Escape

At the entrance to the Core Communications Room.

The Federation Military soldiers inside the two disabled suits of power armor had been dragged out and tied up nearby.

Judging by the bullet holes in the surrounding walls and the damage to the two suits,

Tailstinger and Viscount Ankarin concluded that the three assigned to destroy the core communications terminal had indeed launched a direct assault here.

And they seemed to have succeeded.

At the same time, Tailstinger sensed several living humans inside the Core Communications Room.

What was more, after Ankarin's Orbital Paratroopers landed, they had detected no unusual transmissions from the Communications Center.

Especially no signals sent off-planet.

All this left the senior Star Dragon Fang agent puzzled.

Had they really completed the mission?

Then why had Judas gone silent?

As he wondered, a technician accompanying them returned to Viscount Ankarin with a report.

The door to the Core Communications Room had been locked from the inside.

Despite trying every way he could think of to crack it, the technician had failed.

Whoever locked the door appeared to have rewritten its programming, bypassing the Communications Center's access controls.

So even though the Orbital Paratroopers had taken control of the Communications Center's main console, they still could not open the door remotely.

"Whoever's inside knows what they're doing. They must be an old hand at cracking systems."

Viscount Ankarin nodded slightly at the report, then walked up to the door.

The door was locked tight, but its control terminal's communications function still worked.

Ankarin activated it, allowing everyone inside to hear him.

"This is a landing force of the Star Dragon Empire. Yasin Base has fallen. Everyone inside, open the door immediately to avoid needless casualties!"

After Ankarin spoke, the terminal's communications channel fell deathly silent.

A moment later, a distorted, stuttering voice finally came through.

"Name? Rank? Unit designation? I need to verify your identities."

"Who are you?" Viscount Ankarin asked instead of answering.

"What a joke. You don't even know who I am, and you claim to be imperial troops?"

The voice from the speaker was synthesized, but it still sounded maddeningly smug.

Viscount Ankarin, however, was an imperial noble and had enough composure not to lose his temper.

Tailstinger, on the other hand, grew visibly agitated when he heard a voice he did not recognize.

Suppressing his anger, he said as calmly as he could:

"Agent LJ-2788, Judas. Your deep-cover mission is hereby terminated. You may speak to us normally now."

Clinging to one last hope, Tailstinger ended his subordinate's covert mission ahead of schedule.

He worried that his subordinate might be stubbornly following protocol.

Perhaps Judas had not contacted him because the mission was still active, and discipline and his own safety forbade it.

But no reply came from the door terminal.

After an awkward pause, the synthesized voice spoke again.

"Uh, sorry. This Judas you're talking about attacked us right at the end of the mission, so I shot him dead."

As events took the worst possible turn, Tailstinger's face darkened beneath his helmet.

"Very well. You're Fledgling, aren't you? A Federation Psychic Agent whose real identity is a deep-cover imperial spy."

"We have evidence that you betrayed the Empire. Face the situation and open the door now, unless you want to suffer more later!"

"And Miss Margaret... No, your real name should be Isabel."

"I now suspect you of conspiring with an imperial traitor to murder one of my undercover agents. That's treason! Think very carefully."

A contemptuous snort came over the channel.

"Oh, so I'm a traitor just because you say I am? Who the fuck are you?!"

Seeing the exchange spiral toward a shouting match, Viscount Ankarin was about to step in and calm them both.

But a report from a communications soldier interrupted him.

"You're saying an external signal has been transmitting into the Core Communications Room this whole time?"

"Yes, my lord. It appeared as soon as the communications module was activated."

The report sent a possibility flashing through Ankarin's mind.

He quickly summoned several combat engineers into the Communications Center.

Then he led them to the corridor outside the Core Communications Room.

"Blow the door!"

At Ankarin's order, the Orbital Paratroopers carrying explosives and breaching tools hurried to the door and began attaching charges.

"What are you doing?"

Tailstinger was caught off guard by the order.

"I suspect the people you're looking for aren't in the Core Communications Room at all."

"They played us."

By the time the viscount finished speaking, the Orbital Paratroopers had placed the charges.

Once everyone had withdrawn to a safe distance, they detonated them at Ankarin's signal.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The charges around the alloy door exploded in rapid succession.

Through the smoke and dust, the door slowly toppled backward.

The Orbital Paratroopers, already poised to move, rushed in the instant it fell.

Then came the call: "Clear!"

Viscount Ankarin entered the Core Communications Room with Tailstinger.

The core communications terminal in the center had indeed been blown to pieces.

But apart from a few unconscious Federation soldiers on duty, bound hand and foot, there was no one else in the small room.

The only "outsider" was a corpse on the floor, its chest a bloody ruin.

The communications soldier soon found the source of the strange signal.

It was a small terminal connected to the control panel on the inside of the door.

The little device had been receiving encrypted transmissions from outside and feeding them into the door's communications channel.

"Can you trace it?"

Viscount Ankarin looked at the personal terminal, clearly modified in a hurry, and asked the communications soldier beside him.

The soldier checked it with an instrument, then shook his head.

"No, my lord. They've disconnected. All I can tell is that the original signal came from somewhere east of the base."

Twenty kilometers east of Yasin Base, in a mountain hollow.

Amber used Psionics to crush a watch-sized terminal into a misshapen ball.

Then he tossed it away.

Beside him stood Margaret, now dressed in a Federation training uniform and wearing a medium exoskeleton.

Or rather, Miss Isabel.