Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2), Kevin Ikenberry [reading the story of the txt] 📗

wouldn’t be any line-of-sight connection between them. She’d have to report to Sergeant Cook at the assembly area.

Bo leaned against a tree and lowered the brim of his cap over his eyes. As he drifted into an uneasy nap, he wondered what Aliza was doing at that moment. Was she safe? Did she miss him?

Because he most surely missed her.

* * * * *

Chapter Four

Imsurmik

Aliza estimated that she and her fellow volunteers had walked through the dimly lit cavern for about fifteen minutes when daylight appeared in the distance. Given that they hadn’t made any significant turns to the right or left, it seemed the passage had cut almost directly through the plateau. But from what she remembered of the intelligence briefings, that made little sense: it should have been a much longer walk. Her curiosity piqued, Aliza focused on the opening of the tunnel in the distance, hoping to get a better idea of what they were looking at and where they would emerge.

The tunnel opened on the backside of an exposed rock formation. From the other side, Aliza surmised, it would look like it was part of the plateau, when in reality the formation stuck out along a small spur, creating a V-shaped canyon on the far side. Based on his observation position and planned route of approach, she knew Bo and the others had no idea it was there. Murphy might have seen the small notch from orbital sensors, but he likely hadn’t seen what it held.

Inside the vaguely triangular canyon, Aliza saw a sizable wall, at least ten meters high, to her far right. Men were assembling it from piles of loose rock and boulders. Above it, she saw the familiar point on the escarpment that she had seen and noted from the thermal pond outside Imsurmik. The rocks there were not the edge of the plateau but an eroded outcropping. She glanced quickly to the far left and saw a wide spring emerging from the rocks. The watercourse was mostly empty and the spring appeared to be flowing at half of its capacity, likely another casualty of the approaching Sear.

Near Camp Stark, there had been similar features carved by water and wind into the regional geography. This canyon resembled what Bo and the others called a box canyon, like the one she’d occupied and defended during the J’Stull Job, with the plateau twenty meters above them on both sides.

On the north side of the canyon, she saw two figures walking across the top of the rock formation. A hundred meters to her left, the two walls of the canyon merged. The mere presence of a secretly accessible box canyon met one of Colonel Murphy’s critical intelligence requirements. He’d asked for the location of any cache sites, and this was certainly one under construction. Everywhere she looked, the secure compound held equipment and storage containers. Some of them looked like nothing Aliza had ever seen. Several were so coated with dust and rust it was impossible to theorize what they might have been. Based on their condition, they might have sat in the exposed yard for years, maybe even longer.

Sergeant First Class Whittaker had once commented that the storage facilities at Camp Stark were a junkyard, and Aliza finally understood what he meant. She missed the grizzled veteran and his fatherly presence, but also imagined his ghostly finger pointing toward the stores as if reminding her that Lost Soldiers’ lives might depend on her discovering what was there besides a bunch of ancient junk.

In contrast, there were also rows upon rows of newer items. More storage containers were arranged in silent, orderly grids. At least a dozen vehicles with mounted weapons systems stood in a line among others which appeared to have been modified for the transportation of goods. The vehicles were arrayed with their front wheels pointed out toward the fence that sealed off the open end of the canyon. Aliza surmised there must be a gate there and that, once loaded, the trucks would drive forward and meet the major road network to the east of the plateau. From there, she envisioned them turning southwest and heading toward the Sea of Agra. All of it was well designed by a well-established enemy that knew exactly what it needed to do.

The leader of her cohort of volunteers pointed them at a truck brimming with more of the canvas-wrapped parcels and ordered them to unload it. She approached the back of the cargo bed, and one of the bundled parcels was handed to her. Alongside was one of the converted transports, where another group of men were alternating between loading bushels of medicinal plants and removing long, dark boxes. Many of the plants were species she recognized from her expeditions near Camp Stark. Whatever was in the long boxes was being traded for the medicinals. Given what she knew of the relative value of the plants, Aliza couldn’t imagine what was in the dark containers.

Aliza easily lifted the bundle onto her right shoulder, turned around, and walked into the tunnel, preparing to count her steps as she headed back. That way, she could calculate exactly how far the canyon was from the town itself. Bo would certainly need to know she had found something none of them had expected. With any luck, she could drop off the parcel, make a second trip, and attempt to see what else she could learn about the storage facility.

High value, indeed!

A group of men carrying more modern tools approached. Two of them carried a black and gray box, one man on each end. They set the box heavily on the ground outside the tunnel and rested.

“Where is this package? Outside the gate?”

The other man wheezed. “Yes. I think so. Sobiturni was not specific.”

“Fine,” the first man huffed. “We can get the components to Waornaak when he arrives