So, to recap: the Perseids, who still work together, broke out of their cells, deliberately setting off the Suspicious Activity Detector. The alert prompted us to investigate, luring our team right into Leonid's trap. All the guards were defeated and we were surrounded, cutting off our only escape routes. With no options left, we were forced to accept Leonid's proposal: free the Perseids, allowing them to cause more chaos and destruction, in return for clearing our names.
Wow, that happened quickly.
None of us, not even the seasoned Agent Nebula, expected such a turn of events. Leonid actually outplayed us and now holds all the cards. The terrifying part is that there is no obvious resolution to this problem, unlike our previous missions, when we always knew how to thwart the evil schemes. Now, we were utterly at the Perseids' mercy. And I doubt they have that.
At this point, our only hope was the possibility that Agent Nebula has an ace up her sleeve, but there's no way of knowing if she even has one. It's likely that Leonid caught her by surprise too.
We were making our way to the exit, encapsulated in a triangle of evil: ahead of us, Leonid led the group, with Rill Gomana and Alia behind us, completing the triangle. I had no idea where we were headed, but I assumed it was nothing good.
- Listen up - Leonid turned around to face us - We need to get out of here if you want to complete the deal and stay alive. I need you to use your keycard to unlock the door, so that we won't have to deal with any more guards. Which one of you has the tool in question?
- I do... - Anthony admitted.
- Go on, open the door - Agent Nebula nudged him forward.
Anthony slowly made his way to the locked door. He contantly glanced at Leonid, fearing what he may say or do. Leonid, unmoved by this, just watched my father do his thing. Anthony grabbed the keycard and lifted it to the scanner, his hand trembling. The scanner was quick to react as the door gently popped open.
- Come on, what are you waiting for? - Leonid rushed us and we made our way through the door.
The leader of the Perseids knew the location of a second lift. This one wasn't booby-trapped, as there was no need to block it off. Plus, Leonid's plan involved making our way down to the lowest floor.
Our large group had to split in two, with Leonid personally observing us go down. Rill Gomana came with the first half of the group, which I was a part of. Alia came along with the second half and finally Leonid made it down alone.
- What are you planning to do? - Einstein greeted him.
- Steal a submarine and break out of here - Leonid responded.
- How do you want to do that? It's heavily guarded, maybe more so than the prisoners - I asked him.
- I doubt that, considering how we broke out of the prison. As for the theft, it's yours to decide. We brought you here for a reason, after all - Leonid smirked.
- Be quick. We can't be down here forever - Alia added.
We decided to get a better look at our target before deciding anything. The vessel which the Perseids were eyeing up looked like the baby of an earthly submarine and a space shuttle. It was made of a dark gray metal which can withstand the extremely low temperatures of Europa's underground waters. The front of the submarine was pointy like the cockpit of a space shuttle, with a wide, reinforced window giving the captain and their assistants a good view of the abyss ahead.
Instead of a periscope, the submarine was equipped with a multi-purpose apparatus that can be retracted into the hull for protection. At the back were two massive turbines that resembled rocket engines from the outside. The whole submarine was very sleek, optimized for fast travel and effective research. There were also four metal legs at the bottom, but they were currently folded.
The submarine was suspended above the dry dock's floor by scaffolding, as some maitenance workers were currently busy inspecting it.
- What is your plan, space spies? - Leonid pressured us.
- I think I can hack into the system and flood the dry dock to distract the omnipresent guards - Arika came up with that on the fly.
- Good start - Rill commented.
- What comes next? - Leonid was unsatisfied.
- We'll... swim into the submarine as the dock is flooded... - I came up with the second step of our plan.
- We can take over the vessel, knocking out any guardians along the way - Agent Nebula finished for me.
- I can detatch the submarine from the scaffolding once the dry dock is fully flooded - Claudius added.
- We'll aim for the exit gate, which Arika can hack open and navigate our way out - Einstein concluded.
- That sounds much better! Now, do it! - Leonid ordered us. It felt wrong, being ordered around by our arch-nemesis, but I guess I have to get used to it.
Alia dealt with a few guards to make room for Arika and Amber. The latter took care of the guardian sitting in a small room from which he controlled the dry dock. Arika sat down in the guardian's place and got to hacking.
Meanwhile, I was given a pretty boring task: watch the dry dock and notify the others once it starts flooding. When the water started pouring in, I called the others through my walkie-talkie. Einstein, Captain Nigel, Rill and Claudius joined me. On the opposite side of the dock, Alia, Sebastian, Dawn and Agent Nebula were preparing to jump into the water once it got deep enough to swim in.
- My reputation will be torn to shreds by this - Nigel sighed.
- Now! - Agent Nebula was the first to jump and the others soon did the same thing.
For me, the way down was unnerving to say the least. It felt like time slowed down as you looked at the rising water that you were about to splash into. Luckily, I wasn't stuck in this state for long, as I landed in the water with the others. Amber and Arika were the last to dive in and we all made our way to the submarine.
Along the way, we passed by the shocked workers who swam in the opposite direction to get to safety. I felt bad for them, knowing that we caused the flood. However, I couldn't focus on them, as we reached the submarine.
I knew we were there as I almost bumped into the scaffolding. The others gripped onto it and made their way up, with me catching up. We soon reached the top of the scaffolding and found a staircase that was deployed from the submarine, dropped onto the scaffolding. We quickly made our way in to retract the staircase and close the hatch before the rising water floods the submarine.
Arika found a control panel and pressed a big red button that retracted the staircase. The water started pouring in as the hatch closed shut, leaving a puddle behind us.
Anthony contacted Agent Nebula to make sure that she and the others are fine. She confirmed that they reached the submarine as well. We met up in a room called the crossroad, as it was placed in the middle of the submarine.
- There you are! - Alia noticed us.13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0RegkXxkro
Suddenly, a circular hatch above us clanked open and Leonid hopped through it, landing on the floor. Now, our team was complete.
- Let's get to the cockpit and take this thing over! - Agent Nebula exclaimed.
As we made our way to the cockpit, Rill Gomana took out a guard by simply punching them, showing how strong he is. Amber dealt with another one and Einstein smashed his way into the cockpit.
Inside was a very surprised guard who didn't know what to do. Luckily, he didn't need to do anything, as Amber was quick to put him out of commission. Einstein sat down in the captain's seat, with Anthony and Agent Nebula beside him. I sat next to my dad, checking the controls. Arika chose the seat next to Agent Nebula and got to hacking the gate. Claudius found a lever that decoupled our vessel from the scaffolding, allowing us to move independently. Behind us stood Leonid, grinning evilly.
Arika eventually forced the gate open, unveiling the dark subsurface ocean. The water from outside started pouring into the dry dock, flooding it even more. At this point, it was possible that the entire Science and Containment Centre will be flooded. Guardians and workers scrambled alike to close the gate and stop the leak.
The situation was bad enough for the warden himself, who woke up recently, to come down and make it to the small room. He scrambled to close the gate, shouting at us. I couldn't tell what he was screaming, because he was too far away and the metal successfully blocked out most noise from the outside.
The gate began slowly closing as the warden's efforts came to fruition.
- Full steam ahead! - Einstein exclaimed.
Our submarine jerked and shot forward at full speed, narrowly making it through the gate, which fully closed once the submarine made it out into open waters. We were free, but lost in Europa's subsurface ocean.
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and then Add to home screen.