"You come with me, Chris."

August 31, 20:18.

At sea, about 100 kilometers from the Pyramid.

The weather was clear, with a light breeze. The aurora that had appeared briefly the night before was gone, and the night sky was once again filled with stars.

The Icebreaker and the Poseidon were now anchored in these frozen waters, at the limit of where the Icebreaker could travel.

The ships were brightly lit, and their crews and ground staff were busy preparing for the operation that would soon begin.

Inside the Poseidon's operations room.

The room was rather cramped, with space for only a little over twenty officers to hear the operation plan, but it was equipped with everything a conference room needed, including a whiteboard and a projector.

At that moment,

Marini of the Charon Task Force, Chris, Victor and Carlos of the Spear of Olympus, a lieutenant from Epsilon, five sergeants from the elite security team, and several researchers were seated on folding chairs in the room.

Sui Bian stood to the right of the projection screen, his arms crossed over his chest.

The lights dimmed slightly. The projector displayed a satellite image of the Pyramid from above, along with a three-dimensional model drawn by the Red Queen.

"Everyone." Sui Bian surveyed the room and said in a low voice, "At 03:30 this morning, the company discovered a giant Pyramid built by an unknown civilization, a hundred kilometers west of our current position. It lies six hundred meters beneath the ice."

A Pyramid in Antarctica?

Six hundred meters under the ice?

"Sir, we don't have any specialized drilling equipment. Should we contact Africa Base and have them send the necessary equipment to drill down and excavate?"

Chris, Victor, the lieutenant, and the others were puzzled, but as combat personnel, they didn't ask questions. Instead, a middle-aged researcher wearing a down vest and black-rimmed glasses raised the question.

"No need. Someone will dig it out for us ahead of time," Sui Bian replied.

"Someone?"

"That can't be right. Has another company discovered it?"

Several researchers voiced their doubts after Sui Bian spoke.

He fell silent for a moment, then decided not to keep them guessing. "Everyone here is a key member of the company, and among its most loyal employees. You know about the Plague Doctor, and you understand that this world holds unknown forces and darkness beyond human comprehension.

"This time...

"We may come into contact with an extraterrestrial civilization."

!!

"What?"

"An extraterrestrial civilization... aliens?"

"Aliens? They really exist?!"

Even the combat personnel joined in with their confusion. However crude they might be, they knew the urban legends about UFOs and aliens...

But now it seemed aliens might not be urban legends after all. They might actually exist.

"Ahem. All right, settle down for a moment," Sui Bian said, giving a light cough.

As soon as he spoke, the room quickly fell silent again.

Sui Bian then drew on what he remembered from the movie he had watched to explain the relationship between the Xenos, the ancient humans, and the Predators.

He focused in particular on the custom that young Predators had to kill prey to come of age, their refusal to prey on unarmed women and children, and their respect for worthy opponents—whether those opponents were enemies or prey.

After finishing his introduction to the Predators, he explained the Xenos, the Xenomorph Queen, and the Facehuggers.

For example, they had a second set of jaws that could shoot out, a hard exoskeleton, a knack for hiding in the dark, and, most importantly, highly corrosive blood.

(Predator: Predator / Yautja.

Xeno: Xenomorph.)

"Sir..." After listening to Sui Bian, Chris was the first to speak. "Do you want us to eliminate these so-called Xenos and Predators?"

"No." Sui Bian shook his head slightly and explained, "Given our company's current level of technology—or humanity's, for that matter—it would be best to avoid antagonizing a species capable of interstellar travel.

"They can travel between stars, while we have to go to great lengths just to reach Luna. What's more, even their adolescents have physical abilities beyond the limits of what we humans can achieve."

"Then what do you want me to do, sir?" Chris asked again.

"It's simple." Sui Bian looked at Chris, the corners of his mouth lifting. "Lieutenant Redfield, I need you to help the young Predators complete their coming-of-age rite.

"Although I don't want the company or humanity to antagonize the Predators, Lieutenant, I also need you to obtain their weapons. As for how...

"I'm sure you can manage it."

"Yes, sir. Wait... just me?"

21:00.

The Icebreaker lowered ten tracked snow vehicles onto the ice. They formed a convoy and set off across the frozen surface toward the Pyramid a hundred kilometers away.

Just as Sui Bian had said more than half an hour earlier, Chris would carry out this operation "alone." The people accompanying him were not members of the Task Force, the USS, or the elite security team, but temporary D-Class Personnel.

These D-Class Personnel had been selected from the thirty-six prisoners.

The prisoners had been transferred to the Poseidon and given a brief interrogation. The Red Queen and the White Queen had been asked to investigate them as soon as the company learned their names and birthdays. To their surprise, twenty-four of them had suspicious activity in their accounts.

The accounts of the remaining twelve didn't seem to have any problems, but they would need to be interrogated and investigated repeatedly before the company could determine who was innocent.

So the twenty-four who clearly seemed suspicious were assigned as D-Class Personnel and sent to the Pyramid under Chris's command.

Among them were researchers from the underground facility, engineers, and, most of all, armed security personnel from Rockfort Island. They represented a pretty good range of employees—enough to make up a temporary Task Force.

Chris was the leader of this temporary Task Force.

Before they set out, Sui Bian didn't tell the temporary D-Class Personnel what their mission entailed. They had no way of knowing about the Xenos or Predators.

However, Sui Bian did promise them that if they carried out their mission obediently and kept their noses clean, the company would overlook their involvement with the Ashford family. Once their memories were erased, they could be released, and the company would also provide assistance to their families.

When he mentioned their families, Sui Bian put a little extra emphasis on the words.

As for killing Chris and running away?

The snow vehicles only had enough fuel to travel a hundred and sixty kilometers, and they had only two days' worth of food and drinking water. Trying to escape on foot through the uninhabited Antarctic wilderness...

It would be no different from suicide.

Even ants clung to life, let alone people.

On top of that, the company had their families as leverage. They might not care if they died, but they couldn't let their families suffer because of it.

The last thing that put Sui Bian at ease was that Chris, with his anomaly-related traits, wasn't someone they could kill so easily.

Even the Black woman in the movie had survived to the end and won the favor of the Yautja Elder. If Chris, the protagonist, didn't wipe out all twenty-four of those people, the Xenos, and the Predators, Sui Bian would be grateful enough.