Chapter 28: The Meeting
It was the middle of the night. Most of the quarters were quiet. Only a few lights stayed on in the long corridors. Ethan walked at a steady pace as a couple of soldiers on night watch saw him and straightened up. They saluted.
"Commander Ethan, sir. Checking on us even at this hour?"
Ethan nodded once. "Just making the rounds, soldier. Everything alright here?"
"Ye... yes, sir, all good and dandy here," one of them replied. They looked pleased, seeing someone cared about them enough to respond.
But as it was getting late for Ethan, one of them started to say something about how the lower ranks appreciated officers who still showed up. Ethan wanted a way out when Marcus came around the corner before the man could finish.
"Back to your posts. Now."
He waved them off with a sharp gesture.
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers moved away fast. Marcus fell into step beside Ethan and muttered, "Soldiers these days. They think sucking up is the fastest way to get promoted."
Ethan kept walking. "Haha, indeed. Maybe we should lean into it. Let them keep doing it. Build a real toxic environment. Promote the worst of them, and that way the whole place rots from the inside."
Marcus stopped for half a second while he looked at Ethan like he was weighing the idea.
"You know what — you’re onto something. That’s actually not bad. Promote the worthless ones. Let the competent ones get frustrated and leave. I might start doing that."
Ethan gave a thin smile that did not reach his eyes. "Sure... sure."
In time, they reached the steel door at the end of the restricted wing. It had a narrow slot at eye level and no handle on the outside. Ethan knocked in a short pattern — three quick, two slow, one more.
The slot slid open. A pair of bright yellow eyes looked out.
"New recruits, huh?" the voice behind the door asked.
Ethan answered first. "No. We’ve been in it from the first day. Not the fresh blood they send our way."
Marcus added, "Same team since the start. Let us through."
The eyes studied them a moment longer. Then the slot closed and the heavy bolts clanked. When both of them entered, there they stood.
Five people in the room. The space was plain — metal walls, one table with a map spread across it, a few chairs that looked like they had been dragged in from storage — and no one, not even one, smiled.
Ethan had half expected Amanda to be here. She was not. That was one less complication. He was glad for it.
Marcus noticed the stares right away. Every person in the room was looking at them like they had walked into the wrong place, but Marcus did not waste time, getting straight to the point.
"Why the looks?"
The man standing a half-step higher than the rest came forward. He had a sharp face and the posture of someone used to giving orders.
"We have a straight-up guy here. The thing is, we had this mission locked down to a tee, and you two got added at the last second without any of us being consulted."
A woman next to him cut in before the silence could stretch. "No need to be rude about it. What happened, happened. We adjust and move. That is all."
A third voice, lower in rank than Ethan and Marcus, spoke from the side of the table.
"If command hadn’t forced them in, the whole thing would have been canceled. So either we put our heads together now, or we waste time explaining the plan from zero."
The tall man with slightly darker skin stepped forward. He was the one who had spoken first about the last-second addition. He stopped a few paces from Ethan and Marcus.
"Hello, then. Welcome. I hope you both can be useful. Name’s Rick."
A woman with short hair and steady hands came next. She shook both their hands without much pressure. "The name is Dayan."
The one with the yellow eyes stepped into the light. She was lean, maybe a little younger than the others, and she did not offer a hand. Just a stare. "Angelia."
Ethan found himself looking at her longer than he meant to. The yellow eyes were hard to ignore. Marcus noticed it right away, so he shifted closer and spoke under his breath so only Ethan could hear.
"Yo... do not start. I am not dealing with another Karisa situation. Keep your head clear."
Ethan looked away, confused about what the hell this man was actually talking about.
Rick cleared the space in front of the map with one sweep of his arm. "All right. Introductions are done and all that. Precious time wasted. Let’s talk the plan."
They gathered around the table. The map showed a section of the eastern supply corridor and the vault complex attached to it. Rick pointed at the main entrance.
"Imperial payroll transfer hits the vault in three days. Credits, hard currency, the whole load. They move it under heavy guard once a month. We hit it while it’s still inside, before the next convoy takes it out."
Dayan tapped the side corridor on the map. "Standard entry is suicide, with too many checkpoints. We go in through the maintenance tunnels. They run under the old sewage lines.
Most of them are sealed, but one section was never properly closed after the last renovation. Angelia found it two weeks ago."
Angelia spoke for the first time since giving her name. "The tunnel opens into a service room two levels below the vault floor. From there it’s a short climb through the ventilation shafts. The shafts are narrow. One person at a time. No heavy gear."
Rick continued. "We need four people inside the vault itself. Two to crack the locks, one to watch the corridor, one to handle the transport crates. The rest stay in the tunnels as backup and to cover the exit."
Marcus leaned over the map. "How many guards on the vault floor during the transfer?"
"Twelve on a normal night," Rick said. "On transfer night it jumps to twenty. They rotate every two hours. We time the entry for the shift change. That gives us a ten-minute window when the new squad is still getting briefed and the old squad is leaving."
Dayan added, "We have uniforms. Not perfect, but close enough for the dark and the distance. Once we’re past the service room, we look like maintenance crew. Tools, clipboards, the usual."
Ethan studied the layout. "What about the alarm system?"
Rick answered without looking up. "Hard-wired. Separate from the main grid. We cut the line in the service room before we go up. If anyone hits a panic button after that, nothing reaches the outer posts for at least eight minutes. That’s our window."
Angelia pointed at a small square on the map.
"There’s a secondary exit on the east side. It leads to the river docks. If everything goes clean, we leave the same way we came. If it doesn’t, we blow the east wall and run for the water. Boats will be waiting. Not many, but enough for six."
Marcus frowned. "You said four inside the vault. That leaves two outside. Who stays in the tunnels?"
Rick looked at him. "You and your friend. You’re the last additions. You cover the exit and the signal. If we’re not back in twenty minutes, you collapse the tunnel and leave. No heroic shit."
The lower-ranked man who had spoken earlier finally introduced himself as Toren. He was the one who had said the plan would have been canceled without Ethan and Marcus. "I’ll be on the vault team with Rick, Dayan, and Angelia. We’ve run the drills. The sequence is set."
Ethan kept his voice even. "What’s the load weight? How many crates?"
"Six crates," Dayan said. "Each one takes two people to move if we want speed. We’ll have to make two trips from the vault to the service room. That’s the riskiest part. Anyone walking the corridor during those trips could see us."
Rick nodded. "Which is why the shift-change window matters. We move during the briefings. Noise will be covered by the normal traffic of boots and voices."
Angelia looked at Ethan. "You have questions. Ask them."
Ethan did. "What happens if the locks take longer than planned? What’s the fallback if the secondary exit is watched?"
Rick answered both. "Smart questions... locks are actually mechanical. Old model. We have the tools and the codes from the last inspection. Should take under four minutes. If they stick, we force them and accept the noise.
As for the secondary exit — if it’s watched, we don’t use it. We go back the way we came and hope the tunnel is still open. That’s why you two stay there. You keep it clear, or you seal it. Your call once the time runs out."
Marcus crossed his arms. "And the signal? How do we know when to collapse it?"
"Three short bursts on the short-range. That means we’re coming back with the crates. One long burst means abandon and run. No signal after twenty minutes means the same thing. You do not wait long—"
Knock! Knock!
Silence. Everyone looked at each other. There should have been no guest around at this time.
"...who’s there?" Angelia asked.
"Amanda, here."