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“Woohoo!” He could hear Tinsley through the comm mic in his helmet. She seemed to be having fun.
“That was amazing!” she exclaimed when they reached the bottom. “Once we’ve gotten your sister back, I want to do a lot more of that!”
She truly was the woman of his dreams, he thought. “I think that can be arranged,” he replied.
“Will you teach me how to ride one like you do?”
The memory of their close encounters with the debris in the asteroid belt flashed through his mind. Tinsley would be a phenomenal hoverbike rider, he thought. She would probably even give him a run for his money.
“You bet I will,” he replied. “You’re not allowed to beat me, though!”
“I can’t promise that!” She laughed.
They were immediately engulfed in dust as soon as they set out across the red desert. They probably hadn’t needed to roll around in the dirt, though, he thought, still aware of the grit that had found its way inside his clothes.
He zipped between the dry bushes and scrub, hoping the trail of dust they were emitting wouldn’t be noticed. “I don’t think we should take this bike too close with this cloud of dust we’re leaving,” he said into his helmet comm.
“I agree.” Tinsley’s voice was a little muffled in his ear.
“Let’s hide the Zoomer in those bushes over there,” said Dante, pointing toward a thick area of scrub in front of them. “We’ll have to go in by foot after that.”
They stashed the Zoomer, carefully covering it with some loose brush.
“This track from the bike is pretty obvious,” said Tinsley. “Do you think we should do something about it? It leads straight here.”
She was right. The hoverbike had left a wide path of displaced sand.
“Grab a couple of branches, and we’ll scrub it out.” They both walked back up the wide track the Zoomer had made, carefully clearing the windblown path.
“Right, let’s get a closer look at what we’re dealing with here.”
They made their way through the low-lying scrub. The closer they got to the base, the thinner their cover became. They ended up bending low and dashing from one bush to the next until they got a clear view of the collection of ramshackle buildings and warehouses.
“It’s going to be difficult. There’s not much plant cover between here and the base, so we’ll be exposed,” said Tinsley.
“I thought we could use those rocks for cover,” Dante replied, indicating a low outcrop that extended almost to the base. It would take a little longer, with its indirect course, but they could worry less about being seen.
“That’s a good idea. It will give us cover until we’re almost on top of it.”
They both studied the area with their viewers for a while. What looked like a bunch of ramshackle sheds and store rooms sat along the outside of the base. People and vehicles were moving about in that area, transporting crates and going about other business.
“What’s that thing sticking up in the center there?” Tinsley asked, pointing to the tallest structure in the whole camp. A narrow tower had what looked like a gun emplacement on the top, and it turned slowly on an axis.
“Shit, that’s a lookout tower. They’ll have armed men up there, and probably motion sensor radar that will tell them if anything crosses this cleared zone. Good looking out, Tinsley. If we’d tried to cross this area without being aware of it, we’d have been sitting ducks.”
Dante felt proud of his mate. She had become so much more than even that in their time together. She was super intelligent, could keep her head in a crisis, and was clearly very observant on a mission. In addition to being the woman of his dreams, she was a huge strategic asset.
“At least we’re nicely camouflaged.” She spoke up. “So, what’s the plan?”
“We keep low along this shelf of rock until we’re as close as possible. We can only move when the radar is at least ninety degrees away from us. If we set it off, we would be taken out very easily from their vantage point up there. You can guarantee they’re crack shots.”
Just for a split second, Tinsley looked apprehensive. Maybe this was harder for her than he thought. He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Are you okay with this?” he asked. “You could wait here if you don’t want to come. This is my mission, after all.”
“No, Dante. It’s our mission. You just try to stop me,” she told him. “I’m in this to the bitter end.”
“Thank you, Tinsley,” said Dante. “I appreciate everything you’re doing for me, everything you’ve done.” He still had so much more to say, but he could tell from the look in Tinsley’s eyes that she understood what he meant.
Chapter 23
