The Correction Center. The name itself was a chilling monument to Vex's depravity.
It was the heart of his power in the Outer Sector, the factory where he manufactured his loyal, brainwashed soldiers.
To attack it was not just risky; it was suicidal.
Yet, Charon's cold, calculating challenge left them with no other viable move.
To refuse was to admit they were not the powerful, emerging force they had pretended to be.
It would mark them as a minor nuisance, to be swept from the board at Charon's convenience.
To accept was to walk willingly into a slaughterhouse, all for the slim hope of impressing a rival spymaster who was likely to betray them anyway.
When they presented the intelligence to General Tarik, his reaction was explosive.
"Absolutely not," he roared, his voice shaking the holographic displays in his war room.
"I will not sanction a direct assault on a fortified Vanguard black site. Your function is intelligence, not open warfare. This is a blatant trap, and I will not waste valuable assets on a suicide mission."
The words hung in the air, a stark reminder of their status.
They were 'assets.' Useful, but ultimately expendable.
Kiera met his furious gaze without flinching.
Her time in the Outer Sector, her fall from grace, and her new, desperate fight had forged a new kind of steel in her spine.
"We are not asking for your sanction, General. We are not asking for your troops or your support. We are informing you of our intention."
The sheer audacity of her statement silenced him.
She was a traitor to her own clan, living on his charity, yet she spoke as an equal.
"The information within that facility, the prisoners, the data on the indoctrination process... it is too valuable to ignore. We are going in. We only ask that you look the other way."
For a long, tense moment, Tarik seemed on the verge of having them arrested.
But he saw something in Kiera's unyielding eyes—a strategic recklessness that mirrored his own.
He also understood the potential reward.
If they somehow succeeded, the blow to Vex's operation would be immense.
If they failed, they were deniable traitors, and he would have learned something about the Correction Center's defenses at no cost to his own forces.
"You are fools," he finally growled.
"But you are proving to be useful fools. Very well. You have no official support. No reinforcements. If you are captured, you are disavowed. I will deny any knowledge of your existence."
With Tarik's reluctant non-interference secured, the team began their preparations.
A frontal assault was impossible.
Joric, poring over old municipal blueprints 'acquired' by Jin, found their way in.
The Correction Center had been built over a network of deep geothermal vents. The Vanguard had sealed every conventional access point, reinforcing the walls and installing overlapping sensor grids.
But they had neglected one potential vulnerability: a deep, unstable magma-tap conduit, deemed too volatile and dangerous for any conventional approach.
"They won't be watching the path no sane person would take," Joric surmised, a grim look on his face.
"And right now, 'sane' is a luxury we cannot afford."
This was more than a mission; it was a performance for an audience of one, a deadly audition for a spymaster who saw them only as pawns.
Their success or failure would be a message to Charon, a demonstration of their worth on the grand, bloody stage of the shadow war.