Chapter 307: Changes in the Main Base - I

The Falcon reached Main Base in the early afternoon.

Kordula watched it come up from the south, the same spread of structures she left four days ago.

Barracks, factories, the Command Center near the middle, and the Tech Center sitting in its restricted corner to the northwest.

However, the pilot didn't turn toward it.

The Falcon kept going past the first Tech Center and started descending toward a second one beside it.

It was the same shape and size, with the same restricted perimeter, only newer. Its lights were on and a line of vehicles sat parked at its entrance.

"We're landing there?" Kordula asked.

"Those are my orders, Overseer."

She looked back at the first one. Somewhere inside it, Tyrus was probably still running whatever he was running, and she wasn't going there.

She didn't know what to make of that yet.

The Falcon banked once more to line up with the landing area, and the edge of the base passed under the window.

There was a wide stretch of open ground out there, far from everything else, with a cordon of barriers and warning markers around it.

In the middle of it stood a large building like a warehouse. Most of its roof had caved inward. The walls still stood, but cracks ran up them from the ground, and most of the windows were gone.

The ground around it wasn't flat anymore. It sank toward the building in a wide, shallow bowl, and the cracks didn't stop at the walls.

They ran outward through the concrete and the dirt beyond it, long and branching, all of them starting from the same place.

"What happened there?"

The pilot glanced down, then back at his instruments.

"No idea, Overseer. It was standing fine the last time I flew over it."

"Was there an attack?"

The pilot gulped. "No."

Kordula suspiciously looked at him, then toward the strange depression below until the Falcon's tail cut it off.

...

The cases went first.

Engineers met the Falcon on the pad and started moving the Pylow cases onto carts before the rotors finished winding down.

None of them went toward the first Tech Center. The carts rolled straight into the second one.

Kordula stepped down onto the concrete and stopped.

There was someone at the entrance of the second Tech Center.

She couldn't see him yet. A transport sat between them and blocked the view. But she knew he was there before she walked around it, the same way she used to know when someone enhanced walked into a room at the power plant.

Only this was much heavier than she remembered. It sat on her like standing too close to a running engine.

She came around the transport.

Hans stood by the entrance with Dianne beside him, reading something on a tablet. He looked the same as the last time she saw him, but he stood differently.

He didn't shift his weight or fidget. When he handed the tablet back to Dianne, he did it slowly, holding it with his fingertips, as if he wasn't sure how hard he was gripping it.

He looked up.

"Overseer. Welcome back."

"Commander." Kordula stopped a few steps away. "Did something happen to you?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You feel different."

"I got a promotion." He said it the way someone would say they changed their haircut. "How was the trip?"

"Very cold." She looked past him at the building. "Your pilot wouldn't tell me why we landed here."

"Because I told him not to." Hans turned toward the entrance. "Walk with me."

...

The inside was the same as the first Tech Center.

The corridors and doors remained similar, and so were the count of people.

Personnel in the same uniforms as Reechard's staff moved between sections with tablets and carts, and every one of them stopped to greet Hans as he passed.

None of them were faces Kordula knew from the first building.

"They came with it," Hans said, before she could ask. "Every Tech Center has its own people."

"So my staff is different from Tyrus?"

"Yes. Worried you'd share the same set of people?"

"Until a moment ago, yes."

"I read everything Marianne sent," Hans said as they walked. "The incident log, the reactor, the suspension. The Scouts on the slope."

"The storms stopped. Facility Ops wanted to shut it down for months, but nobody was left to approve it."

"With your assistance, Marianne's northern army can continue to Pylow. Elise sends her regards. Her aircraft are now flying freely on the sky thanks to you."

Kordula felt her face warm, and she looked away.

Hans noticed. "Being appreciated, haven't heard that for a long time?"

"I... yes." Kordula nodded slowly.

She had been talking with countless soulless machines for a while, and even if she did have human connections, there were barely anything heartwarming about them.

Marianne and Elise's gratitude caught her off guard.

Hans looked at her a little longer, as if weighing something, then seemed to drop it.

There were other things that needed to be handled.

"I will handle PCL-1's problem tomorrow. For now, let's focus here first."

They stopped at a door near the end of the corridor. It opened on a room Kordula recognized, although the one she saw before was in the other building.

It was the Research Core of Tech Center #2.

The consoles were new, and so was the observation glass along one side. Nothing was running yet, and the wide central space was empty.

Hans stopped in the middle of it.

"This one's yours, if you want it."

Kordula looked at him, then around the room.

"The Tech Center?"

"Tech Center Two." Hans pulled up an interface only he could see, then turned it so it appeared in front of her as well. "You're already qualified. The System told you that much when you woke up. It just needs me to nominate you and you to say yes."

------

[ Research Director Appointment ]

[ Facility ] Tech Center #2

[ Nominee ] Kordula Weissenberg

[ Nominated By ] Hans Flemmens — Highest Commander

[ Qualification ] Accredited

[ Awaiting Nominee Acceptance ]

------

Kordula read it through.

"What about the third one?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll find more people like you two. If you have any idea where they are, I'm willing to give you a bonus."

"You mean more work?"

"Don't take that as if it's a negative. I know you're the competitive type. Tyrus already finished two research projects while you were away."

Kordula's brows tightened, and her fists clenched. She looked at the panel a while longer.

A year ago, she would have needed three sign-offs and a background review for access to a room like this, and she would still have been told what to work on.

"What happens if I say yes?"

Hans, knowing that his bait worked, continued.

"Up to you. And you won't have to share a building with Tyrus. You'll be... a director of your own."

"Heh. That's the best part."

Kordula looked at the panel one last time. "I accept."

------

[ Nominee Acceptance Confirmed ]

[ Kordula Weissenberg ] Research Director — Tech Center #2

[ Research Core Access: Granted ]

[ Research Archive Access: Granted ]

------

The consoles around the room came alive at the same time. Screens lit along the observation glass, and a low tone sounded somewhere inside the walls, followed by the hum of systems waking up.

Kordula felt something settle into place in the back of her mind, the same way the menus did when she woke up in the pod. There were new doors now, and she already knew which ones were hers.

She opened the Research panel before she could stop herself.

It was full, and most of it she could barely follow.

"Don't read all of it today," Hans said. "Get some rest first. You look terrible."

"You're the second person to tell me that."

"You want a third one? I can call Tyrus here—"

"I think I'm feeling better now, Commander."

Hans shrugged and turned toward the door.

"Your staff already know the building. Tell Dianne if you need anything else." He stopped at the threshold. "And Overseer?"

"Commander?"

"Good work up there."

He left before she could answer.