The Almighty Ring

One minute later, Ariel had destroyed all the hostile targets and secured the archive room.

“0542, check the database and see if there’s any important information that I can use,” said Jiang Fei.

“Yes, captain,” 0542 replied and started hacking into the computers and databanks.

“Did you find anything that was being tampered with?” Jiang Fei asked nervously. If there were, the enemy must have already deleted important information inside the computers since their presence was detected roughly five minutes ago.

“I am not detecting any destroyed data so far,” said 0542 after a quick diagnosis. Looks like the enemy did not expect Jiang Fei to reach that far in such a short time.

“Download as much as you can. Alert me once we are good to go,” said Jiang Fei before resuming sentry mode. There were more than enough entrances into the archive room that needed to be guarded.

When 0542 was getting busy, Jiang Fei had ample time to examine the entire room. The unknowns had managed to conceal such a high-tech facility under the worn-down factory on the surface. The technology they used was so advanced that the military base, next to the capital, looked like a children’s playground. It was even safe to say that this facility had incorporated Namek’s technology well. Even though it was not as strong as the real Namekian’s defenses, it was more than enough to get rid of any earthly being.

“Just how did these guys get hold of Namek’s tech?” Jiang Fei questioned himself.

At that moment, when the room was quiet, Isabella whispered nervously, “Level 5 enemies are coming!”

“Well, get ready then,” Jiang Fei said, preparing himself to fight if necessary. He was not surprised to have Level 5 enemies coming in since he was the one that initiated the assault.

Seven pillars of light flashed down, penetrating even the ceiling itself. The particles of light manifested in the pillar in front of Jiang Fei and a few seconds later, seven figures appeared.

“Mr. Jiang Fei. How could you be so rash? Have you not learn your lesson?” said Bennette Straz.

“Believe it when I say I will bash your mouth if you continue talking like that,” declared Jiang Fei, clenching his fist ready to deliver pain. Isabella was also ready. She had been holding onto the bracelet in her hands, standing by to inject Valium into her bloodstream to initiate Berserk mode.

“Calm down… I am not here to fight. There are things… we need to sort out,” said Straz as he glanced at the computer and back at Jiang Fei.

0542 had downloaded a lot of information from the archive room and since Isabella was in the room, ready to destroy all of them if the situation called for it, Straz had decided to give up trying to stop Jiang Fei from discovering their secrets.

“Sort? How about you tell me what organization you are part of?” said Jiang Fei angrily.

“That, I cannot.”

“You can’t even answer the first question I ask, how can you simply decide that you could even sort things out with me?” said Jiang Fei.

“I could tell you about our goal.”

“Goal?”

“It is simple really. What we want was all the alien artifacts,” said Straz. He wanted to speak more but Jiang Fei snapped when he mentioned ‘alien artifacts’.

“You’ve said enough. Those alien artifacts are mine!” Jiang Fei roared. Jiang Fei was the one and only human that was recognized as the Captain of the ship by 0541. The situation might have changed but the fact that Jiang Fei held the highest authority over the ship did not change.

“Calm yourself. I know about the ship and you being its captain. Just so happens, we now possess a few parts of the ship. Before you say anything, we would not surrender them, not at this moment. Hence, we wanted to have a parley. A temporary truce, so to speak. Perhaps we could even cooperate with each other to solve our problems simultaneously.”

“You want me to work with you? There’s not going to be any cooperation with those who stole my ship,” Jiang Fei barked. He could no longer stand the holier-than-thou attitude presented by Straz when he spoke. He often felt that Straz was playing with him like a mouse in a maze.

“Calm down and think this through. Once we have what we needed, we will leave. We will give you all the artifacts that we have collected, and all the other equipment that we cannot move,” said Straz.

“Leave?” Jiang Fei asked, arching an eyebrow. Where would they go? Did they assume that leaving China alone would be sufficient?

“Exactly. We will not be staying on Earth for too long. All of this farce was just to build a ship. Once we have the ship ready to leave the Earth, everything that we ever have will be yours to take.”

Jiang Fei could not answer at the moment. His mind was still stuck at leaving Earth and had not yet process the information about building the ship.

“Captain, they are telling the truth. I have found plans and data about building a ship,” said 0542.

“You would leave?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Yes. Only after we have accomplished our goal,” Straz replied.

Something was wrong. In fact, everything Straz said was contradictory. Why would they leave Earth? Weren’t they part of an organization in China? If they weren’t… It did not make any sense. 0541 had assured Jiang Fei many times that all Namekians had died a long time ago. If they were of earthly origin, there should be a human steering the wheel. Even if they wanted to explore the cosmos, with that advanced technology, it would be easier to just distribute them to the entire planet and share it with all nations to advance the entire planet into space. That, or world domination. It would be much easier if they would just collect all of Earth’s resources and start living in space.

Why leave Earth?!

If they were of alien origin, 0541 would be wrong. 0541 had made sure of it. Jiang Fei was shown all evidence of Namekian extinction. The last surviving Namekian died during the long travels in space. Long before Braveheart had even crash landed on Earth. Jiang Fei would not have been made the representative Captain of Braveheart if there were surviving members of planet Namek.

“Think about it. Young Jiang Fei. If you wish to cooperate, you can find me in any base. I truly believe there is no need for us to be enemies,” said Straz.

“Captain, I have downloaded all the information there is,” said 0542.

Just then, Straz interjected.

“You can compare what you have downloaded with what I’ve said. I’m sure you would find that I’m telling the truth. That is all I have to say. Fare thee well,” said Straz before he left the same way he came.

“Mhm. Let’s go home,” said Jiang Fei. He did not bother to ask 0542 to track them down since he knew that 0542 was too useless to do it.

Although this trip had created more questions than answering then, Jiang Fei did managed to get what he wanted—information about Straz and the unknowns.