Given their apparent destination was all of about three minutes drive from the hotel, Fields would normally have queried the point of employing a chauffeur-driven luxury SUV for the trip. Having now acquired some experience of SHAP's largesse, however—not to mention the baking heat waiting just inches from the air-conditioned, leather-clad cocoon in which he and Peregrine now reposed—he decided to save himself the bother.

Some twenty or thirty metres away from where they'd pulled up, secure behind high steel-meshed fencing topped with barbed wire, a single building shimmered in the haze. A large building. A building that glittered and dazzled in the blazing sun, bedecked with all manner of antennae and dishes and other assorted...things, things that rotated or flashed or moved in excitingly intricate ways, things Fields did not recognise, other than with the instinctive recognition they were things that did important stuff. High-tech stuff. They just looked like those kind of things.

All of which should have served to make the building an impressive sight. And probably would have, if not for one obvious and unavoidable fact—the building was a shed. A big-arse shed, as Peregrine might have put it, but a shed nonetheless.

"So," said Peregrine, "I guess no prizes for guessing why she's called Shed Girl."

"Guess not," agreed Fields, nodding absently as something else caught his attention—a disturbing something. "Um. Is it just me, or does that car near the gate look a bit like this one?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it does." The X7's serious German window tinting granted Peregrine the luxury of peering over her aviators. She did so. "I mean, apart from the being burnt out and upside down things, it looks exactly like this one. But hey, don't sweat it." Grinning, she gave her partner a friendly poke in the midriff. "Probably just  a coincidence."

Fields was a big believer in coincidences. In his experience, a healthy chunk of the stuff people attributed to fate, divine intervention, ancient aliens or whatever their mystic higher power of choice might be, came down to coincidences. Try as he might, however, he just couldn't believe in this one.

"Maybe. But just on the off-chance it's not, what do you think the odds are that SHAP are fast learners and maybe fitted this baby with some armour plating?"

"Dunno," replied Peregrine, nodding towards the gate which, with smooth and silent precision, was gliding open in apparent invitation. "But it could be we're about to find out. Either way, you know what they say—shed happens. Ha!"

****

"And you really think it will be safe?" The New Zealand PM hated the hint of entreaty in his voice—the whining tone that had crept in these past few days. Just a couple of short weeks ago, back in those now distant-seeming halcyon days when imps were things in story books and dragons were confined to B-movies and board games and the world made at least some kind of sense, he'd been a man of confidence, a man in control, a man riding high in the polls and full to the brim with bluster and braggadocio and bonhomie.

Now? Now, he was a man on the edge. A man whose very country seemed to be slipping away from him. A man who could look back on recent former so-called 'problems' such as misbehaving ministers and cabinet leaks and balancing the budget with nothing but the warm glow of fond nostalgia. And he was, in particular, a man badly in need of at least a little win to chalk up on the political scoreboard. For his own sanity, if nothing else.

"Yes, Prime Minister." The Chief of Defence nodded vigorously, and for just a little longer than the PM thought quite necessary. "Now the Americans are on the scene, I'm quite confident our little problem will soon be well in hand. I mean, have you seen all the guns and helicopters and stuff they've got? Brutal."

"Yes, I'm quite aware their armamentarium is somewhat more...destructive than ours. That's the primary reason I didn't want to call on them unless it was really necessary." Becoming aware he was wringing his hands, the PM shoved them under the desk. "They have promised to be circumspect, haven't they? Measured? I mean, this is regional New Zealand we're talking about, not some barren hellhole of a warzone out in the middle of nowhere." He swallowed. "At least, not yet."

"I'm sure there's no need to worry, Prime Minister. The admiral's flag lieutenant's aide's assistant's liaison—quite a pleasant young  petty officer—seemed confident they could get the job done with a minimum of collateral damage. She mentioned things like high-altitude drone reconnaissance and satellite imagery and precision strikes and so on. It all sounded very impressive, I must say. Saturday's Test Match can most certainly go ahead. After all, given the, ah...events of the the past few weeks, it just wouldn't be right to take the people's rugby away, would it?"

"I dunno. If its saves them being being bloody well flambéd by a dragon or turned into an orc's hors d'oeuvres, I think it might be." The PM sighed. "But you're right, it wouldn't be great for morale. The population needs some cheering up, and very few things cheer them up more than giving the Aussies a good hiding. Tell the rugby boys they can have their game. But I'm warning you, I want security tighter than a penguin's arse in a snowstorm. And if so much as a troll doll is sighted within a hundred kilometres of Christchurch between now and Saturday, the whole thing is off. Got it?"

"Yes, sir. And don't worry. I guarantee by the time kick-off comes around, the only unpopular visitors left in New Zealand will be the Wallabies. And as we both know, the All Blacks will soon send see them off, ha-ha."  

****

The USS America. Did it get any better than this? With a happy sigh, Joe Ryback leaned back in his command chair, put his feet up on the control board, took a slug of coffee and gazed out through the panoramic windows of his flag bridge at the sunlit expanse of the Cook Strait sparkling off into the distance.

An admiral in the finest navy in the world, an actual enemy to give him a break from the endless paperwork and politicking his position usually entailed, a damn fine cup of joe in his hand, the prospect of pretty much certain victory against a hopelessly outclassed foe—and to top it all off, a flagship named after the best damn country in the world.

Life was indeed good.

By all rights, he shouldn't be here. This was a skirmish, a sideshow, and really should have been assigned to any one of the ambitious, overqualified officers under his command, those gung-ho young men and women forever plaguing him for some excuse to go and blow shit up—it wasn't as though he had a shortage of the varmints. But why should those little suck-ups have all the fun? What was the point of being the boss if you didn't get to throw your weight around every now and then? Besides, the good name of the USA had been impugned—more or less. And he personally wanted to leave that uppity Aussie PM with precisely zero doubt as to who the big dog was in these parts.

Dogs just didn't come any bigger than the US Navy.

His intercom buzzed. "Admiral, preliminary reports from our first wave of attacks are in."

"Ah, excellent." He drained his coffee. "What are the estimated casualties so far?"

There was a pause before his flag lieutenant replied. "Uh. Just over half, sir."

"Hot damn!" Ryback couldn't resist a fist pump. "That oughta show those fantasy freaks who's the boss around here. The sons-of-bitches ain't messing with Kiwi amateurs anymore. Right, I want the second wave briefed, stat, and then..." He frowned. "Hold on just a damn minute, son. I thought we didn't have definite numbers on the enemy forces. If we don't even know how many of the bastards there are, how the hell can we know we got half of 'em?"

"Uh..."—even through the intercom, the sound of swallowing was quite audible—"I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me, sir. You see, I was referring to our casualties."

****

To Fields' surprise, the driveway from the gate had not lead to the mega-shed, but instead veered off to one side of the gleaming structure and descended towards what he could only assume was some sort of underground garage or basement level. And after negotiating several steel gates, each swinging silently open at their approach, they'd found themselves in a subterranean parking area, fronted by a pair of silver doors and populated by more automotive pretension than Fields' had ever before seen gathered in one place. Aston Martins, Ferraris and Lotuses sat alongside vintage MGs, Porsches and even a pristine Jaguar E-Type. If Shed Girl wasn't...well, a girl, he could well have believed she was trying to compensate for something.

Now, having parked the suddenly mediocre-seeming X7, and leaving their chauffeur to ogle the motoring merchandise, Fields and Peregrine made their way over to stand before the silver doors.

"Elevator up to the shed, you reckon?" said Peregrine.

"Probably," replied Fields. "But let's not rule out the possibility it's the special room she uses to store her unwelcome visitors. You know, pollsters, Jehovah's Witnesses, SHAP recruiters—that kind of thing."

As if in response to their speculation, the doors slid open, and for just a moment Fields feared he had been proven right—while they might like things big in Australia, no elevator was that big. Although the soft light spilling through the doors obscured what lay beyond, it was clearly a large space. For lack of any better options, they entered.

To find themselves in luxury. Plush carpet lined the floor. The cool wash of air-conditioning enveloped them. Tasteful artwork adorned the walls and a water feature burbled off to one side. An expansive leather lounge occupied a slightly sunken area in the centre of the room. And, seated on the lounge, looking unpretentious—and not remotely superhero-like—in jeans and a Fallout Boy T-shirt was the presumed object of their visit.

"Ah, Agents Peregrine and Fields. Welcome to my little dugout. How nice to finally meet you. I feel like I already know you both so well. Please, help yourselves to a drink." Shed Girl gestured to a well-stocked bar up against the wall. "And then we can have a nice little chat about the terms of my recruitment."

****

"They just kept coming, sir! We'd line 'em up and blow 'em away but then there'd be another wave. And then another and another. I've never seen anything like it. They just wouldn't stop. And eventually our lines broke."

From behind his desk, Admiral Ryback regarded the man who was the senior surviving member of the Marines detachment he'd tasked with handling the land-based component of Operation Gondor. Despite an arm in a sling and a heavily bandaged leg, the young captain was doing his very best to stand to attention. And even in the climate-controlled cool of the flag bridge, was visibly sweating.

You had guns, the warrior in Ryback wanted to say. You had guns and they had axes. You had air support and intelligence reports and finely planned strategy, and they're a rabble. You're the damn US Marine Corps, the finest fighting force in the world, while they look like nothing so much as a bunch of freaking rejects from a casting call for Lord of the Rings extras.

And yet you lost. How the hell could you do that? That was what he wanted to say, most of all.

But he didn't. After having heard variations of the same story from the senior surviving officers of both the air and naval assaults, he didn't. It was quite clear his little task group had bitten off substantially more than it could chew, and at the end of the day, the buck stopped with him. As far as Washington was concerned, this was his show, and it would be fair to say opening night had bombed bigtime.

"I understand, captain. At ease, please. Tell me, in your opinion—having experienced first-hand the apparent abundance of enemy combatants, and their somewhat...cavalier approach to suffering casualties, what would you recommend as the best way to approach the situation?"

The captain didn't hesitate. "Oh, that's easy, sir. Bomb the bastards back to the Stone Age. Hit 'em hard with everything we've got—barring nukes, of course." The young man's strained features formed into a wry smile. "Preferably from as far away as possible."

Ryback tutted in annoyance. "You know perfectly well that's not an option. There are towns and farmhouses and all kinds of civilian infrastructure dotted throughout the area, and the New Zealanders would hardly be thrilled to see us bomb all that back to the Stone Age. They can't even guarantee every civilian has been evacuated from the area. Can you imagine the heat we'd get for blowing up some Kiwi grandma who didn't get the memo she was supposed to hightail it out of there? No, I'm afraid any approach we take must be more targeted than that."

"I see, sir. Well, in that case, I would recommend calling for reinforcements. A lot of reinforcements. And maybe developing a taste for pavlova."

"Don't get smart with me, captain. Are you implying a targeted approach won't work?"

"No, sir. Only that it won't work quickly. As you know, the theatre in question is covered in mountains and forests and, well, mountains covered in forest—it's basically a nightmare for precision ops. Even more so if collateral damage and civilian casualties are a concern. You know, we do some history at the Academy, sir, and I can't help but feel this campaign has a bit of a familiar vibe to it."

"Familiar, captain? You're calling Dungeons and Dragons come to life familiar?"

"No, sir. More so the situation. Think about it. We're dealing with difficult terrain, an enemy employing unconventional tactics, unclear victory objectives, and minimal support from the local government—ring any bells?"

Ryback stared at him. "You're talking about Vietnam? You're actually comparing Operation Gondor to the damn Vietnam War?"

"Yes, sir, I am." Any trace of a smile had long since disappeared. "And we both know how that turned out."