The need had come first for planet Legion.
Michael had literal tons of these cases in store rooms to arm his recruits if he needed to. At least until they could build up a suitable force on site with an armory.
“Holy shit,” Julia said.
“First and foremost…” Felix said, moving to a glowing panel off to one side. He pressed the activation button. Lights flickered on, and multiple displays to the right of the panel he was working in turned on.
Pressing a finger to the “close door” function, Felix heard the cement above grinding closed. Before the entry had even closed, Felix pulled the wet cloth free and flicked it towards the stairwell.
“Figure out what you want, but don’t open anything. Every crate should have a contents list on the top,” Felix said. Moving over to the next panel he pressed his thumb to the security reader. The screen flickered and opened up into the launch page and he started to read it over.
“This… this is incredible,” Julia said, moving to the closest crate. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I get the impression this is a small cache,” Steve said, leaning over a crate, scanning the list.
“Why do you say that?” Amy asked, staying close to his side.
“The crate itself has an entire designation, and at the end is a dash with the letter S. If I don’t miss my guess about our intrepid leader,” Steve drawled. “The S denotes this is a small crate, or a small cache, or a small load-out.”
“Yes,” Felix said, then promptly tuned them out.
He was gliding through the screen to figure out what he had access to.
Manifests, shipping logs, inventory and warehouse expectations, distribution, links to the other caches… where’s the communication panel? This is all localized to the city, but nothing linking back to Legion HQ.
A sickening fear starting to build in his heart, Felix closed this panel down and moved to the next.
Mashing his thumb into the security scanner he impatiently waited. As soon as the screen opened up, he began to flip through the settings and windows. This one was more about the building itself. Everything and anything to do with the pawnshop.
Grunting, Felix closed that one up and moved to the last panel. Barely managing to keep his fear in check, he crammed his thumb into the security window.
The landing page opened with the single word “communications” as the title.
Ah, here we are. I was getting worried.
Managing to get through the windows he began to cycle through all the available options. Finally he found what he was looking for. A simple message system that tied all the caches to the local HQ.
Opening the program, Felix began to type in a quick rescue and recovery request to pick him up. It wouldn’t take long for someone to get out here with enough forces to break through, retrieve him, and get out.
Snapping his finger down on the enter key, he reached up with his other hand and hit the send button.
Perfect. Now we just sit back and wait for rescue. This wasn’t too bad.
Though definitely learned a few things.
The hourglass icon on the screen flipped over and then froze. It changed into a spinning circle, and a window popped up.
Error. There is no connection to HQ. The message could not be sent. The diagnostic tool reports that there is a signal interruption that appears to be a fiber cut.
Would you like to log your message and send it once the connection has been re-established?
Felix ground his teeth together and selected the no option.
He wasn’t going to get the quick exit he’d been hoping for.
“Alright. Let’s figure out everything we want to take with us, and get some shut-eye. We’ll need to be ready to move tonight with whatever we can carry. We can always make a second trip if we need to, but I’d rather not,” Felix said, turning around to his small group. “I’ll pop open a camping supply crate and start pulling out what we need for a decent rest. Sleep in turns so everyone gets a chance to go through the lists and sleep. One person up, everyone else sleeping. Questions?”
Everyone shook their head.
“Let’s hop to then. Quick quick like a bunny,” Felix said, clapping his hands together.
Chapter 31 - Reinvigorated -
The ground itself shook and rumbled, knocking Felix out of a dead sleep.
Staring blearily around himself, it took a few seconds to remember he was still in the Legion cache bunker.
“What the fu—”
Everything trembled and shook. The rumble of what sounded like a freight train passing overhead was audible.
“Oh my god,” Steve said from the stairwell, staring upward. “What the hell is going on?”
“No idea,” Felix said, the way he was woken up clearing his mind pretty quickly. “But it sounds bad. Have there been any super fights in this area?”
“No. They all went to the front. The worst we get is patrols. Usually bored ones that are more concerned with getting back to base,” Amy said.
Before Felix could respond, a massive shaking took over everything. Cases and supplies went tumbling about in different directions as the world seemed as if it would come apart.
The sound was deafening as well. Even as well sheltered as they were, the sound was as if he’d stuck his head into a machine.
Dust fell from the flickering lightbulbs above them as the cacophony of sound continued.
Felix got his feet under him and started to secure their cases and supplies. He was helpless to whatever was going on above him. He could at least be productive here and get things ready.
Motioning to the others, Felix set to work and got down to business. Hopefully it would distract him as well as he planned, and for everyone else as well.
Julia didn’t hesitate and started to work as a pair with Felix, taking guidance from his actions and finger directions.
Steve managed to shake himself out of the daze. He rounded up the others and started to work on sorting out cases they’d tagged to open, and the ones they had no interest in.
Everyone got to work, and did their best to ignore what sounded like the world ending above them.
There were few breaks in the onslaught of sound and shaking.
Right at ten o’clock—and Felix only noted this because the panel chimed once at the top of every hour and he actually heard it—everything had gone calm.
Quiet.
Silence filled the room. Felix could actually hear his ears ringing now. What had sounded like constant explosions had ceased.
Felix and all of his people were all staring at the stairwell. As if they could somehow see to the pawnshop above.
“Amy, check it out. Don’t go too far though. Just see what you can see from the stairs,” Felix said. It felt strange to use his voice.
To talk.
There’d been no possibility of saying anything since it the shelling had started.
Moving over to the security panel, Felix tagged the entrance to open.
Amy nodded her head and unhesitatingly scurried up the stairs. The grinding of the bay doors was loud, but not half as loud as what they’d just gone through.
When she got to the top she stopped.
“I can’t get out,” she called down. “The entire room is collapsed. I can see the sky above though. We might be able to climb out? Oh my god…”
“What is it?” Felix asked
“I can see Powereds fighting in the sky in the distance. It’s… there’s so many. I think… I think they shelled the city,” Amy said.
There’s no way they’d shell the city, would they? The goal isn’t to kill their own citizens. To destroy their own cities.
They’d want to them back, wouldn’t they?