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While the two women had been working hard, Lieutenant Bragg had been out for his stroll around the outside of the fortress. He had seen the stack of wood by the door, which was still closed when he had walked by it. He had been forced to stay hidden for five minutes behind a large oak tree when some of the male slaves had appeared suddenly with another batch of wood. He had also made a remarkable discovery. Around the far side of the fortress, he came across another door and this one was open. In fact, it had been open for some time, for shaded from the sun as the door was, a small amount of snow was still present between the door and the frame and there was no sign that anyone had been through it since the snow had fallen. Amazing Charles Bragg thought to himself, the security here is so poor that anyone could walk into the fortress through this open door, and not a soul would know about it. Charles Bragg entered through the open door and explored, inside a track took him alongside the fortress wall on his left and on his right, he passed a large building that was currently empty but was in fact a repair shop for the Heavy Mobile Phaser Vehicles. Further along he came to a low concrete building that appeared to Lieutenant Bragg to be an ammunition depot buried deep within the ground for protection. He stopped when he saw that he was approaching the large parade ground that filled the centre of the fortress. On his right was a two-storey reinforced concrete building with barred windows, which resembled a prison. By his feet there were a series of small windows, and these too were barred. It had been a very productive walk but it was time to leave the fortress by the same way that he had entered it, and before one of the guards noticed him. It was while the lieutenant was walking back to the gate that he almost ran into one of the garrison who was looking for his missing locker key, he had dropped it earlier and had he been more alert he would surely have seen the lieutenant. However, had he been more alert he may also have ended up dead, for he was no match for a fully trained space marine from Earth. The man stumbled by, for he was also rather drunk, and the lieutenant was able to proceed to the open gate without further trouble.
Galaxy Spies Page 22
