18 Chapter IV The Artifact - Part 4

"Why do you suppose he decided to not send us all in groups?" John questioned as he checked his ammo, showcasing about half reserves of ammo.

"All part of the plan John," Lee told him as he poked his head around the corner, "Don't question it." The next aisle was clear, they progressed onwards until something came up. "Wait," Juniper told them as she halted with a hand raised with her fingers clenched together. She initiated her thermal sights by pressing a button on the side of her helmet. She had suspicions of what the heat signature could be, it was a weirdly shaped torso with what seemed to be a crushed human skull. "We don't want to make any sudden moves."

"Agreed," Kate also activated her thermal vision as well, able to see the same enemies Juniper was seeing through her sights.

"Humans!" The enemy group exclaimed from afar, shooting them with the intent to not capture them, but to kill them.

Juniper quickly jumped her gun at them, locked on her sights, and killed them firing heavy caliber bullets. Squish! As the bullets slammed inside their chests and out through their backs, creating a hole inside and out they're bodies.

"Excellent work June!" Kate praised her giving her a tight hug, Juniper was turning blue as she begged her to stop hugging her tightly. "Kate enough, you're gonna kill her before the Scars do," Lee commanded her.

"Sorry….." Kate quickly released herself from hugging Juniper's body. "Let's move on eh?" John asked them as he passed Kate, she frowned under her helmet, she had a quick thought to rebel back at him, but she kept her cool as she understood the situation that they were in. She kept moving ahead with the rest of the team to recover a ship.

The Delta Team arrived at the hangerbay with quitiness, they kept to the shadows to avoid detection from the enemy. The area was quiet, no footsteps, no grunts, no talking, it put enough edge on the team to draw a bit of fear.

"Do not fear your enemy," Lee quietly spoke to them as they maneuvered around the shadows, "We are a team, remember that."

A sigh of relief was withdrawn from their breaths, John scanned his eyes around the area to provide coverage from all angles to avoid any harm. Kate did the same, but she kept her pointer finger just beside the trigger to ready herself. Juniper was calm, focused, and composed as she moved beside boxes and crates along with her father, Lee. A part of Juniper wanted to hold her father's hand and hug him to comfort herself and him, but she knew the responsibility that he and her were assigned with.

They drift past a few crates and see a wide range of spaceship carriers, along with a few fighter ships as well. Juniper quietly climbed on top of a tall what appeared to be what was a steel crate to gain a wider view of the hanger to better understand what was going on.

"We look clear for the most part Lee," she spoke inside her helmet using the secure private chat channel to respond with her teammates. "They're still searching the scene of the crime to find any traces of us most likely."

"Okay that's good, we still have time to cover our escape," Lee told the team through the voice chat, it was a matter of time before they arrived at the destination in the new world they were about to explore.

Locus searched the entire room to find any evidence of future plans, orders, etcetera. He scrolled through the holographic map terminal with viewage of an island surrounded by water. There was also a volcano at the beach, there was also a structure with similar design to the floating foreign object that the Scars are carrying through light speed. He tried activating a voice command outloud to make a test, "Translate." Inside his HUD showcased a translation from the strange writings to a very choppy English language, a lot of the text didn't make sense, but one translation did come out: TranSfur ObJeCt; Artifact T0 GenEsis 2937ehddsschopseuynsdsansk---- The rest returned to the choppy language.

"The Artifact huh? I wonder if that's what they call that structure."

Locus continued to search the holographic map of the island, he accidentally pressed a touch pad and it showed the fleet of Dreadnoughts and the cone shaped object arrived near the planet's island and just continued to hover near the open waters. His eyes opened and it was a clarification on something, "The Scars are bringing this 'Artifact' to this island and they must be using this island for something."

Locus quickly tried to contact Delta Team through his helmet, but all of a sudden the Dreadnought ship abruptly stopped and they arrived at a mysterious planet. He saw the sight from the wide windows from the room he's in. He also the several Dreadnoughts ships and the other cone shaped structure presumptively named the Artifact. They had finally arrived near the planet he saw on the holographic map, the next objective was one simple step, discover this new world.