Solar Warden, Jakob Waechter [book club suggestions .TXT] 📗

was checking the control interface by myself. We already transferred all information from here to the Icarus,” Samuel replied.

“Good, then we can leave?” Knight wanted the lock down the sub level.

“Yes, sir.” Samuel followed him.

“SW-7 move back behind the power generator. Then prepare to leave the facility,” Knight ordered.

Samuel closed the door of the energy storage and control room. Two of SW-7 came back from the train tunnel with their bikes, the others were in the front hall of the power generator room. They had to lift the anti-gravity bikes higher to get around the generator. But that was no problem.

Samuel and the Commander went in last. Then the next door closed through the command of Samuel.

“Now I have to cut another cable. Then we also have not the imminent control of it. But are secure from hacking,” Samuel informed.

“Go on.” Knight went out of the generator room joining Davis. “Are the bikes already outdoors?”

“I brought them in the hall before the lift. They could be also used as sentry in a limited way,” Davis replied.

“I just wait for SW-3 to arrive, then we will leave. So I hope we won’t need to defend here,” Knight told him. Then went to the others. “Diaz, Pearce move your teams up and prepare for the departure.”

Samuel was finished he left the generator room and closed the door. At the moment only three of SW-7 were here. The rest headed to the lift.

The Commander went into the autopsy room. SW-2 was guarding there. Jones had finished it and was also with the others outside.

“Are we done here?” the Commander asked.

“Yes, sir. We found no implants. But he had most organs twice. This explains why they are harder to finish off,” Freeman reported.

“But only one head. We will see what that information brings us. You also can move up with your troops,” the Commander replied and went with them to the lift. “SW-7 move all to the ground level.”

The lift was coming back. He, Samuel, SW-2 and the rest of SW-7 went in.

 

6 Delay

As the Commander went into the tower hall, one of SW-3 arrived.

“Commander we have captured a Gray. We don't know if he is still alive. We shot him with the microwave rifle,” he reported. “We also have a head in a specimen box.”

“SW-2 support SW-3 getting the alien in the autopsy room and check if he is still alive,” the Commander ordered then reported to the Icarus.

They brought the motionless alien down. Then Major Yamada went in.

“Sir, you seen our capture. We also have a head and two alien hand guns. As already reported I shot one of the turtle faces with the microwave rifle. It worked using maximum power. They were too close to try any other power level. But now we know the armor protects them from our microwave rifles.”

“Good, I have another mission you escort Archer to your shuttle near the canyon. We need your drones. Archer will send them to the cave for investigation. You then, will either leave with him to the Icarus or we stay a bit longer for the interrogation. I don't think the Captain wants the Gray on the ship,” the Commander informed him.

“Affirmative. When do we depart with Archer?” Yamada asked.

“I need to speak with the Icarus and Archer should be finished with the preparation. He needs to know how many drones you have. You see him over there on this laptop.” The commander pointed to Samuel location which was in one of the rooms of the tower hall which had a table and seat. Yamada saluted and went to him.

“Commander he is alive,” Freeman reported over wireless connection.

“Good. Tell me when he is awake. Speed it up if you can,” the Commander replied and switched to Icarus communication. “Captain the drone plan will work. We need a combat drone to relay the signals. Everything else is preparing Archer now. When he is done we need the shuttle of SW-3.”

“Perfect, then we prepare a combat drone for that and synchronize with Archer. I inform you when the shuttle is on its way. Is the departure prepared?” the Captain asked.

“Yes, but as mentioned we have captured a Gray. He is still unconscious. I think we should interrogate him at least. I don't guess you want him on board the Icarus,” the Commander informed.

“Interesting. As he is alive, that changes things a bit.” The captain was thinking. “Well, delay your departure a bit. An interrogation would be useful. You are right I would not like him on the ship but I have to think over it. Inform me when the alien is awake.”

“How far should we go with the interrogation? I let him wake up in the autopsy room,” the Commander asked.

“It's your choice. Just adapt to the situation. As we have not lost people we don't have to be aggressive. But also they shot at us first and did unauthorized exterminations as far we can tell. If they done more to Ryan and Caine we don't know it yet,” the Captain replied.

“I will stream it up. So you can follow and write me questions if needed. Also we got a Gray head specimen in a box.”

“Very well. I discuss with Watkins what else we can do,” the Captain finished the communication then ordered a conference at the Icarus. Max was informed to work out with the drone command team the details Samuel needed.

 

About twenty minutes later Samuel and SW-3 were on the ride to the shuttle LZ. They were a bit faster and waited. After landing Samuel went in to get the drones. The others covered the area. Samuel came out with two and one of the pilots was carrying the third.

Then Samuel uploaded the mission objectives, activated the drones and sent the start signal. The drones went away with over 100 kilometers per hour. Samuel and SW-3 went back to the facility and the shuttle to the more guarded landing zone.

The Gray woke up and the Commander was called. While the Commander was on his way, the alien said nothing. It looked at the autopsy mess but seemed not to have any noticeable reaction to it. Then it looked at the guards and did not move anymore.

Knight went in. The Gray looked to him but said nothing.

“We want answers. Why did you abduct people from our planet?” the Commander asked.

He did not answer.

“What have you done to our people in this room?”

Still no answer.

“What do you do on this planet?”

The alien seemed not to care.

“Microwave rifle,” Knight commanded. One of the soldiers stepped forward aiming with the rifle to the chest of the alien.

The Gray stood up turned to the rifle and said nothing.

Knight checked it was on lowest settings.

“Speak now or we shoot,” the Commander said.

He knew this level was very painful for humans and would disable them for a short time.

“Fire!” came the command.

The Gray went down on the other side of the table which was a simple white rectangular box. It was the right table. There were three tables in the room. The dead and opened turtle face was on the left one. Now the Gray was lying on the ground and flickering through the effect of the microwaves. After he calmed down he stood up and made a yawning gesture.

“We only want some information if you are not cooperative we will get them otherwise,” Commander Knight said.

The Gray moved one step forward as he was waiting for the next shot.

“Fire!” Knight commanded unimpressed.

Samuel walked in with a scanner and checked the brain while the Gray flickered. After that the Gray stood up and made the same gesture. Samuel scanned again. Then left the room with Commander Knight.

“He has a device in his head. But we cannot measure any electrical signature from it or any other activity that comes from it. Also our methods are limited. If we go down to the level off EEG, we cannot distinguish from the normal brain function and maybe the device. For that we would need to use a real EEG and MRI what we don't have here,” Samuel reported which was supported by Watkins.

“Thanks for the info. I will discuss further options with the Captain. But take SW-3, place an additional communication relay on top of the tower. I want to observe him in this room using the camera. Place a microphone and a speaker in there if needed. Then we can monitor him when we are gone. We will guard the area with the combat drones. So it should take them some time and resources to get him free,” Knight informed Samuel.

“I inform you when I am done. I guess it will take about an hour,” Samuel replied, then went to Yamada.

Knight discussed further options for the interrogation and the retreat plan with the Captain. Then went back to continue the interrogation. The Gray was just standing there.

“We guess that you are all here artificial created organic machines controlled from somewhere else. If you don't want to talk we continue our investigation. There is no reason why we should stop. Whatever, you will be stuck here for a while or even end up like the other here,” Knight went on.

The alien did not respond.

Knight continued to ask question and let some more shots fire. But he could not get a word out of him.

Finally, Samuel showed up. They tested the communication and its volume then all left the room. Samuel locked the door.

It was time for the retreat. Everyone went to the bikes. The Icarus had the control of the building systems which could be controlled remotely. All teams used the river route to get as fast to the shuttles. Only SW-3, Samuel and the shot ones were picked up before the canyon. Then they left the planet via the backside route.

 

Two combat drones were left behind to cover the facility area. Another one was from the Icarus sent down serving as cave scanning relay and stayed as long as needed. The other three surface scout drones were already in the cave and scanning. In there they flew much slower to get all details. It was about 15 kilometers per hour. The cave was very big at the entrance. It got a bit smaller later on and there it was visible that some kind of drilling had produced the further tunnels leading very deep into the mountain and also split up in multiple tunnels. Still they found no entrance door at the live stream analysis. The drone went deeper in and were not enough to relay the signal further. So one drone disconnected to scan further and flew back to transmit the records. There was a time limit of 10 minutes. It did it with all tunnels. Where it could not reach the end it increased the limit to 20 minutes and then 40. Finally, the drones had finished everything and headed out again. They found the mining vehicles at the end of three tunnels. It was an advanced system using laser and gravity control to form balls of ore which it mined. This all was fully automatic. No alien was spotted there.

The returning drones were close to the exit, now in a more accurate scan mode and flying 10 kilometers per hour. Then out of