The Road to Hell

Chapter 19

"I'll fill you in on details later, but the internal security for the facility is minimal for the most part," Rosana explained. "There are only a few restricted areas. Stay out of those and we won't have any problems." She raised her glass, and David did the same. "I'm glad we'll be working together, Spectre. You really are a Ghost now.

Several days later, David and his crew stepped off the Spectral Hawk and onto a pristine black sand beach. The gigantic beach served as a landing zone for the smaller ships operating out of Zeus's headquarters. The large moon they were on had a breathable, if thin atmosphere, and in addition to that, the moon had two major oceans covering over eighty percent of the surface. Land was fairly scarce on the rock, with almost all of it composed of densely packed archipelagos. Like Luna, this moon was tidally locked into a synchronous rotation with its planet. There were some basic sea-based life forms, however, the entire system was fairly young, and probably wouldn't harbour very advanced life on it anyway. The moon lacked sorely in natural resources. Factor in its distance from the civilized portion of the galaxy, and David could see why Zeus had chosen it as his operating grounds.

"It's beautiful in its desolation, isn't it?" David looked around to see Rosana jogging toward them, followed by Fitch and a dozen or so personnel. Rosana had ordered Fitch away from Desrequins as well, saying she needed someone command the wing.

"As a formality you need to get your IDs scanned to make sure the DNA you supplied us with matches with the data on your cards. You will need those to access work areas," Rosana said. "A team will be by to help offload your fighters, and you will have full access to our weapons and scrap yard. I'm sure your engineer will be plenty happy to see what we have available."

David grinned. "I bet he'll bust a nut." The staff that had accompanied her assembled a small station and began ushering David's crew through it. He pulled José aside and told him to make sure to get a good look at the operations going on in the base. Now that they were in the centre of Zeus's operations, David was going to work as quickly to reconnoitre the enemy encampment and figure out how best to kill their beloved leader.

It crossed his mind that he might have to kill Rosana too. She was a dangerous criminal with almost as much power as Zeus. They might have to kill her just to be safe. "Something wrong?" she asked, studying his face.

"Nothing," he quickly reassured her. "It's probably just this gravity and air making me a bit dizzy. I'm used to the ship." It was a weak lie, but she let it drop. "So what do we do from here?"

Rosana flashed one of those up-to-no-good smiles and grabbed David by the arm. With a strong pull she yanked him into the air. The moon had a gravity rating of 0.33 Earth Standard, so the two of them were air borne for a little bit before touching down. She immediately pushed off, and David was forced along with her. The two of them loped across the beach towards the mountain that dominated the landscape of the particular island they were on. "Where are we going?" David thought to inquire.

"Oh, I'm just going to show you around the place. We can see most of the base on the way to my room."

"Your room?"

She squeezed his arm gently. "It's where I keep my bed, among other things."

Of course, David thought with a smile. He could've guessed there was another reason she'd wanted him on her team.

#

Over the next several days, David's crew adjusted to the base. They joined the patrol roster and ran drills; they participated in sports games with the regulars; they were new, so they did a lot of the dirty jobs like cleaning out the latrine pits and incinerating the waste off base. When David got leisure time, he called José and his Archangels to the Spectral Hawk's mess hall to plan a recon mission. Tanner and Farid were there as well, listening in. "All right, so there are three things we'd like to achieve with this little incursion," David began. "The first thing is, we need floor plans and security details of this entire base so that we can find out where Zeus hides his pretty little face all day. Secondly, we need to get a handle on what Zeus might be planning, so we need to gather up any info we can that can help with that. Lastly, we have to bypass their main comm security systems so that we can communicate with the admiral without their security picking up the traffic. The comm centre is, of course, in the restricted zone, and we can be sure that security is going to be tight. There are only about two dozen people authorized to be in there."