“The most important thing to remember while you’re on a mission is to expect everything to go wrong. If you can do that, you’ll never be surprised.”

—Pirate Lord Jikradi Qrydrsk

“Okay,” Reida said, “slow release, now. It’s the button on the side of the trigger casing.”

Zaina’s finger found it, and the cable unwound—it was like falling in slow motion into darkness. Reida fell across from her.

Once the cable had reached its maximum length, Zaina latched onto the wall with her armor’s forearm magnets. A similar humming clank came from across the hall—Reida had attached too. Zauna turned her head and strained to see Reida’s form; the elevator shaft had darkened significantly.

“Okay,” Reida’s voice called out. “Retract the coils, then I’m going to shoot to your right. You shoot to your left. That’s the pattern we’ll repeat until we reach the bottom, got it?”

Easy enough.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Zaina replied. She pushed the re-coiling button on her hook-gun and waited for thirty seconds while it rewound within the gun’s wire bay. Then she aimed to her left and fired—she gave the gun a tug to make sure the line was secure. It was; she detached from the wall and swung to her left, slamming against the wall with a grunt and a thud. Zaina’s shoulder, still aching, cried out with a dull, buzzing pain. Another slam came from across the room, along with a pained cry from Reida.

The process repeated five times. Zaina’s arms were on fire—she couldn’t imagine how much Reida was hurting. It was torturous work, which made it all the sweeter when Zaina’s feet touched the ground during a slow release. She heard a breathy sigh of relief as Reida landed. They both retracted their coils.

A light flashed. Zaina winced and covered her eyes. When she opened them, Reida was holding a light-orb and smirking.

“What?” Zaina said. “It was bright. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I’m full of surprises. All right, we’re at the bottom of the shaft. This is actually kind of good.”

Zaina’s eyes narrowed. “Kind of?”

“Well, it’s sort of a give-and-take. The good news is, we can use the resonedge to cut through this part of the wall. The bad news is, the ventilation system is only accessible through the floor above—and since that was our destination, it’s probably crawling with androids by now.”

Their odds kept getting worse and worse. “Okay, so, what’s the play? What should we deal with first?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Reida frowned. “I think we should probably deal with the androids first in case we need to run from the lancer. A couple grenades ought to do it. It’s kind of a good thing they shut down the elevator system; that means the entrance points are sealed off by security walls. Otherwise they’d already be on us.”

“You really like grenades,” Zaina said.

“It works best on them, I’ve found. Plus, they’re one of the harder munitions to get one’s hands on here—they never expect us to have many.”

Zaina’s head tilted to the side. They had whole crates of grenades back at their base. What’s she talking about?

“Either way,” Reida said, pointing her hook-gun upward, “I have a plan. The floor we need should be right about—there.”

The magnetic tip shot into the darkness above and firmly latched. Reida turned to Zaina and said, “Okay, aim for my height, but about eight feet to the left. Got it?”

Zaina nodded and pointed her hook-gun. She based her shot on the angle of Reida’s cord, which extended into the shadows above. She nailed her shot—her line was at an identical angle to Reida’s eight feet over.

“Okay,” Reida pulled out a few grenades. “I’m going to set these to max concussive. You cut me a little hole in the wall with your resonedge, and I’ll put these through. That’ll clear out the room. Make sure you slow release in case it blows out the door—it probably won’t, but if it does you won’t want to be right next to it.”

“Sounds good,” Zaina said. The cord spooled back into her hook-gun as she pulled herself up. Once she and Reida were at the proper height, Zaina pulled out her resonedge and turned it on. With a surging hum, she plunged it into the wall and pierced through.

Pops and pings broke out on the other side of the wall, but Zaina kept the hole small to keep any beads from getting through, twisting the blade so it shaved away at the edges. Once it looked big enough to fit a grenade through, she pulled the sword back.

Reida was on it in an instant—before Zaina deactivated the resonedge, two grenades were through the hole. Once a third was thrown, Reida put both hands on her hook-gun and barked, “Slow release—now!”

Zaina tapped the button, and they descended to the floor once more. Once Zaina’s feet touched the ground, a succession of booms rocked the walls—dust and smoke rushed through the small opening, filling the shaft with a burnt metallic odor. The security wall held strong.

“Easy enough,” Reida said. “Okay, now cut a hole in that wall, there. We’ll get in, grab the crystal, and get out.”

“Got it,” Zaina said. It was almost over—her chest unwound a smidge at the mere thought of the mission’s end. The sooner, the better.

She plunged the blade into the wall and carved out a circle big enough to step through, then front-kicked it so the cut segment of wall fell inward. Zaina climbed in first, and her jaw dropped.

She didn’t know what she expected from the engine room, but it wasn’t this—shelves lined every inch of the walls, displaying colorful, expensive, and ancient-looking tomes. Statues carved from priceless metals were arranged in front of intricately-designed marble pillars from which banners depicting big battles and grand speeches hung. Four tables, each hand-carved from different materials, were spread across the room, each displaying ornaments and what appeared to be priceless gems in tiny hyper-glass cases.

She took a step forward, and an unfamiliar voice called out, making her freeze in place.

“Ho there, pirates!”

There, sitting cross-legged across the room, was a human man dressed in armor similar to Gir’s. His was black and gray, and his pants were tan in color; his pale skin contrasted with his dark brown hair and brown eyes, and a scar ran down his left eye. His facial hair was trimmed into a neat mustache-and-beard combo. In his hand was a glowing green sword with a hook at the end—a cipher.

Zaina’s heart sank. The lancer.