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Explosive Infiltration

The journey inside the enemy base had been long and arduous, despite Brolath and Lashar doing nothing more than sitting in the back of a truck.

Any moment now, Brolath felt, there would be an alarm ringing out. They’d be caught somehow and they’d have to blow their way out of the base, a suicide mission to be sure.

This became especially concerning when the truck finally came to a halt in a cargo bay and two soldiers began to converge on the truck.

One of them cursed in some language Brolath could not understand and pointed towards a forklift with pallets stacked up beside it. The forklift was leaning over dangerously to its right, a broken wheel no doubt.

Both of them slung their rifles across their shoulder. The one who cursed went over to a phone on the wall and picked up the receiver, while the other stood with his back to the truck, fishing out a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.

Second later, the soldier on the phone began barking loudly at whoever he was speaking with. Demanding more help with the cargo, Brolath figured.

“I know I’ve been nice and chill,” Lashar whispered very lowly, his voice covered up by the soldier’s shouting. “So don’t be shocked if I have to show my ugly side soon.”

“Going to live up to our propaganda videos?” Brolath jabbed.

“I’ll do my best.”

Finally, the soldier slammed the receiver onto the phone and clomped over to the truck. The other soldier flicked his cigarette onto the ground and stomped the last embers of it out.

The bed of the truck shook as the soldiers both hopped onto it. The soldiers began slapping the boxes, one picking each side, and uttering distinct words.

Counting?

Brolath tucked his tail behind him and remained perfectly still as the soldiers slowly approached, still taking stock. The one that had the cigarette was counting much faster and drew steadily towards Brolath’s hiding spot.

Suddenly, the solder paused and stared right at Brolath. His eyes narrowed and blinked. Brolath slowly breathed in quietly, just enough to catch a whiff of the human’s scent.

Fear.

Springing forward, Brolath caught the human by the throat with his paw and pulled him onto the ground.

There was a rush of wind and soon the other human hit the ground, followed by silence.

Brolath snapped the human’s neck like a twig. It was usually in his job description to minimize casualties whenever possible, but there was no playing around on this mission. Their bodies would be discovered just as soon as he would be if he were unconscious, but the lack of a witness would add more confusion.

A chill crept across Brolath’s hide as he stared down at the stiff corpse. He never needed this kind of justification before, it would have just been expected that he, abiding with traditional warrior culture of the Regulian Empire, would be entitled to kill a foe when needed.

But now here he was, thinking about what made this a justified kill or not.

Lashar arched his neck up, the cloak having slipped off of him, and licked his blood-covered fangs. The human he had taken down was colored dark purple now.

“My venom’s a little bit more dangerous than Asha’s,” he blinked his red eyes at Brolath before slipped his stealth cloak back on.

“I guess some of our propaganda is accurate,” Brolath said, still pondering the dead human leaning against him.

Wrapped his arms underneath the humans’ shoulders, Lashar quietly dragged the human to the back of the truck, “They’ll discover the bodies soon, we don’t have much time.”

“The place will be on lockdown then,” Brolath gently placed the human he killed onto the ground.

“Would be fucking lovely if we could make it look like an accident, huh?”

“Hm,” Brolath murmured. “Go out onto the bay and look for cameras.”

“You got a plan?” Lashar asked.

“Maybe.”

Brolath crawled to his feet and wedged his claws underneath the top of the first crate he could grab before forcing it off. A welcome sight greeted Brolath, a series of smaller boxes inside with a logo that humans commonly used to label explosives with.

Inside one of the smaller boxes were rows of small green grenades. They had fragmentation ridges along the sides of them and a steel pin sticking out of the top.

That wouldn’t be enough for what Brolath had in mind though. He pulled the next crate’s lid off and was disappointed to only find boxes of ammunition.

“Two cameras,” Lashar whispered from the front of the truck. “They do not have visibility of the inside of the truck.”

“Good.”

Brolath opened up another box and found himself smiling, just like Leon had taught him how to. Packages of plastic explosives were stuffed inside this one, enough to blow the cargo bay to kingdom come.

Though the explosives were inert, Brolath figured there was a good chance the grenades would be enough to activate them. Besides, judging on the age of the wear on the boxes, there was a good chance that the explosives had become much more unstable over the years.

And then what would the cameras see? Two soldiers getting murdered? Or two idiots, one of whom was extremely angry after a phone call, vanish into a covered truck-bed and get blown halfway across the galaxy with nothing more than their teeth for identification?

The alarm would be raised for certain, but enough to cover Brolath’s tracks. All he had to do was check with the lizard, who despite his casual attitude seemed to have some unusual supplies of knowledge thanks to his AI education, whether he thinks it would not cause the entire structure to collapse.

Gently, Brolath picked up one of the grenades and placed it gently onto the plastic explosives. It would not be very subtle, very much against his normal operating procedures, but he felt a bit more chaotic than usual.

“Lashar, I’ve got a plan.”

Abel was suddenly awakened by the entire world shaking and rolled onto the ground, covering his head.

“Get up, get up!” a guard ordered. “Lockdown!”

Before Abel could right himself, he was pulled to his feet by the collar of his shirt and made to stand.

“Get Glass!” the bulky soldier barked at another one who had been lounging around the room. “I’ll take care of this one!”

A square piece of the wall suddenly pressed itself in before sliding away to the side, revealing a hidden staircase.

“Good to see this place has a fire exit,” Abel muttered.

“Shut up and follow me!”

Too groggy to argue, Abel grabbed his datapad and followed the soldier as he led Abel down a dark staircase with a concrete wall. The flashlight on the end of the soldier’s rifle danced carefully as he scanned the area for any possible intruders.

“What was that, an earthquake?” Abel asked.

“Unsure, orders are to get you to a safe-room no matter what.”

The soldier suddenly pressed his earpiece as he continued on and Abel could catch muffled Russian being spoken over it.

Abel could not help but notice there were no doors on any of the floors the stairs landed on. Just endless concrete walls. Where ever these stairs were going, it was an express line to the end.

Finally, the stairs came to an end and a massive metal door greeted them. The guard pressed his face into a retinal scanner and with a sharp ding, the door slowly slid open with very loud grinding noises.

A few familiar faces were in the room. Dr. Meyer was the most prominent and she was busy smoking a cigarette despite a very prominent “No Smoking,” sign next to her. Hada was peering over a computer console with several video feeds of the base on display.

But the most curious inhabitant was Yuri, the Quartermaster, who was sitting silently on a plastic chair in the corner, rubbing at his right wrist where his prosthetic met his flesh.

I guess in an operation like this, you need to trust the guy in charge of your weapons and keep him close.

The door slammed shut behind Abel as he entered, with the guard remaining outside the room.

“Well, well,” Meyer took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled, “Glass sent his nephew down here first, how nice of him.”

Ignoring her sarcasm, Abel walked over to Hada and leaned against the wall beside her, “You know what happened?”

“An explosion of some kind I think,” Hada tapped at the screen. Two of the cameras were offline, showing nothing but white noise. “A shipment of explosives and guns was in the warehouse to be offloaded but...”

Hada pressed a few keys and another monitor to her right began playing back camera footage from two cameras with different angles of a warehouse. There was a covered truck in it and two soldiers, one of whom looked angry, entered.

“There’s not a lot to see, not until everything went offline and the damned place shook,” Hada rubbed her temples. “How the fuck do these idiots set off inert goddamn explosives!?”

“If they shipped in active explosives with them,” Yuri suddenly spoke from across the room. “Told them a hundred goddamn times not to mix the two.”

Hada pulled away from the console and spoke to Yuri, “Unless they were playing catch with an active grenade, they shouldn’t have done something like this!”

Abel blinked. There was something on the screen that caught his eye and he leaned in close.

He almost thought it was a mirage at first, but after rewinding and playing it back multiple times, he saw it.

The air slightly shimmered a bit, like waves of heat off of hot pavement, but they moved. Abel had seen this before, with the camouflaged cloak the Lacertans had.

Lashar must have followed him.

Abel’s heart soared, for once he had some glimmer of hope. But there was still some confusion, as Abel could have sworn he saw two blurry figures running out from the truck just before the feed cut.

Who could Lashar be with?

“Well, that was one way to make an entrance with a bang.”

Lashar chuckled in the corner of the storage room next to Brolath. Brolath and him were alone, having ducked into it shortly after pulling the pin on the grenade and getting the hell out of the warehouse.

Rows of steel shelves with various storage containers were nestled tightly in the room. A few stray tools, including fire extinguishers, were lying on them as well; Brolath made sure they picked their corner far away from those, just in case the soldiers needed them for the fire.

“It was rash,” Brolath cleared his throat. “I admit that, but-”

“But nothing, your deduction would have made Logos proud. You sure you don’t want to defect? Just need to install a node in your brain to complete the process!”

Brolath frowned, “Don’t mistake my tolerance for treason.”

“Come on, it’s not that painful, we get it planted in our brains after our first growth spurt! Afraid of surgery or something?”

The door to the room swung open and a group of soldiers rushed in, making a beeline for the fire extinguishers. Once they had snatched the entire supply, they left and let the door swing shut behind them.

“It is still unpleasant and my home is here.”

“On Earth?”

“No,” Brolath shook his head, “the Empire. As flawed as it might be, I can’t see myself betraying it.”

“Ignoring the fact that you’re betraying an order from the Regent himself right now?”

“I’m doing what’s best for the Empire, there’s no greater loyalty than that.”

Lashar sighed, “I hope the Empire recognizes that.”

They would not. Brolath knew this, but if he was lucky, Proclath would end up impeached by the Regency Council or he’d meet his end by some other scheme. There was no making a rational argument for his actions, not when the Regent had no intention of listening, but his entire hope rested on other parties malicious actions to get away with his own good intentions.

“I hope so too.”

Things were so much simpler before.

“What’s got your heart racing, boy?”

Abel turned away from the computer screen and was startled to find Meyer standing behind him, her nose pointing towards Abel and sniffing.

Getting really sick of her being so fucking nosy…

Resisting the urge to clock her in the nose, Abel exhaled with a rattle and spoke, “I’m scared.”

“Scared, huh?” she sniffed again and spoke loud enough for the entire room to hear. “Didn’t quite smell like that, but I guess everyone’s different!”

“Stay in your lane, doc,” Hada growled.

“My lane?” Meyer laughed. “I’m the only one in this group brave enough to enhance my senses, my lane is using what I have.”

“Those nose implants don’t make you a fucking bloodhound,” Hada stepped forward, planting her feet firmly on the ground. “So pipe down and stop starting shit during a lockdown.”

“I’m with Hada,” Yuri spoke up. “This is how mistakes are made.”

Shrugging, Meyer flicked another cigarette out of her pack and returned to her wall. She cursed as she flicked her lighter, failing to get a flame.

“Is that such a good idea?” Yuri asked. “If there was an explosion, there’s probably a fire. Might not have enough oxygen to go around.”

Abel looked over at the middle-aged soldier, “Shouldn’t we get out of here then?”

Yuri shook his head, “The air down here is recycled. Glass’ll make the call whether to evacuate or open up the vents.”

“Why don’t they just open up the vents?” Abel crossed his arms.

Meyer groaned with annoyance.

“Because we don’t want a big cloud of black smoke alerting any Regulian craft that happen to be passing by,” Hada explained.

“Makes se-”

Abel covered his ears as a screeching klaxon rang out in the room along with flashing red lights.

“Well, fuck...” Yuri sighed and got to his feet, “...decisions been made.”

“What!?” Abel shouted out over the noise.

“Time to evacuate.”