RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 173

“Well, we are at least given all the usual advantages provided by exploratory combat suits now,” said Robert. “It might be like you told. The main part is probably just starting now.”

The pair of them started to explore the mountainous terrain. They had initially thought that it was just a small span or rocky area, but once they went to the top of a hill, all they could see were more rocky hills and mountains.

“We were left near a mountain range for the trial!? I heard that they usually choose areas with a water sources so that a lot of resources would be available. I guess the odds were stacked against us since the start,” said Robert.

“Don’t get shocked by something so trivial. We have already passed the basic criteria. Else, they wouldn’t have given us the full control of the suits. Let us just check the area,” said Balthazar.

He hadn’t had any preconceptions about the trial like his cousin. He was only given some information by Arthur and based on what he was told the trial would always change based on the persons undergoing it and the discretion of the judge, but the good thing was that its proceeding would be completely recorded and if any deliberate action were taken by the judges, it could be questioned by the elders. With Winston and Arthur backing them up, he was sure that the judges wouldn’t put them in a location which was completely devoid of any thing.

At that time, Lucius and Richard had also reached the edge of the forest and noticed the change in terrain. Unlike the two participants, they could actually ask the judges for detailed information as they were responsible for the safety of the Balthazar and Robert. They had immediately asked for the judges and the information they got was quite surprising.

“A cache for pirates? Why the hell would they send these to such a place? Robert hasn’t the slightest idea on handling traps and the like. He might be seriously injured,” said Richard.

“Ah! Balthazar had been too daring. He pissed her off. Now, it all makes sense, why the Price family offered us a planet at this time suddenly,” said Lucius realizing the reason for this.

“What? Who? I didn’t know that he had some beef with the Price family. Our families always cooperated with one another. If there was such a thing, how come we didn’t know?” asked Richard shocked by Lucius’ words. If there were any grievances between the Price family and Balthazar, Robert would have a lot more trouble in getting the position of an elder. So, Richard was concerned about the issue.

“Ok! Don’t worry. It is not a serious thing. The kid is a colonel, right? You know Evelyn Price, the director’s sister. Based on his latest achievement, she asked him to join her group which he declined but asked for support. She apparently told him that he needed to be trained and wasn’t really ready. I heard that he was a bit snippy to her. She was slightly provoked and according to Winston, if Balthazar had not been a Blyth, she would have had him court-martialled for the thing he told in that meeting. If, I wasn’t training him, Winston wouldn’t have even told me about it,” explained Lucius.

“The kid pissed off Evelyn Price?” asked Richard shocked. “Why doesn’t the idiot go and call Harvey Price an imbecile for the way he had been tiptoeing around the increase of armed forces budget?” he continued in a sarcastic manner.

“Normally, it is fine, but the guy is a member of armed forces like Evelyn which is the main problem. So, Winston was sure she might make things a bit harder for him,” said Lucius. “Though I didn’t expect she would put her hands into the trial. That was unexpected. She probably had suggested this to one of the elders in the family council. The idiot probably thinks she is doing him a favour.”

“Let us hope that they won’t be too foolish and would examine things carefully if they manage to locate the cache,” said Richard hoping that they would miss it.

“You heard that the area would be covered with traps, right? Apparently, there are even a bunch of vantage points built in the place. It is an entire valley which they find if they go straight as they were,” said Lucius. “Let us speed and get them in our view. It would be hard to help them even if they get into trouble from this distance.”

“Yeah. Also notify Salazar about the place. It is best if we let him have a view of them,” said Richard as the pair of them sped up through the region in direction of their targets.

Balthazar and Robert had spent about an hour moving across the rocky terrain, crossed a small hill and reached a large valley between two cliffs, when they came into contact with the first beasts. These were a group of wolf-like animals called Boredrevers which were commonly seen in rocky areas. These were carnivores and pack animals with sharp quill like fur all over them.

“These things are being reared here,” said Balthazar as soon as he saw the pack of Boredrevers.

“What?”

“Yes. These were reared here. I checked Boredrevers are common in rocky areas, but from the information given to us not native here. Also, you will notice that a few of them have collars,” said Balthazar.

The pair of them were using the stealth tech unlocked in their suits to traverse the mountains. Balthazar suggested it as they had little to negligible cover on these mountains. Though there were trees, the vegetation was far less sparse compared to the thick and densely packed forest trees which they passed through. It might be a simple task to hide from humans, but the beasts of the area couldn’t be fooled by simply hiding behind trees. Even if one is atop a tree, the gap between the trees was large enough for the beasts to have a clear line of sight to them if they weren’t using stealth tech to camouflage themselves.

“Didn’t they tell us that all intelligent species were cleared off the planet?” asked Robert as he also noticed the collars on the necks of few beasts.

“Yes. But they never told that they didn’t clean up behind them. Their pets and defenses might still be left,” said Balthazar. “Go back to the hill and find some cover, I want to check one of those collared beasts.”

“Why?” asked Robert. “Getting close to them might be dangerous and tame beasts among a pack usually implies that they probably are the alphas and much stronger than the others. Else, the pack wouldn’t let them among them.”

“Ya, just indulge me, would you?” said Balthazar as he moved the side and started making disturbances.

“Don’t get much their blood on you. The blood of other beasts we killed till now is a deterrence to them but having their own blood will attract them to you,” advised Robert. Balthazar was the one who had killed all the beast that they encountered on the planet and had their blood on his blades unlike Robert. The stealth tech could hide them from being seen easily, but scent is one thing which can’t be hidden.

But Robert’s worries were unnecessary. Balthazar had already taken precautions against these things. He knew that he had to cover both his scent and sounds. He had enough practice as an assassin to handle both the issues. Pet beasts were a hurdle he had to overcome for many of his targets in his previous life as an assassin. He had a lot of practice in walking silently and he had already covered up his blades and even his suit with moss he found on the way. This was the only reason he was able to sneak up on other beasts.

Even with all these precautions, Balthazar was having a hard time with these pack of Boredrevers. The beasts patrolling the residences of his targets were usually always controlled by other security personnel. With his scent covered, he could notice patterns of the men quickly make a path through them, but these pack of beasts were different. The lack of the guiding hand of humans manning them, made it a lot more difficult to find a save way through. Balthazar didn’t even want to capture the collared beast, but just a closer look at it. Yet that wasn’t easy either.

He had to spend half an hour just looking for a good chance to finally get near enough to notice that the collar had a signal being emitted from it. It was a collar that was quite commonly used by various organizations even on Asklepian. It was a short-range encrypted signal that would be hard to be detected unless one is too close to the source or looking for that specific kind of signal. It would be usually used to track if a pet is active or drugged by noticing the heart rate. As he realized what it was, he immediately moved away from the beast

“The collar on the alpha is human made. These are staying guard over something,” said Balthazar as he moved towards Robert.

“What? Is it some forbidden area of the Price family? Should I try to call over to them?” asked Robert.

“No. If it was a forbidden area. They would have better security and wouldn’t offer us to use this planet for us to use. They probably already knew of this. It is probably a cache from some renegades and decided to let us do some grunt work before they make their preparations,” said Balthazar.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Cause if it was mine, I wouldn’t let someone like Lucius to roam around freely. Forget Lucius, I wouldn’t even allow you or me to move freely without personal supervision from my men.”

“The judges of the trial…”

“Aren’t supervision of the Price family,” said Balthazar ending Roberts sentence.

“Ok. So, what should we do? There are bound to be more defences.”

“I am expecting the same. The valley is bound to be their cache. I have experience with circ.u.mventing security. Just follow me and we will go through it easy,” said Balthazar.

“You have experience circ.u.mventing security?” asked Robert surprised. His cousin become more and more intriguing every other day. He had certain expectations of his cousin due to his service in the armed forces, but his knowledge and skills are a bit out of what he would expect, especially since his cousin’s service was for only a period less than five years.

“I had to check security features of my base and office. Didn’t believe in the concept of paranoia. Always, thought that it is best to be prepared. Else, I wouldn’t be alive today,” said Balthazar.

“What is the plan for the pack?”

“Need to lure them away.”

“Really?! That is quite easy right?” said Robert sarcastically before a frightening thought came in his mind. “I am not going to do it,” he immediately spat out before his cousin could even elaborate.

“Ya. I don’t plan on doing that. That is a waste of personnel. What we need is meat. Meat enough to entice the majority of them away, so that we can sneak past them,” said Balthazar.

“That will take quite some time. Apart from the Boredrevers, there only critters and the like here. It would be hard to kill them in large numbers. It is time consuming. So, I got an alternate option which we can try,” said Robert.

“Please explain.”

“Poison.”

“What poison? I thought that we have sent the poisonous items we had on the drone.”

“No. Listen to me. We have ammo for flares, right?”

“Ok. A flare can distract them, but I doubt it will be very effective,” said Balthazar.

“It actually won’t be much effective, but the powder of the flares is poisonous. We could use that. The same is true in case of the blasting powder in the bullets.”

“Let us use the ammo of the flares, for now. How many do we need to use for this pack? We also need a way to make them eat it. Can in it be aerosolized?”

“No. You need to go on a killing spree again. A few of those ferrets roaming around.”

“How does that work? Won’t the Boredrevers smell out the poison if we smear it on the bodies of the bait? How potent is it?”

“It will take about ten minutes for them to get dizzy and they will be down for a few minutes, but that is enough for us. We need to smear the powder inside their dead bodies for the Boredrevers to not notice and leave the part of spreading poison in the bait to the surgeon,” said Robert as he started to make preparations.

Balthazar ran away from the valley and began to hunt for bait. Though there were no large beasts, there were a bunch of smaller lizards and critters seen. With his crossbow, he took about twenty minutes to get a decent amount of them back to Robert.

Robert quickly made a few incisions in the bodies of the bait to spread the powder inside them and they took the bodies and started to fling them towards the group of beasts. Balthazar took charge of it and he threw them one after the other.