A/N: Update is a little later than I had planned for because of my other fic on . Sorry for that. I hope you like it!
Reviews are welcome!
Chapter 34 – The Facility part 2
Minos had opened the door to the storage room, jumped inside and closed the door as quickly as possible. He turned around, let his eyes adjust to the almost non-existent light in the room and observed his surroundings.
The storage room was almost twenty metres long for as far as Minos could tell, and at least ten metres wide. There were large racks and cabinets of all kinds and sizes stocked away randomly throughout the room.
He looked at the first rack. They appeared to be some kind of staff weapons, but they weren't finished. The things were long and straight, but they missed the concave form at the tip. Half-finished staff weapons are worthless, so Minos moved towards the next.
Another three racks with only non-finished staff weapons later Minos found something new. Armour. Body armour to be precise. But these ones too were not finished yet. From what he had heard the armour of the soldiers of the Ori army had some kind of force field around it, rendering it almost invulnerable to normal attacks. Of course, the force field was not powerful enough to stop something with enough force or speed behind it, but it still blocked all energy-based attacks.
Minos moved on. He quickly skipped the next three racks that contained more non-finished armour and tried to open the first cabinet. The doors wouldn't open, so Minos got his tools ready. A few seconds later he had unlocked it and he opened the door.
Oh yeah. These things he could use. Definitely.
Minos looked at the prize he had found before him. Shelves full of small explosive charges and their detonators were in front of him. He wasted no time in collecting a few. These things could always come in handy when you're infiltrating an enemy weapon factory in a distant galaxy without supply depot.
After the small explosive charges Minos hadn't found anything of great interest in the room. He listened for a patrol and when none was to be heard he got outside. With the explosive charges now available a new route was more viable. He could, and most likely should, drop by the power generating room of the facility.
Minos though and plotted the shortest route towards the power generation room. It would take him several levels down, and at least half a mile northwards. He could do that. Easily. The only problem would be passing the main corridor and the main guard post near the entrance that normal people used, but he'd find a way.
Five minutes later Minos found himself in an air shaft above the main guard post. At least ten guards were sitting round a table directly underneath him. Luckily the walls and ceilings were thick so they couldn't hear Minos move. He had to find a way to lure them away so he could plant the bombs in the guard room.
Minos had an idea. He inched forward several metres, until he found what he was looking for. In the shaft was a small curve that bent towards the left, the same way as the main corridor. Minos moved forward another few metres until he reached a vent of some kind. He let a small bomb charge drop there on the floor and crawled back to his original position.
If this worked out then the whole battalion of soldiers would know something wasn't right in the facility. He'd have at least one hundred guards swarming all over the place in one minute. And the prior would soon follow. Oh yeah, this was gonna be so much fun..
He detonated the small charge in the hallway, just around the corner from the guard post. All the guards jumped up to investigate the sound and noise.
When they were away Minos quickly slammed the vent out, jumped down onto the floor and moved like a whirlwind throughout the room. Thirty seconds later five explosive charges were placed hidden around the room and Minos was jumping up towards the vent.
Only a small minute after Minos had hidden himself in the vent again the guards returned. They had doubled the patrols and they had called in the reserve guards through the portable communications devices they carried. Minos had already moved away far enough from the guard room to safely detonate the bombs.
With an extremely loud 'bang' all the charges exploded at the same time, blowing all the windows out from the wall between the guard post and the main corridor. When the rain of glass had subsided Minos let himself fall down from the air shaft he was hiding in and made a dash for the main exit of the facility.
Just before the main exit was a large staircase that led to the deeper levels of the facility. The power generation room was situated on the lowest level, together with a few smaller storage rooms.
Minos sprinted towards the staircase and jumped over the edge of the stairs into the drop down below. It was at least twenty metres straight down, and Minos landed with a loud thud on the floor. If he had been a little heavier, or a little less strong, he could have been severely hurt on his jump down.
Minos had escaped detection by the other guards by only a split second. Just after he dove into the open space a guard patrol had come rushing in, to see what the explosion had been about.
Minos silently moved underneath the stairs, hidden away from any views from above. When he was certain that no-one was looking, he crossed the room and walked through the door.
This was the lowest level in the whole facility, so there weren't much guards around. Minos took more risks and walked the hallways without much caution. It hadn't proven necessary when he neared the power generation room, and there was no-one coming when he planted six explosive devices around the power core that fed the facility.
But when Minos was finished planting the bombs he heard someone coming. Multiple someones. A large patrol was heading straight his way. Minos could hear at least twelve different footsteps. There was no escape. There was only one door leading to and from the room, and there were no hiding places near. Well, not for a normal person, at least.
Twelve guards entered the room, walking two-by-two behind each other. They marched through the open doorway, and proceeded cautiously. They checked out every nook and cranny they could find in the room, looking behind, under and inside each object. Except for one.
Minos had climbed via the ceiling of the room straight towards the centre of the power core. There was a quite broad ledge near the top, several metres above floor level. Minos sat on that ledge, hidden from view from beneath. He didn't make a sound.
Several metres below Minos the twelve guards stood firm in a circle around the power core.
Shit, Minos thought. They must be here to guard the place. I don't see another way out. Wait. There is someone coming...
Someone was indeed coming, and Minos was not the only one who had noticed it. The guards down below had noticed it too, and they stood to attention.
A minute later a cloaked form entered the room. A brown cloak, an old and weird-looking staff that looked exactly like the ones in Minos's dream and the form moved exactly like a prior too.
There was only one prior on this planet for as far as Minos knew, and this was probably that one. That prior had been at the festivities for all Minos knew, and one could easily travel from the village to the facility so fast. Especially when they used beaming technology. But Minos would've sensed any kind of very advanced technology that was comparable to Ancient-technology, and he hadn't sensed any. Yet.
The prior heaved his staff up, and a bright light emerged. It seemed almost touchable, like a liquid. It entered the power core Minos was sitting on. The power core began to tremble, to shake and it started making loud noises. This was not good, definitely not good. Minos had to get out and report what he had seen.
The Prior kept pouring light into the power core, but the shaking and trembling faded slowly. The power core seemed to be able to handle it better now. Somehow.
Minos relaxed a bit, and peeked over the edge to see what the prior was up to.
"I am finished here. The Ori will be pleased."
"Thank you, Prior."
The Prior moved out and a few minutes later the guards moved out too. Minos waited a few more minutes before he moved. With a supple movement Minos jumped down and got out of the room without a single sound.
After he'd checked out all the storage rooms on the lower floors, Minos made his way upwards. So far he hadn't found much of particular interest, save for a few boxes of raw material. He could use all the resources he could get, so he had tagged them to be beamed away later.
Minos had moved towards the large stairwell again to move to the above-ground levels of the facility. The most interesting things were there, after all. But when he neared the large, open space of the staircase he was alerted by a sound. The sound of guards.
There was at least one patrol coming from behind and one coming from the front. Minos saw an open door on the other side of the staircase, which he hadn't noticed before. He took a leap and jumped straight over the ten metre drop towards the other side of the room. He made no sound when he rolled over the floor to brake his speed. He stood up, and closed the door quickly.
Figuring out that if the guards opened the door he'd be detected Minos set of in a sprint towards the end of the hallway. He hadn't seen it on the way to the power core, and he sure knew that this wasn't on the blueprints. For one it went the wrong way, outside of the facility instead of inside, and there also were no other doors.
After a few corners Minos stopped running and listened. Not a sound from a guard patrol coming from behind, but he could hear strange noises coming from up ahead that he couldn't totally place. Which was a rare thing, given that Minos had an overall excellent memory for things normal people wouldn't remember.
His curiosity was piqued, so instead of turning back towards his original goal, Minos continued further down the tunnel leading away from the facility. He figured that he had now passed the outer wall of the facility by at least a hundred metres, and was trailing towards the forest up north. Sometimes an perfect sense of direction came in handy when breaking into enemy weapon factories.
After a few hundred metres more of walking and listening Minos noticed that the temperature had become hotter, and that the screams and moans, which he could now positively identify, were becoming louder and clearer. It sounded like there was some kind of slave camp up ahead. Of course he didn't think it besides the Ori to use something like slaves, but still. It were the Ori, after all.
When he reached the final length of hallway there was no mistake possible. There were screams and moans, sounds of people in desperate need coming from whatever was up ahead. Minos reached a huge metal door, several metres in both width and height, that blocked his path. There were no guards on this side of the door, but there might be on the other side.
Considering all the risks, Minos made a decision, and opened the door.
A/N: Ooh, a cliffhanger! Yes, I know, I'm evil. Hopefully for you the next update won't take so long.