-Advance Wars 2
--Death Array
---Chapter 10: Closing Time
The fog died quickly when I entered the second site, and I realized I was on the tarmac of a runway. It was the small airport Sami was telling me about when we were on the cargo elevator. Time to find that fighter... or copter we could use to escape. I hoped Groling was simply overreacting about the whole deal with Hawke's fighter being guarded like a million dollars... But I'd see soon enough.
There was only two hangars that I could see. One was partially open and the other was closed with a freaking parade of human soldiers standing around it. For a minute, I thought Groling wasn't kidding about the security. But I could hear some of them yelling, it was a meeting of sorts. Flak was there with two Neosuit soldiers for escorts. I had to see what this was all about and tried to get close.
I got low and used various crates lining the grass as cover until I could hear them.
"Alright worms! We're loading the train in one hour! Take my Neotank and anything else that's useful and pile it on!" Flak was bellowing. "No delays! I mean it!"
The captain or new leader of the Blue Moon guys stepped forward.
"We only take orders from Winchester." He explained coolly. "All he's told us to do is watch this base."
"Well, if you ain't heard. Winchester is dead. Got killed by that intruder. I got jurisdiction over you now! Unless... you wanna argue about it or somethin'."
That shut them up real quick as they all exchanged nervous glances. I didn't know how many men they had, but I guess the thought of taking on Flak or arguing with him was a death sentence to them. They all began to move out, but Flak continued to shout at them as they fanned out.
"Remember! Keep that hangar locked! Hawke's gonna have a field day wit' us if anything happens to that fighter."
Once that was done with, Flak and the two soldiers piled into an OS recon and drove back to the bridge. I guess that metallic groan was them opening the fence, I should have paid more attention before. I waited a couple of moments as the crowd died down to three or so guys circling the hangar. I had at least a couple of minutes at the door before they came back around.
So the next time they passed, I sprinted up to the door and began to try to open it. Damn, it was keycard access and mine wasn't doing a thing. My time to work on the door was over in a flash and I quickly retreated to the boxes to hide. Groling was right, I wasn't going to be able to get to that fighter. So I figured I might as well move on and look in the hangar that was open. There was more sprinting as I ran over to the second hangar and tried to peek around the corner of the open door...
Big Bertha sped out and scared me half to death. The human soldiers were moving it to the train depot. But still, I didn't get it. Load it on a train that doesn't go anywhere... This is not one of Black Hole's better ideas, unless they just wanted to keep it safe from me or anyone else who planned to destroy their stuff. A second look told me that the hangar was devoid of guards and there was a couple of copters... except they looked like rust buckets.
They were Black Hole's copters Jess had told me about. The ones they used to get onto the island during the exercise. Man, they needed some serious maintenance. I mean a complete overhaul. They probably just barely got the alien troops onto this rock, and into the hangar. Geez... I hope Andy brought his tools, cause these junk heaps would be keeping him busy for awhile.
"Groling. Are you there?" I whispered, radioing to him about the copters.
"I'm here. We lost sight of you in the fog, but I'm assuming there wasn't anything to bother you."
"Yeah, but listen, I think you'll want to get a better place to hide. Black Hole is moving some equipment to load onto the train. Namely Big Bertha. Flak is also heading your way too."
"I saw them... and Andy just told me about the Neotank. Don't worry. I got a handle on the situation. How about those choppers or fighter?"
I groaned at this and made him laugh.
"You were right about the fighter, and I found plenty of copters. Except you might need to help Andy work on them. They don't look to reliable."
Groling muttered something to Andy and then hurriedly ended our transmission.
"I'm gonna have to contact you later."
"What's going on?" I asked quickly.
"Later about that ok Wolf?" And the call was over.
I hoped they just needed to move position or something instead of getting into a gunfight. Oh well, Groling's capable. He'll handle it. With that out of the way, now I had a Death Ray to locate. The only other place I could move as a looming structure beyond the hangars. The control tower for the airport, oh boy. Where Lash was storing her laboratory and Hawke was running the show. I had moved to report to Sami... except a soldier approached and I decided to wait until I got to safer ground.
The place I entered was the garages for the fire engines. But they had been replaced with two small Black Hole recons. Now how did they get those on the island? Oh well, no point in thinking about it and I slowly moved over to a doorway to get into the building that led to the control tower. Man, that place was damn near deserted. I saw more security in the motor pool, and all they were protecting was a tank and a recon.
But they still had a couple patrols, and they were the Neosuit aliens, armed with Spas shotguns. I guess Flak had to side with shotguns after they ran out of M60s. I maneuvered my way through the various lobbies and abandoned offices until reaching the staircase that would wind it's way all the way to the top.
Why was I going there?
If the Death Ray control system was up there, I could possibly get it to overload or something with the help of Andy or Sonja. Or if that didn't work, at least maybe there would be someway I could find it. Up and up I went, until finding myself getting dizzy from the spiraling staircase. Damn, how high did this thing go anyway?
Finally I reached the top and got my AK ready. I'm sure if this place was as important as I thought it was, they'd surely have more security inside. I kicked down the door and rushed in pointing my gun all over the place, looking for enemies. But to my surprise, I didn't find anyone to shoot. No... this was wrong, I could feel it. There was no one in here...
The little control room was quiet. Quiet enough for me to hear the alien grunts patrolling up and down the stairs. Then I saw it, up on the largest screen in the room. Diagrams for a Death Ray of some sort. Except it wasn't as huge as Sturm's model, it was way smaller and the dish section seemed to be able to fold up or something.
"Wonderful weapon isn't it?" I heard a voice ask.
I just realized the voice came directly in front of me, and one of the rolling chairs spun around to reveal Hawke, sitting comfortably in it with his legs crossed, and Desert Eagle in his right hand.
"It's the only glimpse of Death Array you'll ever get."
We both went into a staring contest, as if trying to decide if we would shoot or not. Hawke slowly positioned his other hand so he was a perfect method to fire his gun off and not break his arms or anything. Maybe I should have shot him right there... but those eyes... so cold. Enough to make your blood freeze over. Frankly it was scary. I saw more emotion in Adder's eyes than I did Hawke's, and you know Adder is.
"Where is it?" I demanded.
"The Death Ray? Oh, you've passed over it I'm afraid. It's nowhere near this part of the base. In fact it wasn't even here to begin with, we just brought it here to finish it."
"What? It wasn't even here?" I exclaimed.
No... he was lying... If it wasn't here... why the whole take over? I thought this whole operation was about taking back a weapon they left here. What's going on here...
"What do you mean? It's not here?" I asked angrily.
"I'm sure you're wondering why we went through the whole ordeal with taking over the base? Well... the weapon was incomplete. We needed someone of Andy's caliber to help Lash make the finishing touches."
What the hell... Andy? Helping them? Why didn't he say anything? God... that stupid kid... What was his problem?
"It was also nice to buy us time, while Lash and Andy hurried up the activation of Death Array... Jess also made it easy to persuade the boy to help us. For a minute, I thought I might have to ask Adder to torture Andy into submission. But Jess worked just as well."
"Dammit to hell! If it wasn't here... how'd you get it onto the island? There's no way..."
"The train." Hawke interrupted. "You'd be surprised how many pipelines are still around. A large network of underground sections runs all over Wars World. It's original purpose was to move the stolen property to pay for Black Hole's war machine... But it works just as well with moving around a Death Ray."
"How'd you do it Hawke? How'd you keep Andy silent? I had him right there... And he said nothing."
When he stood up, I believe I flinched. I couldn't believe I was six feet away from this guy and not gutting him from head to toe. What was it that made him so terrifying? It was something that the others didn't have. Arrogance. He didn't have that overwhelming arrogance. He was just... Hawke... You couldn't pin any sort of lovable flaw on him to make yourself feel better. Or at least I couldn't.
"My campaign in Green Earth was very successful in the last war, with the exception of the last few weeks. You'd be surprised how many POWs want to cut a deal when they face a firing squad. Drake and Eagle made more enemies than I can count by sitting back and letting Black Hole parade around their country for so long."
"No way... Groling is one of yours?" I realized.
"Groling is my best soldier. I knew I could trust him to guide you, and lead you in all the right directions so that your superiors still thought they could hold off on the bombing run."
"But he shot Adder in the arm! I was about to die, and he saved me! If you wanted to get rid of me... why'd you stop him?" My mind was spinning, Groling couldn't be...
"Yes yes... Adder wasn't supposed to confront you anyway. Think of Groling shooting Adder as disciplinary action for disobeying me." Hawke paused. "Besides, I never said I wanted to get rid of you. Don't you see Heckler? The longer you lived, the more time I bought myself."
Dammit to hell! He was right you know. The minute I died, or had no possible chance of succeeding. Orange Star planned to bomb the whole damn island, borrowing a page from Eagle's strategy book. And if the Death Ray was in the train like Hawke said, it would have been game over for Black Hole. That train station was less than bomb proof, it was a sitting duck.
"So Heckler... It's not because you were a part of Lash's experiments that you lived so long. As if you inherited some unfound super human strength. The reason why you've been kept alive this long. Is because I said so. To think of yourself as a one man army is absurd."
I was so pissed off. It didn't matter who this guy was or who I would anger if I killed him. I was about ready to snap, but I was more shocked by the whole thing than angry. But the door behind me was kicked in, and Neosuit soldiers stormed the room. But I kept my gun trained on Hawke, mostly because I thought the Neosuit soldiers were going to blow me away despite what I did. But they didn't.
"Put your gun down." Hawke ordered in a voice of finality I'd never heard before.
Slowly I set in on the floor and the Neosuit soldiers picked it up before shoving me down the stairs. I wondered what they planned to do with me, but I didn't really have a choice. I knew where the Death Ray weapon was now... hopefully... there was something I could still do to stop it. Although it looked pretty bleak now... I was just angry enough to hang on.
To make a long story short, they took me back to the train station, which was crawling with Black Hole guys. I could see Flak's Neotank, facing forward, on one of the large flatbed cars along with one of the transport copters. Adder and Flak were acting as tally men as their soldiers piled onto the train. Hawke just kinda paraded me around the platform while his troops gave me dirty looks.
"Where's Andy?" I asked.
"Oh, you'll be joining him shortly." He paused to turn to the guys escorting me. "Take him to the Computer Car, tie him down."
But before he left me, he plucked the earpiece from my ear and threw it to the ground before crushing it with his boot. Why was he keeping me alive? Unless, maybe they still needed Andy for something. And I was the persuasion to replace Jess after I rescued her. I didn't really know, and didn't have the time to figure it out. I had just been caught again, except I had no contact with my CO now.
They moved me to a car three down from the diesel engine. It was chock full of technical stuff and it monitored various things on Death Array... Black Hole's new up and running Death Ray weapon. One think I thought about while the Neosuit guys were guiding me through the car, was how did they get the power to run this thing? It took Sturm a good seven days before charging up enough juice to let loose with his model...
I could only assume they had miniaturized the power source or shortened the wait time between blasts.
Anyway, when I entered the car, they made me take a small set of steps upward, and I soon saw Andy.. tied up in his own chair. He looked pretty sad about something, I knew it was about Groling, how he couldn't tell me but knew all about it. Maybe Andy knew that I probably wouldn't believe him if he started shouting out stuff about how Groling was an agent of Black Hole...
They sat me in a chair, at a small table where Andy sat tied up. It took them a short amount of time to string me up and then retreated downstairs, almost to let me talk with him.
"Wolf... I'm sorry." Andy began.
"Call me Heckler. I don't really deserve any codename... Hell, never really liked it in the first place."
"Heckler huh? I think I know that name. Yeah, you were the soldier who was in Sami's ranks. They thought you were dead, but you had been changed into an alien soldier. You know, after stories like that. Max got motivated enough to save some POWs of his own."
"Heh." I laughed. "It's nice to be inspirational."
We had a long uncomfortable pause.
"So Groling's one of them huh? Should have known..."
"Why?" Andy seemed confused. "There was no way you could have known."
"Still... it's one of those things... like you should have saw it coming." I remembered Hawke's words. "My whole mission has been a play set up by Hawke. I wasn't really accomplishing anything. I was just being led around to keep Orange Star from bombing the place to hell."
"Yeah, Lash told me all about the plan. She wouldn't shut up about it, cause it was all her idea too." Andy muttered.
My mind shot back to the fact that their Death Ray was fully operational.
"You finished their Death Ray for them?"
"They were going to hurt Jess..." Andy muttered. "I couldn't let that happen."
"You made a tough call kid... I mean Andy. But you did the right thing."
The train lurched, causing Andy to slide into the table and me to almost tip my chair over. It was moving, and soon we'd be heading deep underground to some place where Black Hole could set up their Death Ray and blow someone away.
"Man... why'd they need all that money anyway?" I wondered aloud. "If they got this Death Ray... What's a couple million credits when they can just threaten people to surrender."
"Hawke wanted to rebuild Black Hole." Andy answered. "Well... his Black Hole. I've been around them for awhile... and the alien troops are getting real restless. Hawke wants more humans, mercenaries. He also wants tanks, copters, planes... for a full scale military."
"Yeah... He can't keep this hit-and-run stuff up forever without a full force, but he'll kill a lot of innocent people until he's stopped."
The light that would filter into the windows soon faded and I could see lights in a tunnel whiz by the window. We were in one of those tunnels right now, and there was no way of letting Sami know Black Hole was nowhere near the island right now.
"Hey there... Wolf." I heard a voice call out from the stairs.
I turned my head to see someone I once trusted... and thought of as an ally.
"Groling..." I spat.
-To be Continued
--Next Chapter: Black Line
--Death Array
---Chapter 10: Closing Time
The fog died quickly when I entered the second site, and I realized I was on the tarmac of a runway. It was the small airport Sami was telling me about when we were on the cargo elevator. Time to find that fighter... or copter we could use to escape. I hoped Groling was simply overreacting about the whole deal with Hawke's fighter being guarded like a million dollars... But I'd see soon enough.
There was only two hangars that I could see. One was partially open and the other was closed with a freaking parade of human soldiers standing around it. For a minute, I thought Groling wasn't kidding about the security. But I could hear some of them yelling, it was a meeting of sorts. Flak was there with two Neosuit soldiers for escorts. I had to see what this was all about and tried to get close.
I got low and used various crates lining the grass as cover until I could hear them.
"Alright worms! We're loading the train in one hour! Take my Neotank and anything else that's useful and pile it on!" Flak was bellowing. "No delays! I mean it!"
The captain or new leader of the Blue Moon guys stepped forward.
"We only take orders from Winchester." He explained coolly. "All he's told us to do is watch this base."
"Well, if you ain't heard. Winchester is dead. Got killed by that intruder. I got jurisdiction over you now! Unless... you wanna argue about it or somethin'."
That shut them up real quick as they all exchanged nervous glances. I didn't know how many men they had, but I guess the thought of taking on Flak or arguing with him was a death sentence to them. They all began to move out, but Flak continued to shout at them as they fanned out.
"Remember! Keep that hangar locked! Hawke's gonna have a field day wit' us if anything happens to that fighter."
Once that was done with, Flak and the two soldiers piled into an OS recon and drove back to the bridge. I guess that metallic groan was them opening the fence, I should have paid more attention before. I waited a couple of moments as the crowd died down to three or so guys circling the hangar. I had at least a couple of minutes at the door before they came back around.
So the next time they passed, I sprinted up to the door and began to try to open it. Damn, it was keycard access and mine wasn't doing a thing. My time to work on the door was over in a flash and I quickly retreated to the boxes to hide. Groling was right, I wasn't going to be able to get to that fighter. So I figured I might as well move on and look in the hangar that was open. There was more sprinting as I ran over to the second hangar and tried to peek around the corner of the open door...
Big Bertha sped out and scared me half to death. The human soldiers were moving it to the train depot. But still, I didn't get it. Load it on a train that doesn't go anywhere... This is not one of Black Hole's better ideas, unless they just wanted to keep it safe from me or anyone else who planned to destroy their stuff. A second look told me that the hangar was devoid of guards and there was a couple of copters... except they looked like rust buckets.
They were Black Hole's copters Jess had told me about. The ones they used to get onto the island during the exercise. Man, they needed some serious maintenance. I mean a complete overhaul. They probably just barely got the alien troops onto this rock, and into the hangar. Geez... I hope Andy brought his tools, cause these junk heaps would be keeping him busy for awhile.
"Groling. Are you there?" I whispered, radioing to him about the copters.
"I'm here. We lost sight of you in the fog, but I'm assuming there wasn't anything to bother you."
"Yeah, but listen, I think you'll want to get a better place to hide. Black Hole is moving some equipment to load onto the train. Namely Big Bertha. Flak is also heading your way too."
"I saw them... and Andy just told me about the Neotank. Don't worry. I got a handle on the situation. How about those choppers or fighter?"
I groaned at this and made him laugh.
"You were right about the fighter, and I found plenty of copters. Except you might need to help Andy work on them. They don't look to reliable."
Groling muttered something to Andy and then hurriedly ended our transmission.
"I'm gonna have to contact you later."
"What's going on?" I asked quickly.
"Later about that ok Wolf?" And the call was over.
I hoped they just needed to move position or something instead of getting into a gunfight. Oh well, Groling's capable. He'll handle it. With that out of the way, now I had a Death Ray to locate. The only other place I could move as a looming structure beyond the hangars. The control tower for the airport, oh boy. Where Lash was storing her laboratory and Hawke was running the show. I had moved to report to Sami... except a soldier approached and I decided to wait until I got to safer ground.
The place I entered was the garages for the fire engines. But they had been replaced with two small Black Hole recons. Now how did they get those on the island? Oh well, no point in thinking about it and I slowly moved over to a doorway to get into the building that led to the control tower. Man, that place was damn near deserted. I saw more security in the motor pool, and all they were protecting was a tank and a recon.
But they still had a couple patrols, and they were the Neosuit aliens, armed with Spas shotguns. I guess Flak had to side with shotguns after they ran out of M60s. I maneuvered my way through the various lobbies and abandoned offices until reaching the staircase that would wind it's way all the way to the top.
Why was I going there?
If the Death Ray control system was up there, I could possibly get it to overload or something with the help of Andy or Sonja. Or if that didn't work, at least maybe there would be someway I could find it. Up and up I went, until finding myself getting dizzy from the spiraling staircase. Damn, how high did this thing go anyway?
Finally I reached the top and got my AK ready. I'm sure if this place was as important as I thought it was, they'd surely have more security inside. I kicked down the door and rushed in pointing my gun all over the place, looking for enemies. But to my surprise, I didn't find anyone to shoot. No... this was wrong, I could feel it. There was no one in here...
The little control room was quiet. Quiet enough for me to hear the alien grunts patrolling up and down the stairs. Then I saw it, up on the largest screen in the room. Diagrams for a Death Ray of some sort. Except it wasn't as huge as Sturm's model, it was way smaller and the dish section seemed to be able to fold up or something.
"Wonderful weapon isn't it?" I heard a voice ask.
I just realized the voice came directly in front of me, and one of the rolling chairs spun around to reveal Hawke, sitting comfortably in it with his legs crossed, and Desert Eagle in his right hand.
"It's the only glimpse of Death Array you'll ever get."
We both went into a staring contest, as if trying to decide if we would shoot or not. Hawke slowly positioned his other hand so he was a perfect method to fire his gun off and not break his arms or anything. Maybe I should have shot him right there... but those eyes... so cold. Enough to make your blood freeze over. Frankly it was scary. I saw more emotion in Adder's eyes than I did Hawke's, and you know Adder is.
"Where is it?" I demanded.
"The Death Ray? Oh, you've passed over it I'm afraid. It's nowhere near this part of the base. In fact it wasn't even here to begin with, we just brought it here to finish it."
"What? It wasn't even here?" I exclaimed.
No... he was lying... If it wasn't here... why the whole take over? I thought this whole operation was about taking back a weapon they left here. What's going on here...
"What do you mean? It's not here?" I asked angrily.
"I'm sure you're wondering why we went through the whole ordeal with taking over the base? Well... the weapon was incomplete. We needed someone of Andy's caliber to help Lash make the finishing touches."
What the hell... Andy? Helping them? Why didn't he say anything? God... that stupid kid... What was his problem?
"It was also nice to buy us time, while Lash and Andy hurried up the activation of Death Array... Jess also made it easy to persuade the boy to help us. For a minute, I thought I might have to ask Adder to torture Andy into submission. But Jess worked just as well."
"Dammit to hell! If it wasn't here... how'd you get it onto the island? There's no way..."
"The train." Hawke interrupted. "You'd be surprised how many pipelines are still around. A large network of underground sections runs all over Wars World. It's original purpose was to move the stolen property to pay for Black Hole's war machine... But it works just as well with moving around a Death Ray."
"How'd you do it Hawke? How'd you keep Andy silent? I had him right there... And he said nothing."
When he stood up, I believe I flinched. I couldn't believe I was six feet away from this guy and not gutting him from head to toe. What was it that made him so terrifying? It was something that the others didn't have. Arrogance. He didn't have that overwhelming arrogance. He was just... Hawke... You couldn't pin any sort of lovable flaw on him to make yourself feel better. Or at least I couldn't.
"My campaign in Green Earth was very successful in the last war, with the exception of the last few weeks. You'd be surprised how many POWs want to cut a deal when they face a firing squad. Drake and Eagle made more enemies than I can count by sitting back and letting Black Hole parade around their country for so long."
"No way... Groling is one of yours?" I realized.
"Groling is my best soldier. I knew I could trust him to guide you, and lead you in all the right directions so that your superiors still thought they could hold off on the bombing run."
"But he shot Adder in the arm! I was about to die, and he saved me! If you wanted to get rid of me... why'd you stop him?" My mind was spinning, Groling couldn't be...
"Yes yes... Adder wasn't supposed to confront you anyway. Think of Groling shooting Adder as disciplinary action for disobeying me." Hawke paused. "Besides, I never said I wanted to get rid of you. Don't you see Heckler? The longer you lived, the more time I bought myself."
Dammit to hell! He was right you know. The minute I died, or had no possible chance of succeeding. Orange Star planned to bomb the whole damn island, borrowing a page from Eagle's strategy book. And if the Death Ray was in the train like Hawke said, it would have been game over for Black Hole. That train station was less than bomb proof, it was a sitting duck.
"So Heckler... It's not because you were a part of Lash's experiments that you lived so long. As if you inherited some unfound super human strength. The reason why you've been kept alive this long. Is because I said so. To think of yourself as a one man army is absurd."
I was so pissed off. It didn't matter who this guy was or who I would anger if I killed him. I was about ready to snap, but I was more shocked by the whole thing than angry. But the door behind me was kicked in, and Neosuit soldiers stormed the room. But I kept my gun trained on Hawke, mostly because I thought the Neosuit soldiers were going to blow me away despite what I did. But they didn't.
"Put your gun down." Hawke ordered in a voice of finality I'd never heard before.
Slowly I set in on the floor and the Neosuit soldiers picked it up before shoving me down the stairs. I wondered what they planned to do with me, but I didn't really have a choice. I knew where the Death Ray weapon was now... hopefully... there was something I could still do to stop it. Although it looked pretty bleak now... I was just angry enough to hang on.
To make a long story short, they took me back to the train station, which was crawling with Black Hole guys. I could see Flak's Neotank, facing forward, on one of the large flatbed cars along with one of the transport copters. Adder and Flak were acting as tally men as their soldiers piled onto the train. Hawke just kinda paraded me around the platform while his troops gave me dirty looks.
"Where's Andy?" I asked.
"Oh, you'll be joining him shortly." He paused to turn to the guys escorting me. "Take him to the Computer Car, tie him down."
But before he left me, he plucked the earpiece from my ear and threw it to the ground before crushing it with his boot. Why was he keeping me alive? Unless, maybe they still needed Andy for something. And I was the persuasion to replace Jess after I rescued her. I didn't really know, and didn't have the time to figure it out. I had just been caught again, except I had no contact with my CO now.
They moved me to a car three down from the diesel engine. It was chock full of technical stuff and it monitored various things on Death Array... Black Hole's new up and running Death Ray weapon. One think I thought about while the Neosuit guys were guiding me through the car, was how did they get the power to run this thing? It took Sturm a good seven days before charging up enough juice to let loose with his model...
I could only assume they had miniaturized the power source or shortened the wait time between blasts.
Anyway, when I entered the car, they made me take a small set of steps upward, and I soon saw Andy.. tied up in his own chair. He looked pretty sad about something, I knew it was about Groling, how he couldn't tell me but knew all about it. Maybe Andy knew that I probably wouldn't believe him if he started shouting out stuff about how Groling was an agent of Black Hole...
They sat me in a chair, at a small table where Andy sat tied up. It took them a short amount of time to string me up and then retreated downstairs, almost to let me talk with him.
"Wolf... I'm sorry." Andy began.
"Call me Heckler. I don't really deserve any codename... Hell, never really liked it in the first place."
"Heckler huh? I think I know that name. Yeah, you were the soldier who was in Sami's ranks. They thought you were dead, but you had been changed into an alien soldier. You know, after stories like that. Max got motivated enough to save some POWs of his own."
"Heh." I laughed. "It's nice to be inspirational."
We had a long uncomfortable pause.
"So Groling's one of them huh? Should have known..."
"Why?" Andy seemed confused. "There was no way you could have known."
"Still... it's one of those things... like you should have saw it coming." I remembered Hawke's words. "My whole mission has been a play set up by Hawke. I wasn't really accomplishing anything. I was just being led around to keep Orange Star from bombing the place to hell."
"Yeah, Lash told me all about the plan. She wouldn't shut up about it, cause it was all her idea too." Andy muttered.
My mind shot back to the fact that their Death Ray was fully operational.
"You finished their Death Ray for them?"
"They were going to hurt Jess..." Andy muttered. "I couldn't let that happen."
"You made a tough call kid... I mean Andy. But you did the right thing."
The train lurched, causing Andy to slide into the table and me to almost tip my chair over. It was moving, and soon we'd be heading deep underground to some place where Black Hole could set up their Death Ray and blow someone away.
"Man... why'd they need all that money anyway?" I wondered aloud. "If they got this Death Ray... What's a couple million credits when they can just threaten people to surrender."
"Hawke wanted to rebuild Black Hole." Andy answered. "Well... his Black Hole. I've been around them for awhile... and the alien troops are getting real restless. Hawke wants more humans, mercenaries. He also wants tanks, copters, planes... for a full scale military."
"Yeah... He can't keep this hit-and-run stuff up forever without a full force, but he'll kill a lot of innocent people until he's stopped."
The light that would filter into the windows soon faded and I could see lights in a tunnel whiz by the window. We were in one of those tunnels right now, and there was no way of letting Sami know Black Hole was nowhere near the island right now.
"Hey there... Wolf." I heard a voice call out from the stairs.
I turned my head to see someone I once trusted... and thought of as an ally.
"Groling..." I spat.
-To be Continued
--Next Chapter: Black Line