Astral Legacy Book 1

27

"Omall have you got that thing cracked yet?" asked Kale.

"Shortly," Omall tapped away at the device intently when a voice began speaking.

"Task Master Kimek please report your position Tarex and Dinai have failed to report in what is your status?" The voice spoke in Ekarvian and was coming from a communicator.

"Work faster," Kershala said calmly but conveying urgency. Omall's hands began moving faster over the devices interface and Kershala sat ready to download the new information.

"Got it," said Omall after a few long seconds. Kershala accessed the information and retrieved the updated layout, the knew map showed a lab in the upper echelon of the facility that was marked as the primary research division. Kershala was certain they would find what they were after there. The only problem lied in that the power core they would need to find was below them. "That's not good." Omall had also taken the information and looked at Kershala. "What do we do can we hit both areas with enough time? Once we hit the lab, I am sure we will be swarmed by the Shironians."

"What's wrong?" asked Kale.

"The lab we need to get to is at the peak of the facility but the power core is in the bottom," explained Omall while Kershala pondered the situation.

"Then we split up right?"

"I do not like the idea of separating, if the rest of the guards here are modified, they will not be easy to deal with. If they got the better of Rotabu then Omall and Lenari..." said Kershala. Suddenly an alarm sounded and seemed to be coming from all around them, the slaves that had been working stepped back from what they were doing and stood straight and still. "Come, we need to get out of the mine, there is very little cover here and they will have us at a disadvantage if we get caught in the open. There is a storage area not far!" Kershala began to run toward where he knew there would be cover based on the map's information. There was a parts storage area just off the mine that wasn't far away, from there they could access the maintenance tunnels. Everyone followed close behind him, they could hear the sound of the large doors opening in different areas around them as they ran. Two guards walked around a corner ahead of them and Kershala dispatched one with a hard-right hook while Kale took into the other one; attacking with a combo that Kershala had taught him during their training. Kershala stopped briefly and looked at Kale he was almost surprised at how quick he responded.

"What?" he said. The four of them started running again and took a corner, at the end of the corridor Kershala could see the door they were moving toward.

"That's where we need to go." They came up on the door quickly and Omall jumped onto the console attempting to open it. Kershala couldn't get a clear read on the mechanism for some reason instead having to rely on Omall to get through it.

"All military units be advised that we may have intruders, a blood profile was found that does not match any of the current stock," the voice echoed all around them.

"Hopefully those soldiers we killed won't need to report in anytime soon," said Kale as he turned to look back the way they came from. A few long seconds passed and Kershala was starting to get nervous at how long Omall was taking.

"Omall do you have it?"

"Soon," Omall tapped away at the interface in front of him, "Almost there." Omall had come off to Kershala as someone who didn't take his responsibilities very seriously but when he was under pressure, he was remarkably focused. "Got it!" The door jolted open and the four of them entered the storage room. The door shut behind them and Omall used the adjacent interface to seal it.

"What the hell!" Something startled Kale and he quickly held up his rifle. Kershala turned from Omall to realize that the parts storage was still storage but now it was storing something different. He counted fifty slaves lined up across the center of the room single file in in five rows. They were modified like the others and didn't seem to respond to their presence. Small tubes of green fluid seemed to run to the modifications from the ceiling. "Kershala you could have warned us. You didn't say it was storage for more slaves."