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“Get back to storage and collect one. Now!” he ordered, pointing behind him.
She nodded and started to walk toward the two huge beings. She kept her head down as she passed. Her heart was beating so loudly, she thought they must be able to hear it.
“Damn Egshurs, you’ve always gotta’ keep an eye on them,” said the second Jorvlen as they walked past.
She tried not to run as the two beings disappeared down the corridor behind her.
She walked along the hallway until she came across a door marked as storage. She pushed it open like she was meant to be there, expecting some attendant to be around handing out uniforms.
Instead, she was met with row upon row of neatly pressed high-visibility pants and vests, all clearly labeled and sized. Having witnessed the sprawling mess of residential neighborhoods closest to these main buildings, the orderly array came as quite a surprise. She had expected the factory to be as sloppy as the outlying area.
She selected an ensemble that seemed to be the right size. It stretched well over her padded clothing but made the whole outfit even hotter. She wished she could at least take the head wrappings off, but that would give her away for sure.
With her disguise complete, she headed out to explore the factory. She needed some sort of storeroom. Somewhere where they might keep the explosives.
She chose a door at random and pushed it open. It opened to a factory floor. Many Egshur were working here at long benches, welding and soldering and building parts for engines. They completely ignored her as she walked down the aisle between two benches.
She noticed a tray on the end of a bench full of computer circuits and picked it up. Individual beings rarely stopped someone who was carrying something, assuming they had a purpose for their task and that they knew where they were going.
Cora was impressed with the cohesive efficiency of the factory. This was high-level, high-tech stuff they were dealing with.
She came to the other end of the factory floor and passed through the double doors, still carrying her tray. A long corridor lay beyond, stretching away in both directions. She paused for a moment, undecided as to which direction to take.
“Looking for the storage closet?” asked a friendly voice behind her.
She turned to meet the gaze of a small Egshur woman. Cora nodded.
“It’s just down there on the left,” she supplied helpfully. “Are you new here?”
Again, Cora nodded. She hoped the woman wouldn’t try to engage her in conversation.
“You’ll soon get used to it. It seems big at first, but it’s pretty simple when you get to know the place.” The girl gave a friendly wave. “See ya,” she said. “I’ll be in the cafeteria for a while if you need me.”
Again, Cora nodded and then turned smartly on her heel and headed for the store room.
The room was massive, with two large open doors leading outside to an airfield. Several Egshur were loading a transporter with crates.
Cora put down her tray of computer circuits and went to find out what they were loading. She moved purposefully among the crates reading the labels as she went. They all appeared to be parts for a spacecraft.
As she went a little further along the line, she smiled to herself within her concealed hood. These crates had small grenades inside made for placement on offensive spacecraft along with other incendiaries. That included jet fuel tanks as well along with flame throwers of all sizes.
Casually, she picked up one of the crates and climbed aboard the transporter, placing useful materials to start putting together her own bespoke arsenal. She walked past one of the Egshur, who had just loaded a crate of parts. He didn’t even acknowledge her. She tucked the crate into the corner and then made a show of adjusting some cargo as another Egshur worker carried a box aboard.
As soon as the transporter was clear of beings, she squeezed herself between the boxes and crates, pulling one in behind her to block her from view.
Before long, the rear doors were shut and the transporter pulled away from the store room.
Cora didn’t waste any time. She scrambled out of her hiding place, her heart beating fast, and pulled out the box of grenades and rockets. She wasn’t sure quite how many she’d need, so she built in redundancy with the type of incendiaries and the quantity. She had no way of knowing if a batch might be a dud, or if a detonation would be capable of fully breaking the wall until Levi’s life depended on it. It would not end well if she didn’t make a big enough hole to let Levi escape.
She took half a dozen out of the box and stuffed them inside her padded clothes, and she placed a few of the fuel tanks and flame lights in the crate that she held like a farm laborer with a bushel of apples. Then she shut the lid of the box and hid it at the back of the truck. No point in giving the game away if she didn’t have to.
They were traveling down a service road at the edge of the airfield, and she was poised to open the handle when they reached the destination so she could elude the rest of the workers. She ditched her high-visibility clothing and stashed them behind the crates, too. Then she opened the door and jumped.
For a moment, when she was flying through the air, she had a vision of all the explosives going off as she landed. When the worst didn’t happen, she breathed a sigh of relief and commando-crawled into the grass for cover.
The high perimeter fence that surrounded the airfield led out onto the hot dry desert. There must be a way through, she thought. They can’t keep this maintained all the way around surely.
She was right, and before long, she found a small gap under the fence that an animal or other sentient being had dug out, perhaps someone in dire circumstances like hers. She carefully wriggled through, scared that her disguise or her materials would get caught, or that her explosive material would catch fire. For a moment, she thought she was going to get stuck halfway, but she just managed to twist herself under.
