His vision blurred by the depth, Skater saw the reflected lights of the yakuza helo slide by overhead on the ocean surface. His chest felt like it was being crushed, and black spots orbited before his eyes.

"Kraken!" he heard Duran shout over the headlink.

"Jack," Elvis called. "Trey says the fragging thing is shaman controlled. He's working on it."

Skater tried to answer, but there wasn't enough air left in his lungs. He thought he could see the bulbous head of the kraken somewhere in the darkness further down and ahead of him, but he wasn't sure.

Sluggishly, his fingers found the haft of the sword and he pulled it free, then he somehow twisted and struggled enough to slice the monofilament edge straight through the tentacle. Blood clouded out of the stump, muddying the water, and the amputated coils of meat came bumping against his chest.

Skater came up out of the water, gasping harshly while his lungs burned. He shook the water out of his eyes and got his bearings.

Elvis was pulling Trey's body out of sight into the amphibian. Skater didn't know whether the mage had been hit or was seriously spent from his magical exertions.

The kraken was near the surface now, and all twelve of its appendages were visible as it flailed the water and stirred up undercurrents. Overhead, the yakuza helo circled the bobbing Fiat-Fokker while someone using a loudhailer demanded that everyone inside the plane debark.

Dodging one of the kraken's suckered tentacles, Skater swam for the amphibian. Laser sights lit up the water near him, the ruby ellipses giving him just enough warning to dive before the bullets chased him under.

He surfaced again, almost within reach. Duran was hauling Shiva from the water now. She was covered with blood, Clambering onto the pontoon. Skater managed to throw himself into the amphibian. Elvis was manning a Vindicator minigun, its multiple barrels chewing through a fifty-round belt in a handful of seconds. Reluctantly, the helo backed off.

"Hang on," Wheeler called from the cockpit. "That fragging overgrown guppy-snatcher is coming for us again." The Fiat-Fokker shivered with increased power and began to skim along the water's surface.

Skater took his Predator II and fired through an entire clip, aiming al the monster's head.

Abruptly, the kraken broke off the attack and turned its attention to the yak helo. Three of its tentacles whipped around the chopper's landing skids and tightened, pulling the aircraft toward the ocean's surface.

Rotors whining, the helo struggled against the pull of the creature's tentacles. An instant after the first blade touched the water's surface and shattered to flying shrapnel, the helo exploded in an orange and black roil of fire and smoke. Hurt and surprised, the kraken released its prize and sank back into the black water.

Skater felt the amphibian's pontoons come free of the sea as the wings cut into the air and achieved lift. He took his flash from his pocket and played if over Shiva.

Her dead eyes gleamed wetly back at him. Bloody splotches left by the suckers of the kraken's tentacles marred her features.

Skater switched off the light, not wanting to see any more.

'Tough break," Duran commented.

Not for the first time, Skater wondered if that was the extent of a shadowrunner's lot. Seemed like not even your chummers missed you when you checked out.

"What about Archangel and Trey?"

"Back among the living, chummer," the mage said as he sat up. "Nearly got my astral hoop kicked, though. That yakuza shaman was good." His cocky grin faded when he saw Shiva.

"I think Archangel's going to be okay," Elvis rumbled. He'd yanked a sleeping bag from the equipment stores and made her as comfortable as possible.

Skater glanced through the open cargo doors. The Sapphire Seakawk was still blazing merrily, embers chasing themselves up into the gray smoke stream.

"She'd better come through," Duran said, rolling the cargo door shut. "If she doesn't, then this whole run was a royal hose-up and we're all out a lot of capital investment. Not to mention Shiva dying for nothing."

Skater rested his forearms on his bent knees and concentrated first on breathing, then on dwindling inside himself to a place where nothing could touch him. It was the only place he'd ever felt safe, and the one he knew for sure was all an illusion.

Despite the active net Lone Star and the shore patrol put up. Wheeler managed an uninterrupted landing at the tourist puddle-jumper agency where the team had arranged docking for the amphibian. The rigger powered the amphib expertly into the U-shaped dock and cut the engine.

Throwing open the cargo door, Skater looked out across the smooth glimmer of Elliot Bay mirroring the kaleidoscopic scramble of neon advertising plastering the nearby buildings.

Long John Hurley stood in the shadows on the dock smoking a cigarro. He was gray, tall and lean, chromed over with obsolete cyberware.

"What the frag you people think you were doing?" Hurley groused. He paced along the dock nervously, sucking the cigarro like an automaton, his cyberleg whining with the effort.

Duran shoved his way out of the plane and onto the dock, ignoring Hurley.

"I mean, that drek with the Sapphire Seahawk was your handiwork tonight, right?" Hurley slunk back from Duran as the ork turned on him.

Without seeming to move quickly, Duran seized the tour owner by the shirt, ripping the material in one gnarled fist. A keen blade in his hand shattered the thin moonlight. "I'd say I got me a walkaway working here tonight," the ork told him. "I slit one more throat, ain't going to matter." He pulled Hurley closer. "Not to anyone else, and damn sure not to me. You scan?"

"Yeah." The iron drained right out of Hurley's spine. His eyes slid away. "I just don't want a blue crew knocking on my door in the morning."

'They find us," Skater said in a hard voice, "they find you. Simple math." Hurley had been as fair and as trustworthy as could be expected, but the team had never run a profile this high before.

The ork went into the small office, then returned moments later pushing a rolling cart. As they loaded the weapons they used aboard the Fiat-Fokker into the cart. Skater glanced around the marina. They'd chosen the place because it was berthed between two major domestic freight lines that ran "free trade" on the side and had enough grease to keep most groundhounds away.

With all the guns stashed, Elvis handed out Shiva's body, zipped up into one of the sleeping bags,

Skater took the weight with difficulty and forced himself not to think about what was inside. Death was a part of life; he'd learned that in the Council lands from his grandfather, but it had never become a casual thing for him in spite of everything the sprawl had taught him to the contrary. He laid the sleeping bag on top of the pile of weapons and pulled a dark sheet over everything.

Archangel climbed out of the amphibian on her own, her eyes smudged with dark circles. She wiped a small trickle of blood from her right nostril with a handkerchief.

"How you doing?" Skater asked.

"I'm alive," she said. "After a run like tonight's, I'd say that's pretty good."

Skater shook his head and looked over at the sleeping bag holding all that was left of Shiva. "Too bad Shiva can't say that."

Archangel's face was expressionless as ever, but her voice softened. "Don't get twisted with this, Jack. You told us things could get dicey. Shiva knew that as well as the rest of us."

Skater looked at her for a moment, but said nothing more. There was too much else to do. "You know the drill." he told them. "I'll stash our gear and weapons, then meet you back at base-"