After a five kilometre drive, Morgan finally reached Mark's residence. He went in and met Mark giving instructions to his men.
"Good afternoon, Captain", he greeted Morgan as he dismissed his men. " Welcome to my home, it's a pleasure to have you here",he said as he went to the Captain and shook hands with him.
"The pleasure is all mine", Morgan replied as he sat on the seat beside him. Mark gestured to one of the servants to get him a cold drink to refresh himself.
"So, Morgan what made you drive all the way here to see me", Mark asked looking curious because he knew that Morgan couldn't have come all this way to see him if it wasn't important.
"I have a few reasons why I'm here, to start with I came here to inform you of some recent development. After you left the scene,I asked my men to have a look around and see if they could find something that could help us identify the perpetrators of the attack and take inventory of all the weapons", Morgan said.
"In the course taking inventory of the weapons, two of my men found some powdered substance around the vault, they think that's what must have helped the attackers get into the vault undetected", Morgan continued.
"What!,do you mean that they got into the vault?", Mark asked looking surprised.
" Do you know what this means?, they could have taken any sophisticated weapon which could be unleashed on innocent people". He continued.
"You're right, that's why I came here to see if you could tell me what this box contained", Morgan replied as he put the empty box on the table.
"The same men who found the substance also found this box empty but they couldn't say what it contained so I decided to come over to get information about this". Morgan continued.
Mark looked at the box and in shock and disbelief, he muttered, "No, no , this can't be possible, it can't". He felt like the earth should open up and swallow him.
"What's wrong, is the situation that bad, what did the box contain", Morgan asked looking concerned.
"Well, the box contained the prototype of the suits made from the Halo crystals. It was our last resort to tackling these unknown assailants", Mark replied with a shaky voice.
" That's really bad, I think we should inform the council so they're aware of this latest development and hopefully we get a solution to it". Morgan suggested.
" No, no, we can't do that, it'll make me look irresponsible and they'll possibly blame this on me. Let's keep this between us and find a solution ourselves." Mark replied.
" But for how long would we be able to keep this up. Almost everyone knows about the attack and it won't be long before they find out about the missing item and that could spread panic among the citizens ". Morgan said trying to make Mark see reason.
" Once this happens, what do you think would happen?, what you're trying to avoid would still catch up with you. So, I'll advise that we come clean, besides this isn't our fault, it was an attack and there's nothing we can do about it. I would like you to think before you take any action". Morgan concluded.
" Let me know when you've come to a conclusion, but be mindful, time is not on our side we need to find a solution quickly". Morgan said as he walked to the driveway.
******* ********* *********** **********
Back at the Research Base, Bayne and his team quickly gathered all they needed and got into the jeep and drove off to the site. After some minutes of driving,they arrived at the cave and went in. As soon as they got to the temple they started setting up their equipment while they waited for the rest of the supplies to arrive.
" Let's get moving people, we don't have all day, we don't want the Force to meet us here and make us forfeit our lives' work" , Bayne shouted.
After a short while, the rest of the equipments arrived and the linguistics team settled down to work on interpreting the strange symbols engraved on the walls of the temple, while the others went with Bayne to have a look around and see what they could find. Unknown to them they were being watched.
As Bayne and his men were searching the temple for some lost artifacts or treasures that could be hidden in the temple, they felt a strong wind and something like a shadow ran past them.
"What was that?", Jack one of the men asked with a shaky voice.
" It's just the wind, it's nothing to worry about. Let's keep moving". Bayne said to reassure his men that there was no reason to be worried.
After sometime, the wind returned more stronger than before. This sent cold shivers down their spines.
Then John one of the men spoke up, "I think we should turn back Boss, because whatever is out there, I'm very sure it isn't good" .
Bayne replied him, " Don't tell me you're afraid, because of a little wind, come on it's just a little tempest…."
" In the middle of an abandoned cave! For crying out loud, where does that ever happen. This is a sign that we should turn back to avoid trouble". John interjected.
This caused a tension that led to an argument which divided the groups into two parties; some decided to return to the set-up at the temple site with John, while the rest continued with Bayne.
By the time John and his group returned to the set-up site, the translation was almost complete. Max, the head of the linguistics team was surprised to see John and his team without Bayne and then rest.
" So early?, where are the rest?", he asked looking around to see if they were coming behind John and his team.
John made up excuses for his return and then asked them how the translation process was going.
" It's going well, infact it's almost complete we should have it in a few minutes….." Max replied smiling.
While he was still speaking, they heard rumbling sounds like that of an earthquake and their devices started going haywire like before.
Upon hearing that, John turned around and asked, "what the .....".