Chapter 137 - Plague Bearer

Dr Theria nodded at the exosuit to leave the two of them alone, before explaining to Kitana quietly in a gentle tone. “Someone is testing a new form of biological weapon in Rockhold, and I intend to stop it. However, certain forces like the Queen’s Guards are not that gracious to let me help.”

“Why would they try to stop you?”

“Who knows?” Theria shrugged. “Perhaps they see it as an affront to their authority, thinking they can solve it on their own, or they have vested interests in seeing this plague progressing.”

“Wouldn’t that diminish the people’s trust in them? They are the rulers of Rockhold, no?”

“Maybe because they rule by force instead of trust? Either way, I’m merely a doctor who wants to do some good. And thankfully, the Keepers sent you to protect me, a lawful citizen of the Loeric Empire and the planet Athen from the evil forces that intend to stop me.”

“And these guards?”

“Are private mercenaries I’ve hired myself to continue my work. They are all yours to command. But I must remind you that your utmost priority is to protect me. Otherwise, all hope is lost for the plague!”

Kitana nodded. She already harboured bad intentions towards the Queen’s Guards, who were obviously a criminal organization. She was not wrong in believing that they were heavily involved in extremely illegal and dubious activities.

“Any leads on the plague? How long should I be expected to stay here?”

“Hmm, about a month or two. I recently received word that two of my mercenaries were attacked outside when they were on… uhm… recreational leave. They were ambushed while trying to rescue an infected person by the Queen’s Guards. This means it’s very possible that our current location has been leaked, hence the defences.”

Dr Theria brought Kitana up to speed on all that was happening before they finally got to the topic of the drones. “Ah, your new replacement drones have been stored in the armoury.”

Kitana immediately headed to the armoury, unable to wait to reunite with her drones. It’s been a long time since she last connected with them.

Unfortunately, the two drones sent did not include ‘Kier’, her favourite drone. Instead, it was two brand new default Athen Defender drones that she did not care about. “Well, it’s better than nothing.”

Activating the spine in her Keeper exosuit, she could immediately feel a connection with the two drones, her brain able to wield them as though she was in full control of them. They acted like her doppelgangers, capable of independent action given a series of simple commands.

Kitana did a few test runs, moving nimbly in coordination with the two drones with the other mercenaries watching on. “Well, I never thought I’ll live to see the day we get to work with an enforcer. A Keeper at that.” One of them muttered.

“Those drones must be priceless, imagine the amount of technology in them to be able to pull that off. You think she’ll give us one if I ask nicely?”

“Go ahead, I’m sure she won’t beat you down at all.”

Kitana could hear them talking, but she did not care, focusing on establishing a proper connection with the drones. If she reached a deep enough level with them, she could effectively act as a squad by herself, with instantaneous cooperation between all three of them. It was a miracle of engineering.

“Okay, that’s good enough.” After she was finally satisfied, she placed the two drones back into standby mode before walking up to the mercenaries. There was a total of fifty of them, making Kitana wonder what kind of assault was Dr Theria expecting.

“Ma’am, Dr Theria has placed all of us under your command. Looking forward to working with you.” The leader of the mercenaries shook her hand. While he was far more experienced than the young Kitana, he would do anything for money, and Dr Theria had already paid more than enough upfront to make this all worth it.

If Dr Theria asked him to beg like a dog, he would do so in a heartbeat. That was the type of dark mercenary outfit they were.

Kitana nodded. “What’s the current plan for defence before I arrived?”

“We’ve planted a few decoy research labs at other similar areas, making it seem as though we have already left. With the fabricated data, it should be enough to fool the enemy.”

“What if they find the right base?”

“Then we’ll have to fight our way out. We have a backup research lab, though Dr Theia was adamant that we do not lose this research lab at any cost. If we do get attacked, we must defend for at least an hour to allow for Dr Theia and the current patients to migrate and potentially make it off-world.”

Kitana frowned. Defending against the Queen’s Guards for more than an hour might be tough. If she had an entire enforcer battalion here, maybe she would have more confidence.

With the Queen’s Guards being the entrenched power in Rockhold, naturally, their military and force deployment speed was a lot faster. If they were able to attack the base accurately, then naturally it will be a losing war of attrition for Kitana. She could not expect any reinforcements to arrive.

“Why can’t we pre-emptively attack the Queen’s Guards if we’re so sure that we’re going to be attacked by them?”

“We do have a similar plan. Another group of us that is not here is currently in a position to strike if such a situation happens. Hopefully, we can divert some of their forces away.”

Kitana nodded. The plan looked pretty good so far. She found it hard to imagine that the Queen’s Guards could find them so easily given all these defensive measures. The research lab was also layered with protective materials that prevented scanners or remote detection, as though it was normal bedrock.

There were various exit points of the research lab as well, and the addition of stealth exosuits allowed them to exit without being detected by any onlookers. Kitana was very sure that there was no way in hell that the Queen’s Guards could ever find this place.

***

“Found it.” Ceres patted Julia’s shoulder to land the hovercar. With his ability to see emotions from a distance, it was a piece of cake to find the research lab.

“Wait, how do you know this one is for real?” Julia frowned. The group had already been through a few of the decoy labs, checking all sixteen locations in sequence. They had left Assistant A behind, seeing as he would be of no help in a combat scenario.

The first time they reached a decoy lab, Julia and Saater had automatically assumed that the target Brood Host had already fled. Yet Ceres told them to keep searching.

It was when they found the second decoy lab that had almost identical data that they became suspicious, wondering which was the real one.

If they had the final decision, they would have said that one of the empty labs was the real one and that the target was leading them to think that he was still in Rockhold as a form of reverse psychology.

And now that Ceres seemed so certain that he found the lab, Julia and Saater became even more suspicious of who this exosuit designer was. What kind of skills does he actually have?! Up till now, they have actually yet to see his face without the black mask, nor know his actual name. To them, he was still ’17 Dumplings’, an absolutely obscure name.

Regardless, they were extremely loyal to the Queen, and if the Queen said that Ceres was the leader, then he was. This was the main reason why they had continued listening to his orders, and weirdly enough, it seemed to work out. Saater wondered whether Ceres was a double agent or not more than once.

Ceres naturally could not tell them that his ability to sense emotions allowed him to directly see more than fifty human outlines deep underground.

It bypassed most forms of protection he had encountered so far, and as long as he was within range he could sense it. It would have been even better if he used his emotional mine, but he did not have the time nor the capability to deploy it all over the city as well.

It would be fairly dangerous if someone took apart his device and found the black goo within as well. If it was an informant of the enforcers, he would be instantly dead meat.

Halyon understood immediately what Ceres had discovered and told Julia to listen. Julia frowned, extremely unconvinced, but she landed the hovercar anyway. Out of the three followers, Halyon was the one with the most ‘insider’ knowledge of what Ceres could do.

In Halyon’s head, he already had a hierarchy of followers right now: him being the senior lead principal manager of disciples, followed by Julia who was a junior disciple and Saater who was the garbage collector.

The hovercar landed smoothly in the empty street, the four exiting. The area was extremely deserted, with almost nobody around save for a few stray rats and other cavernous wildlife scampering around for food.

Despite the ability to sense emotions, it did not mean Ceres could sense the layout of the research facility. However, by tracking their movements over the course of a few minutes, he could easily map out at least where the ‘boundaries’ of the underground complex were.

He pretended to place a few random inert metal devices around the area, trying to trick the suspicious Saater and Julia. Halyon played along as well, whistling as he did it.

After acting like he was calibrating the devices, Ceres nodded to himself before collecting all the devices back together.

“My devices managed to roughly map out the area. The target is hiding in a room like this…” Ceres began to draw out a rough floor plan of the research lab on a hologram using his multi-terminal.

Saater watched in awe as the floor plan came into being, showcasing many rooms as well as known patrol locations. “Were the devices the same module that you put in the Solar Glint to beat me?” Saater couldn’t help asking.

Ceres ambiguously shrugged, looking as though he did not want to reveal his secret technology. It was better if Saater misunderstood it to be a piece of high-tech or proprietary equipment. Ceres thought maybe moving forward would be the best way of getting around without revealing too much.

The floor plan was like a circular maze, with multiple entry points. Ceres could only map out a few, but it was more than enough information than he needed.

“There’s more than fifty of the soldiers inside. My devices have picked up one lone human that seems to be working on a few humans that are lying down. I suspect that this is where the Brood Host is.” Ceres pointed to a central room at the very centre of the floor plan.

“This looks like a sort of labyrinth meant to protect the centre… It will be hard getting in. Perhaps we should enter from different sides? We’ll get more soldiers to help us since we’re up against a big force.”

Ceres nodded. He wouldn’t say no to additional forces, especially when going up against fifty soldiers. It was bound to be a medium skirmish at the very least, and the enemy was heavily fortified.

Right now, they had the advantage of surprise. Hopefully, they would be able to assemble the additional soldiers as soon as possible.

Julia rang the Queen to request more troops and it was immediately approved. Ceres continued planning, arranging for the four of them to split up and lead a group of soldiers down in order to divide and conquer rather than force through a single choke point.

While they waited, Ceres took a bit of a break. So far, everything seemed to be going well. Having Cardenia as a hidden backer allowed him to gain a foothold in Rockhold. As a ‘dead’ citizen, he would never be able to move around freely in the main city of Athen. After he completed this mission, he planned to meet the ‘White Fang’ and finally get a lead on his friends.

He stared at the dominant Queen’s Tower. The large tower was the main feature of Rockhold, towering over everybody else. Ceres slightly admired Cardenia for carving out a throne for herself here despite all that had happened. It was true that none of the Dynasty’s members was useless.

“Well looks like it’s pretty smooth sailing from here on out – go in and bust the lab, and I’ll finally meet the ‘White Fang’!”

However, just two minutes after Julia requested troops, Ceres suddenly noticed a large amount of movement in the underground complex. He could see the human figures scurrying about, as though something big had happened. Even the target was frantically running around in the room, before seemingly being escorted by a few others. “What the…?”

Ceres motioned to Julia and Saater, wanting to explain to them what was happening when a blinding flash suddenly erupted from the Queen’s Tower, shocking the four of them.

Before they could even utter words of surprise, the shockwave of the air and the heat hit them head-on, causing the hovercar to almost flip over.

The explosion shook the entirety of the city, the shockwave causing many weak pre-fab buildings to crumble and utilities to suffer heavy damage as the cavern rumbled. What was worse was that the symbol of the Queen’s Guards authority, the tower itself, had been attacked. It was now a burning wreck with a copious amount of billowing smoke, the flames painting the scene red.

Julia didn’t waste any time, quickly rushing to the hovercar and stabilizing it down. She quickly called the Queen’s Tower, but no one was replying. “Shit, who attacked us?” An entire minute passed, while Ceres quickly tried to think as fast as he could.

Finally, the connection went through, and Julia’s colleague Rei was on the other side of the call. “Julia, we’ve been attacked!”

“I can see that, who did it? How bad is the damage?” Julia frantically asked.

“It’s terrible, the Queen is nowhere to be found. There’s a hostile force in the tower that’s the same as the ones who attacked you!” Before Rei could continue, a loud scream was heard and the connection had been fully cut off. “Shit!” Julia cursed.

Ceres suddenly stood up and grabbed Julia’s shoulder. “Julia, Saater, you guys head back to the Queen’s Tower to find out what’s going on. My devices are telling me that the enemy below are moving as well. I believe the two matters are related – go quickly! If we don’t move now, the enemy will get away!”

“Wait, can the two of you handle it on your own?” Saater asked.

“We have our ways, we’ll try to stall the target as long as we can.” Ceres nodded.

Julia and Saater looked at each other, before nodding. They passed a good number of grenades to Ceres and Halyon before taking the hovercar back to the Queen’s Tower. Ceres smiled to himself, knowing it was always good to keep a few explosives handy.

Halyon cracked his knuckles, stretching his limbs in his new exosuit made by Ceres. He had already used it in the previous battle for the temple.

While it was not technologically advanced as other exosuits, Ceres had designed it exactly the same body shape as the Keeper’s exosuit, which made him feel like it was a second layer of skin, or more accurately like a second chunk of meat.

“What are you stretching for?” Ceres asked.

“Oh, I’m getting ready to support you from behind.” Halyon smiled meekly. Of course, he did not plan on fighting, not when there was a super strong fighter right next to him as his ally.

“Are you crazy? You’re going through the other entrance alone to pincer attack their retreat as much as possible!”

“WHAT?!”