Erchius Ghost (2)

John and Lenny cautiously walked around the metal fence, searching for an opening.

They couldn't just climb over it and neither cut it since they saw the warnings above around the fence that said that the fence could discharge electric voltage large enough to fry a living being in a matter less than 3 seconds.

It didn't took longer before finally finding a a hole created by a spaceship that probably fell from the sky and destroyed the part of the fence in from of John and Lenny.

"From this fence onwards I can't guide you anymore." Peri said, "Be careful John...Lenny."

"It will be quick." John tried to comfort Peri over the communicator.

Like that, John went through the fence and Lenny followed not far behind.

As they got closer to the facility, they became more and more cautious.

It was simply difficult for them to keep track of their surroundings as they simply could hear anything in the vacuum.

Both John and Lenny had to rely on their other senses I'm such place.

"Let me take a look first." Lenny pulled John behind him after they were in front of one of the facility's service doors.

"You!? Taking the initiative of doing something dangerous!?" John was visibly shocked.

Lenny just shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, "I have the Cold Blood Tech Ability. If there's Moontants in there, I have greater chance to retreat before they sense my presence."

"It doesn't matter if you can hide your temperature if your body is a giant beacon of light that is hard not to see."

"Do you want to go then?" Lenny glanced at John, "If you want that badly I'll let you go instead."

"Of course, it's too dangerous to go alone." John said, "Let's just go in together, if things go bad we can simply get away."

John lifted his arm and pressed at the PIPS in his wrist, "See? There's the option to beam up. We can always escape when the situation turn to worst."

"Okay, we go together." Lenny nodded at John before turning around and saw the ship wreckages around them, "What a waste, if he had came down earlier and explored, we could have just taken a engine of one these ship and used the Scanner on it to create a blueprint."

"Probably not." John casted a glance at those ships, "These ships are just to old and outdated. Look at their outline and outside hull, it's clearly something made more than 15 years ago. That's certainly-"

John suddenly shut his mouth when something caught his attention as he looked at all those spaceships around them.

Cold sweat dripped from his back as he stopped in tracks.

"What happened?" Lenny asked while looking at where John was intensely glaring.

All Lenny saw was just another spaceship, but different from the usual fish-like looking spaceship often used by Hylotls, there was all kind of spaceships.

At John's left there was a Hylotl ship and at his right, an Apex spaceship.

Initially, John saw nothing wrong, but after carefully staring those spaceships, John saw something that made him freeze in place.

"We might be in danger..." John muttered in a low tone so that only Lenny that was just a little ahead of him.

Lenny saw John's change of expression from caution to full worry and dread, "What you saw?" He asked.

"See these ships?" John pointed at his wrecked spaceships at his right and left.

"Yeah... what's special about them?"

"The Apex spaceship with the Miniknog emblem at side is a model that was mass-produced 15 years." Listening so far, Lenny didn't realize anything wrong, until he heard the next information John disclosed, "But, the fish-like ships here are that wasn't mass-produced, and only a few ships were made in the past by the Letheia Corporation. These spaceship are at least...100 years old."

Lenny finally realized what was wrong.

Why would spaceships from different time be at this abandoned facility.

"That's not all." Lenny heard John dreadfully speak, "Taking a look at other spaceships, I can see them varying from all time period. There's even a Terrene Protectorate spaceship right there, it was an old model that have been long retired from mass production exactly 78 years ago."

"This..." Lenny's grip over his gun tightened as he scanned his eerie and empty surroundings.

The place they were currently looked like a spaceship graveyard.

Lenny could feel a chill down his spine as he felt danger slowing encroaching towards them.

"I never expected us to meet one here..." John took a step back, "The undying monster created by high concentration of Erchius Fuel. These spaceship probably entered in the moon's orbit to investigate the facility but we're brought down by that monster that mostly probably was attracted by the Erchius Fuel in the spaceships tank. We have been save for the past days because we didn't have a single drop of Erchius Fuel left in our tank. That...monster..can only be..." John's lips quivered as muttered the name, "Erchius Ghost."

"Shit!" Lenny immediately cursed and placed his sniper at his back, "We need to get out of here!"

"Yes we have, but not before mining enough fuel."

"Are you out of your mind, John!? You know the Ghost is attracted by Erchius Fuel, the more you are carrying the faster it goes after you! Those things are immortals, nothing can kill or destroy them while by simply touching at them, a living being will be immediately absorbed and turned into energy for them!"

"But-"

Lenny grabbed John and dragged him away while he angrily spoke, "Look around you! Do you want to join these ships, huh!?"

"Wait, Lenny." John freed himself from Lenny's grip and looked deeply on his eyes, "I'll get rid of the Crystal Erchius Fuel I have with me. Like that we can explore the spaceships and the facility without having to worry about the Ghost."

Lenny stopped to think about it before asking, "Why do you want to explore it? It's too dangerous to do so."

"I want to know, why would Itsuki try to hide the existence of this place." John said while glaring at the white facility behind them, "The dark secrets of Letheia Corporation, I want to know it all. They are evil and all evil must be...punished."

Lenny didn't know why, bit the moment John finished uttering those words, he felt him sending a complicated and cold glare at his way.