now, I can loop feeds, wipe logs, clear data – whatever. That's the good news. The bad news is that the cabinets are running off a sliding trap-door. They output data to the security system and can set off the alarms, and will relay information, but we can't control their systems from this one. Think of it like a one-way door, and we're on the wrong side."

"But you can intercept any alarms raised from the cabinets and prevent it getting to the guard room or anywhere else?" Aswon queried.

"Already done!" Hunter grinned. "I'm checking back through the footage now as well, and getting bits of video ready to splice in if we do need to loop or spoof any cameras as well.

They left Hunter below the utility room, plugged into his cyber-deck and sitting in the dark leaning against the end of the tunnel as his electronic avatar danced through the security system, building up a convincing simulation to deploy to the watching guards, who seemed none-the-wiser.

A few minutes later they had repeated their entry plan, and had tunnelled up into the museum. With Hunter running rings around the security protocols, Shimazu came up to hold the flagstones in place while Tads carefully excavated around them, bringing them down into the undercroft carefully and laying them to one side as they opened up a large hole in the floor. As he was here, he pushed himself up into the room as soon as the hole was big enough, looking around the museum room with interest.

Clear cases were laid out around the perimeter of the small room, standing atop plain plinths. Each held at least one gun, while some held pairs of smaller pieces. Concealed lights illuminated the firearms which were held in customised grips or specially carved indentations in the floor in the case of the tripod mounted machine guns. Besides the cases were two suits of gothic-looking plate mail, with halberds in hand, and a few sheathed swords positioned in racks nearby. He gave them a careful examination, but without drawing them from the scabbards, there was not a huge amount of information to gain other than their extreme age. He estimated they were at least a few hundred years old, as a minimum – though none of them appeared in any way magical.

Examining the cases, though, he was at a bit of a loss as to what devices were actually security them – though he was pretty sure he could predict what the responses would be if any of the alarms were raised. He moved over to the hole and helped first Tads and then Marius climb up into the room. Tads busied herself with another illusion, covering the area just under the roof with another illusion that displayed an empty room below, concealing the magical effect from view with intense focus. Marius meanwhile moved over and examined the case and the pedestal carefully, then reported.

"As we suspected – the cases have the hinges internally to prevent easy access. Ports on the floor of the case line up with the pedestal, and I can see access ports for an air-exchange system. From the looks of things they are kept at low pressure in a low-oxygen environment. The increase in pressure will trigger an alarm unless the system has been disabled. There also appears to be motion sensors – detecting gross movement such as someone trying to steal the entire case, as well as vibration sensors. So, cutting through the case is also likely to set off the alarm. And the keypad for the security system is recessed into the bottom corner of the case, and is very well protected from tampering."

"So it's tamper-proof?" Kai asked.

"No. Nothing it tamper-proof. But it is highly resistant. This will take some time. Quite a lot of time. Hunter – please monitor the cameras and advise if the Admiral leaves the living area heading this way – it will be quite difficult to hide quickly."

"Will do."

"Although…" Marius stared into space for a moment, then called Hunter back. "Do a search, please. Roll back the camera system, and look for footage of the Admiral in here. Cross-reference for any of the cameras overlooking the area. See if you can find any examples of him opening a cabinet. I wonder if he will have been careful enough to hide his code from view…?"

"On it. Gonna take a while though – lots to go through."

It did take a while – nearly fifteen tense and nerve-wracking minutes while Hunter trawled through thousands of mega-pulses of video files looking for the information. When he called back though, there was an edge to his voice – glee mixed with derision.

"Try the following code – zero eight zero five two zero one six. I suspect this is his date of birth – and if so the man deserves to be robbed!"

Marius punched in the code into the cabinet holding the 1911, and got ready to move away from the cabinet, just in case. Nothing appeared to happen for a moment, then the case gave a tiny little shudder and the top popped open. There hadn't even been the noise of the equalising pressure to alert him thanks to Tads' additional spell to silence the cabinet's noises. Very carefully he opened the cabinet and reached inside, then picked up the antique firearm, once more tensing in the expectation that some alarm would sound somewhere. But, nothing happened.

He let out a subtle sigh of relief, then reached into his bag and recovered the other 1911 they'd purchased in Baku, checking it over. It looked similar enough that it should pass muster, and he leant in closely to check the serial number and some small details – it wouldn't do to leave the original weapon and steal the fake after all – he'd never live it down. Once he had confirmed that he was leaving behind the much less valuable version, he carefully positioned it in the case, striving to match the exact alignment of the original.

"Swap complete. I have the prize." He turned and saw Shimazu standing next to one of the other cases, the lid just popping open as the air pressure equalised.

"I was just curious if it was the same on all of them. It looks like it is." He glanced down, looking at the M1 Garand rifle held in clear acrylic brackets contained in the box.

"So, do we just evac now with what we wanted, or do we clean the place out while we have the opportunity?"

"Just the thing we came for and get out?" Tads offered, sounding vaguely hopeful.

"It's a lot of cash to leave lying around, is all I'm saying. I'm sure there are collectors all over the place that would buy these – and we're dropping off the Colt to a firearms fence. I'm sure they could broker them for us."

"If it's not nailed down, grab it!" Kai exclaimed. "We'll worry about fencing it later."

"Why do you always have to complicate things, Kai?" Marius sounded peeved. He carefully lowered the case lid, leaving the replica 1911, but also ignoring the LeMat eight- shot revolver in the cradle to the other side of the cabinet. Turning towards Shimazu who was just reaching for the Garand, he waved his hands choppily from side to side. "Just leave it, Shimazu. We should not be greedy."

Down in the undercroft, Hunter gave a start as one of Tads' spirits materialised next to him.

"She said to come and tell you if someone came in the house. Someone's come in the house. I've come and told you." The spirit looked pleased with itself as it explained the chain of logic to him, but Hunter was ignoring it as he reached for the button on his commlink.

"Everyone, standby. Spirit reports people in the house."

Shimazu snatched his hand away from the rifle and turned in one fluid motion towards the hole in the floor, jumping down and into a crouch, and then heading for the way down from the undercroft to the tunnel leading to the house. As he scurried past, Kai fell in behind him, grabbing his taser.

"I need thirty seconds to clean the spells up in here. Go!" Tads told Marius. He looked for a moment as if he was going to argue, but Tads had already started to wave her hands around in the air, moving mana hither and thither. She didn't seem to want to pick anything up, and at least this materially added to their chance of a clean getaway, so he clambered down the hole himself, moving towards Hunter to take over on the security system.

"Go help Tads put the floor back. I've got the cameras." He slid a cable in and deftly took over control of the rigger system, monitoring the feeds and ensuring that no alarms were sounding and that the guards were still all in the guard room. He vaguely felt Hunter brushing past him as the big ork duck-walked through the low arches, heading for the adjacent room.

"Shimazu and I will deal with the stuff in the house. You guys clear out the other cases, grab all the guns and stuff." Kai ordered, unaware that only Tads remained in the room and she had no desire or intention to be grabbing anything.

While he was talking over the com-link, he gestured for Shimazu to precede him down the tunnel. The bodyguard started to shimmy down the tunnel at a slight angle, making sure his sword was accessible and he wasn't brushing against the tunnel sides too much.

"I can see flashlights ahead, Kai – at least three or four, heading our way. They're examining the tunnel and moving carefully."

"Head for the side tunnel, Shimazu. We can ambush them from there."

"Tads – come on. Leave everything else, we have what we came for."

"Coming, Marius. Just clearing up the spells."

"Hey – I said to grab the stuff!"

"We are not stealing anything else, Kai. Why do you always have to make things fucking complicated!"

"Easy there! You haven't even heard what I'm planning!"

"I do not care! Look, can we just get out of here? We could be discovered any minute by the guards inside, and we have people coming from outside. Can we just keep things simple?" Marius sounded frustrated, even rebellious, and the other members of the team kept quiet, wondering what Kai would do. He could be persuasive, they all knew – but generally speaking it was an unwritten rule that the team didn't flex their powers on each other, or at least they hadn't so far. Moreover though, they knew that Kai's magical talents wouldn't function over the electronic link – so the extra advantages he normally had in persuading people just wouldn't work here. Beyond that, Marius was, of course, well aware of what Kai was like, and he sounded angry enough to cut through the fast-talking nonsense that Kai normally used. Kai paused for a moment, and was about to speak, when Shimazu pushed him into the side tunnel and then backed in himself, making sure he was the closest to the turning and ready to leap out in ambush – not a moment too soon either, as the lamps cast beams of light forward and over the space they'd just been in. They could hear the quiet voices of the approaching people, speaking in Russian.

"Where does it go?"

"I don't know – but it looks like the church! Maybe it's an escape tunnel?"

"Leading back into our house! How? How did they dig this without us knowing?"

"I don't know. But if it does go to the church… how much explosive do we have?"

"We have some, but the detonators are… questionable. But we can find at least one that will work, I'm sure."

"Shimazu, Kai – I'm at the end of the tunnel, ready to move down towards you." Aswon's voice sounded over the comm-link, drowning out the voices of the approaching intruders momentarily.

"Hey, look, the tunnel splits? Which way do we go?"

"Straight on, I think. That is the way to the Admiral!" The first of the figures appeared around the edge of the tunnel, his light starting to turn and face towards Shimazu and Kai. As the light panned around, Shimazu's arm extended, pointing the taser directly at the figure's chest. The beam of light illuminated Shimazu's face for a moment, and the man boggled as he suddenly found himself face to face with someone twice his size, and with a weapon drawn. Shimazu squeezed the trigger and the darts shot from the taser, striking true and sending tens of thousands of volts of electricity surging between them, rendering the man unconscious in a moment. Leaning around the corner, Shimazu fired a second shot, repeating the assault on the second person in the line, sending him to the floor to join the first.

"Dimitry?" A voice called in alarm. Lamps suddenly flickered left and right, until one illuminated the twitching bodies on the floor. A split second later, they heard the sound of weapons being cocked as the rest of the intruders readied their weapons.

"What are you idiots doing down here, we're about to blow the place!" Kai called out, his voice modulating, the timbre of leadership reverberating through his voice-box, supported by an element of hauteur. While Kai paused for a moment to let that first statement sink in, Aswon called the spirit assigned to him by Tads, asking it to conceal him against the new intruders. As soon as this was done he started to head down the tunnel, aiming to meet the intruders head-on.

"What? Which cell are you?" The voice was confused, hesitant and full of uncertainty. "What do you mean, blow the place up? And why have you killed my men?" The man's thoughts were clearly all over the place as he tried to work out what was going on. Kai tapped Shimazu on the shoulder and made a gesture, and they squeezed around each other, letting Kai turn around the corner and into the light from their torches. Raising a hand, he pointed at them with an outstretched finger.

"Identify yourself now!" Magic dripped from his voice, the harmonics rumbling back and forth, reverberating off the walls and slicing straight into the brains of the shadowy figures.

"Gregory. North side cell." The voice cracked, and then resumed, clearly having regretted speaking at all. "Who are you?"

"Ivar, demolition team."

"Never heard of it!" A dark shape raised towards him, the barrel of a gun held just behind the torch. "Why did you kill my men!"

"Listen, you idiot, we've got about five minutes before this whole place goes up. We need to get out of this tunnel and back to the house." He twisted his wrist, turning the taser sideways on and held it in the ray of light from one of the torches. "We didn't kill anyone – they're just stunned. So you need to grab them, and get them out of here." He holstered his taser and then made a motion to his ear as if activating a transmitter. "Team, another cell is here. We're heading to the house now." Dropping his hand, he faced the confused guerrillas once more, and then gathered his energy again, issuing another vocal command that had them moving before they had much chance to think. "Get. Them. Out!"

The men grabbed the unconscious and twitching members of their team and started to drag them up the tunnel, casting suspicious looks back towards them from time to time. Kai just strode after them, appearing unconcerned, with Shimazu following along behind him, while a still-concealed Aswon padded along in his wake.

"We have the floor back in place. Tads is propping it up now. We will be another thirty seconds." Marius still sounded annoyed, but he kept it professional, as the three remaining team members worked to eradicate any sign of their presence.

"Kai, we haven't got the tunnel rigged to blow, I presume that was for our new friends benefit. Do you want something rigging up?"

"No," Kai subvocalised, nothing more than a faint hum coming from him. "It was just to get them moving."

"If they are around though, I'm going to block the tunnel up, to stop them getting through and setting off bombs or raising the alarm." Tads added.

"Can you almost block it?"

"What? What do you mean, Kai?"

"Block nearly all of it. Maybe leave a space big enough for an arm. Or someone to shine a torch through and look, but not get through. So they know it's there, and they can come back with spades to dig out the earth. But that'll take them hours, if not days – and we'll be well away by then."

"Ok, I see. Shouldn't be a problem."

"We don't want to damage the church. I think we don't want to let THEM damage the church either," Shimazu added.

"Once we get to the house, we'll find out what they're doing, and then go from there. Actually, Hunter – when you get out, say the demo charge was faulty, but tell me you got the electronic systems tapped."

"Roger."

Back at the church, the floor had been put back in place and the earth beneath it flowed back into a supporting archway. They moved to the original stairway, and Tads opened up a narrow tube to the gallery once more, allowing Marius to recover the reconnaissance drone, before letting the stone flow back into shape behind it. With the optical probe removed, they jammed some dirty and small gravel into the hole, blocking it up at least on their side, and then Tads spent a few more moments dissipating the aura of her spells, carefully moving to ensure she was either entirely above or below the ward. Finally, with all trace of their presence removed, they headed back to the corner of the undercroft and worked back down to the tunnel.

Moving more swiftly now, Hunter and Marius headed down the tunnel with their gear, while Tads plugged up a two metre long section of the tunnel apart from one small shaft that gave some visibility of the bottom of the undercroft, showing a way through, then clearing her signature away once more. She moved back to the split in the tunnel, and repeated the process, creating a second hurdle that appeared much more like broken rocks and not solid earth this time. She also covered the side tunnel in case anyone found the entrance to that. With the second spell also cleansed, she scurried after the others, heading back to the house.

The guerrillas had climbed back up into the house, struggling to lift the bodies of their comatose comrades through the gaps in the joists, before moving to lay them out on the cheap couches in the living room. Kai stood with Shimazu, holding an electronic pad showing the day's weather reports, occasionally pointing at part of the page and nodding sagely as if he were looking at some mission-critical document, while Shimazu just stood immobile, his face serene and his eyes locked onto the guerrilla group, while his hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword.

The four men they faced were wearing rough and ready work clothing, overalls stained with oil and grease, pulled up over patched and well-worn jumpers and hoodies. Each carried a torch and a very basic looking sub-machine gun – the kind of weapon that gave rise to 'lowest cost bidder' horror stories. They were in turn staring back, wondering who was going to make the first move.

"I think we have a good option here…" Kai started.

"I do not want to hear it. Stop making it complicated," Marius interrupted, his ire returning to his voice.

"You haven't even heard the plan! Just wait!" Kai let his anger and frustration show, and the men watching them saw him raise his hands to his temples and tug at his hair for a moment. "Look – we tell them about the security tap. We tell them that knowing what the Admiral is going to do is FAR more valuable than killing him. They can find out his secrets and prepare for them. And they won't blow the place up then, and give us even more time to get away."

"I like that, actually. Make with the blagging. Kai." Aswon added. "Hang on, they're looking like they're getting the courage up to do something." Aswon asked his spirit to stop concealing him, and stepped forward. As the magical defences slipped away he 'materialised' out of the corner of the room where he'd been lurking, and saw the guerrillas give a start as they suddenly spotted him. Waiting until he had their firm attention, he smiled at them, letting his lips pull back nice and far and exposing the massive lion fangs implants.

"Right, let me see your two stunned people. We'll check on them." Kai pulled out his first aid kit, and moved over to each man in turn, running a quick diagnostic routine and measuring their vital stats. Every time the leader of the guerrillas tried to speak, Kai shushed him and concentrated on the med-scanner, noting down the most inane and irrelevant details as if he was about to perform some miraculous life-saving surgery. He wasn't, of course, but that gave enough time for Marius, Hunter and finally Tads to climb up out of the tunnel and join them. The guerrillas realised that they were now outnumbered, that Hunter and Shimazu between them probably outmassed them, the blond guy looked ready to cut them in half with a dirty-look, and the huge black guy just kept smiling at them with enormous teeth, and their self-confidence evaporated away, leaving them standing there like school children, waiting to be told what to do by teacher. Finally, Kai put his kit away, and stood up.

"They're both going to be absolutely fine – no long-term damage or effects at all. Now - You already broke protocol telling me your name, which was a stupid thing to do. And don't for one moment think I actually gave you my real name – we're not so new. But, that does mean we need to get out of here, and soon."

"What are you trying to do"

"We're not breaking protocol – if your cell wasn't cleared for this information, then you don't have a need to know. But, we need to get out of here"

"I need to report in to...someone."

"No, you can't blow cover. We need to be ready to run."

"But we need to know what's going on!" The leader whined.

"Well, you can tell them this." Hunter leant forward and passed over an optical chip he'd just ejected from his deck. "Tell them to examine the map on here carefully – it's a full 3d breakdown of the interior of the church, showing the guard room, bedrooms, location of the security system and server, pressure pads and such like. Now, we've taken off any data that leads back to us – but that's all valuable stuff. And more importantly, it shows the location under the church for the data tap we've installed that will let you continue to get up to date information from the location. Provided you don't fuck it up." The leader of the group took the chip and held it between finger and thumb, examining the chip as if he could determine the contents with a good hard stare. A few moments later, he looked up…

"But you said there would be an explosion?"

Kai fired off a string of Azerbaijani at Tads, watching the guerrillas for any sign of recognition – but seeing none.

"Make up some story, will you, in a minute or two. Then we'll get rid of these guys and head out ourselves." Tads nodded at him and then turned towards the leader.

"In the tunnel. It was not complete though." Tads gave a shrug and what she hoped looked like an apologetic smile at Kai. "We didn't know you would be here, so we were hiding our tracks. However, the tunnel is not completely blocked. If you want to get in, you should be able to do that with a bit of digging. Just be quiet and careful."

"We need to report back to our cell contact and to command on the information we have. You probably need to do the same before you take any action."

"If we dig through the tunnel, we can kill the Admiral?" One of the other men asked quietly.

"Did you not hear me? You REALLY need to report this to your cell, and not take stupid, half-cocked action. Or you could blow a really big opportunity!" Kai stated, fixing the man with a glare. To his relief, the leader of the guerrillas seemed to share the opinion and also scowled at the man. "Now, we're going to get ready to leave. When we do, wait for at least ten minutes. We will head east when we leave here, so you should head west. No contact for an hour, then carefully reach out to your cell and report it. Clear?"

"Yes, understood."

"Good. Now command still MAY want to strike at the Admiral. But I think they will rather keep him in place if they can read all his emails and messages. If they get someone new in that changes security, they will lose that advantage. But that's for your cell and command to decide."

"You may want to cover the hole in the floor for now though, and make it look normal. In case the police come back." Tads added. She turned to Kai. "Just nipping to the toilet, then I'm ready to go." Kai blinked at her for a moment, wondering what she was getting at, then just shrugged and nodded.

Once in the bathroom, Tads steadied her breathing then summoned a watcher spirit, taking care to try and focus her energies to create one with a reasonable level of magical energy – sufficient to be able to understand somewhat complex orders. It was more draining of course than the simpler beasts, but this would require a certain amount of deftness. Once she had the spirit she carefully explained her desire to keep an eye on the smaller group downstairs, asking the watcher spirit to keep an eye on them for an hour, then come and find her to report in.

Returning downstairs, the rest of the team were ready to go, their gear packed back into the travel bags they'd used on the way here, and after a quick check of the street, they filed out and turned left onto the road, heading eastwards towards the church. At the first turning through they swung left, walking up the quiet residential street northwards, watching the area around them carefully. There were streetlights in the area, but they were not illuminated, and many of the houses only showed a faint glow from around a few windows – presumably as a result of power rationing in the area.

They continued heading in a northerly direction, zig-zagging through the streets a little and keeping a watch around them, travelling as two groups of three to be somewhat less memorable. It was nearly a kilometre to the edge of town, but they made it to the edge of the fields without any challenges or spotting any tails, and the two groups quickly climbed over a gate into the field and started to work their way across the barren soil, thick cloying mud starting to stick to their boots.

Hunter kept an eye on his internal GPS data, and directed them to turn east after a kilometre, and they ended up on a quiet farm track, able to pick up the pace a little on the gravelled surface and kick off the thick layer of mud they'd accumulated. Slowly they started to open the distance between themselves and the Church, climbing up a shallow incline that eventually let them see most of the way down to the bay, before they dropped down the other side into the valley.

Three more times they had to climb and descend, navigating over the fingers of the mountains to the north. It was energetic work, and the most difficult route back, especially compared to just dropping down to the bay and following the main road along the edge of the shore – but this way was deserted, particularly as it was full of climbs and descents, and the farmers had long since retreated to their houses.

Further on they entered some stands of pine trees, which at least cut off the chill wind, though moving through the shadowy path between the towering trees with constantly moving shapes catching the corner of their eye did nothing for their paranoia levels. It was here that Tads' watcher spirit managed to catch up with her, reporting in that the other group had waited for ten minutes as they'd been told, quietly arguing the whole time about what to report and to whom, before they had moved off to the west, ending up in a warehouse where they'd hidden their guns and torches in a cellar before retreating to their own houses for the night.

Finally, the team turned south, climbing more steadily now and heading for the highlands where they'd left the tilt-wing, and eventually making it back by just after ten thirty. They stopped for a few minutes, watching the area around them for any signs of subtle pursuit or surveillance, while they rested their weary legs, but when after ten minutes there was nothing stirring, they gathered at the aircraft and started the tedious work of stripping the cammo-netting off of the airframe and folding it neatly into compressed bundles, then stowing it away.

"Ok team, next stop – the mountains. Let's go hunt some magical critters and stuff, and bag us an eagle!"

The engines fired up, and the propellers started to spin as Marius fired up his systems, wondering what the strange feeling was he had since interfacing with the aircraft systems.