Green Sun: Anthology

Infiltration

It was darker than usual with the full moon obscured by a sand storm. She hated the sand, it always took days to get out of her kit and her mane, but the darkness? That was her friend and ally, about the only one she had left. Movement to her right made her freeze, stopping her crawl towards the GDI research facility she had been sneaking around and observing for the past 9 days, her cloaking field shimmering slightly, but only for a split-second.

That movement turned out to be another patrol, more of the GDI Expeditionary Legion, more traitors. She scoffed, but the disdain only lasted as long as the shimmer of her cloaking field. She wasn’t exactly a loyal member of Nod, but circumstances kept her in their pocket until the next open war broke out… or until she finally died for real.

“That’s it…” the pegasus whispered to herself, “Keep trotting along… nothing here.”

Usually she’d be worried about detection, but the GDIEL was notorious for using outdated gear that was years behind the current Nod equipment. Had this been during the war, she would have been neck deep in railgun rounds, but Princess Twilight’s advances since the war ended had been extraordinary. Scanners swept over her and came up with nothing, even as the corporal leading the patrol looked right into her eyes without knowing, and the team kept moving along their patrol path. The moment they turned, she brought a small pistol out and lined it up with the flank of the rear-most private, firing.

The release of CO2 was drowned out by the whipping of the sand around them, and the miniscule tracker went unfelt on the armor plating that the earth pony had on. Most importantly, a small number “9” appeared on her HUD, joining the other eight patrols that she had planted trackers on. Pleased with her progress, she keyed her radio.

“Black Widow to Nest Actual.” the operative said quietly.

“Go ahead Widow.”

“Patrols are tagged, moving to infiltrate. Make sure you’re ready to go on my signal. Estimated exfil is… 0130.”

“Copy that, Widow. Units are on standby. Good luck.”

She cut the channel with that, scowling again. Luck had nothing to do with it, she was the best at what she did on either side of the battle lines. With her pistol holstered once more she started forward at a low crouch, sidestepping wire and other obstacles until she was pressed up against the outer defensive walls that lined the compound. Unlike the patrols, the turrets guarding this facility looked top-of-the-line; further evidence that this was the facility Twilight was looking for.

“Expendable traitors outside, valuable regulars inside.” she thought, her wings quickly flaring to life and lifting her just far enough to slide over the top of the wall and slink into the shadow of a nearby motorpool. Lines of Pitbulls and Timberwolf APCs stood silent vigil, but the agent doubted half of them were even fueled up. This was a “safe” Green Zone assignment, even if it was within spitting distance of the civil war factory known as Saddle Arabia. Across from the motorpool she could make out an air traffic control tower and her scowl merely deepened. Air support would make extract annoying.

Silently she slipped remote charges into the fuel tanks of a half-dozen of the parked vehicles, making sure to leave each recon buggy and APC just the way she found them before making her way towards the barracks. With practiced movements she strapped a trio of incendiary charges between the dome-like prefab structures and melted back into the shadows once all of her charges were showing their yellow status lights on her HUD.

With her exit now half-guaranteed, her primary target remained and the Nod commando known as Black Widow silently moved from shadow to shadow until she was standing at a maintenance door for the research facility. A badge was needed to enter, as well as a retinal scan and hoof or claw scan. Usually this sort of thing would appear like overkill but if the Princess was right about what was in this facility, GDI was adopting some of the Brotherhood’s tendencies for subterfuge.

Luckily for her, she had the best technology that Nod had to offer, and with a simple wave of her hoof, the jamming suite in her suit cracked through the various locks in seconds and let loose a viral worm into the building’s network. Once inside, she could hear the doors locks slam shut again through the thick metal of the door, and was assaulted by a cacophony from the monitoring equipment that she knew was waiting for her in the neighboring room from this hallway. She hadn’t heard any of this from outside, even with an ear to the door, meaning noise cancellation was part of the building’s design.

A sinister smile graced her muzzle and she readied her sidearm, a silenced model commonly used by Shadows. Usually an automatic model, but she preferred a semi-automatic modification while enjoying the increased ammo capacity. With pistol in mouth, she moved into the laboratory and with one more test of just how soundproofed things were, opened up on the scientists working the night shift.

Blood coated the windows, but nothing else came of it. Her virus had already snuffed out the alarm system and if anypony was watching the camera staring right at her, it was providing static. Most importantly however, was the external doors having their security lockdowns activated, locking everypony in the building with her. Until she wanted to leave, nothing would be getting out alive.

With the night shift in this particular lab silenced, she started weaving through the hallways and stairwells, avoiding stairwells whenever possible and clearing every room she came across with brutal efficiency. Only when confronted with the facility’s research vault did she have reason to pause, casing it as best she could. Despite the wealth of information provided by the Shadow Corps about this base, this far into the facility there was no way of knowing what she would be running into. Those with access to the vault were most likely in the officers barracks sound asleep, and using brute force might damage the contents.

With another wave of her hoof, the electronic security measures were deactivated and a proper scan was done of the vault door. Several inches of titanium stood between her and her prize, with a similar shell discouraging her from trying to get through the walls, and it was machined in a way that there were no seams to exploit where the door slid across the floor.

With a sigh, she hefted a small glass cylinder with a metal head on one end and a strange liquid inside of it. While her viruses and cloaking were tried and tested, this experimental device only had Twilight’s guarantee that it would work on a GDI door that no one in the Brotherhood had ever cracked before. She holstered her pistol and activated the magnetic ring on the device with her snout before placing it on the door.

Her visor automatically polarized further as a bright light was emitted from the cylinder, a laser drilling directly into the metal. Smoke filled the room but her helmet filtered it, and before long, the liquid inside of the cylinder started to empty into the door. Slowly, the nanites began eating through the locking mechanisms, only stopping when she noticed them chewing through metal and she hit the kill-switch.

Opening the well-balanced door was easy after that, despite it having to weigh a few hundred kilos minimum. The agent looked into the vault with a self-satisfied grin and a hearty helping of relief that the Princess’ newest idea actually worked, both in chewing through the locks and with the kill-switch. More importantly, she had access to what GDI felt necessary to put state-of-the-art defenses around with the set dressing of Expeditionary Legion guards.

Wasting no time, she sprinted over to the access console at the head of the vault full of server racks, and hacked in with little difficulty. Another worm spread through, but unlike the one ravaging the security systems, this one was intent on leaving no trace of what it was looking for. After nearly a minute of hoof-biting wait, the worm found what it was looking for and she copied all of the relevant files to her suit’s digital storage as well as a separate hard-drive being held in an ammunition pouch. Once taken, she hid all digital evidence of the intrusion, visibly downloaded some technical documents related to the original Titan program, and made a beeline for the outer doors.

As she approached the exit, she brought up two icons on her HUD and activated them, and while she couldn’t hear anything inside, she was sure that the motorpool and the barracks had gone up in flames. Only when she got outside did she get confirmation of the presence of the other half of her exit strategy.

A full-fledged battle was raging on the perimeter of the base as elite Black Hand troops assaulted the research outpost, lasers burning through the night and piercing the sandstorm that still raged. Tracers and railguns lanced back out at the unseen Nod force and no one noticed as a pegasus took to the sky away from the conflagration.

Several hours later, the violet pegasus was brushing her black mane out of her face as Kane himself stood in front of her and the holotable that her hard-drive was plugged into. Twilight was poring over the wealth of data and Flurry Heart was staring at Black Widow the entire time as if waiting for a moment to strike.

“Is it as we hoped, Princess?” Kane finally asked.

“It’s buried deep in the data, but this does confirm that they’re holding it in ZOCOM Headquarters… now we just have to figure out how to steal it.”

Kane nodded, his ever-confident grin coming back as his eyes met that of the commando who had delivered this news.

“I know just who to ask.” Kane stated, and soon enough his grin was matched by Twilight and Flurry Heart.

“Tell me Sakura…”Princess Twilight asked, “How would you like to go down in history as the mare who delivered the Tacitus to the Nod’s Messiah?”