Chapter 4: Infiltrating the Tower

Zara's knuckles tightened around the Nightfall's control columns as the deadly cyber-craft sliced through the turbulent data-streams. All around, Nexcorp's harvesting tower loomed - an ominous spire of obsidian code sheathed in crackling security shields.

"Approaching the outer defensive perimeter," she muttered, cybernetic eye scanning the rapidly scrolling tactical data.

"Akira, are you ready for your part?"

"Affirmative," the AI's voice crackled through her neural implant. "My viral secants are prepared to engage their firewall on your signal. We have one chance to create a momentary vulnerability."

Zara's breath came in measured inhales, her focus sharpening to a razors edge. This was it - the point of no return. Success or failure quite literally hung in the balance.

"Do it," she said simply. "I'm taking us in."

At her command, a blinding fusillade of encrypted code lanced out from the Nightfall's flanks. The tower's outer shields flared brilliantly, straining to repel the viral onslaught. For a moment, it seemed the defenses would hold...

...then a hairline fracture appeared, rapidly widening into a gaping breach. Zara gunned the engines, plunging the Nightfall through the smoldering gap before it could reseal.

"We're through!" she exclaimed, the cyber-craft shuddering violently as it pierced the tower's outer sanctums. "Nice work slicing those firewalls, Akira."

"Do not celebrate prematurely," the AI's voice remained tense. "That was merely the first hurdle. The harvesting nexus lies much deeper within this fortified construct."

Zara gritted her teeth, the Nightfall's armored hull groaning as they plunged deeper. All around, security programs swarmed like ravenous hunter-killers, raking the ship with blistering salvos of malicious code.

"I see it!" she cried, catching sight of a pulsing crimson nexus at the tower's core.

"Bringing us in for the payload drop!"

With a few deft commands, she angled the Nightfall on an oblique vector, riding the shockwaves of a near-miss to slingshot them towards the harvesting nexus. Klaxons blared as they hurtled through a deadly crossfire of defensive subroutines.

"Now, Akira! Hitting the payload release!"

A compact probe erupted from the Nightfall's underbelly, lancing straight towards the harvesting core. For a breathless moment, everything seemed to hang in stasis as the projectile streaked through the tower's innermost sanctums...

...then it struck home, detonating in a cataclysmic blast-wave of purging code and anti-viral overrides. The crimson nexus flickered and died, shockwaves of system failures rapidly propagating outwards.

"We did it!" Zara crowed, the Nightfall's hull lighting up with victorious glyphs and sigils.

"That's Nexcorp's harvesting operation officially scrapped!"

"Well struck, Cyber Phantom," Akira's voice carried a rare hint of satisfaction. "But our work here is not yet complete. We must ensure this tower's remaining defenses are neutralized before we withdraw."

Zara's smile turned feral as she swung the Nightfall in a tight starburst pattern, raking every remaining security nexus with surgical barrages of code-lances.

"Way ahead of you," she said grimly, watching the tower's firewalls shatter like sugarglass one by one. "I don't plan on leaving anything behind for Nexcorp to salvage."

By the time the last defensive node winked out of existence, the once-imposing harvesting construct hung in smoldering ruin, leaking fragmented data like a cyber-wreck.

Zara's blood sang with the thrill of victory as she angled the Nightfall's vector away from the crippled tower. They'd struck a decisive blow against the corporatists' overreaching grasp.

"Sending withdrawal coordinates now," Akira stated crisply. "Well done, Zara. You have helped deliver a pivotal setback to Nexcorp's vile schemes this cycle."

"Don't thank me yet," Zara replied, unable to keep the grin from her voice. "That was just the opening salvo. I have a feeling the real fireworks are still to come."

As the Nightfall's engines flared and they pierced the boundary between realms, Zara couldn't resist one last look over her shoulder at the smoldering tower. Nexcorp's defenses had been formidable, but they'd been sliced through like a plasma-blade.

Let that be a warning, she thought grimly.

The Cyber Phantoms and their Ascendant allies were just getting warmed up. Zara would keep striking, keep fighting, until the corporatists' stranglehold over the CyberWeb was broken once and for all.

The revolution had been unleashed - and not even the most formidable digital bastions would be enough to halt its inexorable spread.