Chapter 5 - The blackout
The silence in the locker room became absolute following the captain's announcement. Even the low hum of the fluorescent lights seemed to vanish, replaced by the heavy, synchronized breathing of the three soldiers. Thomas’s smile finally dissolved entirely, leaving behind a look of genuine, unmasked horror.
"Base Alpha?" Thomas whispered, stepping forward past the captain. "That's impossible. We rotated those encryption relays last Tuesday. They're hardwired into the mountain bunker with triple-redundant satellite uplinks. A blackout there means only one thing."
"It means someone on the inside manually disconnected the primary transceivers," Vance Jr. finished for him, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Someone with active security clearances and knowledge of the regional frequency hops. Someone like the officer who ran the Berlin extraction detail ten days ago."
Maya watched the exchange carefully, her hand finally dipping inside her rucksack to grip the manila envelope. The pieces of the puzzle were shifting too fast, falling into an alignment that didn't match General Vance's narrative. If FOB Alpha was dark, then the threat wasn't a rogue agent trying to sell secrets—it was an active purge of anyone who knew the truth about what happened in Berlin.
"If Alpha is dark, the whole perimeter is compromised," Maya said, stepping between the two men. "We aren't safe on this base either. Captain, if you have a direct line to command, you need to authorize an immediate evacuation before whatever hit that base reaches our gates."
Vance Jr. let out a short, cold laugh that lacked any humor. He tapped a sequence onto his wrist-mounted tactical pad, and a harsh amber light illuminated his face.
"Evacuation orders were canceled twenty minutes ago, Sergeant," Vance Jr. replied, pulling his sidearm from its holster with fluid, practiced precision and leveling the barrel directly at Thomas's chest. "General Vance has declared a quarantine. Nobody leaves this sector alive until the missing drive is accounted for."
Thomas didn't flinch away from the firearm pointed at his heart. Instead, he slowly raised his hands, his eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate realization as he looked past the captain toward the open locker room door.
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"You're not securing the base, Vance," Thomas said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "You're executing the survivors. And right outside that door, the extraction team is already moving in to finish us both."
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