Chapter 200: One Hundred Seventy Five Part 1

Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]

Days after of Crash landing/ 4

Uninhabited Island / Clearing of Escape Capsule # 405

Galactic Standard Time / After 0940

Jessie

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

As he let his memories wash over him, Jessie felt his blood surge. He knew that Zevortro didn’t mean for him to be reminded of his youth. The fool didn’t even know the first thing about Jessie. But the few regrets he had always came from that time. And once again, he had let them show. He had to work on that.

He looked towards the other weapons. The idea of giving a pistol a blade upgrade was something that he knew was effective. He had a few of them on his ship back on the Spirit after all! The number of times that those had saved his life was something that he couldn’t forget. “So time to make some of my special pistols then.”

“Hey Jessie? Could you bring over one of those rifles?!” Zevortro’s voice caused Jessie to stop.

He looked around and saw Zevortro and Vivis both waving at him by a container. Jessie scowled and then he looked at the container for a moment, and then he realized what Zevortro meant.

With a scowl on his face, he grabbed a rifle before walking towards them. As he moved, he saw others slowly turn and look at them. Even Bryke and Dalila gazed at them, Dalila slowly moving towards them with Bryke following her.

“So what have we got here?” Jessie said as he handed over the rifle to Zevortro.

Jessie let his eyes go over the container and he frowned. There was something about the shape that bothered him, something that was familiar. As he looked at it, Zevortro activated the rifle’s blade.

“We don’t know. So let’s cut it open and see what we find!” Zevortro said with a grin.

“Cut what?” Jessie asked before his eyes went down and he saw the lock. His eyes widened and he knew that he had to act fast. “HOLD!”

Jessie’s hand shot out and pushed the rifle’s barrel up, grabbing it just behind the blade. Zevortro blinked and looked at him as Dalila came forward and gasped.

“Yeah, why’d you stop me? Zevortro asked as he looked at Jessie.

“Is that what I think it is?” Dalila asked horror in her voice.

Jessie nodded as he looked at the lock and scowled. “Yeah. That’s a blast lock. Older model too.”

“Blast lock? Tell me that’s not what it sounds like. I mean, how big can a blast be from just the lock?” Vivis asked, a note of panic in her voice as she took a step back.

Zevortro meanwhile looked at the rifle in his hands as started to sweet.

Jessie only sighed and shook his head as he looked at Dalila.

Dalila sighed and nodded. “The explosives aren’t in the lock, they’re in the wall the lock is on. Good device, stable as long as it keeps sending electricity through a circuit. You could drop this from space and if the lock remains intake it won’t go off!”

“So we’re safe then? So how big is the boom? Destroy how man feet?” Zevortro asked as he tried to keep calm.

Jessie looked at him and chuckled darkly. “Big enough to take out twice the size of the clearing!”

“Oh. That’s……. inventive. Who uses these things?” Vivis asked, sounding faint.

“Lots of people, and this size? Could be anything. But how did it get into our supplies?” Bryke asked with a growl in his voice.

“No clue, but we have to find out what’s in this first,” Jessie said with a small smile.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“How do we do what?!” Zevortro asked shock in his voice.

“Simple. We just cut away the explosives and remove them. We need to move to the null gravity field first though,” Jessie said with a smirk. Then he frowned as he realized that he didn’t have everything that he needed to do this. “After we add a few blades to pistols. This work is a lot better with a blade you can control.”

Jessie turned and walked towards the weapons. He knew exactly what he had to do, and he better do it fast. “You guys move that container, carefully!”

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

Bryke

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

“Yeah. Just leave us to move the explosives. No problem!” Bryke called out as Jessie walked away. Slowly he turned and looked at the bomb container, and tried not to swallow. There was nothing that he hated more than handling explosives. Getting away from this work at the mine back home was one of the reasons he signed on! But there was nothing more to do but work smart.

“Okay, I’ve got more experience with explosives, so I’m in charge! I want those people moved back, ten feet! Zevortro, you, me, and Dalila, we’re moving this thing!” Di3 said with a scowl on his face as he looked around. His eyes fell on Vivis and he almost sighed. “Vivis, go and tell Duncan what we found. I think the chief will want to weigh in on this?”

Everyone looked at him, shock in their eyes. Bryke understood that. He had spent most of the voyage staying quiet and doing as he was told. Most of them probably didn’t even think that he could do anything like this.

“So what experience do you have with explosives then?” Zevortro asked, a note of hope in his voice.

“I grew up in a mining town. My science teacher from fifth grade on was the mine’s demolition excerpt. My summer job was carrying explosives for five years. I know explosives,” Bryke said flatly.

“Alright then, I’ll go tell the chief!” Vivis said with a smile as she ran away.

Bryke only sighed and looked at the container. Then he looked at the other two. “So I’ll carry the back, you two lead with the sides. And let’s make this nice and slow.”

With a look at Dalila, Zevortro nodded and they all moved to pick up the container. With a slow measured walk, they carried the container into the null gravity. Bryke swallowed as they lowered the container, knowing just what he was putting down.

“Okay, let’s just wait here a while. It’s stable as long as nothing messes with the lock, right Dalila?” Zevortro asked, a note of hope in his voice.

“Yeah. All we need to do now is wait for the cutters. Frankly, this is the hard part. Waiting,” Dalila said with a scowl as she looked around.

Bryke looked at her, and then he felt a small surge of fear. “Something bothering you?”

Dalila looked at him for a few seconds before looking down at the container. “It’s this container. The shape….. let’s just say I have a bad feeling. I hope that I’m wrong about this, I truly do.”

“How bad?” Zevortro asked, dread in his voice.

Bryke understood his friend's feelings. Knowing what Dalila was, anything that made her worried was something that he wanted to know about.

Dalila looked away and then sighed, shaking her head before looking away. “There’s an old mantra around the guild. Don’t say how it can go wrong. Let the thought die if it’s not true.”

“Don’t tempt fate?” Zevortro said, smiling a little.

Bryke looked away and saw Jessie walking, his task done.

“Okay, let’s get ready to do this. First, we need to slowly cut through the sides here,” Jessie said pointing to the right end.

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

Duncan

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

Duncan leaned back and sight as he calmly looked at the screen in his office. The decision to play movies for everyone was the best he could have made. Most people were content with the movies, and the rest were pacified. But Duncan knew the best that that this did was buy him time. The way that they were forced to do nothing was starting to make everyone a little crazy.

And he could understand that if he was being honest. They just wanted something to do, and all of them were itching for something to do. The fact that he had originally planned for them to help, but then the monsters had appeared. Once they had the factory ship, then they could handle everything.

“Good choice on the movie, I mean a comedy was just what everyone needed. A good laugh will take their minds off this,” Vivian said with a small smile.

Duncan chuckled and shook his head. “Thank you for finding those databases. Who knew that most of the last few years of entertainment would be in those ‘buildings’ you found.”

“Yeah, that is concerning if I’m honest,” Vivian said with a slight scowl on her face.

Duncan felt his good mood vanish as she spoke what he had been thinking. “Yeah, I get it. Why wasn’t I told about this? I mean it seems like something that the Security Chief should have known!”

That was what Duncan had thought when she told him what was in the ‘buildings’ her drones had found. Besides all the supplies that the escape capsule had, he should have known. There was something here, something that he couldn’t see. But together? All of this made him feel that this mystery was deeper than it seemed. Part of him was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. When that happened, he knew it would be quite big.

A knocking at the door caused them both to look up, startling them out of their thoughts. Duncan raised an eyebrow at Vivian and she nodded.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Vivian frowned. “It’s just V2 chief. And I think that’s something up. She looks worried.”

Duncan only sighed and shook his head. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

“Because you know how our luck has been sir,” Vivian said with a grin.

Duncan could only chuckle a bit, giving her the point.

“You’re right. Come!” He barked and Vivis opened the door and came in, closing it behind her. She looked around, trying to keep calm.

“I….. We found something in the containers. Something, that has a bomb on it. A big one,” Vivis said shakily.

Duncan looked at her, and then he felt his blood rush through his ears.

“WHAT!?” He bellowed as he shot up.

“How big!?” Vivian asked horror in her voice.

“Big enough to destroy this whole capsule. Jessie said it was a ‘blast lock’ or something,” Vivis said softly.

“There’s something here that someone put a blast lock on!? Why?” Vivian demanded.

Duncan looked at her and then he felt that shoe dropping. “What’s a blast lock, and how bad is it?”

“Bad is an understatement. The blast on a normal one would have destroyed the entire clearing! And they put one on something they put on an evacuation capsule!?”

“WHAT!?” Duncan bellowed in anger. He couldn’t even believe that someone had been that amazingly stupid.

Yeah, Jessie and Dalila said it was that big,” Vivis said softly.

“Why in the universe would someone ever use something like that!?” Duncan asked horror in his voice.

“People use them when they want to things to be kept out of thieves hands. They’re used when people don’t care if they're destroyed. Things that are top secret or could implicate them in crimes. Doesn’t help that crime syndicates use them to protect smuggled goods,” Vivian said, frowning. “But the thing is, there’s a trick to getting around them. And only people like me and my comrades know them.”

“So if you’re not one of you, if you try and open it you’re dead?” Duncan asked dryly as he got up. “I need to see what’s in that thing, now.”

“That’s why I’m here sir. The others knew you’d need to know about this. But they should have cut it open by now,” Vivis said with a slight tremor in her voice.

Duncan nodded and looked at her, his mind going dark places. If the passengers or Bradford found out about this, they’d need to explain how they fixed it. Plus there was a change that Bradford was responsible for this. If he remembered the plans of the ship right, this capsule had been near where Bradford had been. All in all, this was the other shoe he had known was coming.