Chapter 293: Kordula’s Worries

Ten minutes later the readings from both Scout teams matched the road stations, and nothing was left of the storm except the snow already lying on the ground.

Marianne looked at the terrain picture again. The interior valley was quiet, the slopes around it ordinary from a distance, and the bare patch Seeker One-One had marked sat above it.

"Crystal Three, Crystal Four. Move to the bare ground on the north slope and see what’s there."

Both teams acknowledged and started up the valley.

The ground changed before they reached the patch. Snow thinned along a narrow strip, then gave way to wet rock, and meltwater ran from the edge of the snow in thin lines.

"Crystal Three to Northern Command. Ground temperature’s nine above at forty meters from the steam. It’s coming out of a seam in the slope."

The Drone Operator’s feed showed the seam better than the Scouts could see it from the ground: a straight cut across the slope, warm along its whole length and running toward a shelf of rock on the far side.

Crystal Four followed it.

Two hundred meters along, the warm strip crossed a service track buried under snow. A pole stood beside it with its crossarm bent, and a cable ran from its base into the ground instead of along it.

Marianne checked the older map. It matched the utility line she had seen heading toward the mountains.

The track ended at the slope. Where rock should have started there was a door, set flush into the mountainside, framed in the same gray as the stone around it.

The heat from the seam had cleared the snow from its lower half. A single status light above it was lit, dim and steady.

"Crystal Four to Northern Command. Reinforced door set into the slope. No markings visible from here. One status light, dim."

"Hold there. I don’t want anything triggering because someone got too close."

Marianne kept the feed on the table a moment longer. So there was something in the mountain after all.

"Send everything to Grefort. The readings from the beginning, the edge, the feed, and Seeker’s imagery."

"Yes, ma’am."

Farther west, the main column kept moving under clear skies.

The packet from the north reached Grefort within the hour.

Dianne put it on the main display while Hans was still going through Southern Command’s reports. The storm readings came first, then the edge, then Seeker One-One’s imagery of the valley from above the cloud line.

Hans skipped straight to the drone feed.

It was the same door Marianne saw, with the same dim light above it.

"Well. That’s not a cave."

"Northern Command is holding both Scout teams at a distance," Dianne said. "Commander Krile doesn’t want anyone triggering it by getting close."

Hans watched the light for a while.

In most of the games he used to play, a door like that meant a hidden base, and hidden bases were never empty.

The storm had come out of the valley right below it, then stopped in less than an hour. The northern force had never seen one do that before.

He wasn’t sending anyone through it just because it was there.

"Keep them watching it. Nobody goes in until we know what we’re looking at."

...

The Northern Ashington Nuclear Power Station was quieter than it had been in weeks.

The alarms that used to go off every time someone brought another transmission line back had finally stopped. The last connection passed its checks that morning, and nothing had tripped since then.

Kordula finished the report on her terminal and read it again.

Generation was limited but stable. The plant personnel had decided which parts of the region needed power first, the hospitals, water treatment and the shelters, and everything else would have to wait its turn. For once, she agreed with them without arguing.

The fuel would last them a while, but not forever. That part was up to Silverpeak.

The lab downstairs was quiet too. Ever since Tyrus left on one of Hans’s Falcons, nobody down there argued with her anymore. Work went faster, but the silence annoyed her.

Word had reached the station anyway that Tyrus Shearman became part of Hans’s army. He had gone and gotten himself an entire research institution while she was still down here.

Not that she cared what he did with his time, but she just didn’t see why he had to be first.

She could have sent the report about the plant’s progress through Dianne like always but she called Hans instead.

"Overseer Kordula." Hans sounded like he was in the middle of something. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"The station’s done. Or at least the grid work is. Every connection passed this morning, and we’ve been holding limited generation without anything tripping. The full report is with your adjutant."

"You could’ve just let her tell me."

"I could have."

Hans didn’t say anything much to her displeasure.

"How’s Tyrus lately?"

"You missed him?"

"Mocking him to his face, yes."

"The guy has been busy. He’s locked inside one of my... research bases, running some simulation for days. I think he’s having the time of his life."

"Good for him."

"Do I detect a hint of jealousy from your voice, or your words, Overseer?"

Kordula didn’t answer.

Hans let it go before she had to say anything.

"Since you called anyway, I want you to look at something."

A file appeared on her terminal a moment later. Kordula opened it, expecting another component list or something about AWP.

Her eyes were met with a door, flush in the mountainside with no markings. A single small light was placed above it on standby. It was weakly lit, making one wonder if it was caused by the wiring, the bulb, or electricity.

Kordula leaned closer to the screen.

"This place looks familiar. Is this somewhere in Pylow?"

"You catch fast. As a DAEDALUS Overseer, perhaps you have heard what they were doing here a thing or two?"

"Weather control," she replied without hesitation. "But I can’t help you with that."

"But you do want to help, don’t you?" Hans laid out the bait.

Inside the Command Center, he leaned back in his chair and waited for her answer.

He knew he would need Kordula for the rest of the Automated Weaponry Program’s output to be slowly integrated into the army.

As far as he was concerned, drone and robotic warfare was the future. Armies couldn’t just send human lives to the front as if they were expendable. Someone had to be more humanitarian than their enemies.

However, even if DAEDALUS had weather control-based programs and Kordula wasn’t an expert in it, who knew how she would react if she was briefed on one that actually existed?