Thursday 08/09/61, Location: 35.32212, 126.74389, Time 19:00
"If we've been made – shall I drop the spell? I might need to cast something else to defend us?"
"Nein! We still need to stay hidden from the facility riggers. The other team may be a threat – the riggers definitely are. We do not know what they want, or what they will do. Aswon – was the thing you saw definitely from the other team, and not from the facility?"
"I'd say so – it was an elemental for sure, quite a powerful one."
"I would have expected an ancestor spirit or some kind of city spirit to be summoned and defending the facility if it was from the company, based on the culture we've seen, not an elemental. So chances are it's from a mage on whoever it is we're facing. Just how big, Aswon?"
"I'd say about as big as you're normally comfortable summoning if you need something strong and don't mind the headache. Bigger than your day to day spirits, but it didn't look to be as dense and self-aware as yours. Do you want me to push forward down the tunnel to see where it went?"
"Might be an idea. Maybe to the next junction, so you can check more sight-lines. But not too far, just in case – we want to be able to get to you in the event of a fight."
"Copy that, Kai, moving now. Shimazu – you might want to watch north. From my understanding of the tunnel system, if it looped round, that's the direction it would approach you from."
"Acknowledged." The throat mikes didn't pick up ambient noise – only what the wearer said, or rather sub-vocalised. But there was something in the voice, the tone or possibly the cadence that made Aswon's mind fill in the 'schzing' noise of the sword being drawn and held ready, and he had a moment to feel sorry for whatever poor elemental might try getting close to see what was going on. It was only a moment though, and he tightened the grip on his spear, getting ready to do exactly the same thing if it happened to come back this way.
"I'm at the jackpoint. Logging in now…" Hunter's voice sounded a little uncertain, which was unusual enough to set the rest of the team on edge. Kai watched over the big orc as he settled down by the side of the tunnel, sitting cross legged in the slight alcove formed by the vertical shaft intersecting with the horizontal one. The fibre optic cable had been inserted into the network access point located by the side of the ladder, and ran down to his deck, with another cable running from the adjacent port up to the datajack located on the side of his neck. As Hunter engaged the deck's circuits and projected his consciousness through the data link into the network host, his body sagged, just his autonomic functions keeping his body going while the essence of who and what he was dived through the link into the computer system.
The architecture was fairly basic – the system had some sculpting, but a lot of the icons were the basic, default ones that were common to the matrix at large. The landscape consisted of several large rivers, each with multiple bamboo trellis bridges over them, and large fields to either side. Hordes of icons were waiting in the fields, unmoving, seeming asleep or dormant, and Hunter took in the scene, trying to work out where he was, and what was going on. As far as he could tell, the workers in the fields would bring data towards the river, where 'boats' of data would be created, carried along the river as they grew and formed. It seemed a fairly straight forward analogy for the production line process. Looking further, he could see several buildings that seemed to be control nodes for particular areas, and small armoured guard towers, overlooking each river. There was also two larger warehouses, squat and with guard posts on each corner, surrounded by small moats – probably the location of the main data centres and their riches…
He moved down into one of the fields, threading his way carefully through the 'crops' towards the closest warehouse, secreting himself in the crops that waved gently in the wind, and keeping as far away from the guard towers as he could. Closing in on the moat, he started work on his persona, building a fake image that looked like a local 'lord', taking his cues from the bits of custom architecture that had been set up on the system, copying the clothing styles on the other icons and glamming them up a bit. His masking chip obscured his true readings, and taking a deep virtual breath, he strode out of the crops and walked across the narrow drawbridge to the gate with authority and certainty. As the guard icons queried his presence, he worked quickly to identify and circumvent their questions, bypassing security checks and sleazing his way into the system. Data danced back and forth, and for a moment he thought he'd blown it, as probes of sharpened data sliced through his deck, trying to detect the fake ID he'd set up. Quickly he refocussed, building a few loops and redirects in that sent the probes round chasing their own tails, giving him a few seconds to fake up some new data that would allow the authentication to succeed.
Taking out the loops, he waited, a moment stretching out for eternity between his heartbeats, then his access was approved, the guards moving back and granting him access to the data fortress. Inside room after room was laid out, stuffed full of data, boxes and boxes of parts of every imaginable size, stacked floor to ceiling on all sides of the room, neatly labelled in flowing Korean characters.
"Ok, I'm in. Got an admin ID that should last me for several hours. Looking for the data now – going to take me some time, though. Like… a lot of time. Be back soon as I can…" he minimised his comms window, and then started looking for the index to the rooms, translating the Hangul into English so he could try and parse the structure, and wishing that it was closer in structure to his native language – while he'd picked up spoken Korean reasonably well over the last day or two of intense study, he was still getting used to having ten basic vowels, eleven complex vowels and forty characters in total in the alphabet…
He saw the comms window flashing in the corner of his mind as a message was received, tagged for him and angrily sent a mental stab to open up the message, biting his tongue a little when he saw it was from Marius.
[Do not forget the suggestion Tads made. Once you have secured the data, see if you can locate the sensor packages and arrange a works order to get them shipped.] Hunter took a breath, then added it to his task list, turning back to his work. Much to his annoyance, he had forgotten that it had been suggested – and it was a good idea. After all, why not get the dedicated fork trucks to carry out the equipment and bring it to somewhere for them, to make their lives easier? He cleared his mind and went back to the first task – he needed to find the cryptographic codes first, and make sure that nobody realised they were gone, before they did anything else that might raise the alarm.
A few seconds passed in the physical world, while Hunter sliced through the data looking for the treasure trove. Suddenly, without warning, the lights in the access tunnel all came on, from the junction where Aswon was waiting all the way down to Marius, and down the cross-connect all the way to Shimazu's position. The comms channel was suddenly jammed as several people all swore at the same time, while Marius dived into the rigger network, checking on systems.
"Their rigger has done this – presumably he has seen my attempt to squash the sensors and prevent the lights detecting us, and has some idea of where we are."
"Can you take him out?"
"I could try, but that would almost certainly raise the alarm and draw the attention of the building riggers."
"Well, I've got no issue with that. I've got no cover here!" Aswon declared, while he flattened himself against the left hand side wall of the tunnel, trying to nestle in under some of the pipework. In the harsh overhead lighting he felt vulnerable – now well aware that there was a large distance front, side and back where he could clearly be seen.
"Tracking activity… the other rigger has activated some kind of defensive alert. Security drones warming up. Drek…" Marius checked the systems, still trying to keep a low profile himself. "We have four combat drones, going active. Estimate only a few seconds until rollout. Aswon, one will go active in-between us and you, Shimazu - one to the far north, the other two are further away."
"Can't you kill them, Marius?" Kai asked.
"I can. But that will definitely raise the alarm with the building riggers. They will know they have intruders, and where we are. At the moment they will be checking the system to see what has triggered the alarm, but there is no hard contact data. I need to wait until Hunter is done, we need to give him time to get the stealth part of the job complete!"
"Kai – the three of you, need to get your spirits to conceal you. They should be able to keep you hidden from the drones. Trust them – just keep still!" Tads sounded certain, and Kai nodded, as much to himself as anyone else. "I think I need to head round to you – I'll need to see you to change the illusion, and hide you. Heading your way!" She set off at a jog, hoping her own spirit would conceal her from the sensors above.
"Coming back to replace you, Tads!" Aswon called out, making her look up, spotting the long-legged mercenary come flying down the tunnel. He had an odd gait, being slightly bent over to avoid having his head catch on the roof of the tunnel, but he was still sprinting like a champ, and he had already told his allocated spirit to conceal him. It didn't help on the astral plane where his aura and that of the spirit blazed brightly, but in the physical world he was a blurry mass, unclear and ill-defined. He raced past her, heading for the doorway, to take over covering Marius, while she turned sharply at the first junction and headed over towards Hunter, Kai and Shimazu.
"Ok, we'll try to squeeze in by the ladder and stay out of the main tunnel. Ahh – I can see movement ahead. Yeah, something is going active further down the tunnel."
"We can see one, too – it's coming out of the wall, some kind of concealed shutter or something. I made it back just before it came out." Aswon reported. "It's pretty big, similar kind of size and configuration as a Steel Lynx. Tracked, heavy frontal armour at least, and what looks like a medium, possibly a heavy machine gun on a forward mount, along with a bunch of lights and cameras as well."
"Close the door, push it to!" Marius ordered, and Aswon pushed the door back into the original position, while Marius stayed connected, his own fibre cable running from the deck to the access point on the far side of the doorway. "With any luck the drone will not detect the additional cable, or process it as a threat. I doubt it has orders to try and patrol beyond the door."
"We can see a drone heading down towards us. Morphing the illusion now!" Tads called out, concentrating on the phantasm she had cast, and changing it to wrap around them and show only the empty side of the tunnel, masking the sounds of their breathing and the quiet noise of the fan on Hunter's cyberdeck.
"Two of the drones have reset – the ones on the other side of the compound. I think the other rigger has done that to stop them spotting his own team. Our side two are still active. One coming directly towards Aswon and I, the other heading for you." Marius was itching to let rip on the rigger network, but knew that as soon as he did, the building owners would know that there was either a second team present, or that there was a two-pronged attack and they needed to split their attention. At the moment, the other team were doing their best to set them up for detection – but it hadn't worked. At least not yet…"
"Crap… I think there's a flamethrower on these things as well!" Aswon had his face pressed up against the door, peering through the small gap where he'd burnt through the locking bar. "About mid-way up on the front, dead centre – there's a large protrusion, and I'm pretty sure I can see a pilot light on there."
"I can see the same thing on the one closing on us." Shimazu reported. "It's getting pretty close…" Silently his arms raised, slowly moving into a high-guard position, the sword ready to strike. He wasn't sure about cutting through the armour on the drone itself, but there was a chance he could take the barrel off the gun – or at least cut far enough through to render it inoperative…
But, between the spirits concealing them and the powerful illusion wrapped around them, the drone trundled past them, the tracks scraping and clattering on the metal track at the bottom of the tunnel, while the forward facing LIDAR and other sensors scanned the tunnel ahead, looking for trouble.
"Got it! Data download complete!" Hunter sent over the net. "And I think I may have found what the other team are here for. I got records here of a big shipment of ammo, something to do with testing a new armour compound. They've got a variety of armour-piercing, anti-vehicle, discarding SABOT and HESH rounds, all stored in building two, it seems. Going to do some live fire tests against a pre-production model sometime soon to evaluate the effectiveness."
"That makes sense – difficult to get hold of that ammo outside of a military procurement channel or security concern…" Marius responded. "Have you got the sensors moving? Where are they headed to?"
"Not yet, going to create a new work order for that in a moment, using a fresh user ID, so they can't be tracked back to this operation. I'm also thinking of getting some stuff moved. From every other building, to building two. Bet that's where their team is active right now – so I figured we can repay them for turning on the lights!"
"Nice. Ok, warming up the Broadsword. Where should I send it?"
"South side of building eight. I've detailed four separate deliveries of one package each. There looks to be a whole bunch of cargo containers out there, set up in rows. There's two rows orientated north-south, and I've sent the cargo to the east of that. Should limit fields of fire and give us some cover for loading."
"I know where you mean. Ok, spooling up now. Should be in the air in a few minutes, and over site in one more after that."
"Right, you frakkers… get ready to see some cargo!" Hunter mumbled to himself as he started thrashing the production control and order management systems, creating some little tasks that started to just randomly select components off the shelves in the store-rooms above, sending them over to building two with 'urgent' markers on the works orders. Ten metres above them, flashing amber lights flickered into life as a horde of automated sleds, fork-lifts, carriers, pull dollies and other machinery emerged from their bays, heading down the warehouse shelves and then waited for the picking arms to load them down with cargo. Doors rolled open, and a stream of goods started to flow out of the warehouse and towards the military assembly line, the rotating hazard lights illuminating the factory walls with strobes of yellow lights.
"Rigger system has gone on alert! They have detected unusual movement and door activity… and someone has taken direct control of the drone near us, Aswon. Be careful!"
Aswon had barely moved to the side of the tunnel when the sound of gunfire shattered the quiet of the tunnel. On the other side of the door, the drone had stopped, and the machine gun opened up, pumping rounds down towards himself and Marius, smashing into the steel door frame. Where the rounds hit the framework, they ricocheted off at crazy angles, spanging around the tunnel and leaving deep grooves in the concrete walls… but where they hit the sheet steel that formed a smooth surface on their side of the doorway, the rounds punched through, leaving 12.5mm holes in the steel at random, casting rays of light from the far side of the door into the darkness of the tunnel.
"I have had enough of this shit…" Marius sent a mental command to his deck, then slumped to one side, mirroring the action Hunter had taken as he sent his mind through the rigger interface into the network beyond. Flashing through the command pathways like quicksilver, he found a control node and launched a full assault upon it. The upgrades they'd purchased in Afghanistan quickly overwhelmed the security protocols, and his deck seized control of the command, sensor and control channels of the network.
The facility had rigger coverage 24/7 – the team were aware of that. Marius quickly discovered through, that they presumably had their best staff on during the dayshift – when it mattered most. The rigger that was running the network from his armoured control room was probably qualified – but he wasn't that experienced. No doubt he'd been trained, and was competent to manage the network, to monitor the drones and production lines, maintenance tasks and deal with routine issues… but he'd probably never faced a determined intruder before. And he'd certainly never had to face someone whose rigger deck had some top-quality military grade emulation units and enough flux to send signals howling over the network and to drown out his own attempts to regain control.
Marius strode through the network like an electronic god, his persona reaching down and virtually grabbing the building rigger by his lapels. With a grunt, his head descended, smashing into the opponent's own with a jolt. Marius 'felt' the impact, but he'd been the one controlling the impact, directing the force – and just like when he used the truck to go for a ram, he know what part of his 'head' to use and how hard to hit. His opponent flailed backwards, all sense knocked out of him, his icon disappearing in a flash as he fell unconscious. No doubt the massive impact would have sent enough feedback over the rigger interface that he wasn't just knocked out – but would be physically bleeding as the wave of damage overwhelmed the filters built into his deck, giving him a number of small cerebral haemorrhages.
The other rigger, the one that had been controlling the drone, felt the shockwave over the network, jumping out of the drone itself and racing through the network back to the control room, trying to avenge his partner. He, too, was woefully outmatched, though he didn't find that out until his presence burst into the virtual space where the captain's chair was located, flying across the room with fists raised to hammer at Marius from behind. Marius though, had control of the network now, and had seen him coming, and just as the rigger was about to reach him, lifted his foot and then struck out. In the real world, Marius had just enough experience to throw a few fists in a bar fight and not be humiliated. He wasn't a martial artist, and certainly wouldn't be breaking bricks in half with graceful flying kicks and devastating knife-hand strikes, or delivering the fearsome killing sword-blows that Shimazu could deliver. But that was the real world. That wasn't his arena – this was.
The upgraded rigger interface that had been implanted by Ares in the Netherlands kicked in, and his foot rose in a graceful motion that would look on par for a Hollywood simsense star – sliding out in a beautiful motion that smashed into the charging rigger's throat, stopping him dead in his tracks and driving the wind from him. Marius didn't pause though, letting the foot fall, and using it to pivot around and whip through a turn that bought his fist crashing around into the opponent's temple with a powerful scything motion.
None of that 'happened' in the conventional sense. Both he and the other rigger were sat slumped over their decks – one leaning against the tunnel wall, the other reclining in a sinfully soft powered chair. But while Marius was giving a few little twitches as the odd command made it past his autonomous override filters, the other rigger convulsed and heaved on his chair, blood erupting from his nose and mouth, as well as a few other orifices, as the massive blast of electrical feedback dumped through his filters and smashed into his body.
In the tunnel, the drone was still in position, and detected a faint heat-signature on the other side of the doorway, the outline of Aswon as he tried to take cover against the pipes. Another burst of machine-gun fire ripped through the doorway – but rather than a wide series of 'questing' shots searching for a target, these were focussed and concentrated. Powerful actuators controlled the recoil from the heavy weapon, and the line of fire blasted through the doorway, tracking downwards as Aswon threw himself flat on the floor. Just as he was convinced they were about to slam into him, the fire stopped, the thunderous report of gunfire echoing down the tunnel as if someone had captured a storm and installed it in the concrete tube.
"I have control of the network. Sending the drones back to their charging bays. All building riggers neutralised." The voice that came from the deck speaker was flat and precise, but still managed to sound just a little smug.
"Nice work, Marius. That was closer than I'd like. You guys ok over there?"
"We're good – the drone has turned around and is going past us again now, heading back the way it came."
"MOTHERFRAKKERS!" They stopped as Hunter's angry voice burst through their earpieces. "They got the ammo. All of it. Stock control system is reporting no special ammo still present in the lockers in building two. RIGHT!"
"Sending commands to open all doors, all buildings. Time to spread some chaos." Marius reported. As he was sending the commands, he felt the closing presence of the other team's rigger, a large and substantial persona. He seemed to have pretty good kit, a decent deck with plenty of power himself – and a good amount of skill. That certainly explained how he'd managed to evade the building riggers and dick around with the lights, but Marius was in no mood to mess around now. He engaged his opponent with gusto, launching a fast and furious series of virtual assaults that had the other intruder reeling back. He had certainly been around the block a few times, and was actually pretty skilled – but not enough to repel the furious attack that was launched at him. A few hits made it through, striking at him and leaving trails of data floating through the air as his icon integrity was battered – and a moment later he fled, logging out as quickly as he could before Marius managed to pin him down and finish him off. His haste didn't let him gracefully jack out though, and Marius was able to follow the data trail, confirming his location.
"They are on the west side of the base, so it would seem they did come in from near the dam and the hydro-pond. Their rigger is currently jacking out, from a tunnel location where the dam tunnel intersects with the main grid. I suspect there is a similar location to where Hunter is currently located, with an above-ground access way. He is off the network through, and I do not expect him to jack in again."
"Contact." Shimazu's voice was almost bored-sounding, quiet and without excitement. A split second passed, and then he spoke again. "Target destroyed." There was a snigger over the comms, a weird choking sound that cut off as the throat mike tried to work out if Kai was actually speaking or not, and settling for a weird mix of transmission and silence.
"Well, that's an air elemental that's not going to bother anyone again. Bad call to pop out right next to Shimazu…"
"Stand by… all doors report open, all defence drones in charging stations. Sending a reboot command. Move – we have about three hundred seconds for a full systems restart. Nothing will work, all cameras are down. Time to get out of here!"
"You heard Marius – time to go. Shimazu – up the ladder first please, make sure the coast is clear…" Kai watched as Shimazu leapt at the ladder, managing to get up about three metres vertically in the first bound, and still going up faster with the sword in one hand and just the left hand on the rungs, than Kai could manage with all four limbs. He heard Tads and Hunter following along behind, and the slapping sounds of running feet as Marius and Aswon hurried after them.
When they emerged from the tunnel into the factory, it was a chaotic and confusing environment – the lighting system was down as part of the system reboot, leaving only the emergency lighting operational, the battery backups providing enough power for staff to evacuate in the event of trouble. They knew where to go in a technical sense, but it was still the first time they'd actually seen the environment, and it proved to be more confusing and obstacle-strewn than they'd expected – especially with the scattered drones littering the walkways and access routes, warning lights blinking as they waited for the network to come back up and give them fresh orders.
The team moved swiftly though, despite the confusion, Shimazu leading the way with his sword held ready in his right hand, his massive pistol now drawn in his left, just in case. But nobody jumped out of the darkness at them, or interfered with their progress, and a minute later they crossed the building threshold, emerging out into the night sky from the southern side of building eight, onto the vast plain of concrete that made up the loading area.
To their right, they could see one of the security patrols driving away from them, accelerating to the west and the location of the other team. As the team ran across the open ground, one of the crew must have seen something – a momentary flash of movement or sign of life, as they suddenly slammed on the brakes, slowing until they could safely do a one hundred and eighty degree turn and start to head back their way.
"Keep going! I'll reshape the illusion!" Tads called out, blowing hard as she tried to keep up her speed and concentrate on the spell at the same time. The vehicle continued to head their way, crawling along at about ten kilometres per hour now, and they could imagine the crew inside squinting and concentrating as they looked around, wondering what it was that they'd seen.
"Ok, we need to get moving. If they see us, they see us… but so far, they're not seeing us." Kai spoke quickly, reminding them they were on the clock. As the Broadsword touched down, the back ramp descended and the team swarmed around the sensors packages. With a massive heave, Shimazu and Hunter managed to lift the front edge of the pallets up onto the ramp, and started to drag, while Tads, Aswon and Kai started to push, sliding the load up into the waiting cargo bay. Marius slipped past them, his deck in one hand while the other was held out, ready to operate the doors and get him to the cockpit as quickly as possible.
The team worked quickly but surely, getting the first sensor package roughly in place and then jogging back for the second. Outside the security vehicle had done a slow loop, and was now heading back to the west, picking up speed as they responded to the sounds of distant gunfire, still blind to the fact that there was a quad-jet aircraft stealing cargo right under their noses. The illusion held, and the spirit concealment was the icing on the cake, keeping them blind, deaf and happy that nothing was going on here…
[Nothing personal, chummers!] The message arrived over their comms set, unencrypted and without any kind of authentication, but loud and clear. It then repeated, in Korean, followed by Japanese, Spanish, German, French… and a whole host of other languages following along.
"That was on all frequencies." They could just about hear Marius yelling, actually physically yelling from the cockpit. "Hot-mike jamming, they are using some kind of vehicle power plant to boost the signal!" The noise continued over their comms, blasting them with the repetitive message, one language after another – the same computer generated voice used for each message. Fortunately they knew what needed to be done, and it was easy enough to co-ordinate as they got the remaining sensors loaded onto the aircraft. While Shimazu, Tads, Kai and Aswon worked on securing the loads in place, quickly applying straps around the pallets and hooking them into the rails that ran down the side of the cargo bay, Hunter ran forward and joined Marius in the cockpit.
"They're strapping in, but we're all aboard and good to go." He barely finished the sentence when he could hear the engines roaring as Marius applied power, and his displays flickered as the rear ramp raised and secured. Hunter cinched his own harness tight, then reached for the gunnery controls, bringing the forward autocannon online and slewing it round to check everything was working fine. "If they have a vehicle for their getaway, well… that's a shame." The gun display showed a round cycling into the chamber, the status lights shifting from orange to green as the Smartlink systems integrated with Hunter's cyberware.
The Broadsword lifted off vertically, starting to rise up vertically. Marius planned to take them up two hundred metres before transitioning to forward flight, making sure the rest of the team had a few extra seconds to secure the cargo before he pulled any kind of manoeuvre. As he rose up though, his sensors pinged, grabbing his attention, highlighting an inbound track from the south. The blip was moving fast – very fast, closing in at over Mach 1.
"Standby!" he called out loudly, hoping that they might hear him, and he started to move the engine pods, throwing them forward and halting his ascent, while he focussed his passive sensors on the inbound target. "Either a fighter or interceptor, maybe a jet drone – but a fast mover, coming from the direction of Gwangju." His display rippled slightly as the new arrival started to do a sensor sweep of the area, waves of EM energy lashing out across the site. "We are being swept! Going evasive!" He said a silent prayer that the load was lashed down, and then tipped the nose down, dropping thirty metres and picking up speed, heading to the west and back towards the ridgeline. It might have made a bit more sense to head directly north, away from the city and the arrival of the fast-mover – but he knew the terrain to the west, and was sure of what he might find there.
As the Broadsword flew across the base, they closed in on the western access road, and could see the scene unfolding below. A long-wheel base armoured vehicle was sitting adjacent to building two, the remains of the front gate still wrapped around the wings and ram-bars mounted on the front. Atop the vehicle was a burly looking ork, holding onto the controls for a large calibre machine gun which was busy spraying rounds back towards the gatehouse, keeping up a withering fire that had supressed at least half a dozen guards sheltering in the wreckage of the gatehouse.
Hunter aimed the auto-cannon down at the vehicle, hovering over the ork for a moment before the sight drifted down to one of the front wheels, the sight locking on to the shape and holding steady as the Broadsword swept towards them.
"Hunter – leave them. I know. Tempting… but no."
"What? I would have thought you'd be on my side!"
"I am. But think about it. At the moment they know they've been hit by a team… but they probably do not realise we were there. There will be some evidence of shooting in the tunnel, near the gate. They will find the burnt lock. But nothing that ties to us as a team."
The target lock wobbled, then disengaged as the Broadsword flew level with the vehicle, the Smartlink drifting across the vehicle looking for other components or targets to lock on to.
"Let them go. They will be a far more useful distraction to us trying to get away, than if you immobilise their vehicle…" There was a moment where Marius wondered if Hunter was going to fire anyway, but then the status light shifted back to orange as he re-engaged the safety, pulling back from gun controls. "We will not forget them. In fact, why not do a sensor lock on them now, and get their IDs. We may need info in the future!"
Hunter took control of the sensor feed as Marius turned back to his controls, adjusting height slightly and getting ready to pull up to fly over the ridge. Hunter zoomed in, getting a good profile view on the ork manning the machine gun, spotting his dermal armour and a few patches attached to his combat armour, as well as a very beefy-looking shotgun on a sling over his back. Adjusting the view a little, he focussed on the other people he could see now, emerging from building two and running for their getaway vehicle. First out was a human wearing similar style armour to the ork, though much smaller in size to suit his more normal physique. He carried a hefty submachine gun that was held in his right hand, firing at another squad of guards that had taken position at the corner of the building, the trigger held down as he poured fire in their direction whilst running for safety.
Next out of the building was a tall, slender figure, willowy and lithe. He couldn't see the details quite clearly enough, but suspected that under the hat there was a set of pointy ears to go with that build. At a guess, this was their mage – the armour looked minimal, and the clothing looked more like robes than combat fatigues. They didn't have any kind of firearm in their hands – but were holding up their hands in a strange claw-like shape as they ran forwards, as if concentrating on something.
Last out of the building was a troll, probably a little taller than Aswon. The figure was in a very heavy set of combat armour, bulky plates and armoured joints turning them into a walking fortress. Over the top of the armour was a large frame that held a light-machine gun on the end of a gas-operating lifting arm. It seemed to support the weapon all by itself, allowing the troll to spray an incredible volley of fire to the north as he ran – or rather staggered – towards the vehicle. Hunter couldn't see any gunshots or breaches in the armour, but the figure looked to be wounded in some way, as they staggered back and forth, head down as they doggedly headed for the vehicle. There was some kind of rope or wire attached to their armour, and a pallet of ammo containers was floating along behind them, being pulled on the makeshift floating sled.
"More drones coming in from the south – not as fast as the first, but still pushing four-fifty kay pee aitch. First one has slowed and is orbiting the facility, six hundred metres up." Marius announced. "No sign it has spotted us." He went to relay that to the rest of the team, then remembered the jamming was still blasting out the stupid message on all frequencies, and instead triggered the internal speakers to tell the passenger compartment what was going on.
As they slipped over the ridge, the other team made it to their vehicle and were clambering aboard, with security vehicles and teams closing in on them from the north, east and south, drawing the noose around them. The armoured vehicle was starting to pick up speed, heading towards the south-west corner and looked like they were planning on just ramming their way through the fence while their gunner kept up heavy fire – but they were under constant overhead surveillance now, and Marius confirmed that the new drones from the south would be overhead before they made it to the perimeter. Just as he slipped over the ridgeline, he spotted the four drones arriving on station, jet-powered winged drones each carrying a single missile slung under the body along with a nose-mounted cannon that looked quite similar to their own. Against the sudden arrival of that much firepower, he wasn't sure if they would make it out – but it certainly had distracted the enemy to their own movements, and he quickly dove down the other side of the ridgeline, overflying their previous hiding place and putting thousands of tons of rock and earth between them and the facility, before levelling out and streaking across the valley, opening up the distance between them with every passing second.
Slowly he adjusted course, turning to fly in a more south-westerly direction, back towards the series of islands and the twisting path he'd discovered that led him through the Korean air-defence border. The sixty kilometres to the coast went by in a flash, and he was soon wending and weaving his way just above the waves through the scattered islands and pillars of rock, before bursting out into open water and crossing the Yellow Sea on his way back towards Shanghai. Tads confirmed that there was no sign of magical pursuit, and Hunter headed back to the cargo bay and ran the bug scanner over the stolen merchandise carefully, confirming that there was no unwanted devices snuggled in with them.
When they were about thirty minutes out from Shanghai, Kai got Hunter to call The Noodles, getting clearance for them to land and informing them of the success of their mission. They were told to head for the same landing area as they had used previously, and Marius plotted the route, heading up the congested waterway and slotting in with the mass of other air-traffic, turning into the narrow strip of land that separated the two mega-ports, flying into the area of the smuggler base. A minute later, they were slowly descending down into the large clear area, cargo containers boxing them in and concealing them from outside view.
Once on the ground, a work crew swarmed towards them, a small fork truck and a cargo trailer positioned near the rear ramp, ready to receive the stolen goods and get them ready for onwards transit. The Noodles waddled over to see them, bypassing Kai and going to discuss the mission directly with Hunter – not that Kai was at all fussed by that turn of events. Gifted as he was with communications in general, The Noodles unnerved him with his strange speech patterns and hierarchical menus of options – he was entirely happy to let Hunter 'talk geek' with him.
The sensors were offloaded, and a fuel bowser was pulled in to refuel them, and once Hunter had passed over a small chip to The Noodles, he received a slightly battered-looking briefcase in return, before the greasy overweight smuggler headed back to wherever it was he hid out. Hunter grabbed the case and headed back into the Broadsword, settling down in one of the padded chairs in the passenger compartment. The first thing he did was to run the bug-scanner over the case, working slowly and methodically to examine every square millimetre of the case, before carefully opening it up and repeating the process on the inside.
The deck inside was… disappointing to look at. Lumpy and ungainly, it was made from what looked like a second hand case that had been modified and converted by some quite rough methods. The original case had holes drilled out and jacks hot-glued in place, or screwed in with ill-fitting nuts and bolts of mis-matched sizes. It looked more like something that Aswon's tribe would be found with, rather than a high-tech enclave like Shanghai. Hunter frowned, and carefully opened up the top of the case, getting access to the guts of the machine – and he paused as he took in the interior.
It was a mish-mash of components, various coloured daughter-boards attached with lengths of ribbon cables or adapters, convertors and translation chips secured on development boards positioned in-line between mass produced modules, in a hodge-podge of construction. But while the outside of the case had been bodged and crudely assembled by someone with all the skill of a school-child working on a project, the interior – despite the mass of different components – had been assembled with skill and precision. It looked like a chaotic jumble, and no doubt would give Marius an aneurism if he examined it, every single soldered joint was a perfect tiny bead, every cable was neatly routed and exactly the right length, and all of the screws and fixings internally were perfect. Either someone different had worked on the interior, or there was a strange mental disconnect between the 'important' core product and the 'ancillary' shell or casing.
He attached his screen to the deck, and fired it up – watching the display and using it in what was commonly known as 'tortoise' mode. Noodles seemed to be trustworthy so far, but he wasn't comfortable attaching the deck directly to his brain on the first run – not without running some checks first. He watched the boot up diagnostics, seeing the memory counter going up, and up… and up. Then it listed the storage controllers and modules, page after page of information flowing by, with programs loading into the copious memory provided by the deck, subsystems initialising smoothly. There was some custom code running on the deck, interfacing or bridging together various components to make them work, but as he probed the system he couldn't find anything worrying – other than the raw power of the deck and the quality of the utilities.
"How's it looking?" Kai enquired, looking over his shoulder at the screen, his eyes glazing over at the mass of random technobabble that was displayed there.
"Good. Really good. This is… at least twice as good as what I was using. It's going to let me slice into all kinds of things. And it's got a frak-load of storage and memory. He wasn't lying, that's for sure, and I can't see anything dodgy in there."
"Excellent stuff. Well… I'm thinking we should stay here overnight, get some rest, and some food. And then in the morning we can see what we're going to do next – whether that be trying to poke Spook about a meeting with that dragon again, or look at following up on the possible lead for obtaining a battle-tac unit. Or heading out to look for some new cargo to pick up and move on. But for now – let's chill, and go get some noodles. The proper, spicy sort, with some soy-meat…"
Kai led the way out of the smuggler base, heading towards the small restaurant they'd found last time, in search of a meal for the team.