Garrett, Bernie, and Desora continued through several more rooms and they finally met back up with John.
"Where did Jardem go?"
"He said he was going back to get support. The teleporter wasn't really broken here; it works."
"Okay. Now I think we should just go see if we find any survivors here."
"You still trust Jardem?"
"I don't like that Jardem guy much now, but who knows what we might find while we're here. This place has been out of access for a couple days now."
"I think Jardem sabotaged the teleporter. He wanted us to go through the deep forest and tried to get us killed!" Desora added.
"That is very possible. Now let's get going."
Garrett led the three others through a couple more rooms, fighting much smaller numbers of enemies. Garrett only had a few full clips left for his Kalashnikov, so he stuck with the dual handguns through these rooms. The group finally reached a smaller teleporter that led up to the platform that was actually part of the Pioneer One dome. There was a door into the dome here, but it was not functioning.
"You think Jardem did this too?" Desora asked.
"No. He wanted us to be killed for some reason, but I think for that same reason he would have wanted to get at whatever is in Pioneer One. If he is the evil bum he seems to be, then he would have wanted to get in there. There must be a lot in there."
"Yeah. Let's go back now though."
Everyone returned to the teleporter and went up to Pioneer Two. There, Jardem wasn't there, which was lucky for him since Garrett intended to drag him off for interrogation. However, everyone's thirty thousand meseta was there.
"Why did he leave the money if he wanted us dead?" John asked.
"Because he didn't think we would live," Bernie replied.
Garrett headed down to his apartment. There, he began the long task of replacing his spent ammunition with newly manufactured ammunition, and of refilling his Kalashnikov's clips. He had used up all but two of his clips in the running battle through the forest. Garrett knew that reloading the hundreds of rounds into clips and making hundreds of new rounds would take several hours to complete, so he did not plan to do anything the next day on the surface.
Garrett finished restocking his supply of shells for his Kalashnikov by the middle of the next day. He did not feel like undertaking any missions by that time, but he had another idea. He went up to the guild again and asked the receptionist if she could send a message to Montague to contact him. Once she had sent the message Garrett returned to his apartment and fell asleep. He was awakened after several hours by a ringing phone.
"It's Montague. You called?"
"You know the assault rifle I let you borrow?"
"Yes, that rifle is pretty powerful."
"Well, would you want to make another gun like that?"
"What is the difference?"
"This is a better gun."
"I see. Do you know where my lab is?"
"No, where is it?"
"Just meet me in an hour in the guild area."
Garrett hung up the phone and found something to eat before heading up to the guild area. There, he waited as he watched the surface of Ragol gradually became dark with the setting sun. He waited for several more minutes and Montague arrived. Montague immediately directed him to go down the teleporter to the surface. Once there and after clearing the first area he directed Garrett to go over the wall. There, Montague began leading him through the area right outside the divider, firing at beasts as they approached.
"That data you collected was helpful. It allowed me to develop a normal photon rifle into one with much more powerful photons. I haven't finished the development but there still seems to be much more potential in this photon development."
"Are we going somewhere?"
"There is a small weather outpost of Pioneer One around here. It is not in the grid system that we just left, but it has its own grid that I hope still works."
Garrett continued to follow Montague through the outer perimeter of the developed forest area. After several minutes of walking he was able to spot a small building through the trees. Montague altered his course slightly and headed directly to it.
"I'm going to need some cover fire while I unlock this building again."
Garrett readied his Kalashnikov and began to snipe far off enemies that were approaching through the forest with it. There were dozens of beasts that he could see coming from a great distance. Garrett continued to pick them off one by one for several minutes, holding them at bay in a tense deadlock. Garrett finally heard a door slide open and he turned and fell back into the weather outpost. There was a hall and several rooms in here. However, there was no meteorological technology that Garrett noticed in any of the rooms.
"This doesn't look like any kind of weather station I've seen before. Where's all the equipment?"
"There is no equipment. This place is really here so any people caught up by hostile wildlife could run here for safety."
"Why did we come here? Are you here so the government won't find us?"
"Yes. This is actually a secondary exit from my lab when I think the government is watching. I can just come up from the main teleporter and the people watching will be forced to assume that I have come up from being on the planet's surface and that I wasn't in the lab at all."
Garrett followed Montague to a large walk in closet. There he had set up a teleporter at some other time. Garrett stepped onto it and soon reappeared in an extremely cramped room. Montague pushed aside the door, and entered into a closet. When Garrett closed the door behind him he noticed that it was well concealed; it was part of a shelving unit in the closed.
"Now what is it that you want to make?"
"I need a full automatic machine gun."
"You mean like what you had?"
"Not exactly. That is supposed to be small and light for the average infantry. What I want is a machine gun, not an assault rife."
"What do you want changed?"
"Do you have any technical drawings of the gun?"
"Yes, would you like to see the drawings?"
Garrett followed Montague to a large computer, which he opened a file on. It was a three dimensional technical blueprint of the Kalashnikov. Garrett asked if he could modify the drawing, and Montague gave him permission. Garrett modified the Kalashnikov with a larger chamber to accommodate full sized .30-06 ammunition. He also modified the action to process belt-fed ammunition. The barrel of the gun was also lengthened considerably to provide more accurate fire, and a bipod was added. As an afterthought Garrett designed a smooth barrel switching system which gave the gun a second barrel on a revolving cylinder.
"This is it. I modified this from the old German light machine guns."
"Does it use the same ammunition?"
"No it doesn't. Can I change the ammunition?"
Montague accessed another drawing, and Garrett lengthened the cartridges to their appropriate length, and designed the belt system and a drum to house the belts in.
"Can you make this?"
"Yeah, just wait. You want one, right?"
"I only need one of the machine guns, but I will need five of the drum clips. I have a machine at my apartment that I can make the ammunition with for absolutely free."
Montague took over the computer and spend a couple minutes. Another machine turned on, and after several seconds Montague opened it and the machine gun was there. Garrett took out the gun and cocked back the bolt to check that it worked. It worked. Montague then set something again and five of the drum clips were almost instantaneously created. Garrett loaded one of the belts into the gun.
"If you need to get any more belts of ammunition you can just go in here through that outpost. Just don't go through if there is a red light next to the teleporter, since that would mean that there are military officials searching in my lab."
Garrett left through the teleporter and was soon out in the outpost again. He flicked off the gun's safety and stepped outside. There were still several boomas and other beasts nearby, dozens of them. Garrett quickly stepped back inside. He checked the rooms in the outpost and found one with an access hatch to the room. He climbed up to the roof and lied down on one corner. Garrett switched the machine gun to semi automatic and fired on a nearby booma. The more powerful round slammed into its head for a quick kill.
Garrett systematically fired round after round with the machine gun until he had felled about two dozen beasts. He then took out his Kalashnikov so he could conserve the ammunition for the machine gun, and he stored the machine gun. He jumped down from the roof and landed lightly, springing forward as he landed and heading toward the secure area. After a quick run of about a mile, Garrett ran up the wall and into the secure area. Once there he headed back to his apartment through the main teleporter.