In the end Narla put her foot down. She told them to either wait a couple of more days before running the mission, or they had to leave the crew members they'd rescued behind for now.

It wasn't ideal, but at that point Ali and Grey redesigned the plan so that the Faraday ran the infiltration and the Endeavour ran any distraction and interference to help them pull this off. Ben had not appreciated Ali's at least that gives us a line of communication that doesn't rely on comms internal quip.

It had been a long time since Ali had felt this nervous, and since then she'd helped take down Cosmos' Champions when they turned terrorist. Though a part of her was wondering if this was all connected why not use Pikaya if they already had at least one off the books subdivision. She was chalking it off to wanting this to be completely separate for plausible deniability.

But if this went wrong, then her whole crew could be facing courts martial, or worse. Even though there were a relative amount of unknowns, at least her crew had an idea of what to expect when they hit the facility, and what the immediate consequences were. Death, injury and experiments ranked highly, the wider repercussions were always harder to consider in the heat of the moment. It was her job as captain to prevent that kind of harm coming to them and thinking about the bigger picture.

But that was just it, the bigger picture meant uncovering whoever or whatever was controlling USEP admirals to keep running their shady operations in peace.

They'd been close enough to have a confident handle on the patrol patterns being used in the solar system, so they weren't too worried about getting the shuttle in undetected. They had opted for one in the end to minimise the time required to get through and out again. Ed was pilot, Olkant was getting out as near to his entrance as they could get him without being detected, then Ali, Rila and Pixie were getting out where they were going to plant their explosives to take down the power grid. Ed was going to wait for them at the safest location he could find to be able to airlift them out when they were out of time. Kempa was staying on the shuttle with Ed to see how much damage she could do with a sniper rifle, and to ensure that they didn't lose their means of escape.

They had considered taking more, but in the end had decided that a smaller team had a better chance at staying hidden, and if they did end up in a firefight, adding two or three extra people wouldn't help them enough to keep them safe. They would have preferred to send someone with Olkant to keep him safe, but he could take care of himself and they didn't know how many they'd be able to get away with getting into the vents at once.

"Remind me again why we're not just beaming him in?" Kempa asked.

"Because their security systems will definitely pick up the energy signature of a beamer," Ali explained.

"And a lot of this plan relies on luck," Olkant helpfully supplied. Ali laughed at the indignant expression on Rila's face. She still hadn't got the hang of Olkant's sense of humour coming more to the fore in dangerous and stressful situations. "Also, if there's sensors, I should hopefully be able to deactivate them as I come across them," Olkant added rather more seriously.

Kempa nodded as if to say that made sense as Ed called that they were approaching their first drop point.

"I want you back in one piece," Ali ordered when they released the hatch. "So don't do anything too stupid."

"Aye, captain," Olkant replied, and Ali had to admit that she had no idea if that was a genuine agreement or a placation and that he had every intention of doing what he felt best at any time.

They didn't have time to wait to check Olkant got in okay, staying where they were too long unnecessarily increased their chances of discovery. Ali was monitoring their scanners to ensure that they could go back if anything went wrong, but nothing came up by the time they were at the second drop off. Ali, Rila and Pixie took a little longer to clear the shuttle because they were carrying a collection of small ordinances that the security guys from both Endeavour and Faraday had cooked up for them.

Once safely on the ground they took cover as Ali unhooked the scanner from her belt and confirmed the security presence. The guards were just where they had expected them to be, Ali nodded, indicated to go the way they'd planned and they carefully made their way towards the generators.

They came to a halt just before they reached the first of the two mercs they needed to deal with. Staying low and carefully removing the pack of explosives she had been carrying, Ali reached out with her senses to get a clearer and more instinctual idea of the landscape. She nodded to Rila, who situated herself where she could just about see what was about to go down, then rushed out.

The guard in question was yertan, and their partial exoskeleton gave them excellent natural armour even without the mercenary gear. It would've been nice if she could just use a sleeper hold, but it wasn't going to be that easy. Instead Ali rushed in so fast she was able to steal his holstered weapon before he had even registered anyone was coming at him, tossing it towards where Rila and Pixie were still hunkered down and launching a knife-hand strike at his neck to try and stun him.

He wouldn't be a very good mercenary - or at least, still alive - if he went down with one blitz attack. He blocked Ali's strike with his forearm and aimed a kick to her stomach. Ali dodged to one side but caught his lower leg with her hand and lifted, pushing the yertan backwards until he was forced to fall backwards, and she just managed to evade his attempts to get a grip on her arm to pull her after him. He had twisted to land on his side - made sense, Ali couldn't imagine landing on your own spines was pleasant - but in doing so landed on his own arm with a sickening crunch. Ali didn't stop to see what had broken but swooped in to land the original blow she'd aimed to knock him out.

"You look worried," Rila observed as she and Pixie rejoined Ali now that the obstacle had been removed, and held out the guard's energy weapon.

"Why didn't he radio me in?" Ali asked. Neither had an answer so they figured they better make the most of the time they had before they were discovered.

The other sentry was on the other side of the power plant section, which didn't leave a lot of cover available to them to get to him. Ali quickly checked on her scanner and Rila read it over her shoulder as Pixie kept lookout - though Ali had pointed out that she could do that with her scanner, she had disagreed and said they shouldn't rely on tech. She'd nodded her agreement to that. "Okay, you two wait here, I'll deal with him," Rila suggested.

"You sure?" Ali checked.

"Yeah." Rila didn't look back, but Ali trusted her so she reached for the pistol she'd stolen - she was hoping that if their security was enough to detect weapons fire, they'd have coded their own weapons into it - and took up residence behind a low piece of cover to watch what Rila was doing as Pixie continued her vigil on the other side.

Even though Ali had some idea about what Rila was doing, she could barely see the other woman as she twisted and rushed her way between the sparse hiding opportunities until she was upon the merc and tossed a pebble she'd pre-emptively picked up to make him turn his back on her. Once she was confident he was looking away from her she launched herself at him, arm around his throat and legs around his midsection as she landed on his back, squeezing both just enough to render him unable to fight back and unconscious.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

She quickly checked that they'd secured the area and signalled for Ali and Pixie to join her. "Why didn't we just do that with the first one?" Pixie asked once Rila explained what she'd done.

"You ever tried to put a yertan in a sleeper hold?" Rila retorted, making both of them laugh. "Besides, their spines make approaching from behind at close range pretty risky."

It didn't take them long to have the explosive charges set up at the key points Ali's calculations - which had been double checked by Spud - had determined to be optimal.

"Now we just need to wait until Olkant's ready for extraction," Ali said as she finished setting the last one.

Rila closed her eyes as she reached out with her telepathic senses, trying to get a sense of Olkant's progress without being intrusive. Yet again Ali and Pixie kept watch until Rila was able to focus on her surroundings again. "He reckons he needs another five minutes."

Ali nodded and essentially swapped roles with Rila as she reached out across her tetnar to find out what the situation was for their ships. She was reassured to find out that they were currently still holding their position out of range of the patrols but were ready to come in and provide a distraction when required. Though they'd like a heads up when they were going to detonate the power.

~-x-~

They were on high alert as they waited for Olkant's signal to Rila, the latter of whom was checking in regularly to ensure communication was kept open without any electronic signals.

Thankfully they had been able to cover their tracks by taking the radios from the mercs they'd subdued, and only once been asked for a report which they'd been able to blag. Other than that no one came close to discovering that things were abnormal.

Once Rila knew Olkant was done Ali ordered them onto their next tasks, before letting Ben know what stage of the plan they were at, and to be ready because she had no idea how they would respond to the power loss. Rila was guarding their exit route whilst Ali and Pixie were going to see what they could grab from the building. Rila had expressed some skepticism about that plan, but Ali had simply reminded her that Rila's propensity for being a one-woman army would be particularly useful when they needed to make a harried exit.

A safe distance away, ready for their next tasks - and Rila confirmed such - Rila detonated the explosives. No one needed to ask when they'd gone off, the noise and rumble through the ground were more than telling. Once the lights went out on the security panel next to their entrance, Ali and Pixie instantly forced the door open and hurried inside with their weapons raised. Ali was supporting her's with the wrist of the hand that held her scanner, whilst Pixie used a similar trick with a torch so that they could see where they were going and navigate.

As they carefully made their way through the dark corridors they could hear shouts, running and orders. Each time Ali directed them to keep going or pause to let the danger pass them by in the safest possible way. By the time they reached the lab area they'd only had to shoot two people.

Olkant's out, don't waste any time. Rila warned as Ali kept watch whilst Pixie found something to force the lab door open with. Ali confirmed she'd got the message and quietly passed it on to Pixie to keep her updated. Due to the power being cut, once the initial gap had been created the doors were relatively easy to push apart.

The scene that greeted them was a stark contrast to the ship they'd found the others on. This was pristine, clean and high tech, though the latter was had less impact than usual because the power was down. "What are we looking for?" Pixie whispered as they quickly ascertained they were alone.

Ali had to admit, she wasn't completely sure. "Anything that looks like it might provided useful data if we take it back. Samples, small tech, that kinda thing."

Pixie nodded and they set to their searches with all the speed they could muster and not miss anything.

They quickly lost track of how many cabinets they'd opened and closed only for none of the contents to be remotely interesting, moving through that lab and onto the adjacent ones as quickly as they could. All too soon Ali spotted a number of life-signs massing around the lab they were in on her scanner. "Time's up," she warned.

"Which direction has the least resistance?"

Ali pointed back the way they'd come. The mercs appeared to have been monitoring their progress and expected them to continue in the same direction, though they had sent more than enough to block them off that way. Ali did briefly wonder on the wisdom of putting more guards on their flank, but she knew Pixie was right, they just needed to punch through and run. Ali scoffed at the idea of them 'just' needing to execute said plan.

When they arrived back at the doorway they both instinctively pressed their backs to the wall either side, and Pixie lifted one of the flashbang grenades she'd brought with him. Ali nodded and got a grip on the door they'd previous forced open, Pixie tossed the grenade through the gap that was still present, then once she'd retracted her hand Ali yanked the door closed that they weren't caught with their own attack.

Pixie took over the door from her to allow her to check on her scanner to ascertain when the detonation had finished. "Go!" Ali ordered.

Pixie wrenched the door back open before raising her pistol to shoot at the mercs still between them and the door. Ali close on her heels as they both ran. She had her pistol raised in one hand and her scanner loosely held in front of her with the other. Ignoring her usual trick of stabilising her gun hand with the other because, especially when legging it through a corridor, accuracy wasn't top of their priority list. They were shooting to keep their enemies in cover rather than giving them the chance to take shots at them.

"Ali! Tell me you're almost out, they're pretty insistent on reclaiming their generators!" Rila's voice flared over their comm, almost making them jump in surprise.

"Drop back," Ali ordered breathlessly as she continued sprinting. "Get to Ed if you can, we'll think of something."

Rila confirmed the order and the comm line went quiet again.

"Yeah, we ain't getting out that way," Pixie warned as she skidded to a stop around a corner, before nudging Ali back out of sight of what would have been their exit.

Ali glanced at the schematics on her scanner and where there were the least life-signs or a possible alternative route. She quickly picked what looked the least bad option - knowing that indecision was something that would be worse than picking the wrong one right about now - and they set off running again.

They must have made it halfway when they both stumbled as the lights flared on in the corridor, their senses reeling from the extreme change as the effects of Rila abandoning her defensive position at the generators. Both blinking frantically to try and regain their bearings whilst not overloading their retinas and Ali pushed Pixie in the direction they had been heading in, shielding her eyes with her scanner.

Ali could hear orders being shouted down the corridor behind them, but it was Pixie who saw the group waiting for them, and quickly forced a side door open and pulled Ali inside. It looked like another lab, but Ali quickly shook her head to remind herself that wasn't important, and turned back to her scanner. "Krekt," she muttered.

"That good, captain?"

"Yeah," she replied tiredly as she rubbed at her forehead, trying to formulate some kind of plan. She tapped her comm open. "Ed, have you got Rila and Olkant?"

"Yeah, full compliment apart from you and Pix, skipper," Ed confirmed. "How's that escape coming?"

"Badly," Ali admitted unhappily. "I'm issuing new orders, you're returning to the Faraday."

"What?"

"That's an order, ensign, whatever data Olkant has is the priority, get everyone - and I mean everyone - back to the ship." Ali offered Pixie an apologetic look at the decision she'd made. The other woman had a worried look on her face, but she half shrugged as if to say that was part of her job description.

"Aye, skipper," Ed confirmed, clearly unhappy and clearly wanting to argue.

"Ali -"

"Don't, Rila, right now, it won't achieve anything," Ali interrupted before her second in command, and her friend, tried to argue the case. They were on limited time anyway, the longer they delayed the more likely it was that they'd all get caught. Instead Rila simply confirmed that she'd understood her orders and the comm line went quiet again.

"Do we have a plan other than stake out that door?" Pixie asked.

"Two doors," Ali corrected, indicating to one behind them. "Another lab, then loops back into the same corridor. The only other access points are the maintenance crawl spaces, but they don't lead anywhere useful for us."

"Then do we make this hard for them, or surrender and hope they go easy on us?" Pixie asked.