Chapter 24 - At the armory again (1/2)
They soon found themselves in the armory again.
”We got a variety of combat suits here. But let us stick to the ones which are oriented towards defence,” said Albert opening one of the cabinets.
He pulled out a silver shining suit out.
”You expect me to wear that? I would be standing out and be a target. Do you want to use me as a diversionary target or something?” asked Balthazar shocked.
”No. No. Hahaha,” laughed Albert. ”This isn't it's color. I mean this is its default color but it is a camouflage suit. You can have it any color you like. In general, we use it in black,” he said.
”Just connect it to your wrist device and you can configure it as required,” he continued.
”Oh, that's cool. I never heard of these at the military,” said Balthazar.
”Yeah. Not used at traditional military. Can't have something like this known to the general staff either.”
”OK. What other features does it offer?”
”Yeah, it is mostly a stealth suit but the best kind. You are totally undetectable to most of the detection mechanisms. You can even slip into a meeting with arms when wearing that. It is actually an old one which was used mainly for the stealth attacks. There are bunch of weapons attached into the suit. I used it once a decade or so ago,” explained Albert.
”A decade ago? How old is this suit? Don't we have anything new?” asked Balthazar. He couldn't understand why he was being suggested such an old suit. He thought that he would be given something which would be defense oriented and probably something that would enable him to shield or protect Bolena too.
”Yeah, Winston messaged me that they intend to outfit you with a newly developed combat suit. But I don't have the security access for that. So, Leon sent someone to provide it. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to see what are the equipment that would be available for you once you join us,” explained Balthazar.
”Oh! If that is the case by all means show me all that you can. Please.”
”OK then, let me see. There is another combat suit that would allow you take a sniper bullet with a velocity of up to 2.7 km/s even when shot at the joints and vulnerable parts such as neck. it has some kind of force field constantly enveloping the suit. It instantly activates when its sensors detect fast movement or sudden changes within a microsecond. It can also be manually activated,” said Albert pulling out a pitch-black suit.
”It also works as a flight suit and is extremely light weight. Also has quite an arsenal of manual weapons, garrotte, grapnel, etc. We fondly call it the batsuit,” he continued.
”Bat? suit? What is that supposed to mean?” asked Balthazar.
”Oh! You don't know. There are these ancient novels, comics and movies you know about an action hero called Batman. That comics were in circulation for more than four centuries. You stay in the organization for some time, you will come to know of many such ancient stories, myth and so on.”
”OK. Was this Batman like that vampires myth? A vampire wearing a combat suit. I can understand the appeal in that concept,” said Balthazar.
”Not exactly. But I do understand your train of thought,” said Albert nodding pulling out another red colored suit. It was like an inch thick and made of some kind of stone.
”This is a total fireproof suit. Has some kind of crystalline exo-skin. Can handle temperatures of up to 3000 K, while maintaining a normal temperature inside. But the main part is not fire-resistance. It is that it has been outfitted with a flame thrower within it. I heard it was once used to put an entire lab under fire,” described Albert.
”A fire fighter's suit. Nice!” said Balthazar. ”Why don't the alliance use something like that in the fire department?”
”Because the alliance can't afford to expend a ten million credits per fire fighter.”
”Hmm. You got an underwater suit too?”
”Actually yeah. It is here somewhere,” said Albert searching around for the suit. ”It provides you oxygen for more than 48 hours and can tolerate a pressure of more than a thousand bars.”
”What else?” asked Balthazar. He was very interested in the combat suits. Till now he had only seen two different types of combat suits in the military. They were stealth and warfare. But they the warfare ones were not as light weight as the bat suit.
Soon, Albert was showing him a bunch of suits of different costs and supporting different features.
”So, what do you guys use? You use any of these suits?” asked Balthazar.
”Yeah, we all got a couple of regular suits with us. Usually we keep a normal combat suit and a suit with supports stealth,” said Albert. ”We would go with the stealth ones for majority of the time, we will be at the planet BR-64.”
”The same for me?”
”Planning to have a different kind from our standard for you? As I told before something with a bit more defense features than the usual,” said Albert.
”I don't know what is delay with the guy. He should have been here by now,” continued Albert and messaged someone. It had been more than 10 minutes since they reached the armory and he was clearly pissed off by the delay.
”Ok. Tell me about your team. If I am going to work with you guys, I need to know more about your team.”
”Sure. There are six guys apart from me. Including us we would be 8 guys reinforcing Bolena's security. She already has 6 personnel in charge of the security,” said Albert.
”Cool. So, what do they do? How do we work? What are you guys proficient in? What weapons you use?” started Balthazar.
”Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Stop there for a second. What do you need all these for? I need you to listen to me. You are just to liaison between us and Bolena. You see anything you run. You take your sister and escape.”
”I agree. I don't intend to fight someone who is intent on killing me or my sister. I will run. But I need to know the patterns and behaviors of you guys. We already know about a traitor in the family and two of the targets managed escape from right under your noses. There is a high chance that someone else has betrayed us.”
”What? You are saying you can't trust us. Then, why are you joining us?”
”Of course, I can't trust you guys. Even if all of the team members are loyal, two of them under your surveillance managed to escape and these were the same people who managed to kill my parents. There is definitely something that managed to escape your notice,” said Balthazar in an open and frank manner.
Even if his words hurt Albert's pride and honor, he had to put out his concerns about it. His primary objective was to make sure that Bolena and he were safe from harm and nothing was more important than that.
”I just want to make sure that anyone who approaches me or Bolena isn't someone in disguise or some traitor,” he continued. ”You understand, that right? I believe in the fact that you would try your best to protect us. But I would also do the same and I need to know about you guys to not accidentally prevent you from your duty because I became suspicious. I hope you understand.”