A Darker Magic by Glynn Stewart

Author:Glynn Stewart
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Magic, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Fiction, Fantasy, Military & War
ISBN: 9781989674147
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing
Published: 2021-03-08T22:00:00+00:00

The waste treatment plant had large freight elevators to handle replacement parts, but it was clear that the main method of reaching the two lower floors was the stairs Mooren had sent everyone to. Wide enough for six exosuited Marines to walk down abreast, the shallow steps spiraled down a large opening descending twenty meters into the earth.

“Skip the middle level,” Roslyn ordered. “Scan for threats with the drones, but I’m betting our access is on the bottom.”

No one verbally acknowledged her, but four of Knight’s drones flashed away as they passed the first sub-level, and the Marines kept tramping downward. Each ten-meter-high level was a duplicate of the one above, with a few large cylindrical tanks descending the full height of the treatment plant.

The bottom of the plant was the same smoothed industrial concrete as the two floors above it. Nothing about the facility yet indicated that it was a cover for a secret bioweapon lab—but that, Roslyn supposed, was the point.

Secret labs shouldn’t look like secret labs.

“Stick to a group, move north, circle counterclockwise toward the reservoir,” Mooren ordered. “Knight, keep the drones sweeping for anything we might miss. I would rather not get ambushed in this mess.”

“I don’t know; there’s lots of cover in here,” Killough said drily. “Speaking as one of the people in the light armor, cover sounds better than wide open corridors.”

“Yes, but think of the property damage,” the Marine replied. “We’ll take it out of your paycheck.”

“I think I might still be legally dead,” the spy said. “They’ll have to fix that before they can dock my pay!”

Roslyn smiled to herself as she moved with the Marines. At least everyone was in good spirits, even with the vaguely depressing silence of the mechanical plant. This floor was almost entirely shut down at this time of year, it seemed.

She had an overlay of the map they’d put together of what they thought was under the park on her HUD, and slowed to a halt after they’d circled around a quarter of the bunker.

“Stop,” she ordered. “The reservoir is directly west of us. Most likely the lab is on either the north or south side of the reservoir, dug out in the same project and built at the same time. So, we are now into the area where I expect to see the access point.”

She gestured to the south, where several massive pipes emerged from the exterior bunker wall.

“That’s the reservoir link,” she reminded them. “We know they’re using the drainage tunnels to the reservoir itself as passageways, so we’ve got to be close.”

“Knight, those drones can rig up a short-range penetrating-radar pulse, right?” Mooren asked. “Sequence them into the wall. I’m betting some of this wall moves aside with the right commands, but we don’t have the network codes.”

“Setting them up,” the Corporal replied. “This will take a minute. Do we want to sweep the rest of the west wall while I work?”

“Don’t split up,” Roslyn and Mooren said simultaneously.

Several of the Marines very clearly swallowed chuckles in response to that.

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