Chapter 128: Mission accomplished. (1/2)

Arima and Tieria rested together among the ruins of the damaged hangar for a few minutes. When the robot exploded for the third time, the duo ultimately stood up.

Arima looked at Tieria. ”You should leave. Even if the airstrike can destroy the surface, the data contained here and some of the materials can still be recovered. I'll place the G-Mines to destroy the rest,” he said.

Tieria shook her head. ”I'll follow you. Can I just ask for a single moment?” She asked and trotted toward Tiria's body.

She crouched and grabbed a red-colored grenade that was lying around. She calmly put it on Tiria's body before clenching her hands together in front of her chest.

Arima solemnly watched and closed his eyes. After ten seconds, Tieria stepped back and raised her gun. She breathed in and stabilized her aim. She then fired and hit the grenade which exploded and immolated Tiria.

”Let's go,” Tieria uttered afterward and turned around with tears in the corners of her eyes. Arima felt quite hurt as he saw her like that. Tiria was undeniably one of his best friends and the member of the squad who accepted him the fastest and always put him at ease. And Tieria was the one that would always be kind and informal with him. He even started to feel acutely considerate toward her since the moment he started doing missions with her.

It was without saying that Arima felt a huge pain in his heart when one of them died and the other cried just in front of him. Although he was incredibly mature for his age, he was still sixteen and his vision of human life was still rather undeveloped. He knew that when he killed, it was a for a reason and he could tolerate that. But when he saw people at his side dying, his beliefs were suddenly disturbed and he experienced sorrow for the first time.

He nodded at Tieria whilst thinking about all of that and ran with her toward a spiral corridor that led even further underground. When they reached the end of it, they stumbled upon a thick door of metal.

Fortunately for them, it was unlocked and they were able to enter quite easily. What was on the other side were oval objects arranged in different rows and placed pretty much anywhere you could find some space.

”So that's the FEBs…” Tieria muttered as she looked at the big objects.

Those things were indeed the Fission Eion Bombs. This technology was researched by every big power on the planet, but they always failed to create stable prototypes. They could explode, but the explosion itself was truly uncontrollable. It could be as weak as a grenade or even stronger than a nuke. But there were also cases where the bomb would explode during the manufacturing process.

That's why most of the powers couldn't research that weapon wholeheartedly. Mainly because technicians wouldn't accept to work on something that could potentially kill them. And that's the reason why the data contained in this facility was so precious since they had succeeded to build a great number of FEBs without blowing themselves up.

”Don't touch it though. We can't predict they will explode on us,” Arima said and grabbed the case full of G-Mines. ”Let's be quick. Things are calm for now, but I don't want to be assaulted by another damn Gundam,” he grumbled and started running all over the place to install the mines.

Tieria watched him a bit amused as she covered the entrance whilst waiting for him. During his little 'marathon', Arima froze when he heard a synthetic voice coming from the speakers of the entire facility.

”/ The quarantine measure has been approved. The building will now be sealed. The procedure will take sixty seconds. ”

Arima and Tieria looked at each other and swore at the same time. Arima dropped the last mine and detached the handle of the case and brought it with him as he rushed toward the exit.

They climbed the spiral corridor and an alarm started ringing as the steel door they just passed was now closing. They also heard the shutters close right after.

Arima didn't have the choice and carried Tieria as he ran toward the hoist load at maximum speed. Tieria felt pretty awkward as she was simply being carried. But she got over it and now she was blushing; for a completely different reason altogether.

When Arima reached the hoist, he smiled wryly as he saw the whole thing destroyed. But the other squads had placed an electric zip line to go up. Arima and Tieria took it and went to the first floor after a moment. Obviously, every shutter and doors were locked when they arrived.

”Well, shit…” Arima let go of Tieria and went to the big door he had destroyed earlier with his rifle, but although it couldn't close because of that, it had now a steel shutter blocking the passage in its stead.

”Tch,” Arima clicked his tongue as he drew his pistol and fired at a guy who had just come out of his hiding spot to shoot him.

Tieria looked wide-eyed at the survivor. ”(This guy was stupid,)” she thought. ”So, what do we do now?”

Arima mused and contacted Jin through his radio. The signal was weak, but it still got through.

”Hey, where the hell are you?” Jin's voice immediately resounded. Arima was about to respond but Jin continued. ”The airstrike will happen in three minutes! We can't stop it now! Get out! I can't release the locks, the system closed on itself. Find another exit!”

Arima was speechless. He didn't say anything and face-palmed. ”…I forgot we had only twenty minutes,” he muttered and Tieria chuckled before bashfully covering her mouth.

Arima stared at her with a deadpan expression and she nervously looked away. He sighed and grabbed more Eion knives. ”Stay back,” he said and threw the knives at the shutter; the three knives exploded and formed a huge hole on the shutter. After the dust dispersed, Arima went through with Tieria and stepped inside the long corridor again.

He decided to go check the main entrance and could only sigh as he saw that he was a giant steel door. Impossible to break with his arsenal.

”…Arima, isn't it strange that some of the people working here seem to have disappeared. Even when we were going back here, we didn't meet anyone except that stupid guy,” Tieria suddenly remarked and Arima exclaimed in understanding.