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

later,” Knight radioed to the Captain.

“Affirmative. We continue with the drill when you are at the lift.”

“Pearce, get your team ready. SW-1 prepare to move out. Yamada, you support us with drones. We try to activate the lift. You send the drones in. Freeman, your team continues guarding the prisoners.” Then Knight moved out to the new entrance.

Yamada let the pilots of his shuttle send more drones. So he had seven available. Knight was the first who went in. The walls seemed to be molten out of the stone. At some point were metallic structures. Probably to support the static. They did not come close to the machinery which was producing rods of metal. The other drones still observed this level. So the only threat could come from the lift.

They were close now. Knight brought the teams in position while the laser drill started its work again. Then he went to the elevator and tried to activated it with the only mechanism he found. It was not a button. Only an area maybe a touch pad or something similar. He just touched it and moved his hand close to it around. There was no visible signal. While he slowly walked backward the door opened. It was moving up. The lift was empty. Five drones flew in.

“We are scanning the lift now. There is a similar area which you pushed on it. I try to touch it with a drone.” Yamada informed.

Knight had stopped walking back. One of the drone was flying to the probable button. It slowly knocked on it. Nothing happened.

“I’ll push it,” Knight said then.

“No, wait. I try the infrared laser scanner. It would be useful if we can interact with the drones,” Yamada interrupted.

It seemed to work the door closed. There was only this outer door at first. Then a transparent one like roller blind came down. It was the same as on the other side. There the stones of the mountain could be seen. The whole top area was a light area. It was not bright but sufficient. Slowly the lift went down. The walls outside could be seen on both sides now. Then a door on the other side came in sight. As the lift stopped the transparent door opened first. Then the other followed a second later.

It looked quite similar in this level and there was no one to see. The drones went out and scanned the area. One stayed close to the lift as signal relay.

“Captain, we are moving back,” Knight informed and waited.

“Ok. The drill is off and moving away,” came the reply seconds later.

The two teams headed out to the others while the scanning continued. Still no one was seen. But there was a production installation to see, which seemed to produce a mining machine like the one they captured. Also there was a different type of door.

 

“I have now references. The left button is for the base in the mountain. But I guess if we connect they will be notified. So for hacking purpose we should continue with the running connection and maybe figure out how we can activate this without notice,” Samuel said.

“I inform the Captain,” Newman replied and activated the Icarus connection. “Captain, we have now two and with the disc ship maybe three possibilities to connect to the mountain base. But only the running connection in the facility gives as more chances to proceed hacking undetected. Should we try to move the connected device up? This might have some risks losing the connection.” Newman asked.

“We are now scanning the sublevel of the mountain base. There are also robotic machines there. This would suggest we also can get a connection there. If it is possible, Kelsey can continue her work on the Icarus and let the device in the facility not losing the connection. You and Samuel should assist at the cave. Then we can leave the facility for now and focus our resources on the main objective,” Fisher replied. He thought there was nothing to gain there and the forces might be needed if they continue with the mountain base.

“Affirmative. Then Owens will fly Kelsey with the alien ship up. Are the combat drones notified?” Newman asked.

“Yes, they are on passive. But inform me when they start,” Fisher answered.

“Owens will do that. I inform the others, now,” Newman talked with Ryan then with Kelsey. She needed some minutes to prepare. Then they locked down the sublevel again and all went with the lift up.

Owens informed the Captain and flew with Kelsey through the canyon. An escort of two fighters joined them. They flew to the ocean and then accelerated up.

 

Meanwhile the rest of SW-5 accompanied by SW-6 arrived at the cave.

Knight was already studying the sublevel. He then went with the team leaders Newman and Samuel for a briefing further away from the prisoners.

The mining laser was on again and continued increasing the width of the entrance.

“We have now a tuff decision to make. Newman show us the sublevel,” Knight said.

Newman showed the map on his laptop which he used as a tablet now. The analysis team on the Icarus did a good job. It was not the finalized version. But the important stuff was on it. The tablet went around the group of leaders which inspected it.

“What about the door. Can we open it?” Ryan asked.

Samuel used his tablet to show the door. It was locked, more massive then the others of the generator room. Also it seems to have a different mechanic.

“We can drill everything with the laser. However, this will take quite more time. I would guess a day or more. Depending how thick it is. It looks very thick,” Newman replied.

“What about the three door hinges on the side can we blast them?” Pearce asked.

“With special explosive from the Icarus, yes. But the door needs to be open. So it would crash to the ground. This is probably similar to vault doors. Once closed the hinges have nothing to do with the door locking mechanism. We would only make it harder to open,” Newman explained.

“So what are our option to open it?” Knight asked.

“As I mentioned the laser. Maybe hacking their system too, which does not mean it is connected to the door. There are sure cameras down there so they know what we are doing down there. So planting explosives on the hinges and getting them to open the door won’t work,” Newman answered.

“So we are down to try to make a deal with the prisoners. Not knowing our opponent makes this a risky bet. What we know of them makes it also unlikely to work. The other option would be to place charges on the production line and lure them out. This we can even combine with placing charges on the door hinges, if we can find and disable the nearby cameras,” Pearce said.

“An interesting option. But as we want our people back. This would force us to fight us through to them. However, they would only open the door if they see a chance to stop us. If they are low on soldiers they might just wait. Which means the only chance is to deal with them or deal with the door,” Newman noted. He had his tablet back and checked the production line.

“I would call this a classic trap. If we want our people, we have to go down. They can lock the lift anytime they want. Let us play with the door and open it when they feel prepared. Down there we have no air support and a smaller team could be fast outnumbered,” Freeman said.

“Right and we know they have these communication devices. Sure one to connect to other star systems of them like we found it in the alien ship. This means we have a time limit. They sure already called for support. Drilling one or two days is no option,” Newman added now.

“Then we are down to the risky prisoner exchange. We need options if this fails.” Knight did not like his, but was willing to do it if they had some follow up.

“The lift doors are not strong. If they block it, we put holes in. Like we did it with the other. But because of the height it is not a good option for retreat. However, reinforcement is possible,” Pearce noted.

“True. But if the lift is up this could be difficult. This is a very heavy lift so the bottom must be very strong,” Newman added trying to find a better solution. No one said anything, all were thinking now. “However, do you see this overlapping area on the map. There the top level’s bottom is not reinforced by the metal structure. This means with a little drilling and some explosive we can crash this. So we should have a hole where we can even send the bikes down. What I don’t recommend in a fight. You know what will happen if the bikes get hit by an alien weapon and you are over eight meter in the air.”

“Still, this option is a good one we could use for a surprise. This would mean two teams go down try to bargain. But we would be unable to blow the hinges. This would mean the enemy could retreat and close the door. Then we gained nothing except the chance for a prisoner exchange.” Knight wanted better options but at least it would now make a bit more sense to try.

“We still got Kelsey’s hacking attempts. That is more like the laser drill with no time estimation.” Newman had no more clues.

“If we try this exchange. We have four SW teams as backup available. But blowing a hole into the bottom does not give us access to use all fire power we have. Only a few can support from the hole. This makes it not very effective. It might work if they have not much forces left. But if they have it is useless,” Freeman added his concerns.

“Other problem. They already disrupted our communication. So we might not synchronize when to blow the location up. It should surprise them, so we can’t prepare it. Drilling a hole and planting charges will take at least two minutes,” Newman noted.

“No, problem. Use the alien rifles, shoot a hole wait ten seconds for the cooling. Then throw the charges in. This should be below one minute,” Pearce suggested.

“That might work. I will make a test to be sure.” Newman didn’t want to speculate too much with explosive.

“It’s a bold bet that they do a prisoner exchange. I guess they take the chances to get more. We know they like to get samples from us. So when we go down they might just try to shot us and get us behind the door. Then the reinforcement can’t do much,” Diaz said.

“That’s the problem. Can we in such a situation hold the line till you blow up the ground and support us. As we know you will do this here.” Knight pointed on the location on the map. “We can try to hold the line there.” Now he pointed at a position further ahead. “This should give you the chance to get down without being exposed to much. With some bikes we should have enough firepower.”

“We already had problems to use the bikes in an ongoing fight. They work if the distance is far enough and they are already in sentry mode. Down there we might have the distance problem again,” Pearce pointed out his experience.

“Is there any way we can use them like the combat drones on the forest? The Omega Protocol worked quite well.” Knight asked.

“Maybe. This would take some time for preparation. Also it would be a dangerous thing. The Omega Protocol worked, because only the enemy was in the target zone and we could use the superior speed of the drones. What do we do if they interrupt communication? I would not recommend this,” Newman replied.

“I don’t want to lose too much time. It will be