Paul Reese waited with the extraction team on the upper deck of a military transport sub. The lights were dim red as the ship was under combat alert. Although he appeared calm, sitting perfectly straight against the wall, his muscles were tense and ready for action. He didn't usually work with a team, but he'd been assigned to lead one on this particular mission and had no choice but to accept their assistance.

Like him, his team was dressed in solid black tactical gear. Their weapons, even the blades of their knives, had been chemically treated to absorb light and prevent any reflection from giving away their position. In addition to laser weapons powerful enough to burn through steel and knives sharpened with an electron particle beam to make them capable of cutting practically anything, Reese was also carrying a new piece of gear, a cloaking field generator.

The cloaking device was only a prototype and hadn't even been used on a human before, so there wasn't any way for him to know what to expect when he turned it on. It functioned well in lab tests, or so they told him. Reese was highly suspicious and wondered in the back of his mind how much they would tell him if they actually knew something was wrong. It was a risk bringing the untested device along on such a sensitive mission, but Reese had already decided not to use it unless the situation got desperate. He could always test it later if necessary.

This mission was a simple extraction, break in, find an operative and the man she was with, and get them both back to the sub. Simple missions always made Reese nervous because he realized if the mission really was a harmless as it looked, they wouldn't have called him. Reese got sent in when problems were already out of control or teetering on the edge of total disaster. His superiors wouldn't waste his time and talents on simple missions. Something else was going on here, and it was clearly bad enough for Command to not tell him the full story. The entire situation was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Pushing aside the distracting thoughts, Reese focused on the task at hand. It didn't matter what else might be in the wind. The only thing of importance was completing his objectives, and he would. He'd never failed an assignment before, no matter the odds or opposition, and Reese had no intention to change things now.

A blue, transparent hologram of the ship's commanding officer gleamed into being in front of Reese and the team so he wouldn't have to leave his post on the bridge to speak with them. Attired in a double-breasted suit with gleaming buttons, the Captain had a moustache, but his beard had been cut away and was only recently growing back. It was impossible to tell the color of the hair as the entire man in the projection was solid blue.

"We're approaching the underwater city," the Captain reported to them. "ETA two minutes."

"Understood," Reese answered, and the hologram melted away to nothing. He nodded to the team and held up one finger. "One minute. Get ready. Final check."

Despite having two minutes until they arrived at their destination, Reese wanted them prepped and ready before the sub docked since they couldn't afford to waste valuable time at the airlock. Delays could cost lives, and Reese wanted to prevent as many as he could.

The lights blinked off and then on again a moment before an alert sounded through the ship. Reese guessed something was wrong, but from his position on the upper deck, he had no idea what was going on one floor below him on the bridge. Deciding not to wait until things settled down before taking action, Reese gestured for his team to head toward the airlock. Reese thought if the ship was in terrible trouble, he and the team could slip out while the sub departed to find safety. An additional reason for wanting his men at the airlock was because if the ship was in great peril, they might have to abandon the ship before it went down.

No sooner had the thought entered his mind, did the ship around Reese tremble with a massive impact. Additional alerts began sounding, and a constant vibration rattled through the deck plates. The simple mission was getting problematic because it was clear to Reese they were under attack.

"Go, go, go!" Reese ordered. It didn't matter if the sub was in the right position for deployment or not. They didn't have any options left.

Reese dropped his breathing mask over his face an instant before the hull in front of him vanished in a violent explosion. Seawater rushed him in a blinding wave of frothing white, picking him up and slamming him hard against a bulkhead. Bright points of light exploded across his vision, and the pain in his side let him know he'd broken at least one rib, possibly more.

The submarine was going down, so Reese abandoned any attempt to reach the airlock and swam toward the hole in the forward hull where the water had originally come in. The pressure of the water trying to flood the ship made it difficult to try and get out while it was coming in, but the air was bleeding out into the ocean, and the escaping atmosphere pulled him along.  A jagged piece of metal from the torn hull sliced in to his arm and left a trail of red behind him in the water.  Once outside the sinking vessel, Reese turned in position to get his bearings while checking for hostiles and survivors; with all the debris and bubbles churning the water around him, he couldn't see any of either. He was able to make out the lights of a submerged city.

Saltwater on his wound caused an intense burning sensation to fill his arm from shoulder to fingertips.  Doing his best to avoid the jagged metal fragments floating in the water, he swam less than his best toward the city. His normally swift and efficient technique was hampered by his injuries, and it wasn't long until his mind started screaming at him to stop and rest. Reese knew he couldn't stop, no matter how much pain he endured. The city possessed unexpected and formidable defenses, so it stood to reason they might also have an amphibious strike team to search for survivors after the sub went down. He had to get out of the water before the enemy teams began their work.

Reese knew he couldn't enter through any of the primary airlocks. Since the city defenses destroyed the submarine, guards would be on high alert. If he made any attempt to go in that way, he'd be captured seconds after arrival.

Because his oxygen supply was limited to the small tank he carried on his back, Reese knew he'd need to find a way in quickly. He looked over the various towers and structures, considering if he could breach them without compromising the entire city. While he was swimming, he noticed a pair of red lights blinking softly in the darkness beneath the underwater plateau where the city had been founded.

Struggling against the pain ripping through him, Reese plunged down to investigate the lights. As he drew closer, he discovered they were mounted on either side of an old docking hatch. By the amount of coral growing over the edges, Reese assumed it had been out of service for years.

Lacking any better options, he swam up to the airlock and used the manual controls beside it to open the outer hatch. He could hear the muffled noises through the water as the motors struggled to break the coral holding the hatch closed. Stirring up clouds of debris in the water around it, the hatch tore free of the restricting coral and opened. Reese moved inside, closed the outer hatch, and started the cycle to drain out the water. He was able to open the inner hatch after the seawater had been removed.

The tunnel on the inside of the hatch was mostly stone with metal support braces every few feet. The only form of illumination came from a sparse number of wall mounted fixtures. He assumed they were a form of emergency lighting for the purpose of allowing people to find their way around even if the primary lights were off.

His footing was unstable after his exhausting swim, and he stumbled slightly over the lip of the airlock hatch, catching himself against the wall. His breathing was ragged, and he shed his air tank and mask, dropping them to the floor.

He heard soft footsteps approaching, and pressed himself against the wall while lifting his laser rifle to point in the direction of the sound. A man and woman crept around the corner and were understandably startled to find him pointing a gun at them.

"Paul?" questioned the dark haired woman. "What are you doing here?"

"Ashley?" Reese asked in return. He lowered his weapon. "I didn't recognize you with dark hair."

"I'm undercover," Ashley explained. "Red hair would've been too noticeable. We were told an extraction team was en route; are you it?"

"I'm afraid so," Reese admitted, resting his head back against the wall. "The transport sub was hit. I don't know if anyone else made it out. They were ready for us."

"You're in bad shape," Ashley observed.

"I'll live," Reese assured her. He handed over his gun before working to remove the holster and knife sheath on his belt, giving them to her as well. He looked toward the man standing beside her. "Who's he?"

"His name's Melvin," Ashely introduced. "He's a janitor helping me stay ahead of the guards."

"Any combat experience?" Reese asked.

Melvin shook his head.

"Here, take this," Reese instructed. He removed a triangular panel of a device strapped to his leg and handed it over to Melvin. "It's a prototype for a personal cloaking field generator. It's never been field tested, so I don't know how well it will function, but if it does work, it may help you dodge a few guards."

"Thanks," Melvin accepted, strapping the field generator to his leg.

"Speaking of guards," Ashley said when she detected movement down a side passage.

"You better get going," Reese advised. "They'll keep me alive to find out what I know, so it'll give you time to save the day."

"Before this is over, we'll come back for you," Ashely promised.

Reese nodded for he was too exhausted to do anything more. Ashley and Melvin departed swiftly to his left while the flashlight beams of a security team became visible to his right. He slid down the wall to the floor and waited for the guards to find him.