Page 69 of Ava Greasemonkey

“How?”

“Crawling?”

Vox looked at her, gaze unblinking, until she answered again.

“I use the map that hopefully will have my location on it. If not, I use the picture reference points to look at and make sure I am going the right way.”

This time Vox nodded, breathing out heavily. “We will be there within half a cycle of you arriving. That should be enough time for you to get there and do what you need to. If you run into trouble . . .” He fixed her with a fiery look. “If you can not complete the mission, if there is unforeseen danger—I will find you. You wait for me and do not risk yourself.”

She nodded. Lirell and the others poked their heads in to see her off, giving her salutes that she took as their form of wishing her luck.

Reluctantly, Vox let go of her hands before surging forward and kissing her one last time. Then they closed the hatch.

The com on her arm beeped, already live. Ava closed her eyes, pretending she was going with Nuor off ship. She took a slow, steadying breath. It was as if she was going to see a new and exciting planet. Everything felt the same, the sounds as the engine powered up, the beeping of panels and the start of the life support system in the craft with a whiff of ozone.

Her eyes still closed, she breathed through the rumble of the ship lifting. She ran through the checkpoint clearances the ship needed to clear to leave the transport bay in her head. She only opened her eyes after hearing the clang of the airlock doors as they lifted and shut after her little transport had cleared the threshold.

Ava stared out at space. Physical pain bloomed in her chest from her heart pounding so hard. Ava rubbed her chest soothingly, continuing to take deep breaths. There was no rearview mirror to look back atR526, her Phor’s ship. She could only look forward.

Ava’s hands trembled and she hugged the biologics close to her chest. The craft felt lonely with only the Tuxa’s jerkybreathing and the whooshing of the propulsion engines to listen to. She couldn’t fool herself. Nothing was the same as when she went off ship with Nuor. Ava pressed her hand against the window, watching the stars go past.I can do this.Shewasdoing it, and that was what mattered.

Chapter 25

“We are descending onto the roof pad on C-3,” the Tuxa wheezed into the communicator, speaking with the planet down below. He rattled off a few code words into the mic.

The trip was uneventful. It took only around an hour before they came into view of the planet. Ava sat glued to the window, her breath making it fog from being pressed against it. There were several cities ringing Torga, which slowly spun underneath them as they got into orbit. Like clockwork, and with good navigation, their craft positioned itself over the main Tuxa city that looked familiar from her photos.

“Status report explaining this unexpected landing?”

Static accompanied the reply back from the planet below.

Ava watched, fascinated, as the Tuxa replied again, “This transport was found abandoned. It is loaded with Haroo tech and is hard to maneuver. Rear stabilizers are damaged. Direct surface landing is best to not damage the goods.”

“Understood. We will send a transport for you once you land to shuttle it in manually.” The communicator clicked out.

Ava grinned into space. That went easier than she had dared hope.

Her luck held as the transport landed safely on the top of the dome that was indicated by Ebel for the best point of contact.

Ava fastened her oxygen mask on herself before the locks were disengaged, pulling the rubber bands at the back tight under her hair bun to seal it fully. The Tuxa remained sitting, stationary, not a care in the world. She patted one on the shoulder as she got up and organized her items around her, earning a “stop that” reply from him.

Leaning forward, she hit the button on the top that started the process for the transport to self-destruct. It was rigged when pressed to issue a huge plume of smoke from underneath.

Ava watched the smoke gather and swirl, heavy in the polluted air before she turned the latch on the transport door. The Tuxa sat there, staring ahead, as she exited the craft. Dropping down into the mist, she stayed in the smoke cover a minute to gather her bearings before walking across to the filtration unit sitting close by the transport. Ava had the larger cutter out and already primed. Unfortunately the wind was already blowing the smoke away, but it was too late to worry about being exposed. She engaged the trigger on the cutter and put it to the metal, moving fast in case she was being monitored.

The plasma cutter went through the side of the vent easily until she could peel out pieces of the metal, creating a mid-sized opening. Ava grinned, feeling powerful. She crawled in hurriedly, turning on the headlamp she had on to see where she’d ended up. Then she turned around and pulled the panel back into place so there wasn’t a gaping hole.

If the Tuxa inspected this area they would see the damage, but with the transport combusting they hopefully wouldn’t look tooclosely. Her com indicated she still had a few minutes to move on before that happened.Hurry, hurry.

Flicking her headlamp to recenter it, she looked around. The motor for the filtration unit was in front of her, doggedly whirling, but the vents extended to both sides. Ava scurried away from her entry point while she shined her beam of light down both sides.

When they landed, she had a vague idea that she needed to head west once inside. She activated the locator function on her com and shook it. It flashed static but didn’t seem to want to locate. She hit it in frustration.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and was flooded with oxygen from the tank she had on, making her head spin. She took the mask off and delicately sniffed.It’s breathable.She wrinkled her nose. It didn’t smell good, but it was better to save the oxygen in case she needed it later.

Ava came to the conclusion she was going to have to do this by sight if the handheld tracker didn’t work. She banged it a few times on her knee but it remained static.Of all the times for something to not work.

She reached into her bag and got out the magnetic hooks, putting them on her hands, then crawled to the nearest outlet grate to get her bearings. Looking down, she got out her drawings and tried to piece together where she was.

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