Hard Knock
She triggered the explosive in the airlock first, the one she had wedged into the vent before heading farther into the base.
There was no shaking, and no debris fell, but she heard a faint crack followed by blaring sirens. Orange lights began flashing.
She was certain the entire base was experiencing what she was now.
Every open door would slam shut to prevent uncontrolled depressurization. Doors leading toward exterior halls or stairways would likely lock and require overrides.
She hoped it would not be every door.
She counted to sixty and then triggered the explosives in the stairwell.
She had planted charges on each level before returning to this floor to continue her search. She activated them all at once.
She had waited to give the first response teams time to move toward the initial disturbance. If she was lucky, this explosion would catch several people as they traveled toward the first floor. If they had already cleared the stairs, they would be trapped there and unable to interfere with her here.
The laboratory door opened, and the suited guards stormed into the corridor beneath her hiding place.
The heavily armored soldier brought up the rear. He had to hunch as he rushed through the hallway but still struck the cable bundle in his haste.
Ava was thankful she had locked her boots to the ceiling. Otherwise, she might have been knocked loose.
She waited until the final guard exited the corridor and the door closed behind him.
Then she triggered the last set of demolition charges.
Ava was thankful the door to her hallway held, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw a distinct dent where it had desperately tried to buckle inward.
She waited atop the cable bundle for a moment as her heart pounded and she prepared to slide down.
The laboratory door opened.
Several people in biological suits rushed into the hallway.
Five of them.
Ava slid from the bundle and landed heavily on the floor. She had already drawn her pistol and was aiming down the corridor before her feet touched the deck.
She opened fire.
Five controlled barks from her sidearm.
Then she sprinted down the hallway.
The man at the rear managed to duck back into the laboratory and began feverishly striking the door control, trying to force it closed.
The panel flashed a yellow warning.
OBSTRUCTION
The bodies of the other four had fallen backward. Two lay sprawled across the doorway, preventing the base systems from allowing it to close.
Some doors would cut a person cleanly in half under the right circumstances.
This was not one of the blast doors.
Ava reached the entrance and leapt over the bodies.
The fifth man abandoned the control panel and tried to run.
She shot him in the back before he made it far.
Ava rushed farther into the room, toward the artifact and the last surviving scientist.
He was suited like the others had been. He removed his helmet and leaned casually against a worktable.
Ava swept her eyes around the room.
When she had overheard the two men talking earlier, the younger one had said something about “getting secrets out of him.” Ava had assumed they were referring to her father, or perhaps Isaac.
She saw neither of them.
Ava turned her weapon toward the final scientist.
The old man looked to be in his sixties or seventies, with a long, wrinkled face and tired, dark eyes.
Ava needed information, but she had never been in a situation like this. She tried to work out what she needed to say and how she should begin.
Perhaps she should simply shoot him.
“Well?” the old man asked. “What do you want?”
He seemed impatient.
Almost bored.
“I want to know where my father and my crew are. Where are they?” she demanded through her suit’s speakers, keeping the gun trained on his chest.
This story has been stolen from NovelPhoenix. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
She did not sound confident or threatening.
She felt like a child throwing a tantrum and demanding the return of her toys.
“It would help if I knew who your father was,” the old man said.
“Captain Kane Summers,” she answered, latching onto something familiar.
“I don’t know who that is. Why would I know that man?” he asked.
“Because he brought you that thing,” Ava said, indicating the artifact with her weapon.
The old man’s eyes seemed to brighten as he suddenly made the connection.
“Oh, then you must be—oh, I see. Your father. Yes.”
He turned toward the workbench behind him, then back toward Ava as though he had forgotten what he was doing.
“My father. Kane. Where is he?” she asked again.
She had not raised the gun back toward him. Instead, she allowed it to rest at a low-ready position, pointed toward the floor.
“Yes, he is here, in the base. I believe he is being held for questioning,” the old man said as he moved toward the artifact.
“This is a true treasure you have brought us,” he continued, changing the subject. “This beauty, lost to us for hundreds of years and uncommon even then. No, no. Not common at all.”
He approached a stand of sensors and activated them.
“Once we are done here,” he continued, “could you imagine?”
“What?” Ava asked before she could stop herself.
The man was only a feeble old scientist, she thought. He barely seemed aware of what was happening around him.
“The advancement. It will be like magic made real. Everything will change. Humanity will unite again, and there will be a new golden age. Don’t you understand the implications?” he asked as he adjusted another sensor array.
“Listen, old man,” Ava said harshly. “I need to know where my people are so we can get the hell off this rock.”
“Leave before the work can be completed? That simply isn’t possible,” he said, his back still turned as he rummaged across a workstation.
Frustrated, Ava stepped forward, gripped him by the shoulder, and spun him around.
“Listen. Keep the artifact. I only want my family back—”
She managed only the word
listen
before her body began writhing and she fell backward to the floor.
The man held a small device.
A black cylinder with two exposed metal prongs on the end facing Ava.
A stun baton.
Alex had used one on Ethan in the holo projection, Ava remembered.
The old man stepped forward, wrenched the pistol from her hand, and straightened.
He pointed the weapon at Ava’s face.
“No. You listen. This discovery is everything I have worked toward my entire life. This is not merely Old World technology, you bumbling backwater filth.
“This is Presidential technology.
“This is not difficult to find. It is impossible. Do you understand? Of course you don’t.”
He repeated himself.
“Of course you don’t. I am speaking to a space monkey. How you and yours discovered this ship eludes me, but you will help us recover the rest of it. There has to be more.”
He leaned closer.
“There is more?”
He jabbed her again with the stun baton.
Ava screamed.
She muted her external speakers to deny him the satisfaction, but she knew he could still hear the muffled sound from inside her helmet. She could do nothing to hide her body’s response to the pain.
He struck her again, this time in the throat.
Her muscles contracted.
She felt like the young man with the crushed windpipe as she desperately gasped for air that would not come.
“Tell me, girl. Tell me, or the pain never stops,” he threatened.
“Yes,” she gasped, turning her speakers back on.
He jabbed her again beneath the arm.
“On a moon. There is a wreck. I will tell you. Just let us go. Please,” she begged as she convulsed on the floor.
“Are you going to tell me which moon, or must I persuade you?” he asked as he stepped away.
He kept his eyes on Ava, but he knew her body would barely function after one application, let alone several. He had lowered the setting to avoid knocking her unconscious, but not enough to leave her capable of defending herself or threatening him.
“I don’t know the name. It is uncharted. Four leaps to reach it from here. Three by the most direct route. All the navigational data is in our AI,” Ava gasped.
“So, since we have captured your shuttle, you are telling me we truly have no further use for you?” the man reasoned.
“Please. Just let us go,” Ava begged.
She continued shaking on the ground. Her voice was hoarse, and she tasted blood.
“No, I don’t believe that would be wise. Look at how much you talk. We would prefer this discovery to remain secret.”
He walked over and stood before the artifact.
“We will become like gods. We will end aging, heal worlds, and consume stars. Everything the Old Earth Dominion could accomplish, and more. It belongs to us.”
He fixated on the artifact.
“And you—”
He turned and pointed Ava’s gun toward her once again.
“—will not ruin that for us.”
“No,” said a voice behind the old man. “But I will.”
A tall, naked man with piercing blue eyes and dark brown hair stood between the scientist and the artifact.
Heavy mist poured from the artifact, which seemed to glow around an opening in its surface.
The naked, heavily muscled man towered over the scientist.
The old man turned toward the intrusion and tried to bring the pistol to bear.
A large hand caught his wrist.
With a sharp movement, the bones snapped, and the weapon clattered to the floor.
“What are you?” the scientist asked.
The man did not answer.
He raised one fist and brought it down against the old man’s temple.
The scientist’s skull caved inward, and the force of the blow smashed him to the floor.
Ava watched from where she lay shaking as the enormous nude man flicked the blood from his fist before approaching her and kneeling.
His piercing blue eyes stared through her helmet’s faceplate and into her own.
She felt as though she were lying naked before him.
Helpless.
Vulnerable.
Her body still convulsed from the repeated applications of the stun baton. She wanted to sit up or crawl away, but she was trapped within her own unresponsive muscles.
The man reached down and placed one large hand gently against her upper chest, holding her still.
Her muscles unclenched.
The shuddering became less overwhelming.
After several moments, her breathing returned to normal.
She blinked the tears from her eyes as she stared up at him.
She felt as though she had seen him before.
As though she knew him.
Ava continued studying his face, trying to understand the strange familiarity.
Then he spoke.
“Do not be afraid.”