Chapter 325: Surveillance
When it comes to gathering information about hidden places and spying on people, there are very few vessels in the world as efficient and as effective as the Zerphyr-7 Stealth Reconnaissance UAV.
And once again, Leon proved the information superiority of his Class.
When Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq set his sights on the Zerphyr-7 for the first time, he was stunned.
And when the stealth aircraft went to work, he was even more stunned.
All it took for Leon to find everything they needed was to go on a high altitude flight with the Lt. Colonel, working with the information that Umar Farouq and his resources already gathered before now.
With the stealth systems of the Zerphyr-7, Leon was able to infiltrate into terrorist-infested areas of the wasteland that Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq have not dared enter before since he began tracking the activities of the terrorists.
He entered undetected and stayed so.
And with the surveillance and intelligence gathering systems of the Zerphyr-7, Leon was able to penetrate deep into the earth past all the measures that the terrorists put in place against enemies spying on them from a distance.
With the Long-Range Electro-Optical Camera Suite of the Zerphyr-7 offering a stabilized visual imaging system, Leon and the Lt. Colonel monitored their activities at ultra-high resolution like they were watching a movie.
With the combination of the Advanced Thermal Optics Array, the Synthetic Aperture Radar, and the LIDAR Terrain Mapping Systems, they were able to map out the entire structure and layout of the terrorist hideout.
And just like Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq suspected, what his intelligence sources gave him was just a mirage that was deliberately placed by the terrorists.
Underground, there was not just 1 terrorist base.
There were 2 levels of the terrorist base!
The first underground area that his intelligence forces were able to detect was just a mirage, a decoy. The true base was under the first underground base.
And with the Signals Intelligence Array system of the Zerphyr-7, the SIGINT, Leon took his time above the hidden terrorist base, levitating thousands of meters in the sky while intercepting electronic signals.
In the end, after hours of surveillance, Leon finally uncovered the truth of the ploy that Dhruv Laden was hiding.
The truth was different from what Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq was expecting.
...
Bzzz!
The Zerphyr-7 drifted soundlessly and unseen above the scarred terrain.
From the outside, there was nothing- no heat bloom, no reflection, no signature. But inside, the cockpit pulsed with quiet intelligence for hours as data was repeatedly exchanged and sent back towards the 2 D Rank Ascended inside.
Both Daren and Talia were on the ground on top a hill far away from the hidden terrorist base, observing the surrounding with telescopes.
The surveillance rays of the stealth vessel pierced through the first subterranean level of the terrorist base easily.
Inside were dimly lit corridors, scattered personnel, and stockpiles of different outdated weapons as terrorists masked with familiar black insectile full-face masks patrolled in predictable patterns.
The surveillance systems were intentionally visible, almost sloppy. It presented an image of a terrorist base that was loose, disorganized, and not too formidable both in terms of foot soldiers and war machines.
It was a perfect disguise and it could fool most spies with this level of sophistication, but not the Zerphyr-7.
The stealth aircraft already engaged in a deeper scan with multi-spectrum imaging slicing past layers of concrete, alloy, and interference fields, peeling the illusion away.
And below the decoy level, something else emerged.
The second underground layer was buried deeper and shielded by dense composite plating, revealing itself in fragments at first then fully as the Zerphyr-7’s sensors recalibrated.
This level was nothing like the one above. It was clean, structured, and purposeful.
ADE signatures here were tightly controlled, pulsing in disciplined intervals. Even movement was minimal and deliberate to reduce the possibility of being detected as much as possible.
"This is what we’re looking for," Leon’s eyes gleamed.
He interacted with Davis, using the powerful sensors and technology of the Zerphyr-7 to comb the second underground level.
Then he found it.
"There".
With Davis’s help, Leon isolated a section of the footage, focusing on a heavily secured chamber that was embedded at the core of the lower level.
The chamber was heavily fortified with multiple layers of thick reinforced walls, lined with unknown alloys that were specially designed to disrupt scanning. Even the Zerphyr-7 couldn’t pierce through immediately.
Automated defenses ringed the perimeter around this chamber, guarded with over a dozen guards in armor.
DING!
{ADE Levels detected!}
{12 of the 13 are E Rank Ascended!}
{Calculating ADE level of the last Ascended... please wait...}
Leon’s eyes narrowed as he focused on that chamber.
The entry points inside the chamber were sealed with redundant locking mechanisms, each operating on independent systems.
Leon could tell that even with the Bulwark MK.II Titan Frame, with the materials that this chamber was created from, it would take him a long time before he could burst his way inside.
’What’s going on inside there...?’
That was not all.
Though it couldn’t penetrate the chamber yet, the Zerphyr-7 still detected subtle energy readings from inside the chamber that were muted.
The ADE signatures existed, but they were dampened and suppressed as though wrapped in a suffocating field.
Though Leon couldn’t see the specific technology that was causing this, he realized what they were instantly. "ADE dampeners".
His eyes narrowed. "Is someone attempting a Trial inside there?"
"Is that...?" Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq was about to ask a question when he was interrupted by the A.I.
DING!
[Target Acquired- Dhruv Laden!]
The Zerphyr-7 projected an image of one of the 13 terrorists guarding the chamber, and overlapped the image alongside an image of Dhruv Laden.
Umar’s eyes immediately widened. "He’s guarding the chamber himself?!"
"It’s an Ascension attempt..." Leon said immediately.
He was familiar with this. Afterall, 131 years ago, this was exactly how Iron Reef was as the entire city rallied to protect their leader.
The question was, who exactly was attempting a Trial?
And what level of Trial was the person attempting?
With his knowledge that were richer than most, Leon immediately crossed out the possibility that it was a C Rank Trial.
Only the Synth Order could produce ADE dampeners that could hide such a Trial attempt, and they would not willingly work with terrorists. Leon was sure of this after everything that he already learned about the consequences of a new C Rank Ascended emerging in the world.
Which meant this was likely a D Rank or an E Rank Trial.
’For Dhruv Laden to be guarding this person personally though...’ his eyes gleamed as his brain whirred.
Then he concluded. "It’s a D Rank Trial".
...
[Special Appreciation to Adamantis and Robert_Luckau for the Golden Tickets, thanks for the support!]