Chapter 4: The Standoff
Grid 7 was a narrow, claustrophobic maintenance hatch located directly above the base’s primary server farm. Riley dropped through the ceiling silently, landing on a steel gantry overlooking a massive room filled with rows of blinking black towers.
Below her, chaos was unfolding.
Major Sterling stood by the main console, sweating profusely. Three elite mercenaries—not base soldiers, but private contractors—stood in a defensive perimeter around him, weapons raised.
“Format the entire drive! Burn it all!” Sterling yelled at a terrified technician typing frantically at the keyboard.
“Sir, a full wipe takes three minutes! I can’t make it go faster!” the technician cried out.
Riley knew she had exactly three minutes to save her life’s work. She detached the encrypted drive from her belt. She didn’t need to get to the main console; she just needed to plug this drive into any of the terminal hubs located at the end of the server rows. Once connected, her virus would bypass the wipe, steal the encrypted files proving Sterling’s treason, and beam them directly to the Department of Defense.
She slipped down the ladder, moving like a ghost. She reached the nearest terminal. Her hand hovered over the port.
Clack.
The unmistakable sound of a rifle bolt chambering a round echoed through the room.
“Don’t move a muscle, Riley,” Sterling’s voice slithered through the air.
Riley froze. She turned slowly. Sterling was standing at the end of the aisle, an assault rifle pointed directly at her chest. The three mercenaries had their weapons trained on her as well. She was completely boxed in.
“I have to admit,” Sterling said, a cruel smile twisting his face. “When they told me R. Collins was alive and working in my motor pool, I didn’t believe it. You survived the crash. You lived like a rat for five years. All for this?” He gestured to the servers. “It’s over. The files are gone in sixty seconds. And you are going to be shot resisting arrest.”
“You killed my team, Sterling,” Riley said, her voice dropping an octave, echoing with raw, unbridled fury. “You sold out your country for a offshore bank account. You think wiping a server will save you?”
“It will. Because you’ll be dead.” Sterling raised the rifle to his eye. “Goodbye, Commander.”
Riley didn’t flinch. Instead, she smiled. A cold, terrifying smile.
“Did you really think I came down here alone?” she whispered.
Before Sterling could pull the trigger, the glass ceiling above them shattered. A shower of reinforced glass rained down as fifteen Belgian Malinois poured into the room through the ventilation shafts like a waterfall of fur and fury.
It was absolute bedlam.
The mercenaries opened fire, but they were shooting blindly, panicked by the sheer speed and coordination of the animals. The dogs didn’t attack to kill; they executed perfect disarming maneuvers. One mercenary was tackled into a server rack, dropping his weapon. Another had his rifle ripped entirely from his hands by two dogs working in tandem.
Sterling screamed, swinging his rifle back toward Riley.
But Riley was already moving. She slammed her tactical drive into the terminal port. The screens across the room instantly flashed from red to a brilliant, blinding blue.
[UPLOADING CLASSIFIED CACHE: DESTINATION - PENTAGON SECURE SERVER]
[PROGRESS: 40%... 70%... 100%]
[TRANSMISSION COMPLETE]
Sterling saw the screens. His face went pale. He let out a primal scream of rage and aimed his gun squarely at Riley’s head.
May you like
Before he could fire, a massive shadow launched itself off a server rack. It was Echo. The dog hit Sterling squarely in the chest, the kinetic force throwing the Major backward into a glass partition. The gun clattered away across the floor. Sterling lay motionless, groaning, pinned beneath the heavy paws of the alpha K9.
Riley walked over to the console, her breathing heavy. The room was secure. The mercenaries were pinned. The truth was out.
