Monday 22/3/2061, Location: 46.05769, 63.03197 Time 11:30

Now that they were secure to some degree, Kai gestured for Aswon to give him a little light, then pulled out his med-kit from his backpack. Wincing a little thanks to his own wounds, he examined Tads' scalp and neck by the dim light of a commlink screen, working out how he was going to extract the fragments of metal and dress the wounds as cleanly as possible. It was difficult working in a literal hole in the ground, with insufficient light, but Kai was very competent, at least when he wasn't being irreverent. As he extracted each of the slivers of metal or chunks of debris, Hunter deftly gathered them up and tested them with his chemical analyser, looking for any materials that might have long-term health implications. The last thing they wanted was for someone to start suffering from some kind of toxic shock or effects from the highly poisonous rocket fuel on their walk out – assuming they were going to get the chance, of course.

For the rest of the team, the first hour crawled past slowly. With nothing to do and a pressing need to stay silent and undetected, all they could do was sit and wait, squatting or lying on the muddy surface with weapons to hand just in case they were discovered. When Kai had finished with Tads and had been patched up as best as they could, he submitted to Shimazu doing the same for him. Shimazu was competent himself – though not in the same league as Kai, but on the other hand, he hadn't taken a blast of shrapnel either, and had at least had the advantage of watching Kai work on Tads and watching what he'd done.

An hour later they were all patched up, and had gathered the fragments and all the wrappings and supplies used, along with any other debris they'd found and had bagged it up to take with them – Aswon was adamant that they should leave nothing behind if there was a choice. Above them, the sounds of vehicles came and went, and it was clear that there was a great deal of movement and activity still around the launch pad area in general – though it seemed further away from them now. When they heard the drone of a chopper passing overhead, Hunter used the cover of the beating rotor blade to risk speaking, informing them that his testing on the debris showed nothing to worry about beyond the injury level itself – whatever toxic fuels or substances that had been loaded into the rocket appeared to have been consumed in the explosion or propulsion of the shrapnel outwards from the blast.

"Well, that's good news, then," Aswon responded, glad that neither Kai nor Tads would be suffering from heavy metal poisoning or a variety of other horrific injuries as a result of them catching a face full of shrapnel from the exploding rocket. "My main question now is – what the frak was going on with those missile hits earlier. I swear they were shoulder launched missiles I heard – the motor sounds, speed, warhead size – it all matched the kind of thing we saw in open combat."

"Just how sure are you?" Hunter asked. "Could you just be mis-remembering, or mixing up the sounds."

"It's possible. But there's not really a way to tell, I think. If we weren't in such a horrible area, maybe Tads could do a mind-link and then create it as a trid-illusion? But we don't want to try that here."

"Hunter. Pass me an optical chip and a chip reader, and a short patch cable will you?" Marius held out his hand while Hunter rummaged in his bag of accessories next to his deck, wondering what the pilot was up to. When he had them, Marius inserted the chip into the reader, then connected it up to one of the many new datajacks that had been installed into him at the Ares facility. Twenty seconds later, he disconnected the cable and passed it back to Hunter. "Try pulling the audio signal from that, see what you get."

"Where's the audio from?"

"My cyber-ears are connected to the router and the headware memory installed. It is not something I have done before, but with the new rigger system I can apparently search back through recent data and export it for analysis or review."

"That's handy. For how long?"

"I do not know. We will have to experiment…"

Hunter took the reader and connected it up to his deck, then imported the sound file and after turning the volume down to barely more than a whisper, he played it back, confirming the sounds that Aswon had been sure he'd heard. Even more compelling was the visual wave form analysis that seemed to confirm all of the characteristics that Aswon had described. It certainly APPEARED to have been a medium-weight anti-armour missile system, launched from a shoulder-mounted device that had impacted the tower. Buried underground, though, they had no uplink capacity to double check against data that might exist on the matrix to confirm their thoughts.

"I'm starting to think there's another team out there, possibly from the same employer as us. And their job was to tidy up loose ends once the rocket was destroyed, and give the cosmodrome staff someone to find and investigate. Though we do have their data. That's the bit I don't get."

"Unless that's just a red herring. Blowing up the rocket was important. They don't care about the data at all…"

"I don't think Sato would have sent us on the mission if he knew it was a one-way trip. He wouldn't do that to me." Shimazu said quietly.

"That's what worries me, mate. I don't think so either – but that means if it's true then Sato is also probably up for the chop. If someone is willing to piss off SK that much, by blowing up hundreds of millions of Nuyen, maybe they're willing to spend six figure sums to make sure there's no loose ends or people that can talk about it afterwards."

"Sato was just the middle man, though – why would he have to die? Just because he knew us?" Tads whispered. Despite the seriousness of the discussion, several of the team smiled at her naivete. Tads was not stupid, not by any stretch of the imagination – but her rural upbringing and sense of morality made her a stark contrast to them much of the time. Sometimes it was a reminder to all of them what a grey and murky world they lived in, to have someone view actions in such black and white extremes.

"He's a very good friend of yours, isn't he, Shimazu? Like… known for years, trust him with your life kinda stuff?"

"Yes."

"I gotta agree with Aswon, then. If there's another team out there gunning for us to tidy things up, then you need to think about Sato either being on the run again, or being taken out. Sorry."

It fell quiet again for a few minutes as the sounds above them faded out and they listened for anyone in the area, each lost in their own thoughts. As it became quiet enough that they were sure people had left the area, at least for a while, Tads spoke again, trying to keep her voice as low as possible.

"Once we get out of here, I want to try and fix some of our kit – so make sure any bits of your masks or outer layers are all together. That is, make sure you take any bits that have been detached or ripped off with you – it'll make the magic easier to cast to try and fix the item, the more of it there is."

"And even more importantly, for not leaving behind any evidence – especially something that might have skin, hair or breath samples on it. We want to leave this place sterile!" Aswon added. "I still don't know what the hell is going on with those missile attacks, or how they thought they could get away with them – but we've really annoyed a triple-A mega-corporation, and they have pockets so deep we probably can't fathom that kind of money, and just how much hunting down and squashing like bugs that buys you."

"I agree, in general terms. But do not underestimate human nature. Imagine yourself as a mission controller for that launch. All systems are checked. Everything is normal. All readings in the green. Then suddenly – disaster. Within seconds the rocket is off course, crumpling and needs to be destroyed by the range officer. The rocket payload is ejecting, and coming down to earth. Years of planning and construction, months of preparation – all gone in a few seconds. No matter how professional, it is still very difficult not to just look at something like that and boggle. To stare at the events unfolding in front of you, and to just…gape."

"I guess… at least for a short time."

"And that is the window we are in. They will have gone through a period of intense shock, bewilderment and probably even denial. Then their emergency procedures will have kicked in, and they will be following a plan or set of steps detailed in some contingency manual somewhere. But once that has worn off, and people start to think – and have time to analyse the data they have with a critical eye? Well, then things might change. They might notice trails of rocket exhaust where there should not be any? Observe readings that cannot be explained by the known events. But until that happens – if there was another team, they have that long to make their initial escape from the area, because Saeder-Krupp do not know to look for them. Their goal is to make it outside the noose before people realise they NEED a noose to tighten. And that is something we should consider as well."

"Yeah – I see what you're getting at. I just… I can't help wondering who the main employer is in this and what they're after. If they were willing, to blow us and the data up – then maybe it WAS just the rocket's destruction they were after."

"Doh! You don't say!" Hunter snorted his response out, probably a little too loudly, and they all stopped for a moment, to be sure that nobody outside might have heard or raised an alarm.

"Well, when we get out of here, we should have a look around for signs of the other team, if there is one. Maybe investigate the guys we met back at that dried up seaside town, the ones who delivered the gear.

Hunter suddenly gave a little gasp, then grabbed his deck, jacking in and slumping forward as he concentrated on the electron world inside his computer rather than the physical world without. About twenty seconds later he sat back upright, but left the jack in, splitting his attention between the two worlds.

"I just had a thought…"

"We noticed," said Kai dryly.

"Well, between the GPS system Marius has and those upgrades, we've got a good fix on the signal of those rocket motors. And with a bit of mapping and working out which route we took, I've got source and destination co-ordinates for the travel, from which I can build vectors. And then with the doppler shift in sound over the duration of time that we were in the same position, but the sound source was moving, I can calculate angles and trajectories!"

"Which means?"

"I can tell you where the rockets came from – and that's from the direction of the capsule that came down."

"That doesn't make sense?"

"Unless…" Aswon interrupted, "we weren't the target of the missile attack – it was the capsule. And whoever was lying in wait out there MISSED the capsule and the rocket travelled on in a straight line until it hit something – the tower, that we just happened to have been in. I mean, if there's some vital personnel in that capsule, maybe they knew the rocket had an escape pod, but that once it had been launched it would be a sitting duck. Except it wasn't. Or they're really crap shots. But neither of those make much sense."

"They probably weren't planning on the rocket explosion trashing one of the parachutes though – maybe that spent the pod into an unpredictable flight path that the missile couldn't track?" Hunter suggested. "I agree it doesn't make sense to have a crew waiting out there that would be shots that bad. But perhaps someone could leave a drone system or a pop-up launcher with a tracking bot on it – and that might be?"

"We really need to get out of here and find some answers, I think. I mean, first thing we should do is check on Sato, and that will probably tell us a lot."

"That other team, the one that handed over the gear. Didn't they have a rocket launcher in their vehicle?" Shimazu screwed up his brow in concentration as he tried to recall exactly what he'd seen in their tiny little 'off-roader'.

"If they did, I don't see how they could have reloaded so quickly. We distinctly heard two shots, in fairly close succession. I don't think a single operator could have reloaded quite so quickly – that's what made me think it was launched from a chopper or some other vehicle, rather than a team on the ground. Something with weapon pylons."

"Well, if it was another team or a drone out there, shooting at the capsule and just being bad shots – that's one thing. But if it was a team out there trying to clear up loose ends by splashing the tower – we have got at least one advantage."

"What's that, Kai?"

"They probably think we're dead Aswon. They wouldn't have shot the tower if they'd seen us leave or known we'd already got out. So they must have thought that we were still inside. And both missiles hit the tower and exploded. If the first one didn't kill us, I'm sure the second one was calculated to do so. After that SK was crawling all over the place because of the capsule, so they couldn't fire more or check on the impacts. So… they must think we're out of action either by being dead, or being captured by SK – which is probably the same thing."

"Well, that makes sense. And if that's the case, we should do what we can to try and keep people thinking that!"

"I also think we need to think about food and water, if we're staying here for any length of time. Especially if we're going to let the heat die down. Maybe even think about putting up a ward to keep this area a little nicer."

"While normally I'd be in favour, I think that's a bad thing to do here. Even if we break the ward, the change on the astral impressions in the area will no doubt remain for much longer. And if they have reason to check, a forensic mage might pick up our group gestalt or one of our signatures, just from what we did to put up the ward – especially if they're used to the area somehow. As to supplies – we've got two days of water and probably three to four of food if we're careful, so there's no real rush. I definitely think we only need to cross that bridge later." Aswon took a tiny sip from his water canteen, as if to drive the point home. "If we're just lying here and not doing anything, we shouldn't need anywhere near as much food and water, and that also cuts down on the output too."

"We can just shit into bags. It's not hard." Hunter said bluntly. Fortunately it was dark enough inside the little hole that people's expressions weren't really visible, so he didn't need to comment on the looks of distaste.

Time crawled past slowly as the team waited, but as it started to approach dusk the sounds above them diminished and finally stopped altogether. A hurried but quiet discussion between them led them to think that it was likely the search had been abandoned until dawn tomorrow – there was too much chance of missing tiny fragments or parts of the exploded craft, even with cybernetic vision systems, when searching such a large area.

"So – what's the plan, Kai. Are we staying or going?"

"We go – in about ten minutes, Aswon. Let's give the searchers chance to get back to their base and start looking at food and debriefings and things like that – something to keep them busy for a while. But, before they get too far into that analysis and looking over the footage from any cameras, and wondering about any signals they might have picked up."

"Sounds good to me – are we heading out the way we came in?"

"No. Hunter – if I remember right we came in south over the fence and the sensors, got a good way here, then turned at an angle to reach the pad, right?"

"Yup, pretty much."

"So, can you plot us a reverse route that takes us straight north over the fence, then angles back towards the aircraft?"

"Sure can. It's about ten clicks to a side, so it should give us a bit of separation without making us go too far out of the way."

"Everyone ok with that plan?" There were various grunts of agreement from the rest. "Ok, good stuff. In which case, Hunter you're up front on the left, Marius five metres over to the right and about two metres back, if you can scan the ground again in case of tunnels and burrows and stuff like that. Tads, you're next on the left, then me on the right, and bringing up the rear is Aswon and Shimazu. Ten metres between pairs, and we stick like that until we get near the sensors again, then work out how we're getting across – though probably the same as we did on the way in, unless we can get a better plan."

They let ten minutes tick by, then slowly sawed through the mud wall, pulling it down and exposing their little hiding hole to the dusk air and checking around carefully. Marius eased him and his deck out first, waving the radio receiver around and checking for any drone or rigger activity in the area, before giving the all clear. He moved to the side and let Hunter sneak up to the top of the earth wall, melding into the shadows of the massive concrete pad and checking the area out visually, before he sent the all clear and the rest of the team clambered up onto the desert plain to check out the area.

To the south-east of them the launch pad used by the rocket was lit up in brilliant white light – powerful searchlights were shining down onto the pad making it brighter than daylight in a radius about fifty metres around the pad itself. At least that had the advantage of rendering anyone nearby night-vision absolutely useless for seeing outside that area.

Much closer to them the area where the escape capsule or ejection pod had landed was also lit up – the SK teams had erected a large tent over the landing point and again there were a number of portable lamps arranged around the area, all focussed inwards and turning the area into a brilliant jewel of white-light. There looked to be some activity around the area still, but there was no way anyone inside the area could see out into the darkness, past the glare of those lights.

"Can we climb up onto the pad and get as far as we can in the direction we need before dropping into the desert?" Tads asked. "Before we start leaving footprints."

"Probably worth the risk of being up top for a minute to at least obscure our start point." Aswon commented. They scabbled up onto the launch pad and stoop-walked across the pad quickly, avoiding the network of holes for the rocket exhaust and soon reached the far side of the pad, dropping down to the baked earth as quietly as they could, doing one last check of their gear for rattle and anything loose. Hunter looked up, scanning the sky, and suddenly froze in place.

"We may have an issue. I can see an aircraft up there. Or rather I can see the wingtip lights up there. It's circling, but moving very slowly." Marius looked up, taking a bearing from Hunter's position and looking for the signs of motion amidst the twinkling stars.

"Looks like a small airliner size, but high – so that probably makes it an AWACS. Sensor surveillance craft, Tads, with powerful systems for looking down and tracking targets below." He added, realising that she wasn't going to know what AWACS meant.

"What do we do about it?" She asked.

"Nothing. There is nothing we can do. They will be orbiting at around twenty thousand metres, and have probably the entire cosmodrome in their sensor footprint. Nothing we have will have the range to hit them, and they probably have fuel and crew to stay aloft for twenty hours or more."

"So we can't get away?"

"Well, it is likely they have some kind of filters on their sensors. Otherwise leaves waving around or things like rabbits and foxes will set off the alarms. There is a good chance that they will have a speed gate set up – so it ignores everything below a certain speed for instance. It would detect a vehicle driving along, but probably not a person crawling.

"So, slow and steady, weave back and forth a little, and try to stay covert I guess."

"Yes, Aswon." Marius nodded to Hunter, then set out at a sedate stroll, using short steps and moving carefully as he tried to minimise the noise he made and any footprints he might leave, facing straight ahead of himself and ignoring the overhead aircraft, as he led the team across the desert and set off to the north.

Their progress was as slow on the way out as it had been on the way in, moving cautiously forward over the undulating terrain, keeping an eye out for critters and traps, and occasionally stopping to scope out the horizon in all directions and check out the unceasing surveillance of the overhead aircraft. The night was bitterly cold again, with no cloud cover present. The air wasn't clear, but with no insulating clouds the baking temperature of the day had swiftly turned into a freezing wasteland at night – but at least they were moving. With their gear on and carrying their packs and weapons, they stayed warm enough that they had to be at least a little careful about sweating.

They'd covered about three quarters of the distance to the sensor network, and were in the middle of an advance, the team strung out in a line nearly forty metres long from front to back, in two slightly offset lines, a good five metres apart when without warning the ground exploded upwards beneath them. Slabs of desert earth ripped free, rocks were thrust into the air and dirt exploded outwards – but without any accompanying sound of explosives – just the roaring noise of thousands of kilos of material being driven upwards by whatever force drove it.

Tads and Kai were right in the middle of the eruption, staggering wildly as the ground ripped open underneath them and found themselves rising into the air while dirt and rocks tumbled away from them in all directions.

Aswon and Shimazu saw a nightmarish creature emerge, and for a moment the image of a dragon flashed through their minds – it was certainly big enough. But whatever this creature was, it lacked wings, and the head was not at the end of a sinuous slender neck, but was instead mounted to the front of the body by a thick, muscled and heavily armoured joint. In fact the entire creature seemed to be a mass of spiny plates and barbs or dense scales that cracked and rippled as the stumpy but powerful legs drove it upwards from where it had slumbered.

"Juggernaut!"

The name flashed through Aswon's mind as he broke into a sprint, closing the distance on the creature.

"We are so fracked!"

The thoughts that followed sent his stomach seemingly dropping out of his body, but he had no time to change his mind now. Activating his adept powers he tensed and then sprang into the air, calling out to Tads as he did so. His right arm extended outwards and he saw her turn to face him, arms windmilling about her as she tried to stay upright. To his right, Kai was also fighting for balance, too far away for Aswon to reach. In his peripheral vision he could see Shimazu moving towards the head of the beast, sword in hand, and ahead of him Marius and Hunter had turned and were staring in open-mouthed amazement at the creature that had appeared behind them.

Aswon's arm connected with Tads around her midriff, and he cinched her in tightly towards him, then ran down the flank of the creature, riding his trajectory and just using his legs to try and remain upright and moving in the right direction. Terrifying thoughts crashed through his mind of what would happen if he slipped and fell, underneath one of those enormous, clawed legs. The creature was easily twenty metres long and must have weighed tens of thousands of kilos – and if it put that force down onto one foot, no matter how big it was, whatever was underneath it would be paste…

Kai half-jumped and half-fell off the other side, trying to head in the general direction of Shimazu – putting all his effort into getting close to the bodyguard. He wasn't sure what Shimazu would be able to do against a beast this big – there was a limit to how effective a katana could be, and when you were stabbing something the size of a house, would it even notice? Still, he was pretty sure it was about the safest place he could head for in the circumstances, so that's what he tried to do.

On the north side of the juggernaut, Marius took one look at the size of the creature and then did the only sensible thing he could think of – he broke into a sprint and tried to put as much distance between himself and it as he could. Certainly he was under no illusion that his pistol would do anything other than make an irritating sound as the bullet ricocheted off the armoured hide.

Hunter followed suit – though not quite as quickly – he just wanted to clear some space between him and the foe while he grabbed at his assault rifle and got ready to fire. The last thing he needed to do was to be dodging claws and teeth while he tried to find a weak spot in all that armour. At least the rounds in his gun were armour-piercing – though he still wasn't sure that it would do the job.

The juggernaut spun in place, whipping its enormous bulk around with a quickness that made it clear why they were not only apex predators, but feared by any sensible people. It seemed unaware of Tads, Aswon and Kai on its back, sliding off amongst all of the debris – but instead it seemed to home in on the fleeing shape of Marius and quickly lunged forward in pursuit. The neck elongated, thrusting the minivan-sized head forward where it opened and the cavernous mouth snapped down towards the fleeing German. Marius could tell it was coming, the sudden waft of horrific smelling breath warned him that it was there and he threw himself to the side, twisting frantically and tumbling into a forward roll that he'd last had to perform at high-school physical education classes. It worked though, and he felt as much as heard the clacking of jaws behind him as he narrowly evaded the bite of the creature.

Off to the left, Hunter also had to dance backwards out of the way quickly – he wasn't sure that the claw was aimed at him rather than just smashing into the ground and ripping it up to provide purchase while it lunged at Marius. Either way, it threw him off balance and he had to jump backwards over a bunch of loose rocks and then backpedal furiously to open the distance again while he bought up the assault rifle.

The spinning of the juggernaut around its centre of mass and the sudden lunge at Marius took it away from Shimazu – he'd been thinking he could reach it within a few more paces and look for a weak point in the neck, which he'd presumed was going to be less heavily armoured than the rest of the creature. Instead, he found the target zooming away from him and he had to break into a sprint again to try and catch up with it, arms pumping by his side as he pursued it. On the other side of the creature Aswon had flung Tads as far forward as he could, then used his momentum to spin around, grabbing at his spear and was likewise looking for a spot on the flanks of the enormous creature that might be vulnerable to a spear-thrust.

Having felt the clacking of teeth on his heels and sampling the noxious breath of the creature, Marius felt truly inspired, and ran for his life, curving to the left to try and avoid remaining in the creature's line of sight or at least make it twist and turn to follow him. He didn't look behind him, or make any efforts at communicating with the team – all of those would only distract him from the effort of running as fast as he could. No doubt Hunter or Aswon would have run rings around him, but that didn't stop him from setting a new personal record for the hundred metre sprint.

Tads recovered her footing and turned to face the creature, walking backwards while she considered her options. Her magic wasn't particularly optimised for combat at the best of times – but with the horrific background count she felt even more useless than normal. There was no way a stun-ball was going to take out a creature like this in the thick astral malaise she'd have to punch through, and she wasn't sure what else she had in her arsenal that could help. Maybe creating some especially bloody meat in front of the nose might distract it for a moment – though she wasn't even sure she could create enough of that to be worthwhile in this area. Instead she grabbed at her slingshot – wondering if a lucky shot in an eye or ear might be her best way of contributing.

Now behind the creature, Kai sprinted for a clear spot to the rear quarter of the beast, dancing to the side of the rear legs as they pummelled the ground underneath them in the their efforts to get at Marius, while he pulled at his taser and checked the charge – at least the capacitors read at full!

The creature twisted suddenly, spinning on the spot and lunging again, this time at Shimazu. The sudden change of direction threw him off centre, and his sword blow scrapped down the armoured plates on the side of the head as he had to throw himself to the side as well to avoid the same fate that Marius had faced. It was a good hit, none the less, and would have sliced a man in half – indeed similar blows HAD sliced people in half and ended their lives in an instant previously. This one though just sent his blade skittering off the chitinous scales, barely even leaving a scratch.

Having avoided being swallowed, Shimazu span and rolled inwards, trying once more to go for a slice or thrust into the throat area. His senses strained, examining the creature carefully as he sought out any weak spots or hollow area in the massive neck, indicating a hollow structure or some kind of vital organ.

Hunter had enough distance now that he shouldered his rifle, bracing it in tight against his body and adjusted his stance, leaning forward and resting his weight over his leading leg. Unlike the marksmen of the previous age though, his Smartlink let him fire 'off-bore' seeing the point of impact as a floating cursor in his cyber-eye rather than having to sight down the weapon itself. He located the eye of the juggernaut and fired, sending the round downrange at nearly a kilometre per second. It struck the creature, and to his disbelief bounced off, making a weird 'spang' noise that carried over the desert. The creature had some kind of armoured eyelid – much more substantial than a nictitating membrane, it seemed to fully protect the eyeball from attack, though he couldn't fathom how it could see with that in place. It did at least let out a keening cry of pain or anger, indicating that it had at least felt the impact.

To the north, now behind the creature as it swung to engage Shimazu, Marius and Tads continued to back away, realising that they were not going to be contributing much to this fight at all, and they were better off leaving it to the team members with bigger guns and knives than they had, and being ready to render assistance afterwards – and not making the others worry about their safety.

Aswon was now behind the creature as well after it had finished turning to chase Shimazu, and he thrust forward with the spear, trying to slide the blade up between two of the dense scales. Much like Shimazu, it was a good hit and he saw the blade slide in between two of the bony plates and meet some resistance, but whatever he hit didn't seem that vital or painful – and he had to snatch back at the spear before it was wrenched out of his hands, trapped between the scales as the creature continued to search for Shimazu.

Now on the creature's forward arc, Kai stood still, deciding not to run – he couldn't see the eyes of the critter, and wondered if it hunted by sound or movement sensing, and figured he'd be easier to spot if he was running flat out away from it. Instead he shot at the creature, twice. There was no immediate effect, and he wondered if the darts had actually managed to penetrate at all, or if he was wasting his time.

The creature was still twisting and turning the head and massive neck, trying to snap at Shimazu who was rolling and diving from side to side at point blank range, evading it while he continued to search for a weak point to exploit – but the creature had enough wherewithal to lash out with one of the massive feet towards Aswon. Half-metre claws reached out trying to disembowel the huntsman, and Aswon took advantage to stab at the leg as it shot towards him, getting another good strike in – but once more hitting with no apparent effect.

"Stop it turning! Keep it still!" Shimazu shouted over the comms while he continued to work back and forth underneath the head, diving and rolling to keep mobile while he scanned the underbelly of the juggernaut. There was no spot he saw, though, that struck him as any more vulnerable than anywhere else – the creature was just a mass of spines, armoured plates, massive limbs and thick scales, all backed up by a mean temper.

Hunter also realised that whatever way it detected its prey it wasn't visual, and he slid to a halt, unconsciously mirroring Kai on the far side of the body. With a couple of quick actions, he checked the grenade in his launcher and swapped fire mode, raising the rifle up about ten degrees and calculating the trajectory of the grenade and trying to factor in the range and motion to ensure the blast would impact only the creature, and not Shimazu… He saw Marius looping around behind him, and Tads over on his right as she slung a rock or slug of some kind towards the head of the juggernaut, causing just as much damage as his bullet had appeared to – none.

Aswon, though, was right next to the creature, and he saw the tell-tale signs of fibrillation down the creature's flanks. That kind of random spasmodic behaviour was only caused by one thing mainly – a massive electrical shock, and he guessed that Kai must have tased it, from wherever he was. He danced around the leg and saw the open mouth, with the flesh inside twitching and pulsating from the after-effects of the taser and shouted out over the comms.

"Hit it again, Kai!" He stabbed with the spear, thrusting into the roof of the mouth and saw the blade actually slicing into the flesh and driving into the skull somewhat. The juggernaut bellowed in pain and then a wave of fear and terror washed over Aswon, forcing him to disengage as nightmarish hallucinations clouded his mind and vision while the juggernaut focussed its powers upon him. In that moment, it stopped thrashing and turning, and Kai pumped another two shots of his taser into the flank of the beast, adding two more stinging shots and tens of thousands of volts of power into the nervous system of the giant beast. The roar of anger from the beast drowned out the sad little alarm noise the taser gave as the capacitors were drained and the display flashed up the 'change power pack' message in bright letters.

The distraction was all that Shimazu had been waiting for, though. He rolled underneath the juggernaut and finally found a spot where the scales and armour were thinner, and focussed all of his power into one lethal strike. Muscles were enhanced by a wave of mana as he commanded his muscles to strike, boosting his strength above his already impressive normal levels of ability. The sword struck upwards, parting the scales and flesh underneath, ripping into muscles and then the internal organs of the beast, opening up a two metre long rent. It would have split a man in half from head to groin without issue, and chopped an angry bear in half through the centre – but even this horrific wound wasn't enough to stop the creature – though Shimazu realised that was actually a blessing rather than a curse. If it HAD dropped dead, it would likely have crushed him underneath it.

Instead the creature sprang forward, dragging the blade out of its flesh as it rushed forwards, brushing Aswon aside with contemptuous ease. There was a ripple on the astral plane as another power activated, and the creature sprang forward, accelerating past thirty kilometres per hour within a few steps.

The body whipped past Shimazu, who raised his sword and struck at the base of the tail, trying to get the killing blow on the beast, but the gait of the creature as it broke into a sprint twitched the body as he struck, and instead all he got was a shallow cut and a handful of smaller scales wrenched loose by the blade.

The juggernaut had clearly had enough of this 'food', which had altogether much too sharp a bite for its own liking, and now just wanted to get the hell away and lick its wounds – so it continued to run forwards. But, it also did something that none of them expected, or had seen coming. The five metre long tail tapered down from the bottom of the body, until it was only a metre in circumference, before bulging out into a hefty club like structure that reminded the team of pictures of ankylosaurs – certainly there was a reason they'd run to the side of the creature and not behind it, nobody having fancied being hit with a swipe or flex of the tail.

But instead the tail split open. It wasn't just a single structure, but two prehensile tails that naturally fitted together. The outer edges were covered in the spikes, scales and armoured plates that adorned the rest of the body. Inside though, where the two structures met was a large flat leathery surface, smooth and unarmoured. Perhaps it allowed the creature to radiate heat better, or to grip something, or served some other unidentified purpose. But as the tail split open, both sides undulated in a mirror image of each other, splitting open in a shape reminiscent of a sine wave and then snapping back shut again, trapping a pocket of air inside that was compressed and rolled down the inside of the tail structure towards the tip.

When it reached the end, the blast of air was travelling at high velocity, and was densely compressed – it exploded out of the end of the tail like an air cannon, striking Shimazu full in the face. His face rippled like a dog putting its face out of a fast moving car, flesh rolling outwards in waves, lips peeling back and eyelids lifting off his eyeballs, while his hair streamed out behind him. There was a sharp crack as at least some part of the airstream broke the sound barrier, and he was catapulted head over heels backwards, arms and legs flying as he flew through the air before landing in an ungainly pancake on the ground a few moments later.

The juggernaut sped off to the north-east at high speed, leaving a trail of blood and ichor behind it, massive footsteps thumping into the desert soil.

"Well, that's probably going to set off the sensor net that way. How about we make a move this way?" Kai gestured slightly west of north. The others grabbed their gear, and helped a badly-stunned Shimazu to his feet, and started heading northwards again, heading for the sensor network two and a half kilometres ahead, wondering just how much the noise of their combat had carried over the night air…