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Shepard had been C-Sec for two years now, specializing in intelligence and tracking. She’d cracked more cyphers, decoded more encryptions, and intercepted more messages than any three agents combined. She was an asset and she was great at her job, but this? This was not her job.
Being in the shuttle set her nerves even more on edge than they already were. She’d only had three weeks to train for this mission, and no amount of praise on her progress over that span had helped to ease her mind. The weight of the guns and the feeling of their kickback, the physical training, and memorizing the layout and building systems had been the easy part. Getting the team to trust and accept her is what she had yet to accomplish; and she was out of time.
As the shuttle banked hard left, she tightened her grip on her seat bottom and closed her eyes to keep the nausea at bay when the team leader’s voice came into her ear. “Echo 1 and Echo 2, ETA to drop point is 30 seconds. Rendezvous with Delta and Lima teams at extraction point in 8 minutes. Acknowledge.”
“Echo 2, copy,” Shepard said taking a deep breath. Nihlus was her training office and running point as Echo 1. He was the muscle and she the brains. More like he would clear a path and she would do the delicate work.
“Nerves will get us both killed,” Nihlus’ voice snapped her from her thoughts. He took his headset off and replaced it with the wired earpiece then covered his face with a mask. Shepard followed suit and acknowledged the comm check that team leader called.
“Drop, 10 seconds. Godspeed, Echo Team,” was the last they heard from their team leader. They’d have to run on radio silence while in the building so she and Nihlus would have to stay close to communicate.
He stood up and opened the door to the shuttle. He picked up the bag next to the door and waiting for the command. Shepard stood less that an arm’s length behind him, sure that her heart was beating so loudly it would drown out the sound of the wind.
The shuttle made its way over a building, hovering but a moment about 10 feet off the surface. “NOW!” was the call. Nihlus jumped first and Shepard did the same; impressed that she didn’t break anything on the way down. She looked up as Alpha Team flew off.
Shepard and Nihlus synced their omni-tools: 8 minutes. They had 8 minutes to break into one of the most secure, and heavily guarded, buildings on this planet, crack a 512bit encryption, upload the files to their secured drive, and make their way down 58 floors to the basement and snake through service tunnels to the rendezvous point a quarter mile away. No problem.
Without a word between them, Shepard grabbed the bag and made her way to the roof access door. She tapped out a few commands on her omni-tool, and after a few seconds, the door unlocked. Nihlus stepped through the door first, guns drawn.
They were operating under a no-kill order, which pissed Nihlus off mainly because if people were going to be shooting at him, he’d like to be able to shoot back. Instead of standard issue hammerhead ammunition, their HMWP’s had been modified to fire putty rounds that contained an electric charge. The putty splattered on impact, releasing the charge inside: 20mA, not quite enough to kill, but enough to cause labored breathing and muscle spasms. Considering the guards would likely be in body armor, they wouldn’t be disabled for long.
First step, done. They’d made it into the building without setting off the alarms. Now they made their way down through two service floors to the penthouse level. Time check: 7:17 left. They were 7 seconds faster than their last practice round, which would have been reassuring if they didn’t have to wait 7 seconds for Lima Team to disable to security cameras. Nihlus, at the ready with one hand on the doorknob and the other with his weapon drawn, waited for the tap on his shoulder to give him the go ahead. Finally, 7:10 hit and Shepard tapped his shoulder.
He swung the door open and had his second weapon drawn so quickly that she didn’t even see him grab for it. Bag secured to her back and an HMWP in one hand, Shepard stepped into the hallway once it was clear and ran. She could see the schematic in her head and never hesitated as she turned one corner after the next. They only had 12 seconds to make it to the stairwell in the middle of the building.
They made it, with 1 second to spare. There’s no way their luck could be this good, can it? Nihlus took point again as they jogged down another two flights before coming to the floor they wanted. She checked the time again: 6:56 left. Six seconds to wait this time for Lima to turn the security cameras off on this floor. Again, they waited and she tapped. He stepped out and cleared the hallway first.
The office they wanted was just 15 feet from the stairs. Nihlus was to hold position in the stairwell while Shepard did her thing in the office. When Nihlus nodded, she ran to the office door and began a hack-scan. This door took longer to open and she checked the time, 6:38. Only 8 seconds before the cameras turned back on. At the 5 second mark, she held up 5 fingers so Nihlus would know to step back inside the stairwell.
3 seconds left and the door still hadn’t opened; panic had begun to take hold. Her eyes widened as she watched the seconds tick away. Just as she was about to abort the mission, the door click and she shoved all her weight and everything in front of her into the office. She closed the door behind her and did her best to calm her breathing. Another time check: 6:22, she’d taken too long to regain her composure.
She grabbed the bag and stood and ran to the computer atop the grand mahogany desk. Shepard pulled an OSD drive and a datapad out of the bag. She began furiously pecking at the screen, but her gloved hands were clumsy. She pulled the gloves off with her teeth and tried again; much better.
Command line after command line appeared on the screen and finally the blue light on the OSD came to life. She’d found what she was looking for. Time check: 4:48, another minute and 48 seconds before the security cameras were turned off again. The file was uploading as it should; the datapad said all systems were green, so Shepard began to go over the building schematic in her head again.
They were to find the service elevator, which was at the opposite end of this floor, and repel down the cables to basement sub level 1, where they’d have to clear two maintenance rooms, before coming to the service tunnel that lead to the parking garage where…
Suddenly the datapad began buzzing and flashing. Picking it up, she saw that they had been compromised. Time check: 3:30, she needed 30 seconds to finish downloading the file. “FUCK!” she shouted, opening another program where she began furiously typing. She’d hacked her way into the building’s service feeds and managed to shut off power to all 9 elevators. She moved the service elevator so that it rested on the very top floor and then she set off the fire alarm. Now the elevators would not move until the authorities overrode the alarm.
Nihlus burst into the office a few seconds later, “We’ve overstayed our welcome,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice and she envied his calm. Or was it crazy? If she made it out of this building alive, she’d be sure to ask him. Time check: 3:06.
“I need a few more seconds to…”
Her sentence was interrupted when someone burst into the office. Before she could reach for her gun, Nihlus had turned around and fired one charge and it landed directly above the heart. The guard dropped immediately, his body jerking and making gurgling sounds on the floor. Nihlus ran to the door and peeked out and was greeted by gunfire. He slid to the floor and fired three more shots. “I suggest we move,” he called over his shoulder.
She was behind. She still needed 10 seconds. “It’s not finished!”
“We have to go now, or we will miss our window!”
“7 seconds, I need 7 more seconds!”
Gun shots again, this time from an automatic weapon.
“Throw me a canister!” Nihlus shouted as he fired a few more shots out the door and hit two more men. Shepard dug through the bag and threw him what he asked for. He caught it, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the hallway where the guards were pouring in from the stairwell. “Grenade!” they could hear one of the men yell.
“FINALLY!” Shepard shouted as she pulled the OSD and threw it and the datapad into the bag and zipped it. Throwing it over her shoulder and un-holstering her weapon, she made her way to the door to help Nihlus. They heard the “grenade” pop and Nihlus leaned out the door and fired the remainder of his clip into the floor.
The grenade was a canister filled with water that burst on impact, soaking the carpet where the guards had stumbled over themselves trying to get away from the explosion. Electricity and water don’t mix. She didn’t wait for Nihlus to give the all clear, she tore ass out of the office and down the hall in the opposite direction.
When she reached the service elevator, she opened the bag and pulled out the rope and hook she was looking for. Nihlus was a few seconds behind her and immediately set to opening the service elevator doors. Shepard helped and the two of them were finally able to get them open. She reached down and grabbed the hook and checked the time: 2:12. She called out the time to Nihlus.
“You ready?” he asked. She just nodded. He moved behind her as she walked to the edge of the opening. He held tight to her suit and said, “I won’t let go,” as she leaned forward to grab the elevator cable so she could hook their rope to it. She didn’t look down, not once. Finally confident the hook was secure, she turned her head and Nihlus pulled her upright.
She re-zipped the bag and threw it over her shoulder again. Nihlus holstered his weapons and took a few steps back. He then ran and leaped into the shaft and caught the cables. Securing his feet, he maneuvered so he was facing Shepard. “Your turn,” he said, again with that hidden smile. She took a deep breath and did the same thing that Nihlus had done a few seconds before. She made sure her legs were securely wrapped around his body and her hands firmly in place over his on the hook. “Bombs away,” he said before releasing the break and sending them into what felt very much like free-fall.
Her ears popped and she had stopped breathing, eyes long since closed. It wasn’t until Nihlus said they were getting close that she opened them, but still didn’t dare to look down. After what seemed like an eternity, they came to a stop and Shepard let go and landed on the bottom of the elevator shaft, Nihlus right on her heels. They reached up and pried the doors open.
He climbed out first then turned to reach an arm down and help pull Shepard out. Not quite to her feet yet, Nihlus suddenly pushed her out of the way. She tucked into a roll and reached for her gun but her shot was too late, Nihlus had been hit. Shepard hit the guy who had fired and he was now spasming on the floor. Nihlus, however, despite wearing armor, was hit in the neck and there was blue blood everywhere. She took his helmet off, but that only made the situation look more dire.
“Run,” he managed to choke out.
“No, I can’t leave you!” she said as she tried to help him get to his feet, but he pushed her away.
“Run,” he said again, this time in a garbled whisper before his head rolled to one side.
“FUCK!” she shouted as she got to her feet, forcing herself to recall the schematic again. Time check: 0:59. She didn’t look back because she was too busy running like hell. She found the tunnel she was looking for and reached into her pocket, pulled out a little black device and pressed a button. It was a scrambler so she wouldn’t be captured on any cameras.
Time check: 0:48. She took off running, counting down the yards in her head. She couldn’t miss the rendezvous or she’d wind up just like Nihlus. Her lungs were burning, but she didn’t think about stopping.
The door to the parking structure was in sight. Just as she reached it, her omni-tool beeped. “No,” she thought and she burst through the door hoping no one was on the other side. She could hear the inertia dampeners as she ascended the half flight of stairs. She nearly ran face first into the side of the shuttle as she exited the stairwell. The door slid open and she was greeted by Nihlus’ smiling face.
In complete shock, she took a step back. Neither her body nor her mind was responding to the signals she was sending. Overwhelmed, she collapsed onto the ground in front of the open door. Anderson, their team leader, stepped out of the cockpit and around Nihlus to help her up and into the shuttle.
“Congratulations, kid,” he said as he climbed in the shuttle with her. “You passed. Welcome to the SPECTREs,” he finished with a smile, clapping her on the shoulder. “You would have gotten a perfect score had you kept your gloves on,” he added.
Still unable to form words, Shepard picked at the skin on the palm of her hand until it lifted and she was able to peel it off completely.
Nihlus laughed a deep, genuine laugh then. “I told you she was too good to sit in an office,” he said to Anderson as the shuttle began to move.