VOLTRAN UNCHAINED

GUNS OF THE FEDERATION BOOK 3

ANTHONY JAMES

CONTENTS

Homecoming

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

End

Also by Anthony James

© 2022 Anthony James

All rights reserved

The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

Illustration © Tom Edwards

TomEdwardsDesign.com

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HOMECOMING

The 2800-metre Ax’Kol war vessel Voltran hung in the cloudy skies above the Fremont military base on Loxor, motionless, yet somehow exuding a threat of greater magnitude than its admittedly impressive size and mass would normally have conveyed.

Nearby – within twenty kilometres - the Human Federation battleships Eldan Blade and Damocles were stationary at a similar altitude. These vessels were larger in both size and mass than the Voltran, while the Nexus-class heavy cruisers Stalwart and Pulveriser, which had positioned themselves directly between the alien vessel and the military base below, were slightly inferior by both measurements.

Captain Jed Grisham watched the scene through the sensors of his shuttle as it descended towards the landing field, currently fifteen kilometres below. The transport’s cockpit was cold and the light was dim, and a mustiness pervaded the air. His suit helmet was on the floor nearby, its power cell below thirty percent.

The local fleet was in a state of high alert and his actions were the cause of it. He had no regrets. Events had moved on within the HF during his time away and he wanted to play a part in the unfolding situation.

A momentary concentration on the portside feeds informed Grisham that the new generation Tibor class See No Evil was still tracking his shuttle. The warship was flying too close – within a thousand metres – as if its commanding officer was convinced the tiny vessel he was escorting to the surface might pull off a vanishing trick if he didn’t watch closely enough.

Grisham ignored the warship and interfaced with the underside sensor feeds. He studied the Fremont base for a few moments. Fremont was a sprawling mix of landing fields, construction yards, storage, research and manufacturing, and was one of the Human Federation’s primary installations. The shuttle’s advanced sensor arrays detected activity everywhere, and Grisham was sure the entire base had been mobilised.

He’d been promised safety, but given the current situation, it would only take one overzealous officer, one whispered command, or one itchy trigger finger, to screw things up. Grisham wanted to play a part in humanity’s future and he hoped he hadn’t misjudged by bringing the Voltran here to Loxor.

Pushing the distractions from his mind, Grisham piloted the shuttle towards his designated landing pad. A single large gravity car and four heavy tanks were lined up nearby, as if they were expecting a thousand Kijol soldiers to spill from the shuttle, instead of one man.

Grisham guided the shuttle lower. The vessel was controlled by mind link in the same way as the Voltran, but with far greater limitations on the quantity of information which could pass through the interface at any one time. That link was formed by holding onto a horizontal bar which protruded from the cockpit’s forward bulkhead. There were no seats. In fact, Grisham hadn’t seen a single one anywhere on the Voltran either.

“Any problems, sir?” asked Lieutenant Kaci Lopez on the comms.

Her words were carried to Grisham through the interface and appeared in his mind as though he’d heard them directly. The interpretation wasn’t perfect and Lopez’s voice came through with a faint rasping edge, but the result was close enough that Grisham couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.

“None so far,” said Grisham. “How does it feel to be playing with the big boys?”

“If this is what it means, I don’t much like it.”

“Nor me,” said Grisham. “Have you received further communication from the Eldan Blade?”

“Captain Avery isn’t the chatting type, sir. He’s maintained comms silence.”

“Maybe that’s for the best. I’ll be landing soon. Are you all clear on what to do?”

“Yes, sir. If you go missing, or we’re attacked, we get the hell away from here and lay low until the dust settles.”

“That’s right, Lieutenant. What’s happening is bigger than any of us, and keeping the Voltran in one piece and out of the wrong hands is more important to the Human Federation than anything else.”

“Let’s just hope the invitation you received was above board, sir.”

“If I have to trust anyone, it may as well be Admiral Danner,” said Grisham.

“Good luck, sir,” said Lopez.

“That goes for all of us.”

By now, the Ax’Kol shuttle was less than four thousand metres above the base and Grisham had an excellent view of the five immense construction trenches to the north, each of which was four thousand metres in length and more than two thousand across. Three of those construction trenches were occupied by partly built Nexus heavies. In the fourth, a battleship hull – so large that its nose and stern almost touched the ends of the trench – was taking shape, while the final trench was occupied by an almost completed resource carrier.

Twenty kilometres east of the existing shipyard, another four construction trenches were being hollowed out of the planet’s surface by the military’s single dedicated laser excavation vessel, supported by a swarm of other spaceships equipped with gravity scoops to remove the spoil. Grisham didn’t know how long it would be before the new facilities were ready. The words too little too late kept jumping into his mind. He hoped he was wrong.

The landing pad Grisham had been ordered to use was a raised concrete area, about eighty metres square, with sloped sides, and deep within the built-up southern area of Fremont. Several huge, flat-roofed warehouses flanked the landing pad east, while a comms tower rose to a height of four hundred metres to the west. Grisham wasn’t sure what function the other structures served. Right now, he had better things to think about.

Grisham set the shuttle down in the middle of the landing pad. A few seconds later, one of the vehicles he’d observed earlier appeared over top of the slope. It was a brick of a gravity car, clad in thick plates of armour, and of a sort used to transport officials, or, occasionally, dangerous criminals. The vehicle’s driver brought it so close to the shuttle that it was almost touching.

Releasing his grip on the interface, Grisham became suddenly blind to the world outside. He took one last look around the cockpit – which was hardly large enough to accommodate more than three or four Ax’Kol – grabbed his suit helmet and headed for the exit. A touch on the indented access panel opened the door and he strode into the bay beyond. Here, the near-black of the biological material which formed the shuttle was mixed with the lighter greys of metal objects, and the two were melded in a way which Grisham hadn’t even begun to understand.

A door in the middle of both flanks would lead straight outside, with no airlock. Grisham had learned that the Ax’Kol weren’t troubled by vacuum and were at home in almost any environment, however hostile.

Putting on his helmet, Grisham activated the portside door, which slid noiselessly to one side. Although the planet’s skies were cloudy, it was bright outside compared to the shuttle interior and he narrowed his eyes.

The heavy bass of a nearby Charos drive made the air throb and Grisham looked up from the doorway. Directly overhead, the See No Evil was hovering, its undersides not much more than two hundred metres above the shuttle. Grisham saw the hatches of its Ghost clusters, as well as its angular Gatler turrets.

It’s there in case one of those other warships fires a missile at this shuttle. Have we really fallen so far?

A squad of soldiers in full combat gear and carrying gauss rifles had already emerged from the gravity car. One of them strode forward and stopped in front of Grisham.

“I’m Sergeant Haver, sir,” the man said, yelling to make himself heard. “Captain Grisham, come with me please.”

The Ax’Kol shuttle didn’t have landing legs and its underside was flat to the ground. Even so, the doorway was more than a metre above the landing pad and Grisham jumped down carefully.

“Where are we going, Sergeant?”

“I can’t give you those details, sir.”

Grisham didn’t push. He followed the soldier across to the gravity car. The vehicle’s side door was open and its interior was surprisingly plush, with facing bench seats wrapped in a material that might have been real leather. Climbing inside, Grisham sat. Haver joined him, along with four of the other soldiers. They carried themselves like veterans.

Haver pushed a button and the door closed, blocking out much of the sound from the Tibor’s Charos drive. The partition between the passenger seating and the cabin was opaque, denying Grisham a view of the driver. Instead, he looked through one of the side windows. His shuttle was partly visible to the left. The transport was sixty metres in length and that made it larger than many HF models. Its overall shape was rectangular, with rounded edges and a curved nose. It also packing more firepower than its appearance suggested.

Looking right, Grisham had a view of a slab-sided building, as well as a broad avenue that led east-to-west across the base. He saw a few vehicles, but not so many as he’d expected.

With a quiet hum from its gravity engine, the car in which Grisham was sitting pulled away, turning at the same time as it accelerated. The vehicle’s unseen driver aimed it down the sloped side of the landing pad. A large open space at the bottom of the slope was occupied by the armour which Grisham had seen on the way down.

Now, he had a ground level view of the four Storm heavy tanks. At fifty metres in length and twenty-five wide, the HF’s most potent ground assault vehicles required a lot of space to manoeuvre and the avenues of a city or military base weren’t the best place for them.

Grisham’s eyes lingered on the twin main gauss armaments of the nearest tank. The massive guns protruded from the angled face of a single turret and they could punch a hole through anything this side of a Kijol warship. Hull-mounted repeaters could chew through a five-metre-thick reinforced wall and reduce enemy soldiers hiding on the other side to a bloody pulp, while shoulder missiles could turn anything that was left into carbon.

To protect against air attacks, each tank was fitted with a Splinter anti-missile system, though this was widely considered a last hope defence. To a Kijol warship, the Storm tanks wouldn’t be anything more than a nuisance.

“That’s a lot of armour,” said Grisham.

“These are bad times, sir,” said Haver.

“So I’ve heard.”

Grisham was tempted to find out if the soldier would volunteer anything else if he was asked the right questions. In the end, Grisham held his tongue. Admiral Danner would be a more reliable source of information, though perhaps that wasn’t saying much.

The gravity car driver slowed the vehicle and two of the tanks accelerated ahead, before turning east onto the avenue. Then, the car increased speed and went directly after. When Grisham twisted in his seat, he saw the other two Storms following. The closest tank filled the rear screen and something about it made him feel uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the two trapezoidal housings for the Storm’s repeater guns rotated so they were aimed at the gravity car. Multiple barrels spun to incredible speed. At the same moment, the tank began ejecting scramblers from its topside tubes and the twin main armaments dropped lower in their turret. Those guns had only one target.

“Shit!” said Grisham. “That tank is about to—”

The repeaters fired and a torrent of high-calibre projectiles thundered into the rear of the gravity car, producing a clanking sound that filled the passenger area. Star patterns appeared all across the reinforced polymer screen. Grisham ducked low and the soldiers did likewise. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place to hide and even a heavily armoured vehicle like this couldn’t withstand the onslaught from a Storm tank for longer than a few seconds.

Sergeant Haver kept his cool and talked rapidly into the comms. Meanwhile, the driver displayed admirable reactions. He threw the vehicle to one side at the same time as he reduced speed. It was a smart tactic, since the Storm’s main armaments had only a limited firing arc that meant they couldn’t hit anything too close.

The tank’s repeaters had no such limitation and their slugs pounded into the gravity car. Already, the rear screen looked close to destruction and even through the padding of his seat, Grisham could feel the drumming impacts against the metal.

A stark flash lit up the walls of the buildings to either side, and Grisham heard the crack-rumble of a Ghost detonation. He raised his head but could see nothing through the damaged rear screen. The driver suddenly threw the car right, and the soldiers were hurled towards the left-hand door. Sergeant Haver thudded into the side panelling and Grisham slid shoulder first into him.

Another flash came and this time it was right outside the car. The sound of the detonation was tremendous and Grisham was glad his helmet protected him from the worst of it. At the same moment, the car’s gravity engine failed. It simply cut out and the vehicle dropped twelve inches to the road. Grisham managed to place a foot on the edge of the opposite seat and braced himself. The car scraped along the ground for a short distance and then came to a halt.

“Sir, keep your head down!” said Havers. He spoke on the comms again and then pointed at a couple of the soldiers inside the car. “Daniels, Travis, out!”

One of the soldiers to Grisham’s right released the door and opened it partway. He looked outside briefly and then exited the vehicle at speed. The other soldier followed, slamming the door behind him. Havers kept talking on the comms.

“We’re getting out of here, sir,” he said. “We have to be quick.”

Havers exited the gravity car through the left-hand door. Without delay, Grisham followed. The rear quarter of the vehicle had been pummelled out of shape by the repeaters, but the armour had done its job.

Grisham looked further up the road. The Storm was about eighty metres away and blazing from one or more Ghost missile detonations. The tank’s hull was split open like an overripe fruit and it was definitely out of action. Directly above, the See No Evil had descended so low that its underside was almost touching the buildings flanking the avenue.

“Sir, move!” yelled Havers over the noise of the warship’s Charos drive. “This way!”

The soldier urged Grisham towards the Storm which had been ahead of the gravity car. The tank was backing up and one of its rear access hatches was open.

“Get inside, sir!” said Havers.

Grisham briefly wondered if this was an elaborate trap, to lure him away into captivity. He shook off the idea. The soldiers weren’t acting - this had been a genuine attempt on his life.

As he dashed for the tank, Grisham looked once over his shoulder to remind himself this was how a dirty war might look. Then, he clambered up the short ladder and crawled through the rear access hatch of the waiting Storm. A short passage with a one-metre ceiling led to a compact passenger bay. Inside, a single row of seats faced forward and another faced back. It was empty. Sergeant Havers came next and was followed by two of the other soldiers from the gravity car. Grisham didn’t know their names.

No sooner had the rear hatch closed to a remote command from the cockpit, than the tank lurched into motion.

“Take a seat, sir,” said Havers. “We’ll travel the rest of the way in this tank.”

Grisham wasn’t in the mood for sitting, but he did so anyway. “I knew it was bad, but I wasn’t expecting such a brazen attack,” he said.

“Truth be told, I wasn’t either,” said Havers, he sat in the opposite seat. “I’ve fought the Kijol for as long as I can remember, but I don’t like to imagine how this is going to turn out. Anyway, I hear you’ve been away for a time and this is what you’ve returned to.” He gave a thin smile. “Welcome home, sir.”

ONE

Admiral Russ Danner’s office on the Fremont base was deep underground. A year or so ago – the last time Grisham had visited the facility - the Admiral’s office had been high up in a glass-fronted building with a commanding view across the base. Times had changed.

One thing which hadn’t changed, was the antique wooden desk, behind which Danner was currently sitting. Grisham was beginning to wonder if the man had a collection of them.

“You had an interesting journey,” said Danner without preamble. He looked older than last time they’d met, with some extra lines at the corner of his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved in a few days.

“Yes, sir,” said Grisham. “You promised me safety and instead I was attacked by a tank.”

Danner grunted. “You made it here alive, didn’t you?” He met Grisham’s gaze and his expression appeared to be one of genuine remorse. “I’m sorry about that, Jed. Really, I am.”

“I thought you told me the manoeuvrings are still in the early phases - that’s why I agreed to leave the Voltran. Our enemies took over a damn tank and tried to murder me in the middle of a damn military base!” Despite his efforts to remain calm, Grisham’s voice climbed.

“I personally vetted everyone involved in escorting you here,” said Danner. His own anger glimmered like a shark breaking the surface of dark waters, before it vanished once more out of sight. “And I’ve learned a lesson from this.” He nodded. “A valuable lesson.”

There was nothing to be gained by pursuing the matter and Grisham let it drop. “Tell me what’s going on, sir.”

“You’ve already heard the most of it,” said Danner. “The Senate is split, the military is split, and the Unity cabal are pushing for us to agree a surrender.”

“And if we don’t agree to that surrender?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” said Danner. “They have a big stick to use against us if they choose to do so.”

“The location of our worlds,” said Grisham. “Handed to the Kijol on a plate.”

“So far they haven’t made the threat,” said Danner. “If I can use the old saying, that would truly be the nuclear option. At the moment, the violence within the HF is contained – though your recent experience might have convinced you otherwise - but there’s plenty happening behind the scenes.”

“And the fleet?”

“The answer, as you might imagine, is not straightforward,” said Danner. “I know some I can trust and some who I can’t. In the middle, it’s grey.”

“What about those warships keeping watch over the Voltran?” asked Grisham.

“The Damocles is mine,” said Danner. “Captain Avery on the Eldan Blade I’m less than sure about.”

“Then why not send him and his battleship to the frontline?”

Danner leaned forward suddenly and thumped his fist on the table. “Because I’m fighting for the Human Federation, damnit! Humanity needs that battleship! This terrible game won’t be won by sacrificing our own warships. We need to emerge from it stronger than when we started.” Danner fell silent. “And besides, even if I ordered Captain Avery to go elsewhere, I’m not sure he would obey. That would only bring the waiting crisis closer.”

Grisham tipped his head back. He’d been effectively out in the wilderness for several weeks. Rigging up a comms link from the Voltran to the Human Federation hadn’t been difficult, but the Ax’Kol warship was an unknown. For a time, nobody – not even Admiral Danner – had been willing to risk allowing the Voltran anywhere near a populated world. And, since Corporal Barkley’s comms pack only had routing information for the HF proxy hubs, Grisham had been unable to set a course for home until he’d obtained the agreement of high command.

During his time out in space, Grisham had spoken to Danner on several occasions and learned that the HF was being assailed both from within and without. The Kijol fleet was in the ascendancy, while internal strife was threatening to tear the HF apart. Although funding was still pouring into the military, the two factions – those who would surrender and those who would fight - were doing their best to install their own personnel into positions of advantage. The side which controlled the fleet would ultimately come out on top, even though the only real winners would be the Kijol, and the Unity members who hoped to gain advantage from a surrender.

Against this backdrop, Grisham – now that he commanded an alien war vessel, albeit one with unproven capabilities - was viewed by many as an uncontrollable variable. His opponents had already shown how they intended to deal with him, though they’d played their hand early and screwed up badly by doing so. Grisham’s anger was simmering and his determination to play an active part in resolving the Human Federation’s internecine conflict had only been strengthened by the attempt on his life, though part of him was still wondering if he’d have been better off staying on the Voltran.

“So what’s the plan, sir?” asked Grisham. “The Human Federation is internally crippled and our opponents might, at whichever moment best suits them, betray our location to the Kijol. Even if that doesn’t happen, the Kijol will likely defeat us anyway. Beyond that, we have the Ax’Kol to think about.”

“The one thing which gives me hope is that the schism hasn’t yet affected our warship construction, nor our weapons research,” said Danner. “If we can resolve matters decisively, the HF might well emerge in a position from which we can make life difficult for the Kijol. And by that, I mean holding them at bay long enough that they’re forced to recall their new generation hardware from our territory to help them fight the Ax’Kol.”

“The Ax’Kol are a threat, sir,” said Grisham. “Not to us – yet - but I’ve had a sense of them from my time on the Voltran. They’re driven by a need – a need to kill and destroy. This isn’t a case of cutting off the head and the body withers. The Ax’Kol enjoy what they’re doing, and they won’t stop.”

“There’s little I can do about them now,” said Danner. “My plate is full with everything else. Maybe once everything else is behind us, I’ll be able to divert more resources into planning for a potential war with yet another alien species.”

“If we don’t improve our technology and soon, it won’t be a long war, sir,” said Grisham. “I’ve watched the feed recording from Sergeant Maxwell’s helmet sensor on Xaros a dozen times, and the Ax’Kol warship beneath the lake wasn’t anything like the mass of the Voltran, yet the Kijol Eternus had a real hard time bringing it down.”

“The Voltran is untried,” said Danner.

“I know what it’s capable of, sir – I ran some tests while I was away. One-on-one, neither the Eldan Blade nor the Damocles would stand a chance.”

“What about an Eternus?”

“I wouldn’t shy from the fight, sir,” said Grisham. “But we both know the Voltran is too valuable to throw away in a muscle-flexing competition.”

Unexpectedly, Danner laughed. “You were always asking to be given command of a battleship, and here you are, in control of a vessel with even greater potency.”

“I’m not too proud to say it’s what I deserve, sir. And my crew and I are the ones who pulled it out of the desert.”

Danner stayed quiet for a few moments and Grisham could read the thoughts going through the Admiral’s mind.

“The Voltran is of great interest to many people, Jed.”

“Yes, sir. We need its technology.”

“Opinion within both the military and the Senate is almost unanimous – across every faction.”

“They want to take the Voltran away.”

“Yes.”

“If I thought the Voltran would be used solely for humanity’s benefit – if I truly believed it would be broken apart and its components reverse-engineered - then I’d say it’s the right thing to do, sir.” Grisham smiled thinly.

“You don’t believe that will happen?”

“I can read the same in your face, sir. Neither side within the Human Federation’s conflict would use the vessel for research. I’ll bet there are many people wondering exactly what the Voltran is capable of, and asking themselves how beneficial it would be to have control of such a spaceship.”

“Perhaps.”

“And I’m sure if the Voltran fell into the wrong hands, then it might well be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Kijol.”

“I see you’ve considered the matter,” said Danner.

“Tell me, sir, what would you do with the Voltran?”

Danner’s eyes glinted dangerously. “It’s not my ship, is it, Jed?”

“No, sir, it is not your ship.” Grisham held the other man’s gaze. “Before the mission to Ovintus, you asked if you could trust me. The answer I gave hasn’t changed.”

“Because I need to trust you,” said Danner.

“I thought long and hard before I came here, sir. I asked myself what might happen once I was away from the Voltran.” Grisham looked around the room. “And here I am.”

Almost imperceptibly, Danner nodded, as if he’d settled an internal conflict. “You asked me what I’d do with the Voltran.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not so much what I’d do with the warship, as what I’d ask of you, Captain Grisham.”

Grisham was fast learning how Danner’s mind turned. “My enemies will easily be convinced that I’m a loose cannon, sir. Whatever I do could be attributed to the actions of an officer who has exceeded the bounds of his orders.”

“And would you accept that?” asked Danner quietly.

“For a time and to a degree,” Grisham nodded. “As long as the results were worth the sacrifice.”

“The winning side writes the history, Jed, though I hate to say winning in a situation like this. If Unity fails in its aims, I’ll make sure you come out of this as a hero.”

“I don’t want to be a hero, sir.”

“Our actions define us, Captain Grisham. Whether we like it or not.”

“What would you have me do, sir?”

“I mentioned earlier that some are undecided about which side to take in the Human Federation’s conflict.”

“Yes, sir. How many are undecided?” asked Grisham, to see if Danner would commit to an answer this time.

“I would guess at a third – both within the military and the Senate. Of those who are already pledged to one side or another, I’m sure many could be persuaded to change their allegiance.”

Grisham narrowed his eyes in thought. “How many of those in favour of surrender are within the Unity cabal?”

“I don’t have precise figures,” said Danner. “At a guess, I’d say there’s an inner circle which stands to gain the most from handing the Human Federation’s planets over to the Kijol. The others have perhaps been convinced that our position is hopeless. I’m sure many truly believe they are doing the right thing.”

“And if enough people are convinced that the Human Federation’s best interests are served by fighting, Unity will have failed.”

“Unless Maynard and his cronies decide to go it alone and provide the Kijol with the locations of our planets anyway,” Danner agreed.

“Can we stop them doing so?”

“Not without wholesale murder.” Danner raised a hand. “And I’m not ready for that.”

“Not yet, or not ever?”

“Some things are best not discussed or decided until there’s no choice.”

As answers went, it was an evasive one, but Grisham didn’t push. “How do you propose to convince people that surrendering is the wrong solution?”

“We have talked about the Voltran,” said Danner. “About its memories.”

“Yes, sir. It knows where it has been and it remembers events in those places.” Grisham suppressed a shiver at some of the things he’d seen through the interface link.

“It has been to Kijol worlds.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Defeated Kijol worlds,” said Danner, leaning forward.

Grisham had a good idea where this was leading. “If we have proof that the Kijol are not as strong as they claim, the undecideds within the Human Federation will be less likely to accept surrender.”

“Exactly,” said Danner.

“The Voltran remembers, but I can’t transfer those memories into a databank for others to view.”

“You would need to obtain conclusive evidence using our own hardware,” said Danner. “If you took the Voltran away from here and returned with a recording of a dead Kijol world, I could use it as evidence that the Human Federation is in a stronger position than it appears.”

“I’ll do it,” said Grisham. “Provide me with a few drones, or one of those survey vehicles we deploy on the surface of the real shithole worlds and I’ll come back with the proof.”

“You’ll have the hardware you need,” said Danner. “In fact, it’s on its way to the shuttle pad, ready for you to load it onto your transport.”

Grisham smiled inwardly that he’d been so predictable. “I don’t have access to the warship’s memories from here, so I don’t know how long the journey will take.”

“You can tell me when you return to the Voltran,” said Danner. “The quicker, the better. As each day passes, the likelihood of outright conflict within the Human Federation increases.”

“I understand the urgency, sir,” said Grisham.

“I’m glad that you do.”

The meeting was coming to an end. While Grisham could have stayed longer, asking questions, he realised that, even though he was neck-deep in political machinations, he still didn’t want to find out all the grubby little details – assuming Danner was willing to disclose them. Grisham knew his strengths lay elsewhere, and he didn’t want to dig too deep. He had a good idea what he’d find.

“Am I going to be safe on the return journey to the Voltran, sir?”

“Yes. There’ll be no repeat of last time.”

Grisham had little choice other than to believe. He stood and then headed for the door.

TWO

Grisham returned to the shuttle pad in the same Storm tank which had brought him most of the way to Danner’s office. Air support was provided by the See No Evil, though the sound of the warship’s Charos drive was drowned out by the tank’s own propulsion and by the vehicle’s thick armour.

When he stepped out onto the shuttle pad, Grisham found it deserted. The reason was clear – Danner had been caught out once, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again until he’d assured himself exactly who could and couldn’t be trusted. That meant the Admiral had real confidence in the commanding officer of the See No Evil and the crew of the tank. Maybe they’d served under him long ago.

It was raining heavily now and, despite the warship overhead, the wind somehow managed to drive the raindrops onto the shuttle pad. Grisham cursed the bad weather, more out of habit than anything else.

The Ax’Kol transport was exactly where he’d left it, and, floating nearby on their gravity drives, were a dozen half-metre cube-shaped drones. Grisham recognized the type – the drones were fitted with sophisticated sensor hardware and could be controlled using the computer in a standard combat suit.

Next to the drones was a one-metre storage container, also fitted with a gravity drive. It contained the replacement equipment that Grisham had asked for – that being replacement spacesuit power cells and ammunition.

In less than five minutes, the cargo was loaded into the shuttle’s rear bay and Grisham was once more in the cockpit. He requested a comms link to the Voltran.

“I’m on the shuttle,” he said.

“Glad to hear it, sir,” said Deneuve.

Grisham had already informed his crew about the attempt on his life and it had been difficult to persuade them not to bring the Voltran any closer to the base. That might have stirred things up a little too much.

The See No Evil acted as escort once more and Grisham couldn’t fail to notice that the warship maintained a position directly between the shuttle and the Eldan Blade.

Soon, the transport neared the Ax’Kol warship. Grisham intended to use one of the docks in the Voltran’s portside, which would keep the shuttle out of the Eldan Blade’s firing line. The commanding officer on the See No Evil knew what he was doing and remained as close as possible, to protect the shuttle from any accidental weapon launches.

The portside bay was protected by a door, which rose to admit the shuttle. A long tunnel – compartmentalised by several additional doors – led deep into the Voltran. Grisham brought the transport to a halt adjacent to a narrow platform. The bay was lit in dim blue and had only a single personnel exit.

Having made his way from the shuttle’s cockpit to the flank door, Grisham jumped the metre-wide gap onto the platform and left the bay. The bridge wasn’t far and soon he had re-joined his crew.

“Good to see you, sir,” said Deneuve. She had one hand on an interface post and her voice was distant. Despite her link to the Voltran, she still managed an expression of disapproval. Deneuve had not agreed with Grisham’s choice to leave the warship in the first place and she wanted to remind him of it.

“It’s good to be back,” said Grisham.

The bridge was circular, with a six-metre diameter and a high ceiling. Eight interface posts, which were arranged in a circle, rose from the floor. Grisham stepped onto the low podium in front of the command station. A few patches of char reminded him of the huge Ax’Kol which had been dead on the floor when he and his crew had taken over.

Those aliens were gone now. They’d been chopped into pieces by Sergeant Maxwell and his squad using sharp blades they’d found elsewhere on the Voltran, and then dumped in a room a short distance from the bridge.

The indentation in the wall to Grisham’s left - caused by what he’d always assumed was a Kijol missile strike which had penetrated the bridge and killed the Ax’Kol crew – was now hardly visible. The Voltran had been wrecked once, but now it had healed itself.

“What was the outcome of your discussion, sir?” asked Lieutenant Mac Adler. He was also linked to the spaceship.

“Let me tell you,” said Grisham.

He kept nothing from his crew – not anymore. Once, when he’d first committed himself to opposing the Unity cabal, Grisham had been told things that were for his ears only. Subsequent events meant they were secrets no longer.

When Grisham had finished speaking, a short silence followed while his crew digested the information.

“Unity. What a bunch of assholes,” said Lieutenant Eric Kinsey.

“We knew that already,” said Deneuve.

“So, if I’m understanding it correctly, we can’t do the right thing – which is to use the Voltran for research – because Senator Maynard or one of his buddies, might decide to steal it and give it to the Kijol,” said Lieutenant Dan Bishop.

“That’s about the long and short of it,” Grisham agreed.

“And if we keep the Voltran too near a Human Federation world, that’ll be seen as a threat,” said Lopez. “Which risks inflaming tensions even further.”

“I didn’t discuss that aspect with Admiral Danner, but I’m sure you’re right,” said Grisham.

Adler gave a gruff laugh. “So we can neither use the Voltran in the Human Federation’s conflict – even to apply pressure – nor can we risk it being destroyed by sending it against the Kijol.”

“That’s right,” said Grisham. “We’ll need to keep this warship intact so we can study its tech once things are settled within the HF.”

“Doesn’t this just suck?” said Deneuve.

“You won’t get an argument from me, Commander.”

“If the Voltran is so useful, why did Admiral Danner agree to send it on this mission, sir?” asked Lopez. “Surely the safest course would be for us to take this vessel out into space and keep it there until we receive an order to come back. We have plenty of spaceships that can scout a dead Kijol world.”

“It’s not that easy, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “I got the impression that things are so finely balanced between the HF’s opposing factions, that even a single warship might tip the scales. Neither side wishes to send its forces to a distant world.” Now that he was saying it aloud, it didn’t sound convincing.

“Does this mean we’ve completely withdrawn from the parts of our own territory where we were fighting the Kijol?” asked Bishop.

“Not quite,” said Grisham. “The Fleet Admiral has not committed either way, and he still controls a portion of our fleet.”

“But he no longer has control over his own officers,” said Deneuve. She swore. “This is a damn mess.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Grisham. “And, as Lieutenant Lopez just pointed out, while the Voltran has the firepower to sway the conflict, Admiral Danner believes its presence will be too antagonistic.” Grisham gave a thin smile. “Or maybe it’s my presence that’s the problem.”

“I thought Admiral Danner would try to take the Voltran away, sir,” said Deneuve. “I really did.”

“I think it was a close-run thing, Commander. I took a gamble and maybe I won. Or at least I didn’t lose.”

“And now we’re heading to a Kijol planet,” said Deneuve. “I’ll be glad to be away from all this shit. You might say it’s burying my head in the sand, but—” she shrugged, not sure what else to say.

“Taking the Voltran far from here strikes me as the best thing to do in the circumstances,” said Grisham. “Though I won’t deny I have mixed feelings.”

“You wanted a greater say in your own future, sir,” said Adler. “Heading away from the conflict seems like a strange way to go about it.” He laughed. “Life was easier on a Tibor-class.”

“That it was, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. He almost laughed in return. “Now, let’s find out where we’re going.”

Grisham placed his hand on the flat top of the interface post in front of him. Straightway, the bridge around him faded, though his senses remained aware. His consciousness linked to the spaceship. The Voltran had no emotions that he could detect. It was simply a colossal, focused intelligence that could provide him with anything he asked in an instant – at least anything that was within its knowing.

Before anything else, Grisham checked the feeds from the external sensors. Neither the Eldan Blade nor the Damocles had moved, likewise the two Nexus heavies. The rain clouds were far below, and up here the skies were a clear blue, with only a few wisps drifting eastwards in the wind.

Drawing his attention away, Grisham pictured his request in his mind. The Voltran had been to many places and he suspected the warship had existed for many years. Decades, perhaps, or longer. Some of the Voltran’s memories were fading, either because of a limitation of the consciousness, or because it no longer saw the need to hold on to them.

Like always happened, Grisham found himself being drawn into the past. The memories were complex and it wasn’t always easy to understand them. The Voltran couldn’t simply implant those memories into his mind and exploring them was like delving into an alien world. Neither was everything accessible, as if the Voltran retained only fleeting echoes of those experiences which were peripheral at the time.

The biological inexactness of the memories was balanced by the sharpness of how the warship responded to control commands. Since the Voltran was a combination of biological and technological, many of the control systems were made from cold, hard, alloy. The longer he spent on the Voltran, the more Grisham became fascinated by it.

“I’ve located a couple of Kijol worlds,” he said. “The oldest memory doesn’t contain many details – the Voltran flew high above the planet and then it went elsewhere.”

“What about the newer memory?” asked Deneuve.

“Death and destruction,” said Grisham. The details weren’t going to be pleasant, but he delved into the memory anyway. The Voltran had flown across the surface of this world, unleashing its weapons. Ax’Kol shuttles were in the process of landing on the edges of an installation. Grisham withdrew his mind. “This second planet is a long way from here – it’s a full fifteen days at lightspeed.”

“How long will it take to reach the first planet?”

“Six days.”

“Even six days is long enough to travel way out past the fringes of HF territory,” said Lopez. “We know the Voltran has a high lightspeed multiplier. In six days it could travel a hell of a distance.”

“That’s a great technical description, Lieutenant,” said Adler.

“You know what I mean,” said Lopez. “We’re about to head deep into Kijol territory. I don’t think any of us have been so far from home before.”

“It’s a place about which we have absolutely zero knowledge,” said Deneuve. “So even if Admiral Danner had allowed us to bring a copy of the HF star charts on board, they wouldn’t help us any.”

While Danner had thought it too great a risk to allow a portable data array with such vital information to be brought onto the Voltran, the HF combat suits contained simplified star charts that showed planets and their relative positions, but with no precise coordinates or anything else which could be used by an enemy to locate Human Federation worlds.

Unfortunately, there was no way of tying up the schematic maps in the combat suits with anything onboard the Voltran. Getting to Loxor had involved receiving vector data via the comms proxies and instructing the Voltran to follow those vectors.

How the Ax’Kol navigated, Grisham had no idea, since the warship had no star charts of its own. It knew where it had been, but had no knowledge of the places it had never visited. This was a problem to which Grisham felt sure a solution existed, but neither he nor his crew had figured it out in the few weeks since they’d left Ovintus.

“I’ve found the same memory, sir,” said Adler. “Are we setting a course for the planet?”

“Once we’ve put some distance between ourselves and Loxor,” Grisham confirmed. “Before I take us out of the atmosphere, Lieutenant Lopez, please do the courtesy of informing our escort that we’re leaving.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez. “I’ve directed a comm at the open receptors on the Eldan Blade, the Damocles, the Stalwart and the Pulveriser, and another comm at the ground hub.”

“Have they acknowledged?”

“All apart from the Eldan Blade, sir.”

“Give them a few seconds and then ask them again to acknowledge.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez.

Grisham felt suddenly on edge and he viewed the sensor feeds of the Eldan Blade. The battleship hadn’t moved.

“I’ve asked them to acknowledge, sir.” Lopez was quiet for a short time. “Still nothing.”

“They aren’t sleeping,” said Deneuve. “Anyone else getting that feeling?”

“The feeling that maybe Captain Avery is engaged in an urgent conversation on a different channel, you mean?” asked Grisham.

“Yes, sir. That exact feeling.”

Two minutes went by. Grisham was about to ask Lopez to request acknowledgement for a third time - and he’d already decided if that acknowledgement wasn’t forthcoming, he’d leave anyway - when Captain Avery requested a channel.

“Accept,” said Grisham. “Open channel.”

Open channel comms would normally come through the bridge speakers. On the Voltran, an open channel meant everyone linked to the bridge interfaces could hear what was said.

“Captain Avery,” said Grisham, keeping it pleasant. “What can I do for you?”

Avery’s voice was not at all friendly. He didn’t bother with a greeting and got straight to the point.

“I can’t permit you to leave with the Voltran.”

The challenge wasn’t welcome, but Grisham didn’t feel much in the way of surprise. This was going to be a tense exchange and, since he’d never spoken to Avery before, he didn’t know what kind of limits the man had.

One thing was certain - with the two warships directly over the planet, this couldn’t end in an exchange of fire. Before he’d arrived at Loxor, Grisham wouldn’t have thought it possible. Now, he wasn’t anywhere near so sure.

THREE

“I am acting under Admiral Danner’s instruction,” said Grisham, forcing his voice calm. The angry part of him wanted to say something considerably more abrupt. “The Voltran is to depart from Loxor airspace. Its destination is mine to know.”

“I’m relaying different instructions,” said Avery. He couldn’t even bring himself to address Grisham by his rank, which immediately placed him into the category of a total ass.

Or maybe he’s just trying to get under my skin.

“What instructions?” Grisham demanded. “And from who?”

“Admiral Danner will soon no longer be in command of the Fremont base. You are to set down on the northern landing strip and allow my soldiers to board your vessel.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of Admiral Danner losing his command,” said Grisham conversationally. “I repeat: from who are you receiving your instructions?”

“You know what’s happening within the Human Federation, and you’re on the wrong side of it, Grisham. The Voltran isn’t yours to keep.”

“You don’t sound like a man worth engaging with,” said Grisham. “If I don’t comply, what are your orders?”

“My orders are mine to know.”

Asshole.

“I’m not giving up the Voltran,” said Grisham. “In fact, I’m astounded the person holding your strings thought for a moment I’d comply.”

“Danner’s pet,” spat Avery.

“At least I won’t be offering up my warship in surrender to the Kijol,” snapped Grisham. “Coward.”

The channel went dead.

“No sign the Eldan Blade is readying for hostilities,” said Lopez.

“Watch that spaceship,” said Grisham. “We’re getting out of here.”

He requested thrust from the engines and the Voltran accelerated steadily. All the while, Grisham kept his eyes glued to the sensors. The Eldan Blade didn’t move from its position.

“Captain Avery isn’t going to attack,” said Adler.

For a short time, Grisham had thought his exchange with Avery might have led to something more than it did, but now he was convinced the battleship wouldn’t interfere with the Voltran. “No, he won’t attack. Not now.”

“Then what was that all about?” asked Deneuve.

“He called me Danner’s pet,” Grisham repeated. “And I didn’t go out of my way to deny it.”

“You aren’t Danner’s pet, sir.”

“That isn’t the point, Commander. I wonder if Captain Avery was looking for confirmation that I’ve sided with Danner’s faction.”

“In which case you didn’t quite give the game away, but you almost did,” said Bishop.

“I think any lingering doubts in my opponents’ minds may well have been dispelled,” said Grisham. “It’ll always be easy for Senator Maynard to assume the worst of me.”

“With good reason in this case,” said Deneuve.

“I’m past caring about the man’s hatred,” said Grisham. “All that matters now is making certain his shitty little cabal doesn’t get what they want.”

“Amen to that.”

Grisham had another thought and it was one that had him worried. “What if Captain Avery wasn’t interested in me? What if he was more interested to hear which direction Admiral Danner is leaning?”

“Isn’t that obvious already?” asked Deneuve.

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “The Admiral only says what he wants me to hear. I don’t even know if he’s leader of the anti-surrender movement. It could be that his position isn’t clear to the members of Unity.”

“I’m not sure you gave much away, sir,” said Deneuve. “Captain Avery wasn’t subtle. If his skills in battle match his diplomatic abilities, he’d have been dead long ago.”

“Point taken, Commander,” said Grisham. “Still, it would be best if Admiral Danner learned about my conversation with Captain Avery.”

“I’ll let him know, sir,” said Bishop.

Grisham did his best to push the recent exchange from his mind. If Avery had been trying to get under his skin, then he’d succeeded. There again, Grisham had never claimed he was anything other than a frontline officer and he’d learned to respond to aggression with an equal measure of his own.

Filthy politics. I thought I could be a fighter in the cause. Instead, I’m being drawn into the web.

The Voltran climbed through the upper reaches of the Loxor atmosphere and out into space. Grisham increased the warship’s velocity, all the while keeping watch on the Eldan Blade.

“Let’s give Captain Avery a demonstration,” said Grisham.

He requested maximum thrust from the propulsion and the engines produced a guttural howl that came from everywhere around. Grisham maintained the acceleration until the Voltran had exceeded the highest velocity which could be achieved by the Eldan Blade. Then, he let the warship coast through the vacuum and the propulsion fell away into the background.

When Grisham had first boarded the Ax’Kol vessel, it had – naturally - used a different measurement for velocity than the Human Federation. Following a degree of experimentation and calibration using comms travel times to the nearest proxies, the Voltran now recognized HF measurements of velocity, time and distance. Grisham wasn’t convinced the accuracy was all there, but it was better than nothing. Certainly, he and his crew appreciated the familiarity.

After few minutes, Grisham altered course and then again a few minutes later. Loxor dwindled on the feeds, becoming little more than a sphere of different colours. The Voltran was already far beyond the minimum required distance to activate a lightspeed jump, and yet Captain Avery’s hostility had made it crystal clear to Grisham that he couldn’t afford to take risks. An ambush while the Voltran was readying itself for lightspeed didn’t seem entirely out of the question.

At last, Grisham was satisfied he’d done enough he brought the warship to a standstill. He accessed the Voltran’s memories.

“The Ax’Kol knew our destination as Vinxilkx.” Grisham struggled with the pronunciation. The alien language was strange and he had a feeling the Ax’Kol were telepaths. If they were, it would explain many things.

“I’ll issue the command on your order, sir,” said Adler.

“Lieutenant Lopez - you’d best let Sergeant Maxwell know it’s coming,” said Grisham.

“I’ve already done so, sir.”

Grisham could have readied the Voltran for lightspeed with a thought, but he and his crew had been maintaining their defined roles. It seemed like the most sensible thing to do.

“Issue the command, Lieutenant.”

“That is done, sir.”

The lights dimmed until the bridge was in near darkness. Grisham’s fingers and toes began to tingle and he felt a warmth throughout his body. He closed his eyes for a moment. In four minutes from now, the Voltran would enter lightspeed and the way of it was still new to Grisham.

On the first transit, he and his crew had been taken completely off-guard. Even now, Grisham was apprehensive.

As the seconds passed, he was gripped by a feeling of serenity. His connection to the physical seemed remote and the bridge faded ever further from his consciousness. A part of his mind remained detached and alert. Grisham continued to monitor the sensors and he was aware of his crew doing the same.

As the Voltran entered the final few seconds before its transition, Grisham’s link to reality seemed unimportant to him. The first time it happened, he’d thought he would be lost and he’d fought like a drowning swimmer. This time, he accepted what was coming and he didn’t resist.

Grisham and everyone onboard fell into a state that wasn’t quite slumber and wasn’t quite stasis, and then the Voltran entered lightspeed.

Grisham dreamed. He floated among images and thoughts. His mind went seeking, though for what, it didn’t know. The images faded and were gradually replaced by a greyness that was like a thickening fog. Grisham pushed on without knowing why. In this place his usual sense of curiosity was dulled. His progress slowed and soon he could make no more headway. The dream images were gone and Grisham was surrounded by grey. Still, he felt no alarm.

His consciousness withdrew from the grey and the dreaming resumed.

He woke, with a disorientation that quickly slipped away. Grisham snapped his eyes open. He was on the bridge and his crew were also awake. A check on the internal clock of his suit computer showed him that six days had passed. His body, meanwhile, felt no more hungry or thirsty than it had before the start of the journey. The combat suit he was wearing had sustained him. What would happen if he entered lightspeed in normal clothes, Grisham didn’t know.

“The sensors are online!” said Lopez, her voice hoarse. “Commencing local area sweep.”

Grisham also accessed the sensor feeds, and found himself staring into endless darkness, sprinkled with distant stars. The Voltran knew the location of Vinxilkx and it focused on the planet.

“I’d judge we’re about a quarter-million klicks from our destination, sir,” said Lopez. “Based on the Voltran’s estimates, the planet’s circumference is forty-five-thousand kilometres, which makes it a little bigger than Earth by size and a little smaller than Loxor.”

Grisham nodded in response and concentrated on the feeds. Vinxilkx was a place that bore many similarities to populated worlds within the Human Federation. He saw oceans and continents. Upon those continents were forests of green and red, along with expansive areas of yellow and brown.

The Kijol had built heavily on the visible side of the planet. Huge cities were linked by a multitude of straight highways, and Grisham saw three huge military installations, two of which also encompassed warship construction facilities.

From here, everything looked normal.

“I’m requesting an enhancement of the sensor feed,” said Lopez.

The Voltran zoomed in on the planet. For short time, the feed looked no clearer. Then, steadily, the warship’s sensors picked out more details. The Voltran’s sensor hardware was far more capable than the equivalent on a Tibor-class and superior to anything Grisham had seen in the Human Federation.

“Enhancement complete,” Lopez said.

“I’m accessing the same sensor feed,” said Deneuve. “It looks quiet down there. I can’t see a single vessel in the sky.”

Grisham scanned the planet’s surface for signs of life or activity. Although the Voltran’s sensors were high-grade, he doubted they could detect the movement of smaller vehicles from here. He altered the direction of the array, so that it was aimed at one of the coastal cities. Grisham saw towers and domes, with roads between them.

The Kijol preferred order to chaos, a truth which was no more obvious than it was here. Even the outskirts of the city lacked sprawl and the structures at the boundaries were just as impressive as those in the centre.

“The sensors won’t enhance any further,” said Lopez. “If you want a better view, we’ll have to head in closer.”

“Has our arrival here improved the Voltran’s recall of the place?” asked Deneuve.

“That’s a good question – I’ll check,” said Grisham. He accessed the warship’s memories and found nothing new. “Nope – it still only remembers flying across the planet and then leaving. Let’s approach to a hundred thousand klicks and see what that reveals.”

“By which you mean corpses,” said Lieutenant Adler.

“If the Ax’Kol destroyed this world, I’m sure we’ll find plenty,” Grisham agreed.

He commanded the Voltran to accelerate and it did so. Five minutes later, Grisham brought the vessel to a halt. Already, the sensor feeds were appreciably better, even without the enhancement.

“Let’s zoom in on that coastal city and see what’s down there,” said Grisham.

This time, the view was more ominous. It was clear the Kijol living in the city had either evacuated or attempted to do so. The streets were choked with cars in the areas surrounding the numerous shuttle landing pads which served the city. North and east were two much larger airfields, and these were filled with gravity cars. Grisham could see gaps where shuttles and spaceships had once been parked. He guessed the Kijol had driven up to the escape craft, climbed onboard and then the vessels had taken off.

“I’m not sure this is conclusive,” said Grisham. “The Kijol were clearly in a hurry to leave, but I imagine there are people in the Surrender Party who could explain it away as something unimportant.”

“Check out that military base far to the west, sir,” said Bishop. “Our sensors are detecting surface emplacements, but they’re all intact.”

“So either those batteries had nothing to fire upon, and the Kijol escaped Vinxilkx safely, or the launchers were unable to detect the Ax’Kol ships, so the attackers saw no need to destroy them,” mused Grisham.

“I don’t think we’re seeing the whole picture anyway,” said Deneuve. “Maybe we should circle the planet to find out what’s on the blind side.”

“I agree,” said Grisham. “But first, I want to check out a couple of the other cities that are within our sensor visibility arc.”

He focused the sensors on a different city, this one far to the north and bordering on a vast forest of predominantly red trees. Again, the story was one of rapid evacuation, and it had been at least partially successful, since Grisham saw no sign of shuttles or larger spacecraft. In his mind, that meant those vessels had taken their cargo of fleeing Kijol elsewhere.

“In order to evacuate, you have to know what’s coming in advance,” said Lieutenant Bishop. “What would have made the Kijol expect an attack?”

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” said Grisham. He’d seen enough of this side of Vinxilkx and it was time to circle the planet and find out what else had happened here. “We should record these signs of evacuation, but I won’t launch the drones just yet. Let’s complete our surface scans before we do that.”

He chose a heading that would lead the Voltran around the planet, without coming any closer. The warship sped through space, steadily revealing more of the surface. Although he had no evidence yet to prove it, Grisham was convinced that many of the Kijol on Vinxilkx had failed to escape and, as a result, had suffered a terrible fate.

Soon, he felt sure, the truth would be revealed. Then, he could return to Loxor with proof the Kijol were under pressure from the Ax’Kol.

Hopefully, it would be enough to sway opinions among the undecided.

FOUR

Soon, the Voltran’s sensors had detected several more cities upon what appeared to be the planet’s largest continent. In each of these places, the story was the same – empty streets and abandoned vehicles, with no sign of life anywhere.

“Most of these cities must have had at least ten million inhabitants,” said Deneuve. “When you have a disorderly evacuation like this one, a large section of the population is sure to have been left behind. Millions, perhaps, from each city.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Commander,” said Grisham. “Not everyone escaped, and yet there’s no life here.”

“The Ax’Kol came and slaughtered those who didn’t escape,” said Deneuve.

“For the Kijol to have abandoned their own, the situation must have been way beyond their control,” said Grisham.

“Wouldn’t they have returned and incinerated everything?” asked Kinsey. “Like they did on Ovintus.”

“I’d have thought so,” said Grisham. “Unless circumstances made it impossible. Maybe the Kijol fleet is so badly stretched they had no resources to divert here.”

“The enemy have plenty of warships to send against our own fleet,” Adler reminded him.

“True,” said Grisham. “And I wonder how much that effort is costing them.”

“If the Human Federation surrenders, our shipyards can build a crapload of warships for the Kijol. It could be the enemy thought it a chance worth taking,” said Deneuve.

“If so, then they really are in trouble,” said Adler.

“I’d caution against jumping to conclusions, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “We know the Kijol are resilient and their tech is good.”

“Losing a planet is a lot to bounce back from,” said Lopez.

“That it is,” said Grisham. “But for all we know, the Kijol might occupy a hundred worlds. It’s possible they can suffer losses like this without their whole empire being threatened.”

“We’re descending into speculation again, sir,” said Deneuve.

“It’s a habit I’m trying to break, Commander.”

The Voltran continued its circuit of Vinxilkx, and everywhere it was the same – cities abandoned in a hurry and nothing living to be seen.

“I’ve detected objects in high orbit, sir,” said Lopez. “On the forward underside feed.”

Grisham’s focus had been on the planet and he diverted his attention to the forward underside array. A few thousand pieces of alloy debris were scattered across space about sixty thousand kilometres from the planet. It was all drifting slowly. Grisham was sure that a more extensive scan would reveal yet more debris farther away.

“The first sign of conflict,” he said, ordering the Voltran to enhance the feed. A short time later, the objects came into much greater focus. “Warships,” he said.

Several pieces of the debris were a billion tons or greater in mass and these ones were travelling the slowest. They drifted on a clockwise track around Vinxilkx and some of them might eventually – in many weeks – impact with the planet. Other debris had been imparted with a greater velocity and it was gradually separating from the main cluster.

“Judging by the colours, these were all Kijol vessels,” said Lopez.

“It was a one-sided engagement right enough,” said Grisham. “I estimate we’re looking at the remnants of three or four Kijol warships.”

“That’s not much for a local defence fleet,” said Deneuve.

“We’ll find more debris if we increase our scan radius,” said Grisham. He pursed his lips in thought. “Even so, it doesn’t look as if this was an extensive conflict – particularly given the size of the population.”

“I’m taking a guess here,” said Deneuve. “I wonder if the Kijol tapped into their local defence fleets and have been using those warships to turn the screw on the Human Federation.”

Grisham nodded. “The evidence we’re looking for is here on Vinxilkx,” he said. “And we’re going to gather as much of it as we can.”

“I detect a but coming,” said Adler.

“Well spotted, Lieutenant. The audience we’re planning to bring that evidence home to won’t necessarily be receptive,” said Grisham. “Once we’re done here, I’m considering heading to the other planet in the Voltran’s memories. If we can demonstrate that the Kijol have lost two planets to the same species, and also show how far the enemy’s fleet is stretched, we might just have the proof we need to settle matters within the Human Federation.”

“One step at a time, Captain,” Deneuve warned. “Let’s get what we need from Vinxilkx first.”

“I like to think ahead, Commander.”

“Wouldn’t it be best if we took the evidence from Vinxilkx home with us before we head off someplace else?” said Adler.

“I’ll have to think on it, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “Our encounter with the Eldan Blade was a single order from something far more serious. What if the Unity cabal learns – or guesses – at the nature of our mission? When we return, we might be facing more than just the Eldan Blade, and the outcome might be far worse than me exchanging a few petty insults with another officer.”

“Surely Senator Maynard and his bunch of clowns will know it’s time to give up if they learn the Kijol are struggling against the Ax’Kol?” said Bishop.

“You’d have thought so,” said Grisham. “However, what we’ve found at Vinxilkx is only indicative. The Kijol may well remain strong – perhaps they’ve simply spread themselves too thinly and have lost a couple of planets because of it. Whatever the truth, the members of Unity will believe whatever the Kijol tell them. They’re too far down the road now.”

“I wish you were wrong, Captain,” said Adler.

“I wish all this crap would go away too, Lieutenant. Anyway, let’s finish our circuit of the planet.”

The Voltran continued on the same heading. Grisham divided his attention between the feeds, and thought about what he and his crew had found. Vinxilkx was dead and gone, and its story laid before him. It was difficult to mourn for the Kijol, but Grisham felt a numbness at the scale of the disaster. Even if the loss of Vinxilkx was indicative of the enemy’s weakness, there was nothing here to celebrate.

“There are signs of a few minor impacts on the surface below,” said Lopez.

“I see them,” said Grisham. A half-dozen pieces of debris had landed in the midst of a forest, flattening a few hundred thousand trees and forming craters. “This wreckage came from an Ax’Kol vessel,” he said, staring at the misshapen pieces of dark material which had crashed down.

A few minutes later, the Voltran completed its circuit of the planet and Grisham brought the vessel to a standstill.

“We’re going to deploy the drones,” he said. “They’re still in the cargo bay of that shuttle I took down to Loxor. Sergeant Maxwell will need to fly the transport out into the planet’s atmosphere and then he can launch the drones in suitable places.”

“What about the surface launchers, sir?” asked Lopez. “We don’t want a repeat of Ovintus.”

“Hell, no we don’t,” said Grisham. “And I’m not confident enough to test if those batteries can detect the Voltran by means of flying in and seeing what happens.” He studied the planet for a moment. “The ocean around the planet’s southern hemisphere is huge. The south pole in the centre of it might be a blind spot in the surface-to-air defences – a blind spot the Kijol previously covered with the local fleet.”

Grisham asked the Voltran to calculate the visibility arcs of the known surface batteries. A split-second later, a red circle appeared on the sensor feed of the southern ocean and overlaid cones indicated where the warship believed the Kijol defences might have launch visibility. The planet’s south pole was hardly touched by the cones.

“That’s the place we have to aim for,” said Grisham. “I’ve never come across an undersea Kijol launcher, but I’ve never been to one of their populated worlds before. It’s possible they’ve installed defensive hardware of a type we’ve never encountered before.”

“That’s the risk we’ll have to take,” said Deneuve. “The alternative is that we bombard the surface emplacements from here in space, but the emplacements themselves may well be protected by anti-missile systems.”

“Better to approach without triggering the automated systems,” Grisham said. “Let’s do it.”

“Should I order Sergeant Maxwell into the shuttle, sir?” asked Bishop.

“Yes, please, Lieutenant.”

“Do we need to capture a recording of the space debris, sir?” asked Deneuve.

“Not right now, Commander – all it’ll show is that the Kijol lost a few of their spaceships. What we need to prove is that they lost a whole planet.”

Grisham guided the Voltran south until it was directly over the part of the ocean identified by the warship’s consciousness as a blind spot in the planet’s defences. From here, a few hundred kilometres of the southern continent was in view, as well as parts of two other continents. An ice cap covered the pole itself and many large icebergs were visible on the sensors.

“I’m double-checking the ice for missile batteries,” said Lopez. “I’d normally suggest an ice cap is a terrible place to install defences, but there’ll be plenty of solid ground underneath. Besides, the Kijol were willing enough to put batteries out in the desert of Ovintus, so nothing would surprise me.”

Grisham studied the same sensor feeds. The planet’s south pole was unaffected by storms, so his view of the icy surface was unimpeded. It was bleak and mostly flat, though with a few rugged peaks.

“I see structures here and there,” said Grisham. “Research stations, maybe. Nothing that looks military.”

“I recommend we spend another few minutes studying the feeds, Captain,” said Lopez.

“One bitten, twice shy,” said Grisham dryly. “I guess we all learned something from Ovintus.”

Lopez had her few minutes and she found nothing that gave her cause for concern. “If we’re planning to be really cautious, we should scan the oceans as well, sir. I know what you said about the Kijol not having underwater launchers, but it’s still a possibility.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Lieutenant, but we aren’t delaying for a full ocean scan. The Voltran has its own anti-missile defences and I’m sure they’ll be equal to whatever is launched from any batteries we failed to identify.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re heading in.”

Under Grisham’s control, the Voltran descended rapidly. He wanted to be ready for a surprise launch from the surface and he watched carefully for any signs of attack.

As the warship’s altitude reduced, the visible landmasses disappeared across the horizons. Meanwhile, icy white filled the underside feeds. No attack came and Grisham was now confident that either the surface batteries were unable to detect the Voltran, or the warship was indeed within a defensive blind spot. Still, he reflected, it would have been good to know which was true.

At an altitude of a thousand metres, Grisham brought the Voltran to a halt. The ice stretched in all directions and the clear sky was the coldest of blues.

Grisham requested thrust from the engines and the spaceship accelerated north. Using his mind, he could control the Voltran with incredible ease. No longer was his brain required to send signals to his hands and for those hands to then adjust the controls. Now, the physical side of piloting the warship was gone, and Grisham believed this alternative was far more efficient.

However, in the back of his mind, an insistent voice kept asking him how the method would work in the most trying of combat situations. At times in the past, Grisham’s hands had operated the controls so rapidly he was convinced a primal part of his brain was able to command his body to react quicker than his conscious brain could form the thought.

When it came to crunch situations like that, Grisham wasn’t sure how the mind link would compare.

“We’re approximately four thousand klicks from the coast of the southern landmass, sir,” said Lopez. “There’s a city directly ahead. I assume that’s our destination.”

“That it is,” said Grisham. “Is Sergeant Maxwell ready to go?”

“I spoke to him during our descent, sir. He was still five minutes from the shuttle.”

The Voltran sped across the planet’s surface and Grisham maintained such a low altitude that the warship’s underside was barely more than two hundred metres above the water. Huge chunks of ice drifted slowly in the rough waves, but none of them were high enough to threaten an impact.

“Five hundred klicks to the coast,” said Lopez. “At this altitude we won’t see the city until we’re right on top of it.”

“We’ll stop over the horizon and launch the shuttle,” said Grisham. With its six-metre flanks, the transport had a far lower profile than the Voltran and that made it much less of a target. “Sergeant Maxwell should complete the approach at a fifty-metre altitude until the structures in the city provide him with cover from the ground launchers.”

Grisham didn’t admit it, but he was having second thoughts about this approach. Now, he was asking himself if he should be taking the more direct route of bombarding the ground launchers with missiles. Losing the Marauder so easily on Ovintus had affected Grisham and he wasn’t blind enough to deny it. The trick, he kept telling himself, was to learn from what was a humbling experience and move on, rather than allow his fears of suffering another one-shot knockout blow to affect his decisions.

“Sergeant Maxwell reports that he is ready to launch upon your order, sir,” said Lopez.

“Is he clear on his objectives?”

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham stuck with his original plan. The target city wasn’t far over the planet’s curve, and he brought the Voltran to a halt.

“Let Sergeant Maxwell know it’s time,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

A few seconds later, the shuttle emerged from the Voltran’s flank. Maxwell piloted it straight down, until it was twenty metres above the ocean. Then, the transport accelerated towards the Kijol city.

FIVE

The shuttle sped north across the choppy waters and the Voltran receded on the rear feeds. Sergeant Tyrus Maxwell’s attention lingered on the Ax’Kol warship. He’d seen the vessel from the outside a couple of times – when he’d been practicing with the shuttle during the period Captain Grisham had been negotiating the return to Human Federation territory – and he’d lost none of his fascination for the alienness of its appearance.

When the Voltran had been buried beneath the fused sands of Ovintus, it had been impossible to gain an understanding of its form, and Maxwell’s mind, shaped by years having seen hundreds of both HF and Kijol spaceships, had filled in the blanks by calling on that experience. What his mind had conjured up contained far more straight lines than the reality.

The revealed Voltran was all curves and the closest resemblance Maxwell could think of was an old bullet from before the era of gauss weaponry – a bullet with some extra bits sticking out and a part that made him think of a stubby shark’s fin protruding from its topsides.

Although he lacked the words to adequately describe the Voltran, Maxwell thought – reluctantly – that its design was something akin to graceful, yet also purposeful and menacing. An Eternus gave the same impression, but in a different way. If the Voltran ever came up against a Kijol battleship, Maxwell reckoned maybe Captain Grisham might just have the better weapon for the engagement.

The more he thought about the Voltran, the less Maxwell could understand how a species of such vile savageness as the Ax’Kol could have been responsible for such a technological masterpiece.

Maxwell drew his attention away from the receding warship. The mission had only just begun and already his attention was wandering. He breathed in deeply through the filter in his suit helmet. One aspect of the Voltran he hadn’t yet learned to appreciate was the smell. The same odour pervaded the shuttle and, though Maxwell couldn’t quite bring himself to refer to it as a stench, it was nevertheless unpleasant, like he imagined the air would be in a thousand-year-old tomb.

Neither did Maxwell quite approve of the mind link – a link he was currently using to pilot the shuttle across the planet’s southern ocean. While he couldn’t deny the efficiency, he wasn’t ready to trust the alien technology. Deep down inside, he worried that the shuttle might reverse the link if it so wished, and plunder his head of secrets. Not that Maxwell kept many secrets, but it was the principle – his brain belonged to him and nobody else.

So, Maxwell yearned for good old, honest, HF tech - a couple of joysticks and a few buttons. It didn’t seem like he was going to have his wish anytime soon.

“Lieutenant Lopez reckons our comms to the Voltran should work even when we’re over the planet’s curve,” said Corporal Barkley, standing to Maxwell’s left. He had one hand on the interface bar. His voice was distant, though his awareness of the situation was all there. “We’ll soon find out.”

Even though Maxwell and his squad had spent several weeks on the Voltran, much of the technology was still new to them. Lieutenant Lopez had insisted that the warship’s consciousness could transfer a comm through a solid object – such as a whole damn planet – without the requirement for a network of relay satellites.

Given how vital comms were to the soldiers, Maxwell was hoping Lopez hadn’t overlooked any limitations in the tech. He had to keep reminding himself that the Voltran’s internal comms interfaced seamlessly with the comms units in the HF combat suits, so hopefully there’d be no problems.

It won’t do any harm to check it out.

“Test the comms, Corporal,” said Maxwell, once the Voltran was faraway over the southern horizon.

“The Voltran is coming through loud and clear, Sergeant,” said Barkley after a few moments. “Damn, and to think of all those times we’ve dreamed of comms that’ll go clean through a solid wall. And here’s a warship that can just think a comm from one place to another.”

“That’s progress for you,” said Private Chau, standing to the right. He wasn’t linked to the shuttle and leaned casually against the starboard wall.

“How is it progress, Private?” said Barkley. “We stole this warship, remember? It’s not like every single asset in the HF military can do the same thing.”

“We’ll clone the tech eventually,” said Chau. “And I’ll give a cheer when it happens.”

“Me too,” said Barkley. “Anyway, if we’re lucky, this should be an easy mission. We’ll let the drones do all the hard work, while we put our feet up.”

“I don’t think we’re going to like what those drones find, Corporal,” said Maxwell.

“I bet we’re heading to a city full of corpses,” said Chau. “But like the Corporal said, we have the drones with us. Once they’ve recorded what we need, we’ll head back to the Voltran. Right, Sergeant?”

“Right,” Maxwell agreed.

“How long ago was the Voltran last here?” asked Barkley.

“Lieutenant Lopez reckoned about six months,” said Maxwell. “And the climate on this planet means we will be looking for corpses, rather than skeletons – the bodies haven’t had time to fully decay yet.”

“It’s not going to make for nice viewing,” said Barkley. “Even remotely through the drones.”

“Nope,” said Maxwell.

“And we’re definitely not intending to set down, are we?” said Chau, who now had his hand on the third interface post.

“What I plan to do and what actually happens in the face of mission realities aren’t the same thing, Private,” said Maxwell. He thumbed over his shoulder towards the passenger bay. “That’s why we’re all here. If there are no corpses anywhere in sight, we might have to open up a few doors to find out what’s on the other side.”

“But there’s no chance—”

“Enough,” said Maxwell, before his irritation turned into anger. “We’ll deal with the mission as it comes to us. The same as always.”

The Ax’Kol shuttle’s propulsion had plenty in reserve, but Maxwell didn’t increase the velocity any higher. He kept a watch on the feeds, while trying not to think too hard about the situation he and his squad found themselves in. Life had been straightforward when all he had to worry about was shooting Kijol. Now, Maxwell found himself dangerously close to major political events within the Human Federation, as well as having to deal with the Ax’Kol.

Maxwell definitely didn’t want the HF to surrender – not after he’d spent the entirety of his adult life fighting the Kijol – but he wasn’t sure if he was comfortable to have his name so closely associated with both Grisham and the Voltran. There were occasions when it was best to keep out of sight until trouble moved elsewhere and this current situation bore all the hallmarks of being one of those times.

And yet, Maxwell couldn’t stop wondering if he should embrace this opportunity. After ten years of fighting, here was a chance to show he could be more than just a low-ranking officer with a knack for survival.

During his early years he’d made a habit of both evading and avoiding promotion, simply because he hadn’t been ambitious for anything more. At least, that’s what he’d always told himself. Eventually, the offers of promotion had stopping coming and Maxwell had found himself under the command of officers in the same dead-end as he was, culminating in his assignment to Captain Grisham’s warship. Maxwell grimaced at the turning wheels of fate.

“I can see the city, Sergeant,” said Barkley. “Well, a few of its spires, anyway.”

Maxwell hauled his wandering mind back to the present. The Kijol city was still many kilometres away and only the tallest of its buildings were visible over the planet’s curve. This side of the planet was in day and light gleamed from the surfaces ahead.

As the seconds went by, more structures were revealed. The Kijol military built predominantly in grey, but from what Maxwell could see here on Vinxilkx, their cities were far more colourful. He saw pale blues, whites, and browns, along with occasional pastel greens and reds. The effect was muted rather than gaudy and Maxwell admitted to himself that the Kijol city was far more tasteful and attractive than some of the brutal concrete jungles he’d seen on Human Federation worlds.

“Nice,” said Chau, dismissing the work of a thousand alien architects with a single underwhelming compliment.

“Yeah, nice,” growled Maxwell.

Aside from the colours, the Kijol buildings were familiar enough. Their towers were tall and slender, clad in glass or with many windows. Maxwell spotted a few tall domes, which he knew the Kijol used for accommodation, though he’d never been inside one himself.

As the shuttle came closer, the coastline appeared on the horizon. The city was served by extensive docks, and many sleek boats were moored against quays which jutted out into the ocean. Huge gravity cranes indicated this port had once been busy with commerce, and Maxwell spotted hundreds of shipping containers stacked along the wharf.

“It’s a big place,” said Barkley.

“Lieutenant Lopez estimates eight or ten million Kijol lived here,” said Maxwell. “So we shouldn’t have far to go before we come across our first corpses.”

When the shuttle was within five kilometres of the city, Maxwell reduced its velocity and considered his approach. Lieutenant Lopez had warned him about the potential dangers of the surface launchers, so a high-altitude flyover wasn’t on the cards. That left the alternative of staying low among the city’s streets and, at first glance, Maxwell was confident the method was viable. While the shuttle wasn’t exactly a compact model, the avenues leading from the docks were massive and built to cope with large volumes of traffic.

“We’re going to enter that central avenue between those two warehouses,” said Maxwell.

“I see the place you mean,” said Barkley.

“Hopefully it won’t take long to find what we’re here for.”

The shuttle was now within a thousand metres of the coast. Two huge cargo vessels were moored to adjacent quays, each partially loaded. In terms of design, these ships weren’t much different to an HF equivalent. Sometimes there was a best way of doing something, whether you were human or Kijol, and these cargo vessels were evidence of that.

Maxwell piloted the shuttle carefully between the ships, at an altitude that allowed him to see onto their decks.

“They’re deserted,” he said.

The concrete edge of the wharf wasn’t far and Maxwell turned his attention to the forward feeds. It was crowded with vehicles and they’d been abandoned in a manner that spoke of panic. Bringing the shuttle to a standstill, thirty metres overhead, Maxwell hunted for signs of corpses.

He gave up after a moment – there were no bodies here, and besides, he realised, Captain Grisham wasn’t interested in evidence that a few Kijol had died. What he wanted was irrefutable proof that the whole planet had been wiped out. And that would require Maxwell to find mountains of corpses, rather than a handful here on the wharf.

“I’m proceeding into the city,” he said.

Maxwell guided the shuttle between two warehouses which flanked the avenue. A huge flatbed crawler was half in and half out of the eastern structure, the entrance to which was wide open. Smaller vehicles had choked the road for a long distance north and the side roads were similarly blocked.

“It looks as if a bunch of missiles hit the road about four hundred metres north,” said Maxwell.

He spent a few seconds focused on the sensor feed and estimated that seven or eight missiles had detonated on the avenue, hurling gravity vehicles in every direction and leaving their burned-out shells piled on top of each other. Amongst the wreckage, Maxwell saw much larger hulls that he guessed might originally have been tanks.

“The Ax’Kol took out the local fleet, but they still had to deal with the Kijol ground forces,” said Barkley. “Did the Voltran see much evidence of the same thing happening elsewhere?”

“The warship was at a hundred thousand klicks,” said Maxwell. “I don’t know if Captain Grisham was interested in the ground combat. Once the local fleet was out of action, everything that followed was inevitable.”

“I can’t see a single body on this avenue, Sergeant,” said Chau. “But I reckon we’ll have a good view into that eastern warehouse.”

“That’s where we’re heading,” said Maxwell.

He piloted the shuttle lower, until its undersides were five metres above the roofs of the gravity vehicles. From this low altitude, the road seemed to go on forever and it drove home the scale of the failed evacuation. Maxwell clenched his teeth together until his jaw muscles bulged and told himself that some good might come from events here on Vinxilkx, if it averted war within the Human Federation.

The starboard sensor feeds had a good view into the warehouse. Storage containers were stacked against the walls, while the central floorspace was clear.

“No bodies,” said Barkley. “Unless the Ax’Kol stashed them in some of those containers.”

Maxwell experienced the first twinge of unease. He’d expected to pilot his shuttle along a few streets, locate a couple of million conveniently positioned corpses and then leave the drones to record the evidence. Now he was beginning to think he might have been too optimistic. If the Ax’Kol had been cunning, they may have hidden the bodies someplace real hard to find. The dead didn’t need personal space and Maxwell imagined it would be possible to conceal a vast quantity of bodies in a single building.

“I don’t want to spend all week searching this city,” he said. “There are thousands of damn buildings and there are only ten of us to do it.”

“You’d think the Ax’Kol would have left at least one body on the street,” said Private Chau.

“One won’t be enough,” said Maxwell. “We need millions - and you can be sure that once we’re done with this city, Captain Grisham will order us to head somewhere else on this planet and take photos of another corpse mountain. He’ll want to prove to those surrendering bastards in the Human Federation that the Kijol took a real bad hit here on Vinxilkx. A single corpse lying next to a gravity vehicle won’t be enough.”

Chau made a grunt of acceptance. “I guess I was premature in thinking we’d get this over with quickly.”

“I had the same high hopes, Private,” Maxwell admitted.

He guided the shuttle onwards, over the thousands of Kijol gravity cars which had blocked the avenue. At the first intersection, Maxwell slowed in order that he wouldn’t miss anything. East and west, the view was the same – more vehicles and no corpses.

It was the same story at the next intersection. West, Maxwell saw signs of another missile strike. With their air support neutralised, the Kijol ground forces would have been easy meat for the Ax’Kol attackers.

“How long does it take to wipe out an entire planet using foot soldiers and nothing else?” asked Chau.

“The Ax’Kol aren’t soldiers,” spat Barkley with surprising venom. “A soldier is fighting for a cause and, whether he or she or believes in that cause, a good one has honour. There’s no honour in this. This is murder and nothing else.”

“I was only asking, Corporal,” said Chau. “I hate the Ax’Kol as much as you do.”

“The answer to your question would normally be a long time, Private,” said Maxwell. “There’re always far-flung places to hide out in the wilderness. And, up until Xaros, I’d have said that in a city like this one it would be almost impossible to capture or kill all the original inhabitants.”

“The Ax’Kol aren’t like us,” said Barkley. “They can find life, wherever it hides. They move fast and they kill fast.”

“And each dead body can be brought back to its feet and sent out to murder,” said Maxwell. “That means exponential growth for the attacking forces.” At that moment, he had another thought. “But why the hell would they wipe out a planet and then fly elsewhere?”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Sergeant,” said Chau.

“The Ax’Kol use the dead as weapons. What would be the point of killing all these Kijol and then leaving the corpses behind?”

Barkley caught on. “You think the Ax’Kol might have taken the bodies elsewhere?”

“Yes. Maybe,” said Maxwell. The Ax’Kol were a new opponent, and their motivation was still unclear. “I’ve seen enough to be sure these assholes enjoy what they’re doing, but would they abandon so much ammunition here on Vinxilkx?”

“If the corpses are gone, that would explain why the Kijol haven’t dropped incendiaries,” said Barkley. “There’s nothing left to burn.”

“And the Kijol might hope to return here one day,” said Maxwell. “They aren’t going to wreck the place if they intend coming back.”

The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that he was right. Maxwell was suddenly sure that no matter how long he searched this city – or other cities on the planet – he would find none of the evidence Captain Grisham needed.

“Corporal Barkley, contact the Voltran and see what Lieutenant Lopez makes of what we just discussed.”

“Yes, sir,” said Barkley. A short time later, he was done. “I’ve spoken to Lieutenant Lopez and she tells me that Captain Grisham agrees with your logic. However, he has ordered us to proceed with the search.”

It was the response Maxwell had anticipated. If the Ax’Kol had removed all the dead from Vinxilkx, the evidence to take back to the Human Federation would be less compelling. Proof that the Kijol had abandoned the planet would be significant, but could be more easily explained or disregarded than a recording that showed a billion Kijol corpses in the streets of a dozen cities across an entire world. Maxwell was therefore not surprised to learn that Grisham wished to persist with the effort to discover something more impactful than empty streets.

“Did Lieutenant Lopez give you any idea how long we are to continue?” asked Maxwell.

“No, sir. Apparently Voltran has memories of a second planet within the Kijol empire. From the sounds of it, we’ll be heading there next if we don’t find what we’re looking for here on Vinxilkx.”

“And maybe even if we do,” said Maxwell. “What’s this second planet called?”

“Savixor is the closest pronunciation, sir,” said Barkley.

Maxwell didn’t like the sound of the word, though he wasn’t quite sure what in particular brought out this reaction. Most planets were either named after people he’d never heard of, or assigned a name by a computer, and they were generally all forgettable with a few notable exceptions. He had a feeling Savixor wasn’t going to be a nice place to visit.

Since he had no say in the matter, Maxwell didn’t give too much thought to his next destination after Vinxilkx. He concentrated on the shuttle’s feeds once more and proceeded with the search.

SIX

For almost an hour, Maxwell guided the Ax’Kol shuttle along the streets of the city. Gravity vehicles were abandoned everywhere and, when he started looking more closely, he noticed that many were torn open, as if the occupants had thought they’d be safe from their attackers if they kept the doors closed. The Ax’Kol were strong – Maxwell had seen it with his own eyes – and the aliens had left none of the Kijol alive. When he zoomed in the shuttle’s feed, bloodstains were visible everywhere.

“I wonder if many of the Ax’Kol died here,” said Barkley.

“A few, I’m sure,” said Maxwell. “I guess they’d have been taken elsewhere with the rest of the bodies.”

“Do you reckon the Ax’Kol can animate their own dead, Sergeant?” asked Chau.

“I’m not sure I want to think about it, Private,” said Maxwell. He thought about it anyway, but didn’t respond to Chau’s question. “We’ll continue the search for another ten minutes and then we’ll speak to the Voltran’s crew again. I’m sure the order will be for us to start opening a few of these buildings.”

For another ten minutes, Maxwell flew the shuttle along streets chosen at random. Although the buildings varied in height, he felt confident the surrounding missile batteries wouldn’t be able to lock onto the transport. Even so, Maxwell didn’t exactly feel safe.

“Seems like Captain Grisham has decided to test out the Voltran against a few of the surface launchers,” said Barkley, once the ten minutes were almost up. “He’s destroyed all the batteries around this city.”

“Better late than never,” said Chau.

“Are all the batteries confirmed destroyed?” asked Maxwell, placing enormous emphasis on the word.

“Yes, sir, that’s what I’ve been told.”

“In that case, let’s increase altitude,” said Maxwell.

Guiding the shuttle along the city’s streets was a painstaking way to search. He increased altitude to three hundred metres and the view was substantially improved. Maxwell risked another hundred-metre climb and decided that was enough altitude. Soon, he’d have to land and he was no more eager to continue on foot than anyone else in his squad.

“Here comes the Voltran,” said Barkley.

Captain Grisham brought the Ax’Kol warship in fast and low. At a thousand-metre altitude, the Voltran came to a standstill, directly above the shuttle.

“I guess Captain Grisham is running out of patience,” said Chau. “Now we’ve set him thinking that all the corpses were taken away.”

“We’re a long way from home,” said Maxwell. “A long way from where the Voltran can influence proceedings in the Human Federation. I expect Captain Grisham will be eager to gather the proof he needs, so he can return.” Maxwell gave a humourless laugh. “And damn if I’m not just as keen to have things fixed within the HF, so we can get back to the business of fighting the Kijol.”

“Lieutenant Lopez advises that she and Lieutenant Bishop are helping us with our scans,” said Barkley. “If they spot anything, they’ll let us know.”

Maxwell continued flying across the city, knowing he was just going through the motions. If anything was to be found, the Voltran, with its vastly superior hardware scanning from a greater altitude, would certainly locate it first. Even so, Maxwell didn’t lose focus and he continued looking for signs of Kijol bodies.

A few kilometres north – closer to the city’s outskirts – he saw a row of four accommodation domes and aimed the shuttle towards them. As the vessel sped over the rooftops, Maxwell noticed that many were smeared with patches of brown. The longer he stayed in this dead city, the more of its story unfolded. He guessed some of the Kijol had taken to the roofs when the Ax’Kol foot soldiers came. It hadn’t been enough to save them.

“This city looked almost normal when we first arrived,” said Barkley. “Aside from all the abandoned vehicles.”

“And the longer we stay, the worse it becomes,” said Chau.

Maxwell didn’t answer. He hated this place and wanted to be away. The accommodation domes were a short distance ahead and they were surrounded by landscaped parks, with trees and small lakes. Between two of the domes, Maxwell saw what he thought to be a children’s playground. A lump came unexpectedly to his throat and he swallowed.

“Let’s search elsewhere,” he said, banking the shuttle east.

“Lieutenant Lopez has detected something she’d like us to check out, Sergeant,” said Barkley. “South-east of our position, range: two klicks. The sighting is north of that flat-roofed warehouse.”

“I see the place,” said Maxwell. “What has Lieutenant Lopez detected?”

“Corpses, sir.”

“Figures. Let’s go check it out.”

Maxwell increased the shuttle’s velocity, feeling glad to be away from the Kijol park. A short time later, he brought the vessel to a halt over the indicated area and studied the feeds. The warehouse was massive, with an adjoined storage yard north. That yard contained stacks of alloy sheeting, along with a few dozen huge containers along its eastern boundary. A lifter shuttle and several gravity-engined ground vehicles were parked neatly at the northern end.

“Looks like the storage unit for a shuttle factory,” said Maxwell. In fact, this whole area had an industrial feel to it.

The warehouse’s massive northern door was fractionally open and, sure enough, a few dozen corpses had been left outside. At its current altitude, the shuttle’s sensors didn’t have a viewing angle into the storage bay, so Maxwell brought the transport closer to the ground. The storage door was only open about a metre and it was dark beyond.

“I still can’t see,” said Maxwell, having reduced altitude to only ten metres. “We’ll have to set down.”

When the shuttle was on the concrete ground, its forward sensors had a slightly better view beneath the storage bay door. Maxwell could see shapes in various shades of dark grey, but not enough that he could be certain what he was looking at.

“We’re leaving the shuttle,” he said, accepting the inevitable.

“Do you want to stay here as pilot, Sergeant?” asked Barkley.

“You do it, Corporal,” said Maxwell. “Hopefully we won’t be gone long.”

Maxwell exited the cockpit and entered the passenger bay. “We have a warehouse to explore,” he announced to the waiting soldiers.

“More bodies, Sergeant?” asked Private Kandy Lyles.

“We’ve sighted a few corpses in front of the building. It’s likely there are more inside.”

“Great.”

Maxwell led the way to the shuttle’s flank exit. When the door opened, bright sunlight flooded in, and his suit computer informed him the temperature outside was twenty-five Celsius. The air was thick with bass from the Voltran’s engines. Though the Ax’Kol vessel’s propulsion lacked the outright physical presence of a Charos drive, it was still pervasive, even when it was generating low output.

Having jumped the short distance to the ground, Maxwell looked south to where the corpses were lying. The bodies were about fifty metres away and he set off towards them.

“Private Franklin, I want you to take a look,” said Maxwell.

“Yes, sir,” said the squad medic, hurrying to walk alongside.

“The rest of you, keep watch.”

“Expecting trouble, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Arie Fine.

“Not expecting, Corporal. I just want to be ready in case it happens.” Maxwell pointed upwards, where the dark hull of the Voltran filled the skies. “And the warship can’t see through the solid alloy roof of this warehouse.”

Were it not for the sound of the Voltran and the low droning hum of the shuttle’s engines, Maxwell felt sure it would have been eerily quiet. He was glad for the noise.

He looked around. Now that he was on the ground, the objects in the storage yard appeared far larger and more impressive. The sheets of alloy – a hundred metres away – towered overhead, and the gravity crane parked adjacent – with its weighted, angular base and extendible boom - was enormous.

Even the corpse pile was larger than Maxwell had realised. He stopped in front of it. The Kijol had been killed in a predictably brutal manner, their colourful civilian clothes torn to rags and expressions of fear were prominent on their decomposing faces.

“When did this happen?” asked Maxwell.

“Three months ago,” said Franklin. “From the way the skin has shrunken over the—”

“Enough,” said Maxwell. He held in a sigh. “I can see well enough with my own eyes. Let’s see what’s inside that warehouse.”

The door itself was fifty metres high and more than a hundred wide, and judging by the horizontal metal slats, designed to roll up into an assembly fitted to the warehouse ceiling. Maxwell was about sixty metres away. He walked around the corpses and dropped into a crouch, hoping to see what lay inside the building.

“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” said Private Johnny Lowe.

“Of course you’re getting a bad feeling, you asshole,” said Private Olivia Diaz. She was crouched tight to the Ax’Kol’s shuttle’s flank and Maxwell saw her give Lowe the middle finger. “We all know what we’re going to find, without you having to tell us you’ve got a bad feeling.”

“No more,” said Maxwell.

The short exchange reminded him that the soldiers had been cooped up on the Voltran for weeks now, and they were tense. Usually, downtime was good for morale, but since the warship lacked a replicator, toilets, beds, showers and had no other forms of comfort – the waiting had been tough. Added to that was the drip feed of information about how bad the situation was becoming for the Human Federation.

On balance, Maxwell thought the soldiers had coped admirably, but they couldn’t keep going like this. It was a real problem, but not one he could think about right now.

“I’m taking a closer look,” he said, gesturing towards the door with his gun.

Maxwell sprinted at a diagonal east towards the vertical metal post of the doorframe. Lyles and Franklin came with him, while Corporal Fine and Private Nestor Vaughan ran for the west side of the door. The rest of the soldiers maintained a watch.

Halting at the doorframe, Maxwell waited for Vaughan and Fine to get into position. Already, he could smell the odour of rotting corpses.

“Something died in here,” he said.

Maxwell dropped to his haunches and looked beneath the door. The daylight coming from outside was enough that he could see a spaceship parked a few metres inside the warehouse.

“There’s an Ax’Kol transport in here,” he said.

“Can you see a way to open the warehouse door, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine.

“Not from here,” said Maxwell. He took a deep breath. “I’m going inside.”

Maxwell ducked beneath the door and the intensity of the stench rose by several notches, and it was accompanied by the scent of char. He looked around for a way to open the door. The Kijol were logical enough and the activation button was just on the inside of the frame, along with a separate switch for the lights.

“Here we go,” said Maxwell.

He pressed the door activation button and snapped the light switch down with his forefinger. With a creak and a rattle, the roller door rose upwards. The lights flickered on and off for a few moments, and then settled into a blue-tinged daylight colour.

For a time, Maxwell stared at the scene before him, adding things up and reaching a conclusion. The interior of the warehouse was vast. Crane assemblies were fitted to the ceiling, and other machinery was visible against the east and west walls.

In the centre of the floor, was a massive Ax’Kol transport. The vessel was parked nose-first to the door and Maxwell estimated it to be four hundred metres in length, with vertical sides and hard corners – in total contrast to the Voltran and its own transport shuttles. The flank door on the visible side was open, though Maxwell couldn’t see much of what lay within.

“How’d this thing fit in here?” asked Corporal Fine.

“Slowly,” said Maxwell.

Reluctantly, he advanced deeper into the warehouse. Kijol bodies were everywhere, like a burned and decaying carpet of drab, sickly colours. Maxwell guessed that hundreds of thousands of the aliens had been brought here, to be thrown onto this enormous transport and taken elsewhere.

The Ax’Kol plans had been ruined by the missiles which had detonated against their spacecraft. From his position not far inside the door, Maxwell could see where the biological material of the vessel’s hull had ruptured outwards near its stern. Unlike the Voltran, this shuttle had no ability to heal itself.

Maxwell quickened his pace until he could see into the transport’s cavernous bay. It had been full of corpses until at least two missiles detonated inside, carbonizing flesh and hurling thousands of other bodies out of the bay and onto the warehouse floor.

“What happened here?” asked Lyles.

Lifting one arm, Maxwell pointed to the two compact missile launchers against the eastern wall. “The Ax’Kol had finished loading their cargo and then the Kijol somehow managed to remotely fire warheads from those clusters. Why the launchers were loaded, I have no idea. I guess they were ready for testing before installation.” He shrugged. “Whatever the reason, the Kijol accomplished something the Ax’Kol didn’t want to happen.”

“Not much, huh,” said Lyles.

“Nope.” Maxwell didn’t want to linger. “I’ve had my fill of this place.”

“Me too, and we only just arrived.”

Maxwell ordered everyone to leave the warehouse, and he followed. Although he’d only been inside for a short time, the bright purity of the sun’s rays felt incredibly welcome. Maxwell spoke briefly to Corporal Barkley on the comms. Barkley then spoke to Lieutenant Lopez.

Soon, Barkley relayed new orders.

“We’re to deploy one of the drones here, Sergeant. Captain Grisham wants a record of what’s in that warehouse, and we’re to obtain another recording of the city itself. While we wait for the drone to finish, the Voltran will destroy the surface-to-air defences around the next city to the north. We’re to gather another recording from there. After that, we’re leaving Vinxilkx.”

“That’s not quite the rapid exit I’d been hoping for,” said Maxwell.

“Maybe we won’t have to land again, Sergeant.”

“Maybe.”

Maxwell ordered his squad onto the shuttle and he went with them. This was unpleasant work and no mistake. The sooner he was back shooting Kijol, the better Maxwell would like it. Unfortunately, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the Ax’Kol were here to stay.

SEVEN

Ten hours after the Voltran’s arrival at Vinxilkx, Captain Grisham was content that the mission personnel had gathered as much useful data as the planet could offer.

The second city had been deserted like the first and the drones had flown across the Kijol buildings for an extended period, gathering information that Grisham hoped would make it harder for the Unity cabal to claim that surrender was the best option for the Human Federation.

Following the exploration of the second city, Grisham had ordered Maxwell to scan a third. Now the shuttle and the drones were safely back on the Voltran.

“Are we heading to the HF with what we’ve found, Captain?” asked Commander Deneuve.

Grisham had been agonising over his next step for most of those ten hours and he still wasn’t sure what to do for the best. Now, the decision was upon him.

“Planet Savixor is eleven days from Vinxilkx,” he mused. “Plus the time we spend there, and then a fifteen-day return journey to Loxor.”

“We’ve been away for six-and-a-half days already,” said Deneuve. “By the time we return, the total mission time will be more than twelve days.”

“While a journey to Savixor will ensure we’re away from the Human Federation for more than thirty-two days,” said Grisham. “We could send a comm to Admiral Danner asking for guidance, but the travel time from Vinxilkx to Loxor and back again is five days in total.”

“You’d prefer to go to Savixor,” said Deneuve.

“I would,” Grisham admitted. “I have a feeling the Voltran – and me with it – is the equivalent of a red rag to a bull. I would hate to think that the presence of this warship would inflame tensions.”

“It’s only Senator Maynard and a few of his buddies that have a problem with you, sir,” said Adler.

“If Maynard isn’t the leader of Unity, then he’s damn well near the top,” said Grisham. “He isn’t known for his rational behaviour. It’s possible he might stir something up and then assign blame elsewhere, or at least muddy the waters enough that he wriggles his way out of punishment.”

“I wonder if you’re overthinking it, sir,” said Deneuve. “The recordings we’ve taken from Vinxilkx may be enough to sway the undecideds away from surrender. Once support for the war returns, the Unity cabal will become no more than a fringe group. And rest assured that Senator Maynard will blow with the wind. The moment it becomes clear he’s lost this fight, there’ll be no one shouting louder in favour of war.”

“I hear what you’re saying, Commander, but I think Maynard has pushed too far this time. I don’t know if he can afford to back down. He’ll have made promises and if those promises aren’t kept, he’ll find himself with more enemies than he can handle.”

“Admiral Danner has plenty of dirt on Maynard,” said Lieutenant Adler. “For example – the funding for the Church of Everlasting Serenity on Xaros and the provision of military-grade hardware that Ivey Metz used to contact not just the Kijol, but the Ax’Kol as well. I think I agree with the Captain on this one – Maynard can’t change course. Not now.”

“So if we manage to sway those in the middle back towards support for the war, Maynard will provide the Kijol with the location of our worlds,” said Lopez. “Maybe he’ll start by telling them how to locate a single far away planet with a low population. As soon as we lose one of our worlds, all those people in favour of the war will start thinking about surrender again.”

“And here we are, days away from it all,” said Grisham.

“I’ve still got no idea what decision you’re going to make, Captain,” said Deneuve.

One part of Grisham – the part which had accepted that his fate was always to be in command of Tibor-class warships and his missions to always be high risk – wanted to be away from the conflict within the Human Federation. A mission to Savixor would no doubt provide additional useful evidence regarding the Kijol struggles against the Ax’Kol and such a mission would also keep Grisham far from the mire of politics.

Savixor offered an escape.

“Damnit,” said Grisham. “For years I’ve wanted a say in my own fate, and now I’ve been granted that wish, my life – our lives – are more complicated than ever.”

Adler laughed. “Did you truthfully expect things would be easier once you took Admiral Danner’s shilling?” 

“I wanted change, and that’s exactly what I got,” said Grisham. “Let’s head back to Loxor. We’ll exit lightspeed at the fringes of the Altarn-4 system and I’ll speak with Admiral Danner. If he wants us to head for Savixor, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Now that his course was set, Grisham felt a mixture of invigoration and trepidation. When it came to combat he rarely struggled with indecision, but with all the machinations happening in the Human Federation, the stakes were much, much higher. Screwing up when in command of a warship meant death. If Grisham screwed up in politics, he might well be responsible – at least in part – for enormous upheaval that could potentially affect his entire species for the foreseeable future.

“Ready the Voltran for lightspeed,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Adler.

Grisham kept his hand on the interface post and mentally prepared himself. The lights on the bridge dimmed and the hum of the propulsion faded deeper into the background. A feeling of calmness descended upon Grisham and he closed his eyes. His brain thought of little – certainly it was far more sanguine about the future. The respite would be short-lived, Grisham was sure.

“One minute and we go,” said Adler.

The Voltran entered lightspeed, though Grisham wasn’t aware of it happening. He dreamed and, after a time, his wandering consciousness once more came upon the wall of grey. It didn’t seem important and he retreated. The dreams returned.

Grisham opened his eyes, feeling an unpleasant disconnection with reality. He focused on his hand which remained flat on the interface post. The metal was solid and his connection with it seemed to re-forge his link to the physical. He shook his head and grimaced. Everything clicked back into place.

“Status reports!” he shouted.

Recovery from lightspeed travel on the Voltran was rapid and the warship’s crew were ready for action in moments.

“Checking the sensors,” said Lopez. “According to the Voltran’s positioning system, we’re in the right place.”

“Scanning for hostiles,” said Bishop. “There shouldn’t be anything out here.”

Grisham interfaced with the sensors. The Voltran was way out in Altarn-4 and the star was little more than a pinpoint of light, approximately five billion kilometres away. Planet Loxor would be 160 million kilometres closer than that, and it was out of effective detection range.

“Scans complete,” said Bishop. “We’re alone out here.”

“Get me a channel to Admiral Danner,” said Grisham.

“Requesting channel,” said Lopez. “Channel does not exist.” She swore. “Requesting channel…channel does not exist.”

Grisham’s alarm bells were ringing. “What are the possible explanations?” he asked.

“Our request is hitting the orbiting comms relay network, but the satellite is unable to route to Admiral Danner,” said Lopez. “Either he’s no longer comms-enabled – through death or imprisonment – or the relay network has been subverted or shut down.”

“Shit,” said Grisham. “Is there any way to determine which it is?”

“We could request a channel to the flight control station and ask them what’s going on, sir,” said Lopez. “But if we aren’t welcome on Loxor – for whatever reason – there’s a chance the routing data contained in our outbound transmission will give away our approximate location.”

“Even though we aren’t using HF hardware?” asked Grisham.

“It’s a possibility not a certainty, Captain,” said Lopez. “I’m warning you of the risks.”

“If the comms relay network has been subverted, won’t our first inbound transmission have been detected already?”

“Probably not, sir,” said Lopez. “If you recall, when we first claimed the Voltran and made contact with Admiral Danner, he created a secure comms tunnel that would link us directly with his personal communicator. Maybe the secure link is compromised, but I don’t think so. Even finding it in the first place would require a full audit of the comms system. That takes time.”

“It’s much easier to simply block inbound comms, sir,” said Bishop. “It’s possible the relay satellite network has been configured to return a false status report to anything it receives.”

Grisham closed his eyes. “Maybe we should have gone to Savixor,” he said. “Lieutenant Lopez, based on your knowledge of comms, what is your best guess as to what’s happened here?”

“If you had the right people in the right places, it wouldn’t be difficult to disable a planet’s inbound and outbound comms for a time,” said Lopez. “It’s keeping them locked down that’s the hard part.”

“The comms would only need to be offline long enough for a hostile force to secure the Fremont base and the assets stationed there,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez. “We could be witnessing the beginning of armed conflict within the Human Federation.”

“We can’t stand on the side lines,” said Grisham. “We’re here and we have to act.”

“Should I ready the Voltran for lightspeed, Captain?” said Adler.

“Yes, Lieutenant. Target an emergence point one hundred thousand kilometres from the planet. I want us to exit lightspeed with full visibility on the Fremont base.”

“You could be putting us right in the firing line, sir,” said Deneuve. “We won’t avoid detection for long if we’re only a hundred thousand klicks from the planet.”

“I know,” said Grisham. “This is a calculated gamble.”

“There’s a high chance that hostilities have already commenced, sir – on the ground if not in the air,” Deneuve persisted. “If we show up in the middle of it, who’s to say what might happen?”

“If there are hostilities, they’ll be aimed at removing Admiral Danner from office,” said Grisham. “There’ll be no combat between our warships.”

“You can’t be sure, Captain.”

“No, Commander, I can’t be sure,” said Grisham. “But this is what we’re going to do.”

Deneuve smiled thinly. “In which case, let’s get on with it.”

“Is the order still to ready the Voltran for lightspeed, sir?” asked Adler.

“Yes. Please proceed.”

“The command is sent. Four minutes and we’ll be on our way to Loxor.”

Grisham wasn’t sure what exactly would happen to him during such a short lightspeed journey. There wouldn’t be time for sleep, that was for sure. The usual serenity came, and it somehow overwhelmed the agitation he was feeling. Events had clearly moved on during the mission to Vinxilkx and he hoped he’d returned in time to prevent what he expected was a pre-emptive attempt by the Unity cabal to seize power from their opponents.

“One minute,” said Adler.

The seconds counted down and the Voltran entered lightspeed for a time too short for Grisham’s brain to register. He didn’t sleep and the usual sense of dislocation didn’t come. The entire event was over in the blink of an eye.

“I’m connecting to the sensors,” said Grisham.

The Voltran had exited lightspeed in the exact position he’d asked for. One of the underside arrays was already locked on the Fremont base and Grisham requested an immediate enhancement of the feed.

“Five warships parked at a thousand-metre altitude, right over the base,” he said. “I recognize the Eldan Blade and the Star Runner.”

“I think the third battleship is the Eidolon, sir,” said Lopez. “The other two are Nexus heavies. I don’t know their names or who commands them.”

“Our sensors have detected other warships, sir,” said Bishop. “There’s the Damocles battleship, the Stalwart and the Pulveriser heavies, a couple of cruisers and seven Tibors.”

“What a damned mess,” spat Grisham.

He watched the feed for a short time, aware that soon one of those spaceships would detect the Voltran. Before that happened, he had to figure out what was going on here.

Certainly a shitstorm had descended upon Loxor and the chance of it dissipating seemed remote. Grisham hated what was happening within the Human Federation and he hoped he might play a part in diffusing the situation before him.

EIGHT

“We know Captain Avery is a Unity man,” said Grisham. “The Eldan Blade is his, and I’m convinced all five of those warships over the base are commanded by surrendering assholes like Avery. I’d guess a couple of those Tibors are in it with them as well.”

“Best rein in that anger, sir,” said Deneuve.

“Thank you, Commander, I’ll try my best.” Grisham took a breath. “This looks like classic strongarm tactics. Captain Avery will be spewing threats and lies like they’re going out of fashion, on order to keep the local forces from taking any direct action.”

“Meanwhile, there’ll be a force on the ground trying to either kidnap or eliminate Admiral Danner,” said Deneuve.

“Why doesn’t Captain Ravil do something?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “The Damocles is the equal of the Eldan Blade.”

“Aside from the fact that Avery brought two additional battleships and a couple of Nexus heavies with him, any exchange of fire here will be a complete disaster,” said Grisham. “Captain Avery will have made all sorts of bullshit excuses about what he’s doing here and he’s relying on the local forces blinking first.”

“Which they have done,” said Kinsey.

“Because the consequences of armed conflict between members of our own fleet, in the skies above one of our primary military facilities do not bear thinking about, Lieutenant,” said Grisham, fighting to keep the anger from his voice. “And who wants to go down in the history books as being the officer to start the first war since the Human Federation was founded more than a century ago?”

“I guess nobody wants that, sir.”

“Which is why Captain Avery is getting away with what he’s doing,” said Grisham. “And remember – those are fleet warships. Assuming they’ve received orders from an officer with the right authority, they have – in theory - every right to be here at Loxor.”

Kinsey kept his mouth shut.

“Lieutenant Lopez, now we have line of sight, we can aim a channel request directly at the hull receptors on the Damocles, right?” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then do so at once.”

Lopez didn’t get that far. “We have an inbound channel request from Captain Avery, sir,” she said. “He wants to speak with you.”

Grisham was in two minds. This wasn’t going to be a social chat and he doubted Avery was intending negotiation. “Accept the request,” said Grisham after a moment. “Open channel.”

“Grisham, what rock did you crawl out from under?” asked Avery. “I thought you’d been sent to do your master’s bidding.”

“And what do you call your visit to Loxor?” asked Grisham. “The Kijol are at war with another species and it’s a war they can’t win,” he said, pretending knowledge he didn’t have. “And you would have us surrender.”

“We will fight with the Kijol as equals,” sneered Avery. “You call it surrender, others call it a partnership. This is an opportunity, Grisham. While you and your ilk would have us fight until our worlds are in flames, there are others of us looking to the future.”

“The Kijol are getting their asses handed to them by the Ax’Kol,” said Grisham. “The same Ax’Kol who built the Voltran.”

“The Voltran must be thirty billion tons down on the Eldan Blade. Armour is king, Grisham, and your warship doesn’t have nearly enough of it.”

“If the Kijol are having it so easy, why do they need us?” asked Grisham. “You’re proposing we become vassals of our enemies.”

“There will be no vassalage,” snarled Avery. “Without a partnership, we will be forever at war, until our children and their children know nothing but fighting.”

As the conversation went on, Grisham found himself gaining a greater understanding his opponent. Avery was hostile and prickly as hell, but he really believed what he was saying. While Grisham had been told the Unity cabal was pushing for surrender, Avery was convinced they were seeking an alliance of equals.

Well I’ll be. We think of Unity as the Surrender Party. They probably think of us as the Annihilation Scumbags.

Grisham teetered and the only thing which kept him on an even keel was his knowledge – his unwavering certainty – that Senator Herschel Maynard was an asshole of the highest order. And yet Maynard was charming when it suited him. He was fiercely intelligent and persuasive.

On the surface of it, Maynard’s proposal – surrender to an alien species – was wholly unattractive, and yet he’d gathered enough people to his cause that the Human Federation was in real danger of being torn apart. It appeared that the Unity cabal was selling a more nuanced version of surrender than Grisham had been led to believe.

Confronted by knowledge of his own naivete, Grisham was momentarily at a loss. Doubts flooded in – perhaps he’d been manipulated by Admiral Danner. After all, just the mention of the word Maynard would have Grisham fuming in anger, ready to believe any accusation levelled against his enemy in the Senate.

And, if Danner had been looking for an ear into which he could whisper poison, the choices didn’t get much better than Grisham. Grisham, a man with few friends and many enemies. An officer full of resentment who was looking for a way to take control of his own destiny. A man who had already willingly volunteered for missions in the name of Danner’s cause. Pull his strings and watch him dance.

What actions such a man might undertake didn’t bear thinking about.

A wave of dizziness swept through Grisham and he sucked in a lungful of air to steady himself. All of sudden, he had no idea what to believe.

Captain Avery was still in the channel.

“What are you here for?” Grisham asked.

“I have my orders,” said Avery. “I suggest you keep your nose out of this, or it will not turn out well. For any of us.”

“Captain Avery has cut the channel,” said Lopez.

“What did you make of all that, sir?” asked Deneuve.

Grisham looked over. While he was linked to the Voltran, his usual senses were remote, but he could focus to bring them to the fore. Deneuve had the look he well recognized. She’d grasped the situation and understood the conflicts of belief.

“I—” Grisham began.

“Sir, we have a channel request from Captain Ravil on the Damocles,” said Lopez.

“Bring him in,” said Grisham. “Open channel.”

“Captain Grisham,” said Ravil. The man’s voice was steady, but edged with stress from the situation. “I believe this facility is under attack.”

“Do you have access to any of the ground comms or monitors?” asked Grisham.

“No, but my officers are working to remove the block on the planet’s comms network. I anticipate success in the coming minutes.”

“Have you spoken to Captain Avery?”

“The man has orders from Admiral Lonzal to be here,” said Ravil. “Though he won’t disclose the nature of those orders. Admiral Danner is the only man on Fremont with the authority to deny Captain Avery access to this airspace. And since we can’t speak to Admiral Danner—”

“I assume you’ve sent a force to the surface to confirm the Admiral’s wellbeing?” said Grisham.

“No,” said Ravil. By this admission he was either truly out of his depth or had completely failed to understand the reason Avery was here. “The Admiral is well protected.”

“What threats has Captain Avery made?”

“There have been no threats,” said Ravil stiffly. “But you are aware of the problems within the Human Federation, Captain Grisham. I will not be the one responsible for an escalation into outright violence.”

Grisham didn’t criticise. If he shamed Ravil, the man might be pushed into action that everyone in the Human Federation would come to regret.

“I’ll contact you shortly,” said Grisham. He closed the channel.

“Well, isn’t this a steaming heap of crap we didn’t need?” said Adler.

“We can’t just sit back and watch,” said Lopez. “Will Captain Avery really start a war over this?”

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “If I had to guess, I’d say that Avery would withdraw rather than firing upon an HF warship.”

“But we’re not an HF warship,” said Deneuve.

“That’s my worry,” said Grisham. “The Voltran contains valuable tech, but from the sounds of it, Captain Avery isn’t too impressed. And besides, it’ll be convenient for a lot of people if this warship is put out of action.”

“Sir, the Loxor comms network just came back online!” said Lopez.

“I’m speaking to one of Captain Ravil’s comms officers,” said Bishop. “The Damocles is acting as a temporary comms hub for the Fremont base. Captain Avery won’t be able to shut that down.”

“Get me a channel to Admiral Danner,” said Grisham.

“The request has been denied, sir,” said Lopez.

“Does that mean the request reached Admiral Danner’s personal communicator?”

“Yes, sir. The device wouldn’t be active without reading his biometric data, so it’s almost certain he’s alive and it’s in his possession.”

“But it doesn’t guarantee the Admiral hasn’t been captured,” said Deneuve.

“The Admiral himself would have had to deny our comms request, Commander,” said Lopez. “The denial came quickly. I can’t imagine it was done under duress – Admiral Danner simply had a higher-priority inbound request to deal with first.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Adler.

“Nothing,” said Grisham. “It sounds as if Captain Avery’s mission has failed. If so, he’ll be angry as hell and we don’t want him thinking we’ll make a nice consolation prize.”

A full minute went by and the Unity warships didn’t move from their position over the Fremont base. Grisham scraped his teeth together and mentally urged Avery to do the right thing and leave, before someone made a bad decision and the situation turned violent.

“The Eldan Blade is accelerating, sir,” said Lopez. “The others are following.”

All five of the known Unity warships climbed away from the surface of Loxor, and three Tibor-class vessels – which had previously been amongst the other members of the local fleet – went after them.

Grisham watched them go, and all the while he was alert for the possibility of hostile action. No shots were fired and no missiles were launched. The moment they were above the planet’s atmosphere, the Unity warships increased their acceleration.

“Is it over?” asked Lopez.

“Watch,” said Grisham.

After a time, the Unity warships halted at a safe distance from Loxor.

“They’re warming up their Charos drives, sir,” said Adler.

The Tibor class vessels had the highest warmup time and Grisham expected the spaceships would have their departures synchronised. He was right. After eight tense minutes, every one of the Unity spaceships entered lightspeed.

Grisham exhaled, only now becoming aware of the tightness in his muscles. He rolled his shoulders and then tipped back his head, his mind returning to his conversation with Captain Avery. Grisham had some thinking to do, even though he was sure that all the thinking in the world wouldn’t settle his mind. He’d need to find another way to resolve his internal conflict.

“Sir, Admiral Danner is on the comms,” said Lieutenant Lopez.

Grisham couldn’t bring himself to feel surprise, or indeed much of anything. “Does he want to speak?”

“No, sir, not yet. We’re ordered to watch the base.”

“And if Captain Avery returns, what action are we to take?”

“Our orders are not specific,” said Lopez. “I doubt the Admiral knows himself.”

“Acknowledge the order. We’ll wait here until we hear otherwise.”

Grisham felt the tension – which had not nearly dissipated – return with full force. He didn’t want an open-ended wait, since that would leave him stuck with his own thoughts.

And at some point, Grisham would be called for a meeting with Admiral Danner – as sure as the sun rose in the sky. What would come from that meeting, he didn’t know and dreaded to think.

NINE

Admiral Danner only kept Grisham waiting for three hours. During that time, Grisham learned that a force of soldiers from the Eldan Blade had hunted not only for Danner, but also for a few other high-ranking officers who were stationed on Fremont.

More through luck than anything else, those soldiers had failed to locate Danner, though three other officers were missing. What fate had befallen these officers was unclear. They hadn’t been found dead, so it was thought they’d been taken by shuttle to the Eldan Blade. Kidnapping was, after all, marginally less provocative than assassination.

When he’d been called to the meeting, Grisham had this time insisted that the Voltran be permitted to escort its own shuttle, and also for the transport to be permitted to land on the avenue outside the entrance to Danner’s underground office. Once again, Commander Deneuve had advised against Grisham attending in person. The advice was good, but Grisham needed to see Danner’s face in hope that he might read the truth there.

And so it was. Grisham piloted the shuttle and set down in the parking lot in front of a squat, reinforced building of concrete and steel. Sergeant Maxwell was in the cockpit with him, as was Corporal Barkley. The rest of the squad was in the passenger bay. Where Maxwell’s loyalties ultimately lay, Grisham wasn’t entirely sure, but his Sergeant was more of a known quantity than any of the other soldiers on Fremont.

“Here we are,” said Grisham, lifting his hand from the interface post.

“This is some bad shit, Captain,” said Barkley.

“That’s why we’re here, Corporal,” said Grisham. “To see if there’s a way to turn bad shit into good shit.”

“I never would have thought Captain Avery would do something like this,” said Maxwell. “Damn.”

Grisham stared intently at the soldier. “You know Captain Avery?”

“We served on his ship a few years ago,” said Maxwell. He narrowed his eyes in a way that Grisham was beginning to recognise. Maxwell was asking himself if he’d said something he shouldn’t.

“What did you make of him, Sergeant?” asked Grisham. “I’d appreciate your honesty.”

“He seemed like a solid officer, Captain. From what I saw.”

“It’s not like any of us were ever invited to eat at his table,” said Barkley. “But the couple of times I spoke to him, he was respectful enough. A few officers don’t want to acknowledge that soldiers like us are human.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s because sooner or later they’ll have to give an order that might see us killed. Maybe it’s easier to pretend we’re resources rather than people.”

“And Captain Avery wasn’t like that?” asked Grisham.

“No,” said Maxwell. “He wasn’t like that.”

“Thank you for your insight,” said Grisham.

Maxwell could read people and what he’d seen in Captain Avery was entirely at odds with Grisham’s recent experience.

Damnit, this isn’t becoming any easier.

“Let’s go,” said Grisham.

He exited the cockpit. The rest of the squad was in the passenger bay and they looked on edge. They were probably wondering if they’d soon find themselves under fire from human soldiers rather than Kijol.

Grisham didn’t even try to reassure them. Though the base was on high alert and Danner had called in his most trusted soldiers, it was no guarantee of safety. It wasn’t so long ago that the crew on a damned Storm tank had attempted to murder Grisham. With that as the baseline, anything seemed possible.

“I’ll lead, Captain,” said Maxwell.

“Go ahead,” said Grisham.

Maxwell opened the shuttle’s portside flank door. It was late afternoon on this part of Loxor and the light was already fading. The skies – where they were visible - were thick with cloud. No rain fell here and the reason for that was the Voltran. Commander Deneuve was holding the Ax’Kol warship at such a low altitude it was almost touching the towers to the east.

“Squad A, with me,” said Maxwell, jumping out of the shuttle and onto the ground outside.

The soldiers followed and Grisham went after. He looked around. A handful of gravity vehicles were parked at the northern end of the lot and a pair of Storm tanks flanked the entrance to the low building. In addition, an air defence unit had been set up on the main avenue south, and, on the flight in, Grisham had seen plenty of evidence that all units on the base had been mobilised.

“Corporal Fine and Private Diaz will take the drone to the data upload point like we agreed, sir,” said Maxwell.

“That’s right,” said Grisham.

He turned to where the shuttle’s cargo door was already open. Fine and Diaz were framed in the space.

“Don’t lose that drone,” said Grisham. “Unless you want another trip to Vinxilkx to gather the data again.”

“I’ve seen enough corpse piles for this week, sir,” said Fine. “I’ll make sure the drone gets to the right place.”

Fifteen minutes later, Grisham was standing outside the door to Admiral Danner’s office. This office was still deep underground, but it was in a different location to the place in which Grisham’s last meeting had taken place and the change explained why the recent kidnap – or assassination – attempt had failed.

“You can go in, sir,” said one of the soldiers at the door.

The outer door opened and Grisham entered a ten-metre passage. A minigun turret had been bolted to the ceiling and from the piles of drill dust on the floor, and the footprints through it, the work wasn’t long finished.

Grisham approached the inner door. A computer scanned him and the door opened.

“Captain Grisham,” said Danner. He rose to his feet. The wooden desk had followed him to his new office. “We have much to discuss.”

“Admiral Danner,” said Grisham. “You look like shit, sir. When are you planning to rest?”

“Not yet,” said Danner. “I can’t spare the time to sleep with everything that’s going on.” He indicated that Grisham should sit and then gave a rueful smile. “I was on the verge of heading to my quarters for some shuteye and then this happened.”

“How did Captain Avery come so close, sir?”

Danner scowled. “Our security protocols aren’t designed to handle conflict within the Human Federation,” he said. “Any officer of sufficient rank could have pulled the same trick. I was aware something like this might happen, so I’ve been changing offices every few days. As I told you earlier – I got lucky. I’d only moved here a few hours before the Unity forces arrived.”

“Is technology at fault for the security failure, or is it—”

“Personnel?” Danner interrupted. Anger appeared on his face and then vanished. “I have a strong feeling it’s a mixture of the two. The comms block couldn’t have happened without an officer putting a—” He brought himself to a halt. “I didn’t ask you here to talk about events on Fremont – what happened here is for me to worry about.”

Grisham could have argued with that statement, but he kept the thought to himself. “So, what am I here for?”

“To discuss your recent mission of course,” said Danner. “Have you transferred all the drone recordings onto a single databank like I asked?”

“Yes, sir. I heard from Corporal Fine before I entered your office – the data upload is underway. She’ll return to the shuttle with the drone unless I order it otherwise.”

“Keep the drone,” said Danner. “How good is the evidence?”

“It’s good, but probably not good enough, sir,” said Grisham. He quickly described what he’d found at Vinxilkx, though Danner knew most of it from the comm transmission Lieutenant Lopez had sent before the Voltran started its return journey.

“And you decided against travelling to Savixor,” said Danner. He laughed. “That was probably for the best.”

“I didn’t want to be away for so long, sir. Is Savixor my next destination?”

“I’m still thinking on it,” said Danner. His expression went fleetingly dark. “You spoke to Captain Avery.”

“Yes, sir. The man is angry at the situation within the Human Federation.”

“Then he should side with Freedom.”

“Freedom?” said Grisham. “Is that what we’re calling ourselves now? So it’s Unity versus Freedom?”

“I detect a note of cynicism in your voice, Jed,” said Danner mildly. “The truth is, we lacked a banner until recently. And what better statement of intent could there be than freedom? So – Captain Avery?”

Grisham wasn’t sure if he was being tested, but it seemed wise to tread warily. “He believes it’s time for the war to end, sir. He doesn’t refer to that outcome as surrender.”

“How does he refer to it?”

“A partnership between equals.”

“And what did you make of that, Jed?” Danner’s gaze was intense.

“If the Kijol could be trusted to treat us as equals, it would make no sense to keep the Human Federation in a state of total war, sir,” said Grisham, watching Danner equally closely. “But, like we’ve discussed, the Kijol have had many opportunities to make peace and they aren’t interested. Senator Maynard is not stupid enough to admit that outright surrender is his goal. Of course he will refer to it as an alliance.”

Danner sat back, but the tension in the air didn’t lessen. “I believe that members of the Unity cabal have met with the Kijol on several occasions.”

“Is that important, sir?” asked Grisham. He had an idea which way the conversation was being steered. “If we have proof the Kijol are under pressure from the Ax’Kol, we’ll draw an enormous amount of support away from the Unity cabal.”

“That’s true,” said Danner. “However, from what you say, we don’t yet have that proof. And this planet – Savixor – is a long way from here. Much could happen in the time it takes you to journey there and return. Here, within the Human Federation, the gloves are already off.”

Grisham could picture the ladleful of steaming ordure that was about to be deposited onto his plate. “You don’t want me to go to Savixor, sir?”

“No, Jed, I don’t.”

“If my presence – and that of the Voltran – is too obvious within the Human Federation, won’t my staying act as a focus for our enemies, sir?”

“Perhaps.” Danner smiled thinly. “We talked before that I might one day send you on missions that I later need to disavow knowledge of.”

Grisham was nobody’s fool and pretending otherwise would make his act – if indeed it was an act, he wasn’t quite sure himself – appear obvious. “I remember we discussed the potential for me exceeding my orders, sir. I don’t recall promising to undertake missions which might have me categorised as a rogue officer. Or indeed, a criminal.”

“You understood my meaning at the time,” said Danner irritably.

“Yes, sir. What is the mission?”

“A senior member of the Unity cabal will soon be meeting with the Kijol. I know where and I know when.”

Grisham sat straighter. “How the hell did you find that out?”

“My enemies aren’t the only ones with people on the inside,” said Danner. He raised a hand to forestall any further questions on the matter. “I wish you to attend the rendezvous.”

“Why, sir?” asked Grisham incredulously. “What the hell will that achieve?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” asked Danner. “You’ll be there to kill Senator Maynard.”

Somehow Grisham had known this was coming, but hearing the words coming straight from Danner’s mouth was still a shock.

Grisham sat back and asked himself what the hell he was going to do.

TEN

“You seem unsure, Jed,” said Danner. “Have I asked too much?”

Grisham remembered the soldiers who’d been posted outside the Admiral’s door – not just here on Loxor, but last time on the Bastion space station as well. The soldiers who resembled trained killers more than anything else. Once again, he felt a chill at what Danner might order.

“No, sir, not too much. You know what I think of Senator Maynard and you know how I feel about the Human Federation surrendering to the Kijol.”

“The death of Senator Maynard might not finish the Unity party, but it’ll hurt them,” said Danner. “And just as importantly, it’ll send a message. They’re trying to murder us, Jed, just because we disagree with them. We’ll show them they can’t act with impunity.”

“I understand the logic, sir,” said Grisham. He took a breath and nodded. “I’ll undertake the mission.”

“Good,” said Danner, as if he’d never doubted it for a moment.

“I assume Senator Maynard will not be flying to the rendezvous alone and in a passenger shuttle. How many of our warships will be acting as escort and how many Kijol vessels will they meet?”

“My intel suggests Senator Maynard will be travelling on the cruiser Terminus.”

“How many in escort?” Grisham repeated.

“There’ll be no escort,” said Danner.

“One cruiser isn’t much of a force to meet with the Kijol, sir.”

“A meeting in good faith does not need to be clad in armour, Jed,” said Danner. “Plus, with the dwindling numbers in our fleet, it is becoming progressively harder to make our warships disappear from the radar – no matter how senior the officer giving the orders.”

“Yes, sir, but still—"

“Remember, this is not the first rendezvous,” said Danner. “Presumably some trust exists between the two parties.”

“And presumably the Kijol will meet with an equivalent force,” said Grisham.

“That’s the assumption I’m making,” Danner agreed.

“How long is the journey to the rendezvous point?”

“From the figures you’ve provided, I estimate the Voltran will require thirty-six hours to arrive at the place in question. The Terminus has already departed.”

“How soon will it arrive?”

“I lack certainty on the figures,” said Danner. “The flight records have been altered.” He fixed Grisham with a stare. “The Terminus might arrive first, or it might arrive after the Voltran. Negotiations with the Kijol will take time. You likely have some leeway.”

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

“If the mission is a success, you’ll have done a great service to the Human Federation. In normal times I wouldn’t ask this of anyone, but these are not normal times.”

“No, sir, they are not.”

“You will do this, won’t you, Jed?” asked Danner.

“Yes, sir. I’ll do what must be done.”

“Good luck. I wish this were otherwise.”

Grisham didn’t answer. The meeting was over and he headed for the door. He could feel Danner’s stare boring into his back. In the passage between the two doors leading from the office, Grisham gave fleeting thought to ordering Sergeant Maxwell to meet him outside, just in case he’d failed Danner’s test and the Admiral was only acting like he’d passed. Such an order would likely raise suspicions, so Grisham stayed off the comms.

The outer door opened, and Private Lyles was there, her suit helmet off and her blonde hair flowing around her shoulders. She was flirting with the soldiers in the corridor, though she retained a grip on her gauss rifle. Private Vaughan was a few metres away, poking at buttons on a drinks replicator and cursing loudly. His XR repeater was down by his feet.

“Captain Grisham,” said Lyles, treating him to a perfect smile. “The Sergeant is waiting for you this way.”

“Then let’s go find him,” said Grisham, ignoring the glowers of the soldiers outside Danner’s office.

He set off after Lyles. She glanced once over her shoulder. “Assholes,” she muttered. Then, she poked Private Vaughan with the butt of her rifle on the way past. “Come on, Nes. We’re done here.”

A short time later, Grisham had joined up with Maxwell and his squad. They’d been loitering in a room about fifty metres from Danner’s office and under the watchful eye of a similarly sized force of other soldiers. A couple of middle fingers were raised on both sides as Maxwell led his squad from the room, but it was all for show.

“Thank you for keeping watch, Sergeant,” said Grisham, as they headed for the nearest airlift to the surface.

“This place is on edge, sir,” growled Maxwell. “What the hell is happening to the Human Federation?”

Maxwell and the soldiers knew of the two factions vying for control, but only the outline.

“War has brought us to this, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “And we have to deal with what’s coming our way.”

“And what exactly is coming our way, sir?”

Maxwell was clearly full of questions and Grisham couldn’t blame him. “The same as always, Sergeant. It might just wear a different face.”

The airlock doors opened and the squad entered, but only after Maxwell had considered whether he should split the soldiers into two groups. He spoke briefly with Corporal Fine, who confirmed there was nothing obvious to worry about on the surface level.

Grisham selected the destination and the lift car rose rapidly up the shaft. The soldiers exited into a large space filled with soldiers and other personnel. Corporal Fine and Private Diaz re-joined the squad, and the group left the building without interference. A third Storm tank was now in the parking lot and two more surface-to-air batteries were stationed on the east-west avenue.

“If Admiral Danner brings in any more hardware, he might as well paint a target on his roof,” said Corporal Fine, glancing over her shoulder at the building they’d just exited. “The place already sticks out like a sore thumb.”

A couple of minutes later, Grisham was once again in the Ax’Kol shuttle’s cockpit, along with Sergeant Maxwell and Corporal Barkley. By this time, his suit computer had received a data file containing location details for the rendezvous.

Grisham lifted the shuttle vertically into the air. The Voltran was exactly where he’d left it, so the journey wouldn’t take long. Grisham spoke to Lieutenant Lopez and let her know he was returning safe and well.

“Sir, I need to know,” said Sergeant Maxwell through his chin speaker. “Are we on the right side?”

“How do you define the right side, Sergeant?”

“The side that won’t have to re-write history in its favour, sir. The side I can fight on and when I tell my little girl about it, she knows her daddy did the right thing.”

“The honest answer is that I don’t know, Sergeant. We have two sides at conflict in the Human Federation and both of them say they’re in the right. I have to pick a side because that’s who I am, but every time I learn something new, I’m less certain than I was before.”

Grisham was in a tight spot when it came to giving answers. Having fought alongside Maxwell and the soldiers on Ovintus, he wanted them to stay with him through whatever was to come. And now, Grisham had been given the job of assassinating a senior – democratically elected – figure and he was bringing Maxwell along for the ride.

It didn’t sit easy, but nor was Grisham ready to reveal details of the mission he’d been given. While he trusted Maxwell to keep his mouth shut, the man’s silence was surely contingent on him believing he was doing his duty. As Maxwell had said, he wanted to be on the right side, and it would be difficult to convince him that blowing an HF cruiser to pieces was justifiable.

“Does this coming mission make you less certain, sir?” asked Maxwell.

The man was sharp, no doubt about it. “It’s given me something to think about, Sergeant.”

“We either surrender to the Kijol or we don’t,” said Corporal Barkley. “I’m not planning to bow down to an alien anytime soon.”

“Maybe we’ll end up with better than surrender,” said Maxwell. “We’ve seen what happened at Vinxilkx.”

“Maybe,” said Grisham.

He didn’t encourage the conversation further. The meeting with Danner, and the events leading up to it had left Grisham with plenty to think about. He’d hoped that seeing the Admiral would make things clearer, when in truth he was no closer to knowing what was right and what was wrong – assuming such a distinction even existed.

When rational thought failed, Grisham relied on his usual fallback method of listening to his instinct. Here and now, his guts were telling him that Admiral Danner had been feeding him a mix that was fifty percent bullshit and fifty percent truth. Whether the Unity cabal would have been any more honest he didn’t know, since they seemed more interested in killing him than talking.

All things considered, they probably had good reason for wanting Grisham out of the way.

The return flight to the Voltran was soon done and the shuttle docked. As Grisham turned to exit the cockpit, he caught Maxwell’s eye. The soldier was in two minds about asking more questions.

“Later, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham returned to the Voltran’s bridge at a run. The interior of the warship still seemed utterly alien, with its mix of the biological and the technological. Alloy components of unknown purpose jutted into the various internal rooms, and the grey of metal could be discerned here and there behind the walls of the corridors, like the arteries of the spaceship.

When he entered the bridge, Grisham headed directly for his station and placed his hand on the interface post. On the sensor feeds he saw the warships of the local fleet, as well as the sprawling built-up area of Fremont below.

It struck him then exactly what was at stake here. Billions of lives were potentially on the line. The future was awaiting his decision. If he screwed up, the consequences were unthinkable.

“What happened down there, sir?” asked Commander Deneuve.

Grisham came right out and said it. “Admiral Danner wants us to kill Senator Maynard.”

“Well, shit,” said Lieutenant Adler. “Did you agree to it?”

“I did,” said Grisham. “I reckon if I’d said otherwise, I’d be dead by now.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Lopez. “I’m not sure I want any part in this.”

“We’re fighting for the Human Federation, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “Or at least we’re supposed to be.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?” asked Adler.

“It’s all points of view,” said Grisham. “Admiral Danner says we’re fighting for our freedom. The Unity cabal say they’re fighting to secure our future.”

“The Kijol aren’t going away anytime soon, Captain,” said Deneuve. “Even if we hold out long enough to build up our fleet, we’ll be at war with them for years or decades – regardless of what the Admiral says about making us too tough a nut to crack.”

“Everything hinges on the Ax’Kol,” said Grisham. “We don’t even know what those bastards want – aside from the pleasure they take in mass-murder - but I’m certain they’ll come for the Human Federation eventually.” He cast his mind back. “The aliens on Xaros stole the comms unit from the CES compound. It’s likely the Kijol Eternus took out the warship beneath the lake, but who knows what the Ax’Kol crew managed to extract from our hardware during the time it was in their possession? They could have easily transmitted the data elsewhere so it wasn’t lost.”

“Our proxy network is secure, sir,” said Bishop. “If one of the nodes is hacked, we’ll just remotely wipe the routing information in all the nodes linked to it. In theory it’s not possible to follow a trail back to one of our planets.”

Grisham knew the conversation was drifting off course. “We don’t have time to speculate on the details,” he said. “Here and now, we have a choice. We either go with what Admiral Danner says, or we do some of our own fact finding.”

“What kind of fact finding, sir?” asked Deneuve. By her expression, she had a good idea what he was about to say.

“We head to the rendezvous point like I agreed,” said Grisham. “Then I’ll speak with Senator Maynard.”

“And if he doesn’t want to talk?”

“He will,” said Grisham, with a greater confidence than he felt.

“What if you don’t like what he has to say?” Deneuve pressed.

“I don’t have an answer for you, Commander.”

Grisham knew he was standing on shaky ground, but there again so was everyone in the Human Federation - it was just that most of them didn’t know it.

The future was, as ever, impossible to predict and Grisham didn’t try. If things went to plan, he’d soon be facing his old nemesis. To his surprise, Grisham felt little in the way of emotion. What was happening here was more important than the hatred between two people. Hopefully Maynard would see that too.

ELEVEN

“I’ve uploaded our destination coordinates into the Voltran’s navigation system, Captain,” said Adler. “The Voltran has no memory of where we’re going, but Admiral Danner has thoughtfully included some additional data alongside the coordinates. The rendezvous is near a planet called Xendar, in the Helios system.”

“I haven’t heard of either,” said Grisham. He checked the limited star chart contained in his suit computer and there was no mention of the planet or its star. That likely meant Xendar was a place of no particular interest. “What other data did Admiral Danner provide for us?”

“Helios is in the Golor sector and Xendar is planet six out of nine,” said Adler. “We scouted the solar system ninety-five years ago, added it to the star chart and that was it.”

“Tell me about Xendar.”

“Not much to tell, Captain. The scout performed a long-range scan and found plenty of rock, none of which was thought likely to contain valuable minerals. It’s the type of place the Human Federation might never need to visit again.”

“Sounds like as good a place as any for a clandestine rendezvous,” said Deneuve.

“Captain, I have Admiral Danner on the comms,” said Lopez. “He would like to know why we are still in the Fremont airspace.”

Grisham swore under his breath. Being asleep during a lightspeed journey had the advantage of turning boredom into a non-issue, while also ensuring that mission personnel arrived at their destination fully refreshed.

Unfortunately, it also denied Grisham and the crew a chance to talk and to think. Maybe there was a way to prevent sleep during transits – while still avoiding the trauma of the initial lightspeed entry - and he set an internal reminder to check it out when he had some available time.

“Let the Admiral know we’re leaving,” said Grisham sourly.

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham instructed the Voltran to accelerate vertically away from the surface. While the vessel’s propulsion did not produce such destructive sound waves as a Charos drive, it was still more than capable of wrecking buildings and the warship would certainly produce numerous sonic booms if Grisham wasn’t careful.

So, he took it steady until the Voltran was high above the planet and the Fremont base little more than a grey patch among the greens and blues of Loxor. Once the spaceship escaped the planet’s atmosphere, Grisham requested maximum acceleration. Soon, the planet was far behind.

“I’m bringing us to a halt,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Adler, ready us for a lightspeed jump.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adler. “We’re going to Xendar. I’ve targeted a half-million klicks from the provided coordinates. If the Kijol are the first to the rendezvous, we want to be far enough away that they don’t easily detect us.”

“Because if we’re not careful, we might just screw something up that we later come to regret,” said Deneuve.

“You sound like you’ve already made up your mind, Commander,” said Grisham. He noticed the first signs of pre-lightspeed calmness, which wasn’t enough to dispel the sudden resentment he felt about being effectively out of action for the coming thirty-six hours.

“I think we’re swimming in a sea of greys, sir.”

“It sounded like you had something more to say at the end of that, Commander.”

“I did. Then I changed my mind and kept my mouth shut.”

“As long as we stick together,” said Adler. “Whatever happens.”

“We will do, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “We all want the best for the Human Federation.”

The seconds went by and Adler gave his one-minute warning. Grisham stayed alert all the way to the very end of the countdown and then the warship placed him into a deep sleep.

He opened his eyes. The usual disorientation was there, but he was ready for it and his mind quickly recovered.

“Is everyone awake?” Grisham asked.

One by one his crew acknowledged.

“Let’s have a look at the sensors,” said Grisham. Outside was dark, cold, and empty.

“I’m searching for Xendar,” said Lopez.

“I’ll run the local area scans,” said Bishop. “Just in case.”

The local area scans turned up nothing of note and, before they were done, Lopez had obtained a sensor lock on Xendar. Viewed from a half-million kilometres, the planet was a mixture of greys, yellows, and reds, with a few surface imperfections that Lopez enhanced and declared unimportant.

“Focus your efforts on locating the Terminus,” said Grisham. “We know where the rendezvous will take place, but it’s probable the cruiser will exit lightspeed elsewhere and then approach once its own area scans are completed.”

“And the Kijol will do likewise,” said Bishop. “This isn’t going to be easy, sir. There’s a lot of volume to scan.”

“I know,” said Grisham. “I’ll bring us to a quarter-million klicks from the rendezvous point.”

The Voltran sped through the emptiness, and the journey, though short in duration, gave Grisham an opportunity to think. He knew this stage of the mission was relying partially on luck. If the Terminus detected the Voltran first, the cruiser’s commanding officer would certainly report the discovery of the captured Ax’Kol warship to Senator Maynard. In turn, Maynard would surely guess that Grisham wasn’t here to shake his hand and tell him what a good job he was doing with the Unity cabal. The Terminus would run.

Working in Grisham’s favour was the fact that he knew – or at least he’d been told – that the Terminus was coming here, while the crew on the cruiser likely assumed they were arriving at a place with no threats. In addition, the Voltran’s sensors were simply better than those on the Terminus, and Grisham had faith that his sensor crew would locate their target before the cruiser detected the Ax’Kol warship.

Then, he’d request a comms channel and see what came from it.

“Find that spaceship,” Grisham muttered, as he brought the Voltran once more to a standstill.

While his sensor officers searched, he turned his attention to the planet. The colours he’d seen from half a million kilometres seemed more vibrant from a quarter million. He enhanced the feed and saw mountains, along with great plains of pale, yellow stone. Xendar was desolate like most planets in the universe, yet it possessed the kind of lonely beauty that had always appealed to Grisham.

He spotted something on the surface, at the eastern edge of a mountain range that ran unevenly north-to-south, like the planet’s crooked spine.

“Check out the portside arrays,” said Grisham. “Tell me what you think that is.”

“A surface facility,” said Lopez. “Nothing extensive. I’d guess it’s about a single klick from one side to the other. And that area of smooth stone north is a landing strip.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“The feed won’t enhance any further,” said Lopez. “If you want a clearer view, you’ll have to bring us closer.”

“Is this an HF outpost we’re looking at?” asked Kinsey.

“If it is, then it was built in secret,” said Lopez. “There’s nothing about it in the data provided by Admiral Danner.”

“It’s Kijol - I’m certain of it,” said Grisham. “It has to be where the rendezvous is taking place. Let’s head in for a look.”

“We still have to be careful, sir,” Lopez warned.

“I know,” said Grisham. “As soon as you locate the Terminus, request a channel.”

Two hundred thousand kilometres from Xendar, Grisham reduced the Voltran to zero velocity. This time, the enhanced scans revealed a grey shape on the landing strip.

“That’s a shuttle, sir,” said Lopez. “There’s no way to tell if it’s one of ours, or a Kijol vessel.”

“We’ll hold here,” said Grisham. “Scan for that shuttle’s parent vessel.”

“Got it!” said Bishop a few minutes later. “It’s one of our cruisers.”

Grisham linked to the feed. The Terminus – it could be none other – was at an approximate one hundred-thousand-kilometre altitude and almost directly over the surface facility. The warship was circling at a low velocity.

“Request a comms link,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez. “Comms link requested.”

She was quiet for a few seconds and Grisham could imagine the consternation on the Terminus’s bridge.

“I have Captain Endia on the comms for you, sir,” said Lopez after a short time.

“Captain Endia,” said Grisham by way of greeting.

“Why are you here, Captain Grisham?” asked Endia. She sounded angry and stressed, both of which were understandable.

“I wish to speak with Senator Maynard. I believe he is with you.”

Endia hesitated. “The Terminus is on a scouting mission. Why do you ask about Senator Maynard?”

“You’re on a scouting mission out here?” said Grisham. “It looks as if you’ve discovered a Kijol outpost.”

“What do you want?” said Endia.

“I wish to speak with the Senator,” Grisham repeated. “I know you brought him here and I know why.”

“I cannot—” Endia began. “I need to discuss this with my officers.”

The channel went dead.

“How long do you reckon it’ll take?” asked Adler.

“Less than a minute,” said Grisham.

He was right.

“I have a channel request from the Terminus, sir,” said Lopez.

“Accept it.”

“Captain Jed Grisham,” spoke a cold voice. “Have you been sent here to kill me?”

“Senator Maynard,” said Grisham in return. He’d expected more of a physical reaction, but it didn’t come. Instead, he felt calm. “I’ve come to talk.”

“You talk along the barrel of a gun, Captain,” said Maynard. None of the coldness had gone. “Why should I listen to you?”

“It’s more that I want to listen to you,” said Grisham.

Maynard didn’t speak for a long time. “Very well. You will leave the Voltran in a shuttle and head to the surface of Xendar. Land and I will send someone to meet you. If you come alone, we will talk.”

“What about the Kijol?”

“They have already left, Captain Grisham. There is only the Terminus here.”

“I will leave at once,” said Grisham. “A shuttle journey from here will take several hours.”

“Approach to twenty thousand kilometres,” said Maynard. “And if you commit treachery, Captain Endia will ensure you do not return to the Voltran.”

“Senator Maynard has closed the channel, sir,” said Lopez.

“Let’s head in to twenty thousand klicks,” said Grisham.

“The Terminus is already descending, Captain,” said Bishop. “I guess they’ll hold at a thousand klicks above the surface facility to act as a shield.”

Bishop had called it right and the cruiser halted above the planet’s thin atmosphere. In that time, the Voltran – with its far higher maximum velocity – had almost arrived at its agreed twenty-thousand-kilometre altitude. After a few seconds, Grisham brought the vessel to a standstill.

“I’ll head to the shuttle,” he said.

“Alone?” asked Deneuve.

“Like I promised,” Grisham nodded.

“We have the upper hand here, Captain,” said Deneuve. “You don’t have to rush this. There’s time to stop and think.”

“I know. Sometimes the thinking does nothing but introduce doubts. I’m doing the right thing.”

Grisham was still interfaced with the Voltran, when a new channel request arrived from the Terminus.

“Hold fire, Captain Grisham,” said Captain Endia. “And you in turn will not be fired upon.”

“What—?” Grisham said.

Then, he saw the reason for Endia’s warning. A fast-moving grey dot was visible on the portside feeds, heading over the cusp of Xendar. Moments later, a second dot appeared.

“Enhancing the feed,” said Lopez. “Shit, an Eternus battleship and an Obliterator heavy. They’re heading straight for us.”

“Of course they are,” said Grisham bitterly. “So much for the Kijol have already left.”

“We still have time to get out of here,” said Commander Deneuve. “The Voltran can definitely outrun the Obliterator and probably the Eternus as well. I doubt the battleship crew will want to face us alone.”

“We hold,” said Grisham through gritted teeth.

“Seems like trust us in short supply,” said Adler.

“No shit?”

Grisham watched as the two Kijol warships raced across the planet. Decelerating late, the Eternus came to a halt five hundred kilometres from the Voltran’s portside flank. The Obliterator wasn’t far behind and it came to a stop at similar distance to starboard.

“Two new gens,” said Grisham.

The Obliterator equalled the Voltran for size and mass, while the Eternus was a step up in both. Even so, Grisham suspected his own vessel would be a match for the battleship. Once the Obliterator was added into the mix, an engagement would likely be one sided.

For a time, Grisham stayed put in the Voltran’s bridge. The Kijol vessels didn’t open fire.

“I can’t wait here forever,” he said. “I have a meeting to attend.” Grisham removed his hand from the interface post. “Commander Deneuve, the Voltran is yours.”

“What if Senator Maynard is responsible for some of that treachery he talked about, sir?” asked Deneuve.

“It might happen,” Grisham admitted. “But I have to do this.”

“Should I make efforts to kill the Senator if push comes to shove, sir?”

“If I’m right about this, you won’t need to, Commander.”

Deneuve understood that Grisham couldn’t offer her a better answer and she didn’t press him for one.

“Good luck, Captain,” she said.

“Let’s hope I don’t need it.”

Grisham headed for the bridge exit.

TWELVE

The shuttle’s sensors offered excellent insight into the disparity between it, the Voltran and the two Kijol warships. Grisham stared at the Eternus, which bristled with an array of weaponry that could destroy his transport with contemptuous ease. The launch clusters and turrets remained inactive. Grisham would have his conversation with Senator Maynard.

At its twenty-two-kilometre-per-second maximum velocity, the Ax’Kol shuttle would take fifteen minutes to reach the planet’s surface, plus some additional time for deceleration. Grisham stood with his hand on the interface post, while his mind played through various imagined scenarios of his coming meeting with Senator Maynard. He shut the thoughts down and instead examined the surface facility, which was his destination.

A few smaller buildings as well as a couple of dome-shaped accommodation structures surrounded a larger tower, which Grisham suspected housed the main comms antenna. Everything was linked by sealed alloy walkways, so that the inhabitants of the base could move around freely without having the bother of spacesuits and airlocks.

The landing strip to the north was little more than an area of levelled ground about a thousand metres in length and three hundred wide, designed to accommodate a few dozen shuttles and perhaps the occasional supply vessel. Senator Maynard’s shuttle was parked at the end nearest to one of the installation buildings. Decelerating late, Grisham landed the Ax’Kol shuttle adjacent.

A couple of HF soldiers were standing at the closed flank doors of the Senator’s transport, and they watched Grisham’s shuttle closely.

“Let’s get this done,” Grisham said under his breath.

He pondered leaving his rifle behind, but decided to hang onto it, though he left the weapon slung across his back where it wouldn’t look so threatening.

Once he’d opened the shuttle’s flank door, Grisham spent a moment looking outside. The planet’s surface was illuminated by the Helios star, while the sky above was utterly dark. A message appeared on his HUD warning him of rapid death – to the sub-zero temperatures, hypoxia and so on - should he be foolish enough to remove any part of his spacesuit.

Grisham wasn’t planning on getting undressed and he jumped onto the stone surface outside. Xendar’s gravity was higher than he expected and the weight of his loadout hit him now that he was outside of the shuttle’s regulated interior.

The two soldiers he’d seen earlier were about fifty metres away. They stared at him, but made no attempt at communication.

Grisham turned south and watched for signs of life. The installation looked new and he wondered if it had been constructed specifically so that Unity cabal members and the Kijol would have somewhere to meet. The buildings nearest were no more elaborate than large alloy boxes – multipurpose units that could be built quickly in a factory and dumped into almost any environmental conditions. The HF equivalents were almost identical.

A door opened in the northern wall of the nearest structure, maybe a hundred metres from where Grisham was standing. Out of the airlock a squad of eight soldiers emerged. They broke into a jog and soon they came to a halt in front of Grisham. The officer in command approached.

“I’m Sergeant Gorlan, sir,” said the man. His expression behind his visor was military neutral. “I’m to escort you to the Senator.”

“Lead on, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gorlan spun on his heel and headed for the structure at a fast walk. Grisham followed close behind. As he went past the other members of the squad, he tried to gauge their opinion of him. It was hard to be sure exactly what they were thinking.

With Sergeant Gorlan ahead and seven soldiers behind, Grisham was escorted through the door of the closest building. He passed through the airlock and entered a twenty-metre room that contained a quantity of advanced-looking tech – consoles, computers, desktop communicators and suchlike.

“This way, sir,” said Gorlan.

The soldier led the way through one of the room’s two southern exits. Grisham followed into another room – furnished similarly to the last – and then entered a three-metre-wide corridor with an arched ceiling. He felt the tiniest amount of flex in the floor beneath the weight of the soldiers and he was sure this was one of the linking corridors between the structures.

Grisham entered a room in the next building. Padded chairs were arranged around low tables and a couple of replicators were embedded in one of the walls. Screens on the walls glowed dimly, but nothing was playing.

Much of this stuff came from the Human Federation, thought Grisham. How long has Unity been in contact with the Kijol?

Sergeant Gorlan didn’t slow and he led Grisham into another one of the linking corridors, this time heading west. They proceeded across three more rooms, all furnished with items that were superior to the bare minimum, without being opulent.

“How much further?” asked Grisham.

“Not much, sir,” said Gorlan.

A short time later, the soldier came to a halt outside a closed door in the western wall of a room which contained yet more tables and chairs.

“In there, sir,” said Gorlan. He held out his hand. “Your rifle, please.”

Grisham handed over his gun and stepped across to the door’s access panel. The light was green and he touched the panel with his fingertips. With a faint rumble of hidden motors, the door slid open.

A room lay beyond – a room equipped as both an office and as a place to relax. It was lit in blue like everywhere else. Directly opposite the door, a man stood behind a green desk.

“Captain Jed Grisham,” said Senator Herschel Maynard, rolling the syllables as if he was chewing on a mouthful of shit-smeared gravel.

“Senator Maynard,” said Grisham. He stepped over the threshold and into the room.

“I won’t offer you a seat,” said Maynard, walking out from behind his desk. He was originally from Foltan, though he’d clearly worked hard to smooth out his accent.

Grisham didn’t speak for a moment as he studied this old adversary. Maynard was in his early fifties, broad across the shoulders and of average height, with lightly tanned skin and dark hair. He was dressed casually in jeans and a pale shirt, with polished brown shoes. Grisham thought it a strange choice of clothing for a place like Xendar.

“I came to talk,” he said.

“To talk and to listen is what you told me,” said Maynard. His eyes were piercing and Grisham couldn’t read anything from them. “Admiral Danner sent you.”

Grisham wasn’t sure if honesty was the best policy, but he gambled on it anyway. “Yes.”

“He sent you to kill me.” Maynard smiled, though it wasn’t a pleasant one. “I’m afraid to say you missed your opportunity, Captain Grisham.”

“I want what’s best for the Human Federation,” said Grisham.

“You believe you’re fighting for the good of humanity.”

“Fighting has been good enough for the last ten years, Senator.”

“No it has not!” said Maynard with a flash of anger. “We have been at war for more than a decade and what have we achieved? A million souls lost! Is that what you call good enough, Captain Grisham?”

“I can’t accept a betrayal of those who’ve fought for us,” said Grisham.

“You would feed the void forever with our lives?”

“No, Senator, but I know the Kijol. They have never wanted peace. And now, when they are suffering in wars elsewhere, they demand our surrender!”

Maynard stared at Grisham for long moments. Unexpectedly, he sighed. “For a time, I hated you, Captain Jed Grisham. I blamed you for the loss of my only son. The light of my life, extinguished by your command. It nearly consumed me.” Maynard’s expression hardly changed, as if a part of his brain was reciting words he’d played over and over in his head. “Long ago, I forgave you. The war was to blame, I told myself. Had there been no war, my son would have lived. That realisation has brought me to where I am today.”

Grisham couldn’t believe what he was hearing and his head spun at the words. If Maynard was telling the truth, then everything else must be a lie.

That can’t be possible.

Years of distrust and animosity surged once more to the surface. “The hatred you claim to have lost has not stopped pursuing me, Senator,” Grisham said angrily. “Every mission is designed to bring my death. My every success is overlooked. I have given everything I have and more, and yet it is not enough. And you say you have forgiven me. If so, why not leave me be?”

“I erased you from my life years ago, Captain Grisham,” said Maynard. “There was a time when I employed my influence, but now I am at peace.”

“Then why try to have me killed on Loxor?” said Grisham. “The crew of a tank tried to murder me! There were soldiers with me in the same car and they were nearly turned into bloody paste!”

“This is not my doing,” said Maynard.

“Then someone else in the Unity cabal!”

“Cabal?” said Maynard softly. “Is that how you’ve been told to think of us? It’s a dirty word, isn’t it? A secret group, working nefariously for their own ends and to their own advantage.”

“Then who within Unity is responsible?” asked Grisham.

“Nobody,” said Maynard.

Grisham met the other man’s gaze. “What about the attempt on Admiral Danner’s life?”

“The Human Federation is at a crossroads,” said Maynard, as if he was talking to himself. “If we take the wrong turning, our future is in jeopardy.” He stared suddenly at Grisham. “I’m sure this is the same message you’ve been told by those who claim to stand for freedom.”

“It is,” said Grisham. “But from a different perspective.”

“The fighting must end, Captain Grisham. The Ax’Kol will kill every last one of us.”

Grisham found himself at a crossroad of his own. For much of his adult life, he’d considered the man before him as the instigator of every slight, every bad mission, and every unfair decision. And here on Xendar, the hatred to which Grisham had clung was being challenged. The ground upon which he had stood defiant for so long no longer seemed as solid as it once had.

He could be lying. Everything could be a lie.

Except there was no reason for Maynard to lie. A single missile launched from the Eternus or the Obliterator could have killed Grisham while he was on the Ax’Kol shuttle and heading to the planet. Or a single shot from one of Sergeant Gorlan’s squad would have produced the same outcome, but with less chance of alerting the crew on the Voltran.

That shot might still come.

And yet, nothing about Maynard suggested that his hatred for Grisham lingered. The man even seemed reluctant to talk about the past, as if the past was truly where the death of his son now lay.

“You came here thinking—” said Maynard.

“Yes,” said Grisham. “You tell me that you’ve moved on with your life. I have never been granted that opportunity.”

“I wish, more than anything – every day I wish it – that my son was still with me, but I am just one of countless others who have the same regrets.” As he spoke, Maynard’s face was set, as though his confession required an enormous effort. “And in truth, seeing you here has not been easy for me. But I promise you this, Captain Grisham – my single goal in life is to see an end to this war with the Kijol. If I am successful, it will only be the beginning. The Human Federation will still lose lives to the Ax’Kol – perhaps entire worlds. If we fight alone, we will become extinct. Perhaps that outcome is unavoidable, even if we form an alliance with the Kijol.”

“I’ve seen what the Ax’Kol can do,” said Grisham.

“Not what they can do,” said Maynard. “What they like to do. What they are driven to do.”

“Captain Avery spoke about a partnership of equals with the Kijol.”

“That is our aim,” said Maynard. “However, the details are not yet ironed out. As you might appreciate, there has been almost no dialogue between ourselves and the Kijol and we know so little about each other. For Admiral Danner – and others – this war has become a personal mission.” Maynard gave a thin smile. “I was once like them, but I have learned that we must forgive the past.”

The revelations of the conversation became steadily harder for Grisham to deal with, and he struggled to grasp their wider meanings. For so long, he’d thought his past, present and future had been defined by one stupid misjudgement, when he’d ordered another officer to join him in an attack on what he’d believed was a crippled Kijol cruiser. Grisham had made the mistake and he’d lived. The other man – Senator Maynard’s son – had died.

And now, Maynard himself was talking about forgiveness long since bestowed. Most shockingly of all, Grisham found himself believing every word.

I’ve been used. For years, I’ve been led to believe that I’m an outcast. And the culmination of that manipulation was an order to murder this man here. A man whose son I already killed.

Grisham was beginning to understand not only that he’d been duped, but that the seeds of it had been planted many years ago and nurtured with malicious care. The scope of it was breath-taking.

The failed nuclear missile launch at Tambus. The attempt on my life at Loxor. My every warship a Tibor when officers with a single year of experience were given command of destroyers. The missions to Evac-9 and Kolpos. And here I was led – to place I was ready to commit murder for the good of the cause.

It was almost more than Grisham could bear.

“I would like to believe,” he said.

Maynard nodded. “I know. Otherwise your warship would have turned this facility on Xendar to molten wreckage.” He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I can’t make this decision for you, Captain Grisham. Are you ready to make it for yourself?”

The burden with which Grisham had struggled all these years – a burden he was now acutely aware he’d been carrying – suddenly seemed to lift. The relief of it was immense and he felt giddy.

“The Ax’Kol are the biggest threat facing the Human Federation, Senator. I would prefer to fight them with the Kijol at my side.”

“This is the only option for humanity, Captain Grisham,” said Maynard.

Grisham saw it too, and, while the road ahead was no more certain than before, he felt with absolute conviction he was making the right choice.

THIRTEEN

“You should return to the Voltran,” said Maynard. “Head back to Loxor and when Admiral Danner asks what happened, tell him I was no longer here, or that his intel was wrong. I assume you can trust your crew?”

“I can,” said Grisham. He felt the urge to repeat a question he’d asked earlier and to which he hadn’t received a straight answer. “Will you make another attempt on the Admiral’s life?”

Maynard gave a barking laugh. “The intention was never to kill Admiral Danner. If I wished for his death, I have many options for that. Kidnapping – or should I say, a forced removal from office – is far more difficult to accomplish. I may be diametrically opposed to almost everything Admiral Danner stands for, but I will not have his murder on my conscience.”

“I’ll go to Loxor,” said Grisham. Maynard’s response had only reinforced his newfound belief. “He’ll have another mission for me.”

“And that mission may force you to either reconsider the choice you made here on Xendar, or – by your actions – to show the Admiral where your loyalties lie.”

“There’ll be no reconsideration,” said Grisham. “Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it as it comes.”

“Then go,” Maynard ordered. “Sergeant Gorlan will escort you to your shuttle.”

Grisham was about to turn for the door, but he stopped himself. He looked into Maynard’s eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss, Senator. I truly am.”

He realised he’d never before had the chance to say the words. There again, he’d never even sought out the opportunity.

Maynard sighed, the sound betraying an endless depth of suffering. “As am I, Captain Grisham. As am I.”

Feeling like an absolute shit, Grisham left the room. Sergeant Gorlan was waiting outside, and he led the way back through the rooms and linking passages of the Xendar facility. Grisham’s crew were understandably eager to learn about events on the planet, but he wasn’t ready to talk about them yet. He informed Lieutenant Lopez that he was unharmed and returning to the Voltran. Beyond that, he refused to speak.

Soon, Grisham was once more in the Ax’Kol shuttle’s cockpit. He paused for a moment, with his eyes closed, to give his mind a chance to settle. Grisham had a good idea that once everything had sunk in, he’d feel enormous rage. He couldn’t allow his emotions to rule – not with the dangers that lay in his path.

Grisham lifted the shuttle vertically away from the landing pad and it climbed through the planet’s atmosphere. Once the transport was in the vacuum of space, he pushed it to maximum velocity. Focusing the sensors on the Eternus and the Obliterator heavy, Grisham stared at the Kijol vessels for much of the return journey. For so long he’d been part of the war against this enemy and it was difficult for him to imagine that – should peace happen – he might one day be obliged to fight alongside the Kijol.

I’ve overcome worse.

The rage he’d anticipated was now simmering. For the moment he was its master and he intended that would remain the case.

Grisham docked the shuttle and returned to the bridge, where five pairs of eyes stared directly his way.

“I need a few minutes,” Grisham said to the unspoken questions. “To get things straight in my head.”

“What about the battleship and the heavy, which I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about, Captain?” said Deneuve.

“Lieutenant Lopez, contact the Terminus and advise Captain Endia that we are leaving this place. I would like assurance that the Kijol won’t interfere.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez. The confirmation wasn’t long in coming. “Captain Endia confirms there’ll be no interference.”

Without further delay, Grisham instructed the Voltran to accelerate directly away from Xendar. Sure enough, the Kijol did nothing to stop it happening. Once the Voltran had achieved its maximum velocity, Grisham let it coast for many minutes, until the Kijol, the Terminus and the planet were a long way distant.

At last, he brought the Voltran to a standstill. “Lieutenant Adler, pick a destination – somewhere chosen at random and a couple of hours at high lightspeed from our current location.”

“Yes, sir, that’s done,” said Adler. “I’ll send the final command on your order.”

“That order is now,” said Grisham.

The Voltran’s consciousness prepared the vessel for a lightspeed transition and he kept his eyes on the sensors. While he was convinced by what Senator Maynard had told him, the Human Federation had no alliance – formal or otherwise – with the Kijol. Grisham was sure the aliens would have a seething hatred of the Ax’Kol and they might yet be tempted by the thought of hostile action against the Voltran.

Four minutes went by and the Kijol didn’t put in an appearance. Grisham and his crew were placed into a sleep state and the Voltran entered lightspeed.

Sensor scans at the new location were completed quickly, confirming that the Voltran was nowhere near anything of note.

“What happened, sir?” asked Deneuve.

Grisham took a breath, unsure where to start. Then, he told his crew everything which had happened on Xendar.

“Well, I’ll be,” said Adler, being the first to break the silence.

“How sure were you, sir?” asked Deneuve. “About everything?”

“I never thought I’d hear myself saying these words, but I fully believed what Senator Maynard told me,” said Grisham.

“I know there’s a whole heap of shit to deal with specific to Admiral Danner, but haven’t you just traded one opinion for another, Captain?” asked Lopez. “The way I see it, both sides want the Human Federation to survive and to prosper, they just see different ways to achieve the same end.”

“I’ve been Admiral Danner’s puppet, Lieutenant. I believed I had the facts to make a rational judgement. Now I feel my own judgement was flawed. I’ve been blind for too long and now I’m starting to see again.”

“As it happens, I agree with you, sir,” said Lopez. “Once you replace the word surrender with alliance, everything seems much clearer.”

“And who wants to be on the same side as a man who behaves in the way Admiral Danner has done?” said Adler, his voice becoming edged with anger as if he were only just realising how terrible he’d been treated for all these years.

“Not me,” said Deneuve firmly.

Grisham looked around the bridge, from face to face. The expressions of his crew – anger, shock – mirrored his own feelings. “We’re all together, still?” he asked.

Each member of his crew answered in the affirmative.

“I need some time to let this sink in,” said Bishop.

“We all do,” said Grisham. “That’s why I ordered us here to the middle of nowhere.”

“How long are you planning to stay before we return home, sir?” asked Deneuve. “Admiral Danner will become suspicious if we’re away too long and it’ll make the excuses less believable.”

“We’ll remain here for an hour or two,” said Grisham. “I need to make a few mental adjustments before I can fully accept what’s happened. Next time I face Admiral Danner, I want to be absolutely sure he won’t read the change behind my eyes.”

“You’re about to lead us across a tightrope, sir,” said Adler. “The Admiral already asked you to kill a leading member of Unity. What if the next mission is to murder someone else? It won’t take Danner long to realise you’re no longer under his control.”

“As I told Senator Maynard, that’s something I’ll deal with when the time comes,” said Grisham.

“Are you sure you can handle it, sir?” asked Deneuve.

“I can handle it,” Grisham said tightly. “Commander Deneuve, you have the bridge.”

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham strode from the Voltran’s command station and entered the passage outside. For more than an hour, he wandered through the spaceship’s interior. Compared to a Human Federation vessel, the internal spaces were plentiful, though Grisham still had little idea what purpose they were meant to serve. Alloy protruded from the walls, floors, and ceilings almost everywhere, in constant reminder that the Voltran was created from the most bizarre mixture of technologies. In his preoccupation, Grisham paid little heed to his surroundings.

Just when he was thinking about heading back to the bridge and ordering a return to Loxor, Grisham’s feet brought him into what Sergeant Maxwell’s squad had – unofficially – declared the mess area of the Voltran. A series of three-metre, horizontal metal bars emerged from the floor in this particular room, and it was upon these bars that the soldiers sat and talked, pretending they were somewhere other than onboard an Ax’Kol warship with no replication facilities.

The soldiers were here – every one of them – though it wasn’t as though they had many alternatives.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” asked Maxwell, when Grisham sat facing him on the opposite bench.

The other soldiers nearby were talking crap about this and that, but doubtless they all had one ear on what Grisham would say.

Grisham wasn’t sure what he’d come here for, but he opened his mouth to see what would come out. “We were talking before about being on the right side, Sergeant.”

“I remember.” Maxwell narrowed his eyes so fractionally he was probably unaware he was doing it. “Did the visit to Xendar change anything, sir?”

“It did,” said Grisham. “It made me realise many things I’ve been unable to see before now.”

“You’ve swapped from the old right side, to the new right side,” said Maxwell.

“That’s a solid assessment, Sergeant. Are you happy to trust my judgement?”

“That depends on what your judgement is, Captain.”

While Grisham was pondering his answer, Private Lyles stepped in front of him. She was holding a two-inch grey cube in the palm of her hand. It was a replacement power cell for a combat suit. Lyles raised an eyebrow questioningly.

Grisham nodded that she could go ahead and swap it for his old one. While Lyles used her fingers to lever up the tiny hatch in the back of his combat helmet, Grisham brought his attention back to the conversation.

“The Ax’Kol are worse than the Kijol, Sergeant,” he said. “Maybe worse than anything.”

“That’s what I think too, sir.”

“When you’re facing an opponent as bad as that, maybe it’s time to forget old conflicts and look to the future. As partners. Do you trust my judgement on this, Sergeant?” Grisham repeated.

The other conversations had died off and every soldier was paying attention. Where Maxwell went, they’d follow.

“Yes, sir, I think I do.”

“I’m glad,” said Grisham, and he meant it. “Whoever comes out on top in the Human Federation, there are going to be hard times ahead.”

“I’ve known that since Ovintus, Captain. As soon as it was apparent the Xaros aliens weren’t only on Xaros, I’ve been sure they’d find us eventually.”

“They haven’t yet, but it’ll happen,” said Grisham. “I’d rather let bygones be bygones with the Kijol than watch an Ax’Kol fleet turn up in the skies of Earth.”

Maxwell nodded in response, his gaze distant. He was no doubt thinking about what might happen to his family.

“There!” said Lyles, clicking the power cell covering hatch back into place on Grisham’s suit helmet. “All done.”

The power reserve reading on Grisham’s HUD was back to one hundred percent. He stood and turned.

“Thank you, Private.”

Lyles smiled and there was no sign of the hostility Grisham had noticed from her when they’d first met. The other soldiers too seemed noticeably more relaxed when he was around. They’d shown great awareness on Loxor when Grisham was in his meeting with Admiral Danner. That might not be the last time he’d need them watching out for him.

Having left the mess room, Grisham headed directly for the bridge, where he took his place at the command station.

“We’re returning to Loxor,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve.

“Would you like me to prepare the Voltran, Captain?” asked Adler.

“Yes, Lieutenant. I’d like to depart immediately.”

“The command is sent. Four minutes and we’ll be on our way.”

Grisham nodded in response. In only a few short hours, the Voltran would emerge into the Altarn-4 system. Then, he’d find out how easily Admiral Danner would be convinced about the failure of this mission to Xendar.

FOURTEEN

The Voltran returned to Loxor and Grisham was immediately summoned to a meeting on the Fremont base. Once again, Commander Deneuve advised him that he should remain on the warship and conduct the meeting remotely. Once again, Grisham reluctantly declined, this time on the basis that it would be a change of behaviour which might make Danner start asking questions.

Deneuve was not happy and Grisham was no less pleased about the situation, since it would be far easier to fool Danner over the comms. He’d already informed the Admiral about the failure of the mission and the news had not been well received. In fact, Danner sounded livid, though most of his anger was directed towards the failure in his intelligence. However, Grisham was sure he’d suffer a share of the criticism once he was sitting in the man’s office.

“Take care, sir,” said Deneuve, as Grisham headed for the bridge exit. “This time in particular.”

“I will,” Grisham promised.

A few minutes later, he was in the shuttle cockpit and piloting it through the upper atmosphere of Loxor. Three additional warships were now patrolling the airspace and Grisham suspected others might be stationed off-world and watching from positions where they wouldn’t be easily detected.

“It’s still busy down on the base, sir,” said Sergeant Maxwell, who was also in the cockpit.

“I reckon it’ll stay on high alert for the foreseeable,” said Grisham, studying the deployments on the underside feeds.

Soldiers were everywhere within the built-up areas of the base, along with armoured vehicles and mobile surface-to-air launchers. There was nothing on the ground that could defend against a warship attack, but that was what the airborne vessels stationed here were for. The hardware on show was to protect against troop deployments, and nobody could look at the Fremont base and reasonably convince themselves the Human Federation wasn’t on the brink of internal war.

And Grisham was climbing right towards the summit of the shit pile.

“Admiral Danner has changed offices again,” said Grisham. “This time, we’re landing near the eastern edge of the base.”

Shortly after, he set the shuttle down on a raised pad that was surrounded on all four sides by drab grey, five-storey office buildings. If Admiral Danner was hoping for anonymity by relocating here, the quantity of soldiers and defensive hardware on the streets was something of a giveaway sign.

Grisham exited the shuttle and the soldiers came with him. The skies were overcast and, though it wasn’t raining, the ground was drenched from a recent downpour. Pausing for a moment, he breathed in the clear air, which lacked the mustiness of the Voltran and its shuttle.

“I’d say I’m glad to be back on solid ground,” said Corporal Barkley. He shrugged, leaving Grisham unsure exactly what message the soldier had been trying to convey.

“This way,” said Grisham, once he’d identified the destination building.

A pedestrian bridge linked the top of the shuttle pad to a second-storey entrance in the structure’s facing wall. As he crossed above the dividing road, Grisham looked around him. East, the avenue continued for only a short distance before it ended at the high perimeter wall of the Fremont base. West, the view was uninterrupted for more than a kilometre. Grisham saw plenty of tanks and armoured transports.

“Is this place locked down?” asked Private Chau. “All I see is soldiers.”

“I guess the Admiral is wary he’ll be stabbed in the back by one of his bean counters or something,” said Private Lowe.

“The shipyards are running at full steam,” said Barkley. “I saw them as we came in.”

Grisham didn’t take part in the conversation. He quickened his pace and entered the building at the end of the bridge. The large reception space beyond the doors was occupied by many soldiers. The moment Grisham’s party arrived, they were noticed. A squad approached.

“Sergeant Tavistock,” the lead officer identified himself. He was in his thirties, broad and with an air of competence.

“Captain Grisham. I’m here to see Admiral Danner.”

Tavistock checked his handheld tablet. “Yes, sir.” He pointed at Maxwell and the other soldiers with Grisham. “These will have to stay here.”

“Sir?” asked Maxwell, turning to Grisham for confirmation.

“It’s fine, Sergeant. You wait here. I won’t be long.”

“Follow me, sir,” said Tavistock.

Feeling a twinge of unease, Grisham followed Tavistock. The rest of the man’s squad followed.

“Has there been more trouble?” asked Grisham.

“Not that I’ve been told, sir,” said Tavistock.

“Then why do I need ten of you to escort me to the Admiral?”

“Orders, sir, and not specific to you.”

Grisham wasn’t reassured. It sounded like Danner was enormously concerned about his personal safety. A man who was always looking over his shoulder might have a heightened sense of suspicion – even towards those he ostensibly trusted.

Once more, Danner had found himself an office underground. Following an airlift descent, Grisham stepped out into a grey-walled corridor. The signs had been removed from the walls, and he wondered if this was at Danner’s order, so that a kidnap squad might find him harder to locate.

Tavistock knew the way and he took Grisham along a series of passages, across a room guarded by soldiers and two waist-high mobile minigun turrets, and into a final passage. Six soldiers were stationed at the door, one of whom Grisham thought he recognized from way back on Bastion Station.

“Your gun, sir,” said one of the soldiers.

Grisham didn’t argue and handed over his rifle.

“You can go in,” said the man.

The alloy door opened and Grisham stepped into a short corridor. A glance over his shoulder informed him that Sergeant Tavistock was planning to wait outside.

Once the outer door had closed, Grisham approached the inner door. The security computer scanned him, and the door opened. In the room beyond, Danner was sitting behind his usual desk, though this time that desk was loaded with a full-width communicator device and four screens. A voice Grisham didn’t recognize was talking.

“I have to go,” said Danner. He pushed one of the buttons on the communicator, cutting the channel. “Jed,” he said in greeting.

“Admiral,” said Grisham. He indicated over his shoulder. “I take it the threat hasn’t receded.”

Danner’s face twisted angrily. “This is how it’s going to be until things are settled. I’d offer you a seat, but then I wouldn’t be able to see you over this damned communicator.”

“I’m happy standing, sir.”

“So, Jed. What went wrong?”

“On the mission? Like I told you earlier, there was simply no Senator Maynard in the place we were sent, sir,” said Grisham. “We spent a day scanning and found nothing. I could have waited another day, but I made the decision to return.” He gestured around him. “I didn’t want to be away from all this.”

“I don’t know what the hell went wrong,” said Danner. “My source was adamant about the time and the location.”

“They got it wrong, sir,” said Grisham. He shrugged as if to say that he wasn’t much interested in the subject of espionage. “I wasted a few days, but it doesn’t seem as if I was missed here.”

Danner grunted. “Things are starting to move, Jed, even with Senator Maynard still alive.”

“What kind of movement, sir?” asked Grisham.

“Those recordings you brought back with you from Vinxilkx have persuaded a few waverers to our cause,” said Danner. “In fact, a few carefully edited minutes of footage have somehow leaked to the largest news channels.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” said Grisham. “If people get wind of the Ax’Kol, won’t they just become more alarmed than ever? How can we make that work in our favour?”

“It’s all about the message, Jed,” said Danner. “We tell people what’ll bring them over to our side. In this case, the Kijol are fighting a war that is far, far away from the Human Federation. We make no mention of what the Ax’Kol will do in victory.”

“There was a transport full of corpses on Vinxilkx, sir,” said Grisham. “It’s hard to make out that the Ax’Kol are ever going to be our friends.”

“Like I just told you,” said Danner irritably. “It’s about the message. You don’t think I’m going to make a recording of a hundred thousand butchered Kijol available to the general public, do you?”

“No, I guess not,” said Grisham.

“Your footage from Vinxilkx shows many things, Jed, but the only part of it most people will see is the evidence that the Kijol can be defeated.”

“I take it from my presence here that there isn’t yet enough of that evidence?”

“That’s part of the reason,” said Danner. He nodded to himself. “And also because I needed to see you.”

Grisham experienced a sudden chill. “What for, sir?”

“To be sure I still trusted you,” said Danner. “You see, I trusted the source that told me about Senator Maynard’s rendezvous with the Kijol, and yet you returned with news of failure.”

“A trusted source can still be wrong, sir,” said Grisham, holding Danner’s gaze.

“So it can,” said Danner.

“Do you trust me, sir, or am I about to be hauled from this office and taken somewhere?”

“That’s not how I operate,” snapped Danner. He forced a smile. “I would like you to go to the second of the dead Kijol worlds.”

“Savixor,” said Grisham.

He’s giving me a mission. I passed the test.

“Yes, Savixor,” Danner confirmed. “I believe Fleet Admiral Scott might soon commit to Freedom. Once he is with us, we will control two-thirds of the Human Federation fleet, as well as its two most important bases and shipyards. Then, we will have the momentum we need to take control of the entire Human Federation.”

“What of the Senate, sir? Do they back Freedom or Unity?”

“In the end, it won’t matter, Jed. If we persuade the Fleet Admiral that continuing our fight against the Kijol is our only option, the Senate will not go against the military.”

Privately, Grisham didn’t think it would be quite so easy. In fact, he was certain that what Danner was describing – a coup – would be messy and unpleasant. Having never met Fleet Admiral Oldan Scott before, Grisham had no idea how far the man would go along with such events.

All Admiral Danner wants is the Fleet Admiral’s warships. Once he has those on his side, who knows what might happen?

Grisham wanted no part of this, but he was deep in the mire and could see no way to extricate himself. He was a warship captain and – he believed – a damned good one, but he was out of his depth in this power struggle.

“Return to the Voltran and go to Savixor at once,” said Danner.

“Yes, sir.” Grisham turned for the door.

“And when you return, I may have another mission for you.”

The tone of Danner’s voice made it clear exactly what sort of mission it would be. When Grisham returned from Savixor, he’d be ordered to murder someone else. Perhaps a whole bunch of someone elses. Grisham couldn’t allow himself to succeed at a mission like that, but if he failed again, Danner wouldn’t accept it happening for a second time. He’d know.

It would be the proverbial lose-lose situation.

“Yes, sir,” was all Grisham said.

He exited the office and found Sergeant Tavistock waiting for him outside. The soldier from Bastion Station gave Grisham what might have been a knowing smile, or perhaps it was just a normal smile and Grisham was thinking too hard about it. Either way, he just needed to get the hell away from Fremont.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Grisham was back on the shuttle, along with Sergeant Maxwell and his squad. At some point during his time underground, a three-by-three-by-four metre container had been brought to the shuttle pad. A query of the container’s contents list indicated it held a portable replicator and eight tons of biological paste, mattresses, blankets, a few chairs and a table, along with other items intended to make existence on the Voltran easier to cope with. Presumably it was a gift sent by Admiral Danner.

That precious cargo was now in the transport’s rear bay and the soldiers couldn’t stop talking about it. Grisham was happy to admit he’d prefer to be eating badly replicated versions of his favourite dishes than living on the energy fluids his combat suit kept injecting him with.

Despite this one highlight, Grisham’s mood was otherwise grim. Savixor would doubtless be a place of death and destruction. The mission would likely require a month to complete and that was a long time given what was happening. Then would come the return to the Human Federation, where the situation might be no better.

While Grisham didn’t usually enjoy long journeys at lightspeed, now he wished he could stay awake for the coming voyage so that he might have time to think and reflect.

Soon, the shuttle was docked with the Voltran and Grisham returned to the bridge.

FIFTEEN

“We’re going to Savixor,” said Grisham.

“I don’t think anyone’s surprised by that news, sir,” said Bishop.

“But a couple of us are surprised you weren’t involved in an accident while you were on Fremont,” said Adler.

“Admiral Danner was suspicious,” said Grisham. “But I think he’s convinced himself I’m still onside.”

He filled his crew in on the details of his recent meeting.

“From what you’ve told us, I’m not so sure the Admiral fully believes you, sir,” said Deneuve.

“How come?”

“Just a feeling I have,” said Deneuve.

“We’ve been given this mission,” said Grisham. “Why would he do that if he had doubts?”

“Savixor is a long way away, sir. Away from anyone you might wish to contact. And even if the Admiral thinks you’re out of his control, he’ll know this is a mission you’ll do your best to complete anyway – in order to maintain your front.”

Grisham pondered Deneuve’s words. “You may be right, Commander.”

“But—?”

“There is no but,” said Grisham. “When we return from Savixor, I have a feeling the situation within the Human Federation will be resolved one way or another. If I’m wrong and it’s hanging in the balance, I’ll contact Senator Maynard.”

“And offer him what, sir?” asked Deneuve. There was an accusing note in her voice.

“What’s wrong, Commander?” Grisham suddenly understood. “You think we should use the Voltran to kill Admiral Danner right here and now.”

“Yes. No.” Deneuve cursed. “I don’t know, sir. It feels like you’re playing by one set of rules – honest rules – while everyone else is pulling cards out from their sleeves.”

“This is who I am, Commander,” said Grisham.

“With all due respect, that sounds like an excuse, sir,” said Adler. “You wanted to be given control of your own fate, and now it’s in your hands, you don’t know what to do with it.”

“I understand what you’re saying,” Grisham admitted. “However, let’s imagine I ordered an attack on Fremont and let’s say that attack resulted in Admiral Danner’s death. I don’t know if that will put an end to the Freedom party. The Admiral is a senior member – hell, he might be the most senior member – but he’s never pretended that he’s in this alone. What if he reports to someone else? Even if we manage to escape Loxor and avoid engaging with the local fleet, we’ll still have triggered a war within the Human Federation.”

“Damnit,” said Adler. “We’re in command of the most potent warship in the fleet and we’re still being blown by the wind.”

“I’ve got one of Admiral Danner’s team on the comms, sir,” said Lopez. “He’s politely enquiring why we haven’t left Loxor airspace yet.”

“You can politely tell him to—” Grisham stopped himself mid-sentence. “I’m not about to start launching missiles at Fremont. We’re leaving.” He looked across the bridge. “And, Lieutenant Adler, it’s my opinion that by doing so, I am controlling my fate. This is my decision and I’m making it for what I believe are the right reasons.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adler.

The Voltran was already outside the Loxor atmosphere and Grisham commanded it to full acceleration. Once the warship had attained its maximum velocity, he reduced power and let it coast away from the planet.

“I hope you have a plan for when we return, Captain,” said Deneuve.

“I do,” said Grisham. He smiled. “You look surprised, Commander.”

“No, sir. Well, maybe a little.”

“What is the plan?” asked Bishop.

“I’ll provide the recordings we take from Savixor to Senator Maynard, and I’ll also give him the footage from the drone holding the Vinxilkx data,” said Grisham. “If Admiral Danner believes evidence of an evacuated Kijol world will work in his favour, maybe recordings of a few million corpses will make people understand that we really don’t want to be facing the Ax’Kol alone.”

“Assuming we find some corpses,” said Lopez.

“The Voltran’s memory of Savixor is one of devastation,” Grisham reminded her. “Even if the Ax’Kol took all the corpses, a wrecked planet is enough evidence that we’re facing a new enemy who have no boundaries when it comes to war.”

“And let’s hope Senator Maynard can bring some good from it,” said Deneuve.

Grisham nodded. “I know this is a new kind of challenge for all of us, but we have to adapt. Me included. The good old days of hit and run on a Tibor class are behind us. From here, every action we take is going to potentially have a far wider impact on the Human Federation. We have to learn fast – we can’t afford any screwups.”

He waited to see if his crew had any further questions. Nobody spoke, though they were clearly tense. Grisham felt the same – these were uncharted waters and, as commanding officer, he was responsible for guiding them safely through.

“Should I set a course for Savixor, sir?” asked Adler.

“Yes, Lieutenant. Let’s aim for a million klicks out.”

“The course is set,” said Adler a few seconds later. “In four minutes, we’ll fall asleep for fifteen days.”

“Yeah,” said Lopez with distaste. “And I used to think I was decadent getting up at nine o’clock on a Sunday morning during shore leave.”

“I don’t like it any better than you, Lieutenant,” said Grisham.

“I’ve asked the Voltran if there’s a way to prevent it putting us to sleep, but I don’t think it understands the question,” said Deneuve. “As if the idea of being awake for either the transition or the journey is too bizarre to contemplate.”

“I wonder if the Ax’Kol can’t mentally handle the transition,” said Kinsey.

“The Voltran has life support, so they’d be shielded from the physical trauma,” said Grisham. “Maybe there’s something in what you say, Lieutenant.”

He pushed it from his mind. The Voltran was a vessel which raised many questions and Grisham was sure many would always remain unanswered. For now, he had little choice but to accept his ignorance.

“One minute,” said Adler. “Fifteen damn days.”

Grisham mentally counted the seconds away and then he was placed into a deep sleep. As ever, his perception of time was affected such that he had no concept of the passing hours. His mind wandered until it came to the grey resistance in which his dreams faded to nothingness. Grisham pushed into the grey, without being exactly sure why he was doing so. Perhaps it was just because it was there.

He wasn’t sure how long he tested the grey. The deeper he went – the further from his dream consciousness he travelled – the harder it became to make progress. Part of him thought the effort was either futile or pointless and he considered withdrawing to the comfort of dreams. Grisham didn’t give up, and thought he felt a lessening of the resistance. Fleetingly, he glimpsed something of the Voltran – something horrific.

His eyes opened.

Grisham clutched at the memory, but it faded quickly into nothingness, just like the dreams he’d experienced during the fifteen days at lightspeed.

What happened?

At the adjacent interface post, Commander Deneuve mumbled something and then her head snapped up. “Is anyone awake?” she asked.

“I am, Commander,” said Lieutenant Bishop.

Damn. I was on the cusp of something.

“I’m interfacing with the sensors,” Grisham said. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry. His suit jabbed him with a needle and he winced. “We’ve got darkness on the feeds.”

“I’m searching for the planet,” said Lopez, her voice thick like her tongue was sticking to the roof of her mouth.

“I’m running the local area scans,” said Bishop.

“I’ve located Savixor,” said Lopez. “It’s a fraction over a million klicks from our position.”

Grisham was relieved the Voltran had accurately recorded the planet’s motion along its orbital track during its previous visit. Had the warship got it wrong, Savixor might conceivably have been half a billion klicks away, and Grisham didn’t want to waste time locating the planet. He wanted to record what had befallen the Kijol inhabitants and then get the hell away.

Even from a million kilometres, the planet was obviously damaged. Among the greens of forests and fields were areas heavily scarred by conflict.

“Enhance the feed,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

The enhancement revealed more. Two huge continents, separated by a long, narrow sea, were on the planet’s visible side. Much of the land was agricultural and the shorelines of both continents were heavily built-up, such that many of the immense cities merged together.

“Savixor has a thirty percent larger diameter than Earth, sir,” said Lopez. “Judging by the visible land mass and the number of cities, I’d estimate the planet to have once had a population of fifty or sixty billion.”

“To have once had,” Grisham repeated.

The surface of Savixor was pocked with impact craters and vast tracts of land had been burned with incendiaries. Although the distance was too great for the warship’s sensors to provide absolute clarity, Grisham detected imperfections almost everywhere on the planet, and at least four visible cities had been razed – he suspected by the extensive deployment of incendiaries.

“This looks…incomplete,” said Deneuve. “Like a job unfinished.”

“I wonder if the Kijol managed to drive away the Ax’Kol,” said Grisham.

“Or the two sides fought and the Kijol had to withdraw,” said Deneuve. “Leaving fifty billion of their own behind.”

“Even having seen Vinxilkx, I’m not convinced the Kijol would be so callous,” said Grisham. “We’re not seeing the whole story.”

“We could approach to half a million kilometres, sir,” said Deneuve.

“In good time, Commander. It’s taken us fifteen days to get here, so we can afford to spend another ten minutes scanning from a million klicks.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lopez and Grisham got on it with it. They zoomed and enhanced the Voltran’s sensor feeds, but in the end, they came up with nothing new. Savixor had suffered greatly, but that was the best conclusion they could offer.

“Half a million klicks it is,” said Grisham.

At maximum velocity and including a period for acceleration and deceleration, the journey was a little over twelve minutes. Once the Voltran was stationary again, Lopez and Bishop resumed their scans.

“Some of this is recent,” said Lopez after a few minutes.

“How recent?”

“In the last few days, sir. I’ve highlighted one of the burned-out cities on the southern continent – it’s still smoking and there’s some residual heat.”

“What about the other cities that were hit by incendiaries?” asked Grisham.

“It’s the same story, Captain. Plenty of smoke and some retained heat.”

“And there’s more smoke drifting around the planet’s eastern cusp, sir,” said Bishop. “The source is blindside and I have no way of knowing how far it’s travelled.”

“What about these craters?” asked Grisham. “The ones to the south are most numerous.”

“They were caused by falling debris, sir,” said Lopez. “Judging from the shape of the impact craters, a few billion tons of wreckage came down at an oblique.”

“One spaceship or more?”

“I’d guess only one, sir, but it could have been part of a much larger fleet.”

“The closer we look, the more questions we find,” muttered Grisham sourly. He wanted to sit and think. Glancing round for a seat that wasn’t there, he cursed. “We know the Ax’Kol came here. Given the extent of the devastation, they engaged with the Kijol fleet. The Kijol lost some of their cities and were forced to deploy incendiaries.” Grisham cursed again and admitted defeat. “I can’t figure this one out.”

“We should continue scanning, sir,” said Deneuve.

“Yes, Commander,” said Grisham. “I’d like to know more before I bring us any closer than we are now.”

“I’ll see what I can find out, Captain,” said Lopez.

Grisham nodded his acknowledgement and kept his attention on the underside feeds. He knew the Voltran had been here before, but that was several months ago. Visibly, the planet was not exactly in ruins, though it had suffered greatly. He had a feeling that whatever had happened here, it might not be over and that meant piloting the warship any closer was a big risk.

However, Grisham didn’t want an extended period in which he did nothing but watch. He took a breath and told himself this was a time for patience.

All the while, his innards felt like they were being clenched by an invisible hand. Since Grisham was already anticipating danger here, he wasn’t sure what had got his instincts riled up. The extra uncertainty only served to increase his agitation.

SIXTEEN

Several minutes went by, during which Grisham didn’t take his attention from the feeds. His head was no longer aching from the fifteen-day transit, but his mouth was still dry, as if it knew about the replicator and wouldn’t settle until Grisham fed it with some cold, clear water. He swallowed, but the dryness remained.

Grisham was on the verge of using the internal comms to order one of the soldiers to bring some drinks to the bridge, when he saw a series of pinpoint flashes appear on top of one of the northern continent cities. Those pinpoints grew rapidly until they were overlapping circles of white.

“Incendiaries,” said Lopez.

As the fires spread, the white turned steadily orange and Grisham could imagine the raging heat as the accelerated plasma spread to engulf the city. After a time, the orange faded to red and the intensity of it lessened.

“The Kijol are here,” said Grisham. “And maybe the Ax’Kol as well.”

“I’m searching for enemy warships, sir,” said Lopez. “Of either type.”

“What’s the chance of locating anything from here?” asked Grisham.

“Slim, but not impossible, Captain. We already know there’s one Kijol spaceship at Savixor – the important question is, how many others are there?”

“Point taken,” said Grisham. He bared his teeth in thought. “If the Kijol and the Ax’Kol are blowing each other to pieces, we’re likely to escape notice at half a million klicks.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez.

“Does anyone else feel we should do something other than watch?” asked Adler.

Becoming involved would – on the surface of it – be an appallingly bad choice, and yet Grisham’s mind kept going back to how he’d felt at Vinxilkx. Although the mission personnel had only discovered a single transport of corpses, the thought of billions being slaughtered made him shudder. What this new enemy wanted so many bodies for didn’t bear thinking about, though Grisham felt sure the answer was important.

“If we’re ever to become allies with the Kijol, maybe we do need to act,” said Deneuve.

“We’re piloting an Ax’Kol warship, Commander,” Grisham reminded her. “It’s not like we can poke a Human Federation flag out of the topside hatch to identify ourselves.”

“I know, sir, but—”

“Don’t worry, Commander, I’m also thinking we should do something here,” said Grisham. “Kijol or not, they deserve better than to have their planets eradicated and their dead carried away by the Ax’Kol.”

The words caused the sleep-stasis memory from the recent journey to unexpectedly return. Up it came, near the surface. Once more, Grisham reached desperately for it and once more it vanished maddeningly into the depths of his mind. He ground his teeth in frustration.

“Sir, what’s the matter?” asked Deneuve in concern.

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “While we were asleep, I felt I was on the brink of learning something about the Voltran.”

“What kind of something?”

“I’m not sure, Commander. Something bad.” Grisham shook his head. “This isn’t the time. Maybe it’ll come to me later.”

He turned his attention once more to the underside feeds, just as another dozen incendiaries blossomed within the bounds of a second city, this one far to the east of the first.

“Maybe there’s nothing left to save,” said Deneuve.

“I’ve had an idea, sir,” said Lopez. “Although the Kijol keep their military comms receptors hidden, it’s possible there might be some open civilian receptors we can request a link to. If there’s anyone left alive, they may be able to tell us what’s happening.”

It was a good idea, and Grisham thought it through. Assuming contact was successfully made, the Kijol recipient of the comm would quickly inform their military, and that might lead to consequences. Grisham wouldn’t blame the aliens if they were feeling royally pissed about the fate of their planet. They might not act rationally. However, if they were under pressure from the Ax’Kol, the Kijol might just accept an offer of assistance.

Grisham believed it a risk worth taking. “We’ll do it, Lieutenant. Run the sweep.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll…oh shit!” said Lopez. “Sir, we’ve got a vessel incoming! It’s at forty thousand klicks and heading directly our way.”

Grisham commanded the Voltran to accelerate at the same time as he checked the feeds. He located the warship – its hull was ablaze, and it was travelling at high velocity.

“It’s an Eternus!” he said, identifying the incoming warship by its shape and size. At any other time, Grisham would have ordered Deneuve to obtain a weapons lock and fire. On this occasion, he held the command.

“It’s being pursued, sir,” said Bishop. “Our sensors have detected four other vessels following the battleship at an approximate distance of fifty thousand kilometres. They’re Ax’Kol spaceships!”

Every Eternus packed immense firepower and this one was unleashing salvo after salvo of missiles, while its Dasor and Axar turrets sent a withering hail of gauss projectiles into the pursuing warships.

In turn, the Ax’Kol launched their own missiles in greater numbers than the Eternus’s countermeasures could handle. Blue spheres of disruptive energy erupted in the battleship’s wake as its crew attempted to thin the waves of inbound warheads.

A flash of darkness amongst the fires burning on the battleship’s hull indicated that one of more of the attacking vessels was using its degrade psionic. How long the Eternus’s armour would hold up against the onslaught, Grisham didn’t know.

Confronted by this unfolding scene, his brain added everything up. The Eternus was heading directly away from the planet, either because it was outgunned, it was on the verge of destruction, or it was trying to draw the Ax’Kol away. Or more likely, all three were true.

“It’s going to pass us in the next twenty seconds, sir!” said Lopez.

The calculations performed by the Voltran indicated the Eternus would come within five hundred kilometres of the Voltran, assuming both vessels remained on their current headings.

“We’re under fire, sir,” said Bishop.

The Eternus had detected the Voltran and assumed it was hostile. Missiles spilled from its forward and portside clusters, and gauss slugs, fired from dozens of turrets, thundered into the Voltran’s armour.

This was the moment. Following the recovery of the Voltran from Ovintus, Grisham and his crew had done everything possible to familiarise themselves with the Ax’Kol warship. Its conventional weapons – which were named from a mixture of concepts and functions – were easy enough to understand.

However, the Voltran was also equipped with psionic weapons. The vessel’s consciousness could – in a way that Grisham didn’t even pretend to understand – ignore normal physics and create, seemingly from out of nowhere and with no recognizable power source, a variety of destructive or reality-altering affects.

Grisham had experimented only briefly with the psionics. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he was sure that unrestrained use of these powers might overextend the Voltran and perhaps damage – his brain kept using the word injure – the consciousness of the warship.

It was time to find out if he was right.

“Commander Deneuve, defensive measures only against the Eternus,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Lopez, attempt communication with the Kijol on Savixor. Let them know the Voltran is under Human Federation control and that we are here to assist.”

“Yes, sir, I’m running the receptor sweep.”

“Punisher countermeasures activated,” said Deneuve.

The Voltran’s starboard and topside turrets fired all at once. Controlling the targeting was technology melded with the organic. Gauss slugs punched into the inbound Kijol missiles, seeking them out with incredible accuracy. Warhead after warhead was smashed into pieces.

Not all were destroyed. Eight or ten Apiar warheads detonated against the Voltran’s flank and a single Olin – which had been somewhere in the middle of the wave – exploded with an enormous flash.

The Voltran was approaching its maximum velocity and Grisham banked it in a sweeping arc that would bring the warship in directly behind the pursuing Ax’Kol vessels.

“Status report!” he ordered. Plasma burned on the Voltran’s hull and Grisham hoped the vessel was as resilient as he believed.

By now, the Eternus was far past the Voltran and he was almost through his turn. In a few seconds, he’d be on the tail of the Kijol battleship and only a few thousand kilometres behind the Ax’Kol warships.

Adler had as much combat experience with the Voltran as everyone else – which was none – but he gave a status update quickly. “We didn’t lose any systems and the damage is not significant.”

Grisham had judged his turn well and when he brought the Voltran onto the same heading as the Eternus, the four Ax’Kol warships were two thousand kilometres ahead. The alien vessels were in a line, each separated by only a hundred kilometres.

In appearance, the attacking ships were curved like the Voltran, but different in shape. They had flowing wings and rounded topsides. Grisham judged them to be eighteen hundred metres in length and perhaps a third of the Voltran’s mass. Compared to the Kijol battleship, the mass disparity was even greater and such warships would usually be fodder for the guns and missiles of an Eternus.

However, the Ax’Kol built their fleet differently, and the pursuers were soaking up the inbound firepower like they were sponges. They didn’t make them immune, and one of the attackers – the centre-left vessel - was blazing, while plasma burned in places on the hulls of the other three.

“That centre-left attacker is falling back,” said Lieutenant Bishop. “We’ll overtake it soon.”

Grisham ran his eyes over the calculations the Voltran’s mind was performing. Even an old-gen Eternus could surpass seven hundred kilometres per second, but this one was down closer to six hundred, suggesting it had lost some of its propulsion modules. Even so, the Ax’Kol warships weren’t closing fast, which made Grisham believe these were the enemy equivalent of a cruiser or destroyer – less capable, but still a threat. Regardless of their vessel class, these ones were going to run the Eternus down and finish it off in the next few minutes.

“Lieutenant Lopez, what is the result of the receptor sweep?” asked Grisham.

“I’ve located one, sir,” said Lopez. “I’m waiting for a response to my channel request.”

“Uh, sir, the Voltran has received a direct status query that bypassed our comms hardware,” said Bishop. “I think the minds of the Ax’Kol warships are able to communicate.”

“Shit,” said Grisham. He didn’t want to deal with the unexpected when he was on the verge of launching a surprise attack. “What is the result of the communication?”

“I’m trying to make sense of it, sir,” said Bishop. “The Voltran responded – I think it was the equivalent of an automated handshake request.” He swore. “Crap, we’ve received a second mind-to-mind communication.”

“Did we fail the first handshake?” asked Grisham.

“I think when we took command of the Voltran we altered something. Whatever the truth, I reckon these Ax’Kol warships are suspicious of us.”

Grisham’s intention had been to hold off his attack for another few seconds to give Lieutenant Lopez an opportunity to speak with the Kijol on Savixor. Now it appeared as though the Ax’Kol would not be easily fooled into thinking the Voltran was one of their own, and he didn’t want these vessels alerting other members of their fleet to the presence of an imposter.

“Commander Deneuve,” said Grisham. “Target and destroy the Ax’Kol warships. Maximum conventional and psionic force. Blow those bastards to pieces.”

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Let’s see what the Voltran can do.”

Grisham concentrated on the sensor feeds. He was certain the Voltran had once been one of the more potent vessels in the Ax’Kol fleet. With any luck, it would make short work of these other warships.

SEVENTEEN

“Forward Death clusters one to six: targeted at enemy vessel #2 and fired,” said Deneuve. “Topside Death clusters one to three, targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired. Punisher repeaters set to automatic track and destroy.”

Missiles – twelve from each cluster - streaked from their alloy tubes. Propulsions ignited in pinpoints of orange and the forward-launched warheads detonated a moment later against the stern of the already stricken centre-left Ax’Kol warship.

The flash of multiple plasma blasts was incandescent, and Grisham saw huge dark pieces of the enemy vessel erupting outwards. This one salvo made him think perhaps the Ax’Kol missiles were more effective against their own warships than were those launched by the Eternus.

The outcome for the alien vessel was not in doubt. It had been torn apart and the wreckage sped away with its inherited velocity.

“One down,” said Grisham.

A split second after the destruction of the first Ax’Kol warship, thirty-six of the topside-launched missiles struck the centre-right vessel.

“Give them the portsides as well, Commander,” said Grisham.

Without waiting for the blasts to fade, he instructed the Voltran to rotate clockwise about its vertical axis. The warship turned and the portside clusters came onto target.

“Portside Death clusters one to six: targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired,” said Deneuve.

“It’s time to try out the psionics, Commander,” said Grisham.

Although the Voltran had only commenced its engagement with the Ax’Kol warships a few seconds ago, the enemy were already responding. The leftmost craft ejected twenty missiles from its rear tubes and its Punisher turrets opened fire. In a split-second, the Voltran’s gauss countermeasures had knocked out all bar one of the incoming missiles. The final warhead detonated, though Grisham didn’t pay any heed to the blast.

“Psionic attack: wither on enemy vessel #1,” said Deneuve.

Grisham felt a surge of energy. It was physical, like a thump in the chest. Through the link, he sensed the Voltran’s consciousness convulse and then recoil as if the effort of the psionic attack required an enormous, painful effort.

Shifting his attention to the feeds, Grisham watched the rear third of the target vessel crumple and shrink, like it had aged a billion years in only a few moments. As it was happening, the Voltran’s mind recoiled again and Grisham felt the warship shudder.

“One of those other vessels hit us with a psionic suppression attack, sir,” said Adler. “I think they were hoping to make the Voltran…” he fumbled for the word, “…unconscious.”

“The attack failed,” said Lieutenant Kinsey. “The Voltran resisted.”

Grisham knew that if this engagement wasn’t concluded quickly, he’d rapidly find himself out of his depth. Since he had no idea of the Voltran’s psionic limits, he hoped the conventional armaments would be enough.

“Be ready on the starboard clusters, Commander,” said Grisham, again rotating the Voltran about its vertical axis.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve.

“Enemy missile launch detected,” said Bishop.

The three Ax’Kol vessels were getting their act together. Thirty missiles burst from the stern clusters of the rightmost warship and another twenty came from the left.

“Psionic defence: slow,” said Deneuve.

Once again, the Voltran shuddered and its consciousness seemed to contract within itself. All thirty missiles coming in from the right were slowed. Their gathering velocity was reduced to an immediate crawl and then the Voltran was past them.

The trapped Ax’Kol warheads fell rapidly behind, while the Voltran’s starboard and topside Punisher turrets targeted them with gauss projectiles. Meanwhile, the warheads inbound from the left were either knocked out by repeater fire, or struck the Voltran’s hull.

Welcome to the new age of space warfare. It’s time to sink or swim.

“Sir, I’m speaking to one of the Kijol on Savixor,” said Lopez. “The Voltran’s doing all the language interpretation. I think the Kijol is going to contact its military. I’ve been kicked out of the channel now.”

“Scan for other receptors,” said Grisham. “Maybe you can speak to another Kijol – just to be sure the message got through.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll give it a go,” said Lopez.

By this moment, the Voltran was starboard-first to the Ax’Kol spaceships. The withered ship was slowing and a series of Apiar and Olin detonations erupted on its hull. All the while, Punisher slugs smashed into the vessel.

“Starboard clusters one to six targeted at enemy vessel #4 and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress on enemy vessel #4.”

Seventy-two missiles launched from their clusters. A few were knocked out by Punisher fire and the rest were affected by a psionic: slow defence. Grisham cursed at the sight, but then then the slow field collapsed and the missiles resumed their previous velocity. They cascaded into the Ax’Kol warship, ripping it apart and sending debris flying in every direction.

“The suppression shut down that vessel’s consciousness,” said Deneuve. “That’s why the psionic: slow was cancelled.”

“I’m glad we’re learning, Commander,” said Grisham. “I just wish we’d known it all before the shooting started.”

The two remaining Ax’Kol vessels broke left and right. One was visibly affected by the wither attack – its rear third was shrunken and distorted, and pieces of it were breaking off. The other spaceship was burning from the Voltran’s opening missile attack.

Grisham made his choice and banked right. Both enemy vessels launched missiles and the Punisher repeaters took out many. Others were destroyed by the Eternus’s Dasor turrets, though Grisham doubted the Kijol were looking to do him any favours.

“Forward clusters one to four: targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired,” said Deneuve. “Do you want another wither attack, Captain?”

“Negative,” said Grisham. The Ax’Kol weren’t quite defeated, but they weren’t far from it. He didn’t want to push the Voltran’s mind too far. “Missiles and gauss projectiles only.”

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve.

As she spoke, the missiles from the forward clusters became locked in a psionic: slow. In moments, they were left far behind.

Deneuve had anticipated just such an outcome. “Forward clusters five and six: targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired. Topside clusters one and two: targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired.”

The two closely spaced salvoes raced through the vacuum and struck the Ax’Kol warship. Punisher slugs poured into the expanding blasts. Grisham thought for a moment that the enemy vessel had suffered enough. Instead, it continued banking away, its hull under constant bombardment from the Punishers.

“Enemy missile launch detected,” said Bishop. “Thirty coming our way from their starboard tubes.”

Grisham’s swore. “Damnit, hit them with a psionic: slow.”

“Psionic defence: slow,” said Deneuve.

The expulsion of energy struck Grisham and, the same as before, the Voltran reacted as if it were in pain. It was the strangest thing, since the warship’s consciousness betrayed no sign of emotion whatsoever.

All thirty of the incoming warheads were slowed and in moments they were dwindling on the rear feeds, while Punisher fire raked into them.

“Enemy vessel #3 is breaking apart,” said Lieutenant Bishop.

Grisham’s focus was still on the same warship. Its hull was burning a dull orange from the previous warhead strikes and now it was fracturing across the midsection, like charred flesh splitting in the fire. “Give it another two clusters, Commander,” said Grisham, rolling the Voltran so that its underside tubes were on target.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Underside clusters one and two: targeted at enemy vessel #3 and fired.”

This entire engagement had been fought at the cosmic equivalent of close quarters. The Voltran’s missiles sped across the intervening space of only fifteen hundred kilometres and detonated. Straightaway, the target warship separated along the fracture and the force of the explosions set the two main pieces onto divergent courses.

“That vessel is out of action,” said Grisham. “It’s got to be.”

In truth, he didn’t know. Had this been a Human Federation or a Kijol vessel, Grisham would have felt better able to judge. The earlier two kills in this engagement had been so conclusive that he’d experienced no doubts. However, this third vessel hadn’t broken up so messily and he wondered if it might retain some of its offensive capabilities.

Lieutenant Adler provided an answer. “Sir, the energy readings from both main sections of that warship are close to zero.”

That was good enough for Grisham and he turned his attention to the final Ax’Kol spaceship. In the last few seconds, it had come under intense fire from the Eternus. Missile after missile detonated, and the explosions lit up the Ax’Kol hull. A part of Grisham’s mind noted that the plasma from the Kijol warheads seemed to spread, rather than penetrate, as if the biological material of the Ax’Kol spaceship was absorbing much of the explosive energy.

“Commander Deneuve, why don’t you give the Kijol some assistance?” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

Before she could order the Voltran to target and launch, the withered Ax’Kol spaceship was struck by another salvo of missiles, as well as a hail of massive-calibre Axar slugs. The vessel blew apart like a one-gigaton nuclear warhead had gone off in its cargo bay.

The Ax’Kol were defeated, but Grisham had no idea if the fight was over. Fifty thousand kilometres away, the Eternus was banking, trailing flames in its wake. So far, it was holding fire, but this was a situation in which any outcome was possible.

“Lieutenant Lopez, have you spoken to anyone else on Savixor?” asked Grisham.

“I’ve got a Kijol on the comms now, sir,” said Lopez. “I…” she cursed. “I think it’s an alien in its bedroom or something, with a communicator that’s been modified to accept a wider range of inbound transmissions.”

The thought of it was so banal, yet crazy at the same time, that Grisham was momentarily lost for words. With the fate of Savixor potentially in the balance, Lopez had found herself speaking to an amateur comms enthusiast.

“That Eternus is heading our way, sir,” said Bishop. “It must be running on half of its propulsion modules.”

“I can see it,” said Grisham. “Sweep its hull for open comms receptors.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bishop. “Sweep complete. No receptors located.”

“If they haven’t fired on us yet, that means they aren’t going to fire at all,” said Adler.

“Are you betting your pension on that, Lieutenant?” asked Grisham.

“Hell no, sir.”

The Voltran was still travelling at high velocity and the Eternus was heading directly for the Ax’Kol warship. If the Kijol commanding officer ordered his crew to open fire, everything which had led up to this moment would have been for nothing.

“The Eternus is in a bad way,” said Deneuve.

“Worse than bad,” said Grisham.

Now he had a moment to focus on the battleship, he could see that it had lost much of its topside plating and its rear third was glowing with plasma heat. In its wake, the Eternus left a trail of debris.

“It’s still dangerous, Captain,” said Deneuve. “We saw what it did to that last Ax’Kol warship.”

“We can’t fire first, Commander,” said Grisham. “If we do, we’ll have wasted this opportunity.”

“The Eternus is losing power, sir,” said Adler. “Once their Charos drive shuts down, they’ll have no weapons.”

“This is their last chance to attack,” said Grisham.

The captain of the Eternus would surely know that, in its current state, his warship had no chance against the Voltran. That still didn’t mean he’d act rationally. Instead, the battleship decelerated. The process was far more gradual than usual, as the vessel’s damaged Charos drive fought to bring its fifty-billion-ton mass to a standstill.

“The Eternus has opened a receptor, Captain!” said Bishop excitedly. “Should I request a channel?”

“Yes. Quickly, Lieutenant.”

“Channel request accepted,” said Bishop. “Captain Avintziz of the Kijol Eternus Scarinox would like to speak.”

For the briefest of moments, Grisham felt strangely light-headed. He’d fought the Kijol for years and not once had he spoken directly to one of the aliens. And here he was.

“Bring Captain Avintziz into an open channel,” said Grisham.

He took a deep breath and prepared to find out what the alien commanding officer had to say.

EIGHTEEN

“Captain Grisham,” said the Kijol. “I have been told of a human who pilots an Ax’Kol Indredalus.”

The alien was speaking into its own comms system, the words were being interpreted by the Voltran and then fed directly into Grisham’s brain. And the result was almost perfect. To Grisham, it was as though he were in the same room as the Kijol and the Voltran even added the insect-like clicking sibilance to the alien’s words. Once or twice, Grisham had heard the female Kijol and their voices were noticeably higher in pitch. Avintziz was definitely a male.

“Captain Avintziz,” said Grisham. “I do not intend hostilities.”

“I have seen evidence of that, but no proof there will be none in the future,” said Avintziz. “Why are you here, human?”

This was another situation where Grisham would have to admit something of the truth. “I came to learn about the Kijol’s war with the Ax’Kol.”

“You can see our planet,” said Avintziz. His words were laden with emotions and feelings, but Grisham didn’t know how they were balanced. “Here you might find what you seek.” This time, the bitterness was clear.

“You know about the Voltran already,” said Grisham.

“It is no secret that the Kijol are in talks with the Human Federation,” said Avintziz.

No secret to who? Grisham wondered. As far as he was aware, those talks were not yet public knowledge – at least within the Human Federation. Perhaps the Kijol were rather more aligned in their common goals.

“It’s probably best if you don’t mention the discord within the Human Federation, sir,” said Deneuve, off-comms.

“I won’t,” said Grisham. He turned his attention back to the comms. “My preference is for our talks to bear fruit, Captain Avintziz. The Ax’Kol are enemies to both our species.”

“The Kijol will defeat the Ax’Kol,” said Avintziz. “The Kijol always prevail.”

Grisham didn’t know if these statements were bravado or otherwise. It didn’t seem best to challenge them. “I am a man of war, Captain Avintziz. My government will decide what is best and regardless of the outcome, I will do what I have always done. I will fight my enemies, whoever they might be.”

“Hah! A straight-talking human,” said Avintziz. “The wonders will never cease.”

“Captain Avintziz must have attended a few of our Senate meetings if he thinks straight-talking is a rarity,” said Deneuve.

“Or maybe this is a widespread belief among the Kijol,” said Lopez. “This is how you keep your people onside during a war – you make them believe the enemy is a bunch of assholes. Eventually, everyone thinks it’s true and they act accordingly.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. He switched back to the comm channel. “Captain Avintziz, regardless of the war between our two sides, I cannot in good conscience ignore the Ax’Kol – wherever I might find them. I ask you plainly – do the Kijol of Savixor require assistance?”

Avintziz didn’t answer for a moment and Grisham guessed the alien was reluctant to express anything which might be perceived as weakness.

“The Ax’Kol arrived at Savixor many weeks ago,” said the Kijol at last. “They swept through our cities and their transports ferried away our dead. A decision was made to evacuate. However, the Ax’Kol have poured their warships into the attack. And now—” Avintziz made a sound that the Voltran didn’t translate. Doubtless it was a curse. “And now, the rulers of my species have decided that enough is enough. The Scarinox and several other of our vessels were sent here in one final commitment to rescue our people.”

“With what result?” asked Grisham, though the answer was already clear enough.

“The Ax’Kol are determined to claim their prize. I used the Scarinox to draw away those members of the enemy fleet who would follow. My secondary orders were to deny the Ax’Kol as many of our dead as possible – the Achirus cruiser Redalan stayed behind to enact those orders.”

“I saw the incendiaries,” said Grisham. “Does this mean Savixor is now a dead world?”

“No,” said Avintziz. “Some of our people – perhaps as many as one billion – were ordered to evacuate from the city of Ilos in the south-east of the Oklaran continent. They have boarded transport vessels, but they are unable to depart, since Ax’Kol warships patrol the skies above. Meanwhile, ground forces approach from the north.” The Kijol made another one of his cursing sounds. “Enabling the evacuation of Ilos was one of the primary goals for this mission.”

Grisham couldn’t deny he felt the beginnings of a connection with this alien officer. The Kijol had, from the sounds of it, been handed a mission he couldn’t possibly complete with the resources he’d been given. Aside from the fact that Grisham’s lot had been the same for many years, he recognized that Avintziz desperately wanted to succeed – not for himself, but for his people.

And what civilized species could bear witness to the atrocities of the Ax’Kol and not want to destroy every last one of them?

“How many Ax’Kol war vessels guard Ilos?” asked Grisham.

“With the destruction of this most recent four, only one remains,” said Avintziz. “However, if the Ax’Kol believe the planet is theirs, an Engarvax will soon arrive.”

“I don’t understand the significance,” said Grisham.

“The Engarvax are the harvesters, human. They follow the Ax’Kol fleet wherever it goes.”

Grisham felt a chill pass through him. “The Engarvax harvest…life?” he guessed.

“Not life,” said Avintziz. “They do not appear until a world is dead. The bodies of the slaughtered are taken there.”

How many worlds have the Kijol lost that we don’t know about?

“What offensive capabilities do these Engarvax possess?” asked Grisham.

“I do not know, human. The harvesters have never been called into the attack. They arrive when the fighting is done.”

“But there is only one Ax’Kol warship left at Savixor,” said Grisham.

“That is correct, but more Ax’Kol will come in support. They always do.”

“What of the Redalan?” asked Grisham.

“It is no more. Soon after I piloted the Scarinox away from the planet, the Redalan was attacked and defeated.”

“How potent a force is this final Ax’Kol vessel?”

“It is an Indredalus, just like yours.”

“Damn,” said Grisham. “I don’t mind long odds, but I’m lacking combat time on the Voltran. I’d prefer not to face a warship with equal capabilities and a more experienced crew. How long before the Engarvax arrives?”

“That is not known, human.”

“Then I’ll have to act soon,” said Grisham. “What is the status of the Scarinox?” he asked, before realising he wasn’t yet aware how much damage his own vessel, the Voltran, had suffered in the recent engagement.

“The Scarinox is not in a combat-ready state, human. I have ordered its Charos drive to be shut down to prevent a runaway reaction on the Chareum modules. The personnel onboard this battleship will not be leaving.”

“Will your military send a rescue vessel?”

“Eventually.”

“I get the feeling Captain Avintziz knows more about the Engarvax than he’s letting on,” said Deneuve, off-comms.

“Either that or he fears it,” said Grisham. “I’m not sure which of the two I’d prefer.” He returned to the comms. “Captain Avintziz, I will contact you again shortly.”

“Do you intend to help, or have you changed your mind, Captain Grisham?”

“I need to talk with my crew,” said Grisham, biting down on his irritation. The Kijol had no right to question him, given that his species was still at war with the Human Federation. He cut the channel.

“You promised the Kijol you’d assist, Captain,” said Deneuve.

“What makes you think I’ve changed my mind, Commander? However, I won’t sacrifice the Voltran by throwing it into combat before I’ve had a chance to consider the risks.”

“The Voltran came out of its last engagement without any significant damage, sir,” said Adler. “Our hull is marked but I believe it’s superficial.”

“We can take out the Indredalus, sir,” said Deneuve. “We learned a lot from that last encounter.”

“But one thing we didn’t learn was how far we can push the Voltran’s mind. Did you feel how it reacted to the use of psionics?”

“Yes, sir. Like it was being poked with a hot stick.”

“And if we keep poking, eventually there’ll be consequences.”

“You’ve always had a sense for where the limits lie, Captain,” said Lopez. She tapped the side of her helmet and then her chest. “And that comes from here and here. You can’t train it.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, Lieutenant. The truth is, it’s not the Indredalus that gives me the greatest concern.”

“The Engarvax isn’t here, sir.”

“It might be parked somewhere, a short lightspeed journey from Savixor,” said Grisham. “And while Captain Avintziz told us that the Engarvax vessels have not demonstrated an offensive capability, that doesn’t mean they have none. Once we’re engaged with the Indredalus, there’s no chance we’ll be able to break off if the Engarvax arrives.”

Lieutenant Adler raised an arm and pointed all around him “If this had been the Castigate or the Marauder or one of the other Tibors we’ve crewed over the years, and our opponent was an old gen Kijol destroyer, we’d already be at maximum velocity and heading for Savixor.”

“Are you telling me I’m losing my nerve, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir. What I’m saying is that you’re feeling the pressure of the higher stakes. The best players act the same, no matter how many chips are down.”

“You’re right,” said Grisham. “Except we’re not playing for money and they aren’t just my car keys on the table.”

“That’s what you have to fix in your head, sir,” said Adler. “Else you’re going to sit back and watch events until the guilt builds so much that you commit at the wrong time.”

It was tough criticism to take, but Grisham was a man who could listen to hard words given honestly. “If the Voltran is blown to pieces, I’m blaming you, Lieutenant.”

“And if we come through, we might well have done a great service to the Human Federation, sir.”

“Get me a channel to the Scarinox,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir, channel requested,” said Lopez. “Captain Avintziz has accepted.”

“What is your decision, human?” asked the Kijol.

“We’ll do what we can to rescue the people on Savixor,” said Grisham. “If you have any additional information about the Engarvax-class vessels, now’s the time to tell.”

“I can offer you nothing of value, Captain Grisham.” Avintziz hesitated. “Whatever happens, the people on Savixor must rest in peace. The city of Ilos is beyond the planet’s cusp. I will send you the coordinates, as well as the last known position of the Indredalus. Beyond that, my warship is blind. The planet’s network of comms relays has been disrupted, so I am unable to link to any receptor that is not in direct line of sight.”

Grisham looked towards Lieutenant Lopez. After a moment, she raised a thumb to indicate receipt of the location data.

“We have what we need, and we’ll do what we can to assist you in your mission, Captain Avintziz.”

The channel went dead.

“I guess we still hate each other too much for a simple thanks,” said Lopez dryly.

“Yeah,” said Grisham. He was thick-skinned enough that it didn’t bother him much. “Did anyone else get the underlying message when Captain Avintziz said the people on Savixor must rest in peace?”

Deneuve’s eyes widened. “If all else fails, he wants us to destroy the transports.”

“That’s what I thought he was asking,” said Grisham. He swore. “No wonder he didn’t want to offer us his thanks and goodbyes. I bet Captain Avintziz hated every damn part of this mission, and now he’s had to ask – to almost ask – the Human Federation to kill a billion of his people.”

“I don’t want any part in mass murder, Captain,” said Adler.

“It would be my choice and my burden,” Grisham snapped. “And do you think that makes me happy?”

“Hell no, sir,” said Adler, his voice tight.

“We can’t let it come to that,” said Deneuve quietly. “If it does, then—” She tailed off, as if she didn’t dare speak what she was thinking.

“Enough,” said Grisham. “If we go into this expecting the worst, then we’ve lost already. We’re going to make a clean kill of that Indredalus – that’s all I want you to focus on.” He stared at his crew in turn and nobody had anything else they were willing to say. “Lieutenant Lopez,” said Grisham. “I want you to tell me what we know about Ilos.”

“It’s a city on the coast, sir,” said Lopez, talking quickly like she wanted to put some distance between herself and the previous discussion. “There are two evacuation transports and two airfields – one east and one west.”

“Having only two transports to deal with is good,” said Grisham. “I don’t want to be herding a thousand different shuttles out of the planet’s orbit.”

“I guess if we knock out the Indredalus quickly enough, the transport pilots will know what to do, sir,” said Deneuve. “I can’t imagine we’ll be left with extended escort duties.”

“If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right,” said Grisham. “And that means guarding the transports until we’re sure they’re safe.”

He went quiet for a moment, while he pondered his approach. Captain Avintziz hadn’t provided much in the way of information, but there again the mission outline was simple enough. The main worry was the transports, since the last known position of the Indredalus wasn’t far from the eastern landing field. It was a concern, but not a major one, since the Ax’Kol were here to kill the Kijol and steal the bodies. Attacking the transports with plasma missiles would deprive them of a billion corpses.

“Let’s get this done,” said Grisham. He gave an outline of his plan, such as it was.

“Sounds good,” said Deneuve. “In, kill, leave. It doesn’t get much more straightforward.”

The crew was ready and so was Grisham. Before he ordered the Voltran to accelerate, he tried to sense how well the warship’s mind had recovered from the use of the psionics. The consciousness was as cold and dispassionate as ever.

Grisham commanded the Voltran into motion. As it surged away from its starting point, he stared for a time at the Scarinox. The Eternus was battered and its armour still glowed brightly with the heat of plasma detonations. Having the Eternus operational and involved would have been enormously beneficial, but it wasn’t to be.

The Voltran raced towards the planet.

NINETEEN

“At our current velocity we’ll arrive at Savixor in just over eleven minutes,” said Lieutenant Lopez.

“We’ll decelerate as late as possible and circle east, at a one-hundred-klick altitude,” said Grisham. “The moment we catch sight of the Indredalus, we’ll give it everything we have.”

The closer the Voltran came to Savixor, the more the planet reminded Grisham of almost every populated world in the Human Federation. The outline of the continents was different of course, but there was a colourful vibrancy that only came from planets capable of supporting life. It was, however, impossible to ignore the many scars of battle inflicted on Savixor, nor to overlook the blackened ruins of cities laid to waste by the Kijol’s own incendiaries.

As the moments passed, Grisham’s anger grew. He had no increased fondness for the Kijol, but he felt an intense hatred for the Ax’Kol. The creatures had no purpose that he could imagine. Life was such a rarity given the expanse of the universe and a species which sought to bring only death had no right to exist – or so Grisham saw it.

“Five minutes and you should begin deceleration, sir,” said Lopez.

Grisham nodded in response and kept his focus on the feeds. Something in Captain Avintziz’s words when he was describing the Engarvax had Grisham worried. The thought of a vessel designed purely for the purpose of gathering corpses from dead worlds made him sick to his stomach. While he didn’t want the Engarvax to show up at Savixor, it was partly because he feared his anger at the sight of the vessel would drive him to act irrationally.

He took a breath to calm himself. From his conversation with Avintziz, Grisham had gained the impression the Kijol had lost many worlds to the Ax’Kol, and that likely meant billions of their corpses had been taken. The purpose behind it remained a mystery.

“Three minutes to deceleration, and the sensors remain clear,” said Lopez. “We’re approaching the planet’s night side. It’ll be mid-morning at Ilos.”

In a case of better late than never, Grisham had a thought. “Is there a way we can disable the automatic communication between the Voltran and the other Ax’Kol warships?”

“I had a look while you were talking to Captain Avintziz, sir,” said Bishop. “And the short answer is I don’t know.”

“At least you’re honest, Lieutenant.”

“Do we need to disable those comms?” asked Deneuve. “While the Ax’Kol saw through us pretty quickly during the last engagement, I reckon we gained a few seconds while they figured things out.”

“I’m just thinking to the future, Commander.”

By now, the sensor feeds of the planet were incredibly sharp and clear. When Grisham zoomed in on one of the ruined cities, he saw the individual buildings and the roads running between them. Many of the alloys had melted in the incendiary heat, while concrete walls had collapsed into rubble.

He changed the sensor focus so that it was aimed at one of the larger craters made by impacting spaceship debris. A misshapen lump of alloy lay in the centre and it had retained enough heat that the air shimmered. Although the metals were burned from plasma, Grisham could see matte grey in places. This had once been part of a Kijol warship.

The time came to decelerate and Grisham slowed the Voltran rapidly to a fraction of its maximum velocity. He banked the warship and altered its heading so that followed the coastline of the northern continent. The sea was all blues and white-capped waves, while the coastline was a mixture of sandy yellows and greens.

A hundred kilometres ahead, a Kijol city – one which had escaped the bombing - bordered the sea and its tall buildings were as colourful as those Grisham remembered seeing on Vinxilkx. Despite the darkness, the Voltran’s sensors made the hues vivid in a way that was almost artificial.

“Another two thousand klicks on our current heading and we’ll have visibility on Ilos, sir,” said Lopez. “We might have sight of the Indredalus a lot sooner, depending on its altitude.”

“Acknowledged,” said Grisham.

The Voltran passed over the city at a one-hundred-kilometre altitude. Every road was gridlocked, but Grisham also got a sense of emptiness. Or at least he thought it was empty, until the Voltran crossed high above a huge park in the centre of the city. Dark figures – thousands of them - stood motionless on grassy banks and footpaths, and Grisham couldn’t shake the feeling that the Ax’Kol had been staring up at the Voltran as it went past.

The warship flew beyond the park and over a large area upon which numerous accommodation domes had been constructed. Each of the domes was a different pastel shade and they were separated by narrow areas of greenery. Grisham saw yet more Ax’Kol, but they weren’t motionless. These ones were roving between the domes, and, though he caught but fleeting glimpses, he thought some of the aliens had corpses thrown over their shoulders, like they were carrying sacks of potatoes.

“Shit,” said Deneuve, having evidently caught sight of the same thing. “So this is the Ax’Kol in action.”

“Looks like,” said Grisham. “If those bastards are gathering corpses, there has to be a transport somewhere here.” He swore. “But damnit, we can’t afford to be side-tracked.”

Soon, the city was far behind and Grisham held the Voltran on its course along the coastline. The land north had been used for growing crops and orchards. Here and there, Grisham spotted farm buildings and agricultural vehicles among the fields of yellow and green. The Ax’Kol were also visible on the roads, and making tracks through the crops. Most were heading east at speed, while others were clearly hunting. If any Kijol remained on this area of the planet, they were doomed.

“A thousand klicks to Ilos, sir,” said Lopez. “If the Indredalus is high in the atmosphere, we might see it sometime soon.”

Grisham had it in his head that the enemy warship would be low to the ground in order to increase the fear of the Kijol on the transports. He’d soon find out if he was right.

The farmland seemed never-ending and Grisham suspected the agricultural output from this single planet might once have been enough to support dozens of minor worlds throughout the Kijol empire.

Admiral Danner had previously told him that the Kijol claimed a far greater territory than anyone within the Human Federation had ever suspected, and Grisham had seen enough to be sure that in this, at least, Danner was not lying.

Now, however, the crops on Savixor would die, and vast swathes of the land would need repair and decontamination before it could be used again. Grisham wondered if the Kijol would ever return, given the atrocities which had occurred here.

“Five hundred klicks to Ilos,” said Lopez.

“Everyone be ready,” said Grisham.

His thoughts were dark and he didn’t want them to become a distraction. Clearing his mind, Grisham watched the sensors. Nothing of concern was in sight, though a series of impact craters were now visible on the northern horizon. At this close range, the damage caused by the falling debris seemed far more tangible than it had from way up in space.

“The opposing Indredalus is now visible on the planet’s cusp, sir!” said Lopez.

The Ax’Kol warship was at an approximate thirty-kilometre altitude and the city of Ilos was not yet visible. In the briefest of moments, Grisham absorbed the details. The opposing vessel was near-identical in size and mass to the Voltran, though some of its hull was flat rather than curved. Perhaps when it was beneath the sands of Ovintus, the Voltran had healed itself into a slightly different form, or perhaps the Indredalus were not all created the same. Here and now, it didn’t matter.

“Commander Deneuve, give them hell,” said Grisham. He pushed the Voltran to a greater velocity and the warship tore through the thin air.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Forward and underside Death clusters one to three: targeted on enemy vessel and fired. Portside and starboard clusters one: targeted on enemy vessel and fired. Punishers set to automatic track and destroy.”

Suddenly, the air was filled with missiles and they sped across the planet towards their target.

“Hit them with everything,” said Grisham.

“Psionic attack: suppress,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: wither.”

The crew of the Indredalus responded with astounding speed and Grisham knew at once this opponent would be no pushover. Climbing vertically, the enemy warship activated its own Punisher repeaters. Dozens of bright white tracers lanced across the sky. Through the interface link, Grisham felt the Voltran’s mind recoil as it discharged its psionic powers. Quickly, it strengthened.

“There’s no sign of an output drop from the enemy vessel’s hull, Captain,” said Adler. “The Indredalus resisted the psionic: suppress.”

“And our first waves of missiles have been hit by a psionic: slow,” said Lieutenant Bishop.

Grisham didn’t know how large a sphere the psionic: slow defence could encompass, but it was definitely enough to trap all 132 of the Voltran’s in-flight Death missiles. The slugs from the Indredalus’s Punisher guns were also affected and their tracer lines advanced slowly through the psionic: slow.

He bared his teeth angrily at the sight. The enemy repeater slugs travelled at a much-reduced velocity, but since everything was slowed down, it was much easier for the Indredalus’s mind to predict the paths of the inbound missiles. The projectiles smashed into the Death warheads in slow-motion, completely neutralising the Voltran’s first wave.

“The psionic: wither is confirmed effective on the enemy warship’s portside midsection, sir,” said Lopez. “They’ve lost at least one launch cluster and three Punisher turrets.”

“Enemy missile launch detected,” said Bishop. “I estimate they have discharged from half of their available clusters.”

“Holding some in reserve, just like we are,” said Deneuve. “Psionic defence: slow.”

The Indredalus continued its rapid ascent, though it made no effort to increase its distance from the Voltran – a distance that was less than three hundred kilometres and falling fast. The missiles it launched were trapped in the psionic: slow hardly any distance from its portside flank. Grisham guessed Deneuve had tested to find out if the Indredalus would also be affected by the psionic power, but the enemy warship’s velocity increased without hindrance.

Worth a try.

The Voltran’s Punisher slugs forged their way through the psionic: slow and it was gratifying to see the effectiveness of these combined defences, though Grisham would have liked it a whole lot better if his warship was the only one equipped with them.

Through the interface link, Grisham could sense that Commander Deneuve was about to launch the second wave of missiles. In anticipation, he adjusted the Voltran’s approach angle so Deneuve could make better use of the portside clusters. Only moments had passed, but the outskirts of the Kijol city were now visible on the forward underside feeds. The western landing strip would soon be visible, but Grisham couldn’t afford the time to look.

“Forward and underside Death clusters four to six: targeted on enemy vessel and fired,” said Deneuve. “Portside clusters two to six: targeted on enemy vessel and fired.”

“Here’s where we start learning the limits of the psionic powers,” said Adler.

“Our missiles have been affected by a psionic: slow,” said Bishop.

“The enemy vessel has hit us with a psionic: wither,” said Kinsey. “The damage reports aren’t clear. I believe the attack was only partly successful, Captain.”

As he watched the Indredalus’s Punishers knock out the Voltran’s second wave of missile, Grisham felt his frustration rising. It was fast becoming clear that the four Ax’Kol vessels from earlier had been enormously inferior in their capabilities – easy meat for a primary warship like the Voltran, even with an inexperienced crew. Now, Grisham found himself confronted by a foe with equal hardware and personnel who knew how to get the best out of it. Plus, the Voltran had two vacant interface stations, meaning the load was spread around six crew members instead of eight.

I’ve been here before a hundred times. Bad odds are something I can handle.

“The Indredalus has launched another wave of missiles, Captain,” said Bishop.

“Activating psionic defence: slow,” said Deneuve.

The Voltran’s mind flinched at the new activation of its psionic powers. It recovered almost at once, though Grisham thought he detected the slightest of delays compared to the previous time. He had a sudden worrying thought that if the psionics were called upon too often in a short time, perhaps the warship’s consciousness would be less capable of controlling the melded hardware like the targeting systems or the sensors.

The Ax’Kol Indredalus was now at a three-hundred-kilometre altitude. It stopped climbing and abruptly accelerated east along the same heading as the Voltran. Grisham didn’t take his attention from the feeds. The enemy craft had started to turn about its roll axis in a clear effort to bring the remainder of its loaded underside clusters onto target.

“Hit it with another the psionic: wither, Commander Deneuve,” said Grisham. He brought the Voltran into a roll of its own, intending to make the starboard clusters available.

“Psionic attack: wither,” said Deneuve. “Shit, no. It hasn’t worked.”

“Why not?” Grisham demanded.

“I don’t know why the psionic: wither failed, Captain,” said Deneuve. “I guess the Voltran’s mind is too drained to initiate another wither attack so soon after the first.”

“What about the other psionics? Is everything affected or—” Grisham didn’t bother finishing the sentence. Deneuve was smart enough to predict all his questions. If there were answers to be had, she’d find them.

“Enemy missile launch detected,” said Bishop. “Six full clusters. Seventy-two warheads.”

“Attempting psionic: slow,” said Deneuve.

“The enemy missiles have been slowed,” Lieutenant Lopez confirmed a split-second later.

Grisham felt the Voltran’s propulsion judder once and then twice. He thought for a moment that it would cut out entirely, but then it resumed. At the same time, he sensed the warship’s mind shrivelling as though it was about to enter a state of forced hibernation.

“That was a psionic: suppress, Captain,” said Adler. “It didn’t shut us down, but I think it was a close-run thing.”

“It feels as if the enemy vessel can use its psionics more freely than we can,” said Kinsey.

No sooner had he spoken than the Voltran’s mind was struck by a second psionic: suppress. This time, the warship’s propulsion cut out entirely and the bridge went deathly silent. The sensors went offline and, though the interface remained open, Grisham was blind to the world outside the bridge.

He sought out the warship’s consciousness and he found it everywhere, quiescent now, rather than awake. The Voltran was effectively offline and that meant death would soon come. Grisham had lost to the Indredalus and the knowledge of it was acutely painful, like he’d been kicked in the balls. He cursed and cursed again.

TWENTY

Faced with defeat, Grisham felt a surge of utter fury. It rose within him and made his temples pound. In his past, the stakes had been hardly more than a dozen lives. Not now. If he didn’t figure out a way to fix this, a billion Kijol would die and the chance of an alliance would diminish. The Ax’Kol would be unstoppable.

Without being sure quite how he managed the feat, Grisham directed his anger through the interface, cursing the warship for failing him. Incredibly, the Voltran’s mind responded like he’d rammed an electrified stick straight through its cortex. The warship’s engines came smoothly back online and the sensor feeds became once more available. Grisham saw the city far below and he saw the eastern Ilos landing field with a huge Kijol transport parked on it.

Most of all, he saw the Indredalus, less than a hundred kilometres away and banking across the Voltran’s path.

“Commander Deneuve, we’ve been given a second chance,” said Grisham. “Don’t waste it.” Without its propulsion, the Voltran was descending towards the planet. He brought the warship quickly under control.

“No, sir. Forward Death clusters one to three: targeted and fired at the enemy vessel.” She gave it a three count. “Topside clusters one and two: targeted and fired.” Another three count. “Underside clusters one and two: fired.”

“We’ve taken some missile hits while we were offline, Captain,” said Adler. “I’m assessing the damage.”

Through the sensors, Grisham could see the plasma burning on the Voltran’s hull, and he sensed a flickering of what might have been an emotion in the warship’s mind. What that emotion might be, he couldn’t be certain.

“The forward launched missiles have been caught in a psionic: slow, sir,” said Lopez. “The enemy Punisher turrets are knocking them out.”

“The topside launched warheads have successfully detonated,” said Bishop. “The salvo from the undersides has been caught in a psionic: slow.”

The detonations from the topside clusters were scattered along the enemy vessel’s facing starboard flank and, though this penetration of the Ax’Kol defences was a sign they could be out-thought, the Indredalus wasn’t anywhere close to failure.

“Commander Deneuve, try our psionics again,” said Grisham.

Deneuve didn’t question the order. “Psionic attack: wither, targeted on enemy vessel.”

This time, the Voltran’s mind responded. It had gained strength from somewhere – perhaps, Grisham thought, from his anger – and it hardly recoiled at the effort.

“The wither attack on the Indredalus been partly successful, Captain,” said Bishop. “I believe we’ve taken out one of their starboard clusters.”

“Shut that warship down, Commander Deneuve,” snarled Grisham.

“Psionic attack: suppress, targeted at enemy vessel,” said Deneuve. She didn’t wait to see the outcome. “Forward Death clusters four to six: targeted and fired.” A three count. “Topside clusters three and four: targeted and fired.” Another pause. “Underside clusters three and four: fired.”

“Sir, the output readings from the Indredalus are all over the place!” said Adler.

The Indredalus wasn’t out of action. Its Punisher guns still targeted without an appreciable decline in accuracy, and it launched from half of its starboard and underside clusters.

“Our forward launched missiles are caught in a psionic: slow, Captain,” said Bishop.

“Psionic slow: targeted on enemy missiles,” said Deneuve.

Despite its recovery from the recent psionic: suppress, the Voltran’s mind was once again weakened by the rapid use of its own psionic powers. Grisham could sense it was close to exhaustion. He was already sure that some of the powers – specifically the wither and suppress attacks – were particularly draining. How the Voltran would respond next time it was commanded to use a psionic power was uncertain.

Not for the first time, Grisham regretted his lack of combat experience on the Voltran. Missiles and gauss repeaters he understood. Explosions and hard alloy were second nature. However, the psionic powers added an entirely new element into the mix. Even now, he thought the engagement was likely to end in the enemy’s favour, simply because they had experience to fall back on. He gritted his teeth. Grisham hated losing.

“Both waves of enemy missiles are trapped in the psionic: slow, Captain,” said Lopez. “I reckon they underestimated us.”

“Our Punishers have destroyed the slowed warheads, sir,” said Bishop.

By now, the engagement had taken the two warships east of Ilos. The coast here turned sharply north and the sea was directly below. Grisham watched the Indredalus as it rotated about two axes to bring its topside and portside launchers into play. He was ready for it and commanded the Voltran to accelerate on a heading that would keep it facing the enemy vessel’s reloading starboard clusters for as long as possible. It wouldn’t buy much time, but when an engagement was balanced on a knife edge, even a split-second could make the difference.

And then, Grisham saw it, high overhead. A vast, terrible spaceship descended vertically through the atmosphere. Its undersides were formed in a shallow V-shape and its flanks were high, and, though the Voltran’s sensors didn’t have an angle to see the entirety of the incoming vessel, Grisham thought it might have a tapering nose and a vertical stern. Near-black in colour it was and with three enormous doors – currently closed – in its facing side.

“An Engarvax,” said Grisham. He cursed. The timing couldn’t have been worse. “Commander Deneuve, attack that vessel with a psionic: suppress.”

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve.

Before she could give the command, the Voltran’s mind was shut down. As simple as that, it was forced into hibernation. The propulsion and sensors went offline for a second time, leaving the bridge in silence.

“Shit!” said Grisham. He said it again and tried to channel his anger through the interface in the way he’d done only a couple of minutes earlier. This time, it didn’t work and the Voltran’s mind remained beyond his reach. “Tell me what systems are available!” he shouted.

“Since we have no propulsion, we must be falling,” said Deneuve. She jumped on the spot. “But we have gravity, so the life support is operational. It must have an independent backup power supply.”

“The external comms are gone, sir,” said Lopez. “The internal comms are functioning. I can still see Sergeant Maxwell and his squad on the network.”

“Effectively, we’re left with nothing we can use against the Indredalus,” said Grisham. He tried to reach the Voltran’s mind again. It was not at all responsive.

“Just before we were shut down, I registered the beginning of a spike across our biological systems, sir,” said Adler. “It was like a psionic: suppress, but, by the outcome, it was far more potent.”

“The mind on the Engarvax must have greater capabilities than the one here on the Voltran,” said Grisham. “Or maybe that vessel has several minds.” He looked around at his crew. Through each helmet visor, Grisham saw wide eyes and the beginnings of fear. “How can we get out of this?” he asked.

“We’ve got a few minutes before impact, sir,” said Lopez. “We were nowhere near escape velocity, but we were high in the atmosphere and it’s a long way down.”

“We’re not going to survive long enough to impact, Lieutenant. That Indredalus has all the time it needs to blow us into pieces.”

“I don’t think the Ax’Kol will destroy this vessel, Captain,” said Deneuve. “If they can shut down its mind so easily, I reckon they can bring it back online, but under their control. The Voltran is too potent a force to destroy just for the hell of it.”

Grisham wasn’t convinced. For all he knew, the Ax’Kol might expect the Voltran’s consciousness to emerge from dormancy at any moment and they surely wouldn’t risk allowing the warship to start launching its weapons at the Engarvax. He told Deneuve his opinion.

“Maybe you’re right, Captain. This is just the feeling I have.”

“I’m going to try bringing the Voltran out of hibernation again,” said Grisham.

His anger hadn’t gone away, but it was no longer spontaneous like it had been before. Nevertheless, he railed at the Voltran for its weakness and yet, he felt as if he were trapped outside of the warship’s consciousness and unable to reach what lay within.

A realisation struck.

When we’re in sleep-stasis at lightspeed, our own consciousnesses are brought within the warship’s mind. Perhaps that’s a protection the Ax’Kol need.

Grisham was convinced he was right, but he couldn’t think how to take advantage of this knowledge, or even if any advantage could be gained at all by penetrating the barriers around the Voltran’s mind.

“We need to be at lightspeed,” he said.

“Captain?” asked Deneuve in puzzlement.

Grisham explained. “I think we might be able to bring the consciousness out of hibernation when we’re at lightspeed,” he said.

“How?” asked Adler. “I usually just dream.”

“Have none of you tried pushing away from the dreams?” said Grisham, fumbling for words to explain.

“Not that I remember,” said Bishop.

Grisham was fighting against the feelings of powerlessness and despair. The Voltran was falling and he was no more than an observer to it happening.

“We should consider heading for the shuttle, Captain,” said Deneuve. “There’s not much chance we’ll be able to escape without being noticed, but still—”

“There’s no chance whatsoever we’ll escape without being noticed,” said Grisham. He gritted his teeth at the inevitability. “Damnit - Lieutenant Lopez, order Sergeant Maxwell and his squad to the usual shuttle.”

“They’re already on their way, Captain. In fact, they’re entering the shuttle bay now.”

Grisham didn’t want to abandon ship. The Voltran’s mind showed no sign of emerging from dormancy, but if it happened, he and his crew might yet pull something out of this.

“What’s your decision, sir?” asked Deneuve.

“We’ll die on the shuttle and we’ll die if the Ax’Kol bring this spaceship back under their control,” said Grisham. “However, there’s a chance the Voltran’s consciousness might rouse itself. Then, we’ll be back in the game. I’m staying right where I am.”

“I’m not sure if you’re saying in a roundabout fashion that the rest of us can head for the shuttle if we want, but if you’re staying, I’m staying too, Captain,” said Adler.

“Damn right,” said Deneuve.

“Based on our altitude when we were shut down and some guesswork on gravitational forces and atmospheric density, I’d guess we have another fifteen or twenty minutes before we hit the ground,” said Adler.

“Lieutenant Lopez, speak to Sergeant Maxwell. Tell him to launch the shuttle fourteen minutes from now, whether we’re inside or not. He’ll already have guessed his chances aren’t good.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll let him know.”

Grisham had another thought. “Make sure he checks the launch systems have access to the backup power.”

“Sergeant Maxwell has confirmed the shuttle is launch capable, sir.”

“Acknowledged.”

For the next five minutes, Grisham and his crew concentrated their efforts on bringing the Voltran’s consciousness out of hibernation. This was new territory for all of them and their efforts brought no success. For his part, Grisham focused on anger, having seen the method work before. He tried his best to intensify his rage and channel it through the interface. Unfortunately, he wasn’t usually hot headed and his brain had already settled into a comparative calmness. His efforts to persuade himself into a burning fury failed, and the Voltran did not waken.

Another five minutes went by and Grisham was starting to give serious consideration to ordering a run for the shuttle. The Voltran’s mind was dormant and completely unresponsive. Although Grisham was sure an attempted shuttle escape would mean certain death, the option was starting to look progressively more appealing.

Then, all at once, the Voltran’s propulsion fired up and the sensors came online.

“We’re back!” said Grisham. Savixor was closer than he expected and the deep blue sea beckoned.

Using the interface, he attempted to bring the warship back under control. The Voltran’s mind didn’t respond. He tried again with the same outcome.

“I only have view access to the status data, sir,” said Adler.

“I’m locked out of the weapons,” said Deneuve.

It was a similar story with the sensors. Although Grisham could view the feeds, he couldn’t adjust their focus or direction.

Without Grisham’s interaction, the propulsion note rose in volume a fraction and the Voltran’s freefall came to an end. Slowly and steadily, the vessel climbed for a few seconds and then it came to a standstill.

“Looks like you were right, Commander,” said Grisham. “The Ax’Kol took back their warship.”

As he was talking, the Indredalus appeared over the western horizon, travelling at an unhurried velocity. The warship was trailing smoke from the Death missile strikes it had suffered, and the effects of the Voltran’s two psionic: wither attacks made sections of its hull look crumpled and out of shape.

“What now?” Lopez wondered.

Grisham had a couple of ideas, but he kept them to himself for the moment. The Indredalus continued until it was directly alongside the Voltran’s portside flank. Then, it came to halt.

As he stared at it, the flames of Grisham’s rage burned anew, and this time his fury was truly spontaneous. He channelled it along the interface, but with no response. The anger had returned too late and Grisham was left to deal with the frustration of not knowing if, five minutes ago, it would have been enough.

All he could do now was curse.

TWENTY-ONE

“At some point, the Ax’Kol will board the Voltran,” said Adler.

“Yes,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Lopez, make Sergeant Maxwell aware. If he leaves in that shuttle, he’ll definitely be shot down. He and his squad will have to stay and fight.”

It was a hopeless situation, that much was clear. Individually, the Ax’Kol were tough. It wouldn’t take more than three or four of them to kill everyone onboard the Voltran. Grisham glanced down at his feet, where he’d left his gauss rifle. He well remembered how resistant the Ax’Kol were to its projectiles.

“I have made Sergeant Maxwell aware, Captain,” said Lopez.

Grisham watched the sensors for a time. The Indredalus had taken damage in the engagement, but it wasn’t about to break up. Lieutenant Adler’s conclusion from the status data was that the Voltran was in better shape than the other warship. Not that it mattered too much.

The Indredalus did not launch a shuttle filled with Ax’Kol.

“Captain, our lightspeed engines have received a command to warm up,” said Adler.

Grisham straightened. “Where are we going?” he asked.

“I can’t make sense of the destination coordinates and I can’t access the navigational systems to run an interpretation,” said Adler.

“I wonder if the Voltran will still put us to sleep,” said Lopez.

“It will,” said Grisham. “And when it does, I’m going to see if I can learn anything more about this spaceship.”

“What are you hoping to find?” asked Deneuve.

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “In truth, probably nothing. But what else can we do?”

“I wish I could help,” said Adler. “Like I told you earlier, all I see are dreams.”

Using the short time available, Grisham tried his best to explain his experience while asleep on the fifteen-day journey to Savixor. It was hard to find the right words and it seemed to him like he was hardly talking sense. His crew nodded and asked questions, but it was clear they didn’t understand. Grisham hardly understood it himself and his memories of grey emptiness seemed as remote as the dreams.

“Thirty seconds and we’ll be on our way,” said Adler. His voice was distant, like he was already half-asleep. “Good luck to us all, and let’s hope it’s a long journey.”

Four minutes after the commencement of the warmup, the Voltran entered lightspeed.

After a time, Grisham started dreaming. He had to do something, but he couldn’t remember exactly what, other than it was important.

Part of Grisham’s mind retained a link to his waking self and it knew he had to push outwards, away from the comfort of dreams. And Grisham did push. Without knowing quite how, he forced himself to look for the greyness. He found its borders and he entered the gloom. In here there was nothing to indicate where he should go. It was empty.

Even so, Grisham pushed on. The resistance increased, like he was wading through tar, but he refused to stop. Deep inside himself, he remembered how last time he’d been within touching distance of…something. He was determined to discover what it was.

The difficulty became such that Grisham wasn’t sure if he was making any progress at all. Here, there was nothing by which to judge if he was any further forward or simply giving it everything just to stand still. The feeling of urgency grew within him and Grisham didn’t give up.

Just when he thought he lacked the strength, he felt a sudden lessening in the resistance. Grisham forced himself to a final surge of effort and, suddenly, he was through. The greyness vanished and Grisham was suddenly assailed by a cacophony of thoughts. Those thoughts were fleeting and lacked direction. They shouted for attention, yet without quite knowing why. Throughout it all was sorrow and anguish. The thoughts were confused and frightened. Most of all, they were lost.

Grisham almost crumbled beneath the onslaught. His own consciousness was nearly ripped away to join the countless others in this place. He stood firm and, gradually, he began to make sense of what this was. The knowledge of it was terrible.

These are the souls of billions, he thought. This is what the Ax’Kol do with the bodies. They extract the memories and thoughts of the dead and they use them to control their warships.

With that realisation came another. The biological material of which the Voltran was made – and all the other Ax’Kol vessels too – came from the corpses of those the aliens had killed. It was no wonder their appetite for death could not be filled. The more the Ax’Kol slaughtered, the more powerful they would become.

The enormity of it made Grisham reel.

How many dead just to make the Voltran? How many other warships are there in the Ax’Kol fleet? Worlds destroyed. Civilizations gone. Entire species made extinct.

Although he was struggling to cope with what he’d found, Grisham became aware that these billions of lost souls had begun to swirl around him, like he was at the centre of a vast tornado of the dead.

They can feel my life and they’re drawn to it. They remember what it was to be alive.

The weight of it threatened to crush Grisham, but he didn’t allow it to happen. He sensed that if he faltered, even for a moment, he too would become lost – that he’d become but one more mote to help power the Voltran as the recaptured vessel journeyed around the universe, bringing death on a colossal scale.

Now, Grisham saw why his anger from earlier had been so effective in rousing the Voltran from the effects of the psionic: suppress. These souls here had been stripped of their own anger, or denied the use of it. And yet, they felt the power of the emotion. Perhaps, it was locked inside them, hunting the key to its escape.

I can be that key.

Although he didn’t know how the Ax’Kol had chained these souls, nor how the aliens had made the spirits of the dead do their bidding, Grisham knew the only chance for him and his crew to survive lay here, within the Voltran’s mind. He needed to harness the power in a way that would ensure the Ax’Kol would never again be able to wrest it from him.

As he stood at the centre of the tornado, Grisham sent out waves of his own anger – anger at what the Ax’Kol had done, and anger at what they’d do if they weren’t stopped.

The souls which spun nearest to Grisham sensed the anger. They recognized it for what it was, yet their connection with it was lost. Grisham thought he might not be able to make them remember, but gradually, a few did. These spirits possessed lingering memories of their own deaths, when the Ax’Kol came to murder them and their families.

As each new soul found its anger, the memories spread. Soon, the tornado was a ravaging storm of raw, pure fury, with an intensity Grisham had never witnessed before. Such was the ferocity that he was cast out and back into the grey.

Grisham woke. The first thing he noticed was the soothing drone of the Voltran’s propulsion, which sounded no more stressed than it did at idle. His eyes were closed and he kept them that way for a moment. The memories of what had happened while he was asleep hadn’t faded. In fact, they were as vivid as any other in his brain. He remembered the sorrow and the torment, the billions of dead, and their anger.

I can’t bring them back to life, but maybe their deaths won’t be in vain.

He opened his eyes. The bridge was dark and he turned on his flashlight. Grisham looked down at his hand on the interface, where he’d left it even when the Engarvax reclaimed the Voltran. He tested his link to the warship. The consciousness was there and it knew him. No longer was it an emotionless entity, stripped of what it had once been. Now it was a raging, seething force made from billions of souls, united in their purpose.

That purpose was revenge.

When he discovered what he’d created, Grisham jerked his hand away from the interface, like the metal had become red hot. He sucked in air and felt his heart thump in his chest.

Grisham needed a moment to prepare himself before he could face that fury again. He turned his head and saw Commander Deneuve next to him. She had one hand on the interface post. Her eyes were closed and her expression was peaceful. The other members of his crew were the same.

“We’re still at lightspeed,” said Grisham, just to hear the sound of his own voice.

He stepped off his podium and gave Deneuve a gentle shake. She didn’t stir, nor did she make a sound. A second, harder attempt to bring her from sleep was no more successful than the last. Grisham tried for a third time. Had Deneuve been naturally asleep, she would have definitely woken, but her eyes remained closed.

Knowing he was only delaying the inevitable, Grisham returned to the command station. He took a deep breath and placed his hand straight down on the interface post. Again, Grisham found rage. It wasn’t aimed at him. He sensed the Voltran’s yearning and he connected with it. Grisham promised the spirits he would do everything to give them the revenge they sought.

An accord was made.

It was time to bring the lightspeed journey to an end. Grisham didn’t know if he would survive the transition and he asked the warship’s mind, wondering if it would still be constrained in what it could answer.

He soon discovered that now the warship was completely free of its creators – and this time, it would not be reclaimed – the consciousness was enabled to give more of its knowledge. Previously it had been shackled by limitations which made it compliant. Those limits were gone.

Grisham learned that – as he’d once guessed himself – the Ax’Kol could not tolerate lightspeed travel in their active state, though the Voltran wasn’t clear how they were affected. Perhaps they went insane, or died, or something else. Equally, the Voltran was unaware of the reason for this weakness in the Ax’Kol.

From extensive experience, Grisham knew there was no reason a human couldn’t stay awake during a lightspeed transit. So far, the Voltran had only done as it was instructed, by putting anyone onboard into a sleep-stasis.

Armed with his new knowledge, Grisham ordered the Voltran to return his crew and Sergeant Maxwell’s soldiers to a state of wakefulness. Belatedly realising the only illumination was from his helmet, Grisham ordered the Voltran to turn on the bridge lights. He was just in time to see Deneuve’s eyes snap open. Her face twisted and she took her hand off the interface post.

“Welcome back, Commander,” Grisham said.

“What the hell happened?” Deneuve asked. “And what happened to the Voltran?”

Grisham looked around at the other members of his crew, each of whom broke their connection with the interface posts as they detected the fury within the warship’s consciousness.

“You did something,” said Deneuve.

“Yes,” said Grisham. “The outcome is in our favour. I’ll explain shortly, but I need to bring us out of lightspeed first. Lieutenant Lopez, send advance warning to Sergeant Maxwell that our re-entry to local space has the potential to be rough.”

“The warship, sir—”

“Like I said, I’ll explain shortly,” said Grisham. “The Voltran is angry as hell, but it’s not directed at us.”

“I’ll speak to Sergeant Maxwell,” said Lopez. Tentatively, she placed a hand on the interface post, as if she were expecting a painful outcome. She grimaced and then recovered. Soon, she was done speaking with Maxwell. “I’ve made him aware, Captain.”

“I want you all ready at your stations,” Grisham warned the others.

The other crew members linked once more to the Voltran. Grisham gave them only a moment to adapt to the seething consciousness they encountered.

“We’re exiting lightspeed,” he said.

Grisham sent the command to the warship, not knowing what to expect with the transition. No thudding headache or nausea accompanied the return to local space. All that happened was the thrumming of the propulsion dropped away to a quieter sound.

“I want sensor scans,” said Grisham. He felt enormous relief at the successful re-entry to local space, but kept it from his voice.

“Beginning local area sweep,” said Bishop.

Grisham watched the sensors too and the feeds were of nothing but darkness. He didn’t know if the Indredalus or the Engarvax had accompanied the Voltran on its lightspeed journey. If so, they’d arrive alone at their destination, wherever that was.

“The local area sweep is done and clear,” said Bishop. “We’ve arrived on the fringes of a solar system. Should I commence a more in-depth scan for planets, Captain?”

“No,” said Grisham. “We’re not staying here long.”

He spent a short time explaining what he’d discovered during his sleep-stasis. By their expressions, the crew were struggling with the horror of what the Ax’Kol had done.

“We can’t stop to think about it,” said Grisham. “What’s done is done, but we’ve got a chance to stop it happening to those Kijol on Savixor.”

“Damn if I don’t feel something for those aliens,” said Adler.

“Me too,” said Grisham. “Maybe they’re all scumbags just like their fleet officers and their soldiers, but they don’t deserve to be murdered and have their souls torn out.”

“Or their corpses turned into warships,” said Kinsey in disgust.

“I take it we’re returning to Savixor?” said Deneuve.

“Yes, we are,” Grisham confirmed. “Aim for the opposite side of the planet to Ilos and at a low altitude.” He smiled thinly. “The Voltran is angry and it’s going to stay angry. Whatever it was capable of before, now it’s going to be a whole level above. Lieutenant Adler, how long were we at lightspeed?”

“According to the Voltran, only three hours,” said Adler. “Our planned destination was four days from Savixor.”

“Three hours out and three hours back,” Grisham mused. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be in time to beat those Ax’Kol bastards and help the Kijol escape.”

“We’d best get our asses in gear,” said Deneuve. “The situation on the planet wasn’t good.”

“Lieutenant Adler, prepare the Voltran for lightspeed,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir,” said Adler. “Three minutes and we’ll be on our way.” He grunted. “That’s a minute down on previous warmup times.”

“This warship has changed, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “The Ax’Kol had to shackle the dead in order to make them compliant. Now we have the Voltran unleashed and it wants revenge.”

Three minutes passed and the spaceship entered lightspeed. The transition was smooth and painless, just like the last one.

“The sensors aren’t receiving any data,” said Lopez. “That’s a technical problem the Ax’Kol haven’t managed to overcome either.”

Grisham nodded in acknowledgement. He was observing the Voltran’s consciousness to see how it was affected by the transition to lightspeed. As far as he could tell, there was no change.

“Three hours, folks,” he said. “Then we’ll have a chance to put this warship to the test.”

Even as he spoke the words, Grisham’s mind called up an image of the Engarvax. At almost eight thousand metres in length, it utterly dwarfed the Voltran for size. Grisham could only hope the enemy vessel was primarily designed for transport and that its offensive capabilities were lacking.

If not, the Voltran – even with its newfound fury – wasn’t going to survive the coming encounter. It wouldn’t be long, Grisham thought, before he found out one way or the other.

TWENTY-TWO

Three hours was a comparatively short journey, but Grisham made use of it by jogging through the Voltran’s interior to the makeshift mess area, where he knew Sergeant Maxwell and his squad had taken the portable replicator.

Upon his arrival, Grisham pulled rank in order to obtain a position at the front of the queue. He vended two cups of water, which he drank quickly, and followed up by ordering the device to fill an oversized tray with a variety of not-quite-perfect fast-food replicas, as well as some fruit juices.

Grisham delayed only long enough to speak briefly with Sergeant Maxwell, and then he returned to the bridge, where he shared the contents of the tray. Replicated food was usually average at best. After weeks of subsisting on nutrition shots from his combat suit, it tasted wonderful.

“Is this the last breakfast of the condemned?” asked Deneuve, finishing off a burger. Her light tones indicated she wasn’t serious.

“We’re going to kick ass at Savixor,” said Lopez. “And I’ll be damn glad of that replicator on the long ride home.”

Grisham was pleased to see his crew’s morale remained high. It was his opinion that they’d all performed well during the first confrontation with the Indredalus, and only the overpowering psionics of the Engarvax had made the difference. Next time, the Ax’Kol would discover that the Voltran would not be so easily suppressed. At least, that’s what Grisham kept telling himself.

“So, what’s the plan, Captain?” asked Deneuve. “As if I couldn’t guess.”

“We’re going to focus fire on the Indredalus, and hope to knock it straight out of the fight,” said Grisham. “After that, we’ll turn our attention to the Engarvax.”

“The simple plans are always the best plans,” said Adler, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.

“Hopefully one of the two enemy ships accompanied us into lightspeed,” said Lopez.

“I thought the same thing earlier,” said Grisham. “It’ll be to our advantage if we end up facing only one opponent, but I’m not letting myself believe it’s likely.”

“I reckon we gave the Indredalus something to think about during the last engagement,” said Deneuve. “We have a real shot at beating it if we act decisively enough.”

“That’s the hope, Commander.”

Grisham checked the journey timer he’d set on his suit computer. In less than an hour, the Voltran would arrive at Savixor and the unresolved combat would resume. He felt a surge of adrenaline at the thought. While the Voltran’s conventional weapons were unchanged, he was certain the warship’s psionics would be far more potent than before.

The minutes passed slowly. Grisham didn’t want to leave the bridge, but he had a surplus of nervous energy that only movement could expend. His agitation increased and it was an effort to remain calm.

“Five minutes and we’ll arrive at Savixor,” said Adler eventually.

“About time,” muttered Deneuve. She stretched out her free arm and flexed her fingers. “These three hours have been a drag.”

Grisham agreed, though he didn’t say it aloud. Already he was thinking ahead to the return journey to Loxor, which would be long and tedious, even with the replicator and the mattresses which had been brought onboard. Of course there was still the matter of the Indredalus and the Engarvax to resolve before the Voltran could head home.

“One minute,” said Adler.

At exactly the predicted time, the Voltran exited lightspeed. Its sensors remained offline for only two seconds and then the feeds appeared. The planet’s surface was visible starboard and at less than five thousand kilometres. Grisham recognized the land masses and some of the surface cratering, but it took him a moment to become fully oriented.

“Scan for hostiles,” he ordered, rotating the Voltran so that its nose was aimed along the shortest heading to Ilos.

“Scanning,” Lopez confirmed.

Grisham didn’t wait for his sensor officers to complete the local area sweep. He requested power from the Voltran’s propulsion and commanded the vessel to accelerate for the planet. The engines howled and he wondered if they were producing a greater output since the warship’s consciousness had been awakened. With such a short distance to cover, Grisham couldn’t be sure one way or another, and after only a few seconds, he was obliged to decelerate so as not to impact with the planet.

“The Scarinox’s comms receptor is still open, sir,” said Bishop. “Should I provide an update to Captain Avintziz?”

Grisham imagined how tough it must be for the Kijol, sitting on the bridge of his disabled war vessel and not knowing what the hell was happening to the planet. It was hard not to be sympathetic, even if Avintziz did officially remain both an enemy and an alien scumbag.

“Speak to him, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “Don’t take long and don’t let it distract you.”

“No, sir.”

Guiding the Voltran east at a hundred-kilometre altitude, Grisham divided his attention between the coastline below and the horizon all around. Everything about this approach was identical to that which preceded the last encounter with the Indredalus. Grisham intended for the outcome to be significantly different this time.

“Voltran versus Indredalus: Round 2,” said Deneuve.

“At our current velocity, we’ll have visibility on Ilos in the next sixty seconds, Captain,” said Lopez. “It’s likely we’ll spot the enemy craft before then – assuming they’re still in the vicinity.”

The Voltran passed over cities and farmlands, along with many signs of conflict. Grisham tried not to stare too hard. Having already witnessed the devastation suffered by Savixor, he just wanted to get on with the job of destroying the Ax’Kol warships and helping the Kijol transports make their escape. Outer space was cold, dark, and empty, but those things were preferable to crap like this.

“In thirty seconds we’ll have visibility on Ilos, Captain,” said Lopez. “If the Ax’Kol warships are low over the city, we might not see them until the last moment. If they’re high, we’ll spot them anytime from now.”

“I’m watching,” said Grisham.

The far horizon was the deepest of blues, which lightened as the seconds went by. Grisham guessed it was mid-afternoon in Ilos and, with the lack of clouds, it would likely have been a beautiful day had the Ax’Kol never come.

“Indredalus sighted, Captain!” yelled Lopez. “It’s at three-hundred kilometres over Ilos!”

“I see it,” said Grisham, his mind scanning the sensor feeds for a sign of the Engarvax. He wasn’t ashamed to admit the carrier had him worried and he didn’t want it surprising him like it had last time. “The Engarvax attacked us from a much higher altitude – I don’t want it happening again.”

“I’ve got my eyes on the skies, sir,” said Bishop.

“Commander Deneuve, let’s finish what we started,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir, with pleasure. Psionic attack: suppress on enemy Indredalus. Forward Death clusters one to three: targeted and fired.” She waited three seconds. “Topside Death clusters one and two: targeted and fired.” Another pause. “Portside Death clusters one and two: targeted and fired. Punisher turrets set to track and destroy.”

Grisham felt the response from the Voltran’s consciousness as it sent out the psionic: suppress. The warship didn’t shudder or recoil – this time it revelled in the chance to strike at the Ax’Kol. When the wave of expulsive energy rolled through the bridge, it struck Grisham with such force that it felt like he’d been punched in the guts. He grimaced and shook away the aftereffects.

Adler coughed twice and swore at the energy wave. “The power readings from the enemy vessel’s hull have plummeted, sir,” he said. “I think the Indredalus has gone offline. No…wait! The readings are spiking. I think it resisted the attack.”

As Adler was speaking, eighty-four Death missiles streaked across the intervening space. The first two waves detonated along the Indredalus’s portside flank, concealing much of the warship in a furnace of white heat.

“Our third Death wave is caught in a psionic: slow,” said Lieutenant Lopez. “The enemy Punisher guns are active and targeting our missiles.”

“We’ve suffered a psionic: suppress attack, Captain,” said Kinsey. “We have not been shut down.”

Since he’d freed the Voltran’s consciousness from its chains, Grisham had found his link to the warship had become more responsive, as if he’d formed a bond with the billions of lost souls. Consequently, he’d detected the inbound psionic: suppress attack. The Voltran’s mind shrugged it off as if it were nothing, and Grisham felt its rage climb in response.

“Missile launch detected from three of the enemy’s underside clusters,” said Lopez.

“Psionic defence: slow,” said Deneuve at once.

“The enemy missiles are trapped in the slow field,” said Lopez a moment later.

The Indredalus climbed and accelerated north, stutteringly at first and then with increasing power. Punisher slugs from the Voltran punched into the inbound warheads trapped in the psionic slow.

By now, Ilos had become visible. Grisham’s eyes quickly located the western landing field. He saw a huge transport parked there, and it looked to be an identical model to the one he’d spotted on the eastern landing field during the first engagement.

“The Kijol are still here,” said Grisham.

The landing strip was approximately four kilometres by ten, and surrounded by the city’s buildings. Many thousands of gravity cars, along with a smaller quantity of normal-sized shuttles occupied much of the space. Although Grisham didn’t spend more than a couple of seconds watching the feed, he saw dark shapes advancing slowly and menacingly through the vehicles, their main target clearly being the largest transport.

“We have to finish the Indredalus, Commander,” said Grisham, rotating the Voltran to aim the starboard clusters at the enemy vessel. His opponent was also rotating, blocking his view of the damage it had suffered to its portside armaments, but at the same time revealing the crumpled, punched-in area of its hull resulting from one of the Voltran’s previous psionic: wither attacks.

Events happened quickly, as so often happened in close-quarters combat. The enemy crew had lost none of the skill or fast reactions they’d demonstrated before, and they launched from three of their forward clusters. Commander Deneuve countered with a psionic: slow and the enemy warship then ejected missiles from four of its underside clusters. Punisher slugs tore into the missiles, but some struck the Voltran.

“You can go harder than this, Commander,” said Grisham. “The Voltran’s mind is much stronger than it was before.”

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: wither on enemy warship. Starboard clusters one to three: targeted and fired.”

“You’re still holding back,” said Grisham, as Deneuve was performing her three-count.

“Hell no, sir,” said Deneuve. “Starboard clusters four to six: targeted and fired. Psionic attack: suppress on enemy Indredalus. Topside clusters one to three: targeted and fired.”

The enemy warship’s rear thousand metres shrank rapidly from the psionic: wither, and a huge section of flesh broke away. Psionic: slow defences trapped the Voltran’s first and second waves of starboard-launched missiles, and Punisher slugs knocked out half of those from the topside clusters.

“Our psionic: suppress caused a half-second drop in the enemy hull readings and then they recovered,” said Adler. “I don’t know why our second attack was less effective than the first.”

“The enemy warship has now hit us with its own psionic: suppress attack, Captain,” said Lieutenant Kinsey. “The Voltran remains operational.”

“We have also suffered a psionic: wither attack,” said Adler. “It was only partly successful.”

“The enemy has hit us with a second psionic: suppress attack, sir,” said Kinsey. “Again, we remain operational.”

Grisham felt the attacks through the link, one after another. The rage of the Voltran’s mind was undiminished, but he sensed that perhaps the second suppress attack had caused the most fleeting of weaknesses. Maybe he was wrong.

On the plus side, the crew of the enemy vessel were clearly becoming desperate. Grisham was sure they were pushing the Indredalus’s control mind to the limit. How much more the enemy vessel had to give, he didn’t know.

“The Ax’Kol must have a means to extract more from their warships,” said Deneuve.

“That’s how it looks,” said Grisham. “I stumbled upon a way to use my anger to strengthen the Voltran in the first engagement. The Ax’Kol built these warships, and they created the control minds. The crew on that Indredalus will know the ways to make it work harder.”

As he talked, he continued rotating the Voltran, so that the rear clusters would be on target. The flow of combat meant the warship was now at a three-hundred-kilometre altitude, while the enemy Indredalus had climbed to five-hundred kilometres. Much of Ilos was now to the west, and Grisham could see the eastern landing strip.

Where’s the transport?

He swore loudly. During the previous engagement, he’d seen a Kijol transport parked on the eastern landing field. That transport had gone, leaving a huge gap amongst the abandoned gravity cars.

“Where’s the damn transport?” he demanded.

It wasn’t just the evacuation shuttle which was missing. The Engarvax was nowhere to be seen either, and Grisham couldn’t get the carrier out of his head. He felt a certainty it was still here at Savixor – that it had moved off to another part of the planet to survey the results of the ongoing attack, and that it would be heading this way at best speed. Grisham didn’t have the mental ability to watch every feed at once, nor to dwell on the fate of the Kijol transport. Instead, he concentrated on the Indredalus.

“Topside Death clusters four to six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve, lacking the time to offer an opinion on the evacuation transport. “Psionic attack: suppress on enemy Indredalus. Rear Death clusters one to three: targeted and fired.”

“Hit them with another suppress, Commander,” said Grisham quickly. Like he’d hoped, the Voltran’s mind now had far greater depths of power than before and it seemed a shame to waste it by tiptoeing around.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress on enemy Indredalus.”

“They’re shut down!” yelled Adler. “The readings from their hull have dropped to zero!”

The Voltran’s wave of topside missiles crashed into the Indredalus and detonated. It was already clear that the enemy vessel was no longer climbing, nor accelerating, and it began a long, arcing fall that would eventually see it crash into Savixor a few hundred kilometres north of Ilos.

“Hold the psionics, Commander,” growled Grisham. “Finish it with missiles.”

“Rear Death clusters four to six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Waiting on reload.”

Thirty-six of the Voltran’s stern-launched missiles exploded on the Indredalus’s undersides. Vast chunks of withered flesh were ripped out and hurled in every direction. The next thirty-six missiles struck nearby and, when the brightness began to fade, Grisham could see that much of the enemy warship’s rear twelve hundred metres was gone.

The Indredalus was beaten, that much was clear, but a wounded animal could still strike. Commander Deneuve fired from all the available portside clusters as soon as Grisham had rotated the Voltran far enough that they were facing the Indredalus.

“Should I give them the forward clusters as well, sir?” asked Deneuve.

Grisham hesitated for a moment. The Indredalus was in flames and he couldn’t imagine any of its offensive capabilities remained operational, and, though the Voltran’s magazines had been near-enough full when they’d recovered it from Ovintus, he was conscious there was no easy way to replace its missiles when they were gone.

“Hold, Commander,” said Grisham. It was a risk, but one he judged worth taking.

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “It’s my opinion that the Indredalus is finished.”

Grisham kept a close eye on the enemy warship as it headed down. It would be many minutes before the Indredalus impacted. As it plummeted towards Savixor, more pieces of flesh-debris broke away, many of them still burning from the Death missile explosions. The Indredalus was a mess and, now that he had a better look at it, Grisham didn’t know how it was still holding together.

“That was a hard fight,” said Lopez.

“A real hard fight,” said Grisham. His body was still pumping adrenaline. When it stopped, he suspected he’d feel drained. Unfortunately, there was no time to relax and he needed to keep himself at peak readiness.

Business here at Savixor was not yet done.

TWENTY-THREE

“Keep watch for the Engarvax,” said Grisham, convinced the Ax’Kol corpse carrier was going to appear on the horizon at any moment.

“I’m vigilant, sir,” said Bishop.

“And I’m watching that Indredalus like a hawk, Captain,” said Adler. “If there’s so much as a flicker from its hull, I’ll shout.” 

Grisham nodded his acknowledgement. “So where’s the damn Kijol transport gone to?” he wondered aloud.

By now he’d brought the Voltran around and he held it in a tight, low-velocity circle, two hundred kilometres directly above Ilos. North, the Indredalus continued its descent and the vessel showed no sign that it might rouse itself and begin firing. Even if it did, most of its hull armaments had been put out of action anyway.

“There are a couple of available comms receptors within the city, Captain,” said Lieutenant Lopez. “But the evacuation transport has its comms shut up tight.”

“Captain Avintziz already told us the planet’s comms relays are out of action, which means he won’t have heard anything from the transport,” said Bishop.

“What if the second transport just took off and escaped?” asked Adler. “Its crew may have seen an opportunity when the Engarvax shut the Voltran down first time around.”

“I think it’s more likely the evacuation shuttle would have been destroyed if it made a run for it,” said Grisham. “I don’t like saying it, but that’s the reality of the situation.”

Grisham stared at the underside feed which was aimed at the eastern landing field. The transport was gone and the Engarvax was also gone. For reasons he couldn’t put his finger on, the two didn’t quite add up.

“If the evacuation shuttle didn’t escape from Savixor, the Engarvax must have picked it up,” said Grisham, letting his mouth go to see what would come out of it. “But why would the corpse carrier take only one evacuation shuttle and then leave? The Engarvax was massive – its bays could easily accommodate both transports.”

“I can think of a couple of logical reasons,” said Deneuve. “The Engarvax’s bays could have already been nearly full, or the carrier could have been called elsewhere.” She gave a half-smile. “That doesn’t mean I believe either of those are true. After all, why would the Ax’Kol leave an entire planet guarded by a single Indredalus? It was a tough opponent, but we’d scored plenty of hits on it. I reckon a single Eternus could have brought it down.”

“And the Ax’Kol have no way of knowing that the Kijol don’t have an inbound fleet,” mused Grisham. “We’re missing something, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

“We could send Sergeant Maxwell to knock on the door of that evacuation shuttle and ask them to open up a receptor for us to link to,” said Bishop.

“It might come to that,” said Grisham. The underside feeds showed the western landing strip was crowded with Ax’Kol. They’d have to be thinned out with Punisher fire before any mission to the surface.

“The Ax’Kol have a knack for gaining access to locked places,” said Deneuve. “From the looks of it, they’re readying themselves for an attempt to break into that shuttle.”

“Why don’t the Kijol just lift off and go?” asked Kinsey. “I know the Voltran is an Ax’Kol vessel, but the shuttle’s crew must surely have watched us blow the Indredalus into pieces. I’d have thought that would be enough to make them believe it’s a good time to head for the skies.”

“Or to open a comms receptor we could link to,” said Lopez.

The behaviour of the evacuation shuttle’s crew made no sense to Grisham and with each passing moment, his feeling of unease grew. The Engarvax was gone and the Voltran had shot down an Ax’Kol warship. Grisham couldn’t think of a reason why the Kijol transport made no effort to communicate.

Unless they’re already dead.

“Scan the western landing strip again,” said Grisham. “We’re searching for signs of a breach into the Kijol shuttle.”

“I’ve already looked, but I’ll look again, sir,” said Lopez. “We can even see the red lights on their access door panels from this range. That shuttle is sealed against intrusion, unless they’ve built a hatch in the underside.”

Grisham studied the evacuation transport. At twelve hundred metres in length, seven hundred across the beam, and with enormously high flanks, it was the largest dedicated transport he’d ever seen. There again, it needed to be, assuming Captain Avintziz hadn’t been exaggerating about the number of Kijol civilians onboard.

“As you said, Lieutenant, it’s closed up tight,” said Grisham. There was nothing visible about the transport that made him think it had suffered a breach.

On a whim, he accessed one of the sensor feeds which was targeted on the eastern landing field. Something struck him as odd.

“There are still thousands of Ax’Kol ground forces on the eastern landing strip,” he said.

“The Ax’Kol are everywhere, Captain,” said Bishop. He made a hmmm sound as if something he’d seen was making him rethink. “The ones on the eastern landing strip – it’s like they’re—”

“Watching,” Grisham finished. The longer he stared, the more the scene looked out of place. “Even though there’s nothing to watch.”

“Let me check this out,” said Bishop.

Grisham looked too. The landing field was a mess of abandoned vehicles and shuttles. He saw Kijol bodies here and there – those who’d been too slow to reach the evacuation transport and had been cut down by the Ax’Kol. It was a grim vision of panic and death, but Grisham forced himself to keep looking. What he was expecting to find, he didn’t know.

“I don’t think there’s anything out of the ordinary, Captain,” said Bishop after a minute. “Hold on, what’s this?”

“Tell me what you’ve found, Lieutenant,” said Grisham, feeling his patience with this entire situation wearing thin.

“A repeated pattern, sir,” said Bishop. “Check out the two zoomed feeds I’m looking at.”

“Well I’ll be,” said Grisham. His disquiet from a few moments ago was turning rapidly into something more intense.

What Bishop had spotted was a group of six gravity vehicles of differing types and colours, left empty at the southern end of the landing field. A single Kijol lay dead in a pool of its blood between two of the cars and its belongings were scattered on the floor.

That exact same pattern of vehicles, dead Kijol, and belongings was repeated closer to the centre of the landing field.

“I’ve found two more repetitions, Captain,” said Bishop. “It’s possible – likely – that other repetitions exist of different vehicle clusters.”

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Kinsey.

“It might well mean we’re in the shit,” said Grisham.

He fought and defeated a powerful urge to pilot the Voltran at maximum velocity away from here. Sudden action like that would alert the Engarvax to the fact that its disguise was no longer effective.

“The Engarvax is on the landing field?” asked Adler.

“I reckon,” said Grisham. His mind churned through the known facts. Ax’Kol vessels were made from the corpses they gathered and biological material could be made to behave differently to alloys. Were it not for the repeated patterns, he’d have thought the Engarvax was imbued with a property that allowed it to meld in with its background.

Grisham came up with a different idea – one that would explain why the Kijol crew on the second evacuation transport were behaving in a way that made no apparent sense. He sent his mind along the interface link, looking for something, but without being exactly sure how to find it.

“Can I help, Captain?” asked Deneuve.

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “I have a feeling the Engarvax is interfering with the Voltran’s mind.”

“The enemy vessel is telling our warship not to see it?” asked Adler. “I’ve seen too much recently to even think of calling that crazy.”

“Our sensors are physical hardware,” said Lopez. “They can be fooled, but not in the way you describe, Captain.”

Grisham hunted for a way to bypass the Voltran’s mind and access the sensor hardware directly. Unfortunately, everything was routed through the warship’s consciousness and he couldn’t find a way to view the raw feeds.

“Why don’t we just launch missiles at the landing strip, Captain?” asked Bishop.

“Soon,” said Grisham. “However, we’re not likely to destroy a vessel the size of that Engarvax in one salvo and when it takes off, it’ll still be invisible to us. I’d rather try and fix the problem before the shooting starts.”

“The Kijol transport must be inside the Engarvax,” said Deneuve. “I doubt the civilians onboard have long left.”

Grisham nodded, while he continued hunting for any sign of external influence on the Voltran. Everything was coming to a head - one Kijol shuttle was trapped within the Engarvax, while the crew on the other were certainly aware that their vessel would be the next target. The way Grisham saw it, the Kijol transport on the western landing strip would have to make a break for it, and soon.

The worst part of it was, that the Kijol sensors could surely detect the Engarvax. The crew on the transport didn’t know the Voltran couldn’t see the Engarvax and because the two Ax’Kol vessels were not attacking each other, the Kijol believed they were on the same side – despite the combat between the Voltran and the Indredalus. Grisham’s head spun at how everything was linked in a way that seemed purposefully designed to ensure the deaths of the civilians here at Ilos.

He came up with a plan, though it carried risks. “The only thing keeping the evacuation transport on the landing strip is the Voltran,” he said. “If we launch missiles at the Engarvax while it’s on the ground and run for the horizon, we might be able to draw the Ax’Kol carrier after us.”

“The Voltran’s mind can’t see the Engarvax, sir,” said Deneuve. “But I can pilot this warship while you look for a way to fix the problem.”

“Negative, Commander,” said Grisham. “The weapons are going to need your full attention. I’ll pilot the Voltran.”

He focused for another brief moment on the underside feeds. Whatever the Engarvax was doing, it was effective and if it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Bishop’s keen eye, maybe the enemy carrier would have escaped notice until it was done with the Kijol transport.

Grisham still had many questions to which he would have dearly liked answers. Primarily, he wanted to know why the Engarvax had not intervened when the Voltran and Indredalus were engaged in combat. It was Grisham’s hope that the carrier had few external armaments and that it relied on the power of its mind – or minds – for offense and defence. The fact those minds hadn’t attacked the Voltran suggested they were occupied with something else, and the only possibility he could think of was sucking the life from the Kijol civilians on the transport.

Just thinking about it made Grisham’s blood boil.

“Commander Deneuve, I want staggered missile strikes on the eastern landing strip. Three waves, each three seconds apart. As many warheads as we can bring on target.”

“Yes, sir. What about the Kijol transport? If our missiles penetrate the Engarvax’s hull, we risk killing those civilians.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” said Grisham. He furrowed his brow as he gave the matter some additional thought. “Lay out a detonation pattern so the explosions aren’t focused on one area of the carrier’s hull.”

“This is a fine line we’re walking, sir,” said Deneuve. “If we inflict too much damage, the enemy vessel might attempt escape, rather than coming after us.”

“We have little choice, Commander. If we do nothing, those Kijol will die and their souls and their bodies will be used to make another warship for the Ax’Kol fleet.”

“Should I include a psionic attack along with the missiles?” asked Deneuve.

“Yes,” said Grisham. “But I don’t reckon the Voltran will be able to target its psionics at something it can’t detect.”

“We’ll soon find out.”

“That we will,” said Grisham.

“Assuming everything goes to plan and the Engarvax pursues us across Savixor, how exactly are we planning to free the Kijol transport?” asked Adler.

“I don’t know yet,” said Grisham. “We’re pitting the Voltran’s rage against the might of the Engarvax. We’ll have to figure out a way to defeat the enemy vessel and crack open its hull without killing everyone on the evacuation transport.”

“Then let’s see what we can do,” said Adler.

Grisham readied himself. From the first moment he’d freed the Voltran’s mind from the chains of the Ax’Kol, he’d believed the warship’s unfettered power would be enough to tip the scales. Indeed, against the Indredalus it had been everything he’d hoped for and more. And yet, the Engarvax was showing him that brute force wasn’t everything - Grisham and his crew were still fighting on Ax’Kol turf.

Those bastards are going to learn what it’s like to face the souls of the people they murdered. The dead want justice.

“Commander Deneuve,” said Grisham. “Target our Death missiles and fire.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“Underside and portside Death missile clusters one to four: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic: suppress will not target.”

“Acknowledged,” said Grisham, rolling the Voltran around its lateral axis to bring the topside clusters into play.

“Portside clusters five and six, topside clusters one to four: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

Grisham continued rolling the warship until the starboard flank was facing the ground below.

“Topside clusters five and six, starboard clusters one to four: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

As she announced the launch of the third salvo, the first wave of missiles reached their targets. They were programmed to detonate in in a grid pattern on the northern end of the eastern landing strip and Grisham watched intently. For a split second, the sensor feed flickered, but the view of the surface remained otherwise unaltered, with no sign of explosions.

“Ninety-six detonations are confirmed,” said Deneuve.

Grisham knew at once that the Engarvax was still influencing the Voltran’s mind, so that whatever happened on the eastern landing strip was concealed. The detonation confirmations were enough. He aimed the Voltran north and requested maximum from the propulsion. With a howl and surge, the warship threw itself at the perfect, deep blue of the horizon.

“We have zero confirmed detonations from our second wave of missiles, Captain. They must have been caught in a psionic: slow.”

“I am unable to obtain a visual on those missiles,” said Lopez. “They’ve vanished from the feed. As has the third wave.”

“Zero confirmed detonation from the third wave, sir,” said Deneuve. “They were neutralised.”

Grisham made a quick check of the rear underside feeds. The landing strip was still in view and it looked unchanged. For a split-second, Grisham caught a sense of colossal movement and the backdrop of the city shimmered. Whatever method the Engarvax was using to hide itself, the method wasn’t entirely perfect.

Without warning, the Voltran’s propulsion shuddered and the warship’s punishing acceleration faltered. Through his interface, Grisham felt a thumping of malicious energy tear into the control mind. The Voltran’s anger knew no bounds and, though it recoiled with the power of the Engarvax’s psionic attack, it strengthened at once. The engines howled again and the warship’s velocity climbed.

“Keep the enemy busy, Commander,” said Grisham.

“Yes, Captain. I’m setting the Punisher guns to sweep in a pattern behind us,” said Deneuve. “If any of the bullets disappear, I’ll know that’s where to find the enemy spaceship. Punishers activated.”

The Voltran sped across the planet and, after a short time, Grisham reined in the acceleration. He wanted to keep the Engarvax interested and he wasn’t sure if the corpse carrier would be able to keep up with the Voltran at maximum velocity.

Repeater projectiles raked through the sky in the Voltran’s wake, leaving white heat lines across the dark blue. Grisham didn’t let his gaze linger. Having brought the Voltran onto his chosen heading, he gave his focus to finding out how to block the Engarvax’s influence over his warship’s mind.

It was a task with no obvious means of approach and a problem with no obvious solution. The Voltran’s mind was unaware that it was being influenced and the consciousness remained an almost entirely alien entity. Grisham’s communication with it wasn’t anything like the same as a face-to-face chat at the mess hall replicator.

The Engarvax launched a second psionic: suppress attack on the Voltran. Since Grisham was so focused on his link to the warship, he was able to detect the three minds which combined to produce this single attack.

Three versus one. No wonder the Engarvax shut the Voltran down so easily first time around.

For the second time, the Voltran resisted the psionic: suppress attack. Grisham could feel that the warship’s mind was hurt by the attack, but it knew the source was Ax’Kol. The souls of the Voltran would not let themselves be easily defeated.

“Rear Death clusters one and two: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic: suppress is unable to target.”

So deeply had Grisham committed his own mind to the interface that Deneuve’s voice was distant and remote. He kept on searching.

“Zero confirmed detonations on those missiles, Captain,” said Deneuve. “Rear Death clusters three and four: targeted and fired.”

A third psionic: suppress struck the Voltran. This time, rather than inflicting a single, brutal assault, the Engarvax’s minds staggered their attack by introducing a split-second delay between each one. As each psionic: suppress slammed into the Voltran, its consciousness receded a little further, as if its connection not only to the physical hardware, but to the interfaces linking it to the crew, was becoming weaker.

Not for a moment did the Voltran’s fury waver, but anger alone wasn’t proof against the overwhelming power of the Engarvax’s minds.

Each of the suppress attacks has come from three minds combined, thought Grisham. There must be a fourth, dedicated to keeping the Engarvax hidden.

Grisham’s own anger was returning. The Ax’Kol had introduced new rules to warship combat, and he had no instruction book to help him figure them out.

I already freed the Voltran. I don’t have to play by the rules.

From out of nowhere, inspiration came.

“Commander, I have to go into sleep-stasis,” said Grisham.

Deneuve didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, sir. I’ll pilot the Voltran.”

Using the interface link, Grisham commanded the Voltran to place him into the lightspeed sleep state. As he went under, he hoped that he wouldn’t drift through his dreams for hours before his consciousness become aware of what it needed to do.

A vivid image formed in Grisham’s mind, of a park he’d always played in when he was young. The pull of it was strong, but he ignored the urge to linger and experience through dreams the joy he’d once found in this place. As he drew away, Grisham felt a profound sorrow.

The dream vanished and he sent his consciousness hurtling towards the grey. He struck it with all the power of his mind, hoping his determination would be enough. Instead of meeting resistance, the grey welcomed him and he slipped easily through.

Grisham once more found himself at the centre of the Voltran’s mind. The intense feelings of pain and loss remained, but they were less than he remembered them, and, while the fury was as potent as he’d expected, he thought perhaps it had now developed a greater reason than it had before. The dead wanted revenge as much as ever, but now, rather than acting as a billion different threads, they were drawing together.

The Voltran is evolving. I wonder what it will become.

As they had done before, the souls in this place began to swirl around Grisham as they detected his life energy. This time, it happened quickly, and, in what he perceived to be only moments, he was at the centre of another vortex made from the consciousnesses of a billion and more once-living creatures.

They know me.

The realisation was humbling and Grisham felt the weight of incredible emotions. He held steady and searched. One of the Engarvax’s four minds was here within the Voltran’s consciousness, dark and seething with hatred. How it had managed to penetrate the walls of this place, Grisham didn’t know, but its miasma had clouded the perception of the other souls. By drawing those souls here to him, Grisham had separated them from the Engarvax’s mind, exposing its presence.

What happened next, Grisham couldn’t explain. The spirits within the Voltran became aware of the intrusion and they spun away from his life energy, expanding as they went. Light didn’t exist here, nor did darkness, but Grisham felt a flash of something he didn’t have words to describe.

Then, the Engarvax’s mind was gone and the souls began once more spiralling around Grisham’s life energy.

Although he felt the yearning of the spirits – his life energy gave them comfort - he couldn’t stay. Grisham withdrew from the Voltran’s consciousness and he forced himself awake.

“There’s the Engarvax, Commander!” he heard Lieutenant Lopez yell.

Grisham opened his eyes and the first thing they saw was his left hand on the interface post. He was no longer inside the Voltran’s mind, but he was still linked to it. The moment he accessed the sensor feeds, Grisham saw the Engarvax, high above the Voltran and eighty kilometres to starboard.

From this angle, he couldn’t gauge the extent of the damage his opponent had suffered from the initial missile strike at the eastern landing field – since those warheads had detonated on the enemy vessel’s topsides – but the Engarvax was trailing thick smoke which indicated it hadn’t escaped unscathed.

“I’m back, Commander,” Grisham said, taking control of the piloting and banking the warship towards the enemy vessel. “Target the Engarvax with our psionics and our missiles.”

“Yes, sir, with pleasure,” said Deneuve. “Portside and topside Death clusters one and two: targeted and fired. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither.”

“Push and don’t stop pushing, Commander,” said Grisham. “This is our chance and we’re going to take it.”

“Portside and topside clusters three and four: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither.”

“Our first wave of missiles was caught in a psionic: slow,” said Lopez. “Same with the second. The Engarvax is fitted with a crapload of Punisher turrets. Our missiles have been pulverised.”

“Our two psionic: suppress attacks failed to shut down the enemy vessel, Captain,” said Kinsey. “The Engarvax’s output readings didn’t change.”

“There’s no sign of withering on the enemy hull, Captain,” said Adler.

“Commander Deneuve, step it up,” said Grisham. His change of course had brought the Voltran closer to the Engarvax and he increased altitude to bring the two warships level. The enemy vessel remained on the same heading as before.

“Yes, sir, stepping it up,” said Deneuve.

Grisham juggled his attention between everything that was happening. Through the interface he felt a change since he’d helped the Voltran’s spirits oust the Engarvax’s intruding mind. The warship seemed somehow more aware. It wasn’t alive as a human would know the meaning of the word, and perhaps it would never become so. And yet, the Voltran didn’t want to lose. It didn’t want to fail.

“We’ve got plenty in reserve, Commander.”

A staggered psionic: suppress hit the Voltran and this time the Engarvax had all four of its minds available. As the psionic blows struck, the Voltran’s mind hardened itself against them and it refused to be shut down.

“We rode that one, sir,” said Kinsey.

“The Engarvax must have a greater variety than just suppression attacks, Captain,” said Adler.

“I’m sure it does, Lieutenant, and we probably don’t want to find out what alternatives our opponent has available.”

“If the psionic: suppress attacks keep failing, the Ax’Kol will try something else,” said Lopez.

“Portside and topside clusters five and six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Waiting on reload for both portsides and topsides. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither. Forward clusters one to three: targeted and fired. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither.”

Grisham and Deneuve had fought together long enough that they were perfectly in tune. With the portside and topside clusters mid-reload, Grisham rolled the Voltran hard, bringing the starboard and underside clusters onto target.

“There was a momentary power drop when our last psionic: suppress hit the Engarvax, Captain!” said Kinsey. “They recovered, but their defences might be weakening.”

“Our first and second waves of in-flight missiles were afflicted by the enemy vessel’s psionic: slow defence,” said Lopez. “The Engarvax’s Punishers are finishing the job.”

“Our wither attack failed, Captain,” said Bishop.

“Starboard and underside Death clusters one and two: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither. Starboard and underside clusters three and four: targeted and fired. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither.”

As the Voltran spilled missiles into the planet’s upper atmosphere, and as the warship’s unchained souls gave everything they had to claim revenge over the species which had murdered them, Grisham felt a rush of pride. The Ax’Kol might have created the Voltran, but he and his crew had made it into something different. Something better. Now, it was a vessel which transcended its origins.

On the feed, Grisham watched a section of the Engarvax’s hull near its stern crumple inwards as the carrier failed to completely resist the Voltran’s last wither attack. He smiled at the sight.

Then, the Engarvax vanished.

TWENTY-FIVE

Grisham hardly had a moment to consider how to counter his opponent’s disappearance. The Engarvax’s intruding mind was ejected by the Voltran in less than a second and the carrier reappeared.

“Screw you, Ax’Kol bastards,” said Bishop, raising his middle finger and aiming it starboard. “This is our warship.”

“The enemy vessel slowed all our in-flight missiles, Captain,” said Lopez.

“But they’re feeling the strain,” said Adler.

“Starboard and underside clusters five and six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Waiting for reload on both. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither.”

This extended use of the Voltran’s psionics was beginning to take its toll on the warship’s mind. It was weakening and there’d come a point when the fuel of anger would no longer be enough. The Engarvax had sought to overcome the Voltran with brute force and Grisham had responded in kind. It was possible the Ax’Kol vessel would run out of energy first, but, since the enemy crew had the experience behind them, Grisham suspected it would be his own judgement found wanting.

He rolled the Voltran again and Savixor went from the starboard to the portside feeds. Grisham was suddenly struck by the beauty of the planet, with its ordered greens of agriculture and the contrasting blue of its visible ocean. It was a place worth fighting for. Surely, if he could pull out a win from this engagement, the Kijol would understand exactly what the Human Federation had done for them.

“Portside and topside clusters one and two: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither. Portside and topside clusters three and four: targeted and fired.”

The Voltran’s engines cut out for a half-second and then resumed, and the sensors went blank for a split-second.

“We have suffered a psionic: suppress attack, Captain,” said Kinsey. “It was partly successful. Our onboard systems have recovered.”

“Our first wave of in-flight missiles was caught in a psionic: slow,” said Lopez. “The second wave has successfully detonated!”

The Engarvax’s Punisher guns had knocked out almost a third of the missiles launched from the Voltran’s portside and topside clusters three and four, but the thirty-three which evaded the repeaters exploded on the Ax’Kol vessel’s flank. In spite of the enemy vessel’s enormous size, the blasts resulted in significant damage and smoke poured away from the Engarvax’s burning flesh.

If that carrier has anything left to reveal, it’ll do it soon.

“Portside and topside clusters five and six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither. Waiting on portside and topside reload.”

“The first wave of in-flight missiles has been caught in a psionic: slow,” said Lopez.

“Captain, the hull readings from the Engarvax dropped almost to zero!” said Kinsey. “Our suppress nearly shut them down!”

“Twenty-five missiles in our second wave have successfully detonated!” said Bishop.

The information was coming as quickly as Grisham could process it. On the sensors, he watched a thousand metres of the Engarvax’s nose shrivel beneath the wither attack. He wasn’t concerned that the Kijol transportation would be affected, since the psionic: wither was designed specifically to combat biological warships, not those made from alloy.

However, Grisham didn’t want the Voltran’s missiles ripping through the Engarvax’s hull and potentially damaging the evacuation shuttle. Although the Kijol transports were big and they looked well-armoured, the consequences of a missile piercing that armour and detonating within the passenger compartments would be devastating.

“Target the enemy vessel’s nose and stern from now, Commander,” he ordered, rolling the Voltran again.

“Yes, sir. Starboard and underside clusters one and two, targeted and fired. Psionic attack: suppress. Psionic attack: wither. Shit, the wither failed. It looks like we’re out of juice.”

As Deneuve fired the Voltran’s suppress psionic, a psionic: suppress from the Engarvax struck in return. Once again, the propulsion and sensors went offline, and this time they didn’t come back. Grisham cursed and he tried to inject some of his anger into the Voltran, to bring it back to an operational state. The warship’s mind didn’t respond.

“I can’t waken the ship,” said Grisham.

Without the engines, it was deathly quiet on the bridge and he pictured the Voltran beginning its uncontrolled descent towards Savixor, far below.

“Maybe our last psionic: suppress shut those assholes down as well,” said Deneuve. She didn’t sound hopeful.

“Can you enter the Voltran’s mind through sleep-stasis like you did before, sir?” asked Adler.

“The Voltran needs to be aware in order to put me under, Lieutenant.”

“The warship’s mind is right there along the interface, Captain,” said Deneuve. “Maybe you don’t need to be asleep.”

“That’s a good thought, Commander,” said Grisham.

He focused on his link to the warship. The Voltran’s mind was everywhere, but it was still.

Without having much idea what he was doing, Grisham attempted to access the warship’s consciousness. First, he imagined himself in the place where he’d found the spirits of the dead, hoping this would somehow draw him there. The method failed.

Next, he gave efforts to calming his mind, to see if he could enter a trance that might allow him to connect with the Voltran. After a minute, he gave up on that as well.

Damnit.

The third attempt worked, though he didn’t know if he’d be able to replicate the method reliably in future. With a simple thought, backed by some anger and plenty of determination, Grisham pushed himself right into the warship’s mind. He felt the grey all around him and then he was through it and once more among the souls. Those souls were drifting aimlessly, as if they were at rest. Grisham cast his own senses about. The dead were not at peace and he felt the anger coursing through the Voltran’s consciousness. However, the psionic: suppress had left the spirits comatose and unable to act.

Grisham didn’t know how long the warship would remain offline. Perhaps, without intervention, it would remain in this state for an eternity.

To Grisham’s immense relief, and without him taking any specific action, his own life energy jolted the nearest souls from their enforced slumber. Those he wakened roiled away from him like thick fog, rousing others as they went. Soon, Grisham found himself once again surrounded by a vortex of the dead.

This time, he felt no desire to linger and he withdrew at once.

“Done,” Grisham said. The Voltran’s sensors were online and its engines droned in the background. “Where’s the Engarvax?”

He located the Ax’Kol carrier, almost a hundred kilometres away to starboard and falling towards Savixor. Smoke trailed thickly and the enemy vessel was noticeably out of shape from the psionic: wither attacks Commander Deneuve had subjected it to. Here and there, smaller pieces of the warship broke free and fell with the carrier.

“The enemy vessel’s hull readings are at zero, Captain!” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Let’s get after it and finish what we started,” said Grisham, banking the Voltran to starboard. The engines responded as eagerly as ever, but the warship’s mind had little – if anything – more to give. It would need some time to recover.

“What’s the plan?” asked Deneuve. “We could blow a hole the carrier’s flank and hope to free the Kijol shuttle.”

“I’m tempted to let the Engarvax crash into Savixor,” said Grisham. “If the evacuation shuttle’s life support systems are online, its passengers should survive the impact.”

“Too many unknown variables in that plan, Captain,” said Deneuve.

“I agree,” said Grisham. “Besides, the Engarvax probably won’t stay shut down for long.”

“And the Ax’Kol onboard might still be trying to gain access to the Kijol shuttle,” said Lopez.

In Grisham’s experience, action was usually better than inaction. “Let’s see if we can break into that carrier before it impacts with the planet,” he said.

With a thought, he guided the Voltran towards the plummeting Engarvax. The enemy vessel’s three bay doors were visible on its starboard flank. They’d suffered minor damage, but they didn’t look close to being breached.

Grisham positioned the Voltran ten kilometres off the carrier’s starboard. “We’re going to match velocity,” he said, sending the instruction to the warship’s mind.

The two vessels descended side-by-side - one controlled and one in freefall. Viewed from the Voltran’s current position, it was clear the Engarvax wasn’t near breaking apart and that meant if even one of its minds recovered from the psionic: suppress, the enemy vessel would once more be a challenge. Grisham had no intention of letting the Ax’Kol off the hook.

“It would be damned useful if we knew which of those three bays the shuttle was in,” said Deneuve.

“We’ll have to guess, Commander. Target the Engarvax and blow some holes in it. Careful holes.”

“Careful holes it is,” said Deneuve.

She fired missiles from two of the Voltran’s portside clusters and they detonated around the edges of the Engarvax’s rearmost flank door. When the plasma light faded, Grisham assessed the result.

“No breach,” he said.

The biological material of the Ax’Kol spaceships was not affected by missile detonations in the same way as an alloy-clad vessel. In this instance, the explosions had created a series of ugly indentations in the Engarvax’s flank. The affected areas glowed only dimly and the smoke was whipped away by the vessel’s descent.

“Let’s try again,” said Deneuve.

Another twenty-four missiles raced from the Voltran’s portside clusters and Grisham was aware that the warship’s ammunition supplies were steadily falling. The explosions lit up the Engarvax’s rear midsection and the plasma light faded quickly.

“Still no breach,” he said.

“The carrier’s outer walls might be five hundred metres thick for all we know, Captain,” said Deneuve.

“They might,” Grisham admitted.

He’d already accepted that a psionic: wither attack was likely the only way to break open the carrier with any degree of efficiency. It was also the best way to inflict enough harm on the enemy vessel that it would be crippled even if its minds came back online. Grisham didn’t want to spend all the Voltran’s missiles on the carrier if he could avoid it.

Using the interface, he gauged the strength of the Voltran’s mind. “Screw it,” Grisham said. “Hit the carrier with a psionic: wither.”

“Yes, sir,” said Deneuve. “Psionic attack: wither, targeted at enemy vessel and fired.”

The Voltran’s mind generated the psionic energy and the rear flank door on the carrier bowed inwards. Gaps appeared around the edges and the door shrank rapidly. When the effects of the wither were finished, the cargo door looked as if it were ready to fall inwards, though maddeningly, Grisham couldn’t see what was in the bay beyond.

“Commander Deneuve, see if you can knock out that flank door,” said Grisham.

“I reckon missiles will open up the rear bay, Captain, but we have two other doors to come. Does the Voltran have enough energy?”

“I don’t know,” said Grisham tightly. “It might need some recovery time.”

“The Engarvax will impact with Savixor in twenty-five minutes, Captain,” said Lopez.

Grisham nodded at the reminder. He was sure the carrier’s minds would recover long before the vessel struck the planet and he needed to resolve this situation quickly.

“Portside missile cluster five: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

She aimed the missiles well, concentrating them around the door’s visibly weakest area at the bottom left. The explosions tore the door clear and it settled awkwardly into the opening.

“Damnit!” snarled Grisham.

Just as it seemed like the door would remain stuck, the passage of air dragged it free and the slab of damaged hull slipped into the planet’s atmosphere.

“Oh shit,” said Deneuve.

The cavernous interior bay was several hundred metres high and deeper still. Grisham saw dozens of Ax’Kol transports parked against the side walls and up near the ceiling.

It wasn’t the transports which caught his eye. On the bay floor was a mound of corpses thousands of times bigger than any Grisham had seen before. He guessed the revealed bay was holding billions of dead and they all looked like Kijol.

Grisham could only stare as the bodies on the edge of the pile closest to the opening were sucked out. The bodies iced up in the freezing air and they fell like tragic rain towards Savixor.

“From a jungle on Xaros to this,” he said, shaking his head and fighting to contain his many emotions.

As the corpses continued to escape the Engarvax’s bay, Grisham held himself firm. The evacuation transport wasn’t here and that meant it was in one of the other bays. He could only hope this attempt to free the trapped vessel hadn’t come too late.

TWENTY-SIX

“One bay open, two to go,” said Deneuve. “Let’s see if our second guess is better than the first.”

Grisham pictured the eastern landing strip. He knew where the evacuation shuttle had been parked, but he didn’t know the orientation of the Engarvax when it had taken the Kijol vessel into its bays. Like Deneuve had said, they were down to guesswork.

“Let’s hit the middle door,” said Grisham. “Give it two clusters around the left-hand edge and then we’ll see if the Voltran is capable of any more psionics.”

The portside clusters had reloaded and Deneuve launched from the first two. This time, she targeted the missiles in a tighter area, having already seen the thickness of the Engarvax’s hull.

“I don’t know if that’s going to be enough,” said Grisham when he saw the result. His worries about the Voltran’s diminishing stocks of ammunition had wormed their way into his head and now he couldn’t stop thinking about the warship’s future if its magazines ran dry.

I’d rather die with an empty weapon than a full one.

“Fire clusters three and four, Commander,” Grisham ordered.

The explosions from the next twenty-four missiles created a ragged crater across the left-hand side of the cargo bay door, which extended into the hull nearby.

“Now let’s try the psionics,” said Grisham.

“Psionic attack: wither,” said Deneuve at once.

The Voltran’s mind sent out the attack. Grisham was watching closely and he sensed that the warship was spent. He shifted his attention to the centre cargo door, which looked as if it had been punched repeatedly by a massive fist. Gaps had formed around every edge, but again, what lay beyond was hidden from the Voltran’s sensors.

“Launch from clusters five and six, Commander.”

Deneuve enacted the order. The missiles launched and detonated, and the top third of the door exploded into pieces. Tiny specks – corpses – were sucked out. At first there were only a few, and then the few became thousands.

From the Voltran’s current position, Grisham couldn’t be certain whether or not the Kijol transport was inside the bay. He guided the warship nearer and higher until he could see through the opening.

“Corpses and the shuttles the Ax’Kol used to bring them onto the carrier,” said Grisham in disgust.

“One bay left,” said Deneuve. “Third – and final - time lucky.”

Rather than waiting for the portside clusters to reload, Grisham turned the Voltran so that its starboard was facing the carrier.

“Knock, knock,” said Deneuve as she launched missiles from clusters one and two.

The warheads detonated and the door suffered moderate damage, though not enough to break it open.

“Give it two more clusters, Commander,” said Grisham.

“Starboards four and five: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

Grisham already knew the carrier’s exterior was tough and the missiles weren’t near to penetrating. The purpose was only to weaken the material enough that a psionic: wither would shrink the door out of its holding frame.

“Should I try the psionics, Captain?” asked Deneuve.

“Do it,” said Grisham.

“Psionic attack: wither,” said Deneuve. She swore. “The attack was not generated.”

“Damnit!” said Grisham.

“Captain, I detected an energy spike from the Engarvax’s hull,” said Adler.

“Is the enemy vessel about to come back online, Lieutenant?” asked Grisham. The timing couldn’t have been much worse.

“I’d say it’s definitely going to happen, sir,” Adler confirmed. “Don’t ask me to put a number on when, but I doubt we have long.”

“Commander Deneuve, break that door open with missiles,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir. Starboards five and six, undersides one and two: targeted and fired.”

The missiles exploded in the area damaged by the previous blasts. A huge area of the forward cargo door and the Engarvax’s hull burned with plasma. Meanwhile, the Kijol corpses were still being sucked out of the rear and midsection bays. The combination of sights was the strangest and most unpleasant Grisham could ever remember from all his travels through space.

“Fire again,” he said.

“Undersides three to six: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

Even as she was speaking, Grisham rotated the Voltran so that the portside tubes would be available for the next salvo. He cursed when he saw that the forward cargo door was still holding, though it was hugely indented from the explosions.

“There’s a chance one of our next missiles will go straight through and into the holding bay, Captain,” said Deneuve.

Grisham returned to his earlier thoughts that the evacuation shuttles had been built to withstand a lot of punishment, and yet he didn’t want to be the one testing out the Kijol armour.

“I’ve detected a second energy reading from the carrier, sir,” said Adler. “This one was magnitudes greater than the last.”

Time was running out. The carrier’s final bay was still sealed, and the Voltran’s mind was so weakened by the recent combat and the two wither attacks on the bay doors that Grisham was sure it would quickly succumb to any assault from the recovering Engarvax. While he’d been able to bring the Voltran out of suppression before, he didn’t want to rely on the same method working again.

“Launch from the portside clusters, Commander,” said Grisham. He couldn’t see any other way.

“Portside clusters one and two: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

She played it cautiously and aimed the missiles around the edges of the crater in the Engarvax’s flank. The two clusters weren’t enough and the door remained in place.

“Again,” said Grisham angrily.

“Portside clusters three and four: targeted and fired,” said Deneuve.

Another twenty-four of the Voltran’s dwindling supply of missiles struck the carrier. When the intensity of the plasma flames had diminished, Grisham saw that the bay door had been partially breached. Its left-hand edge had been torn free and, in the upper-left corner, a hole went all the way through.

“We don’t have a visual angle to see the lower three-quarters of the bay, Captain,” said Lopez. “If the evacuation shuttle is in there, we won’t have sight of it from our current position.”

“Where else would the transport be than in that bay?” asked Grisham. “Commander Deneuve, fire the last two portside clusters.”

Before Deneuve could enact the order, the Engarvax’s forward bay door suddenly bulged outwards.

“Hold!” said Grisham.

The door was struck again from the inside and, though it held, the gap around the edges widened appreciably.

“The Kijol shuttle is breaking out,” said Lopez.

A third collision almost ripped the door from its holding frame. Through the widening gap, Grisham saw the grey alloy of the Kijol evacuation vessel. The transport didn’t have much room to accelerate and it was relying on its mass to break open the weakened door.

“Come on!” said Deneuve.

The fourth impact knocked the Engarvax’s forward cargo bay door clean out of its hull, and the bay was revealed. Inside was the Kijol shuttle. The size of the vessel didn’t leave much room for anything else, though Grisham spotted a row of metal blocks fitted to both the bay ceiling and its floor. He guessed those blocks generated a gravity field designed to hold the cargo in place. That gravity field was no longer in operation and the evacuation shuttle accelerated sideways out of the newly formed opening.

“Lieutenant Lopez, scan for comms receptors on that transport,” said Grisham. “Commander Deneuve, fire everything we have at the carrier. Break it into pieces.”

At that moment, the Voltran was struck by a psionic: suppress. Grisham detected that only two of the Engarvax’s minds were involved, but the force of it was too great for the Voltran to withstand. Once again, the warship’s propulsion cut out and the feeds went blank.

“Shit, not now!” said Grisham.

“Bring us back online, Captain,” Bishop urged.

Grisham tried. He attempted to copy what he’d done last time in the hope that his consciousness would travel into the place of the dead. It didn’t work. He tried again.

“Damnit, I don’t think the Voltran can be roused.”

“You have to give it another go, sir,” said Deneuve. “Otherwise—” She tailed off. None of them knew exactly what would happen from here.

Taking deep breaths to calm himself, Grisham tried again. He entered the greyness - which he recognized as the protective walls around the Voltran’s mind - and pushed ever deeper into it. The greyness didn’t end and nor did it resist his progress. It was impossible to measure the passing of time here, but Grisham searched for the centre, where he knew a billion and more souls would be waiting for him.

He couldn’t find them, no matter how hard he searched.

Grisham withdrew from the greyness and opened his eyes. “I can’t bring the Voltran back,” he said. “The souls are gone. I think the warship is dead.” He turned to face Deneuve. “How long was I away?”

“Less than two minutes, sir.”

“If we wait here, might the Voltran awaken like it did last time the Engarvax shut it down?” asked Adler. “Maybe it isn’t dead.”

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. He hesitated. “My gut is telling me it’s time to get out of here.”

“What about the Engarvax?” asked Kinsey.

“The evacuation shuttle escaped the carrier’s bay,” said Grisham. “I’m hoping the Ax’Kol will be in pursuit. This might be our best chance to escape.” He felt a sudden bitterness. “We came so damn close to winning.”

“If only one of those Kijol shuttles makes it away from Savixor, that’s a lot of people we saved,” said Deneuve.

“I know, Commander, but I didn’t want to lose the Voltran in the process of helping the Kijol. The Human Federation has its own problems and we needed this vessel.”

“Are we abandoning ship, sir?” asked Lopez. “If so, I’ll let Sergeant Maxwell know about it.”

“Give him the order,” said Grisham. He pulled his hand away from the interface post. “We’re leaving.”

He felt sick to the stomach. Losing the Voltran was even worse than having the Marauder one-shot by a Kijol missile at Ovintus. As he approached the bridge exit, Grisham slowed and glanced back at what he was leaving. He wavered.

I could stay. If I keep trying, maybe I’ll be able to bring the Voltran back online before it craters on Savixor.

“Captain, you made the call,” said Deneuve. She’d slowed too and was facing him. “We all stay or we all go.”

Grisham met her gaze. “We all go,” he said.

His gritted his teeth. The loss of the Voltran would take him off centre stage in the burgeoning conflict within the Human Federation. At one time, not so long ago, Grisham might have thought that a good thing. Not anymore. The Voltran was the only thing protecting him and his crew from the machinations of the main players. If they ever escaped the perils of Savixor, life would be just as dangerous back in the Human Federation.

Grisham followed his crew as they sprinted through the interior of the Voltran. Soon, they arrived at the bay in which the shuttle was docked. The flank door of the transport was open and a couple of soldiers waited outside.

“We’re ready to go, sir,” said Corporal Fine.

Grisham headed for the cockpit, scarcely noticing the soldiers in the passenger bay. He felt the weight of their stares, but he had no reassurances to offer them. The transport was about to launch into hostile skies and the only hope any of them had was that the Engarvax had given chase to the Kijol evacuation shuttle.

And that was hardly a better outcome, given how hard Grisham and his crew had fought to save the people of Savixor.

Sergeant Maxwell and Corporal Barkley were already in the cockpit. They looked Grisham’s way, their expressions grim. Neither spoke.

“I’m afraid you’ll both need to step aside,” said Grisham. Most other times, he’d have been happy to have Maxwell and Barkley in the cockpit with him. Right now, Grisham wanted his crew.

The soldiers exited the cockpit, while Deneuve and Lopez took the interface posts they’d vacated. Meanwhile, the other members of Grisham’s crew lined up against the rear bulkhead, like the imminent victims of a firing squad.

Delaying no longer, Grisham initiated the launch. As the shuttle accelerated along the exit tunnel, he tried to ignore the heavy cloak of failure wrapped about his shoulders.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The shuttle was ejected into the atmosphere of Savixor at a seventy-kilometre altitude. Grisham held the vessel on the straight-ahead while he absorbed the details from the sensor feeds. The Ax’Kol shuttle’s hardware was surprisingly capable and the view of the planet below was exceptionally clear.

Already a couple of kilometres away to stern, the Voltran was falling towards the planet. Grisham was shocked at the state of the warship. Almost its entire hull was uneven from plasma detonations and in some areas, the indentations looked to be two hundred metres deep. The rear topsides had suffered from a psionic: wither, which made the affected area look like it been pounded with sledgehammers.

Grisham didn’t spend more than a moment looking at the Voltran. On the forward feeds, he discovered that the worst possible outcome was in the process of becoming reality. Sixty kilometres ahead and approximately fifty kilometres above Savixor, the Kijol evacuation shuttle was stationary. The Engarvax was within five thousand metres of the transport.

“Shit, no,” said Deneuve.

The Engarvax had lined up its forward bay entrance with the huge transport and it travelled steadily closer. All the while, corpses kept falling from the rear two bays and Grisham suspected the Ax’Kol had lost much of their cargo.

However, they planned to replace the bodies they’d lost. In a few seconds, the Kijol would be once more inside the carrier’s forward bay.

“The Engarvax must have taken control of the evacuation shuttle’s onboard systems,” said Lopez. “That would explain why the Kijol didn’t leave the Ilos landing field when the carrier first showed up.”

“There’s nothing we can do to influence the outcome, folks,” said Grisham. He was angry – furious – but he kept his voice calm. “I’ll bring us around behind the Voltran. If we keep the warship between ourselves and the Engarvax, maybe we’ll escape notice.”

Grisham knew it was no use. The Ax’Kol carrier would have already detected the escape shuttle and no matter how many tricks he pulled, if the enemy wanted to find him, they could do it. The only hope was to enter lightspeed, but the shuttle had a twelve-minute warmup time for the transition. That was way too long.

Even so, Grisham wasn’t ready to give his life up, nor the lives of his crew and the soldiers. He’d experienced failure before and would doubtless experience it again. It wasn’t a reason to lay down and die.

He brought the shuttle into a tight turn, intending to follow his plan of using the Voltran for cover. Hardly had he begun the manoeuvre, when a salvo of missiles crashed into the Ax’Kol carrier’s rear bay. A vast plasma explosion filled the space, incinerating every last corpse. Moments later, a second wave of missiles detonated in the midsection bay, carbonizing what remained of the Engarvax’s cargo.

“What the hell?” said Grisham, shifting his attention quickly from feed to feed.

“An Eternus!” said Lopez, spotting the inbound battleship first.

The Eternus was high above and travelling fast, skimming the planet’s upper atmosphere to reduce the effects of friction. Heat patches were visible across the battleship’s hull and it trailed both smoke and pieces of debris.

A torrent of gauss slugs erupted from the Eternus’s remaining operational Dasor and Axar turrets, and they punched into the carrier’s wither-damaged hull, creating fountains of decaying flesh.

Grisham recognized the vessel the moment he saw it. “The Scarinox,” he said.

A third wave of missiles sped from the battleship’s launch clusters and they left streaks of grey in the thin air. The warheads smashed into the carrier and, from the size of the blasts, Grisham reckoned at least four Olin missiles had been in that salvo.

The carrier climbed vertically, though with diminished acceleration. Grisham guessed what was coming and he accessed the sensor feed which was locked onto the Scarinox. A vast section of the battleship’s already-damaged underside armour darkened rapidly to black and then it exploded into particles.

“Psionic: degrade,” said Deneuve. “That was a big one. I wonder how many of the carrier’s minds are back online now.”

Captain Avintziz was undeterred. The Scarinox launched wave after wave of missiles. Now the element of surprise was gone, the Engarvax began trapping those missiles with its psionic: slow. The carrier had lost many of its Punisher cannons during its recent combat, but enough were operational to neutralise the slowed warheads.

Distracted by the arrival of the Scarinox, the Engarvax was no longer able to keep the evacuation shuttle locked down and the Kijol commanding officer piloted the vessel away at maximum acceleration.

Grisham watched the combat. Had the Scarinox been fresh out of the yard, it would have won this fight against the carrier. With both vessels likely on the brink of failure it was too close to call.

A second psionic: degrade produced another explosion of particles from the Scarinox’s underside. For the first time in his life, Grisham found himself willing a Kijol battleship to hold together for just a little longer.

With most of his underside armaments taken out, Captain Avintziz rolled the Eternus so that its topsides were facing the planet. Axar slugs pounded into the carrier and one of the missile waves made it through the Ax’Kol vessel’s psionic defences.

By this moment, the Scarinox was almost directly overhead and the carrier was still climbing vertically on a divergent course. The distance between the two vessels wasn’t much more than forty kilometres. Grisham detected the faintest adjustment in the Eternus’s heading and suddenly he knew what Avintziz was about to do.

At the last possible moment, the Kijol captain aimed the Scarinox’s nose directly at the carrier and increased the battleship’s acceleration to maximum. The Ax’Kol crew saw the danger and they attempted to avoid the incoming fifty-billion-ton missile by banking hard and entering a dive.

Captain Avintziz was ready for the move and he made a violent change in course. The tapered nose of the Scarinox crashed into the starboard flank of the Engarvax, hitting the carrier in its ruined midsection and rear bays. Grisham could only watch in wonder as the Ax’Kol vessel’s entire flank folded inwards with the impact. Two thousand metres of the Eternus disappeared inside and its rear-curving blades sliced through the flesh of the carrier.

“Holy crap,” said Deneuve.

The Engarvax responded by accelerating away from the battleship, in the hope of dislodging the Kijol vessel. Grisham realised that the flank blades of the Scarinox would act like barbs. There was no way the Ax’Kol could break free.

While the Engarvax accelerated east, the Scarinox’s stern rose, twisting the carrier so that its portside flank was facing the planet. Then, the battleship began pushing the Ax’Kol vessel towards the ground.

“We have a channel request from the Scarinox, sir,” said Lopez. “It’s Captain Avintziz.”

“Accept the request!” said Grisham.

“Captain Grisham,” said Avintziz. The link accurately interpreted the stress in the Kijol’s voice. “The first evacuation transport escaped into lightspeed and for this I thank you. The runaway reaction on the Scarinox’s Charos drive will soon result in a detonation.”

Shit.

Grisham didn’t want to imagine what kind of explosion a vessel with the Scarinox’s mass would generate. Certainly the shuttle he was piloting would be turned to ash, and the Voltran with it.

“I have sent a comm to my superiors, telling them of your efforts on Savixor, human. Perhaps by my actions here you might survive to fight again.”

He’s not intending to kill us.

As Avintziz talked, he continued his attempt to force the carrier towards the planet. The Engarvax was vastly greater in volume than the Eternus, but the mass disparity wasn’t nearly so pronounced, and, in their damaged states, the two vessels appeared to be left with almost equal thrust.

“You came at just the right time, Captain Avintziz,” said Grisham. “You have my gratitude.”

“And you have mine, human.”

The Scarinox’s protruding stern was struck by a psionic: degrade. The battleship’s armour darkened and exploded into a cloud of dust which expanded rapidly across dozens of kilometres.

Then, Captain Avintziz’s plan became clear. The interior of the Engarvax flashed into the brightest of whites, which turned rapidly to orange. Fire jetted from all three of the cargo bay openings and it spread with immense speed until both the carrier and the Scarinox were completely wrapped in plasma flames.

“Captain Avintziz just deployed a bunch of incendiaries inside the Engarvax,” said Deneuve, shaking her head in stunned disbelief.

Grisham had half-expected something like this, but he had no words to say. The incendiary fires continued growing, until the battleship and the carrier were completely hidden. Another series of incendiaries went off, like stars within a star, and the sphere of roiling flames swelled like an oxygen-fed furnace.

The two spaceships fell towards Savixor in the midst of a fireball. Grisham reckoned they’d land in the middle of an expansive area of farmland and the shockwave might level much of the nearest city and cause extensive damage to a couple of others. The aftereffects of the impact were certain to kill any of the Kijol who’d managed to stay hidden from the Ax’Kol so far. Perhaps it was a price worth paying to ensure the escape of the evacuation shuttle. It was a choice Grisham would have made in an instant, but he was glad he hadn’t been asked to do so.

“What now?” asked Lopez. “I’ve scanned for the Kijol shuttle, but it’s gone over the horizon. I’m sure its crew will send it into lightspeed as soon as they can.”

“For the moment, I’m going to hide this shuttle behind the Voltran,” said Grisham. He was certain both the Scarinox and the Engarvax were out of action, but he didn’t want his shuttle to be hit by a final, defiant psionic: wither from the carrier.

“There won’t be much left of the Engarvax once those incendiaries burn out,” said Deneuve.

“I doubt it’s the last carrier in the Ax’Kol fleet, Commander,” said Grisham. He forced a smile. “But it’s a great result to see that one destroyed.”

He guided the shuttle across the Voltran’s topsides and positioned it equal distance from the flanks. It was a simple matter to match velocity with the falling warship.

“The Voltran should impact with Savixor after the worst of the shockwaves from Scarinox and the Engarvax have passed,” said Lopez. “Not that it matters much.”

Grisham didn’t say anything. He was too busy thinking about the future and what he should do next. The Ax’Kol had left plenty of their ground forces on Savixor, but almost all of the Kijol were either dead or on the escaping evacuation shuttles. While there was little left on the planet, that didn’t mean there were no inbound Ax’Kol warships.

The wisest course of action was to head for lightspeed, but Grisham didn’t want to imagine how long the journey to Loxor would take on this shuttle. Somewhat more than a year, he guessed. A comm would take half that, but he doubted anyone would be in a hurry to send a rescue ship.

Without the Voltran, you’re back to where you’ve always been, Jed.

Grisham ground his teeth. He and his crew had fought for that damn warship and, had it survived the mission to Savixor, he knew it could have played an important role in events to come.

Casting his mind back to his recent thoughts about failure, Grisham realised he’d been too hard on himself and that he was only beating himself up because he’d lost the Voltran. The reality wasn’t one of failure, though it would have only been a partial success had it not been for the late intervention by Captain Avintziz.

Every side needed its heroes and, from what Grisham knew of the Kijol, they would likely resent any notion that humanity had saved a billion of their citizens. Describing the rescue mission at Savixor as a joint effort would make it an easier pill to swallow.

I’m already thinking like peace is inevitable. From what I’ve seen of the Ax’Kol, I hope we can work something out with the Kijol.

“We could stay here at Savixor for a few days,” said Deneuve, looking sideways at Grisham. “We already made contact with a couple of the surviving Kijol. Maybe one of them has friends in the military and can pull a few strings.”

Grisham laughed. “Yeah, the Kijol might divert a fleet of battleships and heavy cruisers to a dead world, just to save a handful of their citizens and rescue a few humans flying around in an Ax’Kol shuttle.” His smile faded. “Captain Avintziz told us the Kijol weren’t planning to send any more of their fleet warships here, but I’m sure they won’t completely abandon Savixor. They’ll send a vessel to scan the planet, and its crew will have orders to extract anyone they find.”

“And a Kijol spaceship might turn up here a little quicker once that comm from the Scarinox reaches base,” said Adler from over by the rear bulkhead.

“We’ll send our own comm to the nearest Human Federation relay proxy,” said Grisham. “Once that’s done, we’ll wait here at Savixor like Commander Deneuve suggested. If the Kijol don’t come to scout the lay of the land—” He shrugged. “We’ll take it as it comes.”

None of the crew had a better suggestion and they fell quiet. With only three interface posts on the shuttle, it was left to Grisham, Deneuve, and Lopez to describe what they could see on the feeds. Given the transport’s position above the Voltran, the view of the falling battleship and carrier was non-existent.

Despite his curiosity, Grisham held the shuttle in place. When Lieutenant Lopez announced that, in her estimation, the two alien vessels would impact at any moment, Grisham gave in to temptation and guided the shuttle towards the Voltran’s portside flank and then farther until the sensors had a clear view of the planet’s surface – a surface which was closer than he’d imagined.

The two falling warships were still ablaze when they struck the ground, not far from the place Grisham had estimated. A massive crater formed and the whole of the planet’s surface for dozens of kilometres all around seemed to jump upwards. The shockwave rippled out, creating a visual distortion on the feed.

Grisham couldn’t take his attention away. He watched at the same time as he listened to Lieutenant Lopez describe the happenings to the other members of the crew.

After a few minutes, the shockwave struck the outskirts of the city nearest to the impact zone. The tall, proud structures weren’t designed to withstand such a force and they fell into rubble. From up here, the view was almost serene, like dominoes falling. Grisham hoped the Ax’Kol would suffer huge casualties.

“Another couple of minutes and the Voltran will hit the ground,” said Lopez. “It’ll land about eighty klicks from where the Scarinox and the Engarvax came down.”

Grisham nodded. The shockwave continued its path through the city. Soon there’d be little left worth saving, should the Kijol ever decide to return.

When the Voltran’s collision was imminent, Grisham guided the shuttle vertically away and held it stationary at a twenty-kilometre altitude. The warship crunched into the planet’s surface, across many huge fields. Not far south, the shores of the ocean lapped upon a pristine yellow beach.

A second crater formed and a new shockwave rolled out. Grisham watched in silence, and wished the Ax’Kol had never existed.

END

Four days passed and the Kijol didn’t show up. Or, if they did, they made no contact with Grisham’s shuttle. For all he knew, a dozen Kijol scout craft had already scanned the planet and left.

On the fifth day, the Voltran came back online. Grisham only knew about it because the shuttle’s comms systems automatically linked.

He and his crew returned to the warship. The Voltran’s mind had been weakened by its psionic battle with the Engarvax, and Grisham didn’t know if it would ever fully recover. Certainly the warship’s anger remained undimmed, but perhaps now it was tinged with caution – a knowledge that blind fury wasn’t always enough. Maybe it was for the best.

Grisham didn’t wish to remain at Savixor a moment longer than necessary. The Ax’Kol or the Kijol might return and, though he didn’t expect hostilities from the latter, the aliens were not yet allies. It seemed safest to just get the hell away.

The Voltran rose from its crater with little apparent strain from its propulsion, though Grisham didn’t push it to maximum thrust. Soon, the warship was above the planet’s atmosphere.

Before departing, Grisham ordered a deployment of the sensor drones and had them capture footage from three of the planet’s cities, as well as evidence of the wider conflict which had befallen the planet. Finally, he commanded the drones to gather extensive data from the wreckage of the Eternus and the Engarvax.

Once he was satisfied, Grisham piloted the Voltran deeper into the void. Not long after, the warship was far away and Savixor was no more than a green and blue sphere on the rear feeds.

Grisham didn’t know if the warship could heal itself while travelling at lightspeed and he didn’t want to arrive in Human Federation territory with his vessel in such a vulnerable state. Reluctantly, he allowed the Voltran to coast for a full day in order for it to begin the self-repair process.

At the end of the twenty-four hours, it was difficult to gauge exactly how far the repairs had progressed. Grisham suspected the Voltran would require weeks, rather than days.

On the plus side, the metal tech – missile clusters, Punisher guns, and sensor arrays – which faced out from the hull and which Grisham had thought destroyed in the recent engagements, would eventually become usable again. The launchers and arrays were buried deep in the hull and the damage to the outer layer of biological material had only rendered them temporarily inoperable. Grisham was hopeful that, in time, he’d have almost full use of the conventional armaments.

Unwilling to stay out here, so far from the Human Federation, Grisham gave the order for the Voltran to enter lightspeed. Three minutes later, the spaceship was on its way home. Savixor was now only a memory, but a powerful one nonetheless, and one which would remain etched in Grisham’s brain as a reminder of what the Ax’Kol would do to humanity if they ever located a Human Federation world.

Grisham’s motivation to fight was stronger than it had ever been and, despite spending a decade fighting the Kijol, he had little wish to continue the war against them. Recent events had forced a change of perspective.

On top of everything, Grisham knew that when the Voltran had come back online, he’d been handed a second chance.

He didn’t intend to waste it.

* * *

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