Wednesday 30/3/2061, Location: 5.00206, 6.94688, Time 21:00

"So, in terms of getting in, can we hack their computer systems or building systems easily?" Kai asked. "Because getting on the roof is no good if we can't get inside then…"

"If they have an access port, we can try to connect and hack their systems – that will probably fall on Hunter to do, rather than me."

"Why?" Kai's tone of voice indicated it wasn't a challenge, just a lack of understanding on the reasons, and Marius took a sip of his drink and wet his lips before responding.

"I lack some of the equipment needed for hacking and controlling building systems. It has been a situation that has arisen before, but we have also always had alternatives we could pursue. So we have not procured the things we needed, or taken steps along that road. So, while we have the skills to do this, we do not have the technical equipment to do so."

"Ok, well that's fair enough, Marius. So, what do we need to do? And how much will it cost us?"

"Well, the first thing we need is probably a dataline tap, allowing us to find a cable and just splice into it and tap into their network. But we need a really good quality device, to allow us to tap high-specification networks, so that is likely to be fifteen thousand or so."

"That doesn't sound so bad!" Kai smiled, having expected a much higher figure.

"That is the first step. Once we have a physical connection, we need two more items to expand my rigger control unit. A protocol emulation unit to allow it to adapt to the various signals and protocols in use in the target network, and a decryption module to brute force the cryptography on the network. And neither of those options are cheap, especially not on the black market."

"Oh. How much?" Kai braced himself.

"Somewhere between one and two…"

"Thousand?"

"Hundred thousand." Marius responded, and Kai winced. "And that is an all or nothing proposal. If we do not have all of the items, then the chain will not work and we are unable to control the system. So we cannot buy this piecemeal. We can buy lower quality equipment, which would be effective against smaller organisations with lower specification networks. But against a triple-A corp like Novatech, especially with their focus on high-tech industries, this just will not be effective."

"Ok, let me give Musa a call…" Kai grabbed his commlink and wandered off, doing a slow circuit of the hanger while he chatted with Musa and negotiated on the equipment. He returned a few minutes later.

"Well, we can get the stuff – but you were about right on the price. Worse, though, is the delivery time. We're talking about a week or more to get hold of things. Maybe only a couple of days if we go for the lower quality stuff, but I take your point about the idea of that against a corp like this. So it'd delay the job by over a week if we wait for the decent kit. And cost us a quarter of a million Nuyen as well. It might be something we need to organise when we get home, so this doesn't slow us down in the future."

"Yeah – I don't know if we can wait another week on this one. We'll be racking up costs on the hanger, and the longer we're here, the more chance there is of the police getting another sniff at us, or Novatech security catching on. And if we're going to use those protests for cover, then we have to move sooner rather than later." Aswon pointed out.

"Maybe we can barter with Musa for a favour or a job of some kind? If he needs something moving, or bringing in?"

"I don't know, Kai – if we come back here for a job, then it's going to be three fuel stops each way – so we're going to rack up a lot of expenses doing that. The time isn't so bad, but the costs will rack up – so it may not be worth it unless we can do a really high-paying equivalent favour for Musa. And that probably means risky…"

"If we're happy to reveal our magical capabilities, maybe we can offer some services there? Musa's smuggling compound wasn't warded – we could fix that for him. And if we're having to wait a few days for equipment, that's more than long enough to put a nice powerful ward up on it."

"I suppose. You could probably sort out his tunnel down to the water as well…" Aswon mused. "Do you have the materials to put up a permanent ward?"

"I think we've got some. But it also struck me that with the power level we have now, even if we don't have the materials to bond the ward in place, if we just got for a moderately powerful ward, we can get one up that will last months. Maybe even longer. Then it doesn't cost us anything at all…"

Aswon blinked and then looked around the group, evaluating the team with a fresh perspective. Tads and Shimazu had Kai and he beat on raw power, but they were no slouches, either – and between the four of them they had a considerable amount of mojo to sling. If they didn't go for a ward as powerful as the one on their tilt-wing and instead went with something more 'normal', she was probably right.

"Much as Musa is being helpful to us now, on the whole I think it's best to keep a few aces up our sleeves. And especially not leave behind our magical signature in his wards – just in case. So perhaps best not to offer him services at the moment, and we'll just have to rely on Hunter to defeat any matrix security we come across. Now, if we don't have Marius to defeat the building security, what does that actually mean for us?"

"I will have to defeat each lock, each camera, each security measure, one at a time. Rather than sliding into the system and being able to just deactivate or modify entire areas of the building it will have to be done one single device, as we encounter each one."

"So, time-consuming, and puts us under pressure in some circumstances, but not impossible?" Kai got a confirmation nod from Marius. "Ok, that's not as bad as I feared. As long as you're happy to proceed then, we'll go with that."

"One thing I think needs stating – or acknowledging –" Aswon responded, "is that we should aim to do this non-lethally if we can, for as long as we can."

"I had assumed that was a given," Marius replied.

"Well, I think it's worth making sure we're all on the same page."

"We were happy enough to kill 'em up on the mountain!" Hunter pointed out.

"Ahh, but that was the mountain, out in the wilds. Far away from the city, out in an operational area. This isn't. This isn't even their back-yard. This is their living room, their bedrooms. We're invading their home-turf here, which is also a slap in their face, an attack on their pride and honour. The place they feel strongest and most secure, the place where their own laws apply to protect them. We're challenging them where they're strongest – so we need to be ready for that response. But it's also the place where they're going to see restraint and measured responses most clearly. I don't plan on us getting caught or anything – but being a team who clearly wanted to ghost in and out with no destruction or loss of life is going to be better for us than a wrecking ball type operation."

"I suppose. After all, we don't want a rep like that other crew that screwed over Germaine." Hunter snorted. "Fair enough. Guess I'm packing gel rounds in one of the clips, then!"

"And hopefully with fewer casualties and less obvious damage, there's less reason to chase or follow us afterwards."

"Pah – fine chance. If they want to find us, just ask a dragon! Apparently they all have our contact details now…" A sudden look of suspicious washed over Hunter's face and he turned to stare at Kai. "There's no reason why they DO have their number, is there, Kai?" Kai just grinned at him and tried to look innocent while Hunter frowned at him. For anyone that didn't know the big ork it would have come across as a threatening and slightly scary change in expression, but to Kai it was like water off a duck's back.

"If it helps, I think there's plenty of dragons we haven't met yet – there's a few more of the famous big ones, and a lot of lesser-known ones we've had no contact with." Aswon added. A sudden change of expression and a far-away look made the others pause and look at him, wondering what he'd just thought of. "Just imagine, introducing Germaine to a dragon. Any of them really."

"If there's anyone that can get away with bashing one of those scaly buggers on the nose with a rolled up newspaper, it's her…" Hunter grinned, while Marius just lowered his head into his hands, shaking slightly from side to side as he contemplated the clash of two egos like that.

"Isn't there supposed to be a dragon that's really interested in music? Is that right?

"Ja. Perianwyr – has a reputation as being a collector and connoisseur of music, and they apparently own a club somewhere over in the UCAS, I believe. I do not know much more about them than that."

"Well, if we ever encounter them, we should think about introducing them to Songbird – I'm sure they'd get on really well!" Tads said, thinking about how a dragon who loves music and a shaman who made musical lyrics to represent her spells must have a lot of common ground.

"So – what are we doing tonight?" Aswon asked Kai.

"I think I would feel happier if we had some more information. Can we get the drone down there, or do we need to take it into town?"

"The drone has plenty of range – it will run off the batteries just fine, it just will not be able to use the SunCells at night. But the capacity is more than enough to get to the compound and loiter for a few hours and do some more surveillance."

"Great – let's do that, then." Kai watched as Marius headed over to the tilt-wing to grab the recon drone and started to set it up, laying out the bag and gas canisters again and prepping the electronics. He turned his attention to Tads. "And what about astral surveillance?"

"I can do some more runs past the compound, or set a spirit to watch. It'll only take me a second or two in travel time to get there, and I can have a good poke around and report in. It'll probably take me longer to travel though as I'll go via somewhere else, just in case of any astral trails…"

"Ok, well, let's do that then. Otherwise we'll kick back and chill for the night, get some food in. I think all the kit is cleaned and prepped, so we're just waiting. Once we have more info, I'll be happier – but until we have the ID scanner data, I think we're playing a waiting game."

Five minutes later, they cracked the hanger doors open and the recon drone whirred quietly through the narrow gap, disappearing into the night air. Marius kept it low until he'd cleared the airfield, making sure that the tower had no chance to spot him, but once he was out of the immediate area, he gained some altitude and the whine of the drone engines faded into silence. It would take him about forty-five minutes to fly down to the compound, so he settled in and made himself comfortable, keeping half an eye on the drone from his 'captain's chair' mode, and listening to the ebb and flow of conversation around him.

Tads timed her run to arrive around the same time as the drone, having a quick flit around the compound and confirming that the elemental was still on patrol on the inside wall, but otherwise the Novatech facility appeared quiet and calm. She reported back and spent a while in her body, making sure her astral form was intact and feeling whole – the longer she spent with the two parts of her soul apart, the more time it took for them to fully integrate again, and she didn't see any need to push the issue at the moment.

"We have an inbound flight. Large chopper, heading to the tower from bearing zero-eight-zero. ETA three minutes." He swung the drone around and steadied it, checking out the contact. He'd been very fortunate to catch it on the sensors, as it was at extreme range for the drone, but as he swung the recon drone around he managed to confirm the size, heading and speed, and started to work on a more precise signature.

Tads headed out of body again, quickly swooping down and getting into a position where she could bring the tower under surveillance. She arrived but found the roof quiet, with no signs of movement or life, so she eased back a little and waited, watching to see what would happen.

"Here it comes. Looks like a troop chopper – look at the size of the rear doors. Big enough for a full squad, I would say, probably door guns to match ours. Looks like a light rocket pod under each wing, the kind of thing to saturate an area before a hot touchdown." The team could see the image being relayed from the drone on the screen in the hanger, watching as the pilot headed for the tower and flared carefully, coming in to land at the exact centre of the helipad. A moment later, there was movement in the shadows underneath the pad.

Tads gave a little start of surprise as the movement registered in her vision, and she saw half a dozen life-signs suddenly appear from behind machinery and the structure that held the helipad in place. The six bodies were dark and twisted from her point of view, their bodies riddled with cyberware. Black tendrils stretched from their necks down their bodies and to the extremities, branching out with the touch of corruption to cover their entire bodies. Eyes and ears were black lumps, complete cybernetic replacements, and their auras were weak and insubstantial to her vision – especially when their magical support flickered into view. Three powerful fire elementals appeared in astral space beside them, their auras bright and intense, burning with energy and power. They followed one of the figures in particular, and Tads guessed that this would be the squad leader or captain of some kind.

"Look at that – Milspec armour, or I'm a teapot." Hunter whispered quietly. "That stuff is state of the art – heavy composite plates and top of the line cybernetics meshed with robotics and unparalleled ballistic protection. That stuff will probably just bounce rounds from my rifle, Shimazu's pistol – even Aswon's rifle. Unless we're throwing anti-vehicle munitions or specialist rounds anyway… they can walk into a burst of gunfire from our door guns, and barely stagger… someone is loaded for bear!"

"Pricy, I guess… is this stuff we want to try and ambush them for and steal?"

"Hardly, Kai. Each suit is custom made and produced to a detailed plan from a 3d laser mesh, a full scan taken of the wearer's body, and the systems are designed to interface with the individual to enhance their combat power. Very specific and unique settings – if they gain or lose more than a few kilos in weight, the armour stops working properly. And it's expensive as all hell – generally the suits had trackers built in, as well as a full electronics comms suite."

Tads did a quick check, but that didn't reveal any magical powers or auras beyond the elementals, and none of them were carrying a sword – so she didn't think any of them were members of the strange magical orders they'd found out about. Back at the hanger, the rest of the team watched the drone footage, as the six troops climbed aboard the chopper with three to each side. As they walked across the pad, they seemed to glide rather than walk, a common sign that they were packed with the latest generation wired reflexes. Once aboard, the chopper lifted off quickly and turned to the north-east, nosing down and quickly accelerating towards Chappel-Wadi.

Tads took a quick look at the direction of travel and then accelerated herself – hard. With a speed that most pilots could only have wet dreams about, the world blurred underneath her as she willed her psyche through astral space, then abruptly slowed as she reached the top of the mountain, and their former camp.

"Spirit, hear me! I come with tidings, warnings of enemies that approach. The enemy return to the mountain aboard a helicopter, a flying vehicle. Inside lie six skilled warriors, carrying powerful equipment and with magical protection, elementals that will burn and scour the mountain. Take heed, and be warned!"

The air around her grew still, and she suddenly felt the presence of the free spirit. Out of the ground ahead of her, the small pebble appeared, and two tiny rock formations slid over the top of the smooth surface. The 'eyes' considered her for a moment, and then they changed shape, and Tads grinned. A moment later the pebble was gone, leaving her alone on the mountain side. She flew north, taking a round-a-bout route back, and then filled in the team.

Marius kept the drone on station, watching as the helicopter disappeared towards the mountain. The signal faded out much quicker on the outbound leg as the pilot engaged his counter-measures and stealth systems, making Marius shake his head. It was hard for him – the pilot was doing everything right, and appeared to be a skilled and competent individual, but he was unaware of what he was heading into, and just how little those systems were likely to help him…

It went quiet then, and the team relaxed once the screens were clear. Minutes ticked by, turning into hours. They dozed, read or practiced, depending on their own needs, but relaxed – apart from Marius who stayed connected to his deck and monitoring his systems, keeping the recon drone in position and making sure that nothing changed down at the compound.

"Sieh dir das an!" Marius blurted out around half-past midnight. "Look – look at that!" he corrected, shunting the image up onto the screens. As the image stabilised, they saw a chopper, crabbing through the air, black smoke trailing it in a wide cone. Flames occasionally spurted out of one of the engines, accompanied by a sudden lurch in the forward motion of the damaged vehicle, before the pilot managed to get it back under control. By the time it was close enough for the optical sensors to have begun to resolve the image, the team were all back together, clustered around the screen and examining the picture closely.

The chopper had been ravaged, and Marius zoomed in, running a slow pan down from the nose of the aircraft to the tail. He had difficulty keeping the motion smooth – which told the team a lot about what was going on. Marius's recon drone was stable, and he was an excellent pilot – so the viewing platform might as well have been a trideo-broadcast camera set up on a tripod mounted solidly on the ground. But the image stull wobbled all over the place, indicating that the target vehicle was flying anything other than a smooth and consistent course.

But, he managed to keep the image still enough, and the team could see the scores of holes in the front and side of the chopper, massive 'bullet holes' that had punched through the armour, spreading out the thick composite materials into petals of destruction that surrounded the holes that reached into the hull. The holes looked huge, and Hunter ran some quick commands on his own deck, super-imposing a scale onto the image of the chopper based on the known characteristics of the aircraft, which revealed that each one was over forty millimetres in diameter.

"What the hell hit them!" Hunter wondered out loud. "Grenades? That's bigger than any machine gun, hell even most auto-cannons are in the twenty to thirty mil range."

"Can you pull up that footage the tribesman took?" Tads asked. When Hunter threw up the footage on one half of the screen, they watched as the massive free spirit sent shards of granite flying into the air or lancing across the compound, puncturing the Novatech vehicles and wrecking them. It was hard to match them entirely – the footage from the old personal commlink was blurry and much lower resolution than that from the recon drone, but it certainly looked like a reasonable guess.

"Oh, by the way – after I saw which way the chopper was going, I flew up to warn Pebble that they might have visitors soon." Tads let a wide grin form on her face while the rest of the team just stared at her in shock.

"That's evil, Tads. Love it." Aswon said with admiration, before turning his attention back to the live feed from the drone. "Marius – the rocket pod under the little stubby wing looks empty – can you get a view on that?" Marius swung the drone around and started to move it towards the north, rotating the view so that he could see the chopper nose on, rather than from the front quarter. Sure enough, the missile pod looked to have been depleted – but then they noticed that the chopper looked lop-sided. As the rigger adjusted the camera zoom, they could see that the entire starboard pylon was missing, apparently ripped off of the aircraft by some mighty impact.

"Give me a moment to reposition…" Marius flew further around, trying to view from a wider viewpoint, and as they started to drift to the side they could see that the starboard side of the aircraft was much more badly damaged, with long scrapes running the length of the chopper, just as many puncture wounds as the port side, and entire panels of the aircraft missing with jagged rents running from just below the rotor blades down towards the belly of the aircraft. The starboard door looked to be open – until they zoomed in to examine it and saw the wrenched hinges and trailing support that were all that remained of it. Inside the troop compartment was a mess, the noise-proof lining shredded and rent, hanging in tatters. Everything looked to have been flayed or battered, as if someone had taken a sand-blasting hose to the inside. And on the floor was a pile of bodies, a jumbled mess of heavy armour and weapons, lying at peculiar angles.

None of them seemed to be moving.

"Holy drek. Looks like someone got the ever-living shit kicked out of them." Aswon whistled.

"Think we can add a few more million to the bill that Novatech have run up!" Hunter said gleefully. "Probably two mill for the chopper, and I'm guessing the same again for those troopers, considering how stuffed full of toys they were. Oopsy!" Unsurprisingly, he didn't sound at all distressed about Novatech's spiralling losses…

Marius, meanwhile, continued to pan down the side of the chopper. When he got to the tail boom, he stopped and made a face, then tried once more to steady the camera as best he could. It looked like something had swung down and almost severed the tail section completely – a scythe of destruction that had left only about ten percent of the structure intact. Clouds of some kind of fluid were leaking out of the rents and leaving a trail behind the aircraft – only visible because of the disruption to the black clouds of engine exhaust that were also trailing out behind the chopper. As he reached the tail rotor, they could see that it was windmilling violently and flexing up and down dramatically, and occasionally even seeming to spin backwards.

"I do not know how he is keeping that in the air, but that is a good pilot…" Marius sounded conflicted once more, as he saw a fellow pilot doing his absolute best to bring his wounded craft and cargo back home, warring with his desire to see Novatech take a beating.

"I could take a spirit over there and see what we can do to finish the job." Tads was quiet with her suggestion, and had a serious look on her face. The rest of the team fell silent, looking at her for a moment and then glancing at Kai.

"If you can do it without much risk – take them down. It's going to sow chaos in the compound, and we need all the distractions and help we can get."

Tads didn't say anything at all, but just lay down and went limp. Shimazu dropped into astral and saw her vanish through the wall of the hanger at high speed, with a flock of spirits trailing after her, heading down towards the compound.

"She should be there in a second or two, and she's got spirit support with her. I suspect they're going to be the ones doing the work there, under her guidance…"

The pilot continued with his heroic efforts, and they watched as the chopper closed in on the top of the tower. Now there were signs of movement on the top – what looked like a medical team rushing towards the bottom of the steps, crash carts rattling over the segmented rooftop as they hurried into position to receive casualties. The chopper slowed, flaring, the entire airframe wobbling and bucking as the pilot fought against the crippled controls.

And with a shrieking sound that carried loudly enough to be heard over the labouring engines, the main strut holding the tail in place flexed and then collapsed. The tail section pivoted upwards, and the top of the boom impacted the rotors, just for a moment. It wasn't much, but it was the last straw for the tortured aircraft, and it suddenly and violently pitched to the side. The pilot tried to control it, but there were too many of the surfaces not responding now, and the damaged rotors threw off the lift and power too much to cope with.

The chopper whipped around in a circle, the main body counter-rotating and driving anyone still alive back into their seats with a sudden application of g-forces that would have them on the point of blacking out.

The twisted remains of the tail section flung out with the centripetal force, scraping down the side of the offices and leaving a shower of sparks behind it, lighting up the scene with a warm orange hue. The rotor that had hit the tail section suddenly broke, shattering catastrophically under the loads imposed upon it and went scything off into the darkness.

Pitching violently, the chopper twisted and turned, ending up on its side and rapidly spiralled downwards behind the tower, landing on the closest house to the offices. It impacted hard, punching through the roof and smashing down to the ground floor, before exploding and disappearing into a violent fireball.

The sensors on the recon drone flared and adjusted, damping the exposure down until they could make out the scene again, the roiling waves of orange and yellow flames rising upwards and outwards from the crippled aircraft. A sudden gust of blue flame exploded out of the side of the house, scorching the ground and setting fire to a fence as a gas pipe was broken and added fuel to the fire.

Lights came on all across the compound and a low atonal wail rose and fell as the emergency systems sounded an alarm. Marius backed the drone off, keeping an eye on the areas to the side and rear of the drone now, not wanting to be caught unawares by any response to the 'accident'.

Tads stirred and sat up, and then blinked rapidly as she tried to focus on the screen.

"I guess it worked, then. I told the spirit to head up to the top of the mountain, just in case anyone saw it or can follow it. Hopefully they'll think it's something to do with Pebble and the situation there."

"Good job, Tads." Kai turned back to the screen, watching as the first response vehicle turned up and deployed a water hose from the back of the vehicle. It helped with the burning building, at least initially, but then they saw the fire spreading under the impact of the jet, as the water just pushed the remaining fuel spilling from the choppers tanks before it, the fire still merrily dancing on the surface. It impacted the next house, which started to smoulder, and as the water jets continued to play over the scene from one side, the adjacent property became engulfed with watered down JP1, until it reached a critical mass and that building caught fire, too.

The arrival of the second response vehicle alerted the first to the issue, and they choked off the flow of water, repositioning and trying to contain the spreading blaze. An older and presumably wiser head took control of the situation, and both vehicles started to drench the surrounding areas in water, damping down the trees and bushes, and creating a moat around the pair of burning buildings, abandoning them to their fate.

It took another five minutes before a third vehicle arrived and deployed another water cannon – this one loaded down with some kind of chemical agent. It wasn't foam, but it acted in a similar fashion, and finally they could start to work on containing, and then quenching the fire. The ground-workers moved in, and through the sensors on the recon drone they could make out the variety of outfits and markings – it looked like there was a wide variety of people who formed the volunteer fire-fighters for the compound, ranging from maintenance workers through to security staff, admin and clerical workers and some management types.

It took them nearly thirty minutes to get the blaze under control and reduced to the point where responders could get to the chopper, their fire-resistant suits shimmering from the heat-haze that surrounded them. They worked hard to get into the chopper, pulling out bodies and ferrying them out to the waiting stretchers where medical staff stood impotently, unable to do anything to help until the bodies were retrieved.

They saw the pilot and presumably co-pilot pulled out of the front, bodies badly burnt and flight suits charred, and shortly afterwards two of the heavily armoured bodies of troopers were dragged out, requiring multiple fire-fighters to shift them and carry them through the treacherous building.

But no more. There was no sign of the remaining four troopers that had been on the chopper when it had departed the tower.

"With the door gone – I wonder if they fell out. Or got sucked out by the wind? I know how windy it gets when we have the door open for combat!"

"Possibly, Tads, but given the holes in the side of the chopper and the signs of force that to me indicate that the door was ripped open…" Aswon pulled his lips back, revealing his teeth. "Yeah, I'm thinking something pulled the door off and speared them, then flung the bodies through the air. Fall far enough and not even that kind of armour is going to save you from crush impacts. I think it's pretty clear that the mountain can look after itself now."

"Assuming that each one of those troopers was augmented in the same way – we're talking at least middle-of-the-road wired reflexes, possibly closer to the top-end stuff. Almost certainly a SmartLink system, again probably top-end and current gen. Of course that means cyber-replacement eyes, and from what Tads said probably ears as well. Datajacks and implanted health monitors and trackers… we're probably talking about three quarters of a mill per trooper in costs for weapons, armour and equipment." Hunter gestured to the medical staff, who were working on the bodies, but without the hurried desperation of people trying to save lives – it was more the fatalistic approach of someone who just needed to catalogue the cause of death. "Six of them down for the count is another four mill, and then the pilot and co-pilot probably had advanced training as well. Marius seemed pretty impressed, at least. So probably another mill between them. So tonight's cost them north of nine million, I think."

"And a noticeable proportion of the people flown in from Europe as well, most likely. I'm assuming these were some of the special forces from the regional head-quarters in Europe at least. Not all of them, by a long way. But an entire team most likely, and that's going to ramp up the pressure and make a hole in their deployment plans." Aswon examined the running tally of estimated losses that Hunter had just updated and shook his head once more. "If they don't cut their losses soon, then it's all about revenge for someone. We may see some kind of knee-jerk response, or something very cold and calculating – possibly using the mages for a scorched earth kind of policy. That would be bad. Very bad."

"I'll head back up and warn Pebble if we think that's likely…" Tads looked over at Marius and a deep frown grew on her face. "Hey – where did the chopper come from? It wasn't on the tower, it came in to pick them up. So it had to have come from somewhere."

"They have a forward base, somewhere in the lowlands." Marius responded. He scrolled out on the map view, and indicated a general area. "Somewhere here would make sense – we knew they were coming from the lowlands when they responded to the attacks on the camps when were launched them. But they were close enough to keep the transit time fairly short. I would estimate somewhere just at the base of the hills, but in a nice flat area to make landings and takeoffs relatively easy, and to make the base easy to construct. It was probably stationed there, and then flew to the compound to pick up the assault team, and would have been planning to return there after dropping them off."

"Hey, I just found a news article. It's a minor story, but the protests outside the Novatech building made it onto the main news feeds and got picked up on a couple of minor channels in other countries. So it's not just local news anymore. It looks like they've tried to downplay it a chunk, but there's some stories circulating and questions being asked – or at least discussions about it."

"What kind of stuff are we talking about Hunter?"

"Looks like a bunch of locals turned up to watch, Kai, along with the same media crews we saw. Protest went the same way as we experienced from the summary, but with the media watching and that many bystanders, the police presence looked to have been actually reduced a little. Or they're keeping a much greater distance at least, and there's some subtle changes in approach. Like, all their batons are still in belt loops, rather than held in hands, so they're obviously aware that they're under scrutiny."

"Is this something we can use, do you think? Are there any mentions about the civil status? Phrases like 'powder keg' for instance, or 'civil unrest'?" Aswon leaned in and listened with interest. "I mean, I don't WANT to kick off an incident – that's likely to end up with far too many innocent bystanders getting hurt. But if there's going to be something happening anyway, or we can use the pressure of an incident to shape a response, then I'm all for making the most of the situation."

Kai read the screen quickly, looking at the text articles that Hunter was shunting to the screen.

"I don't think so. Lots of questions, but very little detail, and it's all a bit thin and insubstantial. And based on how we saw the people in the city acting, I think they're all going to be far too scared to do something, unless there's a major catalyst that would drive action. Something like the police just sailing in and cracking heads might tip off enough of a reaction, but it would have to be pretty brutal to overcome the inertia of fear I think. And I agree with you – we don't want to push things that far, if we can help it."

"Could Tads use her powers and spells to control the mind of one of the policemen, and make them start an incident like that – something very unprovoked?"

"I bet she could – but she won't." Surprisingly it was Hunter that answered quickly. "Least as far as I can understand it. Her magic totem thingy is all about protection, not attack. If she used the power to stop a copper hurting someone, that's fine. But if she tried it that way, I think she'd get a slap, like back in town after we killed that kid. That right, Tads?"

The shaman nodded, shuddering slightly with the memory of her totems displeasure and sudden withdrawal of support. The feeling of 'losing' her magic had been traumatic – not least because she knew that morally it was hard to argue with the totem about what had happened. She'd not planned it that way of course, but that's the way it had happened. She certainly wasn't going to attempt something like that, and Hunter was spot on about her thoughts on the concept.

"I agree," Aswon added quickly. "Elk would not like that kind of abuse, and would frown upon it greatly. And while I would greatly miss the concealment and protection of the spirits and her defensive spells, I'd be more concerned about the effects upon Tads herself. That's not an avenue we should be pursuing."

"Fair enough, I was just asking."

"No offense taken, Marius – but I think the others have covered it without us needing to add anything further to the discussion." Tads gave a wan smile, trying to show that she wasn't upset by the suggestion. "So that means we need to look at getting into the building without using the protest as a distraction, I think?"

"We should be able to do that when the data is gathered from the scanners that have been deployed."

"So, I guess we kick back and relax, and wait for that to happen, then!" Kai announced. "Time to do any personal tasks, exercise or whatnot, or catch up on your sleep."

They stood down, relaxing a little and finding things to do that they couldn't normally engage in, enjoying the relative security of the hanger. Tads made sure to nudge people every few hours, particularly Hunter and Marius, ensuring they went through the warded door on the tilt-wing in case anyone was thinking about a tracking ritual, though they'd been no sign of such a thing for quite some time.

Musa sent a message to Kai late on Thursday afternoon, letting him know that he was on the way back to the airport to drop off the storage units, having had his minions collect them a few minutes ago. The team cleared up their gear, and Aswon checked the hanger over, finding a small trapdoor in the roof that would be used for maintenance access. Activating his gecko tattoos, he steadily climbed up there, dealt with the padlock, and then laid in wait, keeping an eye out for Musa's van, and more importantly, anyone that might be tailing him – or, for that matter a SWAT team getting into position somewhere nearby to wait for a signal. Musa's van turned up about thirty minutes later, but didn't appear to be tailed or the harbinger of doom, and when Aswon gave the team a heads up, they were waiting by the door to open the hanger just long and wide enough for his van to enter, before closing it up behind him again.

"Hello, my friends. The operation went without a hitch. My workers collected the devices just as easily as they planted them, and nobody saw anything, or has any suspicions." Mr. Musa sounded very confident in his proclamation, and Hunter and Marius in particular exchanged glances of mild disbelief.

"That is very good. Perhaps we can run our own bug scanners over the equipment, just to make sure that Novatech have not discerned the plan and are playing a double-bluff?" Marius suggested. Musa shrugged and laid out the devices on a folding chair, watching with interest as Marius checked over them and probed the cases, examining them for the slightest evidence of tampering or any stray signals that might be coming out of them. They did appear to be clean though, and he nodded the all clear to Hunter, who quickly worked on hooking them up to his chip-reader and extracting the data from their memory to start decrypting.

"So, you are going to attack the compound, I guess, yes? You need help? Supplies? I can assist you, for a price." He gave them a broad smile, and his expression was considerably more friendly and less intimidating than when they'd first met. It was impossible to say if that was as a result of their having spent a fair amount of money with him, or Tads and her subtle influences on his mind, or a combination of the two – whatever it was, the team were happy to take it, though.

"Can you get in there? Or get us in there?" Kai asked.

"Anything is possible, for a price. It is just a matter of establishing the cost, and determining if you are willing to pay it. Getting into the compound is not that hard. But getting to the restricted areas is a lot more so…"

"Well, guess where we're going… that's not exactly giving much away." Kai gave the others a shake of his head as they glanced at him, and they were forced to admit he had a point. Musa wasn't exactly going to believe them if they said they were just needing to get into someone's shed to steal their lawnmower. "But I think we should be sorted now we have the RFID data. Hunter and Marius will be able to do something, I'm sure."

"Well, I could arrange to get a helicopter to drop you in over the wall – though you already have your own transport, of course." Mousa nodded his head at the tilt-wing again, his gaze lingering on the sleek form a little. "Or I could get you smuggled in with some supplies…"

"What kind of supplies? The information we have is that they're pretty self-sufficient?" Kai queried.

"They bring waste product out – so of course they need empty lorries to go in. But they also bring in raw materials for manufacture onsite, and ship out finished goods. Not much, it's not a major product line for them, but there are shipments that come from the docks and surrounding areas, bringing in plastics, some precious metals, blank chips and things."

"Probably to make security products at a guess – they do quite a good line in sensors, cameras, triggers and that kind of stuff. Potentially it's off the shelf hardware with their own firmware and software that makes it different from their competitors." Hunter mused, firing off a few quick queries on his deck and bringing up some catalogues for building security, vehicle sensors and the like. "Yeah, so they're likely to be small shipments, but medium to high value."

"Well, that's a thought, Mr. Musa. Are they Novatech trucks?"

"No, local firms or suppliers mostly. Some of them I already have an arrangement with, others – I am sure I can persuade them…" He gave another of his broad smiles, though this one was considerably colder than before.

"Ok. Let us think on this for a while, and if we need an in, we'll give you a call?"

"Of course. Though the more notice I have, the less expensive it will have to be." Kai nodded, picking up on the choice of words – 'less expensive' rather than 'cheaper'. Clearly Tads' influence on him only went so far… They manned the door and let Musa pull the vehicle out, returning to his business, while the team settled back in for the night. Hunter was hard at work on the decryption utility, probing the data gathered and correlating results. The team left him to it, letting him concentrate, and other than keeping him supplied with energy drinks and snacks, kept away from him while they worked out or relaxed, a small bubble of intense concentration.

By Friday morning, Hunter had finished his analysis and after a bit more digging, had also dug up some further information that added context and valuable information. They'd gathered over a hundred and fifty scans from the vehicles that had bought in the lower rank workers, probably getting the tags for nearly half the workers in the compound between the various shift transfers, and they also had twenty good scans from the pedestrian entrance to the north-west.

The main drop off point in the compound that the buses used was too far inside the walls to be easily watched, and the risk of parking the recon drone up there for extended periods of time was probably too high – but the pedestrian exit was another matter. That opened out onto the street, and with a bit of rooting around, Hunter had found a house with a security camera that looked in the general direction.

Novatech security was going to be tough – tough enough that Hunter didn't even want to risk attempting it and tipping their hand. But the stock defences on a home security camera purchased by a private civilian were another matter. Even the limited utilities on his cheap and cheerful cyberdeck were more than enough to slice through the defences on the system and let him access the system – especially when the owner hadn't even changed their super-user account name from 'admin' and had only added a '1' to the end of the default password that came set up on the recorder…

Accessing the footage, he was able to cross-reference the times of the scans with the images from the cameras. The images were no good for any kind of identification – the system was too basic and the footage shot from a position too far away. But it did let him glean some valuable information on the people such as race, sex and approximate size. When he had all the data together, he called the team over, and sat back, rubbing his jowls and slurping a protein shake through a straw while they gathered around him.

"Right, there's good news and bad news. Good news is that I've scanned all the tags, and broken the encoding system on it, and we can create our own chips to duplicate any of these, no bother. Probably make up our own if needed, or play around with the system. Bad news is that the chips don't have much info on 'em at all. They're just beacons, and all the juicy stuff is on the servers."

"I thought you said you'd broken the encryption completely?" Kai looked confused.

"I did. Look… imagine that the tag implanted in someone is just a number, right. This one is number 1." He held up a chip and then passed it to Aswon, making him hold it in the palm of his hand. "This one is number 2." Tads held out her hand and received the chip. "If Aswon goes through the door, it just broadcasts 'hey I'm number 1', and the door sensors communicate with the security database and say 'is this person allowed through door x?' and if they are, it opens, and if not, it stays shut, or raises an alarm, or shoots them with the death laser or whatever. But all the chip is, is a number. The actual number is a forty-eight-character string, encrypted with a complex cypher, with several hundred billion possible combinations – not just number one, two, three… so if you just try and guess a number, even with a few thousand people in the compound, the odds of getting a valid number are astronomical. And there's a check-sequence built into it that I think I've cracked – but even with a sample size this large I can't be absolutely certain. But we can certainly duplicate any of the hundred and seventy code sequences here on our own chips to be worn around the body and fool the sensors."

"Oh, right. Ok, I think I get it." Kai nodded, then looked around the team. "So, we can get a number each and use these to get through the doors, but only the ones the person would actually be able to go through normally."

"Yes Kai, that's the long and the short of it. If we can get Hunter to a terminal with the right access to control the central database, then he could give our numbers the access to any or every door in the place. But we'd need to be in the most secure systems to do that probably, which means being able to get through all the doors…." Aswon smiled at him as Kai's grin which had started to develop suddenly faded away. "Yeah. But ok, Hunter – good work. I'm guessing from what you've said that the numbers are in no way sequential, or in groups? Any date information?"

"You're right, they're all over the place. Not found any two codes even remotely close to each other so I think they're pretty randomly assigned, though there's got to be some track to make sure they don't get reused. And there is some date info on there as well. The most recent chip I got was from two weeks ago, on one of the bussed in workers. The oldest was a touch over two years old, on one of the people coming out of the side gate."

"If we can get to the security systems inside, it may be possible to lift the codes from the scanners." Marius added quietly. "I have seen some systems that are designed to retain the codes of the last five or ten people using the door as a security log or audit system. They are normally encrypted, but it is possible to gain information from that – and if Hunter has cracked the encryption on the chips, it may be possible to use the same algorithm to access the central system as well. It just depends on how paranoid they are, and how much power they want to throw at the security host. Encrypting all communications does impose a significant burden on the system."

"I think we ought to try and get into the exec office first, then. We know it's close to the roof for starters, and we're still not sure on the location of the server room. But we also know it's likely to be accessed by relatively few people, so if there is a system like that, it's likely to have Angel's code as one of them – and as the bigwig, she's likely to have access to a lot of stuff." Aswon pointed out. "It may even be possible that the jackpoint in her office for her computer might have privileged access for key systems or even the server room. Who knows?"

"If we put the worm thingy in the computer, will that stop the doors working when the computer crashes? Will we have to blow our way out?" Tads asked, trying to keep up with the technical side of the conversation and feeling very much out of her depth.

"It won't affect us at all, Tads – don't worry. The computer virus is going into the offline storage, so it's not on the network at all."

"Yeah, that's why we have to break in physically – it's not connected to the live systems as a security measure, so we can't get at the data from the outside. But on the other hand because it can't be remotely accessed, that generally means it's more 'trusted' because it's immune from being hacked or manipulated remotely." Hunter snorted. "That's how it generally works anyway."

"Now that we know the chips are ID broadcasts only, that might actually make things easier. If we come across someone, we can scan them – and Hunter has the decryption key for the chips now, so we can just steal their numbers. All we need to do is get close to a person, and we can 'become' that person. We can pirate their number, and impersonate them, without them knowing about it."

"We don't want to leave bodies lying around, so that sounds good, Aswon." Kai nodded in approval.

"We need to be subtle of course, and avoid arousing suspicion. And there might be issues like the system recording us going through doors in opposite directions – depends how clever it is. How likely is that, Marius?"

"To answer a previous point first – with a sensitive scanner, we may even be able to scan people through a door or on the other side of a thin wall. That is something to bear in mind. But as to the questions – it very much depends on the system and how sensitive it is. It has a lot of people to track, and a lot of doors. If there is no alert, it may just flag this up in a log to be examined or cleared at the end of the shift. There will likely be circumstances where chips do not get read properly and someone appears to move from one place to another without going through the space in-between. In a very high tech area, that might trigger an alarm. In the corridor to the toilets, that becomes very annoying, for the person detained and the security force… so I suspect it will raise an alert, to be dealt with by someone investigating building scans. That might be within a few minutes, or it might be the end of the shift or even the day. Until we can get onsite and see the security first hand, it is impossible to say."

"Well, if we're worried about that, we have those drugs from Mr. Musa. We can always dose someone up and put them in a toilet cubicle or something while we wander around with their IDs." Tads pointed out.

They broke for breakfast, and Hunter went and found somewhere quiet to crash for a few hours, feeling drained from his overnight stint on the deck, while the others carried on as before. A little before ten, Kai's commlink buzzed, and he checked the screen, seeing it was Phoss calling him. As he hit the accept button, he saw the badly-pixelated image of her bouncing around the screen somewhat violently.

"Morning, Kai!" Her voice was a little distorted and choppy, clipping at the end as the signal broke up slightly.

"Morning, Phoss. You ok?"

"Mostly – though my kidneys feel like they've been in a fight with a boxer. We're getting close to Port Harcourt, and I just wanted to let you know. Where do you wanna meet up?"

"Um… we're at the airport, out the north-west side of the city. The city itself got a little bit warm for us, so we're trying to keep a low profile. You want to come here and meet us? We've got a fairly secure place to stay we can share with you."

"Ok, we'll head up there now. Ury – take the next right! Follow the road to the airport, and try not to hit another cow!"

"It wasn't my fault, it was in the road!" The signal cut off as Phoss disconnected, just as she started to answer Ury, and Kai grinned, wondering what the story was there…

"Phoss and Ury are on the way here everyone. Don't know how long they'll be, but it sounded like they were nearing the city itself, so likely to be a couple of hours at the longest. So, if they're turning up today as well, we should probably plan to make our move tonight, before too much changes."

"A couple of extra hands will help… the chemicals are due to arrive today as well, aren't they?"

"Yes, they should be here at lunchtime."

"Great stuff, Kai. I'll probably need Hunter's help with the mixing and production, but he should have had enough sleep by then. One thing I thought of though is some overalls – whatever brand and style and colour that Novatech personnel use. If Musa can get us some of those, in sizes to fit, that'll probably be very helpful." Aswon looked down at his gear, and then back to Kai. "And big toolboxes – something big enough for a combat shotgun would be ideal, if possible!"

"No problem, I'll call him now and see if we can get those sorted out."

Kai did a quick check around the team, then called Musa, and arranged for a couple of large toolboxes and a number of sets of overalls to fit most of them – though he elected to stay in his suit, figuring that someone had to look like they were in charge… the fact that it meant he wouldn't have to do any of the dirty work *never* crossed his mind at all!

Phoss and Ury arrived an hour later in one of the nastiest and shoddiest cars they'd ever seen – a piece of trash that didn't even deserve the title 'jalopy'. One look at the way it handled immediately cleaned up any doubt over why the call earlier had been so bad – the suspension had apparently been replaced with solid struts welded in by someone who had never picked up a welding torch before. There was also a suspicious amount of blood and animal products embedded into the wrecked and deformed radiator of the car, but the team discreetly decided not to mention that.

Kai and Marius sat down with Phoss and Ury, and went through the previous few days events and all the intel they had gathered so far, showing them the footage from the drones, pictures from their recon efforts and the images of the helicopter that had come back from assaulting the mountain – or what was left of it.

Part way through, the delivery of the chemical agents arrived, and Aswon went to collect the delivery, with Shimazu coming to help out. Once they had the barrels safely inside the hanger, Aswon got to work with the setup, working out how to mix and and process the agents in what was going to be a very primitive setup, using nothing more than the tools available from the tilt-wing and the hanger.

Hunter came to help just after lunchtime – or for him, breakfast – and they managed to improvise a few ways to heat and mix the chemicals together, and soon they had the barrels of solvent steadily bubbling away while they monitored the process. Mid-afternoon, Kai and Marius wandered over with their guests to check up on them.

"So how's it going? And is that stuff toxic?" Kai stepped back as a small bubble popped on the surface of one of the barrels, giving off a faintly fishy smell."

"I wouldn't advise drinking it, but it's not anything we need to worry about, really. Not unless you're made of Plascrete-7 anyway! We do have an issue with it, though."

"What's that?"

"How to deliver the bloody stuff. You know when we joked about ramming the wall, that might not actually be the worst idea."

"Ahh, plan B! I like it. Hang on, you're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes. Short of getting something like fire extinguishers and the means to empty them and charge them up with this stuff instead, we might just need to get something like a water tanker, fill it up from here and then just drive it into the wall fast enough to breach the tanker and let it spill out and splash all over. "

"Well, Phoss and Ury were asking what we wanted from them for the mission – perhaps this is a good thing. You up for securing our exit if it all goes wrong, or being ready to launch a decoy assault to draw security away?"

"Sure, we can do that." Phoss and Ury came a little closer and examined the barrels with curiosity.

"We probably need to sit down and work out some comms methods, then." Aswon wiped his brow carefully with the back of his forearm, making sure to keep the chemical-stained gloves away from his face. "I think probably sending texts will be ok – even if they're monitored from the compound, with a few choice code phrases we can stop any alarm being triggered straight away. They'll find them later in the logs, of course, but it won't be obvious until then…"

They spent the next twenty minutes while Hunter and Aswon finished the chemical preparations working out a series of codes and situations that could be quickly texted from one side to the other without giving the game away, mostly working on variations of take-out meal choices.

Once they were done, it was a waiting game, watching the clock as it crawled closer to 18:00 when Musa was due to return with their toolboxes and overalls, and they could being the assault on Novatech.