Chapter 10 - Mission: Aftermath, Part Two

As the KVA Soldiers continued to send mag after mag of ammo at the Atlas soldiers and their new allies, Twilight Sparkle, while she stooped to reload her Bal-27, attempted to scan one of the yellow-clad soldier's Exo-suits in order to see what she could discover.

However, even though Atlas Corporation scanning and interfacing tech was top of the line, the Exos these soldiers were using were equipped with firewalls and security measures that stopped the scan within two seconds of deployment.

"Damn." Twilight cursed, resuming her assault on the KVA while Gideon, Mitchell, Joker, and Torrez pushed an ambulance up the road to use as cover. "Whoever Knox and his team are, they're good at their job and well equipped. Almost too good."

As the last of the KVA outside the hospital fell dead, Knox motioned the group to rally on him.

"Your target is on the third floor office complex, right here." Harper said, his voice distorted due to a voice scrambler built into the helmet. "We'll cover you from the ground while you rappell up from the atrium."

"Now hold on a minute." Twilight interjected. "There's a lot of things I don't know here about you three, and I would very much like to know who you are, and who you work for."

"That's classified." the three soldiers replied instantly. Knox also looked at Twilight before continuing. "And I know you tried to scan my Exo, ma'am. For the record, don't try that again."

"You think you could take me?" she asked, an eyebrow perked in anger.

"Yeah, I can." Knox replied. "Let's move."

As the three soldiers reactivated their cloak and led the Atlas units into the Atrium, Twilight looked down at the pouch on her tac-rig that held the data drive she found earlier. She made a mental note to decrypt and analyze the drive once they returned to HQ in Roanoke or the Detroit refugee camp.

For now, she had a job to do. As she reloaded her Bal-27 and stacked up with Mitchell and the others, Knox dropped three KVA in quick succession with his IMR before throwing a knife into the head of a fourth. As the two groups engaged the remaining KVA, Gideon barked for Twilight and Mitchell to retrieve the target on their own, as the three others would hold the KVA back.

Twilight and Mitchell boost-jumped over to a stairwell and began to climb, and it wasn't long before they were outside the target's room. With a boosted kick from Mitchell that smashed the door to bits, and five quick shots from Twilight, the room was clear of KVA. While Mitchell zip-tied Dr. Danois, Twilight relayed their success back to the Atlas command dispatchers.

"We copy, two-three." Prophet replied. "Proceed and xxtract the target back to the refugee camp ASAP."

"Confirmed, Prophet." Twilight replied. "Two-three out."

As the two soldiers moved out, Mitchell carrying Danois, they found the atrium had been cleared of KVA and the three mysterious soldiers were gone.

"Where'd they head off to?" Twilight asked Gideon.

"Once we cleared the area, they cloaked and headed out to to fuck knows where." Gideon replied. "They did give me this, though."

It was a data drive similar to Twilight's own, and she frowned.

"I got one too earlier." she said. "We can talk about this later. We need to move, we've probably kicked the hornets' nest by now. KVA should be coming in fast."

"Right, let's move!" Gideon motioned, and the five of them headed back to their waiting bikes. As Joker secured Danois on his own Bike, Twilight mounted up and followed the others back through the ruins to the camp.

However, had she looked behind her one last time, she might've seen Knox and his team extract on a Razorback VTOL, standard issue for the US Military. The Razorback bore the same sigil as the data drive, and as the three soldiers sat down, Knox opened a comms channel.

"This is Lancer 1-1, you copy?" Knox asked.

"We copy, Lancer." said a rough, deep, yet experienced voice in reply. "Did the Atlas units get their packages?"

"They did, indeed." Knox replied. "Once they open the drives up to the Atlas mainframe, we'll be all set for Phase Two."

"Copy." the voice replied. "However, once we get into the Atlas command server, how do you know you'll find what you're looking for, Knox?".

"I've already taken that into account." Knox replied. "There's only one place the data we're looking for could be. And I've already mapped out what I need to do."

"Good work, Knox." the voice affirmed. "Return to HQ. Command out."

====

As Twilight and the others left Dr. Danois in the hands of Ilona once they returned to base, Twilight, Gideon, Mitchell, and Joker said goodbye to Torres and headed for the Tech area. After finding an open terminal, both Twilight and Gideon plugged in their respective data drives to access their contents.

"Whatcha got, Twi?" Gideon asked.

"I've got a large text file, some holographic intel, and a video feed link for an address not in the Atlas database." Twilight replied. "You?"

"I've got a data packet with some heavy encryption." Gideon said. "I'll go first."

Gideon decrypted the data packet, and watched as a command window appeared on the monitor, and just as quickly as it had come, it had vanished.

"Anything?" Twilight asked.

"Nothing." Gideon frowned, before sighing and turning away, not noticing the file in question disappear from the interface as the computer went silent.

"Let's see that text file." Gideon said to Twilight, who opened the file and displayed it on the screen. The words that popped up made the Atlas units freeze in shock.

HADES WILL MEET WITH KVA FINANCIAL BACKERS IN SANTORINI, GREECE IN 72 HOURS FROM 7:00 PM DETROIT TIME AT THE CURRENT DATE. THIS IS YOUR ONE CHANCE. DO NOT WASTE IT.

KINGPIN

Twilight and the Atlas soldiers recoiled. If this intel was true, they could end the KVA in less than three days and have time to spare. As Mitchell made the call to tell Mr. Irons of their discovery, Twilight stayed quiet. Because through all this, something didn't sit right with her. As she left her seat to rejoin her friends, the data drive in her pocket went quiet.

Author's Note

Update!

Yeah, I might deviate a bit more from the AW story for the next mission, but we will see.