Avatar’s internal clock counted off the time after the lights darkened. Its omni-tool was already active and waiting for its command to initiate the tactical cloaking program. It had activated thousands of instances of analysis programs to its auditory and visual sensors to heighten its awareness. There were currently 638 redundant programs dedicated to projectile trajectory analysis alone. Once it stepped into the room, its projected processing utilization would be at a staggering 81%. 

…4.97, 4.98, 4.99, 5.00 seconds passed, and Avatar engaged its tactical cloak. With its assault rifle in hand, it rounded the corner and moved into the room, sticking close to the wall on its right. The room was exceptionally dark, to the point that only those with low light vision could navigate to any extent. The only reason that those hostiles without low-light vision could return fire to the distraction team was that the hallway through the door was lit. 

For Avatar, the distraction was working perfectly. There were few hostiles who were properly equipped to see in the darkened room, but with its tactical cloak, even they had an exceptionally low probability of detecting Avatar’s presence. It moves carefully and quietly along the wall, passing within two meters of a disoriented Turian at one point, but within ten seconds, it had managed to move into the back corner of the room, with the airlocks. 

Avatar’s platform could not sustain a tactical cloak whilst it was interacting with the airlock terminal, so it had to remain visible in order to upload RK into the interceptor. However, since the airlocks were in the back corner of the room, and all hostiles were focused on the distraction team, none of the enemy were looking in its direction. Unfortunately, it encountered a delay when attempting to allow RK to upload. The airlock terminal seemed to have a firewall which had not been listed at the security console. However, it was an old, outdated system, and a quick search through its memory revealed that there were known exploits which it could use to bypass the security. In particular, this system was actually vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack, but hacking through would require approximately another ten seconds.

The Krogan leading the mercenaries acted quickly as soon as the doors had been breached. He was wearing a full helmet, and seemed to have no trouble moving, so his suit was likely equipped with low-light vision. Immediately, he ordered a group of his Vorcha, about five or six strong, to rush the left door while their allies provided heavy covering fire. Some stumbled in the darkness at first, but the leading Vorcha was wielding a flamethrower, which he let loose towards the open door, illuminating the area around him enough for the other Vorcha to make their rush for the door as well. At the same time, the Krogan, with a group of three Turians and a Batarian along with him, seemed as if they were making for the right door to move around and flank the distraction team.