A full moon shone in the night sky above, acting as a beacon of light over the drab and desolate industrial park. Apart from the rumblings of a nearby car engine every now and then, there wasn’t much to muffle the sounds of the impending infiltration. The dreary atmosphere combined with the slight chill in the air added to the nerves that were starting to mount within Damien. In just a few short minutes it would be midnight and a chaotic battlefield would break out some twenty meters underground.

He and Kat both kept their eyes on the broken stone wall that stood fifty paces ahead. The piles of stone had once stood tall to indicate the perimeter of the facilities that they would target, but much like many of the buildings around here, it had long fallen apart and no one had bothered repairing it. Maybe fixing it would’ve drawn unwanted attention to the illegal operations going on beneath.

Damien twisted his torso and rolled his shoulders back in preparation for the upcoming battle. With his new NightGuard armor on and his new katana at his side, he felt like he could take on anything that would be awaiting them. Beside him, Kat had put on some new gear of her own in order to enhance her stealth capabilities. She wore a dark, skin-tight stealth suit designed to help her get on to the premises undetected. According to his scan of the item, the suit would allow her to bypass the thermal and night vision imaging of the security cameras. Even with this help, their surveillance of the area told them that her solo infiltration would require some difficult acrobatic maneuvers, but she assured everyone that she had the skill to do it. If she failed, their entire plan would fall apart before it even began.

“Since you’re my support, you gotta follow my lead if things go wrong,” Kat said. “We all have a dog in this fight, but we’ll only do what needs to be done, nothing more. If we see ex-military in there, we avoid them at all costs, got it?”

Damien cupped his hands together and stretched them over his head. “Yeah, yeah. You don’t need to tell me.”

“Yes I do. You’re the one who’s gotta cover me while I extract the data. The Blizzard won’t last for the full duration that we’ll be down there, so you’ll probably have to do some fighting. Don’t get in over your head like last time.”

“Damn, you’re that worried? I didn’t realize how much you loved me.”

She jammed her elbow lightly into his side, breaking his overhead stretch. If he wasn’t wearing the armor, he’d probably have felt something. “Take this seriously. The rest of us have done this many times before but you’re still a beginner and we gotta watch out for you. Promise me you won’t do anything risky.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just like you said, I’ll only do what needs to be done.”

Even though they hadn’t spent too much time together, Damien felt like he was starting to see past Kat’s tough-girl exterior. Her cautious nature was showing again right before the main event, and though she would never admit it, there was a soft side somewhere deep inside that cared a lot about the people around her.

The duo waited until one minute before the operation’s start time to join the group communication channel. Marcus had already been on, quietly singing a lovely tune about kicking TrillTech ass. Lana joined the call a few seconds later and she gave the final confirmation that everything was set. When the clock struck midnight, their interim leader gave the command from her basement, “Phase one, begin.”

Kat activated her stealth suit and light blue particles began to swarm her entire body, making her sparkle for just a second. They soon vanished in the air, but a slight mist seemed to linger around her. She gave one final nod then took off toward the north facility, carefully hopping over the broken stone wall and entering enemy territory.

As his partner disappeared into the night, Damien activated the Mind Chip to review the layout of the area and go over the plan one last time. On his mini-map he could see a blue dot representing Kat’s position continue forward to the designated location, and another blue dot representing Marcus on standby just outside the perimeter on the east side.

Each of the four buildings surrounding the bulkhead had a corresponding grouping of rooms and corridors directly underground. The massive bulkhead connected directly to each of these buried facilities via straight tunnels. An inner ring-shaped tunnel surrounded the bulkhead and intersected each of these straight paths, and a second circular tunnel went around all four groupings, surrounding the entirety of this research facility. The target of the whole operation—the control room housing the Archangel files—was stashed away in one of the offices inside the north grouping.

Their plan was broken down into three phases. The first phase required Kat to approach one of the outside terminals so that Lana could manually disable the cameras and prepare the Blizzard. Once that was done, all three pirates would infiltrate the buildings and enter the underground facilities where Marcus would begin the second phase with a series of explosions on the east end. This distraction would send most of the enemies underground toward the big pirate’s position, giving Kat and Damien more room to maneuver in the northern facility.

Throughout this time, Lana would keep her finger on the Blizzard’s trigger, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Upon activation, it would freeze the circuits of all the enemy’s static defenses as well as anyone connected to their local network. With the enemies frozen for a few minutes, Kat and Damien would head for the control room so that she could begin extracting the files. It would also give Marcus time to hijack one of the TrillTech vehicles parked down there and drive around the outer ring toward the north facility.

The Blizzard wouldn’t cover the full extent of the extraction time however, and the enemies would eventually unfreeze. While Marcus drove around the bend toward their position, it would be up to Damien to make sure that Kat could secure the files uninterrupted. With all that done, the third and final phase would begin. Marcus would swoop in and the duo would enter his vehicle and make a straight getaway towards the bulkhead in the center. They had a predetermined location nearby where they could dump the TrillTech vehicle and get into their own getaway cars.

From beginning to end, the mission wouldn’t take more than five minutes, but they still had to worry about any reinforcements arriving. This is where Lana had prepared a series of hacks designed to keep enemy reinforcements at bay. She’d already altered traffic light signals between their current position and any possible backup locations in order to slow any oncoming enemies down. She’d also taken control of some autonomous commercial trucks nearby, waiting to stall them on the major nearby arteries in order to slow incoming traffic even further.

It was impressive how much she’d planned ahead in order to give the three pirates as much leeway as possible, and Damien was grateful to have such a valuable asset on their side. The steep cost of her services would be worth it if they could complete the task at hand.

“A big if,” Damien said out loud to himself.

There were still many unresolved questions about this whole operation, but he decided to have faith in everyone involved. It had been less than a week since he first woke up in this world and he’d only been able to get to this point because of their help. Now, he was ready to attack those who were most likely to have answers about his situation, and possibly find out the truth of what had happened.

Lana’s voice came to life over the communication channel once again. “Cameras are out. Bulkhead and elevators secured. Blizzard is ready. Phase two is about to begin, get into position.”