The Hawaiian Special Forces

Chapter 62

They took their time wandering south, checking on Internet regularly with the prolific availability of wifi and cellular signals. The good news was, they couldn't find any chatter indicating their presence had been detected. The bad news was, they couldn't find any chatter about them at all, outside of various hacking circles that had noted their abrupt disappearance.

With that came speculation that they'd been silenced for the information they were working on revealing. It was fueling efforts to obtain high resolution satellite photos of known military conflicts with an eye towards verifying anything they could about non-human combatants. Unfortunately, no such images existed, which was leading to speculation that there was government action forcing satellites to "miss" combat scenes.

There was even some discussion of funding privately owned satellites for the sole purpose of attempting to monitor all military actions. This, of course, was countered by fears that government agencies would either shoot down such a satellite or that the people involved would just disappear. The fact that even the United States had adopted formal speech codes had lead to a world where freedom of speech was remembered as an interesting, but failed, experiment.

::So, they know we were sniffing around the North Korean border. Where would they assume we are, now?::

::Canada,:: Akela answered Lopaka's question. ::We disappeared. If they're to assume we wouldn't have broken past their blockades, then they'll assume we pulled a luggage trick. Russia and Canada have a decent amount of trade, both through air and sea traffic. We could easily be in the Canadian tundra working our way over to Alaska.::

::China,:: offered Hanale. ::We were looking at going that route. It's the one that doesn't involve ports. We've already proven adept at getting through national boundaries. They may or may not be aware of our escapades in Germany, but they have to know we've somehow gotten through it at least once. China would be easy, by comparison. Plus, they're still cagey about releasing information that could let outsiders know about internal problems.::

::Based on what we've been able to measure, what will they think the odds are that we're in Japan?:: Aoloa finally asked, getting to the point.

Hokulani replied, ::Ten percent. They trained us for stealth. If they don't know about our suits, probably one percent. If international espionage is what I think it is, they'll know Germany recently developed massive advances in nanotechnology. Then it's a question of whether we're alive or not, but they suspect we are because of the North Korean contact. That could have been Russia testing their defenses, which I'm sure is frequently. Still, they'll be edgy.

::Figure there's a fifty percent chance they think we were the North Korean contact. Figure there's a ninety percent chance they think we got technology from Germany for upgrades in exchange for nanotechnology. They won't be sure where we went, but they'll acknowledge a reasonable chance that we're in Japan.::

Aoloa nodded, accepting her analysis. ::Based on a ten percent chance, they'll have significantly increased security of shipments from Japan to Hawaii.::

::What about Japan to Philippines? It would make more sense for us to have gone through China to get to the Philippines, if we were going there,:: Akoni observed.

::Still heightened security. Imagine every vessel getting inspected by a pack before being unloaded. A vessel our scent had been collecting in for a week.::

::We could go to the US.:: Everyone looked at Akela, baffled. She fidgeted under the attention, but pushed on. ::Look, we know the US doesn't let people in, but they still trade. Kind of like Japan, you know? I mean, look at all the natural gas they export, now. We know they must have kicked up their fracking efforts when they sealed the borders. Heck, they even trade Uranium with Europe for their nuclear reactors. They take imports, too. What if we snuck in there?::

Everyone was silent for a bit as they processed that. ::Okay, two questions: Can we get in to the US, and if we do, where to from there? For getting in to the US, I want an analysis of US customs procedures, if we can find them. If we get there, I'm thinking we then head north to Alaska.::

Pauahi shook her head. ::If we get to the US, then we turn around and go straight to Hawaii from there. We'd have to sneak through US customs twice to pull it off. There has to be a ton of easier ways to get to Hawaii than through the most paranoid country on earth. I bet the UPS would assume anything coming out of the US would already be clean. They're crazy strict on exports, especially of technology. There's speculation they're still way ahead of the rest of the world, but nobody knows it because it's all military hush-hush stuff.::

Aoloa nodded in acknowledgement. Then Lopaka spoke up. ::Getting past their security will be tough. They use dogs to inspect for anything organic in nature. Anything that's not meant for immediate consumption as food gets a one month hold, minimum. There are rumors of people who tried to sneak in, died in containers, and were half rotted by the time they were fished out. There's a reason nobody tries to get smuggled in there.::

::So we have to avoid dogs, break out of containers early, reroute ourselves to outbound containers, and pull all of this off without tripping whatever other security they have. Failure means we're getting hunted by US military on their own turf.::

::Don't forget, the US military is the entire US population. Any home could have heavy weapons to try to take us out. We just don't know what they really have,:: Lopaka added.

::Is there a better option?:: He finally asked. Nobody came up with a response. ::Okay, we go straight for Hawaii, or we go to US, then Hawaii. It's a risk between tight security in Hawaii and unknown security measures in the US.::

After a little more discussion, they voted to go through the US.