A minute passed, and then the voice of Bravo came over the radio again.
"Is this how it's going to go down, chummer?"
"What do you mean?" asked Kai
"Well, I can see one of your team up on top of the superstructure, another on the rear part of the deck, and I'm still showing two on our boat. That ain't what we agreed to."
"Well, I told them," Kai emphasised his words heavily, "to go with what's agreed, so they should be doing it. Give them a minute, just in case they ahh… misunderstood my intent, for them all to get their asses to the bow of the ship."
Shimazu, Hunter and Aswon heard the interchange, and waited a few seconds in case either party said anything more. In the absence of any coded instructions from Kai, they got ready to move out. Hunter and Kai climbed out of their concealed positions, and started to make their way towards the bow. Shimazu had a quick look around the cabin, and grabbed a bag of some strange powders and crystals, shoving it inside his top before he headed back up onto the deck of the High Roller, and swarmed up the line thrown by the Chief Engineer before he had retreated to the bow.
Kai waited a few minutes, then called out again over the comms.
"All team members – confirm your position at the bow." He listened to the chorus of acknowledgements from the team. "Bravo – everyone should be up at the bow now, so we're ready if you are?"
"Acknowledged. Ok, we're coming up."
Back at the bow, Tadibya leaned in towards Marius and spoke quietly.
"Do we need to make sure they haven't sabotaged our ship or left a bomb or anything?" She saw Marius shrug slightly and nod towards the port side, where Kai was still on the High Roller. He was obviously concerned about it, too, but had decided that he didn't want to step on Kai's toes.
Through the thinning fog, they could just make out the door open in the superstructure. A figure came out wearing a hi-tech and solid-looking suit of armour, decorated in a myriad shades of blue and green. It stood out like a sore thumb against the white background of the painted metalwork – but if the figure was in the water they would become incredibly difficult to spot. It would probably work just as well in the dark, too – the subtle changes in colour and the variable direction stripes and splodges would confuse and baffle sensors and imaging systems.
The figure surveyed the deck slowly and carefully, then trotted over to the railings at the side of the ship. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, but the figure was probably a human or elf from the build. It carried a carbine cradled in its arms, and had a variety of other gear strapped to the armour and various bits of webbing. It appeared to be satisfied with the situation and backed off from the railing a few steps.
With no warning, the figure broke into a sprint, charging towards the railing. The front leg rose, and hit the top bar of the railing, bending as far as the armour would allow as the figure leapt up onto the top of the barrier. With a single push, the figure rose into the air, sailing up several metres in an arc. At the top of the parabola the figure tucked and spun, then descended smoothly onto the boat.
Kai tried not to show how impressed he was as the figure landed with a resounding thud on the centre of the boat, absorbing the impact with a deep flex of the knees, whilst the carbine pointed unerringly at his chest – but it was hard. The jump had covered five metres horizontally and nearly eight vertically, but the landing had been spot on. The figure stared at him for a moment, then surveyed the controls carefully. Pulling out a device, it scanned across the boat's wheelhouse and over the stairwell for a few seconds, then nodded and seemed satisfied.
"Bravo One, this is Two. Boat secure. Condition nominal."
The voice sounded female, and possibly elven. Kai smiled at the figure, but got no change in body language or audible response. Instead the figure went to check on the line leading up to the ship, testing its durability and fixing. Obviously not happy with what they found they pulled out a small knife and pressed a button on the hilt. Instantly a piercing whine was heard, that jarred and resonated. The figure sliced through the line, then deactivated the vibro-knife and re-sheathed it.
The door opened on the superstructure again and three more figures came out. One was in the same slab-like combat armour, but the other two were in more toned-down and form-fitting sets, that looked closer to what Kai and his team wore. They were all painted in the blue/green camouflage pattern, though. The one in the heavier armour was hugely built, over two metres tall but making Hunter look slender. They also carried a carbine in their arms, and as the sun continued to burn off the mist, they could see a large canister at the back of the carbine's stock. The second figure was a Dwarf – no one else was that short, and that powerfully built. They carried a bit more equipment, and had a harpoon gun in one hand. The last figure was of average size, and lightly loaded, not carrying any firearms or melee weapons.
They approached the rail, and looked down at their boat, and at Kai and their team mate who was keeping him under observation.
"Any chance you can pilot the boat in closer to our ship?" asked Kai over the radio. "I'm not the best climber, see…."
The last of the armoured figures gestured, and a moment later Kai rose up from the deck, legs kicking slightly as he fought for balance. The mage gestured and floated him through the air up onto the deck, landing him a few metres forward of their position. As he landed, the heavily armoured figure pulled out a grapple gun and fired it down to their boat, and then ziplined down the intervening distance to land near the elf. One after another they followed him down, and then they touched the line with the catalyst stick, the chain reaction spreading up the line rapidly and causing it to break down and degrade into flakes that soon snapped and floated away on the wind.
With no further fuss, their boat powered up, the nose turned away to the south, and they accelerated swiftly. The boat got up onto plane, and was soon skipping away from them, from wavetop to wavetop, rapidly opening the distance between them until it was swallowed into the fog.
As soon as they were out of sight, Tadibya called Kai over the comms.
"Kai, got the astral signature of their mage from the spell they cast to levitate you up here. Will recognise them if I see them again."
That seemed to be the signal for a lot of people to let out a deep breath of relief.
"Right, you bunch of slack-jaws. Time to get to work. Parties of two, grab your diagnostics, and down to the engine room. Generators, engines, steering, comms, pumps – the works. Level 1 diagnostic on everything, make sure they haven't left anything behind," said Chris, standing with his hands on his hips and his feet apart. Neither the first nor second officer seemed inclined to argue, so with a bunch of "Aye, Cheng!" responses, the crew headed below decks or back to the bridge to begin their work.
Aswon went down to where the gas grenade had been set and recovered it. After a quick examination, it appeared that he should be able to recycle it – assuming he could get some gas to put in it – so he added it to his kit. After that, he joined the rest of the team who were helping the crew pore over the engine room, machinery spaces and other areas of the ship to determine if they had been left any unwelcome surprises.
The checks took hours to complete, but eventually everyone agreed that the ship was as it should be – or the devices were so well hidden they weren't going to find them. During the checks the team had been grilling the crew who had been on duty in the engine room at the time of the attack.
It appeared that they'd felt woozy, and then collapsed – quickly enough that none of them had been able to reach the fire-fighting gear and breathing apparatus that was stored in the engine room. Aswon was sceptical that this would have helped them at first, but after he was shown the gear, which was more of a full environmental suit with separate air supply, realised it might have done the job. After they recovered from the gas, they found themselves restrained and positioned against the bulkhead, whilst the raiders in the blue and green armour had taken over their systems.
Marius, at least, got to work out how they'd blacked out the ship. By jury-rigging the generator and running some custom code on it, they'd changed the operating parameters so far out of kilter that nothing worked properly. Rather than the normal 230 Volts at 50 Hertz, the generator was pushing out really weird combinations – dropping the cycles down to a point where equipment just wasn't functioning properly. However, the voltage sensors in the lighting were quite happy, as they were still receiving 230 volts, so they didn't push over to their internal batteries. The code indicated that the raiders had some advance knowledge of the specific generator installed on the ship, and how to mess with it – but the principle should be sound when applied to other targets. Marius made some notes, just in case he ever needed to do the same thing to someone else…
The crew recounted how the raiders hadn't been that interested in them to start with – then suddenly the mage had gotten all fired up and turned on them, demanding to know who the shaman was on the crew. They'd been grilled for a few minutes, and the mage had waved his hands at them weirdly, and they all felt a little odd – but they'd not been able to say what they didn't know – the Captain had said they had some passengers, not to interact with them, and not to go near their truck. And nobody wanted to mess with the Captain. Shortly after that, the biggest one had left the engine room and gone barrelling upstairs, before returning a few minutes later.
They didn't seem to be damaging anything, and they hadn't really hurt anyone that much – as long as the crew did what they were told. One of the engineers had struggled, but they'd quickly overpowered him and made it abundantly clear that they were armed to the teeth and would quite happily make an example of him. They certainly didn't fit the template for eco-terrorists or green warriors, and it was unlikely they were pure mercenaries – too much care taken not damaging things or proving their point. That of course left Shadowrunners…
Marius and Hunter broke off at that point, fired up the sat-link and started work, trawling the matrix for records. Port records, ship registries, insurance companies, news reports – they started a worldwide search for the phrase "High Roller", filtering down the results and reviewing them, trying to get some idea of who they were up against. They sat around their terminal, heads bowed and concentrating as they sifted through the enormous amount of data, realising quickly enough that this would take hours to complete.
Shimazu pulled out the bag he had lifted from the boat, and showed it to Tadibya.
"Hey, I found this and it looked… well, magical. What is it?"
Tadibya opened the bag and examined the contents carefully, staring at the powder and trying to gauge its worth.
"You got this from the boat, from the mage's room?" She saw Shimazu nod at her, then handed him the bag back. "Well, it is magical – it looks like materials for summoning a water elemental. Powdered seaweed and crushed mollusc shells, I think. Treated of course. Probably enough to summon half a dozen quite powerful elementals. And yes, worth a good chunk of cash," she said, as he opened his mouth to speak, guessing at his question. "Unfortunately, no good to me at all. But we might be able to sell it." Shimazu shrugged, and took the bag back, with a wry grin.
Kai went up to the accommodation block, and found his way to the Captain's cabin. The steward was watching over him, and had made him comfortable in his bed, propped up by pillows. Kai reassured him that he was just here to check up on him, and make sure he was going to be fine, but wasn't paying attention to where he was going – instead concentrating on making the steward feel at ease. That unfortunately meant that he didn't see the rucked up rug where the Steward had struggled to get the Captain into his bed. His feet caught in it, and he lost his balance as his momentum propelled him forwards. His arms flailed as he tried to regain his balance, but he couldn't stop himself in time and he crashed over the bed – where one of his flailing arms drove a pointed elbow down into the Captain's groin with devastating accuracy.
The Captain awoke, and let out a shrill scream of pain. The last thing he remembered was descending the stairs and being shot – and then he wakes to find Kai in his face, in excruciating agony.
It took Kai some minutes to calm the Captain down, amidst copious apologies and frequent checks if he needed anything, but eventually the Captain was calmed down and caught up on events. He called the bridge, and got a radio call put through to the dock at Baku, where he made a terse report that they'd had some trouble with unidentified raiders who had boarded their ship – but that had left shortly afterwards, with no damage done or goods taken. Due to their little adventure, they'd be delayed by several hours getting into port. He didn't mention the team at all.
When he was done with his report, Kai thanked him for keeping him out of the radio message. The Captain turned to face him and spoke with mock surprise.
"I don't know what you mean. There's no one else to mention in the report. We don't have any passengers, or they'd be on the manifest. All passengers have to be recorded for transit across international borders, you know."
Kai nodded in understanding, and excused himself, heading out of the captain's quarters, checking up on the team, and then relaxing for a bit, thinking about the events of the day.
With the boat checked, they were back underway, steaming slowly towards port on the western side of the Caspian Sea. Aswon brought the spear they had found in the temple back to Tadibya, and asked her to have another look at it, to see if she could determine what it did – and just how difficult it would be to try and attune with the magical energies contained within it and activate them.
Having nothing better to do that afternoon, Tadibya agreed, and spent the next few hours poring over the design, and peering at the magical emanations given off. The few days of rest or the change in scenery must have given her a fresh viewpoint, as she uncovered some information in her studies that she relayed to Aswon.
"Well, it's obviously a weapon focus – we knew that. But it's not hugely powerful directly – it's fairly low-level in fact, which is good news, as it shouldn't be too hard to attune your aura to. Overall, I think it's probably going to make you about a third more effective in combat – but that's a pretty rough guess, from how I've seen you fight. The big advantage of course is the length of the weapon, as it's far easier to hit someone if you can keep them at range. But there's something else there as well, and I can't put my finger on what it is. It's a powerful enchantment to be sure, and unique – I've never seen anything like it, ever. I'm not sure that I'll be able to find out anything more, unless we get a much more comprehensive facility and materials to work with, either."
Aswon nodded his thanks and sat back in his chair, studying the spear for a moment and then staring into the distance. It would take considerable time and effort to try and attune to the spear, and possibly involved some risk – but for what reward?
The hours slipped by uneventfully, and on the western horizon a brown smudge appeared, slowly growing into a coastline as the boat continued to chug through the water. They adjusted course slightly, bending north a little around the spit of land protruding into the sea, before taking a more southerly course into the large sheltered bay. On the starboard side now, they could see the port ahead of them – the buildings looking very similar to those on the far side of the Caspian. Here though, all three corporations were situated right next to each other.
Kai called everyone together on deck to see the port and the area, and to ask how the research had gone. Hunter and Marius filled him in with the results of their searches - they'd found matching descriptions and details for the boat, with it being registered in Monte Carlo. There was some detail about it having been won by an executive there in the last year, during a high-stakes poker game. The winner was employed by Fuchi – the parent corporation for Dekita. Suddenly things seemed to make a little sense.
They stood in silence for a while, watching the scenery slide by slowly as the large vessel traversed the quiet waters. Annoying Dekita was one thing – a large and powerful company, with impressive resources, they could make life difficult indeed for them. Annoying Fuchi was a whole different level. Fuchi was one of the largest mega-corporations in the world. With fingers in literally every pie imaginable, they had global reach and resources that defied belief. They hadn't thought it would be that big of a job – if they had, they would have asked for a lot more money, for starters!
They slid past the Espirit docks, where a few small ships were laid up next to the harbour wall, and some activity was taking place – but it didn't look particularly busy. In the next dock over though, the one they were approaching, there seemed to be a lot of crew around, with a large number down by the waterside, standing ready with hoses and other equipment, all watching and waiting. The tanker cruised on by, and they could see the tiny figures on the dock side pointing at them, and gathering in small knots to talk as they continued at a slow by steady pace right by them. They seemed to be expecting the tanker to heave in to the Dekita dock, for some reason.
Finally, they pulled up alongside the Maersk dock, and the tanker slowly spun in place, sliding close to the dock. One of the crew waved to Kai, and wandered over to deliver a message.
"Captain said it looked like Dekita were expecting the delivery. Asked if you'd mind hanging around while we offload, just in case something happens?"
Kai looked around at the rest of the team, didn't see any dissent and turned to the crewman, "No problem, we'll grab some gear and keep an eye out from up here then."
They grabbed arms and armour, and spread out a little around the deck, moving to new positions as the crew started making preparations to dock and they realised they were standing by vital equipment or in a hazardous location. The process of docking was routine, and the crew obviously well-drilled – they were watchful and alert but not tense, and the radio chatter had no sense of urgency. Lead lines were swung over to the ship, followed by stronger haul lines, and then huge hoses that were swiftly attached to the pumps on deck. Shortly afterwards the deck vibrated as the massive pumps drew thousands of litres of various grades of oil and pushed them through the 300mm diameter hoses to the waiting tanks on the dockside.
About half-way through the unloading process, Hunter called from the bow, where he'd been keeping an eye on the Dekita dock, telling the team that they appeared to be shutting down operations, and lots of crew were heading away from the dock area – and it now only had as many people as the Espirit docks had – presumably the minimum watch rotation for safety or the work in hand.
"I think we need to stay ready. That's exactly the kind of thing they would do to lull us into a false sense of security, though!"
The team murmured in general agreement, and maintained their patrols, keeping a watchful eye on the dock workers, the crew and the area surrounding the tanker. After a few hours, the unloading was completed though, without incident. Nobody approached the tanker that was not authorised and supposed to be there, and the area was quiet. Kai used the quiet time to get on the phone to Johanna, asking if she was willing to have a chat and a debrief over the events of the crossing. Somewhat cryptically, she said not to discuss it any further, but to wait until they were off the ship and call them from the security vehicle…
With the sun setting in the west, the truck and trailer were finally unchained from the deck and swung down to the harbour though, and the captain came down to the top of the gangway to see them off. They swiftly hitched up the trailer and got their gear aboard the truck, with their weapons stowed again. As they were loading up, a large security off-roader pulled up alongside them – causing a few raised eyebrows from the team. Kai however, just waved at them to continue loading, and moved over to the vehicle, taking the offered comms headset from the front seat passenger. Donning the lightweight headset, he saw the guard twiddle with some settings on her radio, before she leant back and gave him a thumbs up to indicate a live mike.
Kai spoke first, asking Johanna to confirm some details of their last conversation. Her voice came back after a brief, but noticeable delay, and it sounded somewhat robotic and choppy. Kai guessed that some very heavy duty encryption or routing was at work here, and the signal was bouncing around all over the place to reach her, rather than it being a straight radio transmission. He quickly sketched out the situation with the raiders on the boat, and covered the broad strokes of their assault, before asking if Johanna was interested in some more information, and hinting at a suitable payment for it.
"Hah. No thanks. All things considered, I think we both know what's going on, based on the trid releases and such like. I admire you trying, but really it doesn't take a prospector to work out what's going on, does it?"
Kai thought frantically for a moment, then squeezed the transmit button
"No, no – and of course, given the news reports, it's not hard now, is it? Still, I have to try and get the best deal for my team."
They exchanged a few pleasantries, with Kai checking that she had their contact details for any further work in the area, before he said his goodbyes, and headed back to the team. Once in the truck, he recounted the conversation to the rest of them – before he'd finished Hunter and Marius were both searching for a news broadcast and the latest headlines. A few minutes later, they had some information, and about half an hour later they had enough of the picture to fill in the details.
As the price of Dekita shares had plummeted as everyone offloaded, someone other than them had been waiting as well it seemed. Maersk had also made significant purchases, which was what had driven the price back up as rapidly, using a number of proxy agents and trading houses to try and obscure their corporate mugging from being quite so obvious.
A story like that couldn't be hidden for long of course, and at mid-day today in Japan, Maersk announced via the Tosho stock exchange that they had managed to purchase sixty-one million shares in Dekita at a total price of 4,484 Million Nuyen, with 75% in leveraged debt and the rest in operating reserves / cash in hand, giving them an additional 24% share in the company. Hidden investors and proxy voting blocs which had suddenly been revealed took this to 58.31% of the total share issue, and a board meeting was called to propose a new chairman. This caused a massive upheaval in the market, with frenzied trading and speculation, as it became clear that Maersk had just absorbed Dekita, effectively stealing it out from under Fuchi's nose.
With a bit of backtracking and allowing for time zones – the news of this hit the airwaves at about the time Kai was negotiating with "Bravo". If the enemy team were in fact a Fuchi-sponsored Shadowrun, then they'd be faced with the sudden realisation that their mission was a bust – if they stole the tanker, and took it to the Dekita port, they were still delivering the oil to Maersk effectively, as the new owners. Either way, they probably weren't going to get paid much, if at all – as Fuchi had to be hurting from the loss of one of their core assets. Kai looked slightly deflated at the realisation that it wasn't his superb negotiating skills that had made the other side decide to fold, but the fact that they were obviously monitoring world events and realised they were on a hiding to nothing.
Once the news articles started to repeat themselves they started the truck, heading out of the port. Security was a breeze – the gatehouse having been obviously briefed that they were "not really here" and let them go without any issue. The road from the ports to Baku was pretty good – a nice wide and well maintained blacktop, designed for lots of heavy traffic, so they made good time. Along the way, the team discussed what to do next. Nobody had massively strong feelings or a desire to go to anywhere in particular, so it was agreed that they would stay in Azerbaijan for a while, and perhaps go looking for some wildlife to hunt and try to sell to talisleggers, and to see about setting up a somewhat permanent base camp somewhere – not too close to Baku that they would attract attention, but not so remote that they couldn't get hold of supplies easily enough. Tadibya suggested that they consider the Chechen camp where they'd first been bought together, but the others quickly shut that idea down – saying it was too remote and too much of a pain to get to. Tadibya sensed the mood and didn't press the issue, though it was obvious from her facial expression that she felt that was not the reason people felt most strongly about…
As they drove into the main town, they spied an open supermarket, and pulled over to stock up on supplies such as snack food, water, and some spare clothing. Aswon pulled out his phone whilst he was waiting for the others to finish their supply run, and called Germaine – the fixer who had provided his gun for him the last time they were in town.
"Ms. Germaine? It's Aswon. I just wanted to let you know we were back in town, and wondered if we could meet up some time to discuss work?"
"Oh. It's you. I see." The voice changed noticeably, growing colder and more abrupt. Aswon stared at the phone for a moment, and his eyes tracked back and forth. She sounded… well, she sounded pissed at him. Really pissed. And he had no idea why.
Germaine continued to give him the cold shoulder, but as tactfully as possible, Aswon requested that she meet with "his captain" to discuss things. She eventually agreed that she would allow him to take her out for dinner – and to book a table at the Waterview Bar and Restaurant at 8pm the following day. Aswon informed Kai, and they contacted the restaurant to book a pair of tables, one for the meet, and one for the rest of the team.
Finally the conversation turned to where they were going to stay for the night. Sure, they could sleep in the truck – but after a couple of days of decent beds, nobody wanted to make do with the racks again if there was something better on offer. Aswon had hoped to get something from Germaine – but with the mood she was in, that wasn't such a good idea. The idea of a hotel was discussed, but rejected. Any place nice enough to want to stay in would cause problems for those of them without a proper ID or documentation, and besides they now had some fairly heavy-duty ordinance in the truck, which may well set of the chem-sniffers at a decent hotel. And if they had their truck broken into at a cheap and nasty place, they were going to cause a major ruckus.
Shimazu called his friend Turul, who had hired them for the job into Iran. As the connection was made, Shimazu had to take the phone away from his ear due to the background noise – wherever Turul was, it was noisy. He managed to work out from him after a bit of shouting and repeating himself that Turul was on a road trip somewhere in Russia, and was most definitely "out of town". On hearing of their situation though, he told them to go stay with his brother if it was only a night or two. He did warn them though, to stay away from the women, otherwise his brother would become very angry… Shimazu agreed, deciding not to tell the rest of the team about their potential host threatening to cut a man's penis off for looking at his wife inappropriately.
They headed to the place, in the north east of Baku, finding a large walled compound that Turul and his family apparently both lived and worked in. The yard was enclosed by a high wall, and looked pretty secure, with good camera coverage and modern locks on the gates and doors. They nestled the truck in amongst the haulage vehicles, smiling a little when they spotted the truck they had "robbed" a few weeks before.
Turul's brother Nadim was waiting for them at the door, and welcomed them into his home with a poetic speech full of flowery phrases, telling them how honoured he was to have guests in his home, and how they should treat it as their home and that nothing was too much to ask for. Each of them was greeted warmly with a firm handshake and a hug, and welcomed across the threshold into a large sitting room. There was a huge fireplace on one wall, surrounded by low settees and a huge number of large cushions, throws and soft cubes. The lighting was subdued, the walls covered in drapes with repeating geometric patterns and a number of strange-looking hookahs dotted around, with long hoses and complicated multiple chambers filled with coloured fluids.
Nadim clapped his hands together loudly, and women entered the room from several doorways, bring in trays of sweetments and large carafes of strong black coffee. They were all dressed in a very traditional and conservative fashion, and did not make eye contact with their guests, but instead fussed over them and made efforts to make them comfortable with the refreshments and get them settled into furniture. Tadibya drew a deep breath, expecting to be singled out for different treatment, based on her gender, but was instead served according to her physical place. In fact she was treated exactly the same as all the other guys - it appeared that for Nadim's purposes, tonight she was in fact "just one of the blokes". Tadibya wasn't sure if this amused her more by being "reclassified" to avoid conflict, or annoyed her because she shouldn't have been treated differently in the first place – but as a guest in the house, she decided she could live with it for a day or two, in the interests of not offending their host. After a little while, a couple of younger men joined them, introduced as the various sons and cousins of Nadim and Turul, all of who worked in the family business.
Nadim called a blessing up on the house, the food and his guests, and set up the hookahs, and was soon offering each of them a hose to sit back, relax, and have a smoke, discuss the weather, the soccer and the transportation business. Gradually the team relaxed a little – still wondering if they'd backslid a century or two into a nest of misogyny, but it was warm and comfy, and they were fed and watered admirably. A couple of hours slipped by as they chatted, waited upon by the women, and entertained by Nadim and his male relatives.
Eventually the conversation wound down as yawns became more frequent. Nadim showed them the two rooms that were set aside for them to sleep in, with throws and cushions piled up on thin mattresses to sleep on. Kai, Shimazu and Tadibya grabbed one, with Hunter, Marius and Aswon in the other. Gradually the house grew quiet, as one by one they fell asleep.
