Saturday 18/9/2060, Location: 21.90548, 114.05599, Time 21:45

Marius had just disengaged the engine, stopping the reverse thrust he'd applied after pushing the boat out and away from the cliffs, stopping his forward motion before he cleared the bluff, when he heard the faint noise. Looking up and around, he squinted as a faint yellow light flared up well on the way to the horizon. Quickly he killed the engine and leant out of the wheelhouse, straining to hear.

Another faint string of gunfire drifted across the open sea, a light barking noise that made him think of an assault rifle of some kind, and a moment later a larger flare of light appeared in the dark skies. He had no idea of the range – the boat had no sensors worthy of the name, and with only a single point source and no indication on size all he knew was that it was closer than thirty kilometres, as it was below where the horizon seemed to be.

"Team, I have gunfire and either an explosion or fire on a water craft, on a rough heading of 295 from my current position."

"Say again, Marius? Are you under attack?" Aswon called back.

"Negative – range is long. I am unable to give more than an approximation though, but I would estimate at least fifteen kilometres. I have heard several bursts of gunfire, and there now appears to be a steady fire. It has to be a water craft of some kind, not an aircraft – there is no way it would still be airworthy after being on fire for this long. I will observe and report in with any further news."

"Ok, keep us advised." It was Kai this time, not that it much mattered to Marius. He'd reported in on the situation, but now he had to restart the engine as he'd already started to drift back inshore towards the cliff edge and the rocks that lurked under the surface of the water.

In the building at the top of the hill, the team resumed their activities. Tads had her hands over the midriff of the enemy mage, and started to pull in mana and channel it into a healing spell. Golden light bounced off the white tiles in the bathroom, creating a pulsating wave of light that refracted off the large mirror screwed to the wall and illuminating the whole room with intense golden light.

"I can definitely hear the guard coming up the stairs now," Aswon called, his voice somewhat indistinct as he subvocalised the message to avoid giving himself away.

"I will be at least a minute here," Tads muttered, trying to concentrate on directing the magical energies to the worst of the wounds. "She's quite badly injured, and there's a lot of internal trauma."

"Do your best, Tads, we'll cover you. Ok, very quick poll – take the guard out, or hide and let him pass?"

"Take him, he'll find his mate on the roof anyway." Hunter responded quickly.

"Agreed," from Aswon, quietly, as he moved into position.

"Leave him, we don't need the trouble. Just hide her body in her room." Tads sounded firm on her opinion, as she concentrated on the spell.

"Drop him. Too many variables." Added Shimazu.

"I agree. Aswon – take out the guard with your taser – but maybe try not quite so hard this time, eh?" They could hear the edge of the smile on Kai's face, but Aswon didn't rise to take the bait, concentrating on moving silently to the edge of the stairwell and getting ready to strike. The shuffles on the stairs grew louder as the guard walked up the concrete staircase, his feet sliding onto the bare material. Aswon saw him turn to face away from him as he rounded the corner, heading for the return flight of stairs leading up to the rooftop and started to move, weapon raised ready to strike.

The guard started to turn, alerted by something – maybe a noise, maybe just a slight change in air currents. It didn't matter what he'd detected really, all that mattered was that he'd picked up on some subtle clue. Unfortunately for him, he made the wrong inference from what he thought he'd heard, and didn't raise his guard, assuming that it was the mage coming from her quarters…

"Good evening, Miss, just changing watch on the roo…." was as far as he got before the taser spear struck him in the small of the back. It wasn't a clean hit as he'd started to twist, but it was good enough – and Aswon was actually being a lot more careful now, confident that he could take the guy down if his first strike wasn't successful. Electricity coursed through the taser prods into the guard, sending paralysing spasms through his nervous system and dropping him to the ground, writhing and convulsing for a moment as his muscles were sent into fits of contractions. As the guard collapsed into a heap, Aswon smartly withdrew, making sure he didn't overcook this one.

"Guard down. Now – do we have a plan? Or are we making this up as we go along, Kai?"

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with that! It's worked for us so far!" Kai leant his head out of the toilet door and visibly checked the situation, relaxing as he saw Aswon starting to drag the unconscious guard towards him. "But as it happens, I do have a plan. Ok – here it is… so, we get Tads to do her mind altering thingy on the guard. The second guard that is, the one that just got bushwacked by Aswon."

"Altered his memories to what?" Aswon gasped as he dragged the body across the rough floor towards the bathroom.

"I was getting there… So, we make it so the second guard remembers hearing a noise, and came into the toilets to investigate, and found the first guard going all mental, attacking the mage. We use his gun, the second guy that is, to stove in the back of the head from the first one. Then, when they get found, the mage just remembers being stabbed in the dark, and the second guy remembers the first one being mental – and they can't ask the first one, 'cos he's dead."

"I see where you're going with that. We could use those combat drugs on the first guard – make it look like he got himself hyped and flipped the lid?" Hunter suggested, remembering the faint traces of amphetamines and combat boosters he'd picked up from the inhaler he'd found.

"That could work. Might be worth probing the guard's minds to see if they have any history of drug use, or any thoughts about any of their team – it's not likely to work if this guy is strongly anti-drug… though I guess if he was, he wouldn't be carrying them. But either way, if we find out that they've known each other for years and this is way out of character, that might challenge the memories that Tads has to insert or manipulate, and make them easier to defeat."

"I… um." Shimazu started, then stopped, considering for a moment and looking around at the rest of the team as they waited by the toilets for him to speak. "Look, it's a bit distasteful really, but that's what might help it work. We pull his trousers down, and hers – make it look like he went mad with power, and tried to attack her. Sexually. That's going to make people feel uncomfortable, and perhaps not pry as much. And it will drive gossip and rumour, making sure lots of people hear something that makes them have strong feelings, and preconfigure them to believe the story that's presented. It's an option." He lapsed back into silence to let them consider his words.

"Whatever you decide, I need to concentrate on cleaning up evidence of my spell – this almost certainly will be examined, so it's a lot higher risk than the one we left outside."

"You might want to delay that until we're just about to leave. I saw how draining the attempt was earlier – much better to be on the way out of here, and looking forward to a rest than to try and do that now, and risk having any further spells you have to cast be tainted by your fatigue." Aswon suggested.

"Hmm, fair point. If we are going to mess with his memory, that's something I'll need to do. Speaking on that, someone needs to tell me what story we're going with so I can deliver that…"

"Ok, let's try and keep it relatively simple. I know we just fixed her up a bit, but we get the guards knife and we coat it with some coagulating agents from the medkit, then carefully cut into her, right down through the scar tissue. We should be able to guide the blade not to do any major damage, and it'll clot almost immediately – between the drugs and leaving the weapon in place, there's no danger she'll bleed out, even if she's unconscious for several hours." Kai grabbed the knife and laid it out near the mage, making sure only to let his gloved hand touch it.

"After that, we get the rifle of the second guard, and use that to club in the back of the head of the first guard, so the impact shape and blood remains match up. Then we do the spell thingy on the second guard – he was going up to the roof to start his shift when he heard the sounds of a struggle in here. Came in to investigate. Found the first guard just plunging the knife into the mages stomach, lashing out at her in the dark…" He pointed over at Aswon. "She probably didn't get much sense of size or description, I think you hit her too hard and fast for her to see anything other than a blur of movement. So if she gets told the first guard stabbed her, that should fit with her memories, and the physical evidence."

"That's good," Aswon nodded. "No need to cast the spell on the mage, and there's less chance she'll pick up on the fact that her memories have been tampered with, and it means we only have… well Tads only has to cast one spell to pull this off."

"Exactly. The second guard came in, saw the fight, clubbed him over the back of the head, but he was so hyped up on drugs he kicked him as the rifle went in, hard enough to smash him into the wall and knock him out. That should cover everything, I think…"

The team set to work, fetching the guard from the roof and carefully positioning him near the mage in the toilets. Working between them, Shimazu and Kai managed to carefully slide the blade back into the newly-healed wound, much to Tads' displeasure, leaving it lodged in her belly in such a way that it avoided the major organs.

While the area was still in a reasonable state, Tads started to cast her spells. First, she sterilised the area, removing any traces of their own DNA and spoiling a lot of the forensic evidence that might point to them. Then she quickly probed the second guard, checking that he was not the lifelong buddy or secret lover of the first, finding out that he was just another guard, that he didn't know that well really. With that done she started to implant the false memories into his mind, layering chaotic scenes of combat, and making sure he had distinct memories of the drug inhaler bouncing off the floor out of his hand, to skitter across the tiles. Finally she started to cleanse her spell signatures, managing to dissipate the energies from the lower force spells and smooth out the distinctive aura of her own signature from the area.

Shimazu drew the short straw and had the distasteful job of clubbing the first guard to death with the rifle of the second – first inserting the inhaler into his mouth and depressed the lever, sending the drugs into his system. They saw his face and neck flush as the drugs went to work on his circulatory system. With a grunt he bought the assault rifle scything down into the back of his head, sending blood fountaining up and across the tiles as the back of his head collapsed under the force of the blow. They worked quickly then, wiping down the rifle to remove any traces of his presence and placing it in the second guard's hand, held reversed as they dragged him over to the wall and sat him up against the tiles.

One final check of the knife and the vital signs of the mage and second guard to confirm they were stable, and a double check on the first guard to confirm he really was dead, a few seconds to place the inhaler in the position matching the implanted memories, and they carefully exited the bathroom. Aswon, Tads, Shimazu and Kai carefully avoided looking in astral space where the cold-blooded killing of the first guard had left a roiling black stain in place, polluting the area.

"Just to make you aware, the fire on the horizon is dying down. It will be gone in a minute, maybe less. I would guess that the boat is sinking, due to the damage caused."

"Can you get a drone out there to survey the scene?"

"Negative, Kai. It has neither the range, or the night vision sensors to achieve that, otherwise I would have done this already. I just wanted you to be aware."

"Ok, thanks Marius, we're just about done here and heading back to you now." Kai frowned as he got a garbled transmission that might have been someone muttering 'about time' under their breath, but decided to ignore it.

The team gathered their kit up, carefully playing torches around the area and looking for any stray packaging or medical supplies they might have overlooked while wiping down door handles and smoothing away footprints from the dust before they retreated back up to the roof and headed over to the north east corner once more. One by one they abseiled down the building, until just Shimazu and Aswon were left on the roof. Once again Aswon braced himself, laying down flat on the roof with his feet braced against the parapet as he secured the rope while Shimazu quickly lowered himself down – but it was a close thing. As Shimazu was nearing the bottom, Aswon felt himself rising up towards the vertical position from the load on the rope, rising up into the air and unable to do anything to slow himself down. Fortunately, as he was approaching the fully upright position he felt the pressure ease as Shimazu reached the bottom. Without pause he stepped forwards and flipped himself around, his hands and feet latching onto the outer surface of the building and started to work his way down the concrete surface in a rippling pattern as he relocated hands and feet, his gecko spell making him adhere to the wall.

At ground level he hurried over to the vegetation line, coiling the rope in his hands as he did so before passing it over to Shimazu to sling over his shoulder, so he could unlimber his rifle again and take up a guard position. They worked back the same way they had come, slowly moving around the compound following the terrain and using as much cover as they could, descending the hill in a slow and methodical way until they emerged back onto the path just above the old gun battery and fortification.

They moved quickly here, aware that they could be seen from the village at the top, and placing their faith entirely in the concealing spirits that were wrapped around them, striding forwards rapidly until they closed on the position of the concealed sensor. Aswon set the pace here, stepping forwards with what felt like glacial slowness, moving no more than a stride every few seconds in a smooth, continuous motion. The rest of the team strung out behind him, following his pace and trying to emulate his movements as best they could, concentrating on making no sudden jerks or changes of direction that would register as sudden changes in the environment.

It took a few minutes for them to clear the sensor zone, and the best part of another twenty to climb back up the hill the other side through the scrubby vegetation and navigate the scree slopes and patches of brambles before they were back atop the low cliff and looking down at the boat. Once again they fished out the rope, making one end fast around a small tree anchored at the top of the cliff while the other was thrown down to Marius below, and anchored onto one of the cleats normally used to hold a fishing net. The team descended the rope in single file, until just Aswon remained.

With a heave, he threw the rope down to the boat below, and then started to crawl down the cliff, using the same motion he had at the building, until he hung about four metres above the water. Waiting for the boat to wash back towards the cliff, he sprang outwards, diving down at a forty-five degree angle to cover the distance just as Marius started to apply power, propelling them back out to sea. He landed on the deck in a crouch, absorbing the impact with his long legs and letting himself sink until his thighs met his calves and his knees started to complain a little.

With everyone safely aboard, Marius took them out to sea, heading north west and away from the island and keeping the boat end on to any potential observers to minimise their signature. Aswon and Hunter watched their rear, looking for any signs of pursuit from either magical or mundane sources, but the village seemed quiet and serene, with no sign of alarm being raised.

"Marius, can you describe where the boat was that was on fire. Which direction I mean, as best you can?" Marius lifted one hand off the controls and after a quick scan left and right to check his bearings, pointed out into the darkness. "Ok, just hold that please, just a moment…" Tads sank to the floor, projected out of her body and then rechecked the positioning, materialising just long enough so that Marius could see the direction she was heading in and nod his agreement before she accelerated away, jumping forwards in a number of quick hops to see if she could spot the boat.

It took her a few minutes to find something, mostly from the stain in astral space that indicated that at least a few people had probably been murdered here recently. Once she had the rough location though, she materialised again and looked around, spotting a faint slick of oil on the surface of the water along with some debris and small bits of wreckage. There was no sign of any of the crew, or whoever had attacked them though, and with the limited visibility under the heavily overcast scene, she returned to the fishing boat to report in.

As the island receded behind them and faded away into the darkness the team relaxed a little, gathering together to discuss the next phase.

"So, you have the location we need to head to, Tads?"

"Yes, can you get me a map? I can point to the location, relative to some of the islands. Hunter obligingly pulled up a map, and they watched as she traced a line south from Dawanshan Dao and west from Shawan Bay until they intersected in open ocean. "Just there. That's where the island is."

"Nothing on the map here. Shows as open water." Hunter zoomed in a little, marking down the co-ordinates. 21.80191, 113.7303. Are you sure Tads? There's nothing there at all…"

"Certain, that's exactly the spot she was thinking about."

"Well, it's the best information we have. Can you head that way please, Marius?" Kai asked. "Roughly how long to get there?"

"Two and a half hours at a steady speed." Marius responded, after leaning over to check the location and evaluate the distance. "We should arrive about 02:00 at this rate."

"And what's the deal when we get there. Do you have an angle we're going to use, Kai?"

"That depends. You can hide us right, Tads?"

"Yes... with a few different options. We can go in concealed by a Spirit. I should be able to call on the aid of a manifestation of the ocean to guide and conceal us, and keep us out of sight. Or, I can wrap us in an invisibility spell and hide us that way. We can combine the two together, if required. And last of all, I could transform our appearance – the boat isn't that big or heavily armoured, so I could make us look like a different kind of boat… just like I've done for the truck before. The only problem with any of those methods though is that while they work against mundane observers and things like camera systems, they will all make us glow on the astral plane – we will be immediately obvious to anyone with magical senses.

"Arse – nothing you can do about that?"

"No Kai… we can mask our spells to a certain extent, though that requires our full and undivided attention and prevents us from doing pretty much anything else… but hiding spirits and things like that. No – not possible, at least not by any technique I've ever heard of."

"Alright then. So, we need to know what the magical situation is there first really. Can we get a recon flight over the place, Tads, to see what they've got. And just how big this place is. I'm confused as to why it's not on the maps… We're sure it's an island, and not a big boat or an oil rig that's just floating around?"

"Positive. I have clear memories from her of arriving on a boat through a gap in the sea wall, entering a harbour and arriving at a big island. Big enough that there's no way it was an illusion." Tads suddenly stopped, thinking back to Spangles and her massive planar phantasm that had covered the valley near Tashkent. "Well, I'm pretty certain it wasn't an illusion. Not being that shape and volume. But I can go and check?"

She headed out of her body once more, zooming across the waves and squinting slightly in the bright astral light given off by a trillion plankton and sea creatures, each generating their own miniscule contribution to the manasphere. She covered the seventy kilometres in the blink of an eye and looked down upon the island, a mass of land about seven hundred metres across and rising a good thirty metres above the surface of the sea. The island was shaped a little like a kidney bean, with a pair of raised sea walls facing out and covering the southern approaches. Buildings were dotted over the surface, but her attention was most immediately drawn by the large elementals on patrol.

She shot up and back, zooming away a little and then rising up a kilometre vertically, before approaching again from the north, peering out from the underside of the clouds and looking again to get a better idea of what was going on. On the second approach she noticed a third elemental. While the first two had been fire elementals, their intense flamelike forms burning and dancing as they patrolled the outside perimeter of the island, the third one was an air elemental, a whirling vortex of air forming a miniature tornado that was further around the island. It was harder to see, almost impossible in fact against the night air, and she realised how lucky she'd been to spot it. By the looks of things they were equally spaced out around the perimeter, each elemental able to spot the next one forward, and be watched by the one behind… but a casual observer might have only seen the fire elementals and aim for the 'gap' in the coverage, running straight into the air spirit. She glanced down at the choppy surface of the waves and wondered if there was an equally powerful set of water elementals on patrol just under the surface, as invisible in that environment as the air elemental would be in the windy environment above.

She didn't risk any more time there, realising she'd already pushed her luck a little and shot up a little before shooting away to the north and doing several large dog-legs across the sea, checking for astral pursuit or observers. It took her nearly five times longer to get back to the boat than it had taken her to get out – but she was certain she wasn't being tailed. At least at the slow speed the boat was travelling it was child's play to resynchronise her astral form with her meat body. She sat up and described the elementals she'd seen, as well as speculating on the presence of water elementals in the surrounding sea.

"There's one other thing I want to suggest… we've all been up since seven in the morning. It's cracking on for midnight. Wouldn't it be a good idea to try and head to somewhere we can rest up for the night – or at least a few hours? Even in shifts, just to get everyone a bit of rest before we go to this island? We'll do no good if we're all drunk from fatigue when we get there and try to rescue Harley and fall asleep on the job!"

"I see where you're coming from Tads, but I'm not sure we can spare the time. Chun has to fight tomorrow night, and we don't know for sure if Harley is still here. They might have moved him again. We've got to push on I think – and we also need to strike here before the alarm is raised back on the last island. That's the place most likely to report here, in my opinion." Aswon laid out his reasoning, keeping his voice respectful and trying not to be dismissive – he knew how much they were likely to need her support to deal with magical threats and spells, and the unique powers she bought to their team.

Tads was just about to respond when the engine gave a sudden burst of intensely loud knocking noises, spluttered and then died. As the throbbing of the diesel engine faded away, the boat started to roll a little more as the waves turned them side on, and the motion of the boat became much more pronounced as they rose and fell from peak to trough and back again.

"Oh great. Just what we needed… excuse me." Marius selected the hammer and made his way to the rear, approaching the engine with a scowl on his face. After checking the fuel flow and air pressure, coolant levels and mix ratio, he hit the manual starter and listened as the engine cranked, then hit the marked spot on the top cover with the hammer, striking hard and sending a metallic resonance through the boat's aft. The cranking continued, and the engine hiccupped – for a moment they all thought it was going to catch, but then the cranking continued, starting to sound more and more hoarse. "What a piece of shit engineering!" Disgust dripped from his voice and he backed away, taking a deep breath and looking up, as if summoning the blessings of the machine spirits.

After a moment he blinked slowly, then methodically started to go over all of the gauges again, working through the entire sequence and manually confirming the fuel levels, air intake filters and exhaust path were all clear. Once more he hit the starter, listening for the sounds of the engine as it tried to turnover and engage, and then started to strike at the engine cover, first on the indicated spot and then in positions just off from there, working around the mark in a clockwise fashion.

Nothing.

Sixty seconds later he released the starter, not wanting to drain the batteries or damage the engine at all, and turned to the rest.

"We appear to be having some technical difficulties." He grabbed at a support as a larger than average wave slapped at the side of the boat, sending it rocking twenty degrees to one side. "I will start to diagnose this, unless anyone has a better idea or some alternatives?"

Tads didn't answer directly, but instead leant over the side of the boat until her questing fingertips could just reach the water's surface as the waves slapped past the hull. Muttering under her breath she concentrated and called forth a magical guardian from the sea, binding it to her will and asking it to protect them while the engine had stopped, and try to move them towards the island – giving it a mental picture of their destination as she did so. The spirit of the waters sank back into the ocean and a moment later the prow of the boat swung back to the north, and the horrible rolling diminished to a much more manageable level as it kept the boat pointing across the waves rather than parallel to them. Slowly they moved forwards, as the spirit propelled them through its own domain, but the speed was barely two knots – enough to make progress, but it would take nearly half a day to get to the island at that rate!

"We should leave the engine for a few minutes to cool and for things to settle, then I will try to start her again." Marius grabbed his toolkit and moved back to the engine, leaving the wheel to turn as it wished – with the spirit pushing them, the rudder was making no difference whatsoever to their heading anyway.

"Ok, while we're waiting then, we can at least discuss the defences and what you saw." Aswon looked over at Tads. "I'm not doubting you, but I just want to be clear – what you saw were elementals, not spirits of the land or sky or anything like that?"

"That's right. Very definitely elementals. So that implies a hermetic mage, rather than a shaman."

"Exactly. And it's also possible that the elementals have been bound to serve for a year doing defensive duty…" One of the key differences between those shamanic users of magic who followed their various totems and the hermetic mages who were much more tightly bound up in rules of logical mathematics and complex formula was how they called upon the spirit realm. Totem users could call on the spirits of the domain they were in, calling for a spirit from the surrounding area and bartering with it for services – but no matter how well they brokered a deal, the spirit would last only until dawn or dusk, whichever came next.

By contrast, an elemental required a large summoning area and magical materials to call it forth and give it shape – but once called they owed fealty to their summoner much more tightly than a spirit did to a shaman – and more importantly they would last until all of the services they had agreed to furnish were spent or complete. If a hermetic wished, they could send an elemental to a place to serve them remotely – and the elemental would then be bound to carry out those actions for an entire year, twelve full lunar cycles.

"I don't think it's something we should count on," Aswon continued, "but it is possible that there's no mage on the island at all. All of those elementals could have been sent there to guard the place and provide magical security for a whole year, with fairly complex instructions. They certainly should have the intelligence to handle some involved commands, if Tads assessment of their power is correct."

"Yes. It's not certain that it's a hermetic mage that has summoned them. It could be a shaman who has learnt some advanced summoning techniques for instance. But that's less likely… Perhaps a Wujen or some unusual magical practitioner could have the ability to summon and bind elementals instead of spirits of the land, sky or sea. Hmmm…." Tads considered for a moment. "But I agree with Aswon. There may be no mage there at all, but I think we should assume there will be someone, and plan for it, while bearing in mind they may all be on a remote patrol and if we can get across their path without attracting their attention, we may be able to sneak past them without triggering their orders. We probably just have to have no magical power on display at all…"

"That sounds reasonable. I would expect on a base that size for there to be a very high chance of some kind of physical adept, someone in the Triad who is skilled like myself, or Shimazu. Much less chance of the same kinds of abilities as Kai, but not impossible…" Aswon shrugged. "Much more likely that they will be combat-focussed than anything else, but we again should try to keep an open mind."

"So, can you take out those elementals, and will that raise the alarm, Tads?"

"Maybe, Kai. Maybe. In terms of taking out the elementals, almost certainly. They're powerful, and not to be trifled with – but they're effectively on their own. If they are set to patrol the area, performing a remote service for their summoner – then they may well not realise that they've been taken out. If the mage is on the island, it's still not certain, but it's more likely we'd see a quick response."

"So, if we need to go in with powers and spells up, I guess we have to take them out, and go for a noisy and obvious approach. Ok. Stealthy approach – how do we do or consider that?"

"We have those potions we got back in Russia?" Shimazu suggested. "The ones from the back of that dodgy bar… weren't they water-breathing. Or supposed to be?"

"Yes, that's right!" exclaimed Aswon. "Of course, we don't know how exactly they work, or how long they last. But if they just let us breathe underwater, it should be possible to infiltrate under the hull of the boat or swim ashore without being seen – underwater visibility generally sucks."

"If we go with that, then we'll only be able to send in one or two people, probably." Aswon looked at Shimazu in confusion, waiting for him to explain why. "Well, we'll need a potion to get in, and probably a potion to get out. And if we're rescuing the kid, we'll need to have one for him on the way out too… so that's one we need to save."

"Ahh, of course. You're right. Whatever we do, we need to consider the fact that Harley's been kept prisoner for a while, and may well be injured. Even if he's not, he's likely not to be particularly well trained in stealth and evasion, though I get the impression that he's probably reasonably athletic and quick.

The continued to discuss the concept of using the water-breathing potions, working out how to sling some ropes under the hull and secure them for any swimmers to hold onto, being moved along with the boat to avoid fatigue before the moved in to shore for the last stretch, and what the chances were that the potions would grant the ability to breathe underwater in addition to normal respiration – or if they were more likely to supplant normal breathing and require the person to stay in the water for the full duration.

"We do need to consider, if we get Harley and get out – what kind of trail or story we leave. Like – say we rescue him, and are getting away… do we want an illusion of a Harley on foot run down to the beach and start swimming, then get eaten by a shark or something nasty like that." Kai saw several of the team looking at him with incomprehension. "Well think about it – if they saw the prisoner escaping, but then die during the attempt… do you keep looking for him? Or chase him? Or just give it up as a bad job?"

"I see what you mean. I'd go with an illusion of a VTOL craft – a jet chopper, or something like our tiltwing, maybe even a light thunderbird. Something that could take a few hits, and get out fast, but still be small enough that Tads has a good chance of getting the illusion in place convincingly."

"Fair enough Aswon. I'm actually quite taken with the Shark idea myself. Or some critter that can kill him in such a way they don't want to investigate. Maybe torn in half by a Kraken. Can you do Kraken, Tads?"

"I'm not sure, Kai. I could try. But I think Harley has to survive – otherwise we're consigning him to hiding in the future. He can't go back to his old life if he's dead, and if he appears again, the Triads are likely to start digging and working out who they owe retribution to. And I don't think we want that!"

"I like the idea of the fast transport, too. Especially if you play mind games with them." Shimazu added. "Just imagine if you put a Mitsuhama logo on the chopper – everyone's heard rumours that they back the Yakuza, right? That's going to really piss off the Triads, and make them wonder what's going on. Or maybe a bit more subtle, use a logo like Mount Fuji. Something culturally important and recognisable as Japanese, without belonging to a big corporation."

"Whatever we do, I think Kai needs to stay on board with Marius when we do the rescue. Marius to keep the boat ready and to be able to drive us on our escape, and Kai because he can make himself look Chinese and fit in, and hopefully con whoever is on the dock to leave us alone." They considered the shaman's words, nodding in agreement. "So that means Hunter, Shimazu, Aswon and myself potentially going on land. So maybe two of us underwater with potions, which means two of us over land or on the surface."

"We still have no idea how we're going to get in overland, though. Or how close we can get with the boat. We may have to keep ten kilometres or more away, and that's a long swim for anyone – even with a spirit helping." Aswon shook his head as he considered the logistics. "Swimming in body armour is very difficult – the point of being deadly most of the time. As is swimming in with guns and lots of hardware. It's just too difficult, too heavy. Some stuff we can get away with perhaps – things like my big rifle is in a sealed case. Even with the weight of the rifle, it'll only sink a little way before the buoyancy of the container stops it."

"If they spot us, they're likely to send out an inspection party, I would guess. If we're ready when that happens, we could maybe take the potions and get over to their boat, then use that to get ferried in to the restricted area?" Aswon suggested. "We won't have chance to rig ropes then… but I could probably hang on to the hull, and I would imagine Hunter could extend his claws and use those to hold on, without punching through the hull.

The engine started to crank again as Marius finished his checks, and a moment later they heard the sounds of percussive maintenance ringing out – then quickly get drowned out as the engine rumbled into life. A moment later the rigger appeared, looking disgruntled at how long it had taken him to get them back in action, heading into the wheelhouse without a word before advancing the throttles and swinging them back onto the right course. Slowly the trawler accelerated, gradually making it's way back up to ten knots and continuing to putter to the south west, heading for the Fortress.

"Those elementals then. What are they likely to try and do? I mean, what are their standing orders going to be?" Asked Hunter. "And are they going to be a threat to us?"

Shimazu and Aswon got their heads together with Tads, trying to work out what the likely instructions were that a competent mage would have issued. With the relatively high force of the spirits, they were likely to comprehend fairly complex commands – but that also invited the chance of confusing loopholes or strange conditions, so it was likely they'd try to keep it simple. Mostly likely they were set as guards looking for magical intruders primarily, with a more limited physical presence, perhaps something like "report and detain or attack all magical intruders, the same for any physical intruders except in the harbour". It was of course difficult to say exactly, but that simple set of instructions was likely to cover most eventualities.

They continued on their way, until about half past midnight, where they were about perhaps ten kilometres short of the island. In the distance they could see a fast boat coming towards them – or if not them, then in their general direction. It was narrow and sleek-looking, a powerboat of some kind and would far outstrip their own craft for speed and manoeuvrability.

"I'm going to drop the concealment and hide the spirits – if they've got anyone magically active on board, that's going to raise the alarm in a heartbeat!"

"Do it, Tads," Kai commanded. "Looks like you might get chance to get onboard sooner than we thought. Got your potions?" Kai looked over as Aswon and Shimazu grabbed the small flasks and held them ready, while Hunter just defocused for a moment as he examined a readout displayed on his cyber-eyes.

"Air tank full and ready to go." He set his weapon on safe and then made sure all his pockets on his equipment vest were sealed or cinched down – he didn't want to lose any ammunition or leave a trail of buoyant kit behind him! Aswon and Shimazu followed his example, making sure they had nothing loose that could float clear and give away their positions.

"They are definitely coming our way now. We have been spotted, approaching us from the starboard side." Marius waved to the right, just to make sure everyone understood, and Aswon, Shimazu and Hunter all moved to the left and crouched behind the superstructure, using the hull for cover against the speedboat and getting ready to go over the side.

"Tads, can we put some spirit protection on the swimmers please when they go over?" The shaman nodded to Kai, and started to give orders to the spirits that normally protected each member of the team, setting some up to guard them underwater and the rest to hide out of sight, ready to answer a call but without betraying that they had a mage of their own.

As the speedboat closed to a few hundred metres, Aswon and Shimazu pulled out the stoppers and quaffed the potions. Nothing happened for a moment, until they both started to jerk and writhe in discomfort, the skin shifting and rearranging on their faces. Membranes closed up over their ears, eyes, mouth and nose, and they found it impossible to breath on the surface, quickly oozing over the side of the boat and into the chilly black water. The magically constructed gill flesh over their mouths allowed them to extract the required oxygen to survive, and they grabbed at the ropes they'd slung over the side, using them to hold position.

Looking up from a metre underwater, they saw the bright flash of light as a searchlight was turned on, aiming at the wheelhouse, and creating a strong black shadow on the port side, still containing Hunter as he crouched in position. A moment later they could hear a voice calling out, amplified by a megaphone or PA system of some kind.

"You! You are late! Where have you been? Idiots!" The voice was angry and curt, demanding answers rather than inviting them. Kai was about to call out when Tads grabbed at his sleeve, tugging furiously at it from where she was hidden inside the wheelhouse.

"The fire on the horizon that Marius saw! It was probably a scheduled delivery or cargo boat! Must have been pirates that hit it. But they don't know! Probably…" Kai smiled down at her, then banished the expression from his face, and crossed over to the door. He stooped slightly, bowing his head and his body language changed as he affected the persona of a cowed and scared deckhand, suddenly facing death.

"Many apologies from my captain. We had engine trouble. It failed completely, and we had to wait to repair it. A thousand regrets, but we travel now as quickly as we can, to carry out your bidding." His voice had an edge of a tremble to it, sounding as if it knew he was in trouble and expected to suffer for it.

"Get to the base then! Quickly! The cargo is waiting, and you will have missed your docking slot. Hurry! And make sure you work quickly to load, or you will be punished!"

The light slowly moved around the wheelhouse as the speedboat started a wide turn to take it around the stern of the ship, changing direction from east to west. Aswon and Shimazu stayed where they were, watching the light slowly shift around to their side of the wheelhouse like a sunrise crawling over the horizon. Hunter slowly duck-walked around the front of the structure, keeping his position opposite them, and Marius remained at his station, Tads crouched down by his feet out of sight. Kai was the only one moving that they should be able to see, and he moved around the back of the superstructure watching the boat as clearly as he could through the blinding glare from the searchlight, occasionally giving apologetic little bows or waving in the direction of the Fortress.

Once the speedboat had swung around and completed their one-eighty turn, they powered up, flicking off the searchlight and accelerated away from them. As the fishing boat continued at a stately ten knots, their boat quickly accelerated to over fifty, disappearing into the darkness ahead.

They continued forwards, Marius coaxing the trawler through the seas while Shimazu and Aswon hung onto the rope and stayed just under the surface, shivering in the cold waters and wishing they'd had a more pleasant experience of being able to breathe underwater than being dragged through black, cold, boring and strength-sapping night time seas…

It was just coming up on two in the morning when their boat closed on the Fortress, Marius directing them into the harbour area through the gap between the two long sea walls, muted navigation lights blinking slowly and faintly. They heard a faint sound and Kai nearly had a heart attack as Aswon suddenly thrust himself up out of the water and onto the deck, remnants of the magical gill sloughing off his face as he spat out salt water and coughed violently. Shimazu joined him, also spitting out seawater that had rushed into his body as the spell started to abruptly wear off.

As Aswon flopped down onto his back, laying below the side of the boat to keep out of sight as water seeped from his clothing onto the deck below, he looked up at the grey clouds that still covered the sky above.

"I can't believe we're heading into an Island Fortress with minimal recon, no plan and outnumbered at least five to one…"

"Don't worry Aswon! You've got me to help!" Kai murmured. "What could go wrong?"

"Great. So we're outnumbered six to one, and now we're cursed…. May we live in interesting times!

A quiet snigger from Hunter carried over the radio, before the metallic sound of his rifle cocking followed it up, and the fishing trawler eased into the calmer harbour waters while the island loomed up ahead of them.