Chapter 13
The revelation hung heavy in the damp air of the armory, instantly reframing every tactical assumption Vance had relied upon since taking command of the base. He stared at Elena, his mind racing through the base’s architectural blueprints in his head. The drainage conduits were a relic of the old pre-blockade construction phase—massive concrete pipes designed to divert seasonal floodwaters away from the munitions bunkers, long since sealed off and forgotten by the current garrison leadership.
“If they’re using the old conduits,” Vance muttered, his jaw tightening as the strategic implications sank in, “they can pop up right inside the inner perimeter wall, behind our primary defensive lines, without ever triggering a single surface motion sensor.”
“Exactly,” Elena said, standing up from the workbench and walking over to the large tactical map pinned against the corkboard. She reached out with a steady hand, tracing a red grease-pencil line from the western ridge down through the jagged contour lines of the valley floor until it terminated directly beneath the base’s central armory block. “The access hatch inside the maintenance tunnel hasn't been inspected in five years. If we don’t seal it or secure a blocking position before dawn tomorrow, they won’t even need to fight their way through the gates.”
Vance stepped up beside her, studying the red line with grim concentration. He reached out and tapped the grease pencil against the map where the conduit intersected the base’s sub-level infrastructure. “My patrol squads are too spread out along the perimeter wall to spare a heavy defense detail for the underground tunnels without leaving the main gates completely exposed,” he said, his voice dropping into a harsh, pragmatic assessment of his limited resources. “And if I sound a general base alarm again, the enemy will know we’ve discovered their approach route and change tactics.”
“You don’t need a platoon,” Elena said quietly, turning to face him with absolute conviction in her dark eyes. “You just need someone who knows how to navigate those tunnels in the dark without turning on a tactical light that gives away their position.”
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Vance looked down at her, seeing the fragile yet unbreakable determination etched into her pale face. He thought of the risks—the court-martial, the inevitable political fallout, the very real possibility that they wouldn’t come back up alive from the dark concrete labyrinths beneath the base. Yet, looking at the woman who had calmly placed a sub-MOA group on paper and diagnosed a loose turret screw with a single glance, he knew there was no other choice.
“Grab a sidearm and a suppressed carbine from the third rack,” Vance said, his voice dropping into a hard, decisive command. “We’re going down into the conduits before the midnight shift change.”
