Dreadnought

Chapter Nine: The Lions Den

Max Steel crouched in the scrubland overlooking one of Ivan Vostok's numerous bases. On the surface it appeared to be nothing but a remote corporate research facility - but that was only an illusion. Beneath its low buildings and industrial network of pipes and tanks the large facility was a base for one of the worlds largest and most dangerous terrorist groups.

Hidden in the scrub undergrowth in the cool of the night with him were four more N'Tek agents in the forms of Kat Ryan, Jake Nez, Chuck Marshak and Sophia Skarsgaard. All four of his fellow agents were observing the perimeter with sets of high-powered nightsight binoculars. Max for his part didn't need binoculars to survey the perimeter of the base. With his nanotech enhanced vision he could see the perimeter almost as if he was standing next to it. And as for the fact that it was dark – the dark was no barrier to him especially with his vision on infrared mode he could see perfectly well. Though at this distance he couldn't see the finer details like writing on signs.

But he could still see well enough to note the quiet heavy guard on the perimeter. The whole thing was patrolled by guards wearing combat armour and carrying pulse laser rifles. He couldn't tell exactly what mark and make they were from here.

"They've got a lot of firepower," Kat commented keeping her voice down low to avoid drawing any attention from the patrols that they'd seen moving about the areas immediately outside the base's outer fence. "And that perimeter is solid it's not going to be easy to get through."

"You might not need to," Berto's voice said abruptly over Max's biolink and over everyone else's radio's. "I've just run a scan of the area. According to the results theirs a series of underground tunnels leading out of the base. From the angle I'd say their storm drains. The closest one to you has a maintenance access hatch about two hundred meters to your right."

"Got it Berto thanks," Kat responded over her radio.

Quickly and quietly the currently expanded Team Steel shifted their position and moved through the scrubby vegetation that was the norm in this part of California without making a sound.

Sure enough they found the access hatch precisely where Berto had said it would be. A rectangular concrete block rising out of the sandy soil capped with a thick metal hatch secured down by a padlock attached to a short thick metal chain that wound between the lock mechanism on top of the hatch to a metal rung built into the side of the concrete slab. From the rusted nature of the chain and hatch it was obvious that the inspection hatch was not used that often. But the rust didn't mean that the chain was any weaker than it had originally been, not that it was any barrier to them – thick as it was.

Quickly Kat produced a laser knife from a slot on her belt and activated it. The three-inch energy blade sliced through the chain like the proverbial hot knife through butter. While Kat secured the knife back on her belt Max unthreaded the chain and padlock from the hatch cover, before turning the locking mechanism and lifting the hatch cover. It was heavy and its hinges had stiffened from lack of use – to a normal man it would have been incredibly difficult to move. But Max was twice as strong as a normal man at any time of the day or night and was able to lift the hatch cover as if it was used regularly and weighed next to nothing.

A few moments later everyone was descending a narrow metal ladder built into the wall of the vertical shaft. Kat was in the lead with Jake, Sophia and Chuck following her in order. Max was the last since he'd been the one who closed the access hatch after they'd climbed into the narrow vertical shaft.

The vertical shaft dropped a good ten meters before they reached the bottom, which was a small alcove off the main tunnel. Quickly they moved into the main tunnel – the slope was slight and presented no problem with walking. The main problem was the fact that the floor was covered with patches of a form of algae that grew in these sorts of places and was a favourite food for the rats that they could hear and through their torchlight's see living in the tunnel. None of them were particularly happy about walking past the little furry rodents – that screeched and ran away whenever a torchlight played on them or when they got to close - but this was the quickest way into the base without being detected.

Kat especially hated being in the tunnel – not because of the darkness but because of the rats. Ever since childhood she'd been terrified of mice and rats and she only walked down this tunnel through this tunnel with a great deal of willpower. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught Max looking at her in concern as they walked – she nodded back silently saying to her partner 'I'm all right Max I just wish we get out of here soon.' Max gave a slight nod of understanding. Kat turned her eyes forward as they walked down the dark tunnel towards the Vostok base. Yes she couldn't wait until they got out of here. Even if they would be going out of the frying pan into the fire.

It was a further ten minutes before they came to the end of the drainage tunnel. It was a large circular chamber dotted with numerous small outlets that connected to surface drains. On the far wall was a ladder leading upwards to a manhole cover a couple of meters above them.

It was Max who took the lead going up the ladder – the others followed him in order. Within a few seconds he was at the top below the manhole cover. Cautiously he pushed against it levering it up and taking a look around. The manhole was located on what was obviously a side road between two the complex buildings – their was no one about. Removing the cover completely he climbed out onto the surface and stood up before extending a hand to first help Kat and then the others out of the storm drain.

After replacing the cover they moved quickly and quietly keeping to the shadows communicating with each other not by their radios or Max's biolink but with the silent communication hand gestures that all N'Tek agents knew off by heart – it was a required part of their training. They advanced forward in a cautious pattern knowing that they were seriously outnumbered in this place – if they were discovered they stood little chance of succeeding in their mission of destroying the Dreadnought lab. There were so many guards in this place that even Max's nanotech powers would not necessarily ensure their escape should they be detected.

Through sheer luck they reached the side of the building where according to the computer in Karland's van the labs were located without being detected. The labs themselves like all the bases vital areas were underneath them in an underground complex that went down three levels to the power generators. It was no where near as big or extensive as the complex beneath the headquarters of corporate N'Tek but like N'Tek all the main access points were well guarded. Ivan Vostok was no fool they knew – the Russian hadn't survived in the international crime/global terrorist business for more than thirty years without learning to be cautious and thorough. Especially about things like security and secrecy. They would stand little chance of getting in through any of the main access points.

However they didn't need to get in via the lift shafts or main access shafts. According to Karland's computer records – the evil genius was nothing if not thorough with record keeping – there were a number of emergency escape ladders to the surface that were not well guarded since only base personnel knew where the things were. From Karland's records they knew that one such escape ladder was located in the eastern side of this particular building. Quickly they split up to find away in.

It was Kat who found the unlocked window that allowed them access to the base. The window was narrow and was quiet a squeeze to get through but they all managed even Max who generally had problems with things like narrow windows because of his size. After all a two hundred and ten pound former extreme athlete was not meant to squeeze through narrow windows.

As soon as everyone was inside they began to move quickly and quietly through the base their footfalls making no sound despite the composite boots they were all wearing. They encountered no one as they made it to the eastern side of the building. A single guard in combat armour was all that stood between them and the large rectangular hatch that led to the emergency escape ladder. And he would present no problems. Max quickly went into stealth mode and left his teammates to go deal with the sentry.

Kat watched expectantly through a tiny scope pointing around the corner. The sentry stood there like a statue completely unaware that anything was wrong. Suddenly the sentry jerked once and collapsed into an unconscious heap. Behind the unconscious sentry the air rippled in the shape of a man and shimmered away to reveal Max Steel. God I love those nanoprobes, Kat thought, sometimes I wish I had some of them, though come to think of it I wouldn't like the T-juice dependence that comes with them. I know for a fact that Max himself doesn't like it that much but has no choice but to accept it if he wants to stay alive.

For a brief instant she remembered how she'd thought of Max Steel before she'd actually met him and been forced to work with him on that Amazon mission. Before that mission her opinion – unlike most agents who liked Max a lot – of Max had not been very high. She'd thought him nothing but a muscleheaded agent who's only real value was his nanotech abilities. It wasn't until that mission and those that had followed that she'd realised how wrong she'd been. Yes Max preferred to get straight into the action – having little time for rigid following of the regulations which was what Rachel Leeds advocated – but that that attitude led others to underestimate him – John Dread was especially guilty of it. Max was actually very intelligent and could be very cunning when he needed to be. It hadn't taken her long to discover that the smart-aleck adrenaline junkie attitude he projected generally was just a façade to hide the gentle, caring and warm person that he really was. Chuck had later told her that Max/Josh projected that façade as a personal defence mechanism to prevent people getting to close to him because he was afraid of losing them if they did. According to Chuck it had to do with the fact that he'd lost both his mother and father before he was five years old. It was something she understood all to well – she'd lost her parents at the age of eight, so in many she was better off than Max as she had real memories of her parents not blurred images and remembered feelings which was all Max had of Jim or Molly.

Kat shook those thoughts off as Max was signalling for them all to advance quickly. She gestured to her fellow agents and they quickly darted around the corner and up to where Max was standing over the unconscious guard. Quickly they conversed quietly amongst themselves before Jake dragged the unconscious guard into a nearby store room and bound his hands and legs together before removing the guards helmet and gagging him to prevent him raising the alarm. Then he left the room and rejoined the others securing the door behind him.

Once Jake rejoined them Max quickly pulled the thick shutter open. It swung open on hinges of to the right. Quickly the climbed into the narrow space – to say it was tight was an understatement. But they managed to find the ladder and start down. Sophia rear guarded their position as they descended before closing the shutter and following them down.

*****

N'Tek Headquarters

Berto Martinez frowned as the AV feed from Max's biolink spluttered and went dead. A signal lost message appeared on the big screen. Damn must be communications secured down their, he thought even as his hands danced across the console trying to re-establish the connection with Max. He didn't hear the door open.

"Problem Berto," Laura Chen's voice said from behind him making him jump. Briefly he rotated his chair and gave Laura the evil eye for trying to give him a heart attack before rotating back to his console.

"I've lost the biolink signal with Max," he explained as he resumed typing trying to reconfigure the transmission to pierce the communications block.

"Is that bad," Laura asked coming to stand beside him a look of real concern on her face.

"In this instance not really," Berto replied. "Max has four other agents with him between them there more than capable of dealing with any opposition and carrying out their mission. It just they're going to be without background support and were not going to know what's happening." Berto looked over at Laura who was studying the blank screens. "Don't worry to much. This isn't the first time communications have been lost."

"Can you restore communications," Laura asked.

"I don't know. Probably not. The levels they've entered are communications secured. However if they succeed in their mission then the destruction of the Dreadnought lab will unsecure their communications." Laura looked at the screens again. If only they were active then she could actually see what it was her boyfriend was doing. As it was she was just going to have to trust that he could look after himself.

"I hope he's all right," she said softly and Berto knew from the sound of her voice that she wasn't speaking of Max as Max no she was speaking of Max as Josh.

"I'm sure he is," Berto replied reassuringly.

*****

Vostok Base

At that moment the object of Berto's and Laura's thoughts was sneaking down the corridors of the underground levels of the Vostok base. Three times now the five N'Tek agents had had close calls with patrolling guards and only managed to evade detection by the skin of their teeth.

Finally they reached the Dreadnought lab located towards the core shaft of the underground base and supplied by its own generator as well as the main fusion core deeper in the base. No one stood guarding the door which was a thick thing made of the same kind of composite metal alloys as the doors at N'Tek though this was thinner than the high-tech titanium-carbon composite alloy used in N'Tek's doors. The door was closed and locked with a complex electronic locking system controlled from a panel on the wall next to the door. They'd known to expect it.

Fishing in her backpack Sophia withdrew a small device pressed it against the locking mechanism control panel and pressed a button. The first row of lights on the device began blinking rapidly and there was a humming sound from the lock. The first of the lower set of lights came on followed by another and another as sections of the lock code were cracked. Within seconds all the lower lights had lit up and the top panel went dark. There was a whirr and a click and the door slid aside with a hum of magnets. Immediately lights automatically came on inside the lab.

While Kat stood guard in the corridor Max, Sophia, Jake and Chuck went into the lab. Max noted how well equipped the place was. There was state of the art computers and equipment of a variety of kinds here. In the corner was a large cocoon-like pod thing that looked like a larger version of the container that served as a power source and transport unit for Dreadnought. Benches were covered in equipment of various kinds but the centre of the room was taken up something like an operating table though the table had a number of slots in it positioned in such away that parts of someone's body would be accessible through the slots. Restraints were locked onto the surface of the table obviously designed to hold someone down at the waist, wrists and ankles. The table was also fitted to rotator cuffs attached to thick metal poles along the centre line of the table.

Looking at the table Max shivered as he realised that it had been on that table that Pete had been placed when Vostok had had him brought here. It was on that table that Pete's nightmare had begun.

Quickly the team went into motion. While Max, Jake and Chuck placed demolition charges on the small power generator, the gas terminals and other strategic places around the room Sophia sat down at the main computer terminal and turned it on. Computer related espionage was her field of expertise. Quickly she overrode the password lockouts and accessed the main system where upon she first downloaded a file detailing the locations of many Vostok bases and current Vostok projects to disk. Then placing another disk in she uploaded a computer virus designed to erase all the data in the base computer.

"Sophia we're done here," Jake said coming up behind her. "How are you doing?"

"Almost done," Sophia replied watching the upload status bar as it rapidly approached one hundred percent. A second later it reached it. "Upload complete," she said removing the disk, which was now blank. "You can start the timers on the explosives," she said to Chuck. The older agent nodded and pressed a button on a small.

"We have ten minutes to get out of here," Chuck said after a moment. "After that this whole level and probably the entire base will blow sky high."

They hurried back to the escape ladder. Halfway to the ladder they ran into a large squad of guards. For a moment the agents and guards stared at each completely startled by the sudden appearance of the other. The guards then started to level laser rifles but the currently expanded Team Steel was already in motion ripping into the guards with a flurry of martial arts moves. Within a few minutes all twelve guards were out for the count. Realising that they had lost considerable time Team Steel raced to the escape ladder.

Chuck glanced at his watch as they ran – they had only five minutes to get out of here before the charges went off and gutted the base. With his hand he signalled five minutes to the rest of the team.

They made it back to the surface levels only to find that the window that they'd initially come in through had been blocked off by a series of grates that had been placed their sometime while they had been underground blocking their escape.

"How long to we have," Max asked.

"About three and a half minutes hermano," Berto's voice said over the biolink and everyone's radios.

"That's not enough time to find another way out and get back to the storm drain access point," Jake commented.

"Then we won't find one," Max replied walking up to the outfacing wall. "I'll make one. Going Turbo." Pressing the familiar button on his biolink band he immediately was enveloped by the familiar yellow-green transphasic energy aura of Turbo mode. Max proceeded to punch the wall hard. The solid concrete shattered on impact and a large chunk of wall fell away. Two more punches in rapid succession opened a hole large enough for them to escape through.

Quickly the piled back out into the side road Max disengaging Turbo mode as he did so. The road was almost completely blocked by a lorry that had been backed carefully into the ally and left unattended. No doubt the driver was inside the base. They barely managed to squeeze past only to find the front of the lorry parked over the manhole to the storm drain. With a sigh Max went Turbo again and he began pushing the lorry backwards. The lorry was a big eighteen wheeler and the huge trailer was fully loaded with cargo – even for him it was an incredible amount of weight to have to push and Max found himself straining his nanotech enhanced muscles close to their limit to do so but he managed to push it far enough back to free the manhole cover.

"Impressive even for you hermano," Berto commented over the biolink even as Max disengaged Turbo mode.

"Thanks bro," he breathed breathlessly back. That had cost him a lot it had taken an awful lot of his energy to move that truck. "How long?"

"Two minutes," was the reply. Kat darted in at the moment to open the manhole and quickly drop down. Sophia followed her so did Chuck. Jake helped a still somewhat breathless Max to the manhole where Chuck helped him climb down. They all knew that it took Max a number of minutes to recover from such a sudden and massive expenditure of transphasic energy sufficiently to move around completely on his own steam. As soon as Max was down in the storm drain Kat came up to him and flung his arm over her shoulder.

"Put some of your weight on me," she instructed her partner. Even having worked with Max for nearly a year now and seeing what he could do she was still surprised by what he had done back their. The lorry had had to weigh well over a hundred tonnes fully loaded it was a testament to the strength Max possessed that he had been able to overcome the weight and the lorry's breaks to move it backwards. Max gratefully shifted some of his weight onto Kat's shoulders. Jake dropped down at that moment and took his other arm. Max gratefully leaned on both of them.

Then they all started moving with as much pace as Max could currently manage back down the storm drain tunnel to the maintenance access point that had allowed them access. They had reached the alcove when Berto called over the biolink and over their radios.

"Five seconds brace yourselves." They hurriedly did so bracing themselves against the walls of the storm drain.

A second later there was a distant series of rumbling explosions. The tunnel visibly flexed up and down as the shockwaves ran along it. Rats screeched and ran in panic as dust fell from the ceiling as the reinforced concrete tube groaned in strain. After a moment or two the shockwaves faded away. Once they were sure it was safe Team Steel began the climb to the surface. Though able to move under his own steam again now Max took it slowly as he could feel that moving that lorry had severely drained his T-juice levels. He was going to have an appointment with the transphasic generator when they got back to N'Tek.

A few moments later he was back on the surface to see the stars blocked off by smoke that was glowing with the reflection of fires. A glance over at the base showed that most of it had been destroyed in the blast – a large section had actually collapsed and almost everything remaining was burning. Had he bothered to enhance his vision he would have seen the few surviving base personnel scrambling to escape the base. Sensors on orbital satellites would have picked up the fire and California wild land fire fighters would already be coming to put the flames out. Fortunately it was the wrong time of year for the Santa Anna wind so the was little danger of the fire spreading uncontrollably. It wouldn't take fire fighters long to put the fire out.

The sound of an engine caught his attention and Max turned away from the burning wreckage of the base to see the desert buggy that had brought them here from Behemoth coming towards them being remotely driven by Berto. The buggy came to a stop right next to them and they all climbed aboard. Kat took control from Berto and drove off across the scrubby desert vegetation to where Behemoth was waiting on the far side of the ridge.

Ten minutes later the huge transport aircraft lifted off the ground – stealthed itself before shooting off in the direction of Del Oro Bay.