“Cutting engines, prepare for silent gliding.”

The words appeared on Kat’s smart panel a half second before the steady roar of the airship’s engine disappeared, jolting the entire vessel. Her harness creaked as the sudden movement rocked her back and forth, the clouds underneath her feat swaying drunkenly.

To Kat’s side, Whip sat in her harness, hands clutching tightly at the metal hand rests framing her body. Three other pairs of infiltrators swung back and forth in the turbulence as their stealth glider continued its flight unpowered now that they were over Renovated Racine. Eventually, some league or four away, it would turn its small engine back on and the pilot would make his landing, but for right now, they were nothing more than a tiny radar blip without any external signals to identify them. Even the text messages sent by the pilot traveled through direct wired connections that fed into the harnesses rather than wifi.

Seconds ticked by, and for some reason, Kat wished she could look up and see the stars through the huge wing of black ceramic that loomed above her.

She suppressed the urge, closing her eyes and focusing on the scant details they Belle had unearthed for the upcoming mission. The Silver Phantoms’ headquarters was an abandoned coal power plant. External observation revealed almost twenty automated gun turrets studding its outside walls, including at least two surface to air missile emplacements. That meant radar.

The XS stealth insertion platform was a piece of technology that most samurai outfits could only imagine. With a low radar signature and the ability to fly quietly at incredible altitudes, it was almost impossible to detect its flight without specialized equipment that knew exactly what to look for.

At least that’s what Kat repeated to herself as they rocked back and forth hanging from the bottom of the slow-moving vessel. If a missile actually locked onto them, the glider was as goo as dead.

“Approaching the target. Oxygen masks will detach in 10 seconds. Breath deep and good luck.”

More words from the pilot. Kat glanced down, but the cloud cover was unchanged. That meant that no one on the ground would be able to look up and accidentally see the glider’s wing blot out a star, but it also meant that Kat had no idea where they were or what the ground would look like until they actually dropped.

At eight seconds, she took a shallow breath, exhaling quickly to clear room in her lungs. A second later, a deep breath filled her up just as the clear oxygen mask on her face disconnected with a click, retracting back up into the wing above her.

The harnesses in front of her released, dropping two of the geists, elite infiltrators from the 3445. A second ticked by, giving the other duo a chance to fall clear of the glider, and the harness above Kat released.

Her stomach leapt into her throat as she began falling. It took everything within her not to activate Levitation or Flight. Hell, even if she wasn’t using her magic, something primal screamed at Kat to kick her legs and swing her arms. To do something in order to try and right herself.

Instead, she closed her eyes, trusting the systems built into her upgraded insertion suit.

Compressed air hissed out of jets installed into her knees, feet and elbows, rotating her until Kat was hurtling face first toward the ground. Her stomach went wild and the frayed remnants of her self preservation gibbered in terror and threw themselves at the walls of determination that she had built inside herself.

Clouds loomed closer and closer until, suddenly, she was enveloped in white. All around her there was nothing but misty water vapor enveloping her in a thick obscuring blanket.

Then, Kat was freefalling above the wreckage of Renovated Racine.

The name felt like a misnomer. Even from her extreme altitude, Kat could see the crumbling buildings and winking lights of fires, some in barrels, but many simply burning freely. There was a mixed opinion as to how the region acquired its name, some claiming that the title was sarcastic while others whispered that the gang clogged wasteland was actually a notable improvement over the wreckage that had preceded it.

It didn’t matter to Kat. She focused her eyes on a squat, three story industrial building, and felt the air jets built into her suit hiss as it reoriented itself toward the target.

Dawn hadn’t quite peaked over the horizon, but it would in under an hour. Belle’s gangsters had taken more time than any of them would ike to get into position, but from all reports they had managed to surprise the Phantoms and they were pushing the gang hard.

Wind whistled past Kat, and she swore she could hear the muffled crackles and thumps of high caliber weapons from the gang war, but there was no way to be sure. As best she could understand, that was more or less the standard nightime ambiance in Racine.

Below, a column of armored vehicles exited the compound, their headlights tracing a snaking trail off into the night. Despite the hiccups, Belle’s plan was working. A significant number of Phantoms were leaving the headquarters in order to assist their besieged allies. There was no way of knowing how many ex-Millennium samurai were still in the base or how many were leaving to defend the black market cyberware clinic, but as far as Kat was concerned, every samurai that left was one less they would have to evade or kill.

Her air jets hissed again, redirecting her plummeting body a final time to ensure that she would land on the power plant’s roof. Kat fought the urge to close her eyes as the ground and crumbling skyline rushed toward her.

She bit her lower lip.

Mana bubbled inside of her, begging Kat to cast Flight.

Each eyeblink brought her dozens of paces closer to the ground. She tried to calculate her speed only for her mind to rebel from the incredibly high numbers.

Then her chute opened.

Barely twenty paces above the powerplant, it blossomed behind her with a sharp crack, jerking Kat backward. The infiltration suit stiffened, cushioning her head and neck and preventing them from snapping as an incredible amount of g-force was exerted against her torso in a fraction of a second.

It felt like a giant had grabbed her by the chest and yanked with every erg of its might. Instinctively, Kat knew that she would be sorer than hell tomorrow, but that was quite literally a problem for another day.

The parachute slowed her greatly, but it wasn’t enough to stop Kat entirely. She hit the cement roof with enough force to send her skittering across its surface, sparks flying in every direction as the ablative insertion armor on her suit burned off.

Finally, she clanged shoulder first into a massive industrial HVAC unit, halting her momentum with bruising force. Kat rolled over onto her back, blinking up at the cloud cover as her backpack began to whirr, rapidly retracting her parachute.

About ten paces away, the two geists were on their feet, checking their snub nosed railguns and the function of their suits. A quiet ‘whoomp’ marked Hestia and the third geist as they made their final approach.

Kat pushed herself to her feet, letting her backpack finish pulling in its parachute. She reached back, snapping her railgun off of its mount on her back. A quick glance at its display confirmed that everything was in working order and that the weapon was set on rapid fire. A second check confirmed that her knives and crossbow had also survived the descent without any real damage.

Whippoorwill walked over, only discernible from the geists by the lack of mag gun and the small, boxy drone cradled in her hands. The pair of geists joined her, activating the chameleon properties of their infiltration suits as they approached to help them blend in to their surroundings.

A flick of Kat’s eyes activated the same ability in her own infiltration suit. The capacitors hummed, and her outfit warmed slightly. She reached out and tapped Whippoorwill on the shoulder, nodding at her before Kat jerked her toward the geists.

Whip stiffened for a second before her camouflage activated as well, blurring her edges and making her torso noticeably more indistinct.

About ten seconds later, Hestia and the remaining three infiltrators joined them. The two ordinary Haupt soldiers wore black and grey checked camoflauge suits, but Hestia herself was in a flamboyant curve hugging custom rig, covered in stylized red and orange flames that initiated around her stomach and curled around her body.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Chiffon, Erinyes,” she said brightly, nodding to both of them in turn. “You must tell me where you got your suits. The camouflage and self steering functions are absolutely astonishing.”

Whip glanced at Kat, and she shrugged in reply.

“They’re GroCorp proprietary tech, and the five of us are wearing prototypes. Once we work out the kinks they will enter production and sale for our close allies.”

“Well keep me in the loop,” Hestia responded, looking both of them up and down. “I absolutely need one. I have the perfect submachine gun to use as an accessory.”

Kat blinked, shaking her head slightly to avoid dwelling on the absurdity of Hestia’s statement. Instead, she turned to Whip.

“Chiffon, have you found a way in yet?”

“A second please.” Whippoorwill’s voice was distant, strained. A trio of drones buzzed back and forth in a zigzag pattern across the roof. “I’ve… okay. I’ve found two entrances. Both locked electronically. It looks like one is for an elevator and the other is an emergency staircase. I’m trying to work my way into the main network through the elevator now.”

As she spoke, Whip pointed at two different structures built into the maze of abandoned machinery, antennas and smokestacks that littered the roof.

Calculations and risk assessments whirred through Kat’s head as she weighed and dismissed options. After a moment of silence, she nodded decisively, unclipping the crossbow from her waist and letting the short barreled railgun hang loosely from its strap.

“We’ll take the stairwell down while Chiffon worms her way into the system,” she said quietly. “I doubt they’ll have Jasper in the upper levels so we might as well get moving. I’ll take point with Jasmine supports me.”

One of the two Haupt guards shifted slightly. Not saying anything, but their discomfort visible through their camouflaged suit.

“Yes, mister…” Kat trailed off, letting the security officer fill in the blank.

“Thomms ma’am,” he replied, voice an octave or two deeper than Kat expected. “Mister Davis said that you are a shareholder. If its your order that you go first, that’s your order. It just doesn’t sit right with me to let a principal take point.”

“And Merrimack never bothered to tell you how Erinyes became a shareholder, did he?” Hestia snapped back. “It’s hard to know who the ten best assassins in the world are for sure as no one advertises the specific security measures they’ve overcome, but if she isn’t in their number, she’s in the top twenty. Erinyes can solo any two of us here in a straight fight, and her skillset is optimized for stealth. If she says she wants to take point, I want her to take point.”

“Stealth,” Whip said sarcastically.

Kat felt the corner of her mouth twitching upward, but she kept it shut. As much as she wanted to toss a snide remark back, it wouldn’t be a good example for the rest of the team.

Instead she began walking toward the staircase that Whip had pointed out. Just as Kat reached it, the lock unlatched with an audible click, sliding open slightly.

She reached out with her left hand, pushing the metal doorway out of the way and revealing a pitch back staircase. Kat waited a second for her nightvision to snap into place before she began creeping downward.

“Chiffon,” she whispered. “What are we looking at for security systems? Cameras? Pressure sensors? Roving patrols?”

“All of the above,” Whippoorwill responded, her voice strained. “I’ve disabled the pressure sensors in the stairs. There aren’t any cameras here, but there should be audio detectors on each landing so we’ll have to be very quiet and hope that none of the guards poke their heads in. I’m not entirely sure what they’re using for security here, but it’s a solid step or three above even the most hardened corporate system.”

A brief chill ran down Kat’s spine, drawing a shiver from her. The Silver Phantoms were connected to Millennium which meant that they had access to some of the same technology that their team was using. She didn’t think that they would use anything too powerful in public, but they couldn’t rely on the obscene technology advantage that had carried them through the last couple of missions.

They lapsed into silence, padding as quietly as possible downward for another floor before Whippoorwill raised a hand. The eight of them stopped, standing motionless for almost a minute. Finally Whippoorwill let out a sigh of relief.

“Each floor has its own security network,” she whispered. “They can pass signals together, but every communication is logged and sent remotely to a black box in the basement. Information goes in, but nothing comes back out. Even if I could piggyback something onto another transmission, there’s no way I could monitor what I was doing. It would be like doing surgery blindfolded.”

“And if you try to disable the next floor down remotely,” Kat replied quietly, “your attempt would be sent into the basement where a tech could easily be monitoring in real time. Crap.”

She reached up, tapping her chin for a couple of seconds as she looked up at the dark ceiling.

“Have you checked this floor for Jasper?” She asked. “I doubt he’s here, but if we can only scan the schematics of each floor when we get there, we should be careful to search every nook and cranny before we keep going down.”

Whip shook her head. “No, Jasper isn’t on the top floor. All I’m finding are a lot of bedrooms here and a couple of armories. I managed to look through the manifest on the armories, and barely anything is from the usual offenders like ArmaCorp, ColtFN, or FreedomTech. Most of the weapons and armor look custom.”

Kat felt her mouth twist into a frown. Custom meant that they wouldn’t know exactly what the guns could do or how much it would take to punch through a guard’s armor. Worse, given Millennium’s ties with the stallesp, custom armaments didn’t have to be wholly terrestrial.

Rather than voice her concerns and potentially spook their support team, she nodded at the staircase.

“Is it safe to proceed?” Kat questioned, drawing a hasty thumbs up from Whippoorwill.

She led the way down another two landings before stopping on her own. Once again, Whip held up a hand, placing one finger over her mouth in the dark for almost fifteen seconds.

“Oh no,” she blurted out suddenly. “A patrol was actively watching the sonic imager when I shorted it-”

On the next landing down, a door cracked open, revealing a blinding flash of light. A moment later, it was obscured as a silhouette willed the passage.

Kat didn’t wait, planting her left hand on the railing that marked the end of the stairwell and throwing herself over the edge.

As she fell, Kat pulled her crossbow to her shoulder and lined it up on the figure’s head. It clicked, twitching slightly, and the silhouette staggered backward, a half pace of alloyed steel sticking out of the faceplate of their helmet.

Then, she hit the ground with knee jarring force, dropping into a crouch just as the second guard behind the first shouted something.

Her crossbow clattered to the floor behind her, and Kat exploded out of her crouch, Shadow Step propelling her toward the guard. They tried to raise what looked like a shotgun, but to her enhanced reflexes it felt like the gun was moving in slow motion.

Kat’s left hand blurred sideways, slapping the barrel of the weapon aside while her right snaked in under her opponent’s guard, knife burning an angry red.

The samurai didn’t try to block, instead throwing themselves to the left and away from her oncoming knife.

They didn’t move quickly enough to completely avoid the stab, but their quick thinking saved their life. Even with the help of Crippling Blow, Kat was only able to find a mid-sized vein through the oblique muscles of her target.

Kat shifted her grip, hand sliding up the samurai’s gun to grab their wrist with her right hand as she kicked off the floor to follow their jerky dodging.

She spun, dropping into a crouch beneath the defender before slamming her back into them, disrupting their balance even as she slammed their gun arm into the top of her shoulder and yanked them forward.

Her knife stabbed upward, cutting deeply into her target’s trapped arm twice before the momentum of her shoulder throw sent them flying into the corridor’s wall, shotgun clattering useless to the floor a couple paces away.

Kat rushed forward only to stop short as the samurai sprang to their feet with the jerky, flickering movements of a high end rewired nervous system. A blade sprouted from the palm of their uninjured hand. More importantly, none of their three stab wounds were bleeding.

She circulated her mana, not even bothering with Overpressure given the visible wound sealing used by her opponent and instead opting for the tried and true Pseudopod.

“Hurry Erinyes,” Whippoorwill called out urgently. “He’s calling for help. I can block him for now but-”

The man lunged forward, leading with the blade. Kat bent backward out of its reach only, for the cyberware to extend, transforming from a long knife into a short sword in the blink of an eye as it punched into the armor of her infiltration suit.

She dropped to the floor, hissing as she ignored the sharp burst of pain from the sword penetrating a finger’s span of skin and muscle.

Just as Kat’s back hit the ground, her Pseudopod grabbed hold of the guard’s wrist, yanking him toward her and even further off balance. Her right foot blurred upward, planting itself in his chest and kicking the man into the air.

Levitation activated as he launched, slamming the samurai’s legs into the ceiling. Then, his momentum reversed as Gravity’s Grasp jerked him toward the floor, Kat’s Pseudopod spinning him so that he landed head first with a loud crack.

She didn’t wait to see if the fall had broken his neck. Kat was astride his chest in an eyeblink, the palm of her left hand slamming his chin back as her knife flashed red, stabbing deep into the underside of his mouth.

His body twitched once under her.

From the doorway, one of the Haupt guards whispered quietly.

“Holy Sh-”