Hearing the lieutenant’s question, Madison tried to maintain a normal expression, but her hand has already reached to behind her back, where a gauss pistol was. The mercenaries behind her silently got ready as well. This would be a difficult fight. There would be hundreds, if not thousands, of Umojans in the building, and the defenders would have time to evacuate the senators and deploy more forces into the field, but at least the mercenaries would have the element of surprise. With any luck...

Suddenly, the lieutenant tapped his earpiece. Madison frowned and made a signal to tell her men to postpone the attack for a second.

“Sir?” The Umojan lieutenant asked, noticing the source of the communication to be from the Umojan High Command.

“Soldier, report.” The lieutenant immediately realized it was the voice of Admiral Thorn. He was a bit confused by the admiral’s phrasing, but he dropped it nonetheless.

“Yes sir. A group of Umojan soldiers is entering the council building. They have the IDs, but this is a maximum security area, and I still need confirmation from High Command.”

“Let them through.” Thorn’s voice continued.

“Yes sir.”

The lieutenant stepped aside and allowed the squad of men to enter. Madison rose her eyebrows in confusion but nonetheless continued. It seemed like whoever hired her had even more power than she previously imagined.

On the other side, Hancock, who was observing what was going on in the hall, looked up at Jean.

“You have someone else in the High Council working with you? I thought you promised me I’ll command the entire Umojan Protectorate!” Hancock suddenly felt betrayed. If someone else who had this amount of authority was also a member of this conspiracy, then his piece of the cake would be much smaller than he imagined.

Jean glanced at him. “No. ” She didn’t bother to explain what she did. Instead, she merely gave a simple answer.

While Thorn wasn’t working with her, she was still able to use him. As the admiral, Thorn has issued countless orders. Most of these orders were stored in the database in case they were needed for something. With the access Hancock granted her, Jean was able to enter the database and take out pieces of recording she wanted. After a few editing, she put together something like an order from Thorn. When she noticed the infiltration team getting stopped, Jean hacked the communication channel, posed as Thorn, and sent the recording to the lieutenant.

It wasn’t perfect. If the lieutenant asked more complex, detailed questions, then there would be little that Jean could do and she would need to rely on the brute force from the mercenaries. Thankfully, a basic lieutenant wasn’t exactly fit to question the commander of the entire Umojan military.

As the five hundred men got into the lobby, they started to spread out. Jean passed Madison detailed schematics of the council building, as well as an entire plan of attack.

Two hundred men were spread out across the entire building. Dozens of marauders and one hundred marines casually strolled around the intersections. Madison led the rest of her men toward the main hall, where, according to the information Jean provided, the majority of the Ruling Council was staying at.

Such a movement was obviously noticed, but most of the government workers simply thought it was a typical military movement. After all, someone without an order wouldn’t have made it through the gate. That was until a shadowguard noticed the strange group of soldiers, realized he didn’t receive notification about this, and reported up the chain of command. It didn’t take long before the Ruling Council received a report about the army movement.

“I didn’t hear anything about this order.” Thorn frowned at the report. “Colonel Hays?”

Colonel Hays was the officer in command of the defenses of the Senate building. Just like Thorn, he frowned when he heard the news. “I don’t know anything either.” He took out a communication device and contacted the lieutenant at the door. “There’s a squad of several hundred soldiers in the building. Who let them in?”

The lieutenant at the door frowned. “I received orders from Admiral Thorn, sir. He gave me a direct order to let them through.”

Something was wrong. Hay turned off the comm and rested his hand on his sidearm before turning to Thorn.

“Sir, what is this?”

“What is going on?” As the leader of the senate, Jorgensen demanded. He hated this feeling of losing control and he intended on changing that at once.

“That squad was allowed entrance by the order of Admiral Thorn.”

The senators turned to Thorn in confusion.

“It’s a lie! I was with you the entire time! I haven’t touched a communication device in the past hour!” Thorn was well aware this was bad for him. Directing an army of unknown origin into the Senate building without as much as telling the rest of the senators could be seen as treason. He might be an admiral, but if he was seen as a traitor, then he could be easily arrested. Even his own men wouldn’t protect him. After all, his men were loyal to Umoja, not him.

“It doesn’t matter.” Jorgensen cut the argument off. Whoever was behind this, it was the army of five hundred that was the problem. “Colonel Hays, lockdown the building. Scramble the defenses and take down the intruders. Use lethal force if necessary. In the meantime, it is best if no one leaves the building.” He glanced at the senators but especially on Thorn.

The admiral sat back, knowing whatever the result of this was, he would be put under investigation.

“Yes sir.” Hays turned on his comm and started barking orders. Immediately, Umojans all across the building started moving. Elite troopers, fully armed, charged into the room. As soon as they were in, the steel blast doors of the room were sealed shut.

There was no point in evacuating the senators because it would be harder to defend an evacuating team than to defend an entrenched position. Plus, all the Umojans needed was to buy time. If they could do that, reinforcements would arrive and terminate the intruders.

At the same time, the reserve battalion was notified. Fully armed men poured into the corridors and moved to intercept the attackers.

Inside his mansion, Hancock frowned as he heard a knock on the door.

“Enter!”

A lieutenant walked in.

“Sir, we have received orders from High Command. We are ordered to dispatch three battalions of reinforcement into the Senate building by air.”

Hancock frowned and glanced at his PC. The lieutenant couldn’t see it from his point of view, but Hancock could see Jean staring at him.

“Lieutenant Miles. How long have you been with me?”

The man frowned at the question. “Five years, sir.”

“Oh...yes. I remember. You first became my lieutenant when I was a colonel.” Hancock nodded. “I’ve be notified.” He stopped.

Miles was confused. “Sir, shouldn’t you be dispatching men?”

Hancock shook his head.

“No.”

Miles opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but he nonetheless remained silent.

In a split second, he considered running out of the room and telling the world what Hancock was planning and have the admiral arrested, but then he started to wonder...if he kept Hancock’s secret and the admiral was successful, then he could be much more than a simple lieutenant.

Personal greed overpowered patriotism.

“Yes sir. I understand, sir.”

Hancock nodded in satisfaction and, behind the table, returned the silencer-equipped pistol back into its holster.

As Admiral Hancock cut off reinforcement for the moment, Jean gave the notification for Madison to launch the attack. The time for infiltration was over. Now it was the time for brute force.

Upon receiving the order, Madison issued an order to all her men before turning to a squad of patrolling Umojan guards.

She drew her gauss pistols and pulled the trigger.

The moment was perfect. Umojan forces were scrambled but weren’t in place. Some of the men were still trying to identify the intruders, who were in Umojan armors and carrying Umojan equipment. Hays informed them there was an army of intruders, but he wasn’t able to come up with an effective way to identify the attackers.

The marines and marauders at the corridors broke their cover. Marines immediately mowed down any real Umojans around them. Marauders had a different task as they turned to the building itself. Hundreds of grenades hit the walls and caused multiple collapses, sealing off the entrances and therefore keeping them and the Ruling Council away from Umojan reinforcements.

In one spot, a squad of Umojan marines walked by another squad of patrols. As soon as the two lines reached side by side, the squad of marines suddenly turned on the patrols. It was more of an execution than a battle, and the real Umojans were ripped apart almost immediately.

At certain parts of the hall, mercenary marines executed sentries in point blank range. They dragged the bodies into the corners and replaced the dead. A brief glance from someone couldn’t tell the difference. Their job was to pose as Umojans and report the movement of any Umojan squads that came across them to the mercenaries. In the moment of chaos, countless security squads were ambushed and slaughtered.

The entire building was sent into a state of anarchy. Reinforcement from outside tried to come in, but the marauders blocked off most of the entrances. The reserve battalion found itself in a painful position as it was forced to a stop in front of a line of sandbags and roadblocks. Those defensive mechanisms were originally installed by the Umojan defenders, but they didn’t help even a little when a squad of mercenaries approached the sentries from behind and executed them in just seconds.

Inside the narrow halls, the battalion had no way to put their advantage in numbers into use. Umojan marines stacked their combat shields together and formed layers of metal and moved forward, but everytime they would be beaten back by dozens of grenades and a hail of bullets. The grenades would rip open the shields, and marine firing would take care of the rest.

The Umojans attacked eight times in five minutes, and everytime they were pushed back after dropping dozens of bodies. Finally, in the ninth assault, the Umojans overwhelmed the mercenaries.

Imagine their mood when they saw the rest of the mercenaries retreating to the next layer of sandbags, regroup with the defenders there, and set up another line of defense.

The order Madison gave these men was to delay the battalion as long as possible, and they did just that.

As the commander of this situation, Hays was faced with countless pieces of information. One moment a squad of Umojans was dispatched to a location. The next second they were wiped out. One moment a defensive position was reported to be secured. The next moment they were under attack and the officer on site was screaming desperately for help.

Eventually, he gave up.

“All squads hold your current position! Do not approach each other. The only ones that come at you are enemies. Terminate them on site.”

The Umojans complied. The security squads that survived the mess that could barely be called battle formed smaller defensive positions. This forced the mercenaries to engage them head on, causing them to take much more losses and buying much more time. In any situation, any combat, no matter how one sided it was, was better than an execution.

“Squad one, two, and three converge on my location. Squad four, hold your line and buy as more time.” Squad four was the mercenaries that stopped the reserve battalion. Except for squad four, every mercenary in the building rushed to Madison’s position. Within just minutes, three hundred mercenaries were already in front of the meeting room.

Two sentries collapsed with bullets in their heads.

“They’re here.” As soon as he heard the groans of the sentries through the comm, Hays knew the situation was bad. The intruders have already reached the blast doors, and it wouldn’t take them long to get through.

“Where are the reinforcement? Dropships can deploy our ground units in less than ten minutes! What is taking Hancock so long?”

Thorn was having trouble keeping his calm either. Admiral or not, a single bullet could kill him.

Hays didn’t have time to comfort Thorn and other senators.

“Are the shadowguards in place?”

“Yes sir. Twenty of my brothers are in the room. We can deal with any rebel that enters. They’ll never see us coming.“

Beside him, a shadowguard turned off his cloaking field. While most of the shadowguards were caught up in covert operations against the Terran Dominion or other military duties, a significant number of them was positioned at the Senate House. Unfortunately, the Umojans weren’t that resourceful. While the Terran Dominion could afford dozens of normal ghosts and half a dozen Spec Ops ghosts in the emperor’s palace, the Senate House had to settle with twenty shadowguards. Thankfully, the technology these shadowguards had changed the equation slightly.

“Well then…” As the shadowguard returned to cloaked mode, Colonel Hays took a breath and drew his pistol and aimed at the door.

The sound of grenades hitting the blast door made the man cringe. Jorgensen and Thorn, along with the other senators, retreated to behind a wall of elite marines. It would be a pity if the Umojans defeated the attackers, only to lose a few senators to some stray bullets.

On the outside, Madison gripped to her rifle tightly as the blast door got thinner and thinner. She knew as soon as that barrier fell, hundreds will die.

Eventually, with one last explosion, the blast door was, well, blasted open.