Transform Me (A "Shatter Me" Trilogy Fanfiction)

FORTY-EIGHT: DAINGEAN

48: Daingean

In three hours, we'll finally be laying siege to Daingean.

Between me and Warner, and with the help of several other people, we were able to put together almost five hundred suits. That means about half of our manpower will be going unarmed. Still, these seem like better odds than nothing.

Currently, several of us are convened in a room. We're already suited up, so we're just going over the plan one last time. Once everything is clear, we're good to go.

Warner, Juliette, Kenji, Caitlan and I make our way outside the airport to pilot-test the jetpack. Warner goes first and immediately gets the hang of it. He glides once through the air before gracefully returning to the ground. The rest of us try right after him. Trying to find my balance is a tricky thing once I'm airborne, but after a minute or two, I start to get a better grip in maneuvering myself. After our test flight, we return to the ground where Dougal and some other allies are.

"Alright. So it's now eighteen hundred hours. If you keep your speed steady between fifty to sixty kilometers per hour, you'll be in Daingean in less than an hour. Try not to go beyond seventy or the jetpack will overheat and there'll be no saving you." Castle warns us.

"Your suits are currently on autopilot and have been programmed to follow the coordinates to Daingean. If you need to go manual, hit the button on your chest." Dougal adds.

"Remember that once you shut the system down, you'll have no more than twenty minutes to save your friends." Dougal reminds us.

We all nod.

I think of all my friends and hope to God twenty minutes is enough time to save them.

* * *

Kenji, Caitlan, Juliette, Warner, I are all standing on the airplane runway. Standing a few meters away from us are a few of the allies.

"Do you hear me?" Castle's voice flows out through the speakers built into my helmet.

The five of us nod. Kenji gives him a thumbs up.

"Good. Now, on my signal." He brings his open palm up into the air. "Three...two...one."

We turn our jetpacks on and we're airborne.

"Good luck out there." Castle says as we rise higher and higher into the sky.

We're making our way towards Daingean at the prescribed speed and we're making good time. None of us speak and I'm sure our thoughts are consumed by the mission ahead. We cannot afford to make any mistakes. Any error, any slipup, could result in death.

"You're nearing Daingean. On my signal," we hear Castle say, "—now."

Kenji and Warner immediately turn us all invisible. We continue zooming across the sky for a few more minutes, and then we finally see it. It's larger than I imagined, and I wonder how they manage to keep it afloat.

We see the opening Dougal had told us about and enter through it. As soon as we're inside, we all give each other a quick nod and split up. Kenji, Juliette, and Caitlan are teamed up and tasked to search the place for our friends and free them. Meanwhile, Warner and I are in charge of locating the main source of power and shutting it off.

As a precaution, I transform into Devin while Warner shapeshifts into General Watanabe. We'd already memorized the schematics Dougal gave us, so it is easy to navigate our way around. We need to go up to the topmost level where the central processing unit is stored. Then, we shut it down by using Devin and the general's handprints and keying in a specific code.