Security clearance level 09 granted. Welcome to Liberacy Intelligence Operations.  
The automated voice sends a shiver down my spine. I glance down at the figure hunched over the security panel, metal fingers flickering over a jumble of blue wires. It strikes me with wonder whenever I see a human hacker working away at something. It strikes me even weirder when I look at any human, come to think of it. Vop's a hostage we found lurking in a cargo bay on our way here, covered in green sludge and looking like a wet dog. Smelled like one too.  
"Done yet?" 
"Just a minute more, miss." 
His accent is heavy and earthen, near-intelligible in comparison to the court speak of Thabbanis I'm used to. It's jarring, and kind of amusing.  
I shift my gaze to Khalid, who twitches like an animal of prey on an open desert plane. He grips the firearm that we found in a dusty supply closet in the General's manor. He seems perfectly at ease with this rifle tucked snugly in his armpit, ready to pull out.  
Well, as ready as one can be while breaking into a high security intelligence base that your own parents own against their knowledge. I don't envy him at this moment, only pity him. I search his eyes for any sign of hesitation, or even fear, but it seems a calm has taken him over. It's a far cry from when I found him in General's armory fifteen days ago, disheveled and red-eyed from water deprivation. I could hear the harsh rasp of his breath against the warm desert air, and hear the tremble of his voice when he spoke.  
"It's odd, you know, that you would have been the one captured." I speculated, then. Why would the one heir to the Liberacy be on an intelligence run to a neighboring planet? "Why were you there with the crew that day?"  
He'd looked at me then, a strange expression on his face. I could only describe it as a great confusion, or maybe some kind of internal conflict. That, or he was heavily constipated.  
"The Liberacy isn't what everyone thinks it is," he stated, after a moment. "It's...different than what I thought it was." How Khalid, the heir to this very organization, did not truly know what the Liberacy was about, still confounds me. 
But while my position in the Scorpion Legion gives me access to more intelligence than the average soldier, information about the Liberacy and its rise to power is scarce. It was only because of Khalid's apparent "willingness to provide information" that led us to this base hidden in a shallow trench under the western Sea of Alkithar. Even now, the thought of the vast expanse of water floating over the deep-sea base makes my stomach twist with anxiety.  
After what seems like ages, Vop jumps back from the security paneling with a grin. He wipes his seemingly-greasy palms on his dirty pants and salutes to me. 
"Done, Lieutenant. Disabled the cameras on this level too. We're good to go." 
"Why isn't the door open?" I gesture at the door with my handgun, and the movement nearly whacks the small man with the spear strapped across my back. When he recovers, he looks up at me nervously, as if I would step on him if the door didn't open. I probably could. 
Right on que, the door opens, hissing softly as the metal panels are retracted into the walls. Vop nearly melts from relief.  
I raise my gun again, crouching low as I flick on my assisted optic visor to search for heat signatures in the room. My visor shows no red. Yet.  
I clear the room, and Khalid moves behind me like a snake, quiet and ominous in his black combat gear as he scans the room like I did. The only thing we find is a small, well-stocked commissary and a few empty white recliners near a table and chairs on the far side of the room. On one wall, an archway leads to what looks like a computer lab; blue lights flicker amidst dark panes, and raw data fills the screens from what I can see. I signal Khalid to clear that room. 
Opposite the archway is a gray door leading to—I actually have no idea. But the General sent us here to get maps, so maybe it's in my business to know. I carefully approach the closed door, feeling Khalid slide up behind me to cover my rear while I slip a mini camera under the crack of the door. A loud shuffle has us both snapping our heads in the direction of the room we entered—but it's only Vop, standing sheepishly in the entryway.  
"Sorry." 
Me and Khalid glare at him, annoyed. He rubs his neck and slouches down even further.  
Meanwhile, my camera displays a live recording of the room inside the door to my visor. All I see is a table, safe, and a few chairs scattered —a safe! I scan the recording for anomalies, then send the footage to Khalid's visor. He should know that we've found what we came for.  
If he receives the video and plays it, I can't say, because his body remains stone-rigid beside mine as I slowly start to open the door. Right before my fingers grasp the handle, a deft hand shoots out to circle my wrist. I immediately recoil turning to Khalid in confusion.  
What is it? I mouth. He motions to stay quiet, then signs quickly in the Thabbani military code, his hands flowing smoothly over the motions. How does he know our code? 
There's a Liberacy Operative behind the table, He signs, and he's right. My camera didn't scan for thermal signatures, but it shows a large red dot as it makes a second pass over the room.  
Noted. How do you know Code? I ask him, but he's already turning back to the door to slip a small gas tranquilizer capsule through the crack where I stuck my camera.  
Later, He signs absentmindedly with one hand ending the conversation. I want to know more, but I concentrate on the task on hand as the capsule looses its load on the operative inside. We hear a faint gasp and a quiet gurgling sound, and the clink of glasses on the flooring followed by the slide of cloth as the operative is rendered unconscious. Khalid reaches over me and opens the door, striding inside in one smooth motion. By the time I grab Vop and drag him to the now-open door, the operative's been tied to a chair, face away from us and staring into the corner of the room. Her neck hangs forward, and I wince. That's going to be a nasty ache when she wakes up eventually.  
Khalid waits at the safe, and I nudge Vop over to open it. If this goes right, we should make it back to the escape pod in twenty minutes; the pod will probably take thirty minutes to arrive at the cove where we hid our small spacecraft. I check my visor's inbuilt timer.  
01:05:12 remaining. 
We're cutting it close; I always like to have twenty minutes allotted for miscellaneous use on every timed mission. But alas, we can't all have what we want.  
I glance back over Vop's shoulder as the safe beeps twice. Its lock is an intricate maze of metal, one only the best of locksmiths could hope to ever see, let alone crack. Vop doesn't mind though. He gets right into sliding the metal pieces around, seemingly lost in his own world as the safe continues to beep. 
Finally, the safe pops open with a clunk, releasing a vent of pressurized air as the contents come into view. The General didn't specify what I would be retrieving from the Liberacy base. In fact, he just told me to "Get whatever's inside the safe on Level 9, Amirah." Pretty straightforward, if you ask me.  
But I guess I wasn't really expecting to be greeted by a neatly placed row of chips on a rectangle of velvet cloth. Huh. Fancy. 
If it's what the General wants, then all I have to do it get it.  
We leave the operative tied up(obviously), and go back the way we came, making sure to close all the doors on the way back. I nudge forward Vop with the butt of my gun. He seems more relaxed now that we've secured the chips in a case slung over Khalid's shoulder. I offered to carry them, but he just shook his head at me. Silent, that one.  
But as we make our way to the departure docks, noises start to emerge from the once quiet hallways. Just as we round the corner to the escape pod, my worst fear becomes reality. The alarms blare, and red lights glare down from overhead.