The base sat in earie silence. Not even space vermin stirred inside the RPS's halls.
Well it would have been silent had Ratchet not decided that crawling through old air vents was a smart method to infiltrate a base. The vents creaked and groaned with every step showing the base's true age.
"Perhaps we should have considered a more subtle approach." Clank started to suggest as he tailed behind him, his own feet adding to the noise like a pair of dense symbols colliding in a very acoustic chamber. Ratchet had to wear a set of ears plug because of the noise. "It's clear that they have not taken stock in renovating the base beyond basic function."
"Probably because they are new to it." Ratchet chirped up trying to give the group the benefit of the doubt. "It's the first time a company that is not connected to mega-corp has opened they probably don't know the full ropes yet."
Clank looked at the Lombax in disapproval. "The odds of that seem to border sixty-five hundred thousand three hundred and eighty-five point thirteen to one." Clank's voice did not seem amused to say the least.
Ratchet sighed knowing in the past that Clank has never been far off with his numbers even when they went undercover to bust a rigging of a popular gambling ring. "Look I know this was not my most thought out plan, but if your theory is right." He looked forward at the empty hallway. "We may have proof of why the Galactic Rangers are still needed."
"Ratchet." Clank spoke up as he slowly advanced without him. "The galaxy will always need people like the Galactic Rangers." He began to reason though the heroisms of one of Ratchet's idols seems to be blinding him from taking the operation at a much slower pace. A pace he was bound to make critical mistakes.
The main observation decks the two had traversed earlier that day held the same depressing atmosphere any abandoned building holds. The lack of an actual soul made it all the more unsettling to the point Ratchet pulled out his omni-wrench in case they were ambushed.
"I think they don't have security." Ratchet began to ponder as they approached a near by terminal. Hoisting Clank up to get a good view of both the monitor and the screen appeared to show current life support systems being measured. Let's see if you can find anything." He suggested as he began to stand guard.
Clank quickly started a hacking protocol examining the possible passcodes. "Let's see here" his eyes slowly monitored keyboard wear that seemed recent. "It looks as though the ones with frequent pattern wear are E, M, R, S, and U. It maybe possible that this is has to be the passcode."
"Good to hear. Can you please hurry?" Impatient but given the open environment Ratchet knew that they could easily be detected.
The first code Clank tried was EMURS. Resulting in a red flash saying, "Access Denied!" Not exactly a good start but it had a very large probability of being incorrect. He had to find a possible order, but the decay of the keyboard made him lucky to even spot this much. He then decided to see if he could course how many letters were in thee code. It was a hard thing to do but given the age of the facility it was a possible angle to attack the password from.
"Any luck yet?" Ratchet chimed in hearing the creaking of the base had started to put him on edge. Everything sounded like footsteps coming toward them.
"Not yet, I was not exactly programed for this." He responded running a program he had developed with the Galactic Rangers to decipher some of Nefarious' data logs he had back at the HQ. It appeared that the code was six lettered. One of the letters was used twice. It was a matter of finding the twined letter now.
"Anytime now." Stress came from Ratchets voice.
"Almost got it." Clank remarked running through possible combinations. He stopped at one option that could work. "Let's try this one." Entering in S-U-M-M-E-R into the password code to see the box flash green before giving out multiple different windows to view. "We're in. It was much simpler than I anticipated." He chuckled to himself as he jumped onto Ratchet's Back for him to begin scanning the documents.
"Alright let's see what this gives us." He grinned plotting his finger onto the night logs. It looked to be filled with numerous holologs for personal use. He went to open one of them to see that it seemed to not be encrypted though the date tag was corrupted. He clicked on it to see how it would react.
The hololog opened up to the Lombax Qrow who was leaning depressed in a chair in the same room they currently were in. Unamused and chugging away at something in a flask. "That tastes like home." He muttered before looking at the screen. "Day… I don't even know anymore. Finally got the attention of the "Target" some kid that seems to get on the bad man's side." He shook his head "and here I thought stories of pure evil being thwarted by children only came in fairytales. Tried to finish him off in the arena already, the way I see it the sooner I finish this job the quicker I can start looking for Oz; wherever he's at."
Ratchet looked at Clank before looking back toward the hololog. "It seems like This maybe a simple match sure I don't get my aura, but it seems a trace of my semblance survived the doc's experiment. Honestly, I'm just hoping that this little trick of his is reversable." Qrow grumbled more so as he looked toward the vents. "Looks like I got company coming. If you're the one watching this, I'm in the arena. Don't keep me waiting." Ratchet looked over to see the same combat silo he was in earlier had the neon lights lite.
Clank looked toward the lights and ran over curious to see. The moment he poked his head out a red puff from an incinerator blasted at him with the forcefield taking the full brunt of the attack. "Can we get this over with already?" Qrow's echo could be heard from the terminal as Ratchet walked over himself. He stood dead center of the arena aiming the gun directly at their location.
"Clank…" Ratchet Finally spoke up. "I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.