Chapter 47 - Fire on the High Seas
The server room erupted into a deafening storm of automatic gunfire. Shards of fiberglass, sparks from severed electrical conduits, and shattered glass rained down across the floor as Ethan and I returned fire from behind our reinforced steel cover.
I sighted down the barrel of my carbine, squeezing the trigger in short, controlled bursts. Two of the advancing operatives dropped instantly, their momentum carrying them hard against the server racks.
“Ethan, status on the purge!” I yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire, ducking as a heavy round punched clean through the metal console inches from my face.
“Ninety percent!” Ethan yelled back, firing his sidearm blindly around the edge of the rack while keeping his other hand locked onto the terminal keyboard. “Just ten more seconds!”
Marcus Vance pulled a backup pistol from the security guard he’d disarmed earlier, leaning around the corner to lay down suppressing fire alongside Sterling’s old tactics. “They’re trying to breach the secondary maintenance hatch behind us!” he shouted.
I pivoted sharply, swinging my carbine toward the rear service door as the handle rattled violently and three more operatives forced their way into the room. I dropped the first two with rapid center-mass shots before the third managed to scramble back out into the corridor.
“One hundred percent!” Ethan screamed, slamming his fist onto the final execution key. “SERVER WIPE COMPLETE. ALL ARCHIVES PERMANENTLY DESTROYED.”
The massive rows of server racks surrounding us gave one final, violent shudder. The humming blue LEDs flickered, turned a dull grey, and went completely dark. The room plunged into absolute, suffocating silence, broken only by the sound of emergency backup generators kicking in with a low, distant hum.
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The Meridian Group operatives standing near the entrance stared blankly at their dead weapon optics and dark control panels, realizing in horror that their entire multi-billion-dollar shadow empire had just been reduced to scrap metal.
“Drop your weapons,” I said, stepping out from behind the server rack with my carbine leveled dead-center at the lead operative’s chest. “The game is over.”
