บท 3: Chanced Encounter?

Night falls.

A tiny shadow moving fast and undetected made its way towards the mecha room where the robots of section A are located. Amazingly, the shadow moves in confidence that CCTVs installed in the area will not be able to catch and record this incident.

Once inside the room, the shadow purposely moved in the direction of Tan-tan. At this time, the CCTVs aimed at Tan-Tan's direction instantly blurred, like static disturbance affecting the recording of the machine.

The shadow slowly disconnected the robot's alarm system and opened the rider's operating area. Pushing bottons, the screen loaded recordings of the owner's previous fighting scenes.

'He's good..but has blind spot on the 90 degree angle.'

After watching, the shadow began tinkering on the robots system, arranging set ups and righting everything to cover tampering tracks.

In less than 2 hours, the shadow made its way out of the mecha room again undetected.

Four in the morning.

Yume stretched like a cat, eyebrows lifting while kicking the comforter down her bed. She immediately sat down, looked around and silently released her breath. She felt uncomfortable, light perspiration covered her forehead. The climate in her new military base is quite warmer than her previous one that's why she is not using any comforter. Her bedroom is covered in darkness because she doesn't use her bedside lamp. Her eyes is accostomed to work in darkness and navigating through her room in this darkened state is easy for her. Reasons for her sleeping in darkness is as follows:

One, it is easier to fall asleep in the dark where no light can distract her,

Second, to practice her heightened senses,

Third, the light gives extra heat and she sleeps comfortably only wearing her undies since being transferred in a warmer base.

Putting on her robe, she made her way towards her bathroom when an object catched her eyes and made her reluctantly switch on the light for a better view. On top of her laptop seating on her workside table is a single red stem rose and a note: Thank You.

Yume felt her face turned hot. He was here and he was the one who draped her with the comforter!

Around five in the morning of the same day and at the same military base, alarms rang causing all the staff to respond. All five members of section A reported to their superior, Captain Nagi, who briefed and instructed them on their mission. Their laboratory base on satellite/moon 123 is being attacked by terrorists. That is the base where the first trace and clue on the existence of 'moon piece' is discovered. Captain Nagi, Haru, Sano and Hayato are ordered to help defend the moon base while Amy and Yume will stay to direct their team mates using the hawk eye technology. It is a technology where all war robot existence are captured and possible outcome and tactics are readily analyze by the program. It is a technology made by the section A out of boredome but later on became quite useful. Data are feed to update the system from time to time. Yume is just oriented on the presence of the hawk-eye and Amy is tasked to show her how to use it.

The four male of the group boarded their robots and took off. Inside, they use communicators to be able to talk to anyone.

Captain Nagi connected with Haru, "Hayato will take your position for now until your robot's completely repaired. I heard you ordered some parts for enhancement. Right now, your only work is to assist and not to lead the fight. Is that clear?"

"Yes captain."

"Your hand is not completely healed. Do not strain yourself. Do not put pressure in that hand. After we find that moon piece, you have a dream to continue and that hand is vital for an engineer. All of you are still young. Think about your future after this project. Your life doesn't stop here. Every mission you have to fight but fight to win and live. You all understand?"

" Yes captain. "

The group of four men quickly arrived on the area of dispute. Other sections also started arriving as reinforcements. A great battle ensued. For an hour, the battle continued seemingly endless.

" Amy, the enemy seems to be increasing."

"That can't be. According to the hawk's eye, no reinforcements from the enemy side is approaching."

"No Amy, the enemy's robots. There is something about the robots. Can I talk to our captain. There is something unusual going on."

"Okay, I'll connect you to captain."

Establishing connection with people in the battlefield is harder. It took Amy several tries before she was able to have a stable line with Captain Nagi.

"Captain, can I ask you for a favor? When you kill a robot please do not leave yet and try to observe it for a couple of minutes? All i can see with our hawk eye's are red dots representing the enemy robots and their location. When you destroy a robot, the red dot disappears. But for some reasons, red dots suddenly appear out of nowhere. I can't see what actually is happening in there, that's why I can't say particularly what's wrong. But I feel there is something wrong with those robots."

"Okay. Let us test your hypothesis. Hayato, remain here with Haru and keep an eye with these robots. Sano and I will manage those things approaching our location."

It did not take them more than five minutes when they heard Hayato cursed in the background while telecasting the robot debris live. Out of nowhere, undamaged parts of the defeated robots started unclasping and clasping with usable parts creating a new robot on the spot. A new dot appeared out of nowhere in the hawk eye monitor.

"Shit. A modern version of robot frankenstein."

"We've been fighting trash over and over again."

"Captain", Yume's voice is once again heard in the background,"the enemy is not using human pilot rather their robots appeared to be using AI technology. Every parts are programmed to move on their own."

"Then we have no choice but to polvurize the robots into pieces.", Sano excitedly said."Can't wait to try the upgrade Yume made."

Captian Nagi did not hesitate to give the order and wired the other captain from the other section to imitate the plan.

After sometime, an observable decrease on enemy robots is seen in the hawk eye monitor. And yet," Yume, look. The red dots in this area is increasing. This can't be good."

Yume looked and hurriedly tried to connect to anyone on the opposite line. They are in danger but leaving the area is also not an option. But what should they do? Must they sacrifice the lives of these brave men for an artifact that could or could not be existing? Must they still protect the base?

"Captain, the enemy is trying to self destruct and blow the whole satellite."

"What?!"

"They have nothing to lose unlike us."

"What made them change their mind from possesing the information of moon piece?", asked Hayato.

Haru finally joined the conversation, "They did not change their mind. This is their plan to begin with, the reason why they did not use human pilot. Why they dragged the battle for so long to have us call for continued reinforcements. And when all is set according to their plan, they blow us all. "

"Haru, Sano and Hayato, go.", their captain ordered. He also wired the other sections of what's happening.

The three named youngsters could be heard protesting in the background when out of nowhere a loud explosion is heard and all communication to earth is cut.