It’s past time the Party answered for its injustices.
“We’re on a timer, then,” Zelda said. “We don’t know how long, but every day we don’t execute the plan to get this evidence out to the masses is a day the Party gets more desperate and more dangerous.”
“Exactly,” Kaiden said, nodding along. “So, let’s get to work.” He turned to Thorne. “What’s it going to take to get us into Warden HQ and send the database to everyone in-game?”
She’s not actually going to answer truthfully, but let’s hear what she makes up anyway.
Thorne shook her head, then chuckled softly to herself.
“This isn’t a joke,” Titus said, scowling.
“No, I know it’s not. It’s just… this idea is insane. Possible, just maybe, but for the most part, insane. Bernstein was ambitious, you gotta give him that, eh?” She looked up at them, then cracked her knuckles. “But let’s talk shop.” She typed something into her handheld console, then projected a hologram into the air above the center of the table. It was an asteroid, vaguely transparent and with large, rigid structures seemingly jammed on to its surface.
“This,” Thorne said, working her console’s controls to adjust the view of the asteroid, “is Warden HQ. It’s built on the asteroid Custos, which circles the known game universe in a forced orbit. It’s big enough that, as you can see, considerable infrastructure has been built up on it.” She tapped the screen and the view of the asteroid zoomed in on what appeared to be dry docks, vehicle garages, and bunkers complete with a frankly worrying amount of ground-to-air missile launchers mounted on top. The bunkers and the rest of the structures protruded from the surface of Custos as if half-sunken into it.
“The majority of Warden HQ infrastructure is beneath the surface. The barracks, living spaces, training rooms, armories, and – of course – the command center where the highest-ranking wardens operate, are right in the center. The AFBS is housed in the next room over.”
“Can you show us a schematic of that?” Kaiden asked. Seeing the outside of the base was good, but having knowledge of its inner workings would be even better.
“No can do,” Thorne said. “That’s not publicly available. But I’ve been there more than a few times. I know the inside of the rock well enough to guide us through it.”
Oh, well, isn’t that convenient?
“You’re gonna need to teach us the route,” Zelda said, squinting at the hologram asteroid as if she could peer inside it and see the way. “Fighting our way in is gonna be risky. If you die, we need to know where to go.”
It was a test, Kaiden knew. If Thorne really was going to work with them then she needed to prove her worth.
“Plot out the route as simply as possible and we’ll work on memorizing it. We’re also going to need to know how to work the All-Frequencies Broadcast System.”
“It’s not complicated, really, but I agree,” Thorne said. “Still, all this is well and good, but I think we’re jumping the gun. None of this happens unless we can get into Warden HQ in the first place. That’s not going to be easy.”
“What about sneaking in?” Titus asked from across the table. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for going in guns blazing, but why make things harder than they have to be?”
“This isn’t a movie. There’s no way to do that. No conveniently large enough air vents, no droids that can hack into the base’s system and open doors for us. There’re no backdoors, no side hallways. If we want in to this base, Bernstein’s right. We have to do it by force.”
Damn. Kaiden withheld a sigh. He’d expected that would be the case, but hearing the details of Warden HQ’s defenses wasn’t exactly encouraging. Assuming Thorne wasn’t lying about everything, that was.
“And we’re sure there’s no other option?” Kaiden asked. “No other way to access the AFBS?”
“Bernstein would have accounted for it,” Zelda said. “He knew what he was doing, and if this was the plan he settled on, then it must be the best one.”
“She’s right. And Bernstein was right.” Thorne idly flicked her finger across the screen of her handheld console and set the hologram of the asteroid to spinning in a mad frenzy. “The Warden Corps knows how powerful access to the AFBS is. Nothing about it works remotely. It can only be operated from inside the command center.”
“All right, so we go guns blazing. What kind of resistance should we be expecting?”
“And be as specific as possible, please,” Zelda added. “How many wardens? How many ships, etcetera? We haven’t even touched on how we’re going to find allies to help with this, but before we do, it’ll probably be good to understand what sort of firepower we need to bring.”
“We need enough soldiers to punch a hole through the base. It doesn’t have to hold long, but long enough for us to get to the AFBS and send a message. The soldiers with us are going to need to be pretty much max level. And, for that matter, so are we.”
That’s a good point, Kaiden thought. He’d had just about enough of being under-leveled in every fight. That they’d made it this far was a miracle, but they couldn’t rely on luck and creative strategies to win every battle.
“The in-game level cap is sixty,” Zelda said, running the numbers in her head. “We’re all what, thirty-one right now?”
“Thirty-four here,” Thorne added.
“So we need to gain twenty-six to twenty-nine levels before we even attempt this,” Kaiden said. “That’s a lot of grinding. And, as you said earlier, every day we waste is a day the Party grows more desperate. More dangerous.”
“It sounds like we need a training montage,” Titus said, grinning a little. A bit more like his usual self, then. Being around Thorne clearly had him on edge, and Kaiden couldn’t blame him, but he had missed the levity the big man
