17. Infiltrator
Ava circled around the shuttle and moved away from the drop zone, heading in the opposite direction from the base. She estimated the distance until she reached the edge of the area the drone lights had covered.
In her mind, every patch of ground the drones had bothered to illuminate was traveled and used territory belonging to the base. She wanted to get beyond that before circling around to approach from the rear.
Kane had liked to talk about famous military engagements and key strategic operations that changed the tide of one great conflict or another. Ava, true to her nature, had shown no interest beyond humoring her father.
Ethan had loved listening to every unimportant fact and discussing hypothetical counterstrategies. He had a mind for strategy and liked to challenge her father in holo war games, moving tiny avatars around a gridded field.
Ava had never cared to watch and certainly not to participate.
She now wished she had listened more and hoped that perhaps she had passively absorbed enough information to help.
She understood a few things.
She understood that she should not be where the enemy expected her to be.
She had to move away from the shuttle. Even though they did not know she was on the asteroid, they knew where the shuttle was. They had sent men to secure it and likely move it into holding.
She had considered pretending to be those men and simply moving the shuttle herself, but she had no idea where it was supposed to go or what she would encounter if her deception became obvious.
At some point, they would notice the shuttle was still there and that the men tasked with moving it were not responding.
Perhaps they already had.
When they came to investigate, they would perform another reset and find the bodies.
Hiding them might have bought her some time, but it would not have been worth the effort. The suits’ indicators would lead directly to them. If anyone was actively monitoring their vitals, it would already be apparent that they were dead.
She did not think she had much time.
She reached the point where darkness would shield her if the drone lighting returned. She turned and ran to the right, circling the drop site toward the base entrance.
Her helmet’s night vision allowed her to keep her footing across the rocky, uneven terrain. She scrambled over an outcropping and dropped down on the other side, nearly tripping over the scattered bodies of the guards killed during and after the shootout.
Her stomach turned as she realized there were far more than thirteen bodies there.
She didn’t stop to count, but there were easily thirty or more. Some wore different attire, though many were clad in the same standard-issue suits. Others had been stripped bare and were bloated, frozen moisture clinging to their exposed skin.
Ava shook her head violently and pushed onward, carefully placing each foot to avoid stumbling over the dead.
She began running uphill. Her HUD indicated that she was just left of the road leading toward the base.
She corrected her course, putting more distance between herself and the road. When a team came out to investigate the shuttle, she did not want to meet them face-to-face.
She was breathing heavily but was not yet exhausted. Adrenaline still pumped through her veins. She hoped it would carry her through this ordeal, though experience told her it would not.
After reaching a distance of forty feet from the road, she straightened her path and continued uphill.
A floodlight powered on behind and to her right.
She barely noticed it at the edge of her vision but turned to look.
It was the base entrance.
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She had overshot it, believing she was only now drawing parallel with it.
Ava turned, crouched, and began creeping back toward the light. There was no brush, no vegetation, and nothing living to hide behind, but she kept low and steadily approached the base door.
She reached a ledge overlooking the road. Her helmet automatically shifted from night vision to normal optics as she moved out of the darkness.
She was directly above the large entrance.
Ava moved to her right, positioning herself above the smaller personnel door, and watched.
Four people had begun moving down the road away from her.
She could tell they were different.
They wore heavy suits and carried their weapons in hand as they jogged steadily toward the shuttle. The armor was the same color as the lesser suits, but these were military-grade assault models.
Even with the advantage of her position and a full burst of rifle fire, Ava doubted she could down even one before they reacted and returned fire.
She considered throwing one of her demo charges and triggering it when they came within range, but she wasn’t confident it would work. More likely, it would alert the entire base to her presence.
Another thought came to her.
She could wait until the men reached the shuttle and cause it to explode. That would eliminate them and might even look like an accident or a failsafe trap prepared beforehand.
She rejected the idea.
The shuttle was more than a shuttle.
It was one of their possible means of escape.
She could not destroy it.
It was too important an asset to remove from the board.
Ava crept to the edge and looked down toward the steel-grating ramp leading to the personnel door.
No one else was present.
The door was closed, but a control panel was mounted in the wall to its right.
She glanced back toward the four soldiers as they continued their quick march away from her.
She made up her mind.
Ava slid her legs over the ledge and dropped onto the grating below.
She landed with more force than expected and realized there was an artificial gravity field extending all the way outside the entrance. The rest of the asteroid had possessed very low gravity, making most of Ava’s movements nearly effortless and even allowing her to move the bodies inside the shuttle with relative ease.
Here, she felt heavier than she would under standard gravity.
She checked whether the soldiers had noticed her landing.
They had not. They had slowed as they approached the shuttle.
Ava turned toward the control panel and struck the large button she assumed would activate the door.
Nothing happened.
She panicked for a moment before remembering the ring of keycards she had taken.
She pulled them from her carry pouch and, without bothering to determine which was correct, slammed the fist holding all of them against the panel.
The door slid open.
Ava entered with her survival knife in one hand and the collection of cards in the other.
The interior chamber was a good-sized airlock that could easily have held forty people at once.
Ava shuddered at the implication of what she might have walked into and what it suggested about the base’s population.
She had estimated there could be a hundred people or more stationed here. At the low end, it would take perhaps fifty people simply to maintain a station, let alone operate whatever projects they were obviously conducting.
Not all of them would be trained combatants, but anyone could become a threat under the right conditions.
Ava had to accept that everyone she encountered must be treated as one.
She struck the inner control panel with the keycards, and the exterior door shut.
She crossed the blank gray metal chamber and activated the controls to pressurize it.
Air rushed into the room through large vents in the ceiling. Ava’s body felt even heavier and more sluggish as the atmosphere poured in.
Ava freed one of her demo charges and jumped with as much strength as she could muster under the increased gravity. She managed to wedge the charge between the vent slats.
An explosion opening the base to rapid depressurization would cause the entire facility to enter lockdown.
Blast doors would seal.
The base would compartmentalize.
Chaos would follow.
Ava’s heart pounded in her ears as she considered it.
She felt insane, but it might become necessary.
The control panel for the interior door glowed a dull red until the chamber finished pressurizing. Ava again struck the panel with the fistful of keycards.
The door opened onto a long, wide corridor with a glass wall running along its entire right side.
Beyond the glass was a large vehicle bay containing several industrial movers and other equipment. Fortunately, no one was present, though several empty parking positions suggested vehicles were currently in use.
At the far end of the bay was another enormous door, large enough for vehicles to be driven farther into the base.
Ava was certain the bay itself was not pressurized. The far door was likely part of a second airlock system used to bring vehicles into the base proper.
It made sense to store vehicles outside the atmosphere. They would be less prone to rust and corrosion, and it was easier to move people through depressurization than to cycle oversized airlocks every time cargo needed to be retrieved.
Ava felt exposed in the corridor beside the glass.
She took in her surroundings and quickly moved down the hall.
She exchanged her knife for her pistol and approached the far end.
The corridor diverged there. Turning left would lead toward a flight of stairs. Continuing straight would bring her to another door.
This door had no control panel but instead possessed a heavy wheel handle set into its center, suggesting it was blast resistant.
When exploring unknown ships, buildings, or caves—anything with branches and turns that could easily become confusing—Kane had taught her the rule of left.
Take the leftmost path every time, and you will know how to retrace your route when leaving.
It also helped the brain form a mental map of the surroundings.
When possible, mark the places you have passed in the same relative position each time so the markings can be quickly recognized.
Ava pulled a small grease pen from her pouch and held it in the same hand as the keycards. She marked the wall at shoulder height on her left and moved toward the stairs.