The girl died silently, her neck was broken and her body was caught before she hit the ground.
Before the girl could draw her last breath from her lungs, Ariana had begun dragging the body into the maintenance bay.
Video from a small reconnaissance robot flickered at the edge of her field of vision. A group of three men in full-coverage uniforms turned into the passage, talking with low voices and tired eyes.
She watched them pass through the shadowed cubicles and began working as soon as they were gone.
The dead girl's uniform seemed to fit her well, and when she put it on, she felt the rubber seal squeezing over her head, and at the same time noticed with a kind of detached interest that the clothes still carried the residual warmth of her body.
She had spent hours studying the girl's face through the spy robot's eyes.
But she looked at her again, trying to make sure her facial features could roughly imitate the exhausted look on a dead man's face, while also changing the size of her body so she didn't want someone to look closely and realize it didn't fit.
In the little time she had, she could only make a rough estimate of size and shape, and there was an uncomfortable risk of error even as she searched for the right moment to kill the girl.
But she had confidence because she was the daughter of Callidus.
Then she started a routine analysis.
Inference: There are 605 seconds until the patrol assembly time, and 907 seconds before the presumed end date.
She stood up and walked into the passage. Behind her, the body was hidden in the shadows, and some kind of medicine was dissolving her.
It will be discovered, but then all that will be left is a puddle of unexplained slime.
She began to walk quickly, rushing to the protective door leading to the assembly area, the little white hat swaying in her hands.
The whole task is actually disorganized and lacks accuracy.
She doesn't like this, not at all.
Behind her, four micro-robots monitoring the passage were suspended in the air like flies, making a buzzing sound.
Soon, they landed on her shoulders, and then crawled into her hair. The rest had completed hiding, their silver bodies attached to the synthetic skin under her uniform, like larvae clinging to the queen of insects.
Leaving the shelter wasn't a problem, but it wasn't that simple either. Entering an orbital station was a low-level sub-problem. Entering a circle she could quickly integrate into was another, but less significant, factor.
The importance of latent targets is even more important; if they are too important she may not be able to escape from them, which narrows the options.
Then it's a matter of time.
There is a high possibility that the Astral Knight will take action soon. The longer she delays in the orbital station, the smaller the probability of reaching her target.
On the other side of the calculation was the fact that she was moving quickly, and the errors that followed her haste like worms on a corpse.
Move too fast, take too many shortcuts, and her plan may fail.
The time when all risk factors reach a critical level is the presumed deadline for her termination. After she killed the girl, this deadline was approaching with every second.
Inference: According to the patrol assembly time of 581 seconds, the estimated deadline for termination is 883 seconds.
She walked into the assembly area. Under the stereotyped light of lighting strips and spotlights, rows of supplies and weapons and equipment stretched into the distance.
The exhaust fumes from the transport trucks stained the ceiling, the strong smell of oil floated in the air, and the sound of metal was ringing: the click of the metal shell when the ammunition belt slid into the ammunition box, the clang of the tracks pressing against the stone,
The thud of a hatch opening and closing.
Most of the people here are servants of the Astral Knights Chapter, and they are nervously preparing for their master's expedition.
She sees it all in one glance and derives a series of estimates for machines and people with 99 percent accuracy.
As a result, Ariana unexpectedly discovered that the Astral Knights' armament level was astonishingly high, and the ammunition and quantity prepared far exceeded the level of their personnel.
"strangeness--"
"Which department are you in?"
Hearing the sound, she looked around, blinked quickly, and found a man in a gray and green uniform looking down at her.
Military rank insignia, lieutenant, department, logistics.
She realized she hadn't answered yet and spoke.
"Benita Mars, a first-class correspondent, belongs to the third communications department of the Unbound Soul."
She took a breath, thought for a moment, and added:
"I was on vacation and now I'm getting ready to return to work."
The lieutenant sighed, frowning and focusing his bloodshot eyes.
The assassin immediately analyzed his physical characteristics. There was a 78% possibility of long-term insomnia, a 56% possibility of weakened motor function and limit perception, and a 34% possibility——
"Are you taking drugs?"
The girl froze for a moment, the compulsion to look around filled her.
She felt blind, and her attention was limited to the data coming from her five senses. There might be eyes watching her, her footsteps were approaching, and her hand was touching the weapon.
So she licked her lips and scanned the lieutenant's face.
"you know……"
The girl had an embarrassed look on her face.
"I want... to find a way to stay in shape."
She once heard a soldier say these words and then saw him drink a lot of alcohol, which seemed to be an explanation.
The lieutenant stared at her, and after a moment he nodded.
"Don't touch those things. If you want to be promoted in the future, go that way in the passenger passage, past the second row."
"Thanks."
The girl bowed, but the lieutenant had already walked away.
She suppressed her instinct to run, and instead walked as she remembered people doing in a hurry.
Within a moment, she saw the shuttle she was about to take.
She had observed it from a distance before and reviewed every detail of these models.
Now, it is as familiar to her as her own hand.
As she hurriedly approached, some people turned to look at her. She examined the faces, found the face whose main facial features matched the commander in her memory, and then saluted.
"It's about to leave, hurry up."
The female officer who spoke had a flat face, which seemed to be shiny due to a mixture of sweat and lubricant stains, and her black hair was knotted into clumps.
Lieutenant Cassandra, captain of the Unbound Soul's 9th Logistics Detachment.
The female assassin nodded and ran towards the shuttle in small steps. The nearby passengers had already begun to enter the cabin door. They were also the crew and officers of the Unbound Soul.
When the engines started one after another, expelling hot exhaust gas into the air, she had already found her position.
At the same time, she wrote a string of data in her mind, which would be sent to another group of people on a neighboring planet half an hour later by a secret device installed in the orbital station.
[After about 30 standard Terran hours, the fleet of the Astral Knights Chapter will set off]