to three hours to get to the active work sites.”
“And the miners who attacked? Where are they being held? I should start with them.”
“They are in the hole. On the mine level. I hope you’re not claustrophobic, Ms. White.”
Chapter 24
Ms. Imbor gave me a list of mine locations, but the list didn’t include names—the MineCorp workers were just numbered. She also gave us each a canteen of water before directing a young, dark-haired corporal to take us down.
As she walked away, I caught the message she sent from her com. She asked about the status of my identity verification from MineCorp. The response said they were still waiting. If they had FTL communication on XAD Six, then we had less than two hours. We’d be buried even deeper in the ground when she found out I was a fake.
I set a ninety-minute timer on my com. Now two times ticked away in the corner of my smart glasses—one counting up the time until we could jump, one counting down the time until our ruse was revealed. The vast chasm between them heightened my anxiety.
The corporal led us back out the way we’d come, but instead of heading for the elevator to the hangar, he took us through the metal door. It did not escape me that an identity chip was required to open the door from either side.
The room beyond the door was rough-hewn stone with none of the plastech niceties included for the rest of the base. A bank of six elevators, three per side, and another thick, metal door were the only options. The corporal swiped his chip over the elevator control, then pressed the button.
The first doors on our left opened, revealing a large, industrial elevator car, big enough to fit over forty people. The corporal ushered us inside. “I’m Rivers. Did the lieutenant general explain the descent?” he asked.
“No. Is there something we need to know?” Ian asked. It was the first time he’d spoken and his clipped accent was gone, replaced by a working-class brogue.
“It’s a three-stage descent,” Corporal Rivers said. “The reason it takes over an hour is because we have to move horizontally at each stage before we descend again. Every time they ran out of mineral, they just dug deeper.”
“What if there’s an emergency?” I asked. “Is this the only way up?”
Rivers nodded, then corrected himself. “There are stairs, but each descent is nearly a kilometer. There’s nothing between the levels except occasional shelter rooms.”
I drew a purposefully slow breath and told myself that the elevator walls were not closing in on me. I could climb three kilometers of stairs if I had to. I would do anything to save my brother.
Breathe. Save my brother. Breathe.
Five minutes later, the elevator reached the bottom. The hallway was three meters wide, cut out of the planet’s stone. The light panels strung along the ceiling pushed the darkness to the edges of the hallway.
Still, doorways to rooms or tunnels—it was unclear which—lurked in the shadows, dark maws ready to gobble us up. I shivered as I followed the corporal. Ian touched my back, a gentle reassurance. I gave up on mentally calling him Noah. We were buried in the ground; I had larger concerns.
Along the way, we passed through three gates. They were as wide and tall as the tunnel, and folded flat against the wall to allow equipment to pass through. Each gate required a chip swipe to unlock. It took twenty minutes to reach the next elevator bank.
“It gets rougher from here,” Rivers said. “Are you sure you want to keep going? The lieutenant general said I could bring you back up if you couldn’t handle it.”
“I can handle it,” I assured him.
He shrugged and called the elevator. The trip took a little longer this time, closer to eight minutes. When the doors opened, the hallway was more roughly hewn and the light panels were farther apart.
We went through four locked gates. One of them required a swift kick to open properly. The trip took thirty minutes, in part because of the gate slowdown. The Rockhurst soldiers up above clearly did not want the workers escaping anytime soon.
The final set of elevators was noticeably smaller, with the exception of what appeared to be an equipment elevator. Our elevator made ominous noises as we descended. Even Corporal Rivers looked relieved when the doors opened and we could escape.
A wide foyer area was cut off from the main hallway by a guard’s station and another