"What did you want to talk about with Montwik?" I asked Reneesh as soon as he sat down beside me. He was attacking a plate of steaming food and didn't even bother acknowledging. "Reneesh, what is that you discussed with Montwik in private? Answer me." I repeated. "Chill, man. It's nothing." He replied, not making eye contact. "TELL ME!" I yelled, banging my fist on the table. A few soldiers around us stopped eating and looked at the ruckus we were causing. Reneesh calmly took his food and sat in another table, still not looking into either of our eyes. "Let's go, Souvik. He'll come to his senses soon." I said to Souvik, getting up and taking one last look at him. "Where are we going now?" Souvik asked me. "The armoury. That's where everyone's heading." I replied.
It was not hard finding the armoury even in a building this big. For starters, there were way boards all over the place and most of the soldiers were heading there and all we had to do was follow them. We bumped into Montwik, right when we were about to head into the armoury. "Hey!" He said, surprised. "We came here to get our weapons." I replied. "Where is Reneesh? He told me he was heading for breakfast and said that you guys would be there." Montwik asked. "He's still eating. Anyways, what did you guys talk about?" I asked him, thinking atleast Montwik would tell us what was inside Reneesh's head. "It's nothing, Rithvik. Got nothing to do with this. Anyways, come into the Armoury, we have a whole bunch of new weapons to choose from." He said, changing the topic. "Alright, let's go." I replied, knowing that there was no way either Montwik or Reneesh were going to tell me what they talked about.
We entered the huge armoury which was stacked with rows and rows of guns. I could see about a dozen soldiers putting on their suits and loading their weapons with ammo. "Here we are. Choose your weapons, and I will get you your helmets." Montwik said, pointing towards the various types of weapons and shields. Some of them looked a lot like the ones we used back on Earth, and some very sophisticated. "What do you think, Souvik?" I asked him, referring to the choice of weapons. "I'd choose the standard issue. The laser guns, just like we have on Earth." He replied, picking one up. "Just what I had in mind!" I said, picking one up too. I suddenly heard footsteps behind me and turned around to find Reneesh behind me, not making eye contact with neither of us. "Alright, I'm not going to ask what happened between you two again. But I have a hunch I'll get to know about it anyway." I told him. "Don't be so sure about that." He replied, his voice sounding dead serious, and there was something else in his voice too, fear. "Listen man, we are going to get them back, alright? Safe and sound." I said, trying to reassure him. "I don't need your pep talks, Rithvik. Step aside, I'll choose my weapons too." He replied, walking towards the shelves. He went over and picked up a laser gun, just like the rest of us but then walked over to the hand weapons sections and picked up a wicked-looking sword. "You good with a sword?" I asked him. "There are a lot of things which I'm good at." He replied, hiding the sword inside his suit. "Let's go, Montwik is waiting outside." Reneesh said, walking out of the room. We grabbed our ammo and our headsets which were identified by our numbers which were stamped onto the headset.
***
"All stations, attention. All Crux Army and Class One personnel must board their respective ships and jets immediately. Boarding of Vortex Army starts in seven minutes. Wheels up in twenty minutes. Base Twenty through Twenty seven have launched their ships. Base twelve through base nineteen will launch in five minutes. I repeat, all personnel must board their respective ships and jets immediately. Armory shuts down in five minutes."
"Rithvik, here." Montwik called, from the other end of the corridor. We rushed towards him and found that he had some last minutes instructions for us. "Listen, the rescue team is the best we have on this planet and the Crux Army put together. And you'll have both Profus and Emanta with you." He started, suspiciously looking at Reneesh when he mentioned Profus's name. A sudden thought struck my mind. Could Montwik and Reneesh be talking about Profus an hour ago? "Rithvik, are you listening?" Montwik said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Yeah, yeah, tell me." I replied, looking dazed. "The both of you are on this team only because you requested for it. Stay out of the way, and everything would go well. And your team will go on a jet onto the planet which would be launched from our ship, so you'll be travelling with us for some period of time. But, I will be too busy to meet you guys. So here they are." He said, handing us a silver rectangular box. "This consists of three pistol-type guns which shoot out electrical beams so powerful they would incinerate the target almost immediately unlike your laser guns which wound the target which leads to his death. There are only a handful of these weapons and they are very valuable. And remember this, do not tell Profus you have these weapons. He did not approve of my idea of arming you with these. So, hide it from him, until the end of this. Use it only if it is necessary." He said, handing it over to us. "Why didn't Profus agree with you arming us with these?" I asked Montwik. "He has his reasons, I guess." He replied. Just then, Jack, came walking down the corridor and I immediately hid the box behind my back. He informed Montwik that all the Crux Amry personnel were boarded and that we were supposed to start boarding soon. He then gave me a cold stare and walked. "Umm.. Rithvik? Why did he stare at you like that? What did you do to him?" Reneesh asked me, removing the doubt tha I had imagined that. "He has been acting all weird since the yesterday night, after you told me your story about Profus killing Jack. But we don't have time for this. We have to start boarding. Put your headsets on while we are boarding. It's going to be very noisy out there. But the comms are offline, so you won't be able to talk to anybody over the comms system." He said., putting his own headset over his head. He gestured us to follow him and we reached a huge door which was locked by biometrics. Montwik unlocked the door and a huge gush of wind hit us right after he opened the door. There were rows and rows of jets of two different colors- Red and Black, which probably were the colors of the Crux and the Vortex. Montwik pointed his hand to the roof, probably trying to tell us that we had to go to the level above where we were right now.
We boarded an elevator kind of machine along with about a dozen other soldiers. I looked at their identification tag numbers and realised that they were a part of the rescue team along with Reneesh and I. They seem to have realised this too and one of them nodded at me, a gesture which I reciprocated. The elevator finally reached the level we were supposed to get off and the two doors opened with a hissing sound. "Whoa!" I exclaimed to myself. "This is beautiful." I thought to myself. There were about fifty huge ships on this level, with each on having it's name written on it. Montwik walked towards the nearest ship which had Beta Force One written on it.
"Welcome to Beta One." Montwik said, as we took off our headsets. "This is where most of the brains behind the operations are. Everything the attack teams and rescue teams do is monitored and controlled by four ships including ours. Chloe here will show you your cabins. Make yourself comfortable." He said, walking away towards the bridge.
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The long delayed chapter is finally here!
Thanks for reading this chapter!
Constructive criticism is appreciated as always!
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-LPS21/Rithvik.