RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 175

“So, what happened?” asked Balthazar again as Lucius came to them.

“Nothing happened. Your next part would require us to be close to you to be of any significant help in case of a life-threatening danger,” replied Lucius.

“Why?” asked Robert. He was told that there would be someone looking over him, but they wouldn’t come into contact unless necessary. Lucius himself told them that once he came to rescue them, it would signal the end of the trial when they started.

“There is a cache belonging to pirates ahead. It is dangerous and apparently underground. We will accompany you. The trial is still on. There is no change. We will be quite and shadowing you closely, recording the entire thing and will provide these recordings to the judges in our report. If you make any mistake that we deem dangerous. We will take action and that would be the end of your trial,” said Richard briefing them on the situation.

“That is all?! Nothing else?”

“You can decide to end the trial now. I don’t mind taking you back to the ship. It is dangerous,” said Richard looking at the pair of them.

“Let us try. It isn’t really that dangerous. Else, you wouldn’t be giving us the choice now, right?” asked Balthazar to which Robert also nodded indicating that he also wanted to try it out.

“Yeah! We can’t keep a look on you if you end up underground. We need to be there to be able to help you if you require it,” said Lucius. “Now get going if you want to continue.”

Balthazar took lead as he had already found a few doors that would connect to the underground. There were four doors on the ground that blocked their path to the underground cache. Three of them were very large that they could be used for moving products and so on.

Such doors would usually be made in a way that they could only be opened from inside, else there is a danger of one being able to barge in with large numbers or use warframes. Due to that there is a chance of them having automated defences and guns with high damage ammunition. So, Balthazar wanted to avoid them.

Caches on planets usually have a small amount of maintenance staff and these staff are rotated periodically, else the staff would get bored and go mad staying in an isolated area for a long time. The best way for entering such places would be smaller doors used for change of personnel guarding and monitoring the place. Not only such places, maintenance entrances were always considered one of the best ways to enter an area. These doors are also frequently used by the maintenance staff to get out of the place and stretch their legs. They are usually just cloaked and hidden better than the other entrances and had lower defences.

The fourth door they found was beneath a rock and was cloaked by tech to look like a slab of wet ground covered with grass. It wouldn’t be possible to determine it to be an entrance, unless there was a map of someone used some kind of tech to check the structure of the underground. Luckily, his suit was equipped with that kind of technology.

As he neared the place, he quickly searched for devices which were used to maintain the illusion over the door and broke them as there was a chance that there would be a trap or two at the door. As the illusion cleared, they found a red colored door made of some metal. It had a handle and a socket to put in a drive which would be used as a passkey. This kind of things were used when there is a chance of the personnel frequently changing or in situations where the person with access would occasionally send someone else on his behalf.

“Awesome! We need a passkey for this. I guess we return now?” asked Robert. He could see no way through without a passkey. Both he and Balthazar wore exploratory suits that were meant for exploring new planets and places not secure facilities. So, going through a door with a digital passkey required either explosives or cutting equipment or some tool to unlock the door, none of which they had.

“I agree. It is a lost cause,” said Balthazar. He only thought about cutting equipment as a solution. Using explosives will have the risk of collapsing the tunnel and a tool for opening the door. Even equipment which could cut through the door would take quite some time which they didn’t have. It was already getting dark again and thus, Balthazar also believed it was a waste of time to pursue it any longer.

“Yeah, about this. This was the second reason that we came. There would be more obstacles that were more technical and as we go ahead. It was already discussed with the judges. They are fine with it as long as we make a recording of everything that happens. We will be accompanying you from now on,” said Lucius.

“Ok. Please,” said Balthazar as he moved away from the door giving space for Lucius and Richard to open it. Lucius went to the door and pulled out a small device which he plugged in to the door and a couple of minutes later, a small click sounded as the door opened up.

“Keep moving. You have about 7 hours left. Once, the time is up, we retreat quickly,” said Lucius.

“So, how come we are with a planet like this? Did you guys actually prepare a entire bunker just for this trial? Doesn’t it seem a bit too much?” asked Balthazar. He had been having doubts on it since the start of the trial and he finally got a chance to ask them. He knew that they would have ignored his question if he asked them over the communication device, but now with them being right beside him, it would be hard for them to ignore his inquiries.

“I already told you before, didn’t I?” said Lucius. “This is just because we wanted to take extra precautions for the trial and the Price family offered this to us.”

“So, they had a planet which had a cache with traps readily available for us to take a trial? Or are they just using us to clear out the defences of some rebels or pirates?” asked Balthazar getting to the point directly. The second part of his question was meant to be disingenuous, but it did hit directly on the mark surprising both Lucius and Richard.

“Does it really matter?” intervened Robert when none of them expected it. “They are clearly uncomfortable about the thing and don’t want to tell you about it. It wouldn’t change the trial unless the things you ask would provide some information about the obstacles ahead. In which case, they wouldn’t tell us anything anyway as it is against the rules of the trial. So, let us just move through the damn thing.”

Both Lucius and Richard looked at each other as they heard Robert intervene and solve their problem for him. They didn’t expect his interference, but it did help them to clear up the air. Balthazar also stopped as he realized that Lucius and Richard might not be able to answer him as it would indeed end up providing him information about the trial ahead.

“Fine. We will go ahead through the place, but I would like it if you be frank with me after we are done with the whole thing,” said Balthazar as he led them through the door. After a few steps he suddenly turned back and asked, “You told that there would be technical problems that we wouldn’t be able to deal with ourselves.”

“Huh,” said Lucius nodding in agreement.

“So, give us the information for that we require to handle these difficulties. It is best if we don’t waste time trying to handle issue which we would need your help for. So, it would be nice if you would provide me a list of things,” said Balthazar.

“Not happening. A part of our agreement with the judges is that we only help you when you ask for it. So, you need to be sure of the problem and that you definitely require our assistance before you ask for it. Else, it would be considered the same as the end of the trial,” said Lucius.

“Damn,” said Balthazar as he continued along the passage. It went for a few hundred metres before they first saw a couple of doors on the passage. The good thing was that they had clear markers indicating the direction of the various rooms. One of them indicated that it was a security station and the other indicated to be a path to warehouse, armory and general quarters.

“Let us get to the security station, first. Arm yourselves,” said Balthazar as took the gun in one hand and a blade in the other. The door to the security station was already open and ajar. As they entered, they saw that there was just a dead man on the floor. He had his tongue out and had his hands on his chest as he lay sprawled on the floor. Behind him there was a huge console and a number of screens which are displaying the picture outside and the also the inside of the cache.

“Keep an eye ahead,” said Balthazar as he moved to check the man on the floor. He quickly realized that the man was suffocated to death due to lack of breathable air. Moreover, the body looked like it was just a few days old. He was glad that he was in a combat suit and the smell of the body didn’t reach him. He was sure that the entire place would be stinking of dead and rotting bodies.

“This is a recent operation, a few days old,” he said to Robert. “The support was pumped with a mild agent that would put them in a trance like state while suffocating them. It wouldn’t let them realize that the life support system is misbehaving till it was too late,” he explained to his cousin.

This was a good way to take down a small contingent or to kill everyone in a ship with minimum effort. There would be detection systems and methods to prevent these things. Even wearing a combat suit or decent breathing apparatus would allow one to survive in such situations, but it was a method that was being continuously researched on and has frequent application. Especially due to the current state of war with the apes. A single man would be able to take down an entire battalion with such a method.

“So, we are just clearing up the place for the Price family,” said Balthazar as he noticed them. He went to the console and began to make a note of all the places that were being monitored. The warehouse, armory and even living quarters were partially being monitored from here. This was common in a pirate cache as pirates tend to steal from the warehouse and armory. So, they needed maintain tight control. The video was being streamed on the screens, but they weren’t able to change the view of the cameras.

He checked the systems for a few seconds and then realized that it required a password similar to the gate through which they entered. “Need a passkey similar to the entrance to use the terminal. I guess you can help with this,” said Balthazar looking at Lucius.

Lucius calmly walked over to the console and unlocked the place so that they would get control over the monitoring system of the bunker. Through the security console, Balthazar quickly checked the map of the place and the various locations to confirm if there were any survivors.

“Is there a chance for any of them to be still alive?” asked Robert. He was frightened by the dead body of the man. It was one thing to see a few beasts dying, but another to see a man dead in front of him. He had eaten beasts for food for a long time and was accustomed to it, but a dead man put a lot an unknown dread in his heart.

“No. If there were any they would have surrendered by now,” said Balthazar as he checked the various screens. He could see a lot of dead bodies in the screens. It was clear to him that the entire place was killed quickly by the same method as the one in the room was killed.

“Most of the ones in the place are dead. If anyone managed to survive by getting into a combat suit or some other method to breathe air, the person would have surrendered by now. Even a mentally retarded person would announce himself in a attempt to garner the mercy of the assailants. Looking by the number of dead bodies, the attempt to kill all these men was done quite covertly and any survivor would want to escape death by providing information or helping the assailants, especially if it were pirates,” he continued as he pointed at the screens.

Robert followed him and saw that there were a lot of dead men visible from the various camera angles which Balthazar put on the screen. “I got the schematics of the place and the traps too. This isn’t the main security centre of the place. It is just to monitor the people using the maintenance personnel and monitor the interior of the place. That one is beside the armory. We can directly disable the defenses through the main security room not from the point, but we can get to the place with the information from this place by avoiding them. Once, we are there, the entire place will be under our authority,” explained Balthazar.