Solar Warden

The drill Part 92

Meanwhile the rest of SW-5 accompanied by SW-6 arrived at the cave.

Knight was already studying the sublevel. He then went with the team leaders Newman and Samuel for a briefing further away from the prisoners.

The mining laser was on again and continued increasing the width of the entrance.

"We have now a tuff decision to make. Newman show us the sublevel," Knight said.

Newman showed the map on his laptop which he used as a tablet now. The analysis team on the Icarus did a good job. It was not the finalized version. But the important stuff was on it. The tablet went around the group of leaders which inspected it.

"What about the door. Can we open it?" Ryan asked.

Samuel used his tablet to show the door. It was locked, more massive then the others of the generator room. Also it seems to have a different mechanic.

"We can drill everything with the laser. However, this will take quite more time. I would guess a day or more. Depending how thick it is. It looks very thick," Newman replied.

"What about the three door hinges on the side can we blast them?" Pearce asked.

"With special explosive from the Icarus, yes. But the door needs to be open. So it would crash to the ground. This is probably similar to vault doors. Once closed the hinges have nothing to do with the door locking mechanism. We would only make it harder to open," Newman explained.

"So what are our option to open it?" Knight asked.

"As I mentioned the laser. Maybe hacking their system too, which does not mean it is connected to the door. There are sure cameras down there so they know what we are doing down there. So planting explosives on the hinges and getting them to open the door won't work," Newman answered.

"So we are down to try to make a deal with the prisoners. Not knowing our opponent makes this a risky bet. What we know of them makes it also unlikely to work. The other option would be to place charges on the production line and lure them out. This we can even combine with placing charges on the door hinges, if we can find and disable the nearby cameras," Pearce said.

"An interesting option. But as we want our people back. This would force us to fight us through to them. However, they would only open the door if they see a chance to stop us. If they are low on soldiers they might just wait. Which means the only chance is to deal with them or deal with the door," Newman noted. He had his tablet back and checked the production line.

"I would call this a classic trap. If we want our people, we have to go down. They can lock the lift anytime they want. Let us play with the door and open it when they feel prepared. Down there we have no air support and a smaller team could be fast outnumbered," Freeman said.

"Right and we know they have these communication devices. Sure one to connect to other star systems of them like we found it in the alien ship. This means we have a time limit. They sure already called for support. Drilling one or two days is no option," Newman added now.

"Then we are down to the risky prisoner exchange. We need options if this fails." Knight did not like his, but was willing to do it if they had some follow up.

"The lift doors are not strong. If they block it, we put holes in. Like we did it with the other. But because of the height it is not a good option for retreat. However, reinforcement is possible," Pearce noted.

"True. But if the lift is up this could be difficult. This is a very heavy lift so the bottom must be very strong," Newman added trying to find a better solution. No one said anything, all were thinking now. "However, do you see this overlapping area on the map. There the top level's bottom is not reinforced by the metal structure. This means with a little drilling and some explosive we can crash this. So we should have a hole where we can even send the bikes down. What I don't recommend in a fight. You know what will happen if the bikes get hit by an alien weapon and you are over eight meter in the air."

"Still, this option is a good one we could use for a surprise. This would mean two teams go down try to bargain. But we would be unable to blow the hinges. This would mean the enemy could retreat and close the door. Then we gained nothing except the chance for a prisoner exchange." Knight wanted better options but at least it would now make a bit more sense to try.

"We still got Kelsey's hacking attempts. That is more like the laser drill with no time estimation." Newman had no more clues.

"If we try this exchange. We have four SW teams as backup available. But blowing a hole into the bottom does not give us access to use all fire power we have. Only a few can support from the hole. This makes it not very effective. It might work if they have not much forces left. But if they have it is useless," Freeman added his concerns.

"Other problem. They already disrupted our communication. So we might not synchronize when to blow the location up. It should surprise them, so we can't prepare it. Drilling a hole and planting charges will take at least two minutes," Newman noted.

"No, problem. Use the alien rifles, shoot a hole wait ten seconds for the cooling. Then throw the charges in. This should be below one minute," Pearce suggested.

"That might work. I will make a test to be sure." Newman didn't want to speculate too much with explosive.

"It's a bold bet that they do a prisoner exchange. I guess they take the chances to get more. We know they like to get samples from us. So when we go down they might just try to shot us and get us behind the door. Then the reinforcement can't do much," Diaz said.

"That's the problem. Can we in such a situation hold the line till you blow up the ground and support us. As we know you will do this here." Knight pointed on the location on the map. "We can try to hold the line there." Now he pointed at a position further ahead. "This should give you the chance to get down without being exposed to much. With some bikes we should have enough firepower."

"We already had problems to use the bikes in an ongoing fight. They work if the distance is far enough and they are already in sentry mode. Down there we might have the distance problem again," Pearce pointed out his experience.

"Is there any way we can use them like the combat drones on the forest? The Omega Protocol worked quite well." Knight asked.

"Maybe. This would take some time for preparation. Also it would be a dangerous thing. The Omega Protocol worked, because only the enemy was in the target zone and we could use the superior speed of the drones. What do we do if they interrupt communication? I would not recommend this," Newman replied.

"I don't want to lose too much time. It will be a risky attempt. As sooner we act our opponent also has less time to prepare. The plan is now SW-1 and SW-4 go with the prisoners down. If something goes wrong, we have to blow up the bottom and adapt as good as we can. Ryan, you will have the command. If it doesn't make sense to support like we planned, find another way as long there it time. I will now inform the Captain. Then we will arm up and go in," Knight decided.

The Captain was not quite happy about the plan, but he had no better option than to leave. Knight was sure his squad and SW-4 would have enough firepower. Also there was the possibility the door won't open at all. Then the discussion was nearly for nothing and time would fade away.