Into New Andes
The long thin hover craft sat quietly, suspended over the turbulent waters, just outside the protection grid of the giant fortress island - New Andes. The six members of squad Vi Somno hung from it, their feet dangling just above the water's surface.
Jackie's ocular implant projected the layered lattice of the protection grid into the HUDs of her teammates. Her cybernetics showed the Kinetic and heat sensing defensive and offensive censoring matrices.
Lyra's hiss came over the encrypted comms.
"This grid is triple dynamic – it is rewriting its own parameters every 3.2 seconds. Can we really pass through something this high tech?"
"Do you doubt my systems?"
Lyra scoffed but otherwise ignored Mikael.
"Tally will look for a vantage point. Do you see one Jackie?"
Jackie's ocular implant reverted to its 360-degree arc view and began twisting the grid about. BDJ spoke calmly.
"There are no soft spots within the grid above sea level. There are two probable entry points at 50 meters and 100 meters below sea level. The previous plan of operative Mikael camouflaging the unit is still viable with a success rate of 86.94%." Jackie nodded as she responded to Lyra.
"I see two soft spots but they are below. We can still use the original plan."
"How far below?" Sura's voice shook with either fear or cold, or both.
"It doesn't matter, show them to us Jackie." Dax's voice was as stern and fatherly as usual.
The two coordinates instantly flared green on the map in everyone's HUDs.
"50-meters and 100-meters. Good job Jackie, these will work for us." Mikael's ocular-camo systems ignited. The obsidian implant glowed like black fire as the system began to read and understand the given situation. A countdown began in the bottom left corner of Mikael's HUD as the system built a grid of the location at 50-meters.
The hover vehicle moved them all into position and, as Dax gave them each a signal, they released and descended one by one, with Mikael going first.
The ocular-camo system's countdown reached zero just after the hover craft devolved into a small piece of Subaquilus-titanium alloy and attached itself to Dax.
Jackie watched as an intricate black webbing spread out to cover the entire unit and they all became blurred to her optics. Her optical implant changed visual parameters several times before the team returned to normal in her sight. She watched Mikael, monitoring system strain in real time. She sent a countdown, starting at 3 hours, to everyone's HUD.
Lyra took the lead, her ruby ocular implants glowing like gems in the brackish waters. She plugged a second port into Tally and a holographic screen formed before her. She began diving into the systems if New Andes even as everyone moved to the 50-meter soft spot.
Sura touched her HUD lightly and a screen came from it made of a sheer crystalline material. She began monitoring New Andes' channels and directing Lyra as she deep dove the system.
The team entered the breach without incident, Mikael's ocular-camo systems straining to maintain the stealth bubble around them as they passed through.
Lyra spoke into the encrypted comms as they neared the shafts below the island.
"I found a maintenance docking port that is reported as offline within the deeper systems, is it offline Sura?"
"Negative. There are no ports registered as offline within the New Andes official channels."
The team paused waiting for Dax, Mikael's systems counter steadily ticking down in their HUDs – a reminder of their need to move forward.
"Send the coordinates Lyra." They were instantly highlighted along the schematic in their HUDs.
Both she and Sura maintained surveillance of the New Andes' systems as they led the way to the entry point, Mikael in the center, with Dax maintaining the rear and Aiden and Jackie covering the flanking sides.
They reached the entry point with no incident and Sura sent information to their HUDs Jackie narrowed her eyes as she read it.
'What is Crysalite BDJ'
"Crysalite is a very rare substance that has recently been found in the upper peaks of the Andes within the last 75 years. It has been hypothesized that it formed after the terra forming incident of 2420 and due to the new climatic changes unique to the Andes Peak.
"Research has suggested that it is capable of disrupting cybernetic systems within a 20-meter radius.
"Research conducted by Dr. Patrick McGregor showed it to be volatile and recommended containment procedures immediately implemented."
Jackie nodded as she re-read the data Sura had found.
"It was supposed to be contained but now Nexus has a large shipment arriving in a week."
"Save that for later Jackie. First priority is entrance onto the island." She nodded to Dax and her eyes flicked to Mikael's countdown – it had ticked down to 20 minutes. They needed to hurry.
They entered the port. It was massive and the water had risen due to poor maintenance. Mikael maintained the camo bubble around the team as Lyra slipped from the water and plugged Tally into the main console on the dock.
"It hasn't been used in over 30 years. It seems it used to be a docking port specific for receiving produce."
"No wonder its no longer maintained." Jackie frowned at Aiden's sarcasm but she also understood it."
"Now Lyra. Let's get topside. Jackie plot a trajectory."
BDJ's calm voice flowed through her neural net as if Dax had asked it directly.
"There are three viable routes for safe emergence to the surface. The green route is the quickest while the pink route is the safest."
Green, pink, and yellow routes ran through the schematics in their HUDs – with projected percentages of success and time needed to reach the surface.
Dax nodded. "We take the yellow route, it's the closest to our current position. Move people"
Just as Dax finished Mikael groaned. "Let's go folks. It seems there is a random security sweep. We need to get to friendly territory quickly or our location will be known."
Vi Somno moved out, and up, into New Andes.