Location: Pacific Ocean off the coast of LA, enroute to somewhere westwards.

Date: Year 2127 Month 12 Day 13

The clouds dispersed with the dawn. A tranquil ocean dominated the scenery, the horizon was two bright shades of blue separated by a thin line.

We were on the deck of a large boat that belonged to Sentai. It looked like a yacht, but it had no cabins. Another nine similar vessels were sailing with us. 300 people were participating in this operation. Half of them gangsters, while the remaining ones were the forces of the mysterious Irene Croft. Her wanting to work with Sentai for personal gain eased some of my previous concerns, but I still felt wary of the woman who came out of nowhere.

I felt a little hangover after yesterday, but I was nowhere as bad as Alex. She was next to me leaning on the railing of the boat and holding her head with her hands.

She groaned as the ocean waves lapped against the hull. “How does she do it?”

Revy was sleeping soundly while lying on a deckchair. The redhead had also been hangover earlier this morning. Yet after consuming a bottle of a non-fizzy sports drink she perked right up, any discomfort forgotten.

Jun and Batou were sitting on chairs nearby. The latter turned to Alex and answered her, “She’s 19, when I was her age, I could drink an entire bottle of spirits and shrug it off the next day.”

Alex grumbled, “Batou, are you implying that I’m old? I’m only 29.”

Jun smiled malevolently. “How many weeks before that changes?”

Turning her head, she tried to stare daggers at him, but the sudden rocking of the boat made her wince. She leaned over the edge of the railing and took some deep breaths.

I looked at her with some concern as I asked Jun, “We aren’t attacking the site today, are we?”

He shook his head. “Of course not, they would not have allowed people to celebrate yesterday otherwise. It will take two days to reach the site.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “But there’s no cabins in these boats?”

Jun smirked. “We are not going there by boat.”

After I kept my questioning gaze on him, he added, “You will see, I do not want to spoil the surprise.”

Revy had woken up in the meantime, she extended an arm to poke at Jun’s shoulder. “Where’s Vera? I want to spar with her again.”

Jun tensed ever so slightly. “I- She is sitting this one out.”

If I had any doubts in Jun knowing that Vera was a cyber vamp, they vanished then and there. It would be bad to have an addict that went psycho when she took a hit in an enclosed space with others for a prolonged period of time.

The redhead opened her mouth in shock. “Wha- No way. I didn’t even say goodbye to her.”

Batou chuckled. “She’s not dead, just call her.”

Revy jumped to her feet. “We should all say goodbye to her, she was nice to us after all.”

Before anyone could say anything, she started a group call.

After a few moments of waiting a sniffling voice responded, “N- What’s up? Miss me already?”

Revy answered first, “Vera! What’s wrong? Are you crying? Who upset you? Where can I find them?”

Vera laughed. “I’m not crying Cheeto, it’s just a cold, was too long under the rain yesterday.” She coughed a bit and then groaned. “Yeah, I feel like shit.”

Alex responded at that, “You and me sister.”

After some more chitchat, mostly caused by Revy, we said our goodbyes.

“Bye sexy amazon!”

“Heh, bye Cheeto.”

“Good luck with everything Vera.”

“I think you’ll need it more than me, but thanks Alex.”

“Goodbye Vera.”

“See ya do- Jack.” I’m guessing she noticed that the word bothered me yesterday.

“Take care Vera.”

“Thanks, big man.”

“Please, stay safe.”

“…Will do. Goodbye Jun.”

Once the call was over, I turned to Revy and smirked. “That was nice of you… Cheeto.”

She placed her hands on her hips and pouted. “Only Vera gets to call me that.”

After staying under the pleasant warmth of the rising sun for a few more hours Jun stood up and walked to the railing. “We are getting close now, should appear anytime.”

I scanned the horizon, seeing only water for miles on end.

Eventually I spotted a few large disturbances on the ocean’s waters.

Two immense nuclear submarines broke the surface, water cascading off their hulls. The metal giants must have been at least 150 meters in length. On the gray metal their names were written in large white letters. USS Poseidon, USS Siren

Jun spoke at the sight, “Those are our rides. Courtesy of our new friends.”

Where on earth did they find those?

The navy doesn’t just leave nuclear submarines lying around. Those looked modern too. The kind that was difficult to detect with conventional methods and that could go really fast.

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Revy rushed to the railing. “Holy shit, wonder if I can pilot one?”

We all jerked our heads to face her. Alex asked her with some uncertainty, “Do you also know how to pilot a sub?”

The redhead shook her head. “No, but I could read the theory while we travel and see firsthand how they do it.”

Jun shrugged, “Not up to Sentai, you will have to ask to the people of the singing woman.”

“Right, guess I’ll do that.”

The boats split up equally for each submarine. With all the gangsters boarding one submarine and Irene’s forces occupying the other one.

Once down the hatch we entered a white semicircular corridor. There were plenty of lights that made the metal surface shine with luster. Some people in non descript clothes were directing the gangsters towards the cabins. I noticed how all of them looked like they had extensive cyberware. Metal limbs, chromed surfaces, glowing lines and even a pointy chrome tooth were things that jumped to my eyes. And who knows how many synth muscles they had under their skin.

“Glad they’re on our side.” I said out loud while we walked down the corridor.

Once we reached our cabins and unloaded our stuff, we gathered in one of the larger areas in the submarine. It was a room with benches and tables, a few groups similar to ours were already occupying some of the tables.

As we sat at one of the empty ones Alex asked, “So, is the site really underwater? Or are the submarines just there for a fancy plan?”

Jun looked at her. “I do not know the details of the plan. As for the site, yes, it is underwater.”

Alex crossed her arms on the table and placed her head sideways on them. She closed her eyes and stayed silent for a while. And then she grumbled, “But it makes no sense! Any spot shallow enough would be too close to shore and hard to hide. And spaceships are not engineered with deep water pressure in mind. They are meant to keep out the void, not the crushing depths of the ocean.”

Jun tapped a finger on the table. “All the details will be shared soon, my father will be coming here in ten minutes to explain the plan.”

Batou sighed, “I was really hoping that the site was not underwater, back when you mentioned the pacific in Nox City.”

Revy turned to him with a slight smile. “Why? Scared of getting wet?”

His eyebrows furrowed at that. “You try swimming when you weight as much as me. And yes, I am scared.”

The redhead’s smile evaporated, and a regretful expression replaced it.

Jun put a hand on the cyborg’s shoulder. “Relax, while I do not know the plan, swimming is most certainly not a part of it.” He removed his hand, and after a pause added, “But it is likely that we will end up going underwater in armor.”

Batou nodded slowly and grunted in understanding.

In the next ten minutes more gangsters entered the room, by the time Jun’s father arrived only a holo table at the center was left empty. Many were left standing and blocked the way inside. 150 gangsters were packed in the room.

Jun’s father did not enter but spoke loud enough for all inside to hear him, “I know I said to gather in this room. But I didn’t mean literally everyone. One representative for each team was all you needed to send. The others can just watch through their eyes.”

The gangsters in the room held chagrined looks on their faces after the words were spoken.

Jun’s Father then added in a lower voice, “Though to be fair it’s not like we are used to space issues like these, when’s the last time we’ve had a meeting in a bloody submarine?”

The casual words lightened up the downcast moods, and after a moment most gangsters started leaving the room.

“Who wants to stay?” Jun asked to us.

Alex rose unsteadily. “Not me, I’m going to lie down.”

Revy helped her along. “I’m going to keep her company.”

Batou and I rose up, and just shrugged at Jun.

“Figures.” He replied.

Once back in the cabin that I shared with Jun and Batou I switched my view to Jun’s.

The gangster leader was in the middle of the much emptier room. He stood behind the holo table. Next to him was the woman that had been in the safehouse of Nox City, the new head of the Yamamoto family wore a somber expression.

Jun’s father started speaking, “Before we explain the plan, I’ll need to provide some context on the location.” He waved his hand and above the table a holo image appeared.

It looked like a large mountain range with many plateaus. On the flat mountain tops several titanic buildings stood. If the mountains were as large as they appeared the distance between each structure was significant. Nonetheless they were interconnected by long winding tunnels that crossed the entirety of the mountain range.

The gangster cleared his voice and continued speaking, “You’ve probably all had that grandparent that would make a big deal out of the 2060’s underwater volcanic eruptions in the pacific, and how people were calling it the beginning of the end of the world.”

After a brief pause in which a few gangsters nodded knowingly at the words he continued.

“The result of the volcanic activity is the underwater mountain range of solidified magma that you see now. Back when it happened the organization that had investigated the effects claimed that the mountain range only rose to a 700 meter depth. Well, that organization was owned by the corpos. The mountains actually reach all the way up to 200 meters from sea level. The corpos hid the fact and built numerous black sites throughout the rocky formation.”

He pointed at one of the buildings. The holo image zoomed in, the only thing we saw now was the slowly rotating structure. It was cylindrical in shape, its height was such that it almost reached the now visible water surface. Some kind of steel was the predominant material, except for the higher floors where glass could be seen as well.

“This is the site we are interested in. The ships that are being built here are going to be ready to launch by the time we arrive. All we have to do is take them for ourselves.”

He put the palm of his hands against the holo table and leaned forward.

“To do that we have planned a two pronged attack. The building has several underwater entrances. Irene’s forces will sneak through one and we will do so from another entry on the opposite side. The way in is guarded, we have supercavitating bullets that are effective underwater, but so do the guards. The reason they have entrances underwater is because they move supplies through submarines, which by the way, are constantly patrolling the mountain range.”

The gangster nodded at the holo image which transformed into a submarine similar to the one we were on.

“Two dozen of these things are keeping their perimeter secure. Luckily the area is very large. We should have a thirty minute window in which to act without having to worry about them. That being said, our own submarines will have to make a run for it after dropping us to avoid being hunted down.”

Jun’s father scanned the room with his eyes.

“Which means that we will not have an escape route should things turn dire. If you no longer wish to participate in this operation message me after this meeting, and you will be allowed to stay in the submarines when they retreat.”

He then curved his lips in an unpleasant smile. “Before you make that decision let me remind you how much money is on stake.”

“There are 20 ships in this site, 10 will go to us. That’s at least 10 billion credits.”

“Can you call yourselves gangsters if you gave up such a fortune out of fear?”

“Would you bring dishonor to the gang’s name by turning back when you were called for?”

The room was completely silent, only steely gazes responded to the questions of Ryuji Ishikawa.

He nodded, “As expected of those with the Ishikawa and Yamamoto families.”

Turning towards the woman next to him, that had been silent until now, he said, “As for what the plan is once we enter the site, I will leave the explanation to the Yamamoto head.”

He stepped to the side leaving the space by the center of the table free.

The woman with sharp features and red chrome lines in her face stepped at the center, she waved her hand and the image of the black site reappeared. Except that this time a large area that occupied most of the upper building was highlighted in red. On closer inspection, a smaller area to the side of the building was also highlighted.

The woman began speaking with a steely tone.

“There are two key locations in this structure. One is the vast space where the spaceships are held, and the other one is the control room of the black site. The area with the ships has more corpo sec and corpo elites than anywhere else due to its sheer size. The forces of Irene Croft will attack there first and attract the attention of the corpos.”

She pointed towards the smaller highlighted area.

“We will head for the control room and activate the system that is necessary to launch the ships. After that is done, our job is to reinforce our allies by entering the area with the ships from another direction. Effectively flanking the corpos inside. As we progress inside the vast room the plan is to board and capture the ships in the way. Once you can launch don’t hesitate to do so, the longer we stay the worse things will get.”

She smiled fiercely.

“As for who gets what ship, the usual rule follows.”

“First come, first served.”