“So there may be people inside?” Major Brinks asked after she had finished.

“What else would there be?” she said.

Brinks shook his head. He couldn’t decide if these people were hopelessly naive or if Milla was simply a consummate actress. Either way, he had little choice but to play out the hand. “Can you open it?”

Milla shook her head, grimacing. “No, they probably transmitted the frequency code to the other colonies, but without it, I can do nothing.”

“Any way we can talk to the people in there?”

This time Milla paused for a moment before shaking her head grimly. “No, we saw that their communications system was damaged. The only system they have active right now is a secure radio transmitter—no reception capabilities. It is a last-resort device, built to gather energy from the decay of an energy element. If it is active, then they have lost all power, including, perhaps, life support.”

Brinks digested the information and finally nodded to Savoy. “Open it up.”

Savoy signaled to two of his men, who advanced with a larger version of the laser cutters cradled between them. Approaching the bunker, Savoy took a lightweight hammer and pick from his belt and rapped the hard material three times in succession, pausing a moment before repeating the process. When no response was heard after a full two minutes, he signaled the men behind him and stepped back.

The laser cutter took a few moments to charge the capacitors as the two men began the process of slicing through the bunker material. A few minutes later, it was apparent that blocking sensors weren’t the only way this material differed from what Milla’s escape pod had been built of.

Wiping sweat from his brow, one of the cutters, Sergeant Mehn, looked up at Savoy. “This is going to take a while, Major. The material is turning to slag and then running into the cut behind the laser and hardening again. The worst thing is that it seems to get harder to cut after each successive cooling.”

“All right,” Savoy said, “we’ll work along and slip laser- and heat-resistant braces into the cut as we go. Should be easy enough to remove them afterward.”

The work progressed slowly. As each section was sliced open, a third man would slap a brace into the opening to keep the melted material from filling the hole. Savoy’s team traded off on jobs as they cut their way through the bunker, evening out the harsh work among the group. Hours later, the man-sized cut was finally completed, and Savoy called to one of his men.

“Burke, we’re going to need a special job on this one. Think you can blow that section out?”

The short man stepped up and began examining the area. Finally, turning to Savoy and his upper suit bobbing, he signaled the affirmative. “Yes, sir. With the braces in place, I could blow it inside out, if you want.”

Savoy motioned the man to go ahead. The rest of the group began evacuating the immediate area, cleaning out the equipment as they relocated to a safer ground. Milla watched the man called “Burke” carefully lay explosives, triple-checking and meticulously measuring each charge. A half hour later, he finished and headed over to the group, an innocuous device resting in the palm of his hand.