“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Grant agreed. “We don’t want to rush into this. I’d like to make it out of here alive.” His hands were shaking, and although he tried to hide his nervousness, he knew it was obvious. This was the first time he’d ever been on a real mission of any kind. Sure, he’d completed his fair share of lookout duty postings, but infiltrating an Urlowen-held base was a completely different ball game.
“How long should we wait?” Ethan asked.
“As short as possible, if you ask me,” Aleena said.
“We should at least wait until the sun goes down,” Allison urged. “The darkness will hide us better. I doubt there are many places to hide once we get to the fence.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?” Grant asked.
Everyone looked at Aleena.
“I can’t walk through walls, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She felt a little uncomfortable with all of them staring at her, as if she had all the answers.
“How’d you get into the palace?” Ethan asked.
“Through a door,” Aleena replied. “Doors are easy. Depending on the door, I could pick the lock, blast it open, or rip it out of the opening. I could try to rip the fence down, but it won’t break cleanly.”
“Maybe we should be a bit subtler than that,” Allison suggested. “That may draw too much attention.”
“Could you teleport us through?” Grant asked. “Like you did to get out of your cell.”
“It doesn’t really work like that. I don’t think you can teleport multiple people, and besides that, you can’t just teleport anywhere you want. I’d have to have a special connection to the location. There has to be an object infused with an enormous amount of my magic there.”
“The tree stump,” Ethan murmured. “That was the connection.”
“Yes. The few times I’ve heard of teleportation, there was only one place the Elf could teleport to.”
“And yours is a tree stump in the middle of the woods. Bummer,” Grant said.
“Is there a way we could cut through the fence?” Ethan asked.
“Depends on what it’s made of, I suppose,” Allison said.
“What about those blue things you shoot at stuff?” Ethan asked Aleena. “Do you think you could use one to cut through the metal?”
“I don’t think so,” Aleena replied. “I’ve never seen them cut metal before. They just pass through it. But I can conjure a type of fire. Blazing white-hot fire. I think I’ve got an idea.”
“Good enough for me,” Ethan said. “Until then, we wait.”
Kalma pulled right up to the entrance on the west side of the complex, climbed out of the skimmer, and walked to a small guard station situated next to the entry gate. As he approached, two soldiers emerged from the building to meet him.
“I’m here to inspect your defensive perimeter,” Kalma said. “After the recent incident at the palace, the councilwoman wants to ensure that our facilities are adequately prepared for any potential threats.” As he spoke, he transmitted his ID from his multiband to the soldiers’ tablet.
Both soldiers snapped to attention upon seeing his credentials. “Guard Dryenaugh, sir, would you like us to inform the colonel of your arrival?”
“No need. This is a surprise inspection. Just take me to your observation control.”
“Yes, sir,” the first guard said. “If you’ll follow me.” He spun on the balls of his feet and led Kalma through the small guardhouse into the compound.
Not much had changed since the last time Kalma was in the depot. Rather than erecting new temporary structures, Colonel Yaneen had his troops utilize the original buildings—the exception being the field observation control center, a portable bunker designed to house communications equipment and monitor the various sensors the Urlowens had added to the depot’s security perimeter. The bunker was a simple armor-plated box positioned in the center of the depot, directly next to the Alliance-built operations facility that included several conference rooms, offices, and the hibernation chamber.
Inside the operations control bunker, two soldiers were monitoring an entire suite of screens and holographic projections. Some scrolled data while the others displayed renderings of the forest around them.
“Sir, these are Lieutenants Magran and Donnel,” Kalma’s guide said. “They’ll be able to answer any questions you have.”
“Wonderful, thank you.” Kalma watched the soldier leave, then pulled the bunker door closed behind them and turned back to the lieutenants. “How long does your shift last?”
“We have the graveyard shift tonight,” Magran answered. “We’ll be here until 0800 local time.”
“Wonderful,” Kalma said. “That should give us plenty of time.” He placed his hands on the tops of both their heads. Beneath his palms, a brilliant white light flared, and the soldiers rolled out of their chairs. Their bodies landed on the floor, and a wisp of smoke rose from the shape of Kalma’s hand that was seared into the tops of their heads. “You’ve been very helpful,” he told them, grinning. It was too easy.
He took the seat on his right and began sensor scans of the surrounding forest. It didn’t take long before the bunker sensors found four people hiding in the underbrush at the base of the ridge. “There you are,” Kalma said to himself, the soundproof bunker keeping him from being overheard. “Good thing I’m here. You wouldn’t have even made it into this place.” Thinking about the security footage of Aleena’s romp through the palace, he changed his mind. “Well, you wouldn’t have made it out.”
Kalma synced his multiband to the control console and pulled up a schematic of the perimeter patrols. There were five patrols that crisscrossed the western path leading to the operations facility. He memorized the patterns, closed the diagram, and pulled up the data synced into the system by the soldiers at the front gate. I’ll just get rid of that. With a couple of commands, he wiped everything concerning his entry into the compound, then cleared the entire days’ worth of security footage from the cameras. To finish up, he turned off the cameras and secured a couple of small explosives to the computer mainframe.
Quickly, he ran through the checklist in his head. No alarms, check. No cameras, check. No trace of me, check. Now to lighten the patrols. He left the bunker and headed toward the west side of the compound.
The last wisps of orange and purple disappeared from the sky, and the stars began twinkling. On the ridge above, rows of lights illuminated the fence and inner compound facilities. Ethan looked over at Aleena. “You ready?”
“Yes.” She crawled out of the bushes and began the ascent.
Ethan followed closely, while Allison and Grant waited in the brush. When they were halfway to the fence line, Allison and Grant started up. The four of them stayed as low to the ground as possible, moving from tree to tree and boulder to boulder, making use of all the cover that was available. The darkness concealed their approach for most of the climb, but the compound’s lights grew uncomfortably bright as they neared the top.
Ethan and Aleena lay flat on the ground behind a small bush just short of the hill crest and fence line. Ethan couldn’t help but notice that Aleena’s armor kept shifting color, adapting to the changes in lighting. It’d started a much darker green, almost black at the beginning of their climb, but lightened to match the green terrain as the light from the compound increased.
Aleena perceived Ethan looking at her and winked. “We’ve got this,” she whispered.
Farther down the incline, Allison and Grant had stopped and were waiting for Ethan and Allison to clear the initial entry point.
“They should be passing any minute now,” Ethan said, reading the time on his watch. The patrols went by this section of the fence every five minutes. Right on cue, a group of five soldiers slowly walked past Ethan and Allison. He held his breath. The soldiers maintained a steady pace, plasma rifles held nonchalantly at their waists. Then to his horror, the troops stopped. Ethan’s heart jumped into his throat. Surely they didn
’t see us.
The soldiers began talking frantically but turned their backs to the ridge. Ethan wanted to ask Aleena what she thought was happening but knew any sound would alert the troops to their position. They were only about twenty to thirty feet away, after all. He could only lie quietly and hope they weren’t discussing how to kill them. Suddenly, all five soldiers sprinted toward the interior of the compound, disappearing as the top of the hill blocked them from Ethan’s view.
“Where’d they go?” he whispered. “They’ve never done that before.”
“I don’t know, but they must not have seen us. They ran away from the fence, not to it.”
“Well I guess it’s now or never, then.”
“All right, here I go.” Aleena got up from the ground and ran to the edge of the fence line, then she sighed with relief. Fifty feet ahead, a building blocked her view to the rest of the compound. “They can’t see us,” she whispered over her shoulder to Ethan. He ran to her side and crouched with his rifle at the ready. Aleena extended her hands, and two searing white balls of fire grew into existence a few feet in front of her. She moved them forward to the base of the fence line. The rippling flames engulfed the bottommost linkages of the outer fence, and she slowly made them rise in unison. As the metal passed through the heat, it melted, leaving behind a cut in the fence. The metal at the edge of the cut glowed red-hot. When she’d cut about three feet up, she made the spheres begin moving toward each other, coalescing into a single large rippling ball of flame at the top of her newly created doorway.
Ethan tried not to be distracted by Aleena’s work on the fence as he looked back and forth at both ends of the building in case the next patrol arrived early. The light from Aleena’s magic was intense, and he hoped no one would notice any seeping around the edges of the building. Even five feet away, he could feel the heat of the flames.
After the first hole was made, Aleena directed the fire into the next fence and repeated the process, all her concentration on the task.
It reminded her of the training sessions she used to have in Avenfall. As an Earthborn warrior, she was relatively untested, apart from her escape through the woods to the hibernation chamber. She’d only made flames like this once before, but they were far weaker and only in practice sessions. Relief swept over her. It’s working perfectly.
It’d only been two or three minutes, but Ethan felt like it was taking forever. As soon as Aleena finished the second hole, he waved to Grant and Allison. Seeing Ethan’s signal, they began climbing the rest of the way up the hill. He and Aleena didn’t wait for them; they passed through both fence lines and ran the short distance to the back of the building.
“I’ll take the right, you take the left,” Ethan ordered.
Aleena obeyed and ran to the left corner of the building while Ethan went to the right. He looked at his watch. The next patrol should be close. As inconspicuously as possible, he leaned his head around the corner of the building to see if anyone was approaching. He wished he hadn’t.
The next five soldiers were rounding the front of the building, making their way toward the back. He pulled his head back as fast as possible, hoping he hadn’t been seen. Raising his rifle, he backed toward the center of the building, keeping his aim fixed where the first soldier would emerge. He lifted his left hand, waving Aleena toward him. To his relief, he heard her light footsteps racing up behind him.
The first soldier turned the corner, and to Ethan’s surprise, a plasma bolt flew past him and struck the soldier in the chest. Ethan spun to look at the fence and saw Grant lying in the dirt, rifle raised with Allison crouched beside him.
Seeing their comrade fall, the other four soldiers immediately drew back.
“We can’t wait for them,” Aleena said. “They’ll call for reinforcements.” She rushed the corner and dove to the ground, sending shimmering blue-white orbs of energy at the men. A few of them returned fire but missed.
Ethan followed Aleena’s lead but stayed close to the building as he stepped around the corner. There was still one standing, so he fired. The shots were good, catching the man in the arm and chest. They were clear for the moment.
Regrouping behind the building, Grant inspected the roof and the fence perimeter. “Cameras!” He lifted his rifle and took aim.
“Grant, wait!” Ethan said. “There aren’t any alarms.”
“So?” Grant replied.
“So if they’d seen us, they’d have sounded an alarm. Let’s just keep moving. We can start shooting cameras if it looks like they’ve seen us. Right now, I think we’re in the clear.”
“Well, we better get inside fast.” Grant jogged back to the corner and peered around it. No one was there except the men they’d just dispatched. “Where are we going now?”
“It’s the center building,” Aleena said.
“Of course it is,” Allison whispered, a little sarcastically. “The building that will be the hardest to get to.”
“We’ll make it,” Ethan told her. “Now, just like we planned. Aleena and I will take point. You two cover our rear.”
Grant looked at Aleena. “I’ll cover your—”
“Grant, seriously, not right now!” Ethan snapped.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Things just pop into my head and then straight out of my mouth.”
Ethan turned away, annoyed. “Let’s get moving,” he told Aleena.
They rounded the corner to the front of the building. From there, they could see it was a straight shot across a courtyard to the center facility. “That’s a lot of ground to cover in the open,” Ethan said.
“At least no one’s out right now,” Aleena replied.
“But where are they?” It was mostly rhetorical. He knew Aleena had as much information as he did, but it felt good to voice his concern.
“Maybe everyone’s asleep. Or maybe they’re just hidden behind the other buildings waiting for us.” There were several other structures throughout the complex. Most were behind the central facility, but there were a few on either side of the courtyard.
“We could stay near the edge and try to get closer. You know, use the other buildings as cover,” Ethan suggested.
“We’ll probably run into more patrols that way. I think we should make a run for it.”
“All right. On a three count.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
Chapter 28
Ethan dashed across the courtyard with Aleena right on his heels, the floodlights from the compound making him feel painfully exposed. When they were halfway across, a door to a building on their left opened and two soldiers emerged. Ethan didn’t notice them until he heard the shots ring out behind him. He covered his head, assuming the bolts were aimed at him and Aleena. Glancing back to spot the assailants, he found the soldiers already laid out on the ground.
He didn’t stop to assess if they were dead, just kept running. When they reached the central building, they flattened themselves against the wall between two windows. The courtyard was empty save for the soldiers, which he could now tell were definitely dead. Across the clearing, Grant and Allison stood with weapons aimed at the open doorway in which the soldiers lay.
“We have to get inside,” Ethan whispered to Aleena. “We’re too exposed out here.” There was a set of double glass doors about fifty yards to their right. “There,” he said, pointing.
“I’ll go first,” Aleena volunteered. She slid past Ethan, then dropped to her hands and knees to crawl beneath the window frames. Getting to the doors, she peered inside. There was a small lobby with a few blue upholstered chairs, each of which looked worn. Adjacent to the chairs, an even older-looking teal couch sat empty. Between the couch and chairs, a wooden table supported a silver espresso machine. A short coffee table served as the center piece of the waiting area, a small metal receptionist desk on the other side of the lobby.
“Lobby looks clear,” Aleena whispered.
“Can you get in?”
Aleena pushed on the glass, and as expected, the doors didn’t budge. It’ll take too long to find the locking mechanisms. She moved in front of the door, stood, and placed her hands on the glass. A few seconds later, it shattered.
Ethan cringed at the sound, the crashing glass echoing through the lobby, connecting hallways, and out into the courtyard. “Let’s hope that doesn’t bring us too much company.”
Aleena stepped through the threshold and was startled when a harsh, angry voice boomed from behind a closed door. “What’s going on out there!” The voice was deep and grating. A moment later, the door behind the secretary’s desk opened and a regal-looking gentleman wearing a pristinely pressed navy blue uniform stepped into the lobby. The medals on his chest gleamed in the lights.
The man’s eyes grew wide seeing the broken glass, realization spreading across his face. “Who do you think you—” His words were cut short by the sound of Ethan’s rifle. Stunned, the man looked down to find a smoldering hole in his chest. He slowly lifted his hands to feel the damage, but they never reached the wound before he toppled over.
Aleena turned to find Ethan standing just outside the doorway, staring down the barrel of his rifle. “We’ve got to make this quick,” he said, signaling Grant and Allison.
The pair gave the courtyard a final check, then sprinted into the open toward Ethan.
Aleena walked around the secretary’s desk and felt the Urlowen for a pulse. “He’s dead.” She confirmed the office was empty, then rejoined the others.
“Which way should we go?” Grant asked. There were two hallways leading off from the lobby. One went straight ahead, deeper into the facility, and one ran parallel to the outside wall.
“It’ll be in the center of the building,” Aleena said, “as far from any entrance as possible.”
“Then straight ahead,” Grant replied.
The four set off down the hallway in front of them. It didn’t take long before that hallway ended and they found themselves wandering through an eerily empty building. Office doors were scattered throughout, but all were empty of personnel. “Where is everyone?” Grant asked.
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