Chapter Eleven: Eyes On The Inside

March 11th, 2027, 8:18 a.m.
L39 Bunker 82, Indian Ocean

Katia looked up the rest of the squad, who looked equally worried about the situation, but they had to address it later. For now they just had to get the much needed information back to base, because that was their mission. She put the files into the watertight case they had brought down with them, and walked back into the first room. They put their gear back on and got ready for the extraction. “Foles, can you hear me?” she spoke into the intercom, “Loud and clear Managan, what happened back there?” Katia looked back into the room, “I don’t know, the inner shell of the bunker must’ve been messing with the communications. There was a bomb inside a suitcase, and I needed the code, but you weren’t able to respond. Thankfully I remembered the code from earlier, if I hadn’t the mission would’ve already failed. We have some files, and there’s some pretty important information in them, we need an extraction.” Foles cleared his throat, “Alright we already have a few boats in the area, they’ll pick you up from the water, then head to the coast and we’ll take things from there.”

Foles went static and they began to open up the doors. Water yet again rushed in through the crack, filling the bunker. They then began to swim towards the surface of the ocean. They’d only been about fifty feet from the surface itself, so it wouldn’t be too hard to get back. After about five minutes they had reached the surface, waiting for a sign of a boat. Katia looked around, about three hundred feet away was a small speed boat, heading straight for them. She and the others looked at each other, then began to signal for the boat, which may or may not have already seen them. As the boat got closer Katia began to realize more and more things about it. Everything was marked with K47 markings, the men seemed to be wearing the same type of gear that she and the squad were. The boat was also armed, as well as the men, but something felt vaguely hostile about them. “I must just be on edge from the bunker,” Katia thought to herself, “nobody else would know we were out here.” The boat was only about fifty feet from them now, but wasn’t slowing down, in fact it started to speed up. Katia barely had enough time to realize what was happening and tell the rest, and nearly got her head cut off. Luckily she dove under the water, missing the motor’s propellers by inches. “Foles, we have hostiles in the area!” she said into her mic as she swam deeper underwater. “What do you mean?” his voice asked through the static, “the boats aren’t supposed to be there for five more minutes.” Katia frantically looked around for the others, “Well a few people have disguised themselves as agents from K47, and are attacking us! Has anyone else left the base other than the boats you sent out?” Foles began to sound somewhat worried now, “I’m checking the database now,” Katia dodged the boat as it came around again. “Alright, you’re right, someone else did leave the base, but it was before you had even landed.” Katia thought hard, “They must’ve known when we were going to be here, and left beforehand.” Katia looked over into the distance where two other speed boats were closing in, whether they were friendly she had no idea. “Foles, how many boats left base at the time?” Foles sighed over the intercom, “That’s where things get faulty. The database never gives full information, for safety reasons. If the base was ever infiltrated, we wouldn’t want the intruders to be able find every little detail about our schedules.” Katia cursed under her breath, things were definitely going downhill now, but was starting to think of a solution. “Foles, what type of watercraft were you going to send to extract us?” “Well we are using a local fishing boat from the coast, as not to seem unnatural.” Everything was starting to come together, “Which means we know exactly how to know whether the boats are hostile or not. But that can only mean one thing...” Foles immediately finished her sentence, “We have eyes on the inside, trying to stop the mission. Whatever you’ve found must be really important for the other team. Which has good news and bad news.” Katia and others dove deeper again, but some of the imposters were diving after them. “Well we can’t really talk about this now, we just need you guys to get us out of here.” The men were aiming some type of harpoon gun at them, trying to take them out before they got away. Katia knew that they had to act fast, maybe even try to take over one of the boats. Either way, they wouldn’t have the time to wait for the right boat, it was time for plan B. Katia looked at the others, “All right guys, we can’t wait here like sitting ducks, we have to at least make it easier for ourselves. Let’s take over one of the speed boats, and start moving in the direction of the coast. We’ll eventually reach the fishing boat.” The others looked back and nodded or made gestures of understanding what they had to do. They quickly swam out of the way of another harpoon that was fired, then started to swim toward their attackers. Though they didn’t plan for this specifically, they had their training experience to rely on, and that was good enough for them. The imposters were very obviously not expecting this approach, and didn’t have enough time to escape Katia’s grasp. She lifted herself into the boat, and as was expected, one of the men tried to grab her arms and pry them off. She immediately reversed his intent, causing him to fly into the water, as she propelled herself up. One pulled out a handgun, but Katia was faster, and swept his legs underneath him before he could get a shot in. Katia stomped on his hand and took the gun from the ground, shot him in the face, then spun on her heel and shot the driver in the head. She walked over and stopped the boat, allowing the others to board, and starting towards the coast, which was in the direction of their enemies. They’d have to go through the other three speed boats to get to safety, but they had a harpoon gun, and three harpoons, it all added up, they just couldn’t miss. The only problem was, the boat's armour wasn’t penetrated by the harpoons, they figured this out as they passed the first boat. “Time to improvise,” Katia said, now having the mask off of her head just like the others. She put her hand to her ear calling over the intercom, “Foles how long do we have?” Foles came over the intercom seconds later with a good response, “The fishing boat should be in the area, at least a mile off.” This meant they only had to hold out for another five minutes at least, giving the other agents time to pick them up.

The other boats had been returning fire with sub machine guns and small light machine guns, making them duck for cover behind the small lip of the boat’s inside. Thankfully, the boat was made of the same metal all the way through, so bullets couldn’t penetrate it, but they still weren’t able to move. The only way they were avoiding fire was the boat moving underneath them, which wasn’t much, considering their enemies were on the exact craft as them. The imposters were also closing in on their boat as well. It was a one vs. three, and completely unfair with weapon distribution and such. They didn’t have much to fire back with, but they could still take out a few with accuracy and tight windows. They hadn’t had any injuries except for Kyle getting grazed on the forearm, and that wasn’t even that bad. It was only a few more minutes until the fishing boat showed up, but even then, they’d still have to get rid of these imposters. Katia looked towards where their backup would be coming from, and sure enough, about quarter mile feet out was a small silhouette of a fishing boat. Raising her head might’ve not been the best idea though, Katia immediately felt a few bullets fly by her head, and one grazed her ear. She grasped her head in pain, “Really? I just healed from the last one!” This was an obvious sign that they still had to keep their heads down, both metaphorically and physically. Shane glanced over at her with concern, but she tried not to make eye contact to avoid more awkward memories. As always he had the strange aura of familiarity, and she didn’t like that about him, but there were other matters at stake right now. Katia put her hand to her other ear and called Foles, “I think we can see you, about a quarter mile away.” Even though Katia wasn’t there she could sense him nod, “We can see your little predicament from here as well, we should be there in a couple minutes. And we already have snipers ready to pick off any imposters visible.” Katia wasn’t so sure about that idea, “Um… Sir, we’re all dressed in the same gear, that would be highly dangerous, and one of us could accidentally get shot.” Foles hesitated, “Perhaps you’re right, I’ll call them off until we’re about a hundred yards out.” Katia sighed, “Thank you Sir, it would be tragic if anything happened. I know that I need every single one of the people on board this boat right now.” One of them had just shot down an imposter manning one of the heavy guns, causing less fire to come towards them, giving Katia extra time to bandage her left ear. Amelia stood up and fired towards the nearest ship taking down another imposter, but got shot in the right arm. “Okay, can we all agree that it’s too dangerous to fire back right now?” Katia said to the others, “almost every one of us has gotten injured trying to fight back.” The others looked at her, and nodded, Amelia sat on the floor of the boat, holding gauze on her arm. “We’ll just have to wait for the others, until then, keep your heads down, and don’t get shot.” They were almost out of ammo in the weapons they’d picked up anyway, and there was no chance that they would be able to take out all of the imposters on their own. Their small boat continued to speed towards the fishing boat in the distance, swerving in between the opposing at the same time.

They were only about one hundred feet away, almost to safety. “Almost there guys,” Katia shouted over the noise, “we just need to hold out a little longer.” The other boats were slowly closing in on each side of their boat, leaving only enough space for them to run straight into the fishing boat. The fishing boat was about three times the size of their speed boat. If they made contact they’d be crushed like a tin can. Katia had to think about this, if they abandoned ship, they’d need to find another way onto the fishing boat. She glanced at both sides of the fishing boat, there was an old rusty ladder on the left, it looked flimsy but it was their only option. “Guys,” she said, “we’re going to have to bail, on the left side.” They all looked at her, “Are you crazy?” Shane asked, “there’s no way we’d make that. Those imposters have heavy guns and fully automatic weapons, and you think we can swim for it?” Katia stared at him and grimaced, “We either die there,” she pointed at the fishing boat's bow, a large heavy metal edge, “or have the chance to escape out there.” The crew was silent, and Katia observed them, wondering who just said the words that came out of her mouth. She kind of liked this position of authority, and decided to use it. “Any questions?” she asked, and they all shook their heads, understanding what they had to do. Katia and the others peaked over the left side of their own boat, deciding to use one of the imposter’s bodies as a distraction. They threw it over the right side, causing the other imposter’s to temporarily look in that direction, giving Katia and the rest of the squad time to escape. They all hurtled the side at the same time, diving into the ocean, but Katia had jumped a split second after the rest had. She did this to make sure any fire that was redirected to them, would be targeted only on her, and it worked. Unfortunately this meant she was going to get shot many times, by the time she had reached the water, she counted seven more bullet wounds. None of these were lethal, but they were enough to slow her down. She half fell and swam as she looked over at the crumpling metal that was their transportation seconds before. Blood seeped from her legs, arms, sides, and lower back, lucky for her hitting a moving object was difficult to do. She stayed low and followed her teammates, trying to keep out of sight of the imposters, strafing toward the side of the fishing boat. They had to move fast, the boat was going strangely too fast for a fishing boat, but this wasn’t too much of a problem. Katia contacted the others through the intercom, “We have to grab each other’s legs until everyone is on the ladder, I’ll be last on.” The others immediately grabbed onto the one in front of them’s legs, making a five person long chain, Shane at the beginning. He grasped the second to last rung as the fishing boat passed by, causing the chain to swerve in the opposite direction as before. They all gradually reached the ladder one by one, as the others sped up it, trying not to catch the eyes of the imposters. Katia grabbed the first rung but stopped, as she grabbed it, the rust around it seemed to part for her hand, revealing a smooth shiny metal. This wasn’t actually a fishing boat, it was a K47 vessel cloaked to look like a fishing boat. Katia shook herself out of her transe, and sped up the ladder, feeling the bullets fly below her. She was jumping at least three or four rungs at a time, reaching the deck in seconds, her heart about to explode in her chest.

She slid over the siding of the boat, panting and clutching her sides just like the others. Foles was standing there, looking at them in shock, “How did you- what happened, how did you get off the boat? The last thing we saw was your vessel get smashed to smithereens by the bow of the ship.” Katia winced and kept her eyes closed, “Sir, we caused a diversion… to throw them off as we escaped, and somehow… it worked.” Katia threw her mask off as Foles continued to help them up, “What about-” Katia started, trying to get up, but her leg had a large bullet wound near the bottom of her right calf. She fell down, to her knees and winced, “Don’t worry,” Foles answered knowing what she was going to say, “we’ve already taken care of the imposters. For now we need to get you patched up.” Katia put her arm around his shoulder, hobbling into the cabins.