Chapter 15: Marine Base (I) – Counterinitiative
Whatever remained from the heated battle against Slash Beast's unit were brought back to the Maverick Hunters H.Q. and the train had all its containers analyzed thoroughly. Most of the crates bore nothing much except for some redundant metal parts. Until a tiniest metal box was pried open, requiring some expertise from the mechanical unit to crack open.
"A laser eye!" Douglas mentioned, being the head of the mechanics, he was the one who brought the findings to the main table. Signas would love to question further about the use of it, but found himself no need for that, as the chatty Douglas continued immediately, "Despite its small size, it is capable of focusing immense amounts of energy at its center!"
"Then… it would mean!?" Zero quickly understood the purpose of the item, and for a second, he did not want to believe it.
"Yes… it would make sense that the Repliforce do intend to use it to wipe out the entire Earth."
Signas calmly answered and confirmed Zero's fears. Dr. Thoth, more and more powerless and unable to handle the war any further, did nothing more than tremble uncontrollably on his seat. He had pretty much let Signas and the others take command of the Maverick Hunters, particularly during this dreadful period of war.
"In order to create their own utopia… without humans, only Reploids. I suppose they are trying to abandon the Earth in search for a new planet." Dusk Rifle, the commander of the third Sniper Unit, contemplated deeply as he attempted to piece the broken puzzles together, with every clue they had now. "Could it be that they are building a large spaceship?"
"Now that you mentioned it… Alia, show us an overhead view of the Repliforce H.Q." Signas ordered.
"Roger." Came a firm female voice, it was Alia, although absent in the room, she was the head of the navigators that had their eyes all over the place, including the conference room.
The huge screen that was housed inside the room lit up, providing clear images of the busy Repliforce H.Q. that always had Reploids shuffling around doing various work.
"I do not see any signs of a spaceship being built." Network Beetle mentioned, his huge eyes glued to the screen.
The drone spying on the enemy moved around, shifting the perspective to different nearby locations.
"Notice how the area, north of the H.Q., is totally empty." Zero spotted something and immediately raised his suspicions.
"The surrounding area is pretty much empty after they cleared everything in a 50 unimeter radius around the H.Q." Beetle answered.
"The area north of it is much larger." Zero added.
"Ah! You are right!"
To everyone's realization, the area Zero pointed was much vast than any other blank space around its proximity. There was at least a 10 unimile area that was covered with nothing but plain dirt.
"Could it be…"
"Emergency! The Repliforce had launched multiple attacks across several locations! I repeat, this is an emergency! The Repliforce had launched multiple attacks across several locations!" Just before Signas could provide his insight, the alarm blared loudly disrupting everyone's thought patterns.
"Speak of the devil…" Commander Rifle hissed, upset at the fact that the Repliforce wasn't going to give them any breathing room.
It wasn't long that a detailed report on the attacks was in the hands of Dr. Thoth, who eventually passed the baton to Signas and Zero, two of the most esteemed commanders in the room.
"The war is in your hands…" he spoke very softly, none of the others could hear it. Besides being present and hearing the discussion from the others, he could not bring himself provide any assertion to the table, his heavy guilt would no longer allow him to continue as a supreme commander.
How weak humans could be… in front of these Reploids.
"Three locations at once… and they weren't small scale ones." Signas began.
"Read them all out aloud." Zero urged.
"The Bio Laboratory at K City is the first in the list, it was abandoned some time ago, but apparently it was reactivated just 2 days before. It was reported to spread out toxic substances which destroyed the entire city."
Almost everyone gulped after hearing such a dreadful news. "So it was believed that the Repliforce are the ones behind it?" Zero asked.
"It was unconfirmed, but we cannot let it be at its current state. Let's go through the other two locations as well before deploying our men, shall we?" Signas continued.
Zero grunted, his mind more frustrated as this meeting time passed every ticking second with him sitting inside doing nothing. Despite suffering no major injuries in his recent Military Train raid, he hardly received any rest. He did not want any anyway, growing more and more restless as the war dragged on.
"Next up is the Cyber Space which affected the largest scale among the three attacks. The entire network was a havoc thanks to Cyber Peacock, who apparently went Maverick. The cause was unknown, but reports are saying the Repliforce are using it as an advantage to block out any communication that may impose on them."
"Lastly, the Marine Base of City C. Probably the one we should prioritize, seeing how close it is to our H.Q., we shouldn't postpone the operation on it any later. It was reported that a Maverick had just destroyed the Marine Base and fled to the sea, currently still on a rampage in City C."
"I guess that's all of them," said Network Beetle calmly. "Needless to say, Cyber Peacock is mine for the taking?"
When it involved diving into the network, Network Beetle was the man to refer to. His division, the 19th Unit Net Division specialized in maintaining the proper operations of the global network. He was already aware of an abnormality in the Cyber Space, yet it was so recent and they were in the middle of an important briefing that he was still not deployed to confront Cyber Peacock.
"Naturally," Signas admitted, "The network is yours. Having you with us, we feel at ease when it comes to issues with the network. Now, for the remaining two locations…"
"I will chase down the perpetrator of destruction of City C. In pursuit cases like these, my unit is the most efficient." Zero stood up and commented.
"But… your unit was severely fatigued from the train raid, are you certain?" Signas asked.
"It's better to have you here watching the war, I still have half of my men, and I am in good shape, I will go." Zero insisted, and Signas could not turn down the favor, he batted an eye onto the supreme commander, whose face was lowered all the time. Dr. Thoth did not move an inch from the arbitrary silence, prompting Signas to take the decision to himself.
"Very well, Zero, you will lead the pursuit."
"Then all that's left is the Bio Laboratory," Commander Rifle spoke on, "my Sniper Unit could easily peek into the lab and see what's wrong with it, and eliminate the threat from a distance."
"Indeed, then it's settled. Let us all move." Signas said with sufficient urgency and firmness in it. The decision was quickly made, yet it sounded sensible enough that none of them objected.
Things do turn for the better ever since they received information regarding the undisclosed construction going on at the Repliforce H.Q., the scales did seem to begin its tilt.
"Zero!" Douglas yelled at a sprinting Zero, whom already stretched some distances away despite leaving from the same room at the same time.
"What is it? Douglas? I am sorry but be quick with it." Zero hardly got time to spare, this was probably the most critical moment of the war, and he knew the Maverick Hunters had no time to lose. Every second counts. Any delay and City C was gonna be wiped out sooner.
"You will need… every power ups available!" Douglas made it as brief as he could, quickly running up to Zero and installing the modified chip into his system.
Zero shut his eye, "Tenkuuha" had been registered into his weapon bank.
"Hand over the chip you got from the previous mission as well."
Zero complied, but not without asking "still, you will need more time to analyze and modify it for me to use, right?"
"Not anymore," Douglas said with a large grin, "I've developed an adapter which allows me to instantly translate the Repliforce chips, enabling you to be compatible." As he went on, he took out a modest sized, rectangular black box which had a recess that was initially round, but immediately changed its shape the moment a recognized chip was inserted. A small monitor attached to it then began displaying the decrypting and reconfiguring progress, which responded to Douglas's quick eyes by reading the prompts and swift fingers inputting the necessary commands on the keys located below the recess.
The whole process only took around half a minute, "done!" Exclaimed Douglas. "Now install it."
Zero did so, seconds later, his own eye display read - "Shippuuga" had been registered into the database.
"Great, thanks, Douglas. You are indeed the best mechanic we have."
"So don't forget to drop by anytime you have a chip, I will collect those from the other commanders as well. We will need every single upgrade we can find if we want to win this war."
Zero nodded with full agreement, and dashed to the departure bay, where he would be needing a speed chaser for the upcoming mission.
He also hoped to meet with Iris again before departing to City C, however, there was not a single moment spared seeing how Jet Stingray was running riot and it was of utmost priority to stop him.
I will return as soon as I can, wait for me, Iris.