Garion pressed himself up against the wall of the alleyway. His heart pounded as he prepared himself, the imminent firefight made him tense. He pulled out his pistol from the holster and flicked the safety off. Tei appeared at the entrance to the alley and pointed at it, looking down the street.

“He’s in here, hurry!” he said.

He ran in, standing next to Garion and pulled out his pistol. A pair of Coalition soldiers ran into the alley only to be shot by them. Their lifeless bodies dropped to the ground before they could make a sound.

“Alright let’s make this snappy,” Garion said. He went over to one of the bodies and started taking off their armor.

The armor felt a lot tighter than Garion thought it would feel, especially since the soldier was bigger than he was. He picked up the soldier’s rifle off the ground and turned to Tei.

“You ready?”

Tei gave him a thumbs up as he slid his helmet on. “Let’s do this.”

They started to make their way back to the outpost. Garion could feel his heartbeat get faster as they neared the door. Sweat seeped into his fatigues and he had to resist the urge to keep his finger on the trigger of his rifle.

“Here goes nothing.”

The door hissed as it rose up, and they walked in. A few soldiers turned their heads as they walked in, but nobody’s eyes pried for too long. Garion looked up at a sign on the ceiling, giving the directions to each room.

“We’ll start with the computer room, it’s just ahead,” Garion murmured to Tei.

He gave the occasional nod to soldiers who looked their way, trying to act as casual as he could, which wasn’t easy when he was this tense.

The computer room was empty when they came in. There were two long desks, each with a row of seven computers. Garion sat down at one of the chairs and set his rifle down next to him. Tei sat down in the seat next to him. Garion reached into his boot and pulled the memory chip out. He stuck it into the computer and navigated to the files.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Wait a minute, Baskus didn’t tell us what files to grab,” Tei realized.

“Let’s start by searching his name, then go from there.”

He typed in the orc’s name and waited for the result. One folder appeared, it was marked ‘Hydra Intel.’ Garion opened the folder and saw nine or ten files, all marked ‘Hydra Intel -‘ and then a subject name. He skimmed all the files and saw ‘Hydra Intel - Baskus Lagra.’

“This is it. Let’s hurry up and get this done.”

He moved the files onto the memory chip, which luckily only took a few seconds. As he started deleting the files the door to the room flew open, revealing a soldier standing in the doorway.

“Hey, what are you doing?” He asked.

Garion and Tei glanced around each other before looking back at the soldier.

“Ah dammit, here we go,” Garion muttered.

He grabbed his rifle and fired a burst of three shots into his chest. Panicked yelling erupted and an alarm started blaring. Garion stood up and ripped the memory card out of the computer and put back into his sock.

“Let’s go, hurry!”

They heaved the door open only to find about six or seven soldiers waiting for them. Two of them shoved stun batons into Garion and Tei’s chests. A torrent of electricity washed over Garion’s body. He wanted to cry out in pain, but the muscles in his mouth wouldn’t stop spasming. They held the baton to his chest for several seconds before finally letting go. They collapsed to the ground and a wave of black washed over them as their consciousness ebbed away.

Something hard whacked Garion over the head. He opened his eyes and sat up, which sent a sharp pain in his back. His whole body felt sore, like it was going to fall apart. Something cold dug into his wrists. He looked down to see a pair of handcuffs gripping him tightly. He looked to his left to see Tei right next to him, and above them, a Coalition soldier was looking at some sort of data pad.

“Let’s see here… Garion Rilder and Mahios-Tei Xemitus. Says here you’re being charged with the deletion of military documents, so you’re probably looking at five or six years.”

A camera lowered itself down from the ceiling and emitted a bright blue light as it scanned their faces. After a few seconds, it rose back up into the ceiling.

“Let’s move.”

The soldier stood them up and started walking them down the hallway. They were lead to a small cell with a bunk bed on either side, a toilet in the corner, and a row of small holes, no more than a few millimeters big, on the wall for sunlight. They were shoved in and the soldier shut the door behind them.