New Management
After seeing that the warlord had escaped through the window, Draco shook his head.
'Hopefully one of the other strike team members can catch him. It's out of my hands now.' He thought, not really caring if the man lived or died.
Draco's foot was currently throbbing with pain, and he limped over to the desk to find that the man had left all of the papers behind.
He fully expected them to be useless documents, but when he looked closer, he almost couldn't believe his eyes.
'These gotta be the real deal!' Draco thought, seeing what looked to be complex formulas and diagrams of strange machinery.
Draco scooped up all of the papers he could find, and then proceeded to loot the warlord's desk for any valuables.
He found several trinkets that he discarded as junk, but his eyes were drawn to a silver medallion in one of the drawers.
Picking it up, Draco was sure that it was an artifact of some kind!
It radiated a pleasant aura, and when Draco held it he could feel the pain in his foot subsiding.
Looking down at his foot, he saw that the tissue was reattaching itself, and in only a few seconds the bullet hole had closed completely!
'This must be something like what the Immortality Chamber is made out of.' Draco thought with a grin as he put the medallion around his neck.
He was thinking back to his time with Samir, before he had even been injected with progenitor serum.
'I've come so far since then.' Draco thought, looking at the stacks of paper in his hand.
These documents were certainly a treasure worth more than even the medallion he had found.
Suddenly, he remembered why he was there, and the fact that he was still technically a prisoner of the Khalid Dynasty.
'That really won't do, I'm sure if I return back to the Death Barge they're not going to let me keep all of the loot I found.' Draco realized, weighing his options.
He really wanted to see Amira again, but he knew that even if he went back his chances of seeing her were slim to none.
This wasn't even to mention that she was currently in space!
Sighing to himself, Draco figured that it was probably best to make a break for it.
He grabbed a duffel bag he found in the corner of the room and began to fill it with all of the valuables he could find.
He tossed in some gold jewelry, and a few stacks of what was presumably African currency he had found in one of the warlord's drawers.
He put all of the documents he collected into a folder and stashed it away in the bag as well.
Throwing the duffel bag over his shoulder, Draco remembered one last thing.
He took out his pistol and his sword and placed them on the wooden desk.
'These things probably have tracking devices in them, so it's best if I just leave them here.' he thought, not eager to get tracked down by a team of Khalid Dynasty assassins.
He would miss that pistol, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Draco noticed a display case on one of the walls that held what looked like a golden desert eagle, so he headed over there to take it.
He smashed the glass case open with his fist, and scooped up the pistol.
He was surprised by the hefty weight of the pistol, and feeling the aura radiating from the weapon he was sure that it was an artifact of some kind.
Draco had already tried looking for the revolver he had seen on the warlord's desk earlier, but he guessed that the man had snatched it up during his escape.
'Oh well, this thing looks fancy. I'm sure it'll come in handy.' Draco thought, turning to head out of the now ransacked office.
As he was leaving he grabbed the electrified swords he had seen earlier, sheathing one on his back and stowing the others away in his bag.
He exited through the hole he had made in the wall earlier, giving Lenny's body one last look before he headed back down the stairs.
He had to step over pieces of what he guessed was Ron's corpse, and he shook his head as he began to think over his next steps.
'I can't be seen by the rest of the strike team, it's best if they think that I died during the attack.' he concluded, looking for an exit.
He saw the hanging prisoners above the facility pleading with him for their release, but Draco had no way to safely get them down.
"Hang tight! Someone's coming to get you!" he shouted up at them, not entirely sure if that was true or not.
In the corner of the facility there was a metal hatch on the floor, and Draco guessed something important must've been down there, for one of the researchers had been shot trying to reach it.
He walked up to it and kicked the researcher off of the hatch, before reaching down to unlock it.
It had a twisting door lock, and after rotating it the hatch opened. A wave of cold air escaped from the hatch as it opened up, and Draco found a staircase leading downwards.
After walking down the staircase his nose picked up the pungent smell of blood, so he pulled out his new pistol and prepared for combat with any surviving enemy soldiers.
However, what he saw when he reached the end of the hallway made his stomach turn.
He had evidently walked into an operating room, but it was more apt to call this some type of torture chamber.
There were rows of hospital beds with several individuals strapped to them.
Looking at the metal clamps around their wrists and feet, they reminded Draco of the bed where he himself had first been injected with progenitor serum.
Everyone that he saw strapped to the bed was evidently dead or unconscious, for most of them had their eyes glazed over with foam in their mouths.
When he looked over to the edge of the room, Draco saw that there was an observation chamber.
The chamber was filled with a number of researchers and scientists who were evidently freaking out over Draco's sudden appearance.
Draco saw them pointing at him and shouting at each other, clearly panicking as they grabbed their belongings and prepared to flee.
Draco quickly rushed over towards the observation glass and smashed it with his fists, causing the scientists within to scream in terror.
One of them had drawn a pistol and fired it at Draco's chest, but the bullets bounced off his chest hair uselessly.
Draco laughed, "That tickled, you know." he said, causing the scientist who shot him to scream and terror and drop her pistol with fear in her eyes.
The other scientists had all backed into different corners of the chamber, and Draco counted six of them in total.
Draco cleared his throat, "You all have two choices. You either come with me, or I execute you each one by one." he said, his tone grim.
This was all it took to convince them, for they all nodded their heads rapidly in obedience.
"You got it, boss!" said one scientist.
"Whatever you want!" said another.
"Shoot them first!!" screamed a different one.
Draco shook his head when heard this, simply pointing his pistol at them and motioning for them to group up.
"Do any of you know any secret escape routes?" Draco asked.
One of the scientists stepped forward cautiously and nodded their head.
This scientist was an attractive woman, she had white skin and long black hair that was tied up into a ponytail. Draco wondered how this foreign woman had ended up in the basement of an African warlord.
The woman pointed at a wall on the other edge of the room.
"There's an escape tunnel over there, but if we leave Khalifa Haftar will surely have our heads!" she said, not willing to jump from the frying pan and into the fire.
Draco just laughed when he heard that, "Don't worry, the warlord is long gone! I dealt with him myself." he said, causing the scientist's eyes to light up with hope.
He continued, "Unfortunately, you are all now under new management." he said, a wicked smile on his lips.
The hope in the scientist's eyes died, and Draco pointed his pistol at them.
"Lead the way. We're going to be making our way out of here." he said, not elaborating further.
The scientists looked like they wanted to burst out into tears, but Draco wasn't willing to give up on such a resource.
'I thought that Ron had killed off all the researchers and scientists, but finding this group down here was a God send. Hopefully I can put them to good use.' Draco thought, plotting out his next moves.
The female scientist from earlier led the group towards the passageway, pressing a switch on the wall that opened it up into a long tunnel.
Draco then followed the scientists into the tunnel, keeping his guard up for any unexpected surprises.