The sun was still up over the western horizon, though the colours were changing, dropping from a bright yellow to a warmer orange as it dipped, sending long shadows across the water. Marius flew at around a thousand metres, extending his visibility somewhat, trading stealth for increased sensor range and collision avoidance, as they flew due north. The island slipped by to their left, and soon they were out over the deeper waters of the sea – or as deep as the South China Sea got, anyway. The water colour reflected the relative lack of depth, being a brighter blue than the deeper oceans to the east – though the surface also sparkled with the rainbow hue of chemicals and toxins, plastics and other pollution that sometimes clung together in huge patches and marred the surface.
Aswon's comm buzzed as Spook called him back about ten minutes later, and he answered on speaker rather than patching it through to his headset – the benefit of the almost airliner-style interior of the Broadsword compared to the old tilt-wing which had definitely been in the 'no-frills' category.
"Hey Aswon. I've got a deal sorted – kinda. Local guy, runs a production company. Dealt with him before, for several years, and he's solid. He runs a little sweatshop not too far from me, and supplies a bunch of tailors and outfitters in the area with some good quality stuff and some bespoke items." "That sounds good – but your face says otherwise… what's the issue?"
"The tricky bit is, he doesn't have the cash to front for the whole deal. Nowhere near. We danced around the question a bit, but I reckon he could probably only pay up front for about thirty kilos of product, if we're talking about four hundred per kilo as a reasonable price. That's gonna wipe out his cash reserves, and he'd be reliant on selling the stuff quickly to pay his bills and make a profit. Of course, if he can, then he could probably pump that profit back in, and maybe do forty-five kilos, then a bit more, and so on… but he just doesn't have the collateral to buy the whole shipment."
"I see. Is there anyone else that would?"
"Possibly – but the people that have that kind of cash on hand probably have a lot more bargaining power, and you'll see a low price being offered. Depends what your objective is – short or long game."
"Probably the long game – this is for the client, and they want the best return they can to finance their operations…" Aswon looked over to Kai and got a nod of confirmation as he described the situation.
"Well, like I said – I've worked with him for a few years, and he's solid. I'd trust him to be honest with the deal. It depends on how long you can afford to wait, and what you're after."
"That's a good start – I trust your judgement. I don't think we're in desperate need of a quick sale, in fact we can afford to wait. So if we can find a way to drip feed the supplies to him, and let him churn through it as normal and sell it for a good price – we'll take it. Kai's indicated that he's willing to front the likely profit from the whole deal for our mutual friends, and we can just take the recoupment as it comes in. Minus any commission for whoever helped broker the deal or administer the warehousing, of course." He grinned at her, not quite the full mouth baring of the fangs, but enough that his implants showed.
"I'm sure we can work something out, then."
"Do you know how many metres of cloth it takes to make a suit? Maybe we could take part of the deal in some new fancy threads. We lost a chunk of our stuff when the last aircraft went down, so that might be worth it for us."
"I have no idea – metres and metres I would guess, but I can ask the question and see if I can work out a deal?"
Aswon was about to respond, when the speakers in the compartment suddenly crackled into life with a single warning word from Marius.
"Standby." Aswon paused, counting in his head before he resumed his conversation. He didn't even get to two seconds before the Broadsword started to pitch sharply downwards and the sounds of the engines increased noticeably. "Achtung. Enemy sensor sweep." A heartbeat. "Lock-on! I have no target detected!"
"I think I see something!" Tads called out as she twiddled the controller, spinning her view around and trying not to get disoriented. "There's some kind of line or stick in the water, something made – not natural. Just behind us now."
"Fire control radar. ACTIVE LOCK – ACTIVE LOCK!" They grabbed hold of their seats as the Broadsword swung violently over to one side, banking hard for a few seconds, before banking back the other way again just as quickly. "Still locked on, not just tracking, active emissions, something below and behind us now. Suspect we have a sub with raised ESM mast." The Broadsword swung up and down quickly like a car cresting a steep rollercoaster hill, trying to throw off the sensors that had managed to penetrate their stealth systems and seemingly lock onto their signature strongly enough to stress Marius out.
"Spook, call you back." Aswon flicked the commlink off, shutting down the outgoing feed. He wasn't sure if the signal was that detectable, but he didn't want to take the chance – but with the other hand he pulled on the loose end of the safety webbing on the harness, cinching himself in a little tighter. Kai and Shimazu followed suit, though Tads was still focussed on the headset and trying to spot whatever was in the water behind them. He glanced over at her, and was relieved to see that she was firmly strapped in place already – unsurprising really, given how risk-averse she tended to be.
"Talk to me, buddy…" Hunter kept his voice calm, almost bored sounding, as he worked the controls, bringing up the electronic warfare officer's systems and mapping out the area, trying to make sense of what was going on.
"Additional signals – one north-east, one south-west. Frak…" Hunter waited patiently, looking at the screen and watching as strobes of energy started radiating across it, ripples of sensor sweeps. "Additional sensor sweeps, something climbing above the horizon line – probably drones or maybe helicopters. Bracketing us, steering in from the first lock." The Broadsword flipped over to one side, diving through a tight corkscrew manoeuvre but the enemy vessels stayed resolutely locked on. "I think we have some of those Japanese destroyers in a picket line – and they have left a gap open, but had a stealth vessel or submarine lying in wait, watching for someone to exploit the gap."
"So do some fancy flying drek?"
"I am trying. But the vessel below is at very short range, and their sensors are too powerful. They have burnt through our ECM and ED signature – we need more range."
"I don't want to alarm you then – but we've got missile signatures. One from each horizon. Scratch that – four in the air…correction, six. Six inbounds, closing fast!"
"Hang on." Marius took a mental deep breath and then pulled up, redlining the engines and powering up in a vertical climb. He'd used the manoeuvre before to throw off a target lock by robbing the tracking systems of important vector changes, but with the additional sensor feeds lashing at him from both port and starboard as well as behind and below, the warning shrill indicating hostile fire control radar remained constant in his mind. He threw the controls over, suddenly corkscrewing violently as he tried to throw in some aspect changes as well to shake one or two of the additional sensors off lock. A tiny part of his mind wondered if he should have warned the passengers in the back – but there was no time for that.
"Inbound tracks still accelerating…drek, they're really smoking… ok, settling down, closing at one point three klicks per second, but they're splitting up. South side has two going high, one low… north side is two low and one high."
"They really want us dead then…whichever way we turn now, we will move out of one basket into another." Hunter puzzled for a moment on what Marius meant, then realised he was talking about the seeker heads for the missiles – they were probably using their own on-board radar to track them as well as the signals from their launching vessels, and any movement to escape out of the 'view' from one missile would move them closer to the centre part of another missiles radar. Closing at Mach four, the missiles were eating up the distance quickly, even the ones that were coming in on wider bearings.
"Tads – I need mist, now, now, NOW."
"Trying – but…" there was the sound of heaving over the radio as the shaman struggled to fight the horrible mix of sensations that battered her body. She'd been watching the strange target in the water when Marius had started his climb, and had been looking straight 'down' and when Marius had begun his desperate rolls, it had sent her viewpoint spinning around the axis of the craft in a tight enough spiral to make her dizzy, and her inner ear fluid was sloshing around all over the place, making it difficult to concentrate. She did her best though, flashing out mana to envelop the exterior of the craft in a large blob of mist – not realising that they shot out of the range of the mist only a second or two later, even in the steep climb.
"Impact in… twenty seconds." Hunter warned.
"Unable to shake them." For the first time ever, Marius sounded rattled, as he ran through his options. He was pretty sure the target below them was a submarine now from the profile he could see – or rather not see – on his own sensors. But they were close enough that the blast of energy from their own surveillance mast had him illuminated so strongly he wasn't able to shake them. They must have been part of a tactical military network, feeding their data take to the other vessels, as they'd also managed to lock on to him incredibly quickly – and now they had him in a three-way pincer. Like the spread of missiles, any motion he took to escape from one of them just moved him closer to another.
A cold trickle of fear ran down his spine, making the aircraft shudder as the relentless spikes of energy lashed at him, making him feel like a moth trapped in the light of three powerful torches, fluttering helplessly in the sky. His weapons were useless here – the autocannon was unlikely to do much against a semi-submerged submarine unless his aim was exceptional – but there was no way he was shooting down inbound missiles, and cutting off the submarine's lock wouldn't help now with the other two craft also dialled in.
A thought flashed through his mind, a sudden flashback to weeks before. After the strange meeting with the druids, and being taken to the airbase, being given the Broadsword. The Air Force personnel showing him the key points in the manual, going through operations. Flight dynamics. Range. Defensive systems. Payload considerations. Fuel types. Images flashed through his head one after another at a dazzling speed, his photographic memory replaying them in a dizzying montage. There was something… something he'd heard.
Ahh.
He remembered.
The alternate engine. He'd not had much chance to investigate it yet. Not mentioned it to the others. It was some kind of system mounted in the belly of the fuselage. He didn't know what it did, or how it worked. He had no idea if it would even help in these circumstances. But he didn't have many options, and those he did all sucked…
Mental fingers reached out and 'flipped' the safety switch out of the way and 'pressed' the controls.
[Oh no, laddy. Can't do that now, can we? Gotta go a lot faster!]
The voice resonated through him, the primitive personality of the aircraft's expert systems chiding him for being stupid. Not the generic female voice that most airlines favoured for issuing their warnings, still known at 'Bitchin Betties' by military pilots, this was a male voice, with a gruff tone that still somehow managed to carry a strange lilt to it.
[Minimum start speed three hundred metres per second]
Marius flattened the controls, stopping their spin, and then pulled back, arcing over the top of the climb into a loop and then aiming straight down towards the sea below him. As they crested the loop, for a few seconds they floated, hanging in their safety harnesses under effectively zero-g, before the acceleration and steep descent pushed them back into the couches once more. A part of his brain that wasn't either concentrating on flying or gibbering in fear worked out the maths – he needed to be going close to 1,234 kilometres per hour. His normal max speed was about seven hundred kilometres per hour, with the engines maxed out and dumping the maximum fuel into the combustion chamber. It wasn't quite double – but he wasn't sure if he'd make it.
Three thousand metres altitude. He didn't know if that would be enough, but he kept the engines maxed out, trimming all of the control surfaces as best he could and giving them the cleanest profile he could manage. Their speed climbed, numbers spinning around wildly as they picked up the pace, hurtling down towards the blue waters below in a seventy-degree dive.
"Yeeee-haaaaaaw!" The cry of excitement burst out of Hunter's lips as he saw the situation, his eyes flicking from the view ahead to the electronic screen showing the blips of the closing missiles to either side. Spread out by half a dozen kilometres vertically and horizontally now, they were starting to curve their courses back in, closing the brackets and approaching from multiple angles.
[Overspeed.] Marius smacked the squelch button with a stray thought as they sped past seven hundred kilometres per hour, still accelerating. The engines were now spraying fuel into the rear of the combustion chamber – not quite a fully controlled afterburner, but giving him more thrust at the expense of ruinous fuel consumption and no doubt some horrific wear and tear on the airframe. Not that this was a concern with half a dozen advanced missiles tracking him doggedly.
"Ten seconds to impact!" Hunter giggled. He wasn't sure what Marius was up to – but he was pretty sure now they were more than a little bit screwed. His natural 'couldn't give a shit' attitude burst through any fear he might have had, and a grin spread across his face. He was pretty sure his grin was about to be spread across a square kilometre of water as well, but there was nothing he could do about that, so he might as well enjoy the ride…
The speed continued to climb, as the altitude continued to fall, Marius trading potential energy for kinetic, coaxing everything he could out of the engines while in his mind he worked out what the minimum pull-up altitude was. Neurons fired and numbers danced through his imagination, trying to work out if this was going to work.
In the mental vision that was the reality projected by the rigger interface into his brain, the light next to the switch swapped from red to green, and he stabbed at it. Ripples ran through his body, as covers snapped back out of place, exposing the machinery under the passenger compartment, then he felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach as hydraulic rams thrust the machinery out into the airstream. Immediately a huge volume of air was rammed into the front scoop, routing around a large spike that was fixed into the centre. The air was compressed immensely by the huge pressure, squeezed down into a tiny fraction of the space it would normally occupy, rushing around the spike into a long, slender tube.
Two angled slots flashed open, and sparks flashed from the ignition rings, lighting the rear end of the fuel rods that lay on either side of the tube. The mixture was an exotic blend of Polybutadiene acrylonitrile, Ammonium perchlorate and Beryllium fluoride, carefully mixed, blended, baked and formed into two solid boosters.
They ignited, sending flames shooting down into the tube, interacting with the incredibly compressed air and igniting the mixture, sending an intense impulse of energy streaming out the back of the engine.
[Oh… a ramjet. Sweet.] Marius only had time for the briefest of thoughts before the plane slapped him, hard. The impulse of energy drove them forward, riding the jets of intense energy that erupted out of the rocket-style cones at the back of the secondary engine. There was no colour visible, the flames emitting only a particularly narrow burst of light in the UV wavelengths – but the intense heat made the air shimmer and crackle, disrupting the view through it. Marius pulled back, hard. He'd not known what was going to happen, and he'd not accounted for the sudden burst of acceleration in his plans. He 'felt' the wings creak and shake as he asked them to perform the almost impossible, the entire aircraft giving a shudder as it compressed slightly from the battering.
Slowly they levelled out, almost clipping the surface of the sea. The pressure wave built up in front of the nose of the aircraft actually depressed the water level below it, creating a huge trough that drew an arrow along the sea showing their direction of travel, the waves slapping back together was they passed and then spreading out into a v-shaped wake behind them. Marius suddenly realised they were now heading directly back towards the sub that had spotted them, and pulled back on the stick a little more – just enough that they flashed over the raised ESM mast with a few metres to spare, before easing off into a slow climb as the speed continued to rise. He detected the sudden cessation of the sensor lock – but didn't see that it was because the sonic shockwave created by their passing had shattered the antennas and sensors that had been raised out of the conning tower…
"Impact in 3….2….1.5…. 1….1.5….1.8? Impact in 2… 2.5…. Wow…. Pulling some Gs here man…." Hunter grimaced as he felt his weight increase, growing heavier and heavier with every passing moment. "Oooof, oooof, hnnnng…." He tensed his legs and stomach, as if he was trying to do a crunch in a sitting position. None of them had the g-force suits on that military pilots wore for situations like this, with a network of pipes running through the legs to squeeze and compress them, driving blood out of the legs and up towards the brain, keeping it supplied with oxygen to avoid g-loc – or a loss of consciousness caused by g-forces. But the tensing of the muscles would help. A tiny bit. It was all he could do… Even so he could feel the edges of his eyesight trying to tunnel in a little, and he had to focus hard to keep watching the display as his apparent weight increased. He was strong and pretty tough – but it was hard to do anything when you weighed five times more than you were used to!
The incoming missiles had seen their target accelerate, turning on their programmed flight plans to follow and close upon it. Each of the missiles still had fuel left in their rocket motors, and were cruising along at Mach four, swallowing up the distance and getting ready to detonate their proximity fused warheads on either side of the target, sending a cone of fragments to scythe out through the engines and wings, consigning them to death. The robotic pilots on-board didn't care about their own destruction – their programming was clear and incontestable. Seek – and destroy. So when the target suddenly leapt ahead, gaining speed at a dazzling rate, they didn't act with surprise or amazement. Instead their dogged little processors did the only thing they could, they gave chase. Settling into a loose swarm of missiles, they continued to close for a few seconds until the Broadsword was only a hundred metres ahead of them – almost close enough for the laser fuses to detect and trigger the final attack sequence.
But then the range started to open. Slowly at first, but then increasingly faster as the quadjet powered ahead of them, riding the colourless flame of the tri-combustion engine that had deployed underneath it. Picking up speed and accelerating in a smooth curve, passing Mach four and still going.
[Oh… not a ramjet. Scramjet… neat.] Marius found it odd that some part of his thought process was finding the spare time to think about such things, while the rest of his mind concentrated on not slamming them into the ocean, or working out how to control the aircraft that now had delusions of being a space-craft – or so it felt.
Marius eased off the controls a little, barely touching the inputs, almost caressing them with his mental fingertips as the plane accelerated. Past Mach five, only starting to lose acceleration as they eased towards, and then just past Mach six. He nudged, as gently as he would try to touch Nadia, and the tiny amount of control surface that was raised sent them off into a gentle bank, arcing away with about one tenth of a degree per second direction change.
Around him in his virtual control chair, all kinds of alarms and gauges were firing up, and he could now see the alternate fuel system display – and the fuel capacity dropping like a stone.
"We have sixty seconds of fuel remaining. Hang on, trying to increase turn." He eased the stick over a little more, coaxing the craft into a tighter turn, his senses spread out all over the aircraft, looking for trouble. They must have built the aircraft to cope with some of these stresses, or they'd have never installed the engine system – but he could feel how much stress was being placed on the airframe and he was getting all kinds of feedback and responses that indicated that things were happening – he just had no frame of reference for what they were. For someone normally so in control of his environment, that was more than a little worrying.
The Broadsword turned, though, handling the change in direction like a champ. The leading edges of her wings glowed a fiery red as the heat levels built up, and with every passing second, the glow spread further and further back on the wings. Inside the structure the fuel pumps were running flat out, forcing the fuel from the main tanks through a network of tubes that lined the wing surfaces, absorbing some of the heat and carrying it away, acting as a cooling system and dumping the heat into the main tank. Marius keep increasing the turn rate carefully, until he detected a weird little harmonic buzz, then eased off a little, then starting to level out as they finished their enormous U-turn through the sky, heading north again but now a significant distance off their original base course. Behind them the inbound missiles detonated one after another as their on-board fuel supplies ran dry, highlighting the sky with angry bursts of red and yellow flames that turned into black clouds rising up into the air.
In the back, Aswon and Shimazu were struggling, both of them breathing in short and violent bursts – but their mastery of their own bodies and their countless hours of practice managing their breathing kept them conscious and viable. Kai and Tads were not so lucky, barely hanging onto their senses, and their arms and legs dangled out ahead of them as the incredibly acceleration smashed them against their harnesses. No doubt for people that actually knew what was coming, the forward-facing seats were preferred, where the headrests would support the body, rather than leave it to dangle.
"Missiles are gone – can we slow down now?"
"Negative. Solid fuel rods. Once lit, they burn until they are exhausted. Twenty-two seconds left."
"Oh.. ok. Cool." Hunter let the grin return to his face, and just relaxed. Now that they'd hit their top speed and had stopped their turn, he weighed something he expected again, and he could enjoy the ride – though over the open sea there was not very much to look at, to really experience the stupendous speed they were travelling at. "You all ok in the back?"
"Mostly. Kai and Tads took a battering. Some warning would have been good."
"Yeah, probably would have." Hunter responded to Aswon cheerily. "Don't think Marius had many spare moments to sort that out, though. But I think we're away now. Looks like we're heading for Hong Kong still, from the map anyway. Marius is concentrating on flying, though."
"What happened?"
"I dunno, he's not said yet. But I think he found the afterburner or something. Either way, the missiles are long gone behind us, and we are SO outta range of those enemies!"
"Ok… well, when Marius can spare us some time, it'd be good to know just what the hell was going on. But only when he's less busy…"
"Next….time….. I'll…I… yeah. A net spell. Next time. Though hopefully never again." Tads managed to get her head back against the head-rest and concentrated on breathing, and trying not to hurt so much. The harness had dug into her flesh hard during the moments she'd suddenly weighed five or six times more than she was used to, and nothing she'd been able to do, had a hope of stopping that. It was a most unwelcome feeling, and one she hoped would never happen again.
The solid motors burnt out, their fuel expended, and the Broadsword immediately started to slow, air-resistance realising that it had a chance to reassert its authority now and show this metal intruder who was boss. The Mach counter wound down rapidly, then disappeared from the heads up display, replaced with the more normal speed counter, ticking down slower now, but still dropping towards their normal cruising speed.
"So how fast were we going, Marius?" Hunter asked.
"We topped out at just over seven thousand kilometres per hour at peak impulse. Just about Mach six. I am cutting the engines back to about 75% thrust though. I have no idea what that has done to any of the systems, and I do not want to risk additional damage."
"Neat… so what the frak was that?"
"It appears to be a Scramjet. A high performance, single-use auxiliary engine. The fuel is completely expended now, so we will need to find a replacement. That is likely to be difficult. But it uses some kind of rocket propellant I assume, to provide a single burst of incredibly high speed. My guess is that these aircraft were designed to approach the theatre of battle at a high altitude, then dive to gain airspeed, get fast enough to compress the air to the point that the engine will ignite, and then perform a streak penetration through whatever air-defence system they are up against. We covered over a hundred and twenty kilometres while the engine was lit – which should get through most SAM barriers I have ever heard about."
"What about getting out?"
"Well, once you have gotten in, no doubt the squad or platoon loaded in the back would deploy and go to work on the enemy infrastructure, or take out their command and control. Maybe they were designed for one-way missions, and then to wait for conventional forces to catch up. But being able to fly faster than just about any missile or bullet out there is certainly a useful trick."
"No shit…"
"So what's the fuel source for this?" Aswon called over the radio, listening carefully as Marius explained what he knew – it wasn't complete information, but there was some information to be gleaned from the flight logs and system status now the engine had fired, and he relayed those back. "Ok, well, there's good and bad news, I guess. The bad news is that we've probably left a clearly detectable trace of our flight path that's detectable by anyone doing air samples. The good news is that it's not going to last too long before the air currents start to dissipate that trail and cover it."
"So you know where we can get some more of this stuff?" Marius asked.
"No – not a clue. Not beyond a chemicals supplier anyway. I can just tell you a little bit about it from a chemical perspective."
"And that is?"
"Well, beryllium fluoride is a bit nasty, to say the least. Burns with a colourless flame, very toxic, very reactive – at least from what I can remember. But also very energetic. I've got no idea about how it interacts with the other stuff – but maybe it's some kind of booster or enhancer."
"The other two are fairly common components for rocket engines – commonly called PBAN-APCP. It's actually available to buy to licenced model rocket flyers – though the quality isn't going to be as good as for actual launch companies. And probably not the size either. I'm just checking on the matrix now… yeah, you can buy PBAN-APCP motors in a bunch of different sizes, without restrictions for next day delivery in a bunch of countries, and in a bunch more if you're a member of some kind of model rocket club or organisation. But they're limited in size – like they're fifty grams, or a hundred grams…"
"I doubt we can just stack up smaller motors to make a larger one, can we?" Marius queried. "We're talking motors in the tens of kilos here, so an order of magnitude bigger…"
"No, the combustion profile would be all wrong. But we might be able to get a lead on some suppliers. But the beryllium side of things – that's pretty unusual. I'm still digging here, but pretty much everything I come across has a dual mix – propellant and oxidiser. This tri-mix stuff is pretty unusual, and puts it into an unusual niche."
"Could we ask someone like Ludmilla for help sourcing this stuff?" Tads suggested. "She seems to be science-focussed. Lots of biology anyway, with the scorpions and drugs… but I've heard people talk about bio-chemistry and things like that?"
"Perhaps. Her or Germaine – I'm sure she'd have contacts she could poke to get some supplies." Aswon thought for a moment. "Or maybe Spook. Speaking of who, I need to give a call back, assuming we're in the clear, Marius?"
"Yes. There is no way those surface contacts are catching us – or tracking us, to be honest. Unless they had a satellite lock on, I cannot see them being able to vector pursuit aircraft onto us." Marius sounded convinced enough that Aswon had no cause to doubt him and called Spook back.
"Hi Spook, sorry about that – things got a little exciting."
"It sounded like it – you ok?"
"Yeah, ran into a Japanese patrol, there were some missiles, things got a little hectic. But… turns out that we can go fast. Like… really fast."
"Fast?"
"I don't really want to get into it right now… but perhaps over a bowl of noodles and something strong to drink. In a big glass. Because we might need some new supplies because of that. But it's something I'd rather discuss face to face. Going back to what we were talking about though – if you're happy that your contact is on the level, and you can trust him – we're happy to drip feed him the shipment. If we can get some assistance from you to manage and orchestrate that, for a suitable fee, then that's great."
"Sure, I got you covered. When are you coming in?"
"I think we've got about two hours of flight time until we get back to Hong Kong?" Hunter heard him and helpfully flashed up a map on the screen, confirming his estimate. "Yeah – that's about right. Are we able to make use of the same landing point?"
"Sure – they won't have gotten any further with the foundations in this little time, I'll make a call and confirm my man can make the arrangements to keep people away from the area."
"Great. Though I think Marius does want to get the bird checked out – thanks to what happened."
"Well, there's no facilities there, as you know. I can make some calls though, see if I can find a civilian airfield with some flexible arrangements and a workshop. Might take me a day or two to sort out, though."
"Great stuff, thanks Spook."
"No worries. What are friends for, right? Now, how much cargo are you bringing in?"
"About four hundred kilos all told. Loose silk thread bundled into a kinda figure-eight shape, and in all kinds of different shaped and sized boxes."
"Ok, I'll get a van then, not the minibus. Some of you'll have to ride loose in the back, though."
"Shouldn't be a problem. I think our shaman can take care of that issue." He cracked a smile at Tads who just sighed at him, but gave a little nod.
"Alright, let me get things moving my end. I'll be in the area a little after nineteen hundred, give me a call as you're coming in?"
"Will do – see you then!"
They flew onwards, Marius keeping an especially tight sensor watch in case there was any high-altitude pursuit or monitoring going on – but he detected nothing beyond the normal levels of commercial traffic in the air and over the sea, with hundreds of freighters plying goods of all kinds back and forth, while large jets and the odd supersonic transport streaked by overhead. They were actually a little later than expected into the building site, Marius having diverted far around the international airport which seemed especially busy, with a large number of passenger aircraft built up into a landing stack and awaiting clearance, creating a cylinder of circling aircraft that rose up high into the sky.
They touched down at 19:15, and could see the same security guard already in place on the edge of the massive concrete base where the new tower would soon be built, already settled into a chair with a blanket tucked down by his side. He gave no sign of hearing or otherwise detecting their approach, which was somewhat reassuring – the spirit concealing the aircraft still doing a good job against more mundane and lower power detection methods, it seemed.
They climbed out of the aircraft, calling over to the man and getting a wave of acknowledgement, and then starting to unload the supplies – Spook had already told them she would be there in a few minutes, so they might as well get things ready. But while the rest of the team worked on that, Marius was checking over the aircraft, paying particular attention to the front of the wings and the engines, especially where he'd detected that strange harmonic during their wide, high speed turn.
"Hunter! Please come look at this." Marius was standing on the ground, looking upwards at the wing above his head, frowning deeply, while both hands rested on his hip. His eyes were focussed tightly on some kind of discolouration on the wing, studying it intently with his cyber-enhanced vision.
"Wassup?"
"We have a discharge, some kind of fluid. It has streamed out of the bottom of the wing, and been blown backwards, staining the wing covering – but I do not know what it is. I do not think it is fuel – though it is possible, perhaps.
"A leak? Maybe as a result of expansion due to heat?"
"No – it is too regular. Look, there is another, twenty centimetres to the left, and the same to the right. Perfectly spaced. This is some kind of planned system – not a leak, I think."
"You're right… oh, they're all along the leading edge… hmmm." Hunter moved along the wing, also zooming in with his eyes as he examined the stain that ran backwards from the leading edge, spreading out in a roughly feathered wedge over the surface of the aircraft. "Yeah, far too regular to be random chance – this has to be planned. I think I can see tiny pinhole-sized nozzles between some of the polymer panels and sensors, too… hmmm." He stopped and thought for a moment, his brain running through possible options. "Same on both wings?"
"Affirmative."
"Ok, I have a working theory… what if there was a layer of some kind of aerated ceramic foam, or something like that, implanted into the front edge. Something that can withstand a lot of heat, but that will eventually melt. Or possibly start to sublime… I'm…. I'd have to crunch the numbers. But this Scramjet thingy is a one-use item, right?"
"That appears to be the case, yes. At least until it is fully refuelled, and probably recertified."
"So that means changing out consumables, replacing worn parts, that kind of stuff, yes?"
"Again, that would be the case normally. But this is all unknown to me operationally. So in theory – yes."
"Ok, so if there was a team already having to open up the bay, and pull the engine out, change components and do all that kind of crap – you could have another team busy opening up the wings, and replacing these… well, think of them as heat sinks, perhaps. Something that not only absorbs the heat, but is then turned into a liquid, or maybe even a high pressure gas, carrying that thermal energy away from the leading edge of the wing, and then spraying out of these nozzles."
"That sounds plausible. And they could be manufactured in bulk and stored ready for deployment during servicing. That means we need additional resources, it seems, to prepare for using this system again."
"Nothing personal, mate – but I hope we don't need to use that again. Fun and all, but it means that the drek has not just hit the fan, but half-buried it."
"I wish I could argue with you…" Marius paused, turning to face the south as he spied a medium-size panel van bouncing along the rough construction road towards them. "I hope that is Spook."
"Hey slim!" Spook called out as she wound down the window, staring at Aswon. "Is it still Thursday?"
"Hey Spook – and yes. We went fast, but we didn't slingshot around the sun…" They shared a smile, lost to the rest of the team, but presumably known to both of them. "We've got the stuff pretty much ready to go. Is it going to work to stay in the same hotel as last time? And we're going to need access to a top-end chemist at some point – I'll explain why on the way."
"Sure, we can sort that out. Let's get you loaded up."
"Good, thanks. I was chatting with Kai on the way in – is it worth passing on the first few kilos to the customer, to get him started and establish our credentials?"
"I've already got the meet set up. Come on now, Aswon – this isn't my first rodeo…" Aswon held up his hands in surrender, bowing his head slightly in a wordless apology.
"Are you staying with the Broadsword, Marius?" Hunter asked, actually expecting the pilot to want to stay and fuss over the aircraft.
"No. I think I need to take a bit of a break, actually. Today was… unusual. I think a night off is earned."
"Well, it's got a guard," Aswon gestured at the security guard, sat comfy in his seat and surveying the site. "And the auto-systems on the aircraft seem to be quite keen on keeping things safe, too."
"Indeed. But that gives me an idea. I can also prepare the ground drone, and activate that. Connect up the power feed to the auxiliary output on the aircraft to extend the standby duration almost indefinitely. I can have it prepared at the top of the ramp, ready to respond if the sensors detect anything. That will add a substantial defensive level to things."
"Ok, let's get loaded up, then!" Hunter put actions to words, grabbing the first stack of boxes, and ferrying them over to the van and starting to stack them up in the corner, trying to get the boxes to line up neatly and tessellate as best he could. The rest of the team formed a line, passing the boxes in one by one, feeding him a steady supply of cargo to play Tetris with. It didn't take them long, and soon they had the cargo all loaded. With a moment's concentration, Tads cast a spell over the whole lot, wrapping it into position in a magical net that allowed almost no movement whatsoever.
"Shotgun." Aswon called out.
"I will join you up front." Marius added quickly, and the two of them joined Spook in the front of the vehicle, strapping on their seat-belts and getting ready to depart. Meanwhile Tads and Shimazu climbed into the back, turning to look out of the rear door to spot Kai who was standing next to the back of the Broadsword, watching as the rear ramp closed up and locked in place.
"Thank you." Kai whispered quietly, his hand gently placed on the outer hull of the aircraft, pausing for just a moment. Warm flesh laid over cool metal, organic and manufactured touching and transferring heat between them. Kai didn't know if there was anything more than that… but he felt it was important. He gave a reassuring pat, then turned and jogged over to the van, jumping up into the back and pulling the doors closed behind him, then moving up to stand next to Shimazu and Tads. Shimazu gave the bulkhead three loud slaps with his fist, feeling the vehicle pull away as Spook got the message. A moment later, a second net spell secured the three of them in place, Tads enveloping all of them in the magical bindings to keep them webbed to the sides of the van.
"I don't think the van can break the speed of sound, Tads." Kai joked, his voice clearly amused in the darkened interior of the rear of the vehicle.
"I didn't think the Broadsword could either, this morning."
"That's a good point. A very good point. I mean, I think we're in trouble if Spook does have something like that fitted – but perhaps we need to stop making assumptions like that. Leave it to other people to make those kinds of mistakes…"
The van bounced along the rough earth road, exiting the construction site and diving across the tarmac into a back-alley as Spook once again threaded her way through the side streets and unmonitored areas towards the heart of Hong Kong, the sun finally dipping below the western horizon and the city transforming around them into a neon riot of colour.