The team spread out around the ranch and its grounds, each carrying out some individual research. Whilst all of them had some shared characteristics – they could all shoot or fight to some extent, they were all reasonably athletic and fit, they all spoke a common core of languages – each of their backgrounds gave them some different skills and experiences, and their vastly different upbringing and culture also gave them a different way of thinking about things, and it was the melding of that information that proved to be so dangerous.
Julius came through for Hunter, sending through a detailed image of the facility. Hunter examined the markings, determining that it was from a satellite system called 'Oracle 4B', and the image was just over a year old. That wasn't ideal, as it was possible that much might have been upgraded since then, but it was considerably better than what they had – which barely showed the spit of land at all. This image at least seemed to have about 25cm resolution, enough to show adequate detail for planning.
A winding single track road approached the facility from the east, appearing to snake around contours until it reached a fence that stretched from the northern side of the peninsula to the southern. Studying the shadows and comparing this image with the additional ones that had been taken a few minutes before and after, allowed Hunter to do a basic stereoscopic analysis and determine heights of things and gather more information that was obvious on the direct overhead. The fence appeared to be a good six metres high, a densely woven mesh supported on metal poles buried into the ground at regular intervals. A second fence ran parallel to the first about six metres inside it, but the space inside the fence appeared fuzzy and indistinct – and it was only when he looked at the side-scans that he could see rolls of razor wire suspended between the tops of the fences.
There was a clear open space then, more than twenty metres wide, until a second parallel set of fences sketched out an inner perimeter, following the outline of the outer fence. The sat-imagery was speckled with dots in this area, and as he decoded the various notation listed down the side of the scan, he could see that the colour and style references for these small circles indicated data gathered in the infra-red spectrum – indicating that these were heat sources rather than direct observations. That almost certainly meant mines, their metal cases absorbing heat from the environment… looking at the density and placement, it was fairly clear that the space between the two sets of fences was an absolute death-trap, and likely anyone trying to run across the area would be blown to bits before they'd taken more than a few steps.
The only area that didn't have this inter-fence minefield was where the single track road entered the facility, where the two fences almost met, the gap between them down to only a few metres. However two large guard towers, about eight metres high, flanked the large quadruple gates. These led to a much fainter internal track, that split out to three large buildings, each two hundred metres long and about fifty wide, with large windows and numerous doors – marking them out as the administration blocks and possibly troop barracks.
Past the three blocks was another double fence, and another set of guard towers flanking a double set of gates into what appears to be the start of the actual prison area. Inside were seven identical-looking blocks, a hundred metres long and fifty wide – built to the same structural design as the admin blocks, though instead of wide windows there were just blank walls, and only a pair of doors per block. Each prison block had an enclosed area adjacent to it that matched its dimensions, looking like an exercise yard. There was no sign of seating or equipment, no tracks or any other markings in these – just an open area of bare dirt where people could walk about and be outside.
There were also three other buildings, each as big as the admin blocks, but located near or adjacent to some of the prison buildings. The notation on the maps had two of these identified as chicken coops, and the third which was to the south of the compound and next to the water was marked as possibly being a krill or fish farm. It looked like at least some of the prisoners probably were either trusted enough to work in some kind of production facility, or were responsible for growing their own food for the facility, which would reduce traffic in and out somewhat.
Dotted around all of these facilities were more guard towers, one on the corner of at least every exercise yard, and wherever the inner fence took a sharp kink to bend around the terrain. They all appeared to be identical, a structure rising up on four spindly legs to well above the height of the fences and buildings, with a ladder climbing the middle to enter a five square metre guard post, with sturdy looking barriers on each side, allowing the guards to monitor activities below them, and if necessary, pour down fire from an elevated position.
Hunter noticed that all three of the food production areas were in the first half of the prison, to the east – closest to the admin buildings. The facility necked down to a narrow point that was only twenty or so metres wide, guarded by a double set of guard towers, before opening up again to the last three prison blocks, laid out with geometric precision on the most isolated area of the facility. While the whole site was allocated as a 'maximum security' facility, no doubt this was where the most hard-core or dangerous prisoners were going to be housed, or the ones who had caused the most problems.
He spent a few minutes annotating the map further with his own thoughts and analysis, explaining some of the technical codes and identifying features such as the IR scans of the minefield for the others in the team, and then shunted out the resulting images to each of their comms, to help them with their own planning and investigations, before diving back into his own further research.
They met up again in the early evening, having a meal and then clearing the table to discuss their findings.
"Right – I want to start things off with a general overview of the area." Kai started. "Pakistan and India have had a fractious relationship when Pakistan was artificially created, following a religious schism, forced upon them by the ending of the British Raj empire. Most of the details were lost in the crash, but it looks like a huge slice of India was carved off, and all the Muslim Indians were forced to relocate there, while all the non-Muslims were forced to relocate back into India. Caused lots of problems of course, massive upheaval and half a century of bitter sniping before things escalated to open confrontation. In the 30s, it erupted into bitter fighting, all up and down the border. Down in the south, the Indian army pushed westward, heading to Karachi and made it as far as Hyderabad, also capturing Nawabshah and all the land in between – which includes and awful lot of the most arable and best irrigated land in eastern Pakistan. Very importantly, that also captured part of the major highways leading to Karachi, including what is now known as the New Silk Road. When they also started to push in on the north end of the country, it looked like the writing was on the wall for the Pakistani military, and that ended up with a limited nuclear exchange – and that's why the Kashmir valley is such a hot-zone."
"Following that, some kind of peace emerged as commanders on both sides took a step back and a deep breath before things escalated any further out of control. India threatened a full scale response, Pakistan upped the ante and threatened to turn New Delhi into a carpark that would have made Libya look like a warm-up… but it looks like they both buckled to international and corporate pressure to step back. Pakistan have tried to push back several times without success, and after the last effort severely disrupted trade, the Corporate Court 'advised' them to stop due to the damage that could be caused to the local economies." Around the table most of the team reacted to the phrase 'advised' with winces, predictably leaving Tads looking a little confused.
"When the Corporate Court advises you to do something, it means you've pissed off all the mega-corps enough that they have, at least temporarily, banded together and present a unified front. If you're bad for business, you're especially bad for the members of the court, and they will end you. They'll end your parents, your children, the guy you once met at a party, and they will make it so your culture is something only found in the history books. It doesn't happen often, and never lasts for long – they're too busy fighting each other. But something like two powers launching nukes at each other and threatening to turn all of that land into a radioactive hell-hole would destabilise the entire world economy." Aswon explained. "So they'd have made it abundantly clear that if both sides didn't sit down and shut up, they'd be exterminated. And against the combined might of the security forces of those corps? Pfft. Not a chance. We're not just talking guys with guns here – remember the corps can afford the best wages, so that's where all the combat mages and deckers end up too. It's no good having nukes if all your silos refuse to work because a corporate decker has trashed your firewall."
"Ahh, right. I think I understand now."
"Good." Kai continued. " A state of uneasy peace now exists between the two nations - Pakistan still claims the region, but India controls it. The border runs just west of the N55 highway, which is used by India to route forces up and down, and is defended by hundreds of miles of razorwire and signposted mine-fields. This also allowed India to interdict the southern branch of the New Silk Road, the section running from Tashkent down to Karachi port, with traffic entering and then leaving the Indian controlled zone 200km later. India have played this very carefully and allow all corporate traffic through without charge and only minimal inspection, ensuring the mega-corps support their position. As a result, it should not be unexpected to spot armoured personnel carriers, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and scout vehicles on the N55, troops deployed for exercises, engineers checking the border defences, etc. The main highways have large checkpoints set up, and all vehicles except corporate convoys are subject to security checks and searches."
"On the whole, though, the cities and towns have adapted after more than two decades of occupation, and generally the Indian government has gone out of their way to treat people fairly and subsidise public works - often at the expense of other area of India, which has caused some resentment. But as a response, there is generally not much fuelling the rebellious attitudes needed for the "Free Pakistan Fighters" guerrilla groups - most of the farmers are just trying to survive and have come to rely on the government handouts, and those in the city working tech jobs just don't care."
"India has air support, located east of Hyderabad, to call upon in support of ground forces if required. Generally speaking, both sides seem to try and keep about ten to fifteen kilometres back from the border to avoid direct confrontation, though this is shorter and closer near Hyderabad and can often lead to some high-speed games of chicken. That's about the main thrust of the political and economic situation that I could find. It doesn't surprise me that we're to drop off the prisoner at Hyderabad – the city is well defended and probably has the regional headquarters for the army located there, as well as political leaders for the occupation zone, so it's the de-facto capital for the area."
"On that note – I looked at the map that Hunter supplied. I suspect that our prisoner is likely to be located in one of the three prison blocks at the end of the land area. The most secure zone. I feel that if he has friends powerful enough to arrange this break-out, then it is likely he is very well regarded."
"I actually disagree, I think. I'm working on the basis that this is a political prisoner, not military. Kai didn't say anything about major Indian offensives being routed by the Pakistani military, or losing any generals, and I don't think they'd have captured anyone with enough pull to get themselves dug out of there, unless they were political. And if they are political, and there's a chance to make use of them in the future, I think they'll be in the other area, with the factories."
"I am tempted to agree with Aswon." Marius added quickly. "A political prisoner makes more sense, given the limited information we have so far. But that just shows that we do need further intelligence in this matter."
"But I also think, given the nature of the border, that we might not want to go anywhere near that. Assume for the moment, that we manage to grab the prisoner without too much trouble – but the alarm is raised. How about instead of heading east towards Hyderabad and the border, we head west – right back towards the Arabian Sea? Out of the country that way is shorter, and potentially that saves us valuable minutes being in Pakistani airspace. If we can get out over the water, we can fly in a nice big loop, turning south and then entering India a good way past the southern edge of Pakistan. We're still crossing their border – but it's not going to be anywhere near as hot, and it's not patrolled both sides. Then we just keep circling north to approach Hyderabad from the east, not the west – and we're likely to have a much easier time of things?"
"That plan has significant merit, Aswon. It will use up a lot more fuel and time, but I estimate a significantly lower chance of intercept and risk. And not requiring air-combat and the potential for damage could save us considerable costs overall." Marius studied the map, watching as Hunter built a potential route to demonstrate. "Ja, as I expected. Only fifty kilometres until we hit the coast, very little more to get beyond their immediate borders, and a total route around 700k – compared to 150 on the direct route. But much less danger."
"Especially if we can get close to a commercial jet or some other transport – something that people really don't want to risk shooting at."
"Well, that's a working plan, then." Hunter gestured towards the base. "I've done some careful analysis on the buildings, and it looks like every one of them was built onto a floating concrete pad, to account for the terrain. And as I understand it, your spell don't work on man-made stuff, only natural rock, right?" Tads nodded to him. "So, tunnelling into the prison barracks is off the table. We can come up into a yard or the general area, but not inside. And given where all the guard posts are, unless we take care to hide, then that's not a good idea in my view. So I don't think a tunnel is the right way in."
"It would take a while, too – we would need to be so careful with the directions, given the amount of water on either side of that land. I think I'm quite happy not to consider tunnelling and go with the plan to fly over and drop down. Especially given how icky the area is magically…" Tads shuddered again.
"On the subject of magic… one thing I have found out is that the prevalence of suicide bombers and attacks of that nature are significantly more common in the area than elsewhere. Pakistan that is. I imagine it's part of the nature of religious fundamentalism." Shimazu shook his head in slight disbelief, then continued. "But it is somewhat baked into the culture, that you be willing to die for your cause. And because of that, it might be something we could use – perhaps an illusion of a heavily loaded truck, full of home-made explosives, speeding towards the gate?"
"If I can see the area – then yes, it's technically possible. Difficult because of the warping of mana there. But it does mean having a magical spell active, and that means leaving a signature in the area. If we kick off a fight, we probably won't have time to cleanse the signature of the spell, and that means we leave a means to trace us." Tads shrugged. "Now, I think we're probably pretty well protected in the Broadsword these days – the ward we have put up is… more than sufficient for most situations. But we're not always inside, and it's something I try to keep in mind."
"A display like that will also tip off the mages very quickly – remember Tads said that she had seen both patrolling elementals and watcher spirits, and both of those will detect the illusion instantly. If any of them are set to inform their summoner on detecting magical activity, then their mages will know almost instantly, and that would raise the alarm very early."
"Were the elementals and watcher-spirits not patrolling the interior?" Marius asked, looking over at Tads – but it was Aswon that spoke next, making him turn his head back.
"They were – but she only did a quick recon. We might need to watch for longer, and that's a risk if her body isn't close by. And also we don't know what they have been instructed to do on spotting anything magical – there could be all kinds of contingencies set up."
"Ahh – I see. Such as 'if you see anything magical, the watcher spirits will raise the alarm, but the elementals will attack at once?"
"Exactly."
"And how will that affect the spirit concealing the aircraft?"
"They might mob it and attack at once. It would probably need several of them, as Tads needs a big spirit to conceal the aircraft – but given a few of them, they can probably bring it down."
"The orders are probably kept simple. You don't want to say 'attack anything magical that isn't us' – just in case your mage is sick one day and another mage turns up, and then gets attacked. But you might say 'attack anything that does not carry a certain magical mark' that's associated with Muslim mages, and use that. Or something like it."
"I do like the idea of a distraction at the gates though, to get heads turning that way. I wonder if a conventional threat might do the trick?"
"I could maybe trigger an earthquake or something like it – a physical affect caused by magic, if that works Aswon?"
"Maybe. But I was thinking something like sneaking in and planting explosives, something we can set up in advance and deploy when we need it."
"If we had enough time, maybe tunnel under the gate and plant some explosives – that would give you enough time to clean or let the spell signature fade away, and definitely provoke a reaction when we set it off – and look like someone launching a jail-break from the east." Shimazu suggested.
"I did wonder about trying to make use of the dam for a similar kind of diversion – but it is the wrong side for us really. Any emergency at the dam would drain water away from the prison, not threaten to engulf it, so there is no way to trigger an evacuation of the guards."
"No – but that's an interesting idea… if we could trigger the alarms at the dam, indicating some kind of attack or incident – then it's possible we could direct reinforcements that might be heading for the prison to a much higher priority target."
"You want to blow up the dam?" Tads seemed aghast at Aswon's suggestion.
"No. I want to set off the alarms so they think the dam is under attack. But not actually be attacked. I don't know what that would do, but I'm certain it'd be bad!"
"Yeah. Releasing the hub reservoir would pretty much destroy everything in a two-kilometer-wide swath all the way to Karachi, and then submerge the city in several metres of flood-water. And that would definitely disrupt trade, and make people look for the culprits." Hunter grinned at him.
"Ok, so we definitely don't want to do that. But the idea stands. Or, another possibility, how about triggering some of the mines between the fences. Again, I'm not sure we want to use magic, as that's going to leave a pretty obvious trace."
"Wouldn't that trigger the alarms in the prison and make them lock all the doors though?"
"Probably, Tads. So it's something to do after we grab them. But if it can throw the response force off balance, and make them think other prisoners are also at risk of escape, that might help us. We just need to work out how to set them off."
"That's easy – probably. I can time a grenade from the rifle to go off just above the surface. If I'm firing concussion rounds the blast wave should simulate a footfall quite happily, and set off everything in the area." Hunter tapped the side of his face, next to his eye. "As long as Marius can keep the altitude steady for a moment, the designator will feed me ranging information and let me set things up just right."
"Another possible suggestion then, though one with some ethical issues potentially – when I go down to grab the prisoner, how about I take down a big bag of guns? I drop the bag, and grab the prisoner, and we leave. But now the prison guards are facing a bunch of quite desperate and determined prisoners who have suddenly been offered the means to stage a breakout?" He glanced around at the others. "As I said, this might not be the most moral of decisions, but it is cheap and easy to manage."
"Interesting. But I feel that we are perhaps over-complicating things with these plans. Perhaps we should stick to the simplest possible option. I fly over, drop, Shimazu jumps down with a rope or cable. We grab the prisoner, and then I fly up. Anything more complex only adds more moving parts to fail."
"I don't disagree, Marius… but it's always good to have some backup plans. Or at least to have discussed some alternatives, so if something does go wrong, even a few shouted words can let everyone know what we're trying to do."
"I would agree. I think we can make the plan you have outlined work – but I would prefer to have some backups, just in case. Though I'm also keen to point out that I'm absolutely fine with none of these plans relying on me magically, given what the area is like."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it, Tads. Somewhere nasty like that, we know it limits your offensive power. And let's be honest – if you did nothing but keep us hidden and safe from enemy mages, you're still pulling more than your fair share. I wouldn't worry about it. We all know what you contribute to the team." Tads saw several of the team nod and blushed slightly, feeling a little uncomfortable, but accepting their opinions. "So – let's work on the simple side of things. The guard towers – they're likely to have at least a pair of guards, maybe more. Our indications are they're likely to have machine guns or assault rifles, and possibly grenade launchers. That's quite a lot of firepower. Probably not enough to threaten the aircraft externally, but if they get a shot at the interior, that could be quite bad."
"The towers are two or three stories high," Hunter reminded them. "More than enough to angle down into the exercise yards, and get good lines of sight – but their upward view is going to be blocked by the rooves of the towers, so each one has an inverted pyramid dead-spot above it. If we hover over a tower, it can't hurt us. The others can, sure – but not the one below us."
"I could maybe ask some spirits to materialise as we start to drop down, and carry down something like a smoke grenade? And as we get close, to drop them in each tower?"
"It's a possible, Tads – but I think you'd be better keeping the spirits available defensively. We know they have elementals and watchers. I think it's prudent to assume that at some point the onsite mage is going to get his flock of spirits and send them over as a pack to try and mess us up – and you need to be ready to thin them out."
"I pity any spirits that make it inside, though – between us we've got four magical weapons now, so they're not going to find it easy if they do get past my spirits!"
"While we're waiting for Shimazu to do his stuff, I just need you to do a slow pivot in place, mate." Hunter grinned at Marius, then mimed hefting his Panther cannon to his hip. "Thonk… splode. Thonk… splode. Just spin me round, and I'll deal with them as they come to bear. One round per tower should do the job – they're not going to be armoured worth drek."
"Well, that'll work, too. The other concern I have is trackers and something nasty like explosive collars – after running into that situation with Spook, maybe I'm being a little paranoid. But imagine if all the prisoners have a collar on them set to detonate if they get too far from the prison?"
"You've got a way of pissing on a party, haven't you, Aswon?" Hunter's grin faded away to a scowl. "But I suppose that's fair enough. We can ask though right – we can get a message to them, and back. Just twenty-four hours each way. But that's something that should be dead obvious and easy to report."
"And if they knew and hadn't told us… no, that doesn't make sense. If they knew about it, they'd have told us, they want this breakout to work. But tracking devices? Those maybe are something we need to consider."
"We will have our jammer running during the operation, to foil any tracking from a homing beacon, as well as to stop any other tracking systems such as shoulder-fired launchers. After that, we need to run the signal scanner over the prisoner and deal with whatever we may find. That will probably be for Hunter to perform – I will be busy flying."
"Well, we've also got a decent surgeon and some magical healing if we need to get rid of any implants, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem!"
"Magical healing may need to wait until we are far away from the prison, Aswon, but sure. They may also have magical samples of the prisoners – but if they do, there's nothing we can do about that, so I'm not sure it's worth worrying about it. And good luck to them actually tracking us through our ward."
"Ok, sounds like we're sounding positive about things. Next question – what are we lifting them with – a rope? Do we know how much they weigh?" Kai asked.
"I think we need a lifting tackle. Something we can attach to a beam over the back ramp, and automatically winch the target and Shimazu up with. Not a winch like we have on the front of the truck, but something with a bit more speed. We don't need all the torque – we only need to lift Shimazu and a dude, and if he's been in prison for a while, he's not going to weigh that much!"
"Assuming he's human," Aswon pointed out. "Though again, if he's not, I think they would have said. So let's assume worst case, and he's an orc, and that he's as big as either of you are," he gestured at Hunter and Shimazu, "so we need to be able to lift the two of you, and quickly. That still doesn't sound too bad, from an engineering standpoint."
"I do not like the idea of using the back ramp. I would prefer a side door. The ramp presents a much bigger, more obvious and riskier target to outside assault. The side doors are quicker to open and close and much more discreet."
"Alright, we can do that. I think I'd need to design something that swings out – sort of like a coast guard chopper or a mountain rescue sling. But that might make it easier actually, those things already exist. Let me just get a search running…" Hunter jacked in, directing part of his attention into the matrix and setting some parameters up for his query.
"Hunter, can you also purchase some gas masks? If the guards have tear-gas or knockout-gas, that could be an issue? We want to protect Shimazu at least, and potentially the rest of us as well. If we can get one for the prisoner as well, that would be great – if not, he'll just have to cope." Tads asked, getting a thumbs up from the ork as he amended his search.
"I am predicating this whole operation on speed. My intent is to fly in, probably at a much higher than usual altitude, at maximum speed. Excuse me, maximum standard speed. Not using the special engine. But as fast as possible until we are directly overhead, then come to an abrupt halt, and cut thrust. We will drop very quickly, until we are at the minimum altitude for a safe recovery. While I level out, Shimazu should be low enough to jump down and obtain the prisoner. As soon as they are both attached to the winch cable, I would intend to rise vertically, again at maximum rate. As soon as we are clear of the roof and any obstacles, we will turn and leave quickly. We can pull them in as we fly away. Maximum speed, minimum dwell time. That will be the key to our success in this mission."
"Ok, let's think about a few questions we need answering, and get those over to Mr. Singh, and look at the nuts and bolts of the plan – and how we're getting down there…" Kai gestured to the map and the team focussed in, jotting down their thoughts and queries to build up a concise list of questions to pass on to the contact.
Marius, Hunter and Kai ended up visiting both Shirvan and Baku over the next day, taking the truck out to purchase some heavy steel beams, cams, bolts and a whole bunch of other engineering items in Shirvan from the steel mills there, then grabbing a used lift motor and wire set in Baku along with some other supplies from a safety supplier, before returning back to the ranch to begin construction. Marius didn't look happy as they started to dismantle the interior of the passenger cabin, revealing the structural beams of the aircraft, and looked even less impressed with the quality of Hunter's welding – but after a day of solid work they had a new beam installed that ran from floor to ceiling, acting as a pivot point for the lifting rig, which could then swing out through the doorway, providing the necessary strength and stability to hold the running gear for the cable set. The braided wire rope ran from the cable drum over the running gear, changing the direction of the rope smoothly and allowing it to ascend and descend past the side door.
Once completed, they did a few test lifts, Marius piloting the aircraft over the back of the ranch while Hunter controlled the deployment, doing several lifts and lowers for Shimazu and Aswon, testing not only the control system, but also how quickly Shimazu could strap in a second person and get them ready to lift. They started off simply, working up to faster deployments and more complex scenarios such as trying to lift Aswon from a prone position to simulate a casualty, or working in the middle of a smoke grenade while wearing a full oxygen mask.
At the end of the third day, they got a response from Mr. Singh, and Kai briefed the rest of the team on the new information.
"Right – he's confirmed as human, and originally weighed close to ninety-five kilos…"
"He'll be lucky to be seventy-five then on a prison diet in a drek-hole like that!" Hunter noted.
"…so the rig should be fine, and Shimazu should be able to lift him up, no problem. No explosive collars. They're not aware of any tracking chips or devices, but can't rule them out. They do think he's in one of the three prison blocks at the end of the facility, furthest into the water, but they cannot confirm which one. And on the day we're due for pickup, apparently he will be in the exercise yard at 13:45, and should be there for thirty minutes. All of the prisoners wear green jumpsuits, and he'll wear something slightly different to mark him out."
"Green jumpsuits? That sounds unusual?" Tads noted.
"Look at the terrain – it's all yellows and browns. You try and hide something green there, and you'll stand out like a sore thumb. No bushes, no foliage, nothing to hide amongst… but a yellow or orange or even pink jumpsuit will not be that distinct. The only place to hide would be the water, and that keeps you right next to the prison, rather than trying to get away."
"Sounds reasonable, Hunter. And the last thing they note down is that the prisoner is multilingual – English, Urdu, Guajarati, Nepalese… there's a bunch more here I've not heard of, but we should be able to communicate with him fine."
"I wonder what he's going to do to make himself obvious – maybe rip off the sleeves of his jumpsuit?" Aswon theorised.
"Or maybe use the sheet from his bed, or a bandage, or something else – if everyone else is wearing identical clothing, then the only person wearing a scarf or a hat or a white belt should be fairly easy to spot. Even at a distance. As long as the guards do not take umbrage, that is. I will use the sensors on the vehicle to look for anomalies, and see if we can use some kind of pattern matching algorithm to spot for such changes." Marius made a note on his own pad to look at the software on the aircraft.
"We have time for one more message each way if needed – but I would also suggest we send a code-word. Something only our target should know. The last thing I want to do is jump down into the yard and find some other person who is very quick at thinking on their feet claiming to be the right person, and we extract the wrong prisoner." Shimazu suggested. "It should be something unusual, but easy to say and distinctive."
"Heh… I know what to use, then. Get em to shout 'bacon'!" Hunter grinned at them. "No other bugger is going to be shouting that, not in a country like that, are they?"
"Well… I suppose not. Ok, that is at least distinctive." Kai shook his head a little. "Unless someone has a better idea? No? Ok then… Right, as far as I'm aware, we can still make the original date, and we're about ready to go – so we can potentially shift down that way and get some closer recon in, and make sure we can be good to go?" More nods from the rest of the team. "Right, I'll send a message back to Mr. Singh with the codeword then and confirm the day – let's get packed up and get ready to head down."
The team loaded up the Broadsword, said goodbye to the ranch and took off, flying out over the Caspian Sea as they normally did before angling down towards Iran. It was only about six hundred kilometres to their first stop, but they still didn't have a great network of fuel stations to make use of, so it still made sense to top off the tanks at the 'Ski Lift'. After a quick gas'n'go, they headed eastwards, crossing over into Afghanistan and towards the territory controlled by Daruka. They weren't planning on stopping there, but at least if something were to happen, having a contact nearby might help, or give them options.
On the way down, Marius informed them that he'd found out a little more about the situation in Pakistan, which was both good and bad, at the same time.
"All of the mega-corporations are present of course, much like they are everywhere. However two corps are notable and have a particularly heavy presence – Renraku and Saeder-Krupp. Both of these are notable in that they provide defence capability to the government. Or rather to the military junta that runs the dictatorship."
"So what's the good news?"
"That is the good news, to an extent. But also the bad news."
"You'll have to explain that one to me?" Kai sounded bemused.
"Very well. The bad news is that Renraku provides things like sensor suites and drone platforms used for border security, verification systems, expert autonomous drivers for intel, all those kinds of software things for which they are most well-known. SK provide ground and air units, arms, engineering equipment, ordnance – again, all capable, well-regarded equipment. That is what has allowed Pakistan to resist Indian incursions, and means that we cannot take their border defences or their armed forces lightly."
"But, balanced against that is corporate control and power projection. Both corporations have focussed on their own areas, and do not encroach on each other – I suspect some kind of back-room deal was struck some time ago. But both are essential to the country, and they now effectively pull the strings by controlling access to spare parts, upgrades, licences and such like. If the military start to go against the wishes of the corporations, then perhaps a shipment gets delayed somewhere, or parts go out of stock. And then – oh look – the air-wing guarding the southern border suddenly finds itself unable to fly due to a shortage of replacement fan blades for their aircraft engines. Bespoke parts that are difficult to get hold of from a different vendor. And then the military agrees to carry out certain actions, or not do something else – and suddenly the supply issue is resolved and the parts arrive. I am sure you all can imagine how it goes."
"So we're going to be up against fairly modern hardware – but they're going to be very careful with it, and might not patrol as actively as they want, to conserve their equipment?"
"Indeed."
"So how is that affecting our plans?"
"I intend to cross over from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the northern or possibly central area – well away from the target zone. Doing this today will also give us time to go to ground, and allow any alert from our crossing to fade away – and given their tight logistics situation, they are very unlikely to perform an extensive search even if they did detect us. We can make use of the mountainous and fairly barren interior to hide for a few hours, then move down to the target area – and it is also likely that no alert will be raised there for an incursion that occurred far to the north, leaving the forces on the minimum alert level."
"Sounds good to me, Marius!" Kai grinned.
They flew onwards across the barren and hostile terrain, heading for the area just north of 'Spin Buldak', the spot chosen by Marius for their final crossing. The ground rose sharply in a narrow band along the border, climbing from 1400m above sea level to about 2200m in less than seven kilometres of horizontal travel, but more importantly, the ground was fractured into hundreds of separate peaks and valleys, providing a veritable maze of canyons and routes that would be almost impossible to effectively monitor.
That put them in prime position to gently start to curve southwards, following the central spine of mountainous terrain that ran south down the middle of the country, passing east of Quetta, Khzdar, Ornach and Uthal – losing height all the time, but remaining amongst the peaks and troughs created by millennia of tectonic activity, until they finally approached the Hub Dam area, approaching from the north-west. Marius found a quiet place to set down on the shore, where they would be concealed from view in a z-shaped ravine, but from which it was only a five-minute hike to reach a good vantage point and see across the reservoir to the prison.
The journey down had used just over two thirds of their fuel, so the first thing they did after landing was to roll out the fuel barrels and replenish their supply, topping off the internal tanks and lightening their cargo load. Once they were replenished, they moved up to the ridge line with the powerful binoculars and optical scanners from their drones, and started to survey the prison. Even the best binoculars could only make out general details – the fifty power magnification making the prison appear as if it was only a hundred metres away. The even more powerful sensors on the drones reduced that further – though Marius had to keep them well concealed to prevent detection by the prison defences.
"I can see blimps – a lot of blimps. They look similar to the Condor series. Large lifting bag, fairly typical gondola slung underneath. Typical thruster arrangement, and a sensor package hung underneath. No obvious signs of weapons on these. There does appear to be a power cable coming down from the lifting bag, so we should definitely assume they have a SunCell coating on the top – given the weather conditions here, they will remain in the air indefinitely, unless needing maintenance. And there are a lot of drones there. A lot."
"How many is a lot. They're unarmed, though, so does it matter?"
"They have enough that I doubt there is any area of that prison that remains outside their surveillance footprint. That again is possibly mixed news. They will all be recording, and feeding their sensor feeds back to a central rigger area, probably in one of those administration buildings. With this many drones, they must have at least a pair of riggers on duty, possibly more – it depends on how many internal systems such as cameras and remote operation doors they have to monitor as well. But there is also a good chance of operator overload, with too many sources to maintain adequate supervision on."
"But they still don't have guns, right?" Kai badgered him.
"Correct. But the other drones will have. The ones they only launch when they need to – they will be armed heavily, maybe with riot foam, but probably with auto-firing weapons designed to kill and maim. Not heavily armoured, but with powerful motors to get them across the compound quickly, and to lay down supporting fire for the human guards. Their range and endurance will not need to be that high, as they cover only a small area. Those are the ones you will need to be careful of."
"But with low range, we just need to get away, yes?"
"Yes. But do not forget – there is a military airfield only thirty-five kilometres away from here. We still need to be fast. Distance is not the only factor at play…"
The team settled in to maintain surveillance, splitting up into shifts to keep an eye on the prison and to try and find out how it operated. Over the rest of the day, the overnight period and the following morning they had more than enough opportunity to map things out and gain some useful insights into the schedule.
Guards were ferried around the prison in off-road vehicles, something half-way between a large SUV and a small truck, with pairs of guards dropping out of the back as they passed each guard tower, climbing up the central ladder to take over from the guards already there. As the truck reached the end of the route it paused, until the relieved guards climbed down, then it reversed its route, collecting all of the previous shift to return them back to the barracks block. The guards worked three hour shifts in the towers, probably doing three hours of surveillance, then a couple of hours of indoor work or resting, before returning back out again. It must have been hell on their body-clocks and no doubt contributed to the antagonistic and hostile feel to their auras that Shimazu reported.
They witnessed a few prisoner movements, particularly some work gangs heading from the eastern blocks towards the chicken and krill factories, and it appeared that beatings for the prisoners were as random as they were brutal – and apparently entirely expected as nobody showed any concern or activity when they took place.
It also became apparent that all of the prisoners were turfed out of the prison blocks to the exercise yards on a number of occasions, forming up into neat lines in the yard for compulsory prayers, every single one of them facing almost due west. Hunter did a bit of digging on the matrix and nodded to himself as some results came in.
"Think I know why they have the timing for his outdoor appearance – it conforms with a prayer time. If they do all go out for prayers, and they're all lined up like that again – if there's differences in his dress or appearance, it should be easier to spot."
"Are there any people not taken out? I wouldn't have thought that every single prisoner would be Muslim? In fact I would have expected most of them not to be, if they're captured from outside the country? That feels… weird…" Aswon frowned at the image displayed on the screen, showing row after row of gaunt prisoner bent in supplication.
"I've got a rough count of about five hundred and twenty from each block. The design for those is to hold about two hundred and fifty by the way, so they're pretty snug in there. But each of the exercise yards has roughly the same number in. Can't say for sure if some are still inside, but if there are, it's remarkably consistent across the whole place, and that would be equally strange."
"I have performed a better count now. I can see in excess of a hundred recon drones up and performing monitoring operations, so there may be as many as four riggers on duty at any one time. But unless we can take out the network, we should assume they will have sensor footage of our assault and extraction. I do not think that should stop us – but it is something to be aware of. We have seen how footage can spread – we only have to think about Hunter and his fight in the Quarry. So you may want to think about concealment and disguise for Shimazu, as the most visible person."
"I will Marius, thanks. Hopefully they won't get more than a few seconds to spot me before I'm disappearing again."
"From what we can see, I'm actually in favour of Shimazu going down with the bag of guns as well. If the prisoners don't want to touch them, that's a decision they can make. But with the levels of beatings and abuse we've seen in the past few hours, I think that they're going to jump at a chance to get some revenge, and that's going to help us with the level of chaos that causes." Aswon added.
"Well, I think we've got all the info we're likely to get. Let's get ready for the job… time to gear up people – let's go fishing!"
They headed back to the Broadsword and started to strap on armour, check weapons and prepare themselves for the assault on the prison, the whine of the engines rising as Marius got ready to carry them into battle.