Marcus’ eyes glazed over as he absorbed the knowledge, but then he said, “Yeah. That’s got to be it. There isn’t anything else like that. I’ll head down… Well, unless there are defenses. Then we go shields up, I guess.”

We already had been because we were cloaked, but I upped the level of protection, saying, “I’d be surprised if someone else hasn’t already visited. I think I remember Rook saying he’d been to the Moon.”

Jaclyn sighed, “Great. We need to run into that psycho up here.”

She may not have been able to tell it through my suit, but I shrugged, “It sounded like he’d gotten what he wanted out of the place, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he left some surprises behind.”

Marcus slowed the jet, coming to a stop and hovering as we talked, “Looks like we’re about to find out if there are defenses. Hal, is there a dock?”

Hal’s voice sounded in my head via implant as his words appeared in my HUD.

[There is a public beacon for a hangar. Should I tell it to prepare for a landing?]

Marcus glanced over at me, but said, “Sure.”

I wasn’t confident that I wanted to trust Abominator-designed landing facilities when I wasn’t in an Abominator-designed ship. Still, I also liked the idea of keeping the League jet out of plain sight while we were there.

Besides, I couldn’t help but be curious about what kind of landing facilities the Abominators would provide.

I asked Hal, “Are you confident you can get us a landing without triggering defenses?”

[My main function was creating battle simulations. For my model to assist in fighting Abominators, my series was loaded with as much relevant data as possible including that relevant to infiltrating Abominator installations.]

Or if I translated it from polite computer speak, “Yes, you idiot.”

“Great,” I said, “go ahead.”

Marcus took us in, letting the jet drop slowly toward the ground. As he did, a hole opened up in the dusty, gray mountain ahead of us, one more than large enough for the League jet to land, and if they’d been available, large enough for the Jay and Kay to land to our right and left with no real risk of hitting other ships in the process.

The Jay and Kay weren’t the size of Alliance dreadnoughts (which they wouldn’t have sold us), but they weren’t small. They were the size of aircraft carriers.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The size of the Abominators’ hangar put them in context for me. Building a hangar large enough to hold Earth’s largest spaceships on our planet’s moon said a lot. First of all, it said that whatever this base was for, they wanted it to be close enough that Earth was easily accessible. Second, it said that they wanted it far enough away that they didn’t have to worry about the planet’s inhabitants dropping by. Third, it made me think the base was important—though I knew a Mars base also existed. If we visited there, I might have to reevaluate all of my conclusions.

If I wondered what everyone else was thinking, I didn’t have to wait to find out.

As Marcus landed the jet inside the hangar, he said, “Look at this place. It looks alien. I think it’s the most alien thing I’ve seen so far. Well, except maybe for that port that was a collection of connected asteroids. Some of the habitats inside were definitely not human.”

“K’tepolu?” Rachel leaned forward toward the window. “That place does get weird, but the Abominators are weirder. They had a section of K’tepolu. It’s not accessible to visitors. No one dares to go in, but they also don’t dare to destroy it.”

Jaclyn stared out the window nearest to her, “Something wasn’t right with these guys and I think we all know what.”

I followed her gaze to the left side of the hangar. I couldn’t argue with her. The Abominators didn’t have any attachment to making their construction symmetrical. If humans had constructed the place, the room would have been box-shaped. It might have be shaped like more than one box, but the walls would have been parallel and the ceiling and floor would have been the same distance from each other throughout the room.

The edges of this room reminded me of Escher paintings or the cover of an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer album Larry showed me once.

For one, when I looked at the edges, the first word that came to mind was serrated—which wasn’t quite right. Jagged was a better word, but that still wasn’t quite right.

For lack of the best word, all I can say is that the walls on the right or left weren’t flat at any point. In some spots, the wall curved in toward the ceiling. In other spots, the wall curved away from the ceiling, creating a passage upward or downward, sometimes both.

In some spots, the wall and the floor curved together. In others, it was so covered in equipment (which expanded upward to the ceiling and downward to the floor) that what happened to the wall could be anybody’s guess.

It wasn’t obvious what the equipment was either. Scaled tubes that writhed in the air might be for servicing vehicles, but might also be the limbs of a hidden creature.

Hal connected to our implants.

[The docking system asked if we needed to be refilled with fuel or life support. I took the liberty of saying no as our supplies are in no danger of running out.]

“Good plan,” I said. “Even if the systems are compatible, I wouldn’t trust anything in here.”

The landing gear hit the ground with a thump and we were down.

Jaclyn stood up, “If we’re going in, now’s the time. Do you know where we’re going?”

Marcus and I looked at each other. Both of us said, “No,” at the same time.

Cassie laughed, but said, “I’m not worried. The entry didn’t say much, but it sounded like it didn’t take long before things started to happen. Besides,” she added, pointing her gun forward, “Mr. Sparkles knows this place. I asked him if he’s got any idea of where to look and he has one. Lee told us that the Abominators reverse-engineered Artificer tech. If there were a connection here, it might not be in the Artificer lab, but there might be a way to detect it.”

“Wow,” I glanced in the direction she was pointing her gun. It led toward a dark hallway. “I’m not sure if that’s a great idea or a terrible one.”

Jaclyn shook her head, “I’m guessing both.”