Always too nosy for her own good, she had investigated those rumors for herself shortly after hearing them. It hadn’t taken her long to determine the rumors were true. She had counted less than twenty men that first day. Unable to stay away for long, she had come back every few weeks to check on the situation.
Not knowing what to do with her information, she had gone to the only person her father had ever trusted—an older woman down the mountain in Yellow Moss Holler named Miss Kay. Her father had never been political, but he had done small jobs here and there for the Red Feather. They were a secret group who worked against the planet’s oppressive government. Sometimes, the Red Feather worked with the sky warriors who patrolled above the planet and were locked in a protracted civil war with the so-called Splinters.
Miss Kay had taken her information and relayed it to someone else above her in the chain. Soon, Miss Kay started asking her to go to different spots around the mountain to get a better look at the mine. She counted vehicles and men, noted the numbers of deliveries and their shapes and sizes. For her work, she was given a few pieces of extra scrip to use in the company store. There wasn’t as much work in the pit where she was employed so the little bit of extra income had kept her from starving the last few months.
And, now, here she was, scooting forward on her belly to the entrances of the ventilation shaft. Miss Kay had introduced her to the Red Feather fixer named Danny who had given her the chance to escape life on the mountain. All she had to do was help the sky warriors obtain enough intel to plan their rescue mission and, possibly, plant some explosives as a diversion. If she did those things, she would be given a new life in the colonies or as a mate to one of the sky warriors.
Just not the sky warrior she had embarrassingly flirted with last night.
Her face flamed as she replayed the memory of her awkward attempt to show her interest. She hadn’t ever flirted before, hadn’t ever wanted to really. She had felt impossibly naïve and silly, but there was no going back to change her first impression. Not that it mattered anyway. He had been abundantly clear that she wasn’t the sort of woman any of their men would want.
Ignoring the stab of pain at that thought, she listened carefully before cautiously lifting the grate covering the forgotten vent. She placed it on the grassy area to the right and covered it with twigs and leaves to make sure it wouldn’t glint in the sun and rouse suspicions. Peering down into the shaft, she noticed the lights that were supposed to illuminate the space had long ago died. She wasn’t afraid of the dark or tight spaces so it didn’t bother her as much as it might have someone else.
With her small pack almost flat on her back and the camera Cipher had given her dangling around her neck, she put on her helmet and tucked one leg and then the other into the shaft. Her boots found the rusty rungs lining one wall of the shaft. Slowly and trying to make as little noise as possible, she descended down into the darkness until the pale light of sunrise faded to nothing and the black silence of the shaft enveloped her.
At the end of the ladder, she stepped onto the flat platform and crouched. She flicked on the lamp attached to her helmet, expecting to see the turn of fan blades. Judging by the amount of rust on the blades, they hadn’t been maintained. She gave one of them a push, and it didn’t budge. Glad that she had one less problem to handle, she stepped back and unzipped her pack of climbing gear. She quickly pulled on the harness and ran her fingers over the ropes and anchors inside the pack to reassure herself she had everything she needed.
Ready to descend deeper into the ventilation shaft, she squeezed through the space between the two large blades and moved into the ventilation duct. The chipped stone walls of the duct were dirty and damp. Air wasn’t moving properly anymore, and the humid, dank wetness was allowing mold and mildew to breed. Her knees and hands slid in the slippery gunk, and she grimaced at the foul smell surrounding