My estimate of 3 hours slowly dissolved, when I saw that time was passing by quicker than I had expected, night slowly falling and we still did not arrive at our location. However we could see in the distance just over the large hill a structure peeking. We walked slowly sticking close to shade and trees just in case that some random eye getting a glimpse of us, we separated far apart as well so we could easily get to cover and avoid any possible traps that my fall in front. I had point followed by Suzan, Anna and Valentina. Starg had our back. Each one of them followed me in 10 yard increments. Random trees here and there for us to walk close to them but still not quite enough of them to be called a forest. My probes formed a mile radius around me scanning the area almost continuously.
Another hour passed. Slowly we reached the top of the hill. Lying on my stomach on hot ground I used my visor to get close eye of the ship that I saw in the distance. Structure towering not even 10 yards behind it.
Grunt class space ship. We used military jargon calling him that because it was little, powerful and usually used for new pilots to get them used to flying. This one had some strange markings all over the hull. But it was a Gal Federation starship probably stolen from military. How? My brain thought it was impossible that a military ship would be just stolen like a pack of candies and not get reported. It was truly strange.
Structure was massive, with one sharp tower. I cannot describe it with my monkey brain. Silver lights slowly jumped whenever sun rays would touch it, the building was blinding but perhaps it had its purpose for being that way. Probes sent information to me and my team that it had around 2 massive floors underground. It used sonar pings to determine that area around the tower was coated in some strange and sturdy alloy that would attract sounds to it.
Searing sun made me want to remove the helmet and chuck it far away. Sweat was dripping into my eyes, but for all the technology we poses we could not install some AC in the suits.
"Let's move" I stood up and slowly approached the landed craft. Sudden screams from the structure made me abandon idea of boarding the ship and exploring it. "Form up front, weapons ready!" We moved in to the entrance of the structure. Area inside was walled of in front of us but the path was proceeding to one side you could see it bending backwards and going further in. Screams were more audible and we proceeded to move silently and carefully behind the wall and into the massive area that had a strange empty feel to it. There was a woman screaming further in surrounded by 4 human soldiers with patches removed.
Deserters. The worst of the scum. I showed the number and signal, thumb across my index finger forming a cross. My unit nodded and aimed at their marks. The silencer modules added made the work pretty fast, silent and most importantly deadly. I left one target alive just barely.
"Check the civilian. I'll interrogate the solder." I approached the fallen soldier gasping for air. Blood was already spilling from his mouth. Damnit maybe I missed. I put my boot on his wound. "How many of you are here?" I asked a simple question but the deserter died smiling. Probably knowing he fucked us over. But, thing is, Grunts usually carry up to 12 people. Glance of the open interior of the craft showed me that most of it was removed for their cargo. So still that's probably 8 more people here in this building.
"Reload. Anything from the civilian?"
"Nothing sir she is still shaking like a leaf. Probably trauma." Suzan said while Anna was trying to make her drink something.
"Never mind, we'll continue inside slowly. Maybe we'll meet more of them. If we do, we take them, if possible, alive." This was my first hearing Starg voice his own opinion. So far the huge man stood still and took orders pretty calmly, even his voice had a strange hint of intelligence behind it. I had nothing to object to he made perfect sense to me and my orders would be similar.
"Perfect. Suzan, Cay can you handle her for now? We will be back after searching for few minutes, Valentina will help you out after she places IMR around your position." IMR I was referring to was Infrared Movement Reader. Small devices you place around, usually in doors, for better protection. Anything that breaks the lasers that appear will alert the original owner of the devices. You usually carry a secondary device on your person no bigger than a watch. Removing our visors to prepare for the climb down.
Separating from the two and leaving Valentina to set the Net around them, we spent few minutes descending the long stairs down into the ground. Even before I launched my drones I thought the structure went up but apparently the structure was mostly located into the ground. First floor had many rooms adjacent to the main path that we were taking. It will take us hours to clear everything up I decided to move further down, after placing my own IMR around the entrance to the stairs.
We proceeded down. After another minute or so we started to hear laughing. I held my hand up and told Anna and Starg to hang tight. Also I sent the info about the missing room to 2 women on the top floor. It was imperative that they knew, but what made it risky is if our enemy had our com frequency they could easily tune in. Radio silence was important here since we were talking about ex-military soldiers that probably have knowledge about what we were doing here.
"We are filthy rich. I tell you our boss will love this, probably as much as that woman we left him with." One soldier was much closer than I had originally thought right behind the bend. He looked up and we locked our eyes staring each other while waiting for something.
I was much faster and I knew exactly what to do. While my victim was unaware that we were even here. My heavy boot smacked him directly on the face breaking bones, teeth and probably his neck. He went down limp while his partner behind him was still chatting away. We moved silently down, moving over the fallen soldier and slowly approaching the end of the stairwell.
The entrance was just 10 feet in front of us with the soldier standing right in front of it, his back turned towards us. Taking my knife I moved slowly towards him while Anna and Starg had my flanks. Quick stab thru the back of his neck made his death pretty messy but quiet. The room in front of us was a storage hold 2 stories deep, they were probably going outside to check on that woman.
