WAR VESSEL OF THE AX’KOL

GUNS OF THE FEDERATION BOOK 2

ANTHONY JAMES

CONTENTS

Bastion Station

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

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

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

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BASTION STATION

For Captain Jed Grisham, the weeks following his return from Xaros passed slowly. He’d been ordered to the Bastion space station and quartered in one of the accommodation sections farthest from the command-and-control levels. Whether this was deliberate or not, Grisham didn’t know.

Not long after his arrival here, the warship Marauder – a new gen Tibor class which had exceeded expectations during the mission to Xaros and which had suffered heavy damage during an engagement with a Kijol destroyer – had been taken elsewhere for repairs, since the bays within Bastion were already fully utilized on other tasks.

So, Grisham had little to keep him occupied, other than listening out for rumours and watching the news channels. Those channels talked of nothing but war. This was unsurprising, since the Human Federation had recently shifted its economy onto a total war footing. Citizens throughout the Federation were understandably concerned at this sudden and seemingly unexpected escalation in the conflict with the Kijol.

Being left to his own devices had left Grisham suspicious. Total war had resulted in a widespread cancelling of leave and increased patrols, not a chance for personnel to put up their feet.

Nor was Grisham’s extended downtime a result of a warship shortage – he was aware of several recently constructed Tibor-class spaceships, both old and new gen, which had been brought into service and assigned to officers with little experience. Usually, Grisham’s missions came one after another, like rainstorms in a Loxor summer.

As each day passed without him hearing from Admiral Russ Danner, Grisham became increasingly convinced that when the call finally came, it would be to inform him of a mission specially chosen to be as tough, unpleasant and shitty as possible, like the military was holding off until a real juicy one became available.

All the while, the rumours became increasingly bleak. The Kijol were winning the war and even the tight control exerted by the military and the Senate over the information given out to the wider public wasn’t enough to stop the rising tide of pessimistic reports on the television.

Then, six weeks after Grisham’s return from Xaros, the call came. When his pocket communicator bleeped, he opened it, read the short text message, closed the device, pushed it back into his pocket and rolled off his bed.

Admiral Danner’s Office. Immediately.

Grisham headed for the door, grabbing his spacesuit helmet on the way. His compact room contained few personal possessions – it didn’t pay to become attached to anything – and he doubted he’d be returning. Exiting into the blue-lit corridor outside, he headed for the airlifts.

Soon, he was in one of the command-and-control areas of Bastion. The corridors were wide and crowded, and, when Grisham passed open doors, he saw worried-looking officers gesticulating and giving orders like they were going out of fashion. Every single person was in a hurry and it was sure sign that people in high places were shouting loudly for things to be done.

Admiral Danner’s office was accessed from a corridor that was grey like all the other corridors. A pair of soldiers flanked the door, and this was the first time Grisham could recall the Admiral having any sort of armed protection while on the space station.

“Go right in,” said the soldier on the left. “Admiral Danner is expecting you.”

While the security monitor above the door scanned Grisham to confirm his identity, he looked surreptitiously at the two soldiers. The man who’d spoken had a mild face – the kind of face that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Grisham had seen the type before, and that type usually didn’t stand guard duty. To the right of the door, the other soldier had an air of confidence that only came from extensive experience. Again, not a man for standard guard duties.

The security monitor finished its scans and the door slid aside. Entering a short corridor, Grisham waited for a second door to open. After a moment, it did do, allowing him to enter the office beyond.

“Jed, take a seat,” said Admiral Danner, rising from behind his solid wood desk.

“Admiral,” said Grisham in return.

He dropped into the padded seat opposite Danner, looking around the office at the same time. The Admiral had once been a frontline officer and had evidently retained a liking for the utilitarian. Nothing in this room could be classed as decoration – the man didn’t even have a photograph on his desk. Even Danner himself resembled a cookie-cutter grizzled military officer, with his short, grey hair and piercing eyes.

“You’re asking yourself why it’s taken so long,” said Danner.

The desk was imposing and it seemed to Grisham like an old-world barrier designed to ensure visitors knew their place. Or maybe Danner had seen it in an antique store and taken a shine to it. Either way, the man had shitty taste in furniture.

“I have some ideas, sir,” said Grisham. “You have a mission for me?”

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” said Danner. “We have plenty to discuss.”

“Maybe we could start by talking about how the investigation into the Church of Everlasting Serenity is coming along,” said Grisham. “Have we discovered how Ivey Metz came to be in possession of military comms hardware, as well as all the other crap she managed to lay her hands on?”

“We are not here to talk about the investigation,” said Danner flatly.

“Why not?” said Grisham. “The people at Xaros managed to communicate with a damned alien species that the HF has never encountered before.”

“So you mentioned in your report.”

Grisham understood at once what had happened, but he had to hear Danner confirm it. “There’s been a whitewash,” he said.

Danner said nothing.

“Someone in the Senate got their hands on the report and decided that it contained information that might be too damaging to reputations.”

Still Danner didn’t speak.

“Damnit, sir. I thought you were in the military, not the damn Senate.”

Grisham knew he was pushing, but right now he didn’t care. His anger, which had been simmering since his return from Xaros, now threatened to boil over. People under his command had died on that mission and he deserved something other than silence.

For a moment, it looked as if Danner would answer anger with anger. Then, he seemed to deflate and his shoulders sagged a couple of inches.

“The investigation has been closed,” Danner said.

“With what findings?” Grisham demanded.

“With no findings you or I will ever officially hear about.”

“The Senate is a cesspool full of shit!” said Grisham.

“They aren’t all rotten, Jed,” said Danner quietly. “I can understand how your experience might colour your view, but there are some good people there. People who want the best for the Human Federation.”

As quickly as it had come, Grisham’s fury left him. Anger wouldn’t do him any good, and he’d learned it was best to keep it under control. Not that it was always easy.

“Corporal Valerio and Private Fleming died,” said Grisham calmly. “And when the time came to find out why, the military let them down.”

A flicker passed across Danner’s face. “You might think it’s the hardest thing in the world piloting a warship against the Kijol,” he said. For a moment, it looked as if he might say something else on the matter. Instead, Danner shook his head. “The war is going badly for us, Jed.”

Danner wasn’t a friend, but he was as much of an ally as Grisham had in high command. It was time to move on from Xaros.

“How badly?”

“First, tell me what you know of the Kijol. You can skip the part about them being alien bastards. I’ve heard that one before.”

Grisham didn’t know where this was leading, but he played along with it anyway. “We’ve been fighting them for near-enough fifteen years,” he said. “We both want the same resources and neither side seems willing to share, hence we fight over whatever we find.”

“That’s not entirely correct,” said Danner. “The Kijol fired first. The HF has always been willing to negotiate territorial boundaries.”

“I thought that was one of those matter of perspective things, sir,” said Grisham, dryly parroting from one of the newspapers he’d recently read, in which every hand-wringing opinion piece seemed to be argued from the stance that humanity was automatically in the wrong about everything. Humans bad. Aliens good.

“No,” said Danner, shaking his head firmly. “The HF never wanted this war and we’ve made that clear to the Kijol time and again.”

“I know that, sir,” said Grisham.

He counted himself as having a good understanding of the war and the reasons behind it, having fought in it for so long. However, as the years went by, those reasons seemed to matter progressively less, and now the people on the frontline were fighting because it was all they knew.

Every so often, rumours would circulate about a coming peace, only for those rumours to be met with world-weary cynicism, and, sure enough, the fighting would continue for another year or two, before the grapevine would once more become laden with fruit.

Like most others in the military, Grisham had always been of the opinion that with the political will, or an extra few percent on the military’s budget, the war could be concluded quickly – maybe not with an outright HF victory, but certainly with a favourable settlement.

Recently, Grisham had learned that was not the case. The Kijol were suddenly on top, as if they hadn’t really been fighting too hard until recently, and, now they’d decided to push, the HF fleet was in danger of being wiped out.

“We’ve come to believe that the Kijol empire is far more extensive than we originally thought,” said Danner. “We’ve always considered this a war between equals, and that’s part of the reason why there’s been little appetite for a greater investment in victory.”

“We’ve allowed our citizens to think of this as an arm’s length conflict,” said Grisham. “A war in which a few people die, but with no real risk to the Human Federation.”

“The Senate has been trying to strike a balance, Jed. Between keeping citizens of the HF happy with rising standards of living and a growing economy, and holding the Kijol at bay with minimum disruption to everyday life.”

“And now the balance is lost, those years of half-measures are coming to bite us on the ass,” said Grisham. “So what new intel do we have on the Kijol?”

The look on Danner’s face told Grisham at once that he wasn’t going to like the coming conversation. He sat back and prepared for the worst.

ONE

“You’ve seen the new Kijol warships, Jed,” said Danner. “And you’ll remember a conversation we had where I told you it’s as if our enemy have leapt twenty years ahead of us.”

“I remember,” said Grisham.

Danner leaned forward, his gaze intense. “In the few weeks since you’ve been here at Bastion, we’ve seen more examples of Kijol technology. In that time, we have lost dozens of warships. Despite our shift to total war, our fleet is stretched. Badly stretched.”

“Will the increased construction make up for our losses?” asked Grisham.

“Perhaps in time. However, it’s looking increasingly like time is a luxury we do not have. Building a fleet requires extensive resources. Resources need to be extracted using specialised machinery and processed at dedicated facilities. When those facilities are running at maximum capacity, new ones need to be built. Transportation requires cargo vessels, and we are currently twenty short of what we need. Construction of additional vessels will occupy the shipyards which are meant to be building warships for our fleet.” While he talked, Danner became increasingly animated as his frustration spilled out. “And warship construction is a job for skilled teams. Every element is linked – it isn’t simply a matter of increasing the military’s budget and buying our way to victory. We’re acting two years too late.”

Sitting back again, Danner clenched his fists and thudded them onto the desktop. For the first time in a long time, he looked like a fighter again, rather than a military politician.

“Are you telling me the war is lost, whatever happens?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, Jed.” Danner stared across the desk, his expression inscrutable.

Grisham felt as though he were fumbling through the dark, and a precipice was nearby, waiting for him to tumble over if he took a wrong step. “You said the Kijol empire is more extensive than we first thought.”

Danner nodded. “A combination of intel and analysis leads us to believe the Kijol have recalled these more advanced warships from a different part of their empire.”

“We’ve been a thorn in their side too long?”

“That’s the obvious conclusion. For whatever reason, the Kijol want to end their war with humanity and they want to do it soon.”

“Couldn’t they just, you know, negotiate a peaceful settlement?” asked Grisham.

“We’ll get to that,” said Danner. “For the moment, think about what I told you.”

Grisham thought and came to a rapid conclusion. “If the Kijol have more advanced warships in their fleet, it means they’ve been stationed elsewhere – at a place where the enemy face a greater threat than the one posed by the Human Federation.”

“Not just stationed, Jed. We’ve run into some of their new gen vessels which have combat scarring that wasn’t caused by our own fleet.”

“The Kijol are fighting on more than one front?” Grisham didn’t know if he was surprised or not.

“They could be engaged in a dozen wars for all we know,” said Danner. “But military intelligence is convinced – as is every officer in high command – that the Kijol are involved in at least one other war, and, furthermore, that we’re no more than a distraction.”

“Damn. It’s a big universe,” said Grisham.

“I think we’re about to get a shock when we realise what that means for us,” said Danner. “We could be surrounded by a dozen warlike species, all of whom are technologically more advanced than we are.”

Grisham didn’t want that. While space exploration had lost some of its romance, the people of the HF were still fascinated by the stars and by the possibilities. Losing that sense of awe would be a collective blow to humanity.

“If the Kijol have recalled some of their warships, does that mean they’ve defeated whatever other species they were fighting?”

“We don’t know beyond guesswork,” said Danner.

“Someone must have come up with a list of possibilities,” said Grisham.

“They have,” said Danner. “But you’d be wrong to think that the top one on the list is that the Kijol have emerged victorious elsewhere.”

“Then what?” asked Grisham, suspecting he was about to receive a shock.

“The Kijol have demanded our immediate surrender,” said Danner.

It took Grisham a moment to fit the pieces together. “And if we surrender, the Kijol might make it a condition that we assist them in a war they’re fighting elsewhere?”

Danner raised a hand. “All of this is speculation, but that is indeed what a number of our analysts believe.”

“What about the Senate? What do they believe?”

“As you might expect, we have a mixture of opinions.”

“Are we planning to surrender?” asked Grisham. None of this had yet sunk in.

“That’s not yet decided,” said Danner.

“Which means it isn’t a definite no.”

“If something doesn’t change – and if we fail to keep a firm hand on the tiller - we’ll be out of the war in two years, Jed.”

“The Kijol don’t know where our populated worlds are, sir. We could simply withdraw our fleet from contested territory.”

“Without a fleet, we can’t protect our resource worlds. Without resources, we can’t build warships or Charos drives. Even if the Kijol don’t come hunting for our planets, we’ll have been sent back to the dark ages.”

“What if the Kijol are losing their war, sir?” asked Grisham. “Their demand for our surrender seems premature. Let the enemy suffer hard times and then we emerge, ready to take back what we lost.”

Danner laid his cards on the table. Or, as Grisham thought was more likely, he laid some of his cards on the table.

“If we surrender, the Kijol will make cruel masters. They are a warlike species and the moment they control our economy, the HF will find itself building spaceships for the enemy fleet. We will never be free.”

A suspicion was slowing growing in Grisham’s mind. He kept it to himself and asked another question. “Which way is the wind blowing in the Senate?”

“Right now, it’s blowing around in circles and the senators are not likely to reach a consensus anytime soon. The Kijol asked for immediate surrender, but they obviously aren’t aware how long it takes the HF Senate to make any decision, big or small.”

“Is there any plan beyond stalling for time?”

Danner smiled. “One faction in the Senate has requested a meeting with the Kijol.”

“I take it this wasn’t unanimous?”

“Most of the Senate is in the dark.”

“Then how—”

“You don’t need to know,” Danner interrupted.

“The Kijol accepted this meeting request?”

“They did.”

“And was the request from a pro-Kijol faction within the Senate, sir?”

For a time, Danner didn’t speak and Grisham felt a tension in the room that hadn’t been there only a moment ago. The Admiral was considering speaking something of great importance and even now he wasn’t sure if it was the right move. Grisham felt a sudden unease, but he kept his expression neutral.

“Some people – people who have first-hand experience of the Kijol – believe our civilian leaders are approaching these potential negotiations from the wrong angle.”

“Which people believe this?” asked Grisham.

“You know I’m not going to give you names, Jed,” said Danner. “The fact we’re having this conversation tells you I’m one of those people.” His eyes bored into Grisham. “Can I trust you, Jed?”

The question caught Grisham unawares and he opened his mouth, unsure what he was about to say.

“Think carefully before you answer,” Danner warned.

Grisham held his tongue. His mind whirled. Something big was happening within military high command and probably within the Senate too. He was being invited to take sides, without having any real idea what the opposing parties stood for. Danner was dropping major hints, but this discussion wasn’t exactly an open and frank exchange of information.

The longer he thought about it, the more Grisham realised he was actually being asked the simplest of questions. “Some people would prefer us to surrender, and others want to keep on fighting,” he said.

Danner nodded. “And where do you stand, Jed? You’ve fought the Kijol as long as most.”

“One moment you’re telling me we can’t win, the next you’re saying we can’t surrender,” said Grisham.

“I’m giving you the facts as I see them. The HF is on the ropes, but our economies are strong and we have some bright people working in civilian fields that we’re even now reassigning to military research. We might pull this around.”

“But if we surrender, we’ll be signing humanity’s future away to a species we can’t trust,” said Grisham. He met Danner’s eyes. “Even if we bring ourselves to technological parity, you told me the Kijol empire reaches farther than we ever suspected. Will we be able to defeat it?”

“The question isn’t about defeating the Kijol,” said Danner. “It’s about whether we can make the HF such a tough nut to crack that the enemy will stop trying. As it happens, I’m one of those people who believes in the power of human endeavour. Put our backs to the wall, threaten our freedom, and woe betide anyone who thinks to fight us.”

“I agree, sir,” said Grisham. “But wouldn’t unity be better than division?”

“There is as yet no schism, and nobody can read the future,” said Danner. “This might all come to naught.” He pursed his lips as if he were considering something. “I told myself I wouldn’t show you this, but damnit, you should take a look.”

As he spoke, Danner opened one of the drawers in his desk and withdrew a cardboard folder, which he slid across the desk. “Read it.”

Grisham opened the folder. It contained a single sheet of paper upon which a couple of paragraphs and a list were printed. Reading it didn’t take long. When he was done, Grisham sat back. Things were starting to add up.

“Ivey Metz was related to Senator McCulloch,” he said.

It had long been clear that Ivey Metz – the founder of the Holy Church of Everlasting Serenity, the members of which had been slaughtered on Xaros – was well-connected in the Senate, since she’d managed to lay her hands on plenty of hardware that should never have fallen into civilian hands. Plus the fact that the CES had been granted seemingly unlimited funding to set up on Xaros. Here was proof if it were needed, that nepotism was alive and kicking within the Human Federation.

“Finding out even that much took plenty of digging,” said Danner. “There’s more. Much more.”

Grisham was intensely curious, and made no effort to keep it hidden. “What kind of more?”

“Another little-known fact – so little known that I had to pull in many favours in order to learn it for myself - is that Senator Weston McCulloch is also distantly related to Senator Herschel Maynard. They might represent different planets, but they’re always on the same side when there’s an important vote.”

Just hearing the name Herschel Maynard brought out the usual reaction in Grisham. He felt his anger surge and he clenched his teeth. “So there’s a connection,” Grisham said, his mind racing to think what precisely Danner was leading to.

“Unity,” said Danner.

“I don’t understand,” said Grisham.

“It’s a political cabal. Its members claim to believe that the Human Federation’s expansion is too reliant on the military. They want jaw-jaw, not war-war. Some people might think of them as the Surrender Party. Funding for the CES was signed off by lead members of Unity.”

For a man who not so long ago stated he would never – officially – learn the outcome of the investigation into how the CES had laid its hands on all that military hardware, Admiral Danner was surprisingly well-informed.

“But Maynard is an asshole, sir,” said Grisham. “He has power and money. How could he possibly benefit from negotiating with the Kijol?”

“More power and more money,” said Danner. “Let’s suppose, just for a moment, that this cabal within the Senate manages to sway the undecideds into agreeing a surrender. The Kijol might want to directly govern the Human Federation, but more likely they would prefer to hand over the reins to trusted individuals.”

Grisham was about to ask why a human would willingly betray his own species for something so base as power over others. Then he remembered the number of despots and dictators in humanity’s past and suddenly it wasn’t too hard to imagine that somebody like Maynard and the others in the Unity cabal might crave surrender to the Kijol – particularly since they’d know how badly the war was going.

“How much of this is speculation, sir? And how much of it is proven?”

“Little of it is proven,” said Danner. “In truth, the cabal might have entirely different aims than those I’ve told you.” He stared at Grisham without blinking. “But this is clouding the bigger picture. Do you believe that surrender to the Kijol is a mistake we cannot afford to make? Can I trust you?”

One part of Grisham wasn’t keen to take sides, but the dominant part wanted to have a say in his own future and hopefully turn that future into one that wasn’t dictated by the hatred and manipulations of Senator Herschel Maynard.

Realising he was committing himself to a road from which he might never turn, Grisham nodded. “You can trust me.”

Across the desk, Danner smiled a sad smile.

TWO

“Now you have my trust, what are you proposing, sir?” asked Grisham.

“For the moment, I’m proposing nothing,” said Danner. “This might be the start of a long game, Jed. I, and others who share my views, are ensuring we’re ready for whatever might happen in the future.”

“Damn, I thought you were about to ask me to join the escort for the negotiation meeting.”

“I don’t know when or where that’s happening,” said Danner. “Perhaps I won’t know until after it has taken place. Even if I did know, there’s little I could do to prevent it – not without revealing too much.”

The HF fleet was large and under the command of several officers of admiral rank, so it didn’t seem entirely implausible that one of those officers could pull together an escort and send it out to meet the Kijol in secrecy. Word would eventually get out, Grisham was sure, but it would be after the event, not before.

“Does this mean I’m returning to quarters, sir?”

Danner laughed. “Hell, no! I’ve got a mission for you.” Opening the same drawer as earlier, he withdrew a second folder but didn’t immediately slide it across to Grisham. “You’re going to Ovintus.”

Grisham racked his brains. “Never heard of the place.”

“It’s a planet in the Daxin system, way out on the edges of Landol.”

“Where the Kijol are pushing the hardest,” said Grisham.

“That’s right.”

“What’s the brief, sir?”

“During a recent engagement with a new gen Eternus, one of our light cruisers – before it was destroyed by the enemy vessel – detected a combination of mineral particles on the Kijol battleship’s nose plating. Many years ago, one of our scouts visited Ovintus, where it recorded the same combination. It’s the only planet known to the Human Federation where these minerals occur in conditions that might lead to them becoming embedded within a spaceship’s armour plating.”

“So the Eternus took a low-level flight through the planet’s atmosphere,” said Grisham. “Why does that call for a mission to Ovintus?”

“Because the Kijol battleship’s armour had been corroded by a weapon type we’re unfamiliar with,” said Danner. “And because our fleet later encountered a second enemy vessel with the same mineral particles embedded in its nose plating, and with the same corrosion marks on its hull.”

“That’s more than coincidence,” Grisham admitted. “Maybe the Kijol have an installation on Ovintus to resupply their warships.”

“It’s a possibility,” said Danner. “Either way, you’re going to Ovintus.”

“Here’s where you give me command of an HF battleship,” said Grisham.

“I can’t give you a battleship, Jed. The Marauder is fully repaired.” Danner made a play of checking his wristwatch. “It broke out of lightspeed ten minutes ago, and you’re going to board it by shuttle.”

“I’m still waiting to hear the mission goals, sir. The Marauder is a capable warship, but it’s still a Tibor-class when all’s said and done. If there’s a lot of Kijol traffic at Ovintus, the Marauder won’t be the right vessel to handle it.”

“If you encounter Kijol warships I don’t expect you to engage,” said Danner. “I have a feeling in my guts that you’ll find something different.”

“Like what?”

“It’s only a hunch,” said Danner, making no effort to explain what his hunch was.

“Is there any need for me to read the mission documentation?”

“I’m sure you’ll be scrupulous in your preparation,” said Danner. He pointed at the door. “Go.”

Rising and turning on his heel, Grisham headed for the exit. In the linking corridor, he paused for a moment. He was surprised how quickly he’d accepted these recent events. He’d cast his lot with people who were determined to continue the war against the Kijol, and yet, Grisham was not disappointed in his choice. Fighting was better than the alternative, assuming surrender was that alternative.

The second door opened, revealing the personnel corridor outside. A few people were passing, though it wasn’t crowded, and he stopped briefly to get his bearings. He suddenly became aware that the two soldiers stationed at the door were watching him closely, and he remembered how their appearances were more that of trained killers than frontline soldiers.

What if they were placed there in case I gave the wrong answer to Admiral Danner?

The thought jumped unbidden into Grisham’s head, asking him to confront a question he wasn’t yet ready for.

Maybe the Admiral just sees the need for protection. Politics are a dangerous game.

Despite this second – more plausible – idea, Grisham was shaken. He’d been drawn into a wider game, albeit on the fringes, and he hoped it would play out while he was far away on the frontline.

Grisham strode along the corridor, still imagining the gazes of the soldiers on his back. Once he was out of sight, he used his pocket communicator to speak with Commander Lois Deneuve.

“We have a mission,” he said.

“Yes, sir. I already got the call,” said Deneuve in her heavily-accented voice. “We’re taking a deployment vessel from Shuttle Bay 19 and we’re docking with the Marauder.”

“What about the others? Do they know?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I only heard about the mission myself a few minutes ago,” said Grisham.

“You know what the HF military is like, sir,” said Deneuve. “It’s a well-oiled machine.”

“That it is,” said Grisham without much conviction. “I’m on my way. Don’t leave without me.”

“Have you got any details to share?” asked Deneuve.

“Not yet. Once we’re onboard.”

“Why was I expecting that answer?”

Grisham smiled as he snapped his communicator shut and pushed it back into his leg pocket. The last few weeks had been the longest he’d ever spent on Bastion by some considerable margin, and he’d explored it thoroughly. Therefore, Grisham knew exactly where to find Shuttle Bay 19, and he headed for the airlifts that would take him closest.

Soon, he was in Bay 19. The deployment vessel – which resembled a cigar fitted with a chain gun – looked tiny in a space which was designed to accommodate transports of every conceivable size. Grisham walked to the edge of the docking platform and activated the door midway along the vessel’s hull. The interior was lit in a dim blue and was distinctly compact, with ten rows of seats in total. Each row was made up from two seats on the portside and one on the starboard, with a narrow aisle between them.

The shuttle was empty.

Having made his way to the cockpit, Grisham squeezed into the centre seat and waited. Shortly, he was joined by Commander Deneuve, then Lieutenant Kaci Lopez arrived. She took the third and last cockpit seat.

Minutes later, the final members of Grisham’s usual crew entered the shuttle, though they were obliged to sit in the passenger bay. Grisham requested clearance to depart and that clearance was granted. Under the guidance of the Bastion flight controller, the deployment shuttle was ejected into the darkness of space.

“The Marauder is at five thousand klicks, Captain,” said Lopez. “At this shuttle’s eight klicks per second maximum, we should dock sometime next month.”

“Let’s see if I can get us there in eleven minutes instead,” said Grisham.

The deployment vessel’s engines rumbled like a farm tractor and the velocity gauge arrived at its underwhelming maximum. During the period of acceleration, Lopez obtained a sensor lock on the stationary Marauder and she put the feed up on the cockpit console’s middle screen.

“Looks good as new,” said Grisham.

“The shipyard could have swapped the old wreck for a completely new spaceship and we wouldn’t know about it,” said Deneuve.

“Not likely,” said Grisham. “The military has a thing about warship names. It’s like a superstition – once a name is given, it won’t be transferred or used elsewhere while the original ship is still in service.”

“We’re definitely looking at the old Marauder,” said Lopez. “The sensors have detected a difference in the colour where the armour was patched up. And there’s some nose scarring from our time at Xaros.”

Grisham shouldn’t have cared. In theory, it didn’t make any difference what spaceship he flew, or how it was named. And yet it did matter. The Marauder had come through a tough encounter at Xaros and Grisham felt an attachment.

“There’s the Marauder’s temporary crew, heading for the space station,” said Lopez, locking the sensors onto an identical deployment vessel, this one going in the opposite direction. “They’re going to pass within ten klicks of us.”

“Forgive me if I don’t wave,” said Deneuve. She looked at Grisham. “Anyway, you were going to tell us about the mission.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Commander. We’re heading out to a planet called Ovintus. Evidence suggests a couple of Kijol warships have visited the place recently. Some additional guesswork has made Admiral Danner believe the enemy might have run into trouble there.”

“What made him believe that?” asked Deneuve.

“Hull damage to an Eternus and to a second enemy vessel. Damage not consistent with that produced by one of our plasma warheads.”

“The Kijol ran into another of those enemy warships like the one on Xaros?” asked Lopez.

“Not necessarily,” said Grisham. He paused, wondering how much he could tell his crew. “I’ll let you know once we’re on the Marauder,” he said. “So I don’t have to repeat myself.”

Fifteen minutes later, having allowed the shuttle’s onboard computers to guide it into the confines of the Marauder’s deployment vessel launch chute, and having hurried through the warship’s interior, Grisham and his crew entered the bridge.

A short time after he’d taken his seat, Grisham was satisfied that everything was in order. While the damage suffered at Xaros hadn’t exactly been superficial, it hadn’t affected any of the critical onboard systems. Repairs should have been straightforward, hence the fast turnaround time of only a few weeks.

“Lieutenant Adler,” said Grisham, addressing his lead engine officer, “Our destination is Ovintus in the Daxin system.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adler. “That’s way out – five days at our highest multiplier. How close to the planet are we aiming?”

“A million klicks,” said Grisham. “This is meant to be first and foremost a scouting mission.”

“Right,” said Deneuve, drawing out the word. “A scouting mission.”

“The coordinates are entered, sir,” said Adler. “Waiting on your order.”

“Hold until I say,” Grisham confirmed. “Lieutenant Bishop, please confirm who – apart from us – is currently on the Marauder.”

“It looks as if Sergeant Maxwell is coming with us again, sir,” said Lieutenant Dan Bishop after a moment. “He has replacements for Corporal Valerio and Private Fleming.”

“I’m sure Sergeant Maxwell will make the introductions once we’re at lightspeed,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Adler, warm up the Charos drive.”

“Yes, sir. Eight minutes and we’re out of here.”

The familiar whine of the spaceship’s lightspeed drive began, deep within the vessel’s hull. As the minutes to departure counted down, Grisham filled in his crew on some of what he’d discussed with Admiral Danner, omitting the parts about the Unity cabal, the Kijol surrender demands and the proposed negotiations.

By the time he’d finished, the Charos drive was less than a minute from firing. The crew didn’t speak, though Grisham could tell they had questions which would be forthcoming once the Marauder was at lightspeed.

With a boom from its propulsion and a wrenching sensation that left Grisham feeling momentarily nauseous, the warship entered lightspeed. The instrumentation readouts all settled into the right places and the monitoring systems generated no alarms.

The mission was underway with such suddenness that Grisham hadn’t been able to think much about the last hour or two. Now, he had five days ahead of him before the Marauder’s arrival at Ovintus. It seemed as if big changes loomed for the Human Federation, and big changes always brought conflict.

With the war against the Kijol heading towards an unfavourable outcome, Grisham suddenly couldn’t decide if he really did want to be five day’s journey from home, or if he’d rather be close by, just in case events within the Human Federation took a rapid turn for the worse.

One thing was sure, the coming voyage would be a real test of his patience.

THREE

“So, the Kijol are fighting on more than one front,” said 2nd Lieutenant Eric Kinsey. “I guess that makes sense, given how little they seem to understand the concept of diplomacy.”

“Hopefully they’ve bitten off more than they can chew,” said Bishop.

“But what comes to fill the vacuum if the Kijol empire falls?” asked Adler.

“You’re assuming our intel is correct,” said Grisham. “We have a good idea the Kijol are in conflict with that alien species we found on Xaros, but it’s still possible the warship engagement Sergeant Maxwell witnessed was a result of nothing more than an aggressive crew on that Eternus. We know what the Kijol are like – it would be no surprise for them to attack an unknown vessel hiding beneath a lake.”

“What about the incendiaries?” asked Deneuve. “They had no need to burn half a continent.”

Grisham didn’t answer, since he wasn’t enjoying the speculation. Maybe it was because he had too much else to think about. He felt Deneuve staring at him and he turned her way.

“What’s wrong, sir?” she asked candidly.

“What makes you think something’s wrong, Commander?”

“You seem preoccupied.”

Grisham shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Deneuve had seen right through him. A lie wouldn’t work. “I am,” he said.

“Are you going to let us in on why?”

“No. It won’t affect the mission.”

Deneuve held his gaze for a second longer and then she changed the subject. “Are you going to unlock the mission documentation?”

“Give me a moment,” said Grisham. Having had his expectations set low for the contents of that documentation, he hadn’t read it himself. He did so now. It contained nothing new and he removed the security locks from the file. “It’s all yours.”

“At least there’s no padding,” said Deneuve, once she’d finished reading the contents of the file. “I hate it when I have to read through ten pages of introduction and background before I reach the good stuff. Anyway, what’s at Ovintus?”

“I was about to ask Lieutenant Lopez to call up the details for us,” said Grisham.

“Planet Ovintus,” said Lopez. “It’s approximately Earth-sized and is fifth planet out of twelve in the Daxin system. The planet is hot and dry – mostly desert – with an atmosphere that is almost capable of supporting life, though life probably wouldn’t flourish given the heat and the lack of water.”

“At least there are no trees. Sergeant Maxwell will be happy to know that,” said Adler.

“Are there any clues as to what might have brought the Kijol to Ovintus, Lieutenant Lopez?” asked Grisham. It was the kind of information he’d have expected to find in the mission documentation if it were known, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“We scouted the planet years ago,” said Lopez. “Its crust is confirmed to hold useful minerals and it’s currently number 362 on the HF list of priority resource worlds. That means we might have wanted to establish a mining operation a few centuries from now.”

“Except that the Landol sector is a dangerous place to be,” said Deneuve.

“And the Daxin system is right on the far edge of contested territory,” said Lopez.

“So is there any reason the Kijol might have set up an installation on Ovintus?” asked Grisham.

“Aside from the planet’s exploitable resources, there’s nothing obvious,” said Lopez. “It’s possible the planet is midway between two important strategic locations for the Kijol, but we don’t have enough intel on the enemy’s holdings to know the truth of that.”

“I thought Admiral Danner is sending us to Ovintus because an Eternus was hit by weapons from an unknown source,” said Kinsey. “Why the talk about Kijol installations?”

“We’re just thinking aloud, Lieutenant,” said Deneuve. “Talking to see if it shakes out any ideas or viable theories.”

At that moment, Grisham had a thought and it wasn’t one he much liked. “If the Kijol do have an installation at Ovintus, the damage to the Eternus would suggest that something attacked the Kijol, rather than the other way around.”

“I guess we’re going to have to wait and see,” said Adler. “Five days.”

“Does anyone have questions?” asked Grisham. “If not, I’ll go and find out what Sergeant Maxwell thinks about being given a second mission on the Marauder.”

“If I think of a question, I’ve got plenty of time to ask, sir,” said Bishop.

Grisham rose from his seat. His suit helmet was nearby, and he picked it up out of habit. Exiting the bridge, he headed directly for the Marauder’s single mess area, wondering if the soldiers would be pleased to see him. It wasn’t important that they like him, but missions generally went easier if the ground troops and the warship crews saw eye-to-eye.

The mess hall was a small room, designed to seat ten or twelve and no more. When he saw Private Kandy Lyles at the replicator, Grisham was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. The soldier was standing in the exact same place as when he’d first entered the mess room at the start of the journey to Xaros. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Sergeant Maxwell in the same place on the same bench seat.

Lyles moved aside, to give Grisham room. The coldness he’d felt that previous time was gone. In fact, she gave him a thin smile and, for a reason he couldn’t explain, Grisham was left with the feeling she was embarrassed about something. He didn’t ask questions, and, having vended a bad coffee and a bowl of pasta from the replicator, Grisham took a seat opposite Maxwell. The soldier’s gaze was impassive.

“Captain Grisham,” he said.

“Sergeant Maxwell. You’ve read the mission files?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you know about Ovintus?”

“Just what I read in the Marauder’s databanks, sir.”

Grisham ate, wondering if his silence would draw anything more from the soldiers. They usually had something to say. Often it was rehashed speculation, but occasionally they’d have heard a rumour that was new to him.

The soldiers had indeed learned plenty of new rumours during their time on Loxor – where the Marauder had been taken for repairs – but none of them touched on what Admiral Danner had revealed. Grisham was impressed that nothing had slipped out. Secrets didn’t usually last long.

A secret of a different sort was about to be revealed. When the rumour talk died away, Maxwell reached under the table and withdrew a standard issue backpack. Then, he stood and beckoned Private Lyles over. She looked guiltier than ever.

“Tell the Captain,” said Maxwell.

Grisham was intensely curious. He said nothing and waited to see what Lyles had to say. She opened the pack, reached inside and withdrew an object which she placed on the table.

“That,” she said.

“What is it?” asked Grisham. The object was a nondescript cube of metal about an inch along each side, with a few wires sticking out.

“You remember the alien security breaker we found on Xaros, sir?” said Lyles.

“The one that got accidentally damaged during the course of the mission,” said Corporal Arie Fine.

“I remember,” said Grisham.

“This thing—” Lyles pointed at the object, “fell out of the security breaker during the incident which resulted in the damage.”

“You mean when someone put a couple of gauss slugs into it?” said Grisham mildly. He’d heard about the preliminary findings from the research lab.

“I don’t recall anything about—”

“Just get on with it, Private Lyles,” said Grisham.

“Anyway, this is part of the security breaker, sir. I found it at the bottom of my pack when we boarded the Marauder for the journey to Bastion station after the warship was repaired. I must have overlooked it when I was handing over the rest of the hardware.”

Grisham picked up the cube. It didn’t look like much, but he had no doubt it contained sophisticated tech.

“Keep hold of it, Private,” he said. “I’ll deal with the matter when we return to base.”

“Captain, will this reflect badly on Private Lyles?” asked Maxwell, with the fixed stare of a soldier asking a superior officer for a favour.

“I’ll think of a story that won’t implicate anyone,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

With that over, Grisham took his leave, but only after he’d been introduced to the two unfamiliar members of Maxwell’s squad. Private Dewey Law and Private Jack Franklin were the new faces, the latter being Corporal Valerio’s replacement as squad medic. Law and Franklin clearly already knew the rest of the squad, though Grisham didn’t ask about the history.

Meanwhile, Private Ralf Barkley – the squad comms man – had been promoted to Corporal. From what Grisham had heard, it was long overdue.

When Grisham returned to the bridge, it was almost time for Commander Deneuve to go off duty for a few hours. After she was gone, Grisham spent some time in thought. His crew had little to say and that suited him well enough, since his mood was uncertain and he didn’t want to make small talk.

On the one hand, he believed that committing to Admiral Danner was the right thing to do, while on the other he was sure that the coming games would be far reaching and the motives of all the big players were likely to change depending on how events panned out. Grisham was under no illusions that he was on shifting sands. If a sacrificial lamb were ever needed, he – as an officer senior enough to take the fall, yet not senior enough to bring everyone else down with him - would be one of the first to the chopping block.

However, Grisham had made his choice and he knew that if he were offered it again, he would give the same answer. For so long, he’d lacked agency in his own fate and now he might just have a say in it. Grisham wasn’t afraid to admit it would feel good to make Senator Maynard’s life difficult.

The five days went by with customary lack of urgency. Grisham slept in his tiny room and spent hours on the bridge, staring at the instrumentation and talking inconsequentials with the crew. They’d heard rumours too, but again, nothing that hinted at an awareness of coming upheaval within the Human Federation.

When Lieutenant Adler called out his fifteen-minute warning before the Marauder exited lightspeed, Grisham was well-rested and alert, as were the others of the crew. The bridge air was cold like it always was and the purity of it cleared his mind.

“Any last-minute guesses about what we’re going to find?” asked Commander Deneuve.

“Nothing beyond what we’ve already discussed,” said Grisham.

He wasn’t feeling anything much about Ovintus. Usually, he could sense if a mission was going to be dangerous or if it was going to be straightforward. This time, he felt empty, as if his instincts had been squeezed out by his preoccupation.

“Two minutes!” yelled Adler over the drone of the propulsion.

“Be ready,” said Grisham.

He watched the final seconds tick away and, two seconds earlier than the navigational computer’s estimate, the Marauder shuddered as it exited lightspeed.

Baring his teeth against the pounding in his head from the transition, Grisham forced his eyes to focus on the instrumentation. Everything was green.

“Waiting on sensors,” said Lopez. “They’re coming online.”

The feeds came up and they were of reassuring darkness. Lopez and Bishop ran the local area scans, which came back clear.

“There are no hostiles in our vicinity,” said Bishop.

“Find the planet,” said Grisham, his headache having already faded to little more than a memory.

“Got it,” said Lopez shortly after. “Right where we expected on its orbital track and at nought-point-nine million klicks from our position.”

Lopez put Ovintus on the feed and Grisham stared at it for several seconds. The Marauder was too far distant for its sensors to obtain visual clarity of the planet, but he could make out the dusty reds and the desert yellows well enough. Ovintus had a single moon, which was high above the planet’s northern hemisphere, half pale and half dark where the light of the Daxin star cut it vertically in two.

“What’s happening on the planet?” Grisham asked.

“Mountains and sandstorms,” said Lopez.

“We’re looking for signs the Kijol set up a base here,” said Grisham. “Or if not Kijol, then another species.”

The scans took several minutes to complete.

“We’ve finished a top-level sensor sweep of the planet’s visible surface,” said Lopez. “If there’s an installation of significant size, we’d have located it by now.”

“Should I head in closer?” asked Grisham. “Or should we prepare a lightspeed jump to the far side of Ovintus?”

“I can tell you with certainty that there’s no facility on this side of Ovintus that could resupply an Eternus battleship, sir,” said Lopez. “That’s not to say there isn’t a smaller outpost.”

“Let’s try another scan at half a million klicks,” said Grisham. “It’s not like we need to take risks.”

At the Marauder’s 250 kilometres-per-second maximum velocity, it would take thirty minutes to cover the distance. Despite his words, Grisham was nevertheless impatient to confirm whether the Kijol Eternus had visited Ovintus and if so, what its purpose had been.

Thirty minutes later, he brought the Marauder to a standstill. Local area scans confirmed the lack of hostiles and a subsequent re-scan of the Ovintus surface brought no new revelations.

“There’s nothing visible, sir,” said Lopez.

That left Grisham with no choice. “Lieutenant Adler, aim for a million klicks blindside and send us into lightspeed.”

“Yes, sir. Eight minutes and we go.”

The Marauder’s Charos drive warmed up and then fired with a booming of in-out transitions. Grisham’s headache returned, twice as bad as before and he grimaced at the pain.

“Sensors!” he said.

“Coming online, sir.”

The feed screens lit up again. Lopez and Bishop completed the local scans and then obtained a sensor lock on Ovintus. Immediately the feed came into focus, Grisham could see that something had happened to the planet.

He squinted at the screen, wondering what it was looking at. An area of the surface was blurred into a reddish colour different to the surrounding colours, and it seemed to gleam slightly, as if it were reflective.

“What’s that?” asked Grisham.

“One moment, sir,” said Lopez. “I’m analysing the feed data.”

Lopez was done in moments. “An area of the south-west surface has been turned into a type of glass, sir,” she said.

“An incendiary attack,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir. That’s the most likely conclusion.”

“Any residual heat?”

“None.”

“Meaning this didn’t happen any time in the last few days.”

“No, sir.”

Grisham cast his mind back to the Kijol incendiary deployment on Xaros. It seemed as if the aliens had executed a similar attack here on Ovintus.

He exchanged a glance with Deneuve. From her expression, she was thinking along the same lines.

“Scan for signs of an installation,” said Grisham.

A few moments later, Lopez announced the result. “I’m reading signs of metal alloy in the place affected by the incendiaries, sir.”

“How much metal alloy?”

“Lots of it,” said Lopez. “Across an area about thirty klicks by thirty.”

From out of the blue, Grisham was struck by the feeling that he’d once again been sent on a mission that would unearth something both unexpected and significant.

He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the controls. It was time to head in for a closer look.

FOUR

Thirty minutes later, Grisham brought the Marauder to a standstill, half a million kilometres from Ovintus. Lopez and Bishop focused on the planet’s surface for a time, before declaring that the distance was still too great for them to build a clear picture.

“How close do you need us to be?” asked Grisham. He had enough experience to know exactly what answer he was going to receive.

“A hundred thousand klicks, sir,” said Lopez.

“A hundred thousand it is,” said Grisham.

He slid the control bars to the ends of their guide slots and the whine of the Marauder’s Charos drive was transformed into a roar. The velocity gauge climbed, and the distance gauge fell.

After a journey of twenty-seven minutes, Grisham hauled back on the controls and the warship came to a stop. Here, the sensor view of Ovintus was appreciably better and he could make out the surface mountains, along with several snaking lines which may once have been rivers, millions of years in the planet’s past.

He studied the incendiary-affected area of the surface. The Kijol weapons – or at least, Grisham assumed they’d belonged to the Kijol – had ravaged a large section of red-sand desert, along with a rising plain of rock to the north and some foothills east. The sheen he’d noticed from a million kilometres was even more pronounced from a hundred thousand, as the rough glass reflected light from the Daxin star.

In the centre of the glass, a large dark patch was not reflective at all. This was an area of alloy and it hadn’t occurred naturally. Grisham narrowed his eyes. A sandstorm was blowing across what remained of the installation. It wasn’t savage enough to shroud everything, but it made the details indistinct.

“Tell me what happened,” said Grisham.

“Give me a couple of minutes, sir,” said Lopez.

Grisham nodded, not taking his eyes off the feed. His own first impression was that this had once been an installation of some importance. Most of the central area was flat, while misshapen grey mounds at the northern and southern ends had surely once been buildings. At almost thirty kilometres square, the facility would have certainly been of high strategic importance.

“Here we go,” said Lopez, taking a breath. “We’re looking at a military complex rather than a mining operation. We’re too far away to perform a composition match on the alloys, but the colour is identical to that of other Kijol alloys used for military purposes. The installation was struck by multiple incendiaries and the lack of residual heat indicates the attack happened at least three weeks ago. Maybe much longer than three weeks. There are no signs of Kijol warships on the ground, though multiple transports were abandoned and caught in the incendiaries.”

“What about surface-to-air launchers?” asked Grisham.

“It’s almost certain the Kijol installed defensive emplacements, sir, and the usual targeting range is about fifty thousand klicks. The incendiaries have made the surface too much of a mess to detect the location of missile launchers. It’s possible some or all of them were neutralised by the heat.”

“Or none of them,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir, that’s a possibility too.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “So, from what we learned on Xaros, it seems likely the species of aliens we encountered there attacked this base here on Ovintus and that attack was so successful the Kijol felt the only way they could respond was by incinerating everything.”

“There are no visible traces of anything that isn’t Kijol, sir,” said Lopez. “However, we’re scanning from a long distance and incendiaries are damned good at covering things up.”

“You’re sending all this back to base?” asked Grisham.

“Yes, sir,” said Bishop. “Travel time for the comms transmission is two-point-five days.”

“I understand that. Keep sending the updates,” said Grisham.

He frowned as he considered his next steps. The Kijol had been attacked, that much was clear. Also, the sighting elsewhere of the Eternus battleship - with its mineral particles and hull scarring which started this mission to Ovintus – suggested that the Kijol had finished with the planet. The enemy weren’t known to back down from a fight, so if they were gone from Ovintus it meant – in theory – that no threats remained.

“What advantage can we take from this situation?” Grisham wondered aloud. He had a thought. “Have you run a sweep for comms receptors? The Kijol often install their critical hardware underground. Maybe some of it survived.”

“Yes, sir, I’ve run a sweep,” said Lopez. “There are no receptors, but that doesn’t mean there are no comms transmitters. Those would be well-hidden from anything that isn’t a Kijol warship.”

“Would the Kijol have withdrawn if any of their hardware remained operational?” asked Deneuve.

“No,” said Grisham. “And if they weren’t sure the incendiaries would do the trick, they could have issued a code to disable everything that survived the heat.”

He returned to his thought from moments ago that the Kijol didn’t run from a fight. During the meeting on Bastion station, Danner had referred to intel suggesting the enemy needed to end their war with the Human Federation as quickly as possible in order to focus elsewhere, or to gain control of humanity’s shipyards.

Maybe the Kijol burned this installation to the ground and fled before they lost other major assets, like that Eternus battleship.

Of course, it was all speculation and the thoughts in Grisham’s head became circular as he tried to guess the unknown. The frustration made him clench his teeth.

“What are you thinking, Captain?” asked Deneuve.

“I’m thinking about many things, but mostly about the surface launchers, Commander. I’d like to take a closer look at the installation, even if it’s just to learn more about what happened here.”

Grisham had been on the wrong end of a Kijol surface launcher before. They fired modified Olin warheads that flew fast and could cripple even a new gen Tibor like the Marauder in a single hit if they detonated in the wrong place. Grisham was keen to learn what he could from past events at Ovintus, but he wasn’t going to be reckless.

“We could approach low from a couple of thousand klicks away,” he mused.

“I doubt a surface-launched missile could adjust to hit a target flying below a thousand-metre altitude,” said Deneuve. “Not unless that target was unlucky enough to be flying directly overhead.”

“Everything’s a risk,” said Grisham.

“Then it’s decided?”

“Yes.”

Grisham’s eyes went from the sensor feeds to the tactical and back again. He had a choice between a long circuit of the planet so that the Marauder could approach the surface far from the likely position of any surface batteries, or another lightspeed jump to the planet’s blindside. The first option would require twenty minutes on the Charos drive, while the second option would take less than fifteen.

“Lieutenant Adler, we’re heading back into lightspeed,” said Grisham. “Target our re-entry to local space on the far side of Ovintus at a ten-thousand-klick altitude. We’ll fly low around the planet and see what we can see.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adler. “The Charos drive will fire in eight minutes.”

“Lieutenant Lopez, Lieutenant Bishop, please continue your scans.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eight minutes passed and the sensor officers located nothing new. The Marauder entered and exited lightspeed in the blink of an eye, emerging at an altitude just below ten thousand kilometres. Reds and yellows were the predominant hues on the surface and this area of the planet was in darkness.

“We’re heading in,” said Grisham, bringing the propulsion to maximum output.

“This current trajectory will bring us to the planet’s surface three thousand kilometres from the target installation, sir,” said Bishop.

As the Marauder approached the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, Grisham reduced velocity. While he doubted any hostile spaceships remained in or around Ovintus, he didn’t want to fly across the surface leaving a thick trail of heat smoke as a sign of his passing.

The altitude gauge fell, and Grisham levelled out the warship at eight hundred metres. Directly below, the ground was parched and rocky. The Marauder’s external monitors indicated the air temperature was minus thirty Celsius and a strong wind funnelled the sand between countless boulders, forming rivers of fast-moving grit. Given the size of the Marauder, at six hundred metres in length, the gap between its underside and the planet’s surface seemed incredibly small.

Grisham wasn’t concerned. The warship was nimble enough and he wasn’t intending to travel at such a velocity that he might impact with the ground. Even a collision would be no disaster. The Marauder’s Ghost clusters were protected by sliding hatches in the hull, while the Gatlers and sensors were within near-flush, armoured turrets that were designed to take a beating.

“I’ve added a course overlay onto the tactical screen, Captain,” said Lopez. “The scans we took earlier indicate the ground is low-lying for most of the way. There’s a mountain range you’ll have to climb over, but otherwise it should be plain sailing.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Grisham.

He guided the Marauder across the planet’s surface. Despite the darkness, the sensor feed was clear all the way to the horizon. Holding a velocity that would bring the warship to the Kijol installation in less than fifteen minutes, Grisham kept his eyes glued to the sensors. Ovintus was desolate, but compared to many other worlds, it wasn’t so bad. At least there were colours other than the usual greys.

“I reckon there was life here before,” said Lopez. “Maybe not anytime in the last few hundred million years, but at some point.”

“Nothing could live here,” said Kinsey.

“Nothing could live here now,” said Lopez. “Stars change. They become hotter or colder, and their planets live or die because of it.”

Despite the mission, Grisham was fascinated and he felt a shiver of the ages. He’d grown up reading about the endless mysteries of space, and watched countless series on TV about planetary exploration. The stories were part of why he’d joined the military – to see those places for himself. And then the war had started, shortly after he’d finished his training. Soon after that, Grisham’s superiors had identified him as a man of talent and his climb through the ranks had been rapid.

And then it went downhill.

Grisham cursed inwardly that his reminiscing had so quickly turned to Maynard. He ignored Deneuve looking his way – she seemed to have a preternatural knack of picking up on times when he was angry – and concentrated on the feeds.

“The mountains are a couple of hundred klicks ahead, sir,” warned Lopez. “Once we’re over those, it’ll be another thousand klicks to the installation.”

“Acknowledged,” said Grisham.

He could see the mountains, looming on the far horizon. They were pointed like sharpened teeth and rose to eight thousand metres in places. Between the warship and those mountains, the darkness of night ended abruptly and the colours on the forward feed seemed so pronounced as to be almost artificial.

Below the Marauder, stone gave way to red-coloured sand, piled high in dunes. The wind was still blowing strongly, forming the sand into lashing whips and bringing constant change to the desert.

A short time later, the ground rose steadily, red stone emerging from red sand. The Marauder was now flying through the planet’s day and the extreme lows of the night-time temperature turned into extreme highs – as much as seventy Celsius, according to the hull monitors.

Grisham piloted the warship higher as the mountains loomed. There were huge gaps between the peaks and he guided the Marauder carefully between them. He could have simply increased altitude until he was above them all, but he was enjoying this test of his skills.

The mountains extended a hundred kilometres from one side to the other and he could see from the portside and starboard sensors that they stretched for hundreds more north and south. Banking around the peaks had carried the warship a few kilometres off the route line and Grisham adjusted to bring it back on course.

One of the higher peaks rose in front of the Marauder and, because the mountains were almost behind him, Grisham chose to go over. The warship climbed easily and, in moments, the land beyond the mountain range was revealed to be a mixture of deserts and huge outcrops of stone. It was as lonely a vista as Grisham could remember.

Then, a red light appeared on his console, indicating that the two forward Gatlers were firing. Acting without conscious thought, Grisham threw the Marauder to starboard. His eyes jumped to the forward feed, where six lines of grey smoke were racing through the air, each describing a different arc as the missiles adjusted course to follow the spaceship.

“Scramblers: deployed,” said Deneuve.

The Gatlers knocked out one missile, then a second. The bank to starboard had brought the portside Gatlers into play and they fired also. Scramblers were hurled from their topside launchers and began their transmission routines designed to fool enemy guidance systems.

It was too little and too late, though the margins were tight. All bar one of the incoming missiles were neutralised, but that final one impacted with the Marauder, striking it on the portside midsection nearest the stern. Grisham watched in fury as what seemed like half of his warship was ripped out in the blast and scattered across the Ovintus sky.

FIVE

Within a second of the blast, it was clear the Marauder wasn’t going to make it back to the repair yard under its own steam. The propulsion howled with unimaginable stress and the warship hardly responded to the controls. In front of Grisham, the few status lights which weren’t red, were amber.

“Damnit, we’re going down,” he said.

The portside sensors had failed and the other feeds were flickering in a way which made Grisham think they’d go offline at any moment. He knew that no other missiles remained in that first wave, but a second wave was a distinct possibility.

In spite of everything, Grisham’s mind remained calm, and it seemed as if the world around him was running in slow motion, while his brain operated at full speed.

From the approach paths of those missiles, the Marauder’s climb over the mountain had evidently brought it high enough that a distant ground launcher had locked and fired. Grisham knew he’d screwed up, but he had better things to do right now than consider his failings. His warship was in a bad way and he needed to bring it below the launcher’s horizon. That wasn’t going to be difficult, since the propulsion output gauge was showing four percent. The Marauder required five percent propulsion output just to stay in the air and that meant it was going to crash, whatever miracles Grisham could do with the controls.

“Keep those feeds online!” he yelled. “And get me something more from the engines! Lieutenant Bishop, send a distress call to base!”

“There’s not a chance I can draw anything extra from the propulsion, sir,” said Adler, with chilling certainty. “This vessel is done.”

“I’m trying to stabilise the feeds,” said Lopez. She cursed once and then again.

“Sir, the distress call has failed to transmit!” said Bishop.

“Try again,” said Grisham.

“I am trying, sir. I’ve got a red light on the main comms hardware and another on the two primary hull antennae.”

“Try the backups,” snarled Grisham.

Shouting wouldn’t fix broken hardware and Lieutenant Bishop knew what he was doing, so Grisham left him to it. His eyes went to the altimeter. The gauge was reading four thousand metres and falling.

Shit. The life support.

The life support light couldn’t decide if it wanted to be red or amber. If it failed, the coming impact might well kill everyone onboard, particularly if the engine output fell any further. Grisham’s eyes darted onto the propulsion output reading, just as it changed to three percent.

All the feeds went offline for a full two seconds and then they came back at a low resolution. The visual stream was jerky, like the backend computer could no longer handle the data. Outside, a line of mountains rose into the sky a few kilometres starboard, while the ground was coming closer with each passing moment.

“Still got amber on the life support,” said Deneuve. “Set us down now, Captain. While the hardware is active.”

Grisham had a sudden realisation. When the Marauder hit the ground, its underside deployment chutes would become blocked. The crew would likely be able to exit the warship through the escape hatches situated around the hull, but they might be unable to reach the ground. Not that making it to the ground would improve the chances of survival, what with the comms team being unable to transmit that distress call.

“I’m going to land us on the topside plating,” said Grisham. “If this vessel has enough power to roll.”

He pulled on the controls and the propulsion note didn’t change at all. The Marauder tilted to starboard, but not nearly enough for it to roll. Grisham looked desperately for a solution and found one that might just work.

He turned the warship to starboard and the vessel laboured towards the nearby mountains, its engines painful to hear. The largest peak had a steep southern slope and Grisham aimed the Marauder that way. For a moment, he thought his plan would fail and that the vessel was descending so fast he’d miss the incline. HF technology came through and the warship’s nose stayed high enough to pass just over the slope. The rest of the hull followed and, on the flickering sensor feeds, Grisham saw the vessel’s underside armour scrape across the stone, crushing rocks into powder.

When he thought the Marauder was in the right position, Grisham dumped it onto the mountainside. At the moment of impact, he threw the controls to one side, and diverted all the remaining thrust into providing starboard acceleration. Aided by gravity, the warship slid down the slope, gathering velocity. The Marauder had low flanks and Grisham hoped that if the vessel came to the bottom of this incline carrying enough speed, it might just flip over.

“Come on,” said Deneuve anxiously.

The life support light had decided it was happier on amber than it was on red, so Grisham felt nothing of the bumping as the Marauder slid downwards. On the starboard feeds he could see that the steep slope became near-vertical as it approached the bottom, and it ended in a valley separating this peak from the one adjacent.

Over the sheer edge went the Marauder and it plummeted the final five hundred metres, hitting the hard ground starboard flank first. At that moment, the sensors went offline again, but Grisham had seen enough that he knew what to do. He redirected what little thrust the warship had left and held the controls in place, his muscles straining as if his own physical strength might influence the outcome.

“Bring those sensors back,” he grunted.

“I’m trying,” said Lopez. “There!” she exclaimed in triumph.

The feeds returned, still flickering and at an even lower resolution than before. For a moment, Grisham couldn’t understand what he was seeing. Then, to his enormous relief, he realised that the Marauder had rolled, so that its topside plating was resting across the valley floor and onto the lower edge of the adjacent mountain.

“Lieutenant Bishop, tell me about that distress transmission,” said Grisham.

“I have not been successful in sending one, Captain.”

“We need to abandon ship,” said Grisham. “Is this an issue you can resolve?”

“No, sir. I don’t believe it is.”

“In that case, we’re getting out of here,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Adler, is the backup power to the internal doors functioning?” Grisham already knew from looking at his own status panel that the enemy missile hadn’t penetrated the warship’s interior, though that was purely down to luck.

“Yes, sir – the backup batteries were unaffected by the missile strike.”

“Did Sergeant Maxwell and the others survive?”

It was a question which had been hanging over Grisham ever since the missile impact, and he hoped his sensor officers would give him some good news.

“One moment, sir,” said Bishop. “There hasn’t been time.”

Grisham put on his suit helmet, strode for the bridge exit, crashed his hand onto the activation panel and held it there. “Quickly,” he demanded.

“Sergeant Maxwell reports no casualties, sir,” said Bishop, standing and pulling off his headset. He reached down and grabbed his suit helmet. “He’s already heading to the underside bay.”

“Let’s see if we can make it there first,” said Grisham.

He stood aside while the other crew members passed and then he followed. The air in the passage outside was a few degrees warmer than it had been on the bridge. With the interior being so carefully regulated, Grisham guessed heat from the missile detonation was spilling through the alloys.

The crew didn’t hang about and they dashed along the passages towards the underside bay. With each stride closer to the impact area, the temperature rose and soon it had climbed above a hundred Celsius. An HF combat suit could withstand a lot of heat and a hundred degrees wasn’t near its design maximum, but Grisham was nevertheless worried.

Soon, he entered the underside bay. This was the interior place closest to where the missile had exploded and the air shimmered with scalding heat. Grisham couldn’t be certain, but he thought one of the side walls had been slightly distorted by the colossal energy imparted by the blast. He breathed in the scent of heated metal and wished the outcome of his visit to Ovintus had been different.

“There’s Sergeant Maxwell,” said Lieutenant Lopez.

Sure enough, the hulking figure of Maxwell was standing next to the open entrance hatch leading to the Marauder’s starboard deployment vessel, the top of his suit helmet brushing the bay’s low ceiling.

The crew hurried across the bay and, without ceremony, began sliding down the ladder into the deployment vessel. Grisham met Maxwell’s eyes.

“I have to be last man, Sergeant.”

Maxwell nodded and dropped through the hatch with an ease that belied his size. Having taken one last look at his wrecked warship, Grisham followed.

The deployment vessel’s interior was almost full and Grisham had to walk sideways along the aisle towards the cockpit.

“Commander Deneuve, Lieutenant Lopez, you’re with me up front,” he said.

Having fought his way into the cramped cockpit, Grisham took the pilot’s seat. Deneuve sat left and Lopez sat right.

“All lights are green,” said Deneuve. She tapped a finger on the screen where the light for the launch clamps also glowed green. “Including the most important one.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Grisham.

He looked at the sensor feeds. They were online, but showed nothing other than the darkness of the launch chute. Without further delay, Grisham entered the launch instruction into the pilot’s console and took hold of the control joysticks. A thump of acceleration followed and he sensed movement on the feeds.

Then, the deployment vessel was ejected from the Marauder’s underside and the feeds became bright with sunlight. Grisham brought the transport under control. For only a moment he looked at the wreckage of the Marauder. The missile had inflicted shocking damage. Splayed armour glowed white around the impact crater, while a few million tons of plating was scattered across the landscape. A glance at the mountainside was enough for Grisham to see the enormous gouges formed by the Marauder as it slid into the valley.

“A one-hit kill,” said Deneuve. “Shit luck for us.”

Grisham banked the shuttle and guided it east along the valley. “That missile must have carried twice the payload of a normal Olin,” he said. “If the Kijol figure out how to install them onto their warships, the HF fleet is in real trouble.”

“What’s the plan now, sir?” asked Lopez.

“First, we have to get far from here,” said Grisham. “The Kijol may have abandoned Ovintus, but they might just come running if the ground launcher sends notification that it acquired a target.”

“I expect any such transmission would be routed via one of the comms hubs in the main installation, sir,” said Lopez. “Since those hubs are likely out of action, it’s possible nobody will ever hear about the launch.”

“Was it definitely a Kijol missile?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “Do we know?”

“The trajectory indicated the missile was launched from a ground position,” said Lopez. “That near-as-damnit confirms it as a Kijol attack.”

“We were almost a thousand klicks from the target installation,” said Grisham. “Our visibility range when we flew over the top of that mountain wasn’t even four hundred klicks.” He swore again that he’d underestimated the Kijol defences. “That means the surface-to-air launcher was six hundred klicks from the installation.”

“Shit happens,” said Deneuve. “We could have done things differently, but we didn’t.”

“I could have scanned further afield than I did,” said Lopez. “Or I could have recommended that we wait longer at a hundred thousand klicks.”

“Let’s move on from it, folks,” said Grisham. He banked the shuttle into a narrow valley which sloped upwards, while the wind blew sand along it in a cascade of red. The tiny particles appeared like static on the feeds. “I’m sure I’ll have some awkward questions to answer if we ever make it home.”

“About that,” said Deneuve. “How are we intending to escape from Ovintus? This deployment vessel has a maximum velocity of eight klicks per second and it isn’t lightspeed capable.”

Grisham nodded. “A comm from the Marauder would take two-point-five days to reach base. When we don’t check in, I’d expect as much as an additional three or four hours on top of those two-point-five days to pass before anyone becomes seriously worried. Even then, the military isn’t going to send a rescue ship immediately – our fleet has its hands full.”

“The comms amplifier on this deployment vessel isn’t intended to push a transmission either far or fast,” said Lopez. “Whatever comms we send from here won’t arrive at their destination for at least a few months.”

“Which leaves us waiting for our flight control officers to decide something has gone wrong and to take action,” said Deneuve.

“A fast warship might make it to Ovintus in three days,” said Lopez. “Plus all the usual overheads of comms travel and decision-making time. We’re not going to see anyone inside a week. Ten or twelve days would be a realistic estimate. Maybe more.”

Privately, Grisham was betting on the maybe more option. In fact, he had some doubts the military would even send a vessel here to Ovintus. Warships were destroyed regularly in the field of duty. Hunting down each and every one in the hope of finding survivors would keep the fleet constantly occupied, instead of fighting the Kijol.

“We should find somewhere to lay low,” Grisham said.

“That’s going to suck on this deployment vessel,” said Deneuve.

“I said we should lay low,” said Grisham. “But we’re not going to do that.”

“Here we go,” said Deneuve. “You want to head over to that Kijol installation.”

“That’s right, Commander.” Grisham smiled thinly and banked the transport north, between a pair of two-thousand-metre peaks. “And this time I’m going to fly so low that if you lean far enough out the side door you’ll be able to pick flowers.”

SIX

For a time, Grisham stuck to Plan A, that being to put some distance between the deployment vessel and the Marauder’s crash site. He kept to the mountains, which had suddenly become vastly more impressive now that he was inside a tiny spaceship. In truth, a determined hunter would locate the transport whatever action Grisham took, but he felt better for doing something rather than nothing.

“What are you hoping to find at the Kijol base, Captain?” asked Deneuve.

“The same answers we came to Ovintus looking for,” said Grisham. “If the Kijol are in conflict with another species, we need to gather intel on how it’s working out for them.”

Deneuve was astute and she narrowed her eyes at Grisham – a sure sign that something had piqued her interest. “The Kijol don’t seem to be running out of warships to send against our fleet,” she said. “Unless they’re attempting to overwhelm the Human Federation quickly in order to—” Deneuve continued staring. “Do you know anything you’re not telling us, sir?”

Grisham cursed inwardly. He didn’t want to lie to his crew – they deserved better than that. “This is what we’re here to find out, Commander,” he said. “Whatever we can learn about the Kijol will be a benefit to us.”

It was clear that Deneuve was far from satisfied with the answer, but she didn’t pursue the matter. Grisham wasn’t fooled. She’d spend time thinking it over and then return later with some questions he couldn’t evade – not without admitting the Kijol had demanded the Human Federation’s surrender. After that, Deneuve’s interrogation would certainly step up a gear. Grisham smiled inwardly.

“It’s possible some of the Kijol comms hardware might be usable,” said Lopez, her tone indicating she thought the opposite was likely. “We can’t use their comms consoles, but if we find a transmitter, we should be able to plug in Corporal Barkley’s booster pack and make use of the Kijol signal amplifiers – even if the consoles themselves are security disabled.”

“Everything on the enemy base is melted, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. He didn’t want to sound like too much of a pessimist, but sometimes he felt obliged to point out the obvious.

“You said yourself that the Kijol often install their critical hardware underground, sir.”

Grisham chuckled. “I did say that.”

“Word for word, you said it.”

“In which case, we’ll use whatever we find to our advantage.”

The conversation died off and Grisham concentrated on flying. Truly these mountains were majestic, and the lack of snow, along with the redness of the rock and the windborne sand made them appear incredibly alien. Above, the sky was the darkest of blues, like the horizon at dusk on Earth, while the ground itself was starkly illuminated by Daxin. Grisham couldn’t get enough of the sights, which came as a welcome distraction from all the crap which had happened to him recently.

Once the transport was a hundred kilometres north of the wrecked Marauder, Grisham banked west. He’d chosen this place because a valley allowed him to emerge from the mountain range without having to ascend. Having been served a large slice of humble pie by the Kijol ground launcher, Grisham was determined he wouldn’t return for another helping.

The foothills of the mountains were soon behind and the ground below became once more desert. The dunes were immense, forcing Grisham to vary his altitude between one hundred and eight hundred metres. Where possible, he banked around the larger dunes. In his head, he pictured the Kijol launchers, buried in the ground somewhere ahead, their automated targeting systems ever vigilant for unauthorised vessels.

“Seven hundred klicks to target,” said Lopez. “If the Kijol positioned their surface-to-air launchers in a six-hundred-klick ring, we should be beyond them soon.”

“But in no less danger,” said Grisham.

“That’s right, sir,” said Lopez. “And it seems to me this installation was real important to the enemy. I’d guess there’ll be an inner ring at two or three hundred klicks, as well as other launchers positioned at the corners of the base.”

“As long as we stay low, we should be fine,” said Grisham.

At 620 kilometres from the installation, Grisham took extra care to ensure he flew as low as possible, guiding the transport around the dunes, even if it added thousands of metres to the journey.

“There!” said Lopez. “North-east of our position!”

Grisham looked at the feed. About five kilometres away, he saw the top of a wall, as red as the sand around it. The dunes blocked much of his view, but he guessed the wall was in excess of thirty metres high and it formed a square, about eighty metres along each side. He couldn’t see inside, but Grisham knew they’d found one of the Kijol launchers. It was well-disguised and, though keeping it clear of sand was probably an endeavour in itself, installing the battery out here in the desert would make it harder to spot for any enemy focusing on the main base.

“I know that isn’t the launcher that shot us down, but—" Commander Deneuve raised her middle finger to the sensor feed and didn’t finish her sentence.

“At least we know the surface batteries can’t launch at us from this altitude,” said Lopez.

“Is there any chance that launcher will have its own comms transmitter installed?” asked Grisham.

“It’s not a one hundred percent definite no,” said Lopez. “We don’t know how the Kijol have configured their defences, but best guess is still the one I gave you earlier.”

“The launchers route their comms through a hub on the base,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir. If conditions at the target installation are as bad as we think, maybe we can come back this way for another look.”

Grisham found himself greatly tempted to stop and investigate the launcher anyway. The worst that could happen was they’d waste a couple of hours breaking in before finding that Lopez was right. Kijol surface batteries were usually automated – and Grisham certainly couldn’t imagine the aliens would have left their launch crews behind – so a gunfight was highly unlikely.

In the end, he stuck with his original plan and returned his focus to what lay ahead. He’d studied the lay of the land from the Marauder, and remembered most of the details. The desert continued all the way to the installation and it still wasn’t any clearer why the Kijol had chosen Ovintus to set up a base. Modern technology generally wasn’t vulnerable to particle ingress, but structures and landing fields would need to be kept clear and many day-to-day activities would be made unnecessarily harder if everything was covered in a layer of sand.

The best guess he could come up with was the same as the one he’d already discussed with his crew - that the Kijol had intended to exploit the planet’s mineral wealth at some point in the future. Then, it would make sense to have a military base already set up.

At four hundred kilometres from the installation, Lopez spotted another surface-to-air launcher, this time twenty kilometres south.

“Just one of these launchers did a number on the Marauder, but all together they didn’t stop the attack on the Kijol installation,” said Deneuve.

Grisham cast his mind back to Xaros. The unknown alien there had been invisible to his warship’s sensors. While the Kijol Eternus had shown no apparent difficulty in detecting the spaceship beneath the lake, maybe some of the enemy’s older hardware – perhaps these ground launchers – was unable to target the alien vessels. A feeling of unease came to Grisham. Maybe the HF sensors would also be incapable of detecting the spaceships of these new aliens. That would be potentially terrible for humanity.

The kilometres went by and Grisham felt the early signs of fatigue. He didn’t need sleep, only a break from the constant focus required to pilot the transport vessel at such a low altitude.

“Want to swap?” asked Deneuve.

“Ninety klicks to the installation,” said Grisham, in two minds about whether to accept. “Thanks, but no.”

The desert dunes gradually lessened in height. At the same time, the winds blew stronger and the sand struck the transport’s hull with such vigour that it was audible within the cockpit. The noise of it reminded Grisham of pelting rain upon a solid roof.

“What’s that?” asked Lopez suddenly. She pointed at something on the portside feeds.

Gripped by curiosity, Grisham reduced the transport’s velocity. A few kilometres south, a row of pillars, partly shrouded by the wind-blown sands, rose thirty metres from the desert. Unable to prevent himself, Grisham banked that way, his eyes locked on the feed screen.

As the transport came closer, Grisham could see that the pillars were of a dark grey stone of a type he hadn’t seen anywhere near here. These pillars were set upon a plinth, most of which was hidden beneath the desert, and they were so badly eroded it seemed as if they might collapse at any moment.

“There was life here,” said Deneuve.

“Those pillars could be a hundred million years old,” said Grisham, pulling a figure out of his ass. “They must have been buried until recently, else they’d have been worn away to nothing by all this sand.”

He stared for a time. The ever-shifting sands had revealed this ancient example of alien architecture and in doing so, ensured these pillars would soon be lost in history.

“At least we saw them,” said Deneuve.

“This is what space exploration should be about,” said Grisham, with a surge of anger. “Unearthing the secrets of the past. Learning about the universe. Instead, we’re fighting this stupid war.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s get on with the mission.”

Grisham resumed the journey to the Kijol installation. He saw no more signs of ancient life and no more of the surface-to-air launchers.

“Another twenty klicks and we should be over the area hit by incendiaries,” said Lopez.

The first Grisham saw of that area was a faint glinting on the western horizon. He held the deployment shuttle on course and soon it was flying over a new landscape. The incendiaries had fused the sand into a material that was like the roughest of glass. In no place was it smooth or level. Instead, the glass rose and fell unevenly, its surface more like a semi-transparent red stone than anything else. It was a bizarre sight and one not comparable to anything Grisham had seen before.

“Not far to the installation outskirts,” said Lopez. “By my reckoning we’re approaching the midpoint of the western perimeter. Most of the buildings were north and south. Which of those is our destination, sir?”

“Let’s try south once we get there,” said Grisham. The transport’s engines, along with the audible wind and the noise of sand striking the deployment vessel meant he had to speak loudly to be heard.

An enormous dune, its surface fused by the incendiaries, lay across the shuttle’s path. Unwilling to increase altitude, Grisham piloted the shuttle around it. Soon, he could see the wasteland of the Kijol installation. It had once been surrounded by an enormous wall, but that wall had been melted by heat and when it re-hardened it was into a mound rather than a fortification.

Looking south, Grisham could see the tops of other mounds – what had once been structures in the base. North was the same. West was the main landing strip, this being little more than an expansive area of levelled ground clad with alloy slabs. Aside from hundreds of nondescript lumps – doubtless the remains of personnel cabins and shuttles - this area was relatively unscathed. While the metals were pitted and blackened, they would likely be usable as a landing strip with some remedial work.

In the time since the base was incinerated, the sands had blown in and they were piled in heaps here and there. More sand blew across in stinging sheets and the winds were becoming stronger as the minutes went by. The surface – already an inhospitable place – would likely soon be intolerable.

“Heading south,” said Grisham.

“There could be a hundred comms hubs on this base and I might not recognize them amongst this mess,” said Lopez.

“Let’s wait and see,” said Grisham. “I have a feeling the Kijol used their incendiaries to wipe out opponents on the ground. Maybe this damage is more superficial than it appears.”

He guided the shuttle over the perimeter wall. It wasn’t so high that the shuttle would end up in the firing arc of a surface launcher, but Grisham nevertheless watched the feeds anxiously. He saw nothing that resembled a ground battery, and in moments the shuttle was flying across the landing strip.

Maintaining a twenty-metre altitude, Grisham aimed for the southern buildings. Once or twice he was forced to bank around an obstacle on the landing field, but otherwise it was a straightforward flight over level ground.

With attention to spare, Grisham found himself looking at the feeds for signs of dead aliens, or anything else he might recognize. Aside from many smears of carbon – which could have originally been almost anything - he saw nothing.

Crossing the landing strip didn’t take long and Grisham brought the transport to a halt on the outskirts of the personnel area of the Kijol base. From twenty metres up, the view wasn’t great, since many of the structures had once been higher and even when partially melted, their tops were above the shuttle.

Reluctantly, Grisham increased altitude to fifty metres. From here, the view was much better. Like he’d thought, the Kijol had dropped incendiaries to kill biological life forms, rather than to obliterate their own base. Every one of the visible structures – the domes, the towers, the warehouses, was badly damaged. Their walls and roofs had sagged. Many had buckled or outright collapsed. On the eastern edge of the base, an explosion had ripped dozens of buildings apart and flattened many others.

“Looks like a holiday resort I once stayed at,” said Lopez.

“Now we’re here, do you think you could identify a comms hub among all this crap, Lieutenant?” asked Grisham.

“Maybe if you flew past it slowly,” said Lopez. “You should ask Lieutenant Bishop to join us.”

Grisham twisted awkwardly in his seat. “Lieutenant Bishop, get your ass into the cockpit,” he yelled.

“Yes, sir,” came the muffled response.

Bishop arrived and Grisham explained the situation.

“That’s a lot of buildings to search if we can’t spot what we’re looking for from the air,” said Bishop.

“It’s a twenty-eight-by-four-klick area,” Grisham said. “That’s why you are going to spot a comms hub from the air.” He smiled without humour. “Because if we have no comms, we aren’t going to be rescued anytime soon – if at all. And without comms, we can’t transmit details of whatever we find as we explore this place.”

“That’s a comms hub,” said Lopez in surprise, tapping the feed screen. Her initial certainty faded. “Maybe.”

“Increase the zoom on that,” said Grisham.

“Here you go, sir.”

What Lopez had spotted was a tower, about 150 metres high and three kilometres west. Only its upper third was visible, with the rest being hidden by two immense warehouse structures. The warehouses had been badly affected by the incendiaries and they looked near to collapse, while the tower itself had a pronounced lean.

“Looks like a good bet,” said Bishop, leaning between Grisham and Lopez in order that he could see the screen.

“Let’s check it out,” said Grisham.

Hoping Lopez was right, he rotated the shuttle and aimed it for the tower.

SEVEN

The journey took less than a minute and Grisham brought the shuttle to a halt again, over the southernmost part of the landing strip. From here, he could see the eighty-metre-wide base of the target building. It was set back about fifty metres from the northernmost walls of the flanking warehouses. The gap between those warehouses was about two hundred metres, leaving plenty of room in front of the tower.

Numerous vehicles had once been parked here and they were now reduced to scrap like almost everything else on the base.

“This here might be the entrance,” said Lopez, narrowing her eyes at the feed.

She had the forward sensor aimed at the tower’s lowest level. Parts of the wall had melted and dripped to the ground, leaving hardened patches of metal. When he squinted, Grisham saw something that might have once been a door.

“That’s not going to open without explosives,” he said.

“Private Chau has a pack full of those,” said Deneuve.

“These warehouses are open as well,” said Lopez. She peered at the feed. “In fact, it looks as if every door is open, though it’s hard to be sure with a few of these worst-affected buildings.”

Grisham turned to face Lopez. “You think this could be the place?”

“Yes, sir. The more I look at it, the more I’m convinced. The Kijol don’t normally expose their comms antennae – usually they erect a building around them, just like this tower. I guess it makes it easier to connect all the other hardware that goes into a comms hub.”

Grisham shouted for Sergeant Maxwell. The soldier’s arrival left almost no space in the cockpit.

“See that building, Sergeant?” said Grisham. “We need to take a look inside. If it’s a comms hub, we might be able to use Corporal Barkley’s booster pack to send a transmission to an HF proxy hub.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell. “I see all the doors are open.”

Grisham nodded. “I’m sure the Kijol issued a base-wide command to do that. Incendiaries don’t work so well against vacuum-sealed buildings.”

“The Kijol wanted to burn everything inside as well as out,” said Maxwell. “I wonder if they were more concerned about the enemy or their own dead.”

“If the incendiaries were effective enough, we might not find out,” said Grisham.

“I’ll order my squad ready.”

“Not so fast,” said Grisham. “I checked Private Law’s personnel files. He’s flight trained.”

“Yes, sir, he is.”

“He can handle the shuttle. The rest of us are going with you to the hub. If there’s Kijol hardware in that tower, my crew and I are best trained to make it work.”

If Maxwell had feelings on the matter, he didn’t betray them. “I’ll let Private Law know,” he said.

“My crew and I are all combat trained, but I’m under no illusions that we’d be underfoot if we were heading into a combat situation,” said Grisham. “However, this place was incinerated and the Kijol are long gone. I’m not expecting trouble.”

“No, sir.”

“We’re setting down, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “Make your soldiers aware.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell. He turned and ducked beneath the door leading into the passenger bay.

“Here we go,” said Grisham.

He landed the shuttle carefully, about a hundred metres from the base of the tower and with the vessel’s nose pointing west.

“Are you sure this is the right move, sir?” asked Deneuve.

“Do you have any concerns, Commander?”

“No, I guess not. I could recommend we scout the installation from the air before we deploy, but—” Deneuve shrugged.

“This is a crappy situation,” said Grisham. “There’s no right answer, so let’s do what we can to send that comm to base.”

He ordered his suit comms to connect to the squad open channel. It sounded like Chau and Lowe were talking explosives, but they shut up once Grisham entered the channel.

“Sergeant Maxwell, you’re in charge. My crew will stick close by and will follow your orders. If this tower contains a comms antenna, we need to find a place we can link Corporal Barkley’s booster pack.”

“How would we know where to link, sir?” asked Maxwell.

“One step at a time, Sergeant. First, let’s find out if we’re in the right place.”

“Yes, sir. We’re ready to go.”

“Then let’s go.”

An alarm chimed softly to indicate one of the flank doors had been opened. Grisham heard a howling wind and the rattle of sand against hard surfaces. Through the cockpit door, he saw the soldiers jumping out of the exit. When there was room, Grisham followed, carrying a gauss rifle he’d taken from the rack on the cockpit rear bulkhead.

On his way to the exit, he passed Private Law in one of the seats near the cockpit. The soldier was waiting to take over when the crew left it empty. Grisham didn’t ask the soldier if he was confident. A deployment vessel like this could be easily operated by a single person with only a few hours of training. From his record, Private Law was competent to pilot vessels of far greater sophistication than this one.

Grisham didn’t pause at the flank exit and he jumped straight onto the ground outside. The wind beat against him, threatening to knock him from his feet, and the sand raced by, thick all the way up to his knees, but less so above them. That same sand reduced the light reaching the surface, making it gloomy.

The deployment vessel blocked the view north, but east and west, Grisham could see the shapes of melted vehicles and transports, along with the structures that way. From here on the ground, he felt suddenly small and vulnerable.

Already, the soldiers were on their way to the target building and Grisham got his feet moving. Behind him, the other members of his crew followed and once they were a short distance from the deployment shuttle, it lifted off vertically, the sound of its engines whipped away by the wind.

As soon as the transport was in the sky, Grisham twisted so that he could look to the north. The sand limited his vision, but he felt a sense of the unseen distances across the installation.

The gravity on Ovintus was little different to that found on Earth or Loxor, and Grisham’s breathing remained steady as he followed the soldiers. Soon, he entered the space between the warehouses. Their walls were bowed out, and he heard them creaking in the wind. What they contained, he neither knew nor cared.

Directly ahead, the tower seemed taller than it had from the deployment vessel, or perhaps it was just because Grisham’s perspective from the ground seemed to exaggerate the lean, as if it were looking down upon him in readiness to finally topple. Twin rows of window openings on the second and third storeys – their polymer windows shattered and gone – stared out like square spider eyes, while the rest of the visible side was featureless and grey.

The soldiers made their way single file between the melted vehicles parked in front of the tower. Grisham didn’t stop to stare – these gravity cars wouldn’t be going anywhere and he found the sight of them disquieting, like this was the aftermath of a nuclear war, rather than the planned destruction of a facility which had surely already been abandoned when the incendiaries fell.

Grisham arrived at the base of the tower. He couldn’t help looking up, and then wished he hadn’t. The entire structure looked as if was ready to fall over and he was right underneath where it would come down.

“Lieutenant Lopez, if there’s a comms antenna in this building will it definitely function with this much deformation?” Grisham asked on the crew channel.

“That’s a maybe, sir,” she said. “As long as its internal structure remained intact, it should be fine.”

Grisham turned his attention elsewhere. Nearby, Sergeant Maxwell and Private Chau were engaged in a discussion about how best to gain entry.

“What’s the problem?” asked Grisham, hurrying over.

He could clearly see where the door had once been, but molten alloy had dripped thickly down and hardened in place. A faint blue light was visible through a gap and Chau peered through. On the left-hand side, the access panel had shattered with the heat. If the backend security system was still providing it with power, Grisham had no way of knowing.

“It looks as if the door was already open,” said Chau. “And then the incendiary melted the wall above and that blocked it up. I’m not sure placing pack charges here is a good idea. You can hear the noises the building is making. It won’t take much to bring it down.”

“I doubt a few pack charges will cause this tower to fall over, Private.” The building groaned and Grisham glanced upwards. “But we don’t need to take the risk.”

“Let’s run a circuit of the building,” said Maxwell. “The doors on the other buildings are open, so maybe we’ll find a second entrance we can walk straight through.”

Maxwell gave orders and the soldiers headed around the building. As he followed, Grisham asked himself if the best course of action was to return to the shuttle and go hunting for a more stable comms hub. He rejected the idea for now, though there wasn’t much in it.

This building isn’t going to fall. Its internal supports are strong enough to keep it standing.

The wind blew with even greater strength along the north-south road separating the comms hub from the adjacent warehouse, and it pushed Grisham along like it was impatient for him meet whatever fate had in store. Here, the creaking of metal was bone deep and the warehouse had sagged so much that stress fractures were visible on its walls.

A scorched lump of metal blocked part of the road and from its size and overall shape, Grisham guessed it had once been an armoured ground transport. As he ran by, he caught a faint scent of char, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t imagined.

“No entrance visible here,” said Maxwell on the comms. “We’ll continue to the south wall.”

The south wall of the comms hub was sheltered from the wind, though it continued to blow in powerful gusts. Grisham saw a door ahead and it was open.

Halting to one side of the entrance, Maxwell glanced inside. “Clear,” he said, beckoning Private Diaz to follow him inside. The two soldiers vanished into the building.

Grisham approached. The structure’s interior was lit in a blue so dim he was sure the lighting was running off a backup supply that was either failing or designed only to offer the absolute minimum of power. The access panel was online and it displayed a green light.

Waiting outside until he was called in, Grisham studied the other soldiers, as well as the Marauder’s crew. The troops were outwardly calm, though watchful at the same time. Meanwhile, Grisham’s crew were coping well enough. He met Commander Deneuve’s eyes and she offered him a smile.

“Captain Grisham, it’s safe for you to enter,” said Maxwell.

“Acknowledged.”

Grisham passed through what had originally been an airlock space. The wind lessened immediately and much of the noise went too, though he could still hear it rushing by outside.

A few metres away, the inner airlock door was open and its access panel was also green. A layer of char covered everything. Where outside, the sand had scoured the walls clear, here where it was sheltered, everything was filthy.

This was the start of the search and Grisham hoped it would be a short one. Luck hadn’t been on his side so far on this mission, but he always tried to look on the bright side. Once he sent that comm to base, he’d have plenty of time to find out what had happened here on Ovintus.

EIGHT

Grisham stepped out of the airlock and into an expansive, high-ceilinged space that was likely once an operational area of the building, filled with consoles and other tech. Now, everything was melted into lumps and the stench of burned plastics lingered.

Three exits led from the room – one in each of the north, east and west walls. Under Maxwell’s guidance, the soldiers were soon heading deeper into the building. The squad comms was muted, except for updates necessary to coordinate the search.

“If this is what the rest of the comms hub is like, we won’t be sending a transmission anywhere,” said Lieutenant Lopez. “That booster pack needs to be plugged in via an interface port.”

“First we have to confirm this is a comms hub,” said Grisham. “So far I haven’t seen any proof.”

A fist-sized sphere lay on the floor nearby, covered in char, and he stooped to pick it up. When he rubbed the object on his combat suit to remove some of the grime, he discovered it was made from glass or a similar material. Inside were colours of red and green and blue, like splatters of paint were suspended within. How this trinket had survived the heat, Grisham didn’t know, and he placed it back on the floor.

The figure of Sergeant Maxwell appeared in the north door. “Captain Grisham, I’ve located something that might be the comms antenna.”

Grisham hurried for the door and his crew followed. The floor was littered with indistinguishable lumps and he had to watch each step. A short corridor outside led to another room, this one about ten metres square and with a similarly high ceiling. This place was also thoroughly burned out. The consoles in here had been larger than those in the previous room and they’d been arranged in a circle around a three-metre cube.

“Data storage?” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Maybe,” said Grisham.

“Through here, sir,” said Maxwell, gesturing towards the next door, again in the north wall. Then, he pointed at the floor behind one of the consoles. “These might be bodies. I’ll get Private Franklin to check them out later, though there’s not much left to plug his med-box into.”

Grisham crossed the room. He paused to look where Maxwell had indicated behind one of the ruined consoles. Two roughly Kijol-sized smears of carbon lay on the floor. When Grisham squinted, he could just about imagine them to have once been bodies, but he had no way to be sure.

“If you knew whether or not those Kijol were dead before the incendiaries came, it would give you an idea of the situation on this installation, sir,” said Maxwell.

“That’s good point,” said Grisham. He lifted his gaze. “Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to get answers from these marks on the floor.”

Maxwell didn’t reply and he exited the room into another corridor. This passage led to yet another room – one that Grisham reckoned occupied the central area of the building.

“Bingo,” said Lieutenant Lopez, entering the room right behind him.

This space was twenty metres along each of its sides and with a ceiling twenty metres above. From here, the building’s lean appeared even more pronounced and the creaking of the walls echoed around. The floorspace was occupied by more burned-out tech, and Grisham spotted some other marks on the floor that, now the idea was in his mind, he thought might have once been Kijol.

A square post, four metres wide, rose from the floor and went through the ceiling. It was the housing for the comms antenna. Grisham had seen similar before – the antenna itself would be cylindrical and this cladding was here for support and protection, and possibly to keep the comms personnel shielded from emissions.

“What do you think, Lieutenant Lopez?” asked Grisham.

“The tilt of the building is likely to have damaged the antenna,” she said. “If we can find someplace to plug in Corporal Barkley’s comms pack, it should be able to run a resistance check that will give us an idea of how badly any of our transmissions will degrade.”

Lopez crossed to the base of the antenna and walked around it slowly, hunting for a physical port. Every now and then, she reached out and wiped at the grime coating the metal. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Bishop cast his eye over the surrounding console hardware.

“There’s no way in hell we’re going to plug into any of these,” he said, giving one of the consoles a casual kick.

“And the antenna housing down here is too badly burned,” said Lopez. She wiped again at an area near the base. “I think this was an interface panel, but it’s unusable now.”

“Corporal Fine is searching for a way up,” said Maxwell. He looked around “I know this place is a mess, but I’ve seen worse. It’s likely the upper levels escaped the worst of it.”

Grisham agreed. The incendiary flames would have washed through the open doors and melted everything they touched. However, the upper levels might have only been subjected to scalding hot air. It was possible some of the tech had survived.

At that moment, Corporal Fine spoke on the squad comms to announce she’d located steps to the next level up.

“Let’s go check it out,” said Grisham.

The steps were on the north side of the building and to reach them, Grisham and his crew had to cross another two rooms, these appearing to mirror those through which they’d passed on the way to the antenna.

Private Vaughan was waiting at the entrance to the stairwell. “In there,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder.

Maxwell went first, his gun ready, even though Fine had reported no threats. Following after, Grisham climbed the steps quickly, his footsteps producing no sound. The tilt of the building had distorted the stairwell, adding enough of a slant to the treads that he preferred to keep one hand on the wall to steady himself. All the while, the groaned of overstressed alloy continued and he could feel the structure swaying slightly with the wind.

Welcome to the Kijol House of Fun.

The stairs emerged onto the upper level. Wind blew strongly through the broken windows Grisham had seen from outside, bringing sand with it.

He could straightaway see that the incendiaries had caused much less damage here than they had below. While the consoles were badly burned, their screens blistered and their input panels useless, the hardware at least retained its shape. The wind and sand had removed much of the char, but now everything looked centuries old, rather than cutting edge.

“I’m not sure any of this will be usable,” said Deneuve.

“I think our best hope is to plug directly into the antenna,” said Lopez. “Failing that, we might find some operational hardware on the next floor up. Or the floor after that.”

Grisham didn’t much want to go any higher than this storey. At least here the mission personnel had a chance of surviving if the building fell.

“The antenna is through the south door, sir,” said Maxwell. “Corporal Fine is waiting for us there.”

Grisham was about to leave when he caught sight of a shape through one of the two windows in this room. He took a few steps closer. The aperture was chest high and a metre deep, and its window was completely gone.

Peering into the sandstorm, Grisham realised the shape he’d seen was the deployment vessel. Private Law was holding it steady at a two-hundred-metre altitude over the southern edge of the landing strip. The Daxin star was a pale orb overhead, descending as the planet’s day approached mid-afternoon.

“Anything to report, Private Law?” asked Grisham on the comms.

“Negative, sir.”

Grisham was about to turn away, when he spotted a flicker of orange in the gloom. “Shit!” he yelled.

The deployment vessel erupted into a vast explosion of white-hot plasma flames. Instinctively, Grisham averted his eyes and the visor on his suit helmet darkened automatically.

“The shuttle is down!” he yelled.

As soon as the blast had faded, Grisham looked outside again. Little remained of the deployment vessel other than a few pieces of blazing debris on the ground.

Maxwell sprinted over and stood on the opposite side of the window. He looked out quickly and then withdrew his head. “What did that, sir?”

“It’s got to be the Kijol,” said Grisham.

“What if it was those other aliens, sir?”

“I have a feeling we’ll soon find out.”

The distant sound of a Charos drive came to Grisham and he turned his helmet microphone towards the window aperture to see if he could pinpoint the direction it was coming from. Not that it mattered. The deployment vessel was down and whatever was piloting the inbound warship was sure to investigate further.

“There,” said Maxwell. “It’s heading north-east.”

Grisham saw it too. The familiar shape of a Kijol Achirus flew directly in front of the sun. It was travelling faster than sound and the bass of its engines trailed it across the sky. Then, the warship banked south and Grisham knew exactly where it was heading.

“That’s an Achirus cruiser,” he said. “We’re in the shit,” he added, in case Maxwell hadn’t already figured it out.

“The place I spend most of my life, sir,” said Maxwell. To Grisham’s surprise, the soldier grinned broadly.

“Those cruisers sometimes carry more than five thousand troops, Sergeant,” said Grisham, without a smile to return. “We should get the hell away from here.” He stepped away from the window, taking care that he wouldn’t be visible from outside. “But first we’re going to check out that comms antenna.”

“We might still have time to make it out of here and into a different building, sir,” said Maxwell, his face grim again.

“There’s not a chance of that, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “The first thing the enemy vessel will do is park over this area of the installation and scan for ground movement. Our only hope is that if it finds nothing, it’ll move east or west.”

“After landing a bunch of Kijol soldiers,” said Maxwell.

“If you know what it’s like to be deep in the crap, you must know what it’s like when your head goes under, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Maxwell looked like he was done talking, but then he asked another question. “What’s the likelihood the crew on the Achirus will decide it’s easier to saturate the area with missiles?”

“Let’s hope they don’t, Sergeant.”

Grisham hurried across the room to the south door, cursing his continued bad luck. With nowhere to go and no spaceship to get him there anyway, it would be only a matter of time before this game was over.

Assuming the cruiser didn’t simply bombard the area with missiles – which was a real possibility – its commanding officer had other options. A large-scale troop deployment, with cruiser assisting in the search, would soon locate Grisham and everyone else. The enemy were persistent and the chances of them giving up on the search were slim.

Exiting the room, Grisham followed a corridor. Sergeant Maxwell was a couple of paces behind, telling the soldiers about the downturn in their fortunes and giving out orders.

The next room had the same arrangement of consoles around a central cube that Grisham had seen on the floor below. He didn’t stop, though Lieutenant Lopez slowed to inspect the hardware. It didn’t take her longer than a couple of seconds to decide that salvation did not lie in this room.

Entering the central area, Grisham strode directly across to the antenna housing. Over the course of the last few seconds, the sound of the cruiser’s Charos drive had become more pervasive, and still it rose in volume. Grisham had no doubt the warship would soon be directly overhead.

“That Achirus is new-gen model, Captain,” said Deneuve. “When we were on Bastion, I checked out some of the feed recordings from our recent engagements with similar vessels.”

“As did I, Commander. I’d like to say it’s a shame we know so little about that vessel’s enhanced capabilities, but we’re a problem that doesn’t require an entire Achirus cruiser to resolve, whatever generation its hardware.”

While he talked, Grisham searched clockwise for an interface port on the antenna housing. Meanwhile, Lopez went the other way, also searching. Lieutenant Bishop went from console to console, hunting for somewhere to plug in the comms booster.

“Here!” said Lopez. She switched to the squad open channel. “Corporal Barkley, can you—”

As if by magic, though more likely because he was already heading this way, Barkley emerged through the eastern door before Lopez had finished speaking.

“Here’s the booster, ma’am,” said Barkley, striding over and dropping one shoulder so that the comms pack slid down his arm. “Tell me if you need anything.”

Lopez got down in front of an interface panel that was part char and part grey. She opened the front flap of the booster pack and then pulled out a wire from the side. Inspecting the plug at the end of the wire, Lopez nodded to herself that it would fit.

Grisham stood nearby, diverting his attention between what Lopez was doing and the sound of the cruiser’s Charos drive. The propulsion was so loud that he doubted he could have made himself heard were it not for the comms unit in his suit. Everything vibrated with the bass, yet still the creaking of the tower walls was audible.

“Just need to clean this up a bit,” said Lopez. She’d found a piece of cloth somewhere and gave the interface panel a wipe. To Grisham’s eye it looked as if she were only moving the dirt around.

“Done,” said Lopez.

She pushed the business end of the booster pack wire into the interface panel. At first, the plug wouldn’t go in, but with a few curses and some additional force, it clicked into place.

“I’m going to run a resistance test,” Lopez said, pushing a couple of virtual buttons on the comms pack’s screen. “Let’s see what happens…shit.”

“That isn’t what I wanted to hear, Lieutenant.”

“We won’t be getting rescued anytime this year if we send a transmission through this antenna, sir,” said Lopez. “The resistance test failed with a zero-point-three result.”

“What kind of result did we need?”

“A seventy or higher.”

“So we’re way off.”

“Yes, sir.”

Every pair of eyes went to Grisham. As the senior officer, the next decision would fall to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any ideas – or none that would do anything more than stave off the inevitable. Even without the Achirus cruiser hovering overhead, the mission personnel were stuck here on Ovintus.

After many years of fighting and many skin-of-the-teeth escapes, Grisham knew his luck had finally run out.

At that moment, Private Chau reported on the comms that he’d sighted an armoured Kijol transport coming in from the north.

The end of the road was near.

NINE

Grisham sprinted north through the building and joined Private Chau at the left-hand window. Maxwell and Fine weren’t far behind, though Grisham’s crew and Corporal Barkley remained in the antenna room in the hope they could figure out a way to send a fast transmission to an HF proxy hub.

“I’d say it’s a three-hundred-seater out there,” said Chau. He had his back to the wall next to the window and he was holding a thin, extendible rod with a half-inch sensor on top. Raising his arm, he poked the sensor a little way across the window aperture. “Maybe four hundred.”

“Too many for us to handle,” said Maxwell.

“Pass me that sensor,” said Grisham.

Chau obliged and Grisham linked to the device. The sensor began streaming a feed onto his HUD and he lifted the rod so he could view outside.

“The Achirus is right on top of us,” he confirmed. “I’d guess its altitude is three thousand metres.”

“You saw the transport, sir?” asked Chau.

“Yes,” said Grisham. “It’s stationary a couple of hundred metres up and a few hundred metres north of where our deployment vessel came down.”

“How many shoulder rockets could it soak?” asked Maxwell.

“Four, maybe more.”

“Private Lowe is a good shot, so I’ll call it four,” said Maxwell. “And that’s two more than he’ll be able to land before all hell is unleashed upon this building.”

Grisham thought hard. He was accustomed to fighting his way out of tight corners, but it was different on the ground. “Sergeant Maxwell, do you have any suggestions?”

“I promised my wife I’d never give up while there’s breath in my lungs, sir, but I can’t see a clean way out of this one.” His expression showed he was still trying figure something out. “My recommendation is that we gather up on the ground floor and make a run through the south door. There was an entrance to another building directly opposite, no more than thirty metres away. Maybe the sensor crew on the Achirus will be looking the other way when we make our run.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Grisham. He didn’t mention what everyone was thinking – that the Achirus crew already knew HF military personnel were here. It was sure they’d be looking straight down into the installation. “Like before, you handle the squad and my crew will stay close.”

“Yes, sir.”

Before Maxwell could put the retreat in motion, Corporal Barkley spoke on the open channel. “Captain Grisham, Sergeant Maxwell, you might want to change your plans,” he said. “Analysis of the resistance test results indicates this comms antenna goes a long way underground. There might be one or more subsurface levels to this tower.”

“How will going underground help us, Corporal?” asked Grisham. “The Kijol will flush us out eventually.”

“It might not help us at all, sir. Sergeant Maxwell, do you remember that installation on Colias-V?”

“I remember, Corporal,” said Maxwell. “That place was a Kijol warren.” He fixed his gaze on Grisham. “It’s possible when the enemy built this place they linked some of the critical buildings with underground tunnels.”

“And you’d prefer to take your chances looking for a way down?” asked Grisham.

“Yes, sir. Above ground, we’re going to die - it’s only a matter of when. If we find a way beneath the installation, we might stay lost for so long the Kijol start thinking they killed everyone when they destroyed our shuttle.”

“Then let’s find a way down,” said Grisham.

Maxwell got on with the organization. While he was giving orders on the comms, he used sweeping motions to urge Fine and Chau to the stairwell. They stayed low until they were beyond sight and then descended to the floor below.

“I’ll take the Marauder’s crew to the eastern stairs,” said Barkley on the comms.

“What am I doing, Sergeant?” asked Grisham.

“You know spaceships better than any of us, sir,” said Maxwell. “I’d like you to stay here and keep an eye on that cruiser. And holler if that transport sets down.”

Grisham nodded and raised the extendible sensor again. The feed from it was grainy and his HUD wasn’t the ideal medium for viewing detailed content, but as far as Grisham was concerned, it was much better than having to poke out his head and then being turned to carbon by a Kijol missile.

For a time, the transport did little other than rotate slowly about its vertical axis, as if its crew were looking for something. What they thought to achieve that the Achirus could not, Grisham didn’t know, but the longer they kept rotating about that vertical axis, the happier he’d be.

Far above the transport, the Kijol cruiser was motionless. It was a vast construction, though the sands reduced it to a menacing shadow across the base. Grisham guessed it was sixteen hundred metres from nose to stern and with a mass touching on three billion tons. Its flank blades were visible, jutting two hundred metres from each side and curving backwards. They served no purpose, yet Grisham realised those blades were one of the first things that jumped into his mind when he thought of the Kijol. Maybe that was the intention.

While he watched the sensor feed, Grisham listened on the squad comms. The tower wasn’t enormous and the ground floor contained only a few main areas, but as the search continued, the soldiers discovered numerous smaller rooms.

Five minutes in, the search had uncovered no way underground and Grisham was beginning to wonder if the comms antenna had simply been set into deep foundations. He’d got it into his head that this mission was a bad one and it was affecting his outlook. Grisham couldn’t let that happen and he forced out the negativity. Luck happened, good or bad, but it could be influenced as well, and that’s exactly what the mission personnel were attempting to do.

The building creaked again, louder than before. The noise of it built and stretched out until it was louder than that of the cruiser’s Charos drive. Grisham felt the wall and floor shift and he looked frantically around. He heard the ping of metal, sharp and clear, and a narrow crack appeared where the floor met the north wall.

“Sergeant Maxwell, I think this building is on the verge of collapse,” said Grisham. The crack widened in front of him until it was five or six inches across and it went all the way through the east and west walls of the room. “We have to conclude this quickly.”

The search continued, but Grisham’s job of keeping watch had become suddenly harder. The crack was slowly widening and as the seconds went by, his position at the window became more precarious. He could still keep watch on the enemy, but soon he’d have to find another vantage. When he placed his hand on the wall, the movement was far more noticeable than before – like that of ocean-going ship crossing rough waters.

A couple of minutes later and the updates on the squad comms were becoming increasingly negative. The soldiers were losing hope, while Grisham was convinced either the north wall would collapse, or the entire building would fall down.

“Captain Grisham, I’d like to keep searching for another five minutes,” said Maxwell.

Just as Maxwell spoke, the Kijol transport accelerated south, towards the comms tower. As Grisham watched, the vessel began a rapid descent.

“Even if this tower holds together, we might not have five minutes, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “That shuttle outside is about to land.”

The situation was going downhill fast and the slide continued.

“I’ve got movement outside to the south, Sergeant,” said Vaughan on the comms. The man was stationed in the south entrance airlock with his XR repeater. “I reckon ten or twelve Kijol. Do you want me to cut them down?”

“Damnit, they must have landed a second shuttle nearby,” said Maxwell. “Are they coming our way?”

“Not yet, sir. It looks as if they don’t know which way to turn.”

“If they head towards you, kill them,” said Maxwell.

“Private Lyles has found a hatch in the floor!” said Lowe. “It’s in the innermost room, north-eastern quarter.”

“What’s underneath?” asked Maxwell.

“It’s stuck, sir,” said Lyles. “Something melted on top of it – that’s why it took so long to find.”

“Can we blow it open?” asked Maxwell.

“It’s manually-operated with a handle,” said Lyles. “There’s no failsafe lock to blow. If Private Chau laid charges, he might seal it worse than it is already.”

“Private Chau, check it out anyway,” said Maxwell.

“Yes, sir, I’m on my way.”

“I think we can scrape it clear,” said Lowe. “It’s just burned plastic and some other crap. There’s a security panel and the light on it is green.”

“Get started while you wait for Private Chau,” said Maxwell. “I want everyone who isn’t on defensive duties to move into that room and do what you can to help. Captain Grisham, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay put. Private Vaughan, you don’t move either.”

“Sergeant Maxwell, the transport has landed about two hundred metres from the north wall,” said Grisham. “Its visible flank door isn’t open yet.”

“It won’t be long,” growled Maxwell. “I’m going to check out the hatch.”

Private Chau got there first. “I wouldn’t recommend laying explosives, Sergeant,” he said. “The hatch isn’t locked and my charges aren’t designed to clear debris.”

“Damnit,” said Maxwell. “We need a break.”

Grisham listened to the comms and he watched out of the window. He hoped the soldiers would have the hatch open soon and he didn’t want to be left stranded up here when it happened. The building shifted again and the crack on the floor widened to half a metre. With a shrieking noise, the east wall of the room tore open vertically and the west wall did likewise a moment later.

Shit.

He stayed at the window for another few seconds, which was just long enough for him to see the flank door on the armoured shuttle open and watch the first of the Kijol soldiers emerge with their jerky, insect-like movements.

“The Kijol troops are on their way, Sergeant Maxwell,” said Grisham. “I’m coming downstairs. The gap in the floor is becoming too wide.” He remembered the initial approach to the building. “I might be able to push this extendible sensor through the gap in the northern doorway.”

“We should have this hatch open in another couple of minutes,” said Maxwell.

Under the circumstances, two minutes sounded like a lifetime. Grisham had an idea. Maybe it wouldn’t be needed, but perhaps it would buy the squad some time.

“Sergeant Maxwell, I have a suggestion,” he said. “If Private Chau laid charges on the inside of the northern wall—”

Maxwell grasped the plan before Grisham had finished his sentence. “Private Chau,” he snapped. “Think you can bring down this building?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Plant those charges, but don’t detonate them until I give the order.”

“I’m on it, Sergeant.”

Grisham hurried down the stairwell. The steps shook like a rope bridge and he wondered if the north wall would fall down before Chau was finished laying charges. At the bottom, he crossed one room and then entered the airlock leading to the partly sealed northern entrance. Private Chau had already been here, and a fist-sized explosive charge was attached to the wall near the floor. Silvery stress marks indicated where the wall was close to fracturing.

Turning his attention to his own task, Grisham approached the outer door, which was open but looked as if a thick grey curtain of alloy had been drawn across the gap. Grisham discovered an irregular hole, head high, through which he could aim the extendible sensor.

What he saw was not good.

“The Kijol are coming fast, Sergeant Maxwell,” he said. “I’d estimate their numbers at two hundred or more and they still haven’t finished exiting the shuttle.”

“Private Chau, how are you getting on with those explosives?” asked Maxwell.

“I’m setting the last one, sir.”

“Get your ass here when you’re finished.”

“I’m done and I’m on my way, Sergeant.”

“What’s happening at the south entrance, Private Vaughan?” asked Maxwell.

“I can’t see the first bunch of Kijol anymore, Sergeant, and I don’t want to put my head outside to look for them.”

“Stay where you are,” Maxwell confirmed.

“The first enemy troops are approaching the north entrance,” said Grisham. “It won’t be long before they realise they’ll have to search for another way in.”

Suddenly, a Kijol face appeared in the opening. Grisham hadn’t seen the alien approach and it took him completely by surprise. He saw its pale eyes staring in and then it disappeared from sight. Grisham swore – while he wasn’t visible, the enemy soldier might well have noticed the extendible sensor.

“The enemy are right outside the north entrance,” he said.

At the extreme edges of the extendible sensor’s viewing arc, Grisham saw rapid movement. For a split second, he thought the Kijol were sprinting for the side alleys leading to the south entrance. Then, he saw the real reason for their behaviour – they were moving clear. Near the shuttle entrance, one of the Kijol raised a long tube to its shoulder.

Grisham knew what was coming his way and he turned to sprint away from the entrance, the soles of his boots slithering on the thin layer of sand which covered the airlock floor.

TEN

“Rocket!” he yelled. “North entrance!”

Grabbing the corner of the airlock exit with one hand to aid his rapid left-hand turn, Grisham accelerated for the next passage. He was less than halfway along when he felt the concussive burst from the rocket detonation and the sound of the blast was low and thumping. Plasma roiled out of the airlock and the heat sensor in Grisham’s suit registered a spike in the air temperature.

The explosion itself didn’t reach Grisham. Doubtless it had been mostly contained by the airlock walls, though he was sure there’d be a nice big hole through that alloy blocking the northern entrance.

“Private Chau, avoid the northern wall on your way back,” Grisham yelled. “The Kijol are going to be coming through it any moment now.”

“Roger that.”

The groaning from the comms tower walls had stepped up in magnitude following the rocket blast and Grisham wondered if the Kijol knew or cared how close to collapse the building was. Sometimes, the enemy would do whatever was required to achieve victory, even if it meant taking big risks. Maybe this was one of those times.

“Sergeant, the Kijol tried to enter the south airlock,” said Vaughan on the comms. “I didn’t get them all.”

“Leave your position, Private,” said Maxwell. “Before they start throwing grenades.”

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham entered the hatch room through its northern doorway. Franklin and Diaz watched him pass, their guns trained along the passage.

The hatch itself was about a metre square and raised a few inches off the floor. A group of soldiers was hacking at a lump of charred matter - which had spilled from an unrecognizable piece of tech - using what appeared to be metal legs torn from some of the surviving Kijol furniture.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Maxwell had a two-handed grip on the hatch handle and was straining hard. The hatch wasn’t budging.

“Come on, you piece of shit,” he said.

Private Chau entered through the western doorway and immediately ran towards the hatch to see if he could assist.

“Detonate those charges, Private,” grunted Maxwell as he hauled at the unmoving handle.

“Yes, sir,” said Chau. “Remote command sent. Good job I’m too close for those Kijol assholes to jam the signal.”

Grisham didn’t hear the detonations, but once again the complaining of the overstressed walls increased in volume. Metal shrieked.

“Incoming!” said Private Diaz. She fired her gauss rifle at an unseen target, the sound of discharge lost in the comms tower’s final moments.

The floor beneath Grisham’s feet shuddered and then he heard a pinging sound from overheard. When he looked up, a massive east-west opening had formed in the roof. The tower creaked and groaned some more. Grisham spun round at a new noise and was just in time to see the south wall of the room break apart right across the middle. The east and west walls went too and the ceiling was suddenly higher at the southern end than it was at the northern.

Grisham realised the flaw in his plan. If the comms tower snapped at ground level, the soldiers would be revealed to the cruiser overhead. The idea had been a spur of the moment one, to make things difficult for the Kijol. It was looking as if the plan was about to backfire.

The fact wasn’t lost on Maxwell either. “Come on!” he roared. “Let’s do this!”

“Private Diaz, what’s the situation north?” asked Corporal Fine.

“We’ve shot a couple and the others have taken cover. We don’t have long.”

At that moment, Private Vaughan entered at a sprint through the ruined east entrance. “This building is going over,” he said, turning and deploying his XR repeater with its barrel aimed the way he’d just come. “And the Kijol are right on my tail. Shit! Incoming!”

The repeater droned and spat out projectiles. Private Diaz shouted another warning, while the soldiers at the hatch redoubled their efforts. Grisham caught sight of his bridge crew. They were keeping out of the way and looked out of their depths. Hating the thought that he might be an impediment to success, Grisham crouched behind a burned-out console and kept watch through the north entrance. A Kijol soldier sprinted across his view, too quickly for him to react and fire.

With a final, long groan of distress, the comms tower began toppling northwards. The tear along the east wall became suddenly much wider, while the ceiling above the west wall sagged. Sudden compression in the north wall made Diaz and Franklin sprint away and, in a moment, the doorway went from seven feet high to five and the alloys around it bowed dangerously.

The Kijol continued to press their attack on the room’s western entrance. A couple of enemy grenades went off in the passage, but the firing rate of Vaughan’s repeater made it difficult for the aliens to arc a throw far enough to cause problems. Still, it wouldn’t be long before they figured something out.

And then, Vaughan reported that the aliens had withdrawn. In other circumstances, it might have been a positive development. This time, it wasn’t.

“Those Kijol soldiers will have communicated our position to the cruiser,” said Grisham.

Before he could finish with expect a missile strike on this tower, a huge explosion shook the falling building. The northern wall of the hatch room buckled further and the south ceiling rose faster. Searing heat from the blast swept through the passages, carrying sand as it came.

With one final, desperate wrench, Maxwell tore the hatch free. Off-balance, he stumbled. The hatch lifted to the vertical and almost fell closed again, but Lyles was quick enough to push it all the way open with her shoulder.

“A ladder,” she said.

Maxwell ordered the mission personnel to climb down the ladder, while he straightened and looked around. His expression was one of absolute focus.

Grisham’s crew descended with the soldiers. Maxwell and Diaz covered Vaughan while he gathered his repeater and ran for the hatch.

“Private Vaughan, you next!” shouted Maxwell. “Captain Grisham, you as well!”

Grisham stood at the shaft edge while Vaughan climbed rapidly down. The soldier slid a few rungs before arresting his descent and then repeated the process. Blue light exuded from the alloy-clad shaft walls and the bottom was somewhere far below.

“Down goes the tower,” said Diaz.

The slow fall of the comms tower became a fast one. The ceiling lifted ever higher and suddenly, Grisham could see the planet’s sky through the widening gap in the south wall. The wind blew in, bringing red sand with it.

Grisham dropped into the shaft, grabbing the topmost rung with his hands, while his feet found purchase lower down. Voices on the comms had already given him advance warning that the view at the bottom wasn’t going to be any prettier than the one at ground level.

He used the same slide-and-stop technique to make fast progress downwards. Now he was in the shaft, he guessed it was twenty-five metres deep. He glanced up, wondering if he might see the Achirus cruiser. All he saw was grey.

A second missile went off and Grisham felt the vibration through the solid rungs of the ladder. He slid another few rungs and was nearly halfway down when Private Diaz entered the shaft above. She let go of the ladder and for a moment, Grisham thought she was in freefall, but then she clamped both hands onto a rung, bringing herself to an immediate halt.

The manoeuvre was designed to let Maxwell follow without delay and, when Grisham leaned out, he saw the soldier climb into the shaft and pull the hatch lid closed after him.

Continuing his descent, Grisham soon came to the end of the ladder. He entered a tunnel that was about two metres wide, with a low ceiling, and the same alloy cladding as in the shaft. Detecting the first odours of decay, Grisham wrinkled his nostrils.

He headed along the tunnel, which ended about thirty metres away. A couple of soldiers were visible in the end room and they were shifting from foot to foot. Grisham knew why they were on edge and he kept going until he came to the room.

This space was about eight metres by eight, and the ceiling wasn’t much above Grisham’s head. Exit passages – which he’d already heard about on the comms - led from each of the other three walls. Where those passages went, he didn’t know, but at least they offered a chance to go somewhere that wasn’t here.

An ancient-looking console was in one corner and crude-looking panels covered in switches and gauges were attached to the cladding nearby. Cable trays were bolted to the walls, with the cables themselves occasionally branching off into holes in the ceiling. The tech in here looked like it could have been two hundred years old. At another time, Grisham might have asked himself why the Kijol had installed it here on Ovintus.

The reason he didn’t think too much about it was the pile of corpses in the centre of the room. Grisham’s first estimate was that eighty or ninety of the aliens lay here, covered in dried blood - blood which also coated much of the floor and some of the walls.

Private Diaz entered and Sergeant Maxwell was only a couple of paces behind.

“The hatch had a couple of manual bolts to keep it locked from the surface,” said Maxwell. “And if the comms tower comes down messily, that might help keep the Kijol off our backs for a time.” He stared at the corpses, scowling. “Private Franklin, what do you make of this?”

Franklin was crouched near one of the bodies, his med-box on the floor at his feet and attached by a thin wire to one of the corpses. “I’ve examined three so far, Sergeant,” he said. “Two of them died fifty-three days ago, and one died fifty-six days ago.” He gestured vaguely around. “The cause of death doesn’t need any explanation. These Kijol were butchered. Their combat suits and their guns weren’t enough to save them.”

Although the Kijol were his enemy, Grisham was appalled at the sights. The aliens here had been slaughtered - cut up by what was doubtless the same type of creature which Maxwell and his soldiers had fought on Xaros.

One of the Kijol had lost its suit helmet and Grisham stared at the alien. Its large, round eyes were open and looked blankly at nothing, while the alien’s once-pale flesh was tinged with green. Decay bloated its narrow face. The Kijol’s long arms – arms which had always reminded Grisham of a praying mantis - had swollen within its suit, giving the material a stretched appearance, while its legs had been so badly cut that one was almost severed.

“This confirms the Kijol have their hands full with another species,” said Grisham. “And if this attack happened in the last couple of months, it makes me think their war isn’t over.”

Corporal Fine gave one of the corpses an unsympathetic nudge with her boot. “If these two species want to kick the shit out of each other, I’m all for it. Hell, I’ll stand on the side lines, eating a hotdog and shouting at them to hit each other harder.” She raised her head and looked straight at Grisham. “But what does it mean for the Human Federation, sir? Is it a good thing for us?”

Grisham wasn’t sure what answer to give. From his discussion with Admiral Danner, the Kijol fighting a second war wasn’t necessarily going to work out in the Human Federation’s favour, but Grisham couldn’t spend the rest of his mission pretending he couldn’t arrive at a logical conclusion, just because of a conversation he’d had elsewhere.

“Long term, the Kijol being tied up elsewhere is good for the HF,” said Grisham. “Short term and medium term, maybe not so much.”

Maxwell got it. “All those new Kijol spaceships we’ve been seeing,” he said. “That’s because the enemy are trying to crush us – to knock us out of the fight so they can focus elsewhere.”

“Maybe,” said Grisham. “There’s plenty we don’t know, Sergeant. Whatever you decide to believe, the HF is in the shit right now. How that’ll change in the future, nobody knows.”

Maxwell looked like he wanted to continue the conversation, but a faraway rumble caused him to turn towards the entrance tunnel. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “The Kijol don’t like it when their prey escapes. They might do anything.”

“These passages go a long way, Sergeant,” said Fine, thumbing over her shoulder.

Maxwell pursed his lips in thought. “Captain Grisham, what are the mission goals?”

“Those goals haven’t changed, Sergeant. Staying alive and sending a comm to base are one and the same in my head. That means we have to locate another comms hub, and we have to stay ahead of the Kijol until their commanding officer is called to something more important than hunting down a few humans on a dead base.”

“Then, we hope the HF military decides we’re worth a rescue mission,” said Private Lyles.

“That’s the position we’re in, soldier,” said Grisham.

Lyles shrugged. “So let’s get on with and find that comms hub.”

“That’s what we were talking about, Private,” said Maxwell. “Captain Grisham, when you were on the deployment shuttle, did you see anything else that might have been a comms hub?”

“I didn’t,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Lopez?”

“Only this place, sir,” said Lopez. “We didn’t have much time for looking.”

Grisham walked to the north exit from the room and stared along the passage. It went on for a long way – so far that he could actually see a hint of the planet’s curve - before ending at an intersection.

“What if this went all the way under the landing strip to the northern end of the base?” he wondered. “It might even lead directly to a linked comms tower.”

“Sounds like wishful thinking, sir,” said Lieutenant Adler, standing alongside and also peering north. He laughed. “But sometimes wishful thinking is what you need. And just maybe, this passage could lead to a subsurface maintenance area for the facility. Who knows what kind of good things the Kijol might have stored in place like that?”

“Like what?” asked Private Lowe.

“Equipment, shuttles, weapons,” said Adler. “Maybe something we can use.”

“The northern end of the base is more than twenty klicks from here,” said Maxwell. “And who’s to say the Kijol thought to link it to the south?”

“Who’s to say indeed?” said Adler. He pointed at the other tunnels. “Presumably these go to other buildings in the south of the base, so why not link the north? There are machines that can cut through ten klicks of rock in a day. A north-to-south tunnel wouldn’t be such a big job.”

“And the cruiser is over the southern end of the installation,” said Deneuve. “If we’re to escape Ovintus alive, we’ll need that Achirus out of our hair. If we made it to the northern end of the facility, we’d have a better chance of locating a comms hub if the warship remains south.”

“Won’t the Kijol have the layout plans for this base?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “They’ll be able to guess where we might run.”

“That’s a risk and I’m sure the databanks on the Achirus will contain a high-level overview of the base and the function of every building,” said Adler. “What it may not contain is all the tiny little details that might not be important to the crew on a warship. Like these tunnels.”

Nobody looked convinced by Adler’s speculation, but at some point a decision would have to be made.

“If you’re looking for recommendations, Sergeant Maxwell, mine is to go north,” said Grisham.

“That’s mine too,” said Adler.

Maxwell nodded. “North it is. And if the Kijol make it to this room, they’ll have a good view of our backs as we run along that passage. We have to move fast.”

While Private Franklin gathered up his med-box, the rest of the soldiers prepared for a sprint north. Private Diaz lingered for a moment and continued to stare at the corpses.

“If any of those aliens like we saw on Xaros are still here on Ovintus, this is like an ammunition dump for them,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Maxwell.

He gave the order to move. Grisham was one of the last into the passage and he slowed as Maxwell pulled a couple of plasma grenades off his side clips. Arming the grenades, the soldier threw them underarm into the pile of Kijol dead.

Grisham dashed away from the room and Maxwell followed. The flash of detonations lit up the walls of the passage and a blackened lump of something dead was hurled by at floor level.

As he ran after the others, Grisham hoped fervently the aliens who’d killed those Kijol were no longer on Ovintus. The wreckage of this mission would be hard enough to salvage without additional problems.

Maybe, Grisham thought, his luck would change for the better.

He wasn’t counting on it.

ELEVEN

The passage was wide enough for two to pass, but not wide enough for two soldiers in full combat gear to run alongside. Consequently, the sprint to the intersection was conducted single file, with Grisham being directly behind Commander Deneuve. Everyone was fit and the thought of Kijol at their backs was a great motivator.

Despite the heat of the planet’s day, it was cold in the passage, though the exercise and Grisham’s combat suit kept him warm enough. And, while glowing orbs in the ceiling gave off some light, it was nevertheless gloomy and oppressive here.

Nobody slowed and it wasn’t long before the mission personnel came to the intersection, which the distance counter in Grisham’s suit helmet estimated was two thousand metres from the corpse room. He got himself out of sight around the left-hand corner and caught his breath.

Corporal Fine – the first to arrive - had already determined that neither the east nor the west turning led anywhere that could be discerned from the intersection.

“The passage west turns north again in about four hundred metres,” she reported. “The passage east is the same.”

Maxwell pushed his way to the front and Grisham moved himself up a few places at the same time.

“We’re heading west,” said Maxwell.

The soldiers moved off at a slightly reduced pace. While the urgency remained, the threat of Kijol shooting them from afar had diminished. Maxwell declared that, with the way ahead unknown, it was best if they pace themselves in order to be prepared for any surprise encounters.

When he arrived at the turning north, Maxwell halted at the corner and looked around it. “Another long passage,” he said. “It ends in a room about one klick from here. I think there are some side doorways between here and there.” He beckoned with his hand. “Let’s move.”

Maxwell jogged along the passage, then came Private Vaughan and then Grisham. Corporal Fine had dropped closer to the back to keep an eye on the soldiers further down the line.

“Definitely doorways,” said Maxwell on the squad comms. “They’re halfway along - two in each wall.”

“Are we stopping to take a look inside, Sergeant?” asked Vaughan.

“Yes,” said Maxwell.

He slowed at the first doorway and Grisham caught up. The door itself had slid into its recess when the Kijol overrode the base security and a few waist-high crates had been left in the room, along with the haulbot which had brought them here. Another doorway in the opposite wall of the passage led to an identically sized room, also containing crates.

“Those crates have green lights on them,” said Maxwell, pointing into the room. “The Kijol didn’t even have time to modify the override code to exclude their secure storage boxes. That probably tells us something about the situation here on Ovintus.”

Maxwell looked torn and Grisham had no doubt the soldier was curious to find out what was inside the crates.

“Let’s see what’s in these,” said Grisham, making the decision.

The room was only a few metres square and the nearest crate was against the right-hand wall. Grisham lifted the lid. What he found inside surprised him.

“A statue,” he said.

The statue was alone in the crate and supported by an internal gravity field. It was carved from red stone and it was badly weathered. From what Grisham could tell, it represented a squat creature of some kind, with a snarling face, thin arms, and long legs curved up beneath it. The proportions looked completely unnatural, so it was clearly stylised and Grisham had no idea if it was even meant to be a real creature or not.

“Ugly thing,” said Maxwell.

“I wouldn’t want it in my living room,” Grisham admitted.

“What’s it doing here?” asked Maxwell. He looked suddenly agitated. “I’m interested, but we can’t—”

“One more,” said Grisham, not knowing why he felt so compelled to look. He lifted the lid of the adjacent crate and stared at what he found.

“Well, shit,” said Maxwell, also staring.

This crate contained another statue from the same kind of red stone, but this one represented a different creature – a creature with long arms and long legs, and its head pulled in between two raised shoulder blades. Its face was rounded but with no features.

“Is that what you saw on Xaros?” asked Grisham. The suit recordings gathered by the soldiers during the mission hadn’t captured the alien, as if it simply didn’t exist, but he’d asked Maxwell to describe the creature.

“It looks similar enough to make me wonder, sir,” said Maxwell. He shook his head in disbelief.

“On the flight here, we saw signs of an alien civilisation, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “It was only a few pillars, but that’s proof enough. The Kijol must have located these artifacts and stored them here.” He was fascinated and wanted to search through the other crates, but he knew it wasn’t an option. “Let’s go.”

Maxwell nodded and exited the room. The next two doorways were about a hundred metres further along and he stopped there also. He glanced into the left-hand room and gave a shrug of disinterest. When Maxwell looked right, his expression changed immediately. Grisham caught the scent of decay moments before he saw the bodies.

“More Kijol,” he said.

Grisham estimated this room contained two hundred or more dead Kijol and they’d been massacred with the same bloody efficiency as those he’d seen beneath the comms tower. This room held more of the crates, and the bodies had been tossed carelessly inside, many coming to rest on top of the containers.

“Not much blood,” said Maxwell, his voice tight. “They were brought here from elsewhere.”

“Another ammo dump,” said Diaz, pushing her head into the room. “Are you going to burn them, Sergeant?”

“I have feeling we could use every explosive we’re carrying and not come close to having enough,” said Maxwell. “How many personnel might be stationed on a base like this, Captain Grisham?”

“Choose any number you like, starting at a quarter of a million,” said Grisham.

“What happened here was a big deal, wasn’t it?”

“I reckon so, Sergeant.”

On his way out, Grisham stopped at the door access panel. The light on it was green and the door would open and close freely, even though it shouldn’t have responded to him. The override code was still in effect and he had no idea if the commanding officer on the Achirus had the authority to reactivate the base security. Grisham hoped not – if every door was closed and locked, the mission would come to a rapid and unsuccessful conclusion.

Soon, the mission personnel came to the end of the passage, and emerged into a room about fifteen metres square. Corridors led east and west, and when Grisham stared along those ways, his heart fell. The passages went on for more than two kilometres. It was possible that other corridors intersected, but the light wasn’t good enough for him to be sure.

That left one other exit. An opening in the north wall led to switchback steel steps going down. Grisham descended a short distance – enough for him to see that the treads of the steps lacked risers. He peered through the space, but could only see as far as the flight of steps beneath this one.

“I don’t know how far down these go,” Grisham said. “But I’d say this is the most likely way to the northern end of the base.”

“Down it is,” said Maxwell.

The steps switched back many times and, when he reached the bottom, Grisham estimated he’d descended four or five hundred metres. His legs hadn’t appreciated the effort and they’d need a few minutes to recover.

A short passage led north and then opened into a vast space. The lighting here was no better than elsewhere and it took Grisham a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing.

“An underground maintenance bay,” he said. “Just like you thought, Lieutenant Adler.”

“Just like I guessed, sir,” said Adler.

The Kijol had gone deep into the surface of Ovintus in making this bay. Grisham’s earlier guess of the depth wasn’t far wrong and a ping from his helmet sensor told him the bay ceiling was 520 metres overhead. The surface doors were enormous constructions of alloy and, from the deep, droning vibration which pervaded the air, they required the assistance of gravity fields to aid their defiance of normal physics.

Grisham peered north, where the farthest wall was more than three thousand metres away. The eastern and western walls were both about a thousand metres from the stairwell entrance.

“I see shuttles, a couple of Excar fighters, one old gen Aeon destroyer and an old gen Achirus cruiser,” said Commander Deneuve, staring across the bay floor.

The Excar fighters were about four hundred metres in length and with V-shaped hulls. Both were parked parallel to the eastern bay wall. These vessels lacked the curved spines of other Kijol warships and they also lacked the firepower necessary to challenge even an old-gen Tibor. As such, the Excars were used primarily to attack ground vehicles – a task at which they excelled.

The Aeon destroyer was parallel to the western wall. These vessels weren’t designed to land, but the Charos drive of this one had evidently been shut down as part of the base evacuation, and the vessel was on the ground.

“The Achirus has taken some damage,” said Deneuve. “I guess it was in here for repairs.”

The cruiser was parked east-to-west across the bay. It too, was on the ground. The dozens of shuttles – large and small - which had been abandoned here didn’t interfere with Grisham’s view of the Achirus and he studied the craters in the warship’s hull. The vessel had suffered three visible missile impacts and Grisham thought that HF Ghosts might have been responsible.

“If every other door is open, why are those surface ones closed?” asked Lowe.

“That’s a good question, Private,” said Grisham, without offering a suggestion as to why the bay doors were shut. A few guesses jumped into his mind, but he didn’t air them.

“Anything we can use in here, sir?” asked Maxwell. He was obviously interested in the shuttles and his eyes were fixed on one of the armoured transports near the destroyer.

“I don’t know, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “I’ve never come across Kijol hardware in this state before, but – even if we can bring it online – I doubt we’ll be able to get any of these transports off the ground. Not without security codes.”

“And we’d have to figure out how to open those overhead bay doors,” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Then fly out under the nose of the Achirus,” said Grisham.

Despite his doubts, he was nonetheless convinced this was an opportunity. However, the mission had several priorities and Grisham couldn’t decide if exploring here was a greater priority than finding the comms hub. He made his uncertainty clear to the others.

“I count at least four lightspeed capable shuttles, sir,” said Commander Deneuve. “They won’t have a high multiple, but they’d get us to an HF facility in a few weeks.”

“The time we’d spend trying to get one of those working is my biggest worry, Commander. And getting out past the Achirus won’t be possible. We’d need to wait for it to leave.”

“Then you have your answer, Captain,” said Deneuve. “These shuttles will have to be the backup plan. If there’s no comms tower in the north, or if the Achirus goes elsewhere, we can talk about returning to this bay.”

Grisham grimaced. “This feels like a bird in the hand, Commander. Once we leave this bay, we may never be able to return to it.”

“In which case, we’ll handle what we’re left with.”

“Do you have a decision, sir?” asked Maxwell.

“Let’s stick with the original plan,” said Grisham. “We’ll find a comms tower and see what options are open to us then.”

“We’ll head diagonally across the bay towards the north-west corner,” said Maxwell without hesitation. “Since that Achirus is flat to the ground, we’ll have to go around it if we want to take an exit through the north wall.”

“Lead on, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

The soldiers were eager to go. Maxwell set off at a fast jog and gradually increased the pace.

Following not far behind, Grisham kept a wary eye on his surroundings. Turning, he could see three other entrances in the south wall, one of them large enough for a loading crawler to pass through. Surely there were many additional entrances from the other directions, but the landed spaceships prevented him seeing them.

The bay floor was solid and the soldiers’ footsteps made little sound. Neither did anyone speak – at Maxwell’s current pace, this would be a hard run to the north-west corner and nobody wasted their breath on words.

Grisham was glad to find that his legs had already recovered from the long descent of the steps and he kept up without difficulty. Soon, the mission personnel passed the nearest Kijol shuttle. This model was high sided and bulky, and more than fifty metres in length. Four hemispherical housings – gravity chains - on its underside indicated this was a lifter shuttle and most likely a vessel dedicated to repair work in the bay.

A little further, the group passed within a hundred metres of a second shuttle. This one was broad and angular, with twin repeaters slung beneath its nose, and flank missile launchers. Maxwell studied it as he went past.

“There’s a green light on its access panel,” he said, slowing.

Grisham hesitated. “Screw it,” he said. “Let’s see if that thing will fly. We’ll have to be quick.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell, diverting towards the shuttle.

At that moment, Grisham heard a whining sound, along with a rumble. It took him a moment to realise what it was.

“Shit,” he said, looking up. “The bay doors are opening.”

Sure enough, a narrow gap had already appeared. The Achirus would be up there and soon its sensors would have a view directly into the bay.

With no other cover within three hundred metres, Grisham and the soldiers ran for the shuttle.

TWELVE

Maxwell was a fast runner and he was first to arrive. The vessel was parked on three-metre landing legs, so the entrance doors were out of reach.

“The light’s green, but the access panel won’t accept an interface request from an HF suit,” said Maxwell. He strode towards the landing leg directly beneath the flank door and pulled open a hatch. “Luckily, I know how to get inside.”

Inside the hatch was a large red button, which Maxwell pushed with the knuckles of his clenched fist. With a faint scraping sound, a ladder slid from a recess in the shuttle’s flank armour and the feet of its side rails hit the floor with a clunk.

Maxwell climbed rapidly, while the soldiers clustered beneath the transport’s hull, hoping they could avoid detection.

“Got it,” said Maxwell. “The door is open.”

Grisham was closest to the ladder and he was second up after Maxwell. As he climbed, he stared towards the bay ceiling. The doors were many metres apart already and a thin curtain of sand was falling through the opening. However, the shuttle was parked off-centre of the floor and that meant the Achirus wouldn’t yet have the soldiers in its visual arc.

When he was almost at the top, Maxwell reached out a hand and hauled Grisham into the compact airlock.

“I’ll check out the cockpit,” said Grisham at once.

The inner airlock door was already open and he dashed through, noticing at once that the engines were offline. He hadn’t been on a Kijol shuttle in a long time, but finding the cockpit didn’t require a doctorate in orienteering. A short corridor ended at an intersection, where Grisham could turn left towards the nose or right towards the stern. He went left and entered the forward passenger bay. Rows of empty metal seats were separated by three aisles and the cockpit door was directly ahead.

“Do we have access to the cockpit, sir?” asked Maxwell on the comms.

“There’s a green light,” Grisham confirmed. He touched the access panel. “The door is open – we’re in.”

Five steps led to the cockpit and Grisham entered. The size of the transport meant it was fitted with high grade tech. The hardware lights were on and Grisham sat in the centre of the three seats.

“What’ve we got, sir?” asked Commander Deneuve, entering the cockpit.

“Kijol tech,” he grunted, his eyes darting around the console. It was similar to HF hardware in many ways and the language module in his suit was able to translate the labels, but the differences were still enough that Grisham wasn’t confident to start pushing buttons yet. “I’m trying to remember how it works.”

Deneuve took the left-hand seat. “I’ll see if I can help.”

Lieutenant Lopez was next into the cockpit and she took the third seat. “I think we’re all going to make it into this shuttle without the Achirus spotting us,” she said.

“I’m not counting any chickens yet, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “The Achirus crew opened those bay doors because they’re looking for us. And now we’re stuck in here.”

“Captain, we’re all inside,” Maxwell reported on the comms. “And since no missile hit us yet, I’m guessing that means we made it unseen.”

“Keep your heads down, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “Maybe we can bring this transport’s sensors online. Then we’ll be able to keep an eye on the Kijol.”

“Yes, sir. What about the engines?”

“We can’t risk trying to bring those online with the bay doors open,” said Grisham. “The Achirus will detect the noise of it happening, as well as the output from our hull.”

“Can we plug Corporal Barkley’s booster pack into the shuttle’s comms?” asked Maxwell hopefully.

“We could probably rig something up,” said Lopez. “But any transmission is going to require weeks to reach its target. This is why we’re so interested in the main comms hub antennae – they’ll be fitted with the best amplifiers the Kijol can build.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Grisham had the knack with hardware and the other members of his crew did too. In a few minutes, they’d figured out how the main console worked.

“These two buttons here should activate the propulsion if that Achirus moves away,” said Grisham. “But I don’t know if it’ll come online or not, what with the installation-wide security override.”

He was itching to find out, even though activating the engines would be a certain death sentence. Assuming the cruiser would leave Ovintus at some point, this shuttle might well provide a means of escape, albeit at a very low lightspeed multiple.

“I’m ready to bring the sensors online,” said Lopez.

“Do it.” Grisham switched into the squad comms. “Sergeant Maxwell, you might want to come and look at this.”

“Yes, sir.”

The full width curved screen mounted to the top of the console illuminated and Grisham squinted at the brightness. Feeds of the bay appeared.

“The bay doors are fully open,” said Grisham. He turned at the sound of Maxwell’s arriving. “Looks like we made it just in time, Sergeant.”

Maxwell knew they were trapped and he made a noncommittal sound in response.

The bay itself was larger than the doors, but the opening was more than big enough for the shuttle’s sensors to obtain a view directly upwards. Sand still blew across the installation and some of it entered the bay. Directly overhead, the Achirus cruiser was motionless in the sky, at the same three-thousand-metre altitude as earlier. Grisham stared at the warship’s underside turrets and launch clusters, any one of which could pulverise this armoured shuttle in moments.

“Are they just going to look for a while and then move to another part of the installation?” asked Maxwell.

Grisham didn’t think that was what the Kijol planned. “I reckon they’re going to stay parked right where they are, Sergeant. Crossing this bay is probably the only way to the northern end of the installation, and by watching it, the Kijol intend to cut off our escape to the north.”

“And they succeeded in doing so,” said Deneuve sourly. “Smart bastards, eh?”

“So we have to sit here and wait,” said Lopez.

“Unless you have a better plan, Lieutenant.”

“Sergeant, you might want to come see this,” said Corporal Fine on the squad channel.

“That means I don’t want to come see it,” said Maxwell.

“Yes, sir, but you should anyway.”

Maxwell turned for the cockpit exit. On a whim, Grisham rose from his seat and followed. “Shout if you see anything, Commander.”

Corporal Fine was in the rear cargo bay, along with Private Lyles, Private Chau and a few hundred dead Kijol. The stench was terrible and Grisham shut off the filter in his suit helmet.

“We picked a good place to hide out,” said Lyles.

Grisham forced himself to look at the corpses. The cargo bay occupied the rear half of the shuttle and was intended to carry munitions, not dead bodies. Those bodies were piled up against the rear bulkhead, torn flesh exposed and dead faces staring blankly. The floor was covered in dried blood, but the thickest of it trailed to the flank loading door.

“Another stash,” said Fine. “Should I ask Private Franklin to take a look, Sergeant?”

“Don’t bother,” Maxwell growled. “I know what he’s going to say.”

“What if these corpses jump up and start throwing punches?” asked Lyles.

“We’ve seen no sign of those dark aliens,” said Maxwell.

“But they’ve been here, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

“That they have, sir.” By his expression, Maxwell wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. “If we burn these corpses with grenades, will the heat spill out through the hull?”

“Best not take the risk,” said Grisham. He crossed to the cargo bay access panel and inspected it. “There’s no way to lock this from here. Maybe I can do it from the cockpit.”

“I’d feel better knowing there was six inches of metal between me and these things,” said Fine.

“Me too,” said Grisham.

“I wonder if the Kijol know what a shit job they did at cleansing this base,” said Lyles.

“I have a feeling they did what they could and then left,” said Grisham. “I’m heading back to the cockpit. I’ll check if the cargo bay door will lock.”

“You’ll make that check first, sir?” asked Fine.

Grisham smiled thinly. “It’ll be the very first thing I do, Corporal.”

He returned to the cockpit, where his crew already knew exactly what was happening from the talk on the comms.

“The cargo bay door won’t lock, Captain,” said Lopez. “The override code is still in effect.”

“Well damn,” said Grisham. “Make sure Sergeant Maxwell is aware.”

“Yes, sir,”

Movement on the sensors caught Grisham’s eye and he swore when he realised what it was. A shuttle had been launched from one of the cruiser’s underside bays. The transport descended through the storm, on a heading that would bring it directly into the subterranean bay.

“Damnit,” said Grisham. “They’re coming our way. The Kijol must intend to land troops and send them south in the hope of catching us in a pincer.”

“If so, they’re too late,” said Lopez.

The Kijol shuttle came in at speed. Two hundred metres above the bay floor and about three hundred metres from the vessel in which Grisham and the others were hiding, it came to a halt. For a time, the enemy craft did nothing.

“They’re scanning,” said Lopez. “Looking in the places the Achirus can’t see.”

Even though Grisham knew he couldn’t be detected, he felt anxious. His eyes went to the control panel, where a green light assured him that the flank entrance door was still closed. The ladder was also retracted, and, unlike the side doors, it could be locked in place from the cockpit.

“If the Kijol search this bay, we’re in the shit,” he said.

After another five minutes of scanning, the Kijol shuttle rotated about its vertical axis and then accelerated towards the north-east corner of the bay.

“Looks like I was wrong - they’re going to send troops north,” said Grisham. “Chasing us through those tunnels would be stupid unless the Kijol have already landed other soldiers further north.”

Maxwell was in the cockpit too and watching the developments. “That shuttle will make a partial deployment and then it’ll head to the south end of the bay for another deployment. That’s what I’d do at least.”

“And what would you do after making the north and south deployments, Sergeant?”

“That shuttle has no reason to leave, Captain. I’d guess it’s going to stick around here for a time.”

Grisham swore. “I’m sure you’re right, Sergeant, though I wish it were otherwise.”

The Kijol transport remained on the ground for sixty seconds. The vessel’s orientation prevented Grisham from seeing how many enemy troops exited the transport.

“It’s going up again,” said Lopez.

Just like Maxwell had called it, the shuttle flew south and then landed. This time it set down at an angle which allowed Grisham to count the exiting Kijol troops as they sprinted towards the stairwell entrance.

“Two hundred,” he said. “Maybe a few more.”

“I’d say that transport has seats for four hundred,” said Maxwell. “If the Kijol deployed the same number north, then it may be empty except for its crew.”

Once the enemy troops stopped coming down the shuttle’s exit ramp, the vessel climbed once more into the air. Grisham willed it to stay there and not land again. Slowly, the Kijol shuttle accelerated north and then it came to a halt two hundred metres east of where the mission personnel were hiding.

“It’s going to land,” said Deneuve through gritted teeth.

Down came the Kijol transport and it landed adjacent to one of the bay lifter shuttles. Once more its flank door opened and troops emerged at speed.

“Another hundred,” said Maxwell, his voice taut. “Either it was standing room only on the way down, or the Kijol only sent a hundred north.”

With his own anger growing, Grisham watched as the Kijol troops broke into squads of ten. Each squad headed in a different direction.

“Some of them are coming our way,” said Maxwell.

“Was it ever in doubt?” asked Grisham through gritted teeth.

He was sure Maxwell and his squad could dispose of ten Kijol by ambushing them, but those ten deaths would bring hundreds of other alien soldiers this way. Or perhaps the enemy would choose the faster method of launching plasma missiles from the cruiser.

Either way, this mission was going from bad to worse and Grisham couldn’t think of a way to turn it around.

THIRTEEN

The inbound Kijol soldiers didn’t hang about. Having been assigned Grisham’s armoured shuttle as their search target, they headed over in their usual jerky gait – a gait which covered the ground efficiently enough.

“If you fired up the engines, we might be able to fly to one of the bay exits, Captain,” said Deneuve. “Then we could make a run for it.”

“There’s not a chance of that and you know it, Commander,” said Grisham. “This shuttle’s propulsion will take five minutes to warm up after it’s been shut down for so long.”

“What else can we do?”

Grisham didn’t know. “Sergeant Maxwell?” he asked.

“We can’t run and we can’t fly,” said Maxwell. “That leaves us only one option.”

He turned and exited the cockpit, shouting orders as he went. Never before had Grisham felt so helpless. All he could do was watch the sensors in the hope that something completely unexpected would come to his aid.

One of the Kijol squads was already searching the adjacent lifter shuttle and he could see movement through the open door. Then, three of the alien soldiers dashed down the exit ramp and Grisham got the feeling they were agitated by something. The other seven followed and at a similar speed.

“They found bodies,” Grisham said. He surged to his feet.

“Captain?” said Deneuve.

“I’ve had an idea,” Grisham said. Leaning forward, he pushed one of the buttons on the console, enabling the locks on the shuttle’s starboard emergency access ladder.

With that done, Grisham hurried into the passenger bay. The soldiers were spread out and laying low, in readiness to ambush the anticipated Kijol search party, while the remaining members of his crew were crouched behind seats near the forward bulkhead.

“Sergeant Maxwell, I heard you order Corporal Fine, Private Chau and Private Lyles into the cargo bay,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

“Follow me,” said Grisham. “We might be able to dissuade the Kijol from searching this shuttle.”

Grisham exited the passenger bay and dashed along the short passage to the cargo bay entrance. He thumped his hand on the access panel and the door opened. The reek of corpses hit him and he nearly gagged.

“What’s the plan, Captain?” asked Maxwell.

“This cargo bay loading door,” said Grisham, pointing to the portside flank. “I don’t think it’s ever been in the enemy shuttle’s viewing arc. And the incoming enemy squad is approaching from the starboard – they can’t see this flank door.”

“What about the cruiser, sir?” asked Maxwell, obviously trying to work out what Grisham was planning. “Could they have seen it?”

“Maybe. It depends on how closely they were looking.”

Having sealed his helmet filter against the stench, Grisham crossed to the rear of the bay. He wasn’t squeamish, but he didn’t relish the coming task. Pushing his hands under the arms of a Kijol corpse, Grisham began dragging it towards the flank door. The alien was heavy and he tried not to look into its accusing face.

“We know the Kijol are hunting for us,” he panted. “But what if they’re also looking for these?”

“They might want to know how many corpses are left intact after the incendiary attack.” said Maxwell, beginning to figure things out.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” said Grisham. “If the Kijol want to set up again on Ovintus, they’ll need to scout the place first. Open that cargo door, Corporal Fine – just wide enough that I can drop this corpse into the opening.”

“Yes, sir,” said Fine. “The door slides to the rear, so you’ll have to drag that corpse to the forward end of the bay.”

“Damn,” said Grisham. That meant pulling the body another four metres. “And I’d appreciate some help hauling over a few more bodies.”

“Get to it,” snapped Maxwell to the other soldiers. He stooped, picked up a corpse like it was a bag of cotton candy and threw it over his shoulder. “Quickly!”

As Grisham approached the flank door, Corporal Fine opened it a few inches. She looked outside. “No sign of Kijol.”

“Like I said, they’re approaching from starboard,” said Grisham. “Once they discover the access ladders on that side won’t extend, I’m hoping they’ll come this side. Open it further.”

Fine obliged and then helped Grisham position the body in such a way that its head and shoulders protruded into the bay. Maxwell stopped nearby, bent over and spilled his corpse on top. Meanwhile, Chau and Lyles carried over a third body between them.

“How many do we want?” asked Chau.

“Just enough that any Kijol looking from the ground feel assured this cargo bay is loaded with their own dead,” said Grisham, returning to the rear bulkhead and selecting another corpse. “Lieutenant Lopez, where are those Kijol?” he asked.

“They’re at the starboard side, Captain. One of them is looking for the access hatch for the ladder.”

“We haven’t got long,” said Grisham through his chin speaker.

Panting with effort, he dragged another body towards the opening and dropped it in place. Maxwell deposited a fifth and the soldiers had a sixth body in place moments later.

“The Kijol have given up on the starboard ramp, Sergeant,” said Lopez. “They’re heading portside.”

The soldiers in the cargo bay were in the same comms channel, so they also heard Lopez’s warning. Grisham backed slowly and quietly away from the part-open door. He could have headed for the forward exit, but that would have made him more visible from the ground, so he stepped carefully towards the rear bulkhead where all the corpses lay. Maxwell and the others came with him, staying low.

“The Kijol are standing near the cargo entrance, sir,” said Lopez on the comms. “They’re looking at those corpses you’ve stuck in the doorway.”

“Let’s hope they’re only looking for bodies in this bay,” said Grisham. “Then maybe they’ll leave this shuttle alone.”

“The Kijol don’t much like seeing their own dead,” said Corporal Fine. “I always thought they were superstitious about it.”

For long moments, Grisham and the soldiers waited. The pile of corpses exuded a presence and Grisham was acutely aware they were behind him.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, wanting to be away from here.

“Uh, Captain, one of them is about to—” said Lopez.

A grenade sailed in through the cargo door opening and landed on the floor near the forward bulkhead with a clunk.

“—throw a grenade,” Lopez finished.

Grisham’s instinct took over. He threw himself sideways onto the corpse pile, grabbed a body by its shoulders and then rolled over to put it between him and the blast. With a flash and heavy thump, the grenade went off. A wave of pressurised air swept through the bay and Grisham felt the bodies beneath him shudder. The temperature climbed for a moment and that was it. Grisham wasn’t killed and he wasn’t injured.

He stayed still, waiting to see if another grenade would follow the first. “Anyone hurt?” he asked.

“No, sir,” said Sergeant Maxwell.

The other soldiers had escaped too and Grisham was relieved the Kijol grenade had landed at the forward end of the bay rather than in the middle or the rear.

“The Kijol are moving off, sir,” said Lopez on the comms. “They’re heading for another shuttle east of here.”

Grisham pushed the corpse away, feeling no gratitude for the service it had rendered. Nearby, Private Lyles was spluttering and cursing in disgust. The pressure wave produced by the grenade had dislodged several corpses from the heap and brought them down on top of her.

“What’s the matter, Lyles?” asked Chau. “I thought you’d feel at right at home underneath a bunch of alien soldiers.”

“Screw you, Chau,” said Lyles. “That is not funny.”

Grisham wasn’t listening. He walked cautiously over to the still-open cargo door. The corpses at the forward end of the bay had been scattered by the grenade blast, and charred pieces littered the floor. Smoke rose and Grisham was glad his helmet filter was sealed.

“Are we definitely in the clear, Lieutenant Lopez?” he asked.

“I can’t guarantee they won’t come back, Captain, but for the moment, there are no Kijol within a hundred metres of this shuttle.”

“I’m returning to the cockpit,” said Grisham.

He headed back that way. When he took his seat, Deneuve and Lopez complained that he’d brought some of the corpse stench with him. There wasn’t much Grisham could do about that in the absence of showering facilities, so he let them put up with it.

“What happens now?” asked Lopez, not taking her eyes from the feed.

“I guess we have a long wait ahead of us,” said Grisham.

“Maybe we’ll be safe in this shuttle until the Kijol leave,” said Deneuve.

“Likely as safe as anywhere, Commander.”

The Kijol could be unpredictable opponents, so safe in this context didn’t mean much. Even so, Grisham had always felt that a few extra minutes spent alive was preferable to spending those minutes dead. And the dead couldn’t take their chances, no matter how good the opportunity.

It took the Kijol soldiers almost an hour to search the shuttles in the bay. They made no effort to approach the warships and that made Grisham think those vessels were secured against intruders. Once they were finished, the enemy troops returned to their shuttle at a run.

“Maybe they’ll leave,” said Deneuve, without much belief.

“I’m sure we’re stuck with them,” said Grisham.

Then came an unexpected and unwanted surprise.

“The Achirus has ejected something from its undersides,” said Lopez.

“What is it?” asked Grisham, leaning closer to the feeds. He could see an object falling, but it was made indistinct by the sands.

“I’m not sure, Captain,” said Lopez. “But it’s going to land in this bay, and near this shuttle.”

The object descended at a controlled velocity and Grisham thought it was cylindrical in shape. It came through the bay doors and it was indeed a cylinder – a grey cylinder with a ten-metre length and a four-metre diameter.

“Ah crap,” said Grisham, recognizing what it was. “An incendiary.”

The incendiary fell slowly towards the bay floor. While Grisham didn’t think it likely the device would explode because of all the Kijol still deployed, he wasn’t glad to see its arrival.

Like he’d expected, the bomb didn’t go off and it settled on one end, fifty metres from the shuttle.

“The Kijol searching for us must be finding dead bodies everywhere,” said Grisham. “And the commanding officer on that cruiser has decided to clear a few of them out.”

“And we’ll be turned to ashes if we stay here,” said Deneuve.

Events had moved on, but Grisham still felt as trapped as ever, and escape from Ovintus seemed the remotest of outcomes for this failed mission.

Then, the Kijol shuttle climbed vertically and, in seconds, it was gone from the bay. It climbed a few hundred metres into the storm and then headed south, out of sight. A few moments later, the cruiser accelerated from its position over the bay doors, and also headed south.

“Our sensors can still detect the Achirus’s Charos drive, sir,” said Lopez. “I’d guess it’s back over the southern edge of the installation.”

“We’re not going to see a better opportunity than this one,” said Grisham. “It’s time for us to make a run for the north exit.”

“On foot, sir?” asked Sergeant Maxwell. He’d been quiet for the last few minutes, content to watch and listen. “We’re about fifteen hundred metres from the north-west corner of the bay. Plus however far we have to run on the opposite side of that cruiser to find a way north.”

“We’re not going on foot,” said Grisham. “It’ll be quicker if I can get this shuttle’s propulsion online and fly us to the north-west corner of the bay.”

He pushed two buttons on the pilot’s console, which he hoped would activate the kickstart modules. Those modules boomed, somewhere deep below the bridge floor. The engines coughed and the transport shuddered. An electronic gauge flickered and then returned to a zero reading.

“Damnit,” said Grisham. He reached for the buttons again.

“Sir, wait!” said Lopez. “The kickstart modules are making too much noise.”

“You think it’ll bring the cruiser?”

“I don’t know, Captain. It’s possible. Unlikely, but possible.”

Grisham swore again. He felt sure the sound of the kickstarters would be lost in the storm, but he didn’t want to be wrong. Then, he spotted something on the sensors – a glimpse of a shape partly visible behind the nearest lifter shuttle.

“Lieutenant Lopez, zoom on that,” he said.

“Yes, sir, here you go.”

“A gravity vehicle,” said Grisham. “Looks like a big one, and it’s probably active like these shuttles.” He made his mind up. “Let’s go for it.”

Less than three minutes later, Grisham and all the other mission personnel had exited the armoured shuttle. The cruiser hadn’t returned, though its Charos drive was clearly audible above the wind.

“Move!” said Maxwell.

He led the soldiers towards the gravity vehicle. The bay floor was sheltered from the wind, but it still blew in gusts, and a layer of sand was already forming. Now that he was on ground level, Grisham could see that his target was a flatbed truck with a cabin up front, likely intended to carry minor loads around the bay. It was also on the ground and that meant its gravity drive was offline.

The journey across the bay was going to be dangerous whatever mode of transport they used, but speed was always the best way to reach cover and Grisham hoped they could make the truck operational.

He smiled inwardly. While the mission personnel were likely still doomed, here they were, alive and pushing on. Grisham hoped he might find a way to take advantage.

FOURTEEN

Grisham followed Maxwell through the legs of the lifter shuttle, while trying not to look over his shoulder at the incendiary cannister which he’d passed on the way here. The truck wasn’t far. It was a utilitarian vehicle, with a square cabin and sloped front screen, while its load bed was low-sided. The gravity drive was no more elaborate than a foot-thick slab of alloy. It didn’t look like much, but Grisham reckoned it could carry a couple of thousand tons without much effort.

The vehicle’s cabin had no doors and Maxwell jumped inside. He slid along the bench seat and Grisham joined him.

“There’s a green light on the gravity drive,” said Maxwell, pointing at the basic panel in front of him. A couple of joysticks were used to control the vehicle when it was in motion.

“Fire it up, Sergeant.”

Maxwell evidently had experience with Kijol transport, since he pushed the right button to start the engine first time. The truck’s gravity drive shuddered once, twice, and then came to life. A few seconds later, the engine had settled into a quiet hum.

“Everyone climb onboard,” said Maxwell on the comms.

Corporal Fine took the final space on the front bench and she stared out of the clear front screen. “Let’s hope the Kijol didn’t leave anyone on guard behind that parked cruiser,” she said.

Once the soldiers and Grisham’s crew were on the loading bed, Maxwell guided the vehicle smoothly away, aiming it towards the north-west corner of the bay. Gradually, he increased its speed until it was travelling at thirty kilometres per hour across the bay floor. The soldiers on the load bed weren’t secured, but this wasn’t the time to take it easy. Anyway, from the talk on the comms, it sounded like they were enjoying the ride.

The route to the north-west corner was more or less a straight line, though Maxwell was forced to deviate once around another armoured shuttle which lay directly in the truck’s path.

“If anyone out back sees that cruiser, let me know,” said Maxwell on the comms.

“Are you planning to dodge the incoming missiles with your fancy driving, Sergeant?” asked Diaz.

“I thought I’d shake you all off to make the load lighter,” said Maxwell. “Then it’d be easy to outrun a missile.”

Grisham listened to them talk, while he looked through the front screen and out of the open sides. Parked up against the western wall, the Aeon destroyer utterly dwarfed the flatbed. He stared at the warship and got a sense of its emptiness. When its engines were running and its systems online, the destroyer’s weapons could level entire cities and kill millions. Now, it was little more than a lump of metal, with no more purpose than those statues Grisham had seen in the storage crates on the way here.

He turned his attention to the cruiser ahead. It was huge compared to the destroyer and magnitudes greater in its capabilities. And yet here it was, abandoned by its makers. Grisham had fought the Kijol for nearly all his adult life and knew how tenacious they were. Anything which could make them evacuate a place like this and in such a hurry was to be feared. The thought made him shiver.

“I’m going to park up near the corner – beneath that grounded cruiser’s nose - and I’ll head out on foot to check along the north wall,” said Maxwell. “It’s possible the Kijol left watchers behind when they made their deployment.”

A short time later, the soldier brought the vehicle to a halt. He climbed out of the cabin. Grisham slid along the bench and followed him to the ground, while Corporal Fine went out the other side. The rest of the soldiers stayed on the load bed. Grisham looked up – the cruiser’s nose was 150 metres above his head, a metal overhang that had no chance of crashing down on him. The warship’s hull did a good job of blocking out the bay opening, and he felt much better for being out of sight.

“The Achirus can’t see us here,” said Commander Deneuve, peering upwards. “But it’s still up there.”

Grisham turned to where Sergeant Maxwell was jogging north. The cruiser’s starboard flank was about two hundred metres from the north wall, its jutting blades preventing it from setting down any closer.

About fifty metres from the truck, Maxwell stopped where the nose section had sloped closer to the ground – the cruiser’s midsection being flat to the floor. The soldier took a few extra steps north, his gaze turned east. For long moments, Maxwell said nothing. Then, he spoke.

“Everyone back on the truck. There’s a way north about five hundred metres from here.”

Grisham returned to the cabin and, a short time later, Maxwell guided the flatbed into the gap between the cruiser and the north wall.

“The flank blades are higher than the roof of this cabin,” said Maxwell. “We’ll pass right under them.”

He was right. Those blades were high overhead and Grisham stared as the truck went beneath them. The Kijol had given the alloys sharp facing edges that looked as if they would make a clean cut through a ripe tomato. He had to keep reminding himself it was all for show.

“This is the place I saw,” said Maxwell, bringing the truck to halt beneath the second blade. He looked out of the cabin’s open side into a passage heading north.

Grisham, meanwhile, peered east. “I can see other exits. Three in total.”

“The Kijol used at least one of those other exits, sir,” said Maxwell. “I figured we should take our chances with this one.” He shrugged. “This is the enemy’s base, so they’ll know the most efficient way to travel it. We’ll likely run into them wherever we go.”

“I’m sure you’re right, Sergeant.”

“Everyone – off this truck!” Maxwell ordered, sliding out of the cabin.

“What’s along here, Sergeant?” asked Private Lowe.

An expression of long suffering appeared briefly on Maxwell’s face and then vanished. “That’s what we’re going to find out, Private.”

When Grisham stared into the passage, it gave up none of its secrets. Its dimensions were identical to the tunnels from earlier and it continued north for a distance before coming to an east-west intersection.

Maxwell led the way once more and at a faster pace than before. Grisham could sense the man’s impatience – the northern end of the base was many kilometres away and arriving there would only herald the beginning of a search for a second comms hub. On top of that, the Kijol were also underground, their whereabouts unknown, while the active cruiser had dropped an incendiary into the repair bay. It was a recipe for hard times ahead.

Having paused at the intersection to check for dangers, Maxwell indicated the squad should head west on the basis that it would take them further from the known deployment place in the repair bay. It was possible the Kijol were also approaching from the north, but there hadn’t been enough time for them to cover so much distance, unless they’d entered through another repair bay.

“Be on your guard,” said Maxwell, as he set off again.

The western corridor was featureless and cold. Five hundred metres from the intersection, it turned north. Midway along the corridor, Maxwell stopped at a lone door. The room beyond contained more crates.

Maxwell stared and then shook his head. It was clear he wanted to find out if the crates contained more archaeological treasures. Grisham was also keen to know, but this time, he didn’t say anything. He valued his life above a few old statues.

“Let’s move,” said Maxwell.

At the turning north, Maxwell’s face twisted in momentary frustration. “Another five hundred metres to the next intersection.”

“This is a warship-scale installation, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “We’re the insects running beneath the floorboards.”

Setting off once more, Maxwell ran with his gauss rifle in both hands, the stock in the crook of his elbow and the barrel at forty-five degrees. It was clear the man was becoming increasingly on edge and was expecting to run into the Kijol soon.

The journey continued for several kilometres, through the same drab tunnels and without a shot being fired. At the intersections, Maxwell alternated between the east and west turnings. Travelling west at every opportunity might have been the safest way to the far end of the installation, but it would leave the soldiers in the western corner of the base and far from the assumed location of the comms hub.

And that was the problem, Grisham thought to himself. Everything was a guess. Maybe the comms hub was north-west. Maybe the west would be a good place to hide out for a few days. At any other time, Grisham would have favoured the laying low option. Here on Ovintus, he knew without a shadow of doubt that, before the Achirus went elsewhere, it would detonate a crapload of incendiaries. It was only a matter of when.

So, if the mission personnel were successful in sending a comm to base, they’d have to find a way to get far from the installation. Grisham cursed inwardly at the obstacles piling up.

The first encounter with the Kijol did not happen in a way anyone had expected. Running along a westward passage, about seven kilometres from the nearest buildings at the north end of the installation, Maxwell slowed as he approached a turning north. He stopped, checked the way ahead, and then swore loudly.

Grisham took the man’s place and put his head around the corner. A few metres along the passage, he saw two dead Kijol soldiers. He knew they were dead because they were in a heap on the floor, their blood all over the nearby surfaces. The passage itself continued to another intersection about three hundred metres away. A couple of doors faced each other halfway along.

“Those Kijol didn’t kill themselves,” said Maxwell, having informed the other soldiers of what he’d seen.

“They’re cut up bad,” said Grisham.

“One of those aliens from Xaros,” said Diaz. “Shit, I knew I should have stayed in bed.”

“Another damn complication,” said Maxwell.

“Maybe it’ll work to our advantage if it keeps the Kijol distracted,” said Fine.

“We had little control over this situation to begin with, Corporal,” said Maxwell. “Now we have even less. Private Franklin, confirm when those Kijol died,” he said.

Franklin hurried around the corner and held a probe from his med-box to the bloody throat of the nearest corpse. The Kijol’s helmet had been torn off and it was on the floor ten metres along the passage.

“The med-box estimates its time of death as thirty minutes ago, Sergeant.”

Grisham added up the minutes, trying to figure out how the alien soldier had made it here quickly enough to have been killed thirty minutes ago. The Achirus must have launched all its shuttles and landed one at the northern end of the base. Even then, seven kilometres was too long a distance to cover in the time available.

“There must be a second subsurface bay nearby,” said Grisham. “If the Kijol landed a shuttle inside, that would explain how these ones managed to be here.”

“Is finding another bay going to help us, sir?” asked Maxwell.

“Only if we avoid it,” said Grisham. “I’m just saying we’ve got trouble coming soon.”

“I don’t want to run into another of those aliens,” said Chau. “Not down here. Not anyplace.”

“Will this prompt the Kijol to withdraw?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey.

“Wise money says no,” said Grisham. “The Kijol can fight and they clearly have more experience with these new aliens than we do. Unless they believe they’re going to be completely overrun, they’ll stay until they’re ready to leave.”

“And then off go the incendiaries,” said Corporal Barkley.

“More than likely,” said Grisham.

Maxwell was ready to move again. “Private Lowe, move up near the front and be ready with that rocket tube,” said Maxwell. “Private Vaughan, stay at the rear. Private Lyles will be your spotter so you can concentrate on carrying that repeater.”

“Yes, sir.”

Maxwell set off north again, with Private Lowe behind him, and Grisham third in the line. With so many variables at play, the mission to escape from Ovintus was becoming increasingly difficult to predict. Death remained comfortably the most likely outcome.

Grisham was determined his fate would be otherwise.

FIFTEEN

The second encounter with the Kijol came soon after the first. Having arrived at the next intersection, Maxwell checked the way was clear. East, the passage opened into a space about four hundred metres away. West, the tunnel came to a corner after about 250 metres, and then went north. Here, the alloy cladding was blackened and heat-damaged, though it was cool to the touch. The flames were long gone.

“The Kijol incendiaries burned this area,” said Grisham. He looked in both directions. “It’s hard to tell which direction the fires came from. Maybe they came from both sides.”

“We’ll go west,” said Maxwell.

He set off into the passage and the soldiers followed. Grisham noticed that Maxwell had once again increased the pace and it was a test of his stamina to keep up. He could only marvel at the fitness of Private Lowe and Private Vaughan, who each had a heavier loadout than the others. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Adler – who was by almost two decades the oldest member of Grisham’s crew – was finding it the hardest.

“I won’t slow us down, Captain,” Adler panted, after Grisham asked how he was coping.

That was enough reassurance and Grisham didn’t ask again.

When the far corner was no more than a hundred metres away, he saw a sudden movement. A head appeared and then was withdrawn.

“Sergeant Maxwell!” shouted Grisham in warning.

Again came the movement and this time, it wasn’t a head, but a Kijol shoulder launcher. The alien holding the weapon didn’t expose much of itself. Maxwell reacted quickly, firing his gauss rifle towards the corner. He was running hard and his shots missed.

“Get down!” he yelled.

It was too late. Grisham could see it already. In the confines of this passage, a single Kijol rocket might easily kill every one of the mission personnel. Even so, he threw himself towards the left-hand wall and fell flat, his rifle underneath him. Maxwell had gone right, leaving a gap through which Grisham could fire. He got off a couple of snap shots, knowing they weren’t anywhere close to hitting.

Private Lowe stayed on his feet. Reacting even more quickly than Maxwell, he spun his launcher onto his right shoulder. The weapon’s coils whined.

A rocket burst from the Kijol launcher at the same time as a missile flew from Lowe’s shoulder tube. Grisham readied himself for burning death. The incineration of his killer would be little consolation.

Incredibly, the Kijol rocket missed everyone. It raced along the corridor at chest height. Grisham felt it pass by overhead. A split-second later, Lowe’s return shot struck the far wall near the floor. Somehow – and miraculously given the pressure – the soldier had managed to aim his shot so that much of the blast was channelled north around the corner.

Not all the explosive force went north. Pressurised and searingly hot air washed along the corridor eastwards. Grisham kept his head down and felt the shockwave through the solid floor beneath him. The rumble of the blast was physical and incredibly loud, and he knew he’d been given a fleeting glimpse of what the soldiers had endured on Xaros when the Kijol destroyer was bombarding the jungle.

“Up! Move!” yelled Maxwell.

Grisham responded automatically and got his feet under him. He joined the soldier in a sprint for the corner. Other footsteps were close behind and, somewhere faraway east, he could hear the fading thunder of the Kijol rocket.

The alloy cladding at the corner was glowing with heat and the rocket’s impact had ripped some of the thick sheets from the stone. Maxwell was careful he didn’t touch anything. He leaned out quickly and then withdrew his head.

“Clear,” he said.

Grisham also checked north. Nearby were carbonized remains that might have recently been two, three or four Kijol soldiers. The enemy rocket tube was on the floor, blackened and out of shape. Beyond that was another long passage, which came to an open space about four hundred metres from the corner. The walls of this passage were filthy and uneven from the incendiaries the Kijol had dropped on the base.

“Those explosions will bring others if they were close enough to hear it,” said Maxwell.

“What’s a damn rocket soldier doing here?” asked Private Lyles angrily.

“Waiting for one of those aliens to come along,” said Grisham. “It just happens we got here first.”

Private Lowe was shaking his head and staring at what remained of the enemy soldiers. “Always aim for the feet, you assholes.”

“Whichever one of these pieces of charcoal launched that rocket at us, it screwed up the shot,” said Corporal Fine. “But they probably weren’t expecting return fire. That’s what caused them to miss.”

“And maybe something else, Corporal,” said Grisham. “If these Kijol really were on the lookout for one of those aliens, they were probably shitting themselves already.”

During this short conversation, Maxwell kept his gaze north, along the barrel of his rifle. “No Kijol yet,” he said. “If they were coming to the sound of that blast, we’d have seen them already.”

“We should put in some distance,” said Corporal Barkley.

“We’ve got another hard run,” Maxwell confirmed. “Starting now.”

He jogged for a few paces to allow the other soldiers to get themselves into gear. Then, Maxwell accelerated to a pace that wasn’t quite a full sprint. It was a gamble, Grisham knew. If the Kijol appeared at the far opening, the soldiers wouldn’t be able to fire accurately.

Halfway along the passage, Grisham was breathing heavily and by the time he joined Maxwell at the far opening, he was panting for air.

“Another bay,” said Maxwell. “More alien shit.”

Grisham stared into the bay, his breathing and heart rate slowing. “What the hell?” he said.

This bay was far smaller than the last. Its ceiling was three hundred metres overhead, and the opposite wall less than a thousand metres away. The eastern wall was about eight hundred metres from where Grisham was standing, while the west wall was fewer than two hundred. A shaft, two hundred metres square, went up through the ceiling. From here, Grisham couldn’t see what was at the top, though he was sure it extended all the way to the surface.

Many large objects had been placed on the bay floor. These objects had suffered badly from the incendiary drop and it was hard to be sure what they’d originally been. The closest to Grisham was a roughly hemispherical lump with a diameter of fifty metres. Its surface was black with char and pitted from the heat.

Elsewhere, the objects were shapes that had no name. The largest was in the centre of the room and it must have been a tight fit through the overhead shaft.

“What are these?” asked Corporal Fine.

A possible answer came to Grisham. “Warship parts,” he said.

“They must have been the inside bits,” said Private Diaz. “Because none of these resembles any warship I ever saw.”

“There’s no sign of Kijol,” said Grisham. “I’d like to take a look at that.” He pointed at the hemisphere.

“This place could be crawling with enemy soldiers, sir,” said Maxwell. “There are plenty of places for them to hide.”

“We have to cross this bay floor regardless, Sergeant.”

“True enough,” said Maxwell.

He organized the soldiers, looked at Grisham and then indicated the hemisphere. Grisham ran the forty metres, with Maxwell and Lowe alongside, and some of the others following. Half of the soldiers remained in the passage, as did Lieutenant Kinsey and Lieutenant Bishop.

Standing at the base of the object, Grisham rubbed at the layer of char. The surface felt rough and below the grime was a colour that was only a fraction lighter than black. Grisham scraped it with his fingertips. It felt different to metal – yielding almost, yet still hard.

On a whim, he leaned closer and sniffed. He caught a scent he didn’t much like. It was biological, like charred flesh, but at the extremes of his senses. Grisham sniffed again and this time his nose didn’t pick up anything at all.

“I don’t know what this is,” he admitted.

“Part of a warship like you said, sir,” said Private Lyles. “But a bad alien warship, not a plain old Kijol one.”

“You might be on to something, Private,” said Commander Deneuve, rapping on the object with her knuckles.

“The Kijol captured an enemy vessel and brought it here for dismantling,” said Grisham. “And then they had to destroy their prize.”

As he was talking, something hit the edge of the hemisphere near his head, tearing a furrow through the grime. Sergeant Maxwell calmly lifted his rifle and pulled the trigger. From the passage entrance, Private Vaughan’s XR repeater droned.

“Kijol,” said Maxwell.

Grisham spun east, cursing himself for having been caught unawares. A couple of hundred metres away, two Kijol were dead on the ground. They’d emerged from behind one of the warship components, got off a single shot and then been killed by gauss fire.

“Private Vaughan, did you see others?” asked Maxwell.

“No, sir.”

“We can’t stay here,” said Maxwell. “I doubt the Kijol were expecting us to be this far north. It won’t be long before they come running.”

“Let’s hope much of their attention is elsewhere, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

“Enemy sighted!” shouted Vaughan. “East – where we killed the other two. One Kijol. There may be others.”

“The west wall,” said Maxwell. “There has to be an exit that way.”

He organized the retreat. The soldiers had evidently executed similar manoeuvres many times before and they acted quickly. Grisham followed Maxwell directly west. The moment he was beyond the hemisphere, he could see north. Other pieces of burned debris lay that way, but he saw no sign of the Kijol.

“If that third enemy soldier is alone, it’ll keep its head down while it reports on the comms,” said Maxwell as he ran. “If we’re lucky, the enemy will think we went south. At the very least, they’ll have to split their forces between two possibilities.”

Grisham’s sprint to the west wall brought him into the cover of a thirty-metre-long object that, underneath the char, might have been a cuboid with some vertical pillars. He had no idea what its designed purpose had been and his mind was too preoccupied to guess.

The object didn’t quite extend to the west wall and cut across the corner at a diagonal. A five-metre gap was plenty for Sergeant Maxwell to see all the way to the northern end of the bay. He turned his head and listened.

“Can’t see anything, can’t hear anything,” Maxwell said.

“But that sure as hell don’t mean there ain’t anything,” said Private Diaz in what was obviously an oft-repeated line.

“There’s an exit two hundred metres from here,” said Maxwell. “That’s two hundred metres farther away than I’d like.”

By now, the rest of the mission personnel had caught up. Squad B – led by Corporal Fine – had their eyes east, where the Kijol had first emerged.

“No movement,” Fine reported.

Maxwell grimaced as he continued staring towards the north end of the bay. Grisham could understand why the man wasn’t happy. The way north had the wall on one side, but it was exposed to the east. Even a single Kijol soldier – if it was well positioned and a good shot – could likely kill several of the mission personnel as they ran for the exit.

“We can’t wait any longer,” said Maxwell. He cast his eye over the soldiers. “We’re going to do this quickly and tidily. Squad A, with me.”

Grisham ran alongside the soldiers. Squad A ran fifty metres and took cover behind a five-metre blackened cube. Smaller pieces of debris lay nearby and Grisham guessed they might have once been Kijol security breakers or something similar.

Maxwell leaned out from the north end of the cube. “Damnit, I can see about four hundred metres east and there are plenty of places for an enemy to hide.” He stared long and then cursed again. “No movement.”

The next object was eighty metres from the cube, and was ten metres tall and twenty long, with a high side facing west and a slope to the east. As with everything else in the storage bay, Grisham had no idea what it had once been.

“Corporal Barkley, cover me,” said Maxwell.

“I’ve got you, Sergeant.”

Maxwell dashed away, while Corporal Barkley crouched at the edge of the cube, his rifle trained eastwards. Grisham was a good shot and he stood at Barkley’s shoulder, where he had a view that favoured the north-east. From here, he could see across a hundred-metre semi-open space, with visibility to a much greater distance between two warship components.

The gap between those warship components was narrow, so when something flitted across from east to west, Grisham didn’t blame himself for not shooting it dead.

“I saw movement north-east,” he said on the comms channel, staring intently at the gap with his helmet sensor zoomed in. “About five hundred metres from my position. One and no more.”

“Kijol?” asked Maxwell.

Grisham quickly replayed the moment in his head. Whatever he’d seen, it had been moving fast and the dim lighting made it seem like hardly more than a shadow.

“I can’t confirm it was Kijol, Sergeant.”

By now, Maxwell had arrived at the next place of cover and he stood at the corner, looking south-east.

“I’ve got the south-east covered,” he said. “I’d say this is a good time to move.”

Private Lowe and Private Franklin went next. Grisham didn’t take his eyes from the north-east gap. Now that the seed was planted, his initial certainty that he’d spotted a Kijol was eroding. The Kijol weren’t exactly spindly, but neither were they massive. What he’d seen cross the gap hadn’t been small, but given the briefness of the sighting, Grisham couldn’t rely on his memory.

Squad B moved up to the corner and Grisham took his turn running north, with Corporal Barkley following a few paces after. The man’s comms pack was heavy and he fell behind.

As he ran, Grisham looked east. The movement of his head at a flat-out sprint made it impossible for him to focus but he tried anyway. With some relief, he made it into cover and then turned to watch as Squad B, along with the rest of his crew, also made the sprint north.

From here, the exit wasn’t far – about forty metres, Grisham thought. Unfortunately, the only nearby cover was a row of three chest-high lumps of something unknown, but they were twenty metres from the wall. Depending on where the Kijol might or might not be waiting in ambush, those three lumps would either offer good cover, or not very much protection at all.

“I’ll go,” said Maxwell. “Depending on where that tunnel leads, we might have to keep on running.”

He watched across the bay floor for a moment and then dashed for the exit. Lowe followed and then Franklin. If any shots were fired from elsewhere, they didn’t hit the soldiers. Maxwell stopped just inside the passage and pointed his rifle pointed east.

When it was Grisham’s turn, he fixed his eyes on his target and prepared for the sprint. A moment before he set off, a noise reached his ears. It came from elsewhere in the bay – certainly nowhere close, but the direction of it was impossible to pinpoint. A series of clicking sounds turned into an incoherent scream of pain. Then the bay descended once more into silence.

Grisham ran for the exit.

SIXTEEN

Beyond the bay exit, a short passage led to a room, five metres square and with three other passages leading away. The walls of the room were unclad, though the red rock underneath had been burned and coated in such a way as to give it a strange sheen that reminded Grisham of obsidian. Lights had been fitted in the ceiling, though only a quarter as many as elsewhere, making the place dim to the point of darkness.

“Next man!” yelled Maxwell on the comms.

The rest of the soldiers escaped the bay and they gathered in the room. Diaz switched on her helmet torch and then switched it off, as if she feared the light more than the darkness.

By now, Grisham and Barkley had investigated the other three exits. West or north were the only realistic options. The former entered another space a couple of hundred metres farther, likewise for the latter. What lay in those open spaces, Grisham couldn’t tell.

“We just heard the proof another of those aliens is on the hunt,” said Maxwell.

“Do you think it knows we’re here?” asked Chau.

“We have to assume it does, Private,” said Maxwell. “Our best hope is that it hates the Kijol more than it hates us.”

“There isn’t going to be just one of them, Sergeant,” said Diaz.

“I know,” said Maxwell. “Let’s hope they’re spread far and wide.” He gave a humourless smile. “On the bright side, we’re in a place where the Kijol incendiaries burned everything to a cinder. That means no corpses to send after us.” He faced Grisham. “You’ve had a chance to look, sir. Which way?”

“North,” said Grisham at once. “There’s another room or a bay. I can’t see what’s inside from here.”

“I can hear explosions in the bay we just left,” said Private Lyles. She’d been assigned to keep watch that way, along with Private Vaughan who was prone behind his repeater. “A couple of shoulder launchers,” she said. “Maybe some grenades.”

“The Kijol are trying to eliminate that alien,” said Diaz. “I’m not sure who I’m rooting for.”

“Why don’t they just evacuate again?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “They left in a hurry once before. Why not pull out and drop another few dozen incendiaries?”

“The Achirus has been sent here to do a job, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “If the Kijol have come to reclaim the base, they have to clear out any threats first and that means preparing the ground so the incendiaries do the job properly this time.” He knew he was guessing. “Or maybe their fleet admiral left his wallet behind and the Achirus is here to recover it.”

Grisham looked across at Maxwell. “Lead on, Sergeant.”

“I haven’t heard any more explosions,” said Lyles as the mission personnel got moving. “That makes me think one side or the other is dead.”

Nobody speculated on the likely victor. Maxwell set off at a fast run along the north tunnel, his eyes focused on the far end in case another Kijol rocket soldier appeared. He’d ordered the mission personnel into a much longer line to reduce their vulnerability to explosives, but a rocket attack still had the potential to be devastating.

Grisham kept up with the pace. Although the surfaces were unclad, the Kijol had left the stone ground smooth and he had no problem with his footing.

The sparsity of the lights was such that every few metres, the passage was almost completely dark. Grisham didn’t like the conditions, but he knew his helmet flashlight would be more hindrance than help and would make it harder for him to see into the distance. Equally, the night vision was best left for total darkness.

He joined Maxwell at the entrance to the next room.

“Empty,” said Maxwell. “Exits north and west.”

“There’s no cladding here either,” said Grisham. His eyes had adjusted to the faint illumination and he peered into the corners. “The Kijol didn’t finish this area of the base. Maybe they dug these tunnels here and then decided they didn’t need them any longer. Or maybe they evacuated before the work was done.”

Grisham entered the room. He jogged the few metres to the western exit and stared that way. The passage went on beyond his sight, the pools of light making it appear like something from a nightmare. A gentle breeze wafted by. How the wind came to be blowing so far beneath the Ovintus surface, Grisham didn’t know. He suppressed an unexpected chill of fear.

“I know we’ve talked about this, sir,” said Maxwell on a private comms channel. “But I wonder if we’d be better off heading west as far as we can go and wait for this to play out.”

“I’ve been thinking about it too,” Grisham admitted. “If we keep heading west, I’m certain it’ll increase our short-term chances of survival.” He paused and then came clean. “If they don’t hear from us, I can’t imagine high command will give the all clear for a rescue mission. They’ll assume we’re dead. Equally, if we make it to a comms hub, we’ll be obliged to include in our transmission the details of our situation – a situation that involves a Kijol cruiser and other aliens. My mind’s telling me we’re going to see more Kijol warships here soon – maybe in a few days – and if that’s what I’m thinking, then someone in high command is likely to consider the same possibility. As the risks go up, the chance of a rescue goes down.”

“We’re screwed whatever we do,” said Maxwell.

“You knew that anyway, Sergeant. All we’re doing here is sticking our middle finger up at death and hoping we can live a while longer. Or until the power units in our combat suits run dry.”

“I’d rather go down fighting than choke in my own suit.”

“You and me both. The comms hub should remain our primary goal, but circumstances mean we can’t take a direct route.”

“Then we should head west for a time,” said Maxwell. “The Kijol are almost certainly aware of our position and they know our destination is the north end of the base. I don’t want to run straight into their arms.”

“I agree,” said Grisham. “We’re already a few klicks west of the southern comms hub, but now the Kijol know where we are, maybe they’ll head south in the hope of intercepting us. If we can slip past them, we might have a clearer run to the northern comms hub.”

Maxwell shrugged the shrug of a man who’d dealt with uncertainty before. “Or the comms hub might not be where we believe it is, and we might surface right outside its front door.”

The soldiers were waiting and Maxwell gave them the order to move. He headed west into the near darkness. Grisham found he was recovering quickly after each run and he kept up without a problem.

For seven hundred metres, the corridor continued straight. Then, it went right, once more heading north. Maxwell stopped only long enough to check the way was clear and then he continued.

Although the light didn’t change or dim further, the gloominess became increasingly oppressive. The soldiers began muttering about Xaros aliens again and Grisham found himself checking over his shoulder often. Every time he turned to look, he saw someone else doing likewise. Grisham hadn’t directly fought this new enemy and, had it not been for the reports he’d heard from these soldiers, he’d have been tempted to brush off his growing unease and blame it on his imagination.

The situation was getting to Maxwell too. When the soldiers passed by two rooms – opposite each other in the passage - a couple of hundred metres along the tunnel, he called a halt.

“There’s nothing in either of these,” Maxwell said after looking in both rooms. “Private Lowe, you’re in the eastern one. Private Vaughan, you set up in the opposite doorway. The rest of us will keep watch as best we can.”

Nobody questioned the order and the mission personnel waited to find out if anything was in pursuit.

“The aliens on Xaros were cunning bastards,” Maxwell explained. “They always seemed to know where we were and what we were doing.”

“And you think you’re going to catch one following us here?” asked Grisham.

“I don’t know,” said Maxwell. “I have to get it out of my head that those aliens are better than me.”

It was a surprisingly insightful admission and Grisham’s opinion of Maxwell went up a notch. “I never much liked running away either,” he said.

Maxwell held the soldiers in place for five minutes. They saw and heard nothing.

“That’s enough waiting,” Maxwell said. “Let’s move.”

The soldiers were anxious to be away, that much was clear, and Grisham wondered how much of a hold these aliens had over them. He remembered being told that the creatures on Xaros had soaked many bullets. Given how the soldiers relied on their guns, it wasn’t surprising to find they feared an opponent who wasn’t much troubled by their weapons.

And the alien on Xaros used the bodies of Corporal Valerio and Private Fleming as blood trophies. It knew what these soldiers valued and it took that away from them.

Not long after setting off again, the mission personnel entered another room. This one was twenty metres square and with a high ceiling. The walls weren’t clad and the rock was burned like it was in the other corridors leading here. A circular shaft with a three-metre diameter had been drilled into the ceiling. Lieutenant Lopez crossed over to it and looked upwards.

“The Kijol were going to install a comms station down here and this is where the antenna would have gone,” she said. “Maybe it was intended for emergency backup in case of an attack on the surface.”

“Sucks for us the Kijol never got round to finishing the job,” said Vaughan.

“Yeah.”

Three additional exits led from the room. The eastern corridor would take the mission personnel in a direction they didn’t want to go, while the northern corridor was long and exposed. Some way ahead, it became another room.

Grisham headed to the west exit. The corridor this way looked rough and unfinished and for some reason, the scorching of the rocks lessened noticeably only a few metres along. He felt another breeze and the air brought with it a mustiness, like it had blown through a tomb.

“Something about this—” said Maxwell.

“Maybe we should head north again,” said Grisham, wondering why he was letting himself get spooked. On a warship, he understood everything and knew just how it worked. Here, beneath the surface of Ovintus, it was different world entirely, and it wasn’t just because Grisham was unaccustomed to ground combat. He’d fought in his fair share of engagements. Here, it all felt wrong.

You’re letting this place get to you, Jed. His face twisted in a grimace. Except Sergeant Maxwell feels it too, and the soldiers with him.

“North suits me fine,” said Maxwell.

The soldier strode from the western tunnel entrance and made sweeping motions with his free hand to urge the soldiers north. Vaughan had deployed his repeater near the south exit and he quickly gathered the weapon.

The northern passage led to another room, empty like the last and with eastern and northern exits. Grisham strode to the east passage first.

“There’s more light further along this way,” he said, once he was sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. The eastern corridor was near dark for a long way, but it brightened faraway in the distance.

Private Diaz came over to join him. “This must lead back to the finished areas of the installation,” she said.

As she was talking, Grisham thought he heard a noise coming from the passage, and a long way distant. He raised a finger to quieten Diaz. She’d heard it too and turned her head slowly to see if her helmet mic would pick up the sound again.

“What is it?” asked Maxwell.

“An explosion, sir,” said Diaz. “Sounded like it came from a hell of a distance.”

“Any idea what type of explosion?” asked Maxwell.

“No, sir,” said Diaz.

Everyone listened, but they heard no further blasts. It seemed like whichever direction the soldiers travelled and however hard they ran, combat was never far away. The Kijol were clearly fighting an enemy that could move fast and it was keeping them busy.

“The north passage leads to another room and there’s more light that way too,” said Maxwell. “Let’s go.”

Once again, the soldiers proceeded north. The tunnel went straight, its walls burned and the air cold. Peering ahead, Grisham saw the room which Maxwell had mentioned. The light was indeed greater there and he could see tall, dark shapes beyond the doorway.

“Wait!” hissed Maxwell suddenly, when the entrance was little more than two hundred metres away. He raised his hand to reinforce the order and came to a halt in one of the dark areas between the lights. “And stay quiet.”

“What is it, Sergeant?” asked Grisham.

“I don’t know. A feeling.” Maxwell dropped into a crouch and motioned for the others to do likewise. “We’re coming close to the north end of the base and the Kijol don’t have unlimited forces. It would make sense for them to station troops at what they might see as the low risk approaches. Wait here, I’m going to take a look.” He aimed a finger at his chosen volunteer. “Private Lyles, you’re coming with me.”

Lyles nodded and crouch-walked to the front. The two of them headed cautiously north.

“Private Vaughan, set up that repeater and point it south,” said Corporal Fine.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Two hundred metres was a long distance to cover in a crouch. Maxwell and Lyles’s progress was painfully slow to watch and Grisham felt tense with the pressure of being here.

The soldiers made it to the north doorway and they crouched there for what seemed like a long time. Every few seconds, Maxwell changed position slightly. Grisham saw that the soldier was holding another of the extendible sensors and using it to look across the room.

“This must have been a storage room for all the tech the Kijol planned to install in those rooms we just passed through,” said Maxwell on the squad comms. “It’s a big place and everything’s burned out. There’s no sign of Kijol.”

“I can hear doubt in your voice, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

“If I was given the job of guarding this room, I’d keep myself out of sight and see what came my way, sir.”

“How do we proceed?”

“Carefully,” said Maxwell. “There’s a melted console across the door and plenty of cover on both sides of the entrance. We should advance through the room to our chosen exit.”

“What exits are available, Sergeant?”

“East, north and west, sir.”

“We should head north if it’s safe, otherwise west.”

“Yes, sir.”

The mission personnel approached with the same care displayed by Maxwell and Lyles a short time before. Grisham’s back and leg muscles ached from keeping so low and he gritted his teeth.

At the doorway, his view into the room was limited by a wrecked console which lay east-to-west across the entrance. However, by raising himself slightly, Grisham could see the far ceiling corners. The room was square and he estimated it to be forty metres along each wall, with heat-damaged alloy cladding on every surface.

Maxwell handed him the extendible sensor and Grisham interfaced with the device. He raised it and watched the feed on his HUD. The north and east passages were each about four metres wide – enough to bring in all this hardware, and enough to make Grisham sure the mission personnel were now in an area of the base that would have once seen plenty of use. West, the passage was narrow and with no visible cladding.

The floorspace was filled with more ruined Kijol tech. Big and small, it was all badly burned, though here and there, Grisham saw patches of matte grey. Whoever had brought it here in the first place hadn’t bothered to arrange the hardware in any sort of order and the consoles, cabinets and furniture were placed chaotically.

“Why would the Kijol want to guard this room, Sergeant?” asked Grisham, handing back the sensor. “Wouldn’t it be preferable to have a clear space to shoot into?”

“I didn’t say the enemy were guarding this room, sir, but we should take precautions based on the possibility,” said Maxwell.

If Maxwell had that feeling in his guts, Grisham wasn’t going to argue. “Is it wise to go north, Sergeant?”

“No, sir, I don’t believe it is. We’ll skirt the room and head along the western passage,” said Maxwell.

The soldier gave orders. When he was done, Maxwell crawled into the room and headed west. Private Lyles went next and then Grisham. As the mission personnel approached their goal, the pressure was increasing. So far, they’d suffered no casualties, but Grisham couldn’t see that lasting.

Keeping low, he headed west.

SEVENTEEN

When he emerged from behind the console lying in front of the entrance, Grisham could see about ten metres north. In other places, the burned-out hardware limited his view to less than five metres. The smell of char had lingered and it possessed an unpleasant, chemical edge. He listened carefully, but the only sound was that of his own breathing.

Maxwell and Lyles were already behind another console, this one at a diagonal three metres from the south wall. Crawling across, Grisham joined them, taking up the last of the space. Glancing back, he saw the other soldiers waiting for the front of the queue to move on, so they could follow.

“Let’s take another look,” said Maxwell. He was at the far end of the console and he lifted the extendible sensor so he could see across the room. “Nothing.”

A short distance away, an overturned cabinet lay near the same south wall and nearly halfway to the eastern wall. Maxwell looked around the console and then crawled rapidly across to the cabinet. Lyles went straight after and Grisham slid along so he could move when space became available. Private Vaughan and Commander Deneuve joined him behind the console.

Grisham was just beginning to think this was a waste of time – that Maxwell’s instincts were wrong – when he heard a soft thumping from deeper in the room. The thumping came again, slow and unhurried.

“Shit, what’s that?” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Alien,” said Corporal Fine curtly.

Grisham held his crouch behind the console and didn’t move. He heard more footsteps and guessed the creature must weigh an enormous amount. Then, the room went silent again.

“Can you see it, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Barkley.

“No,” said Maxwell, holding the extendible sensor a couple of inches above the upper edge of the cabinet. “I think it came in from the west and it’s heading east or north.”

The seconds turned into a full minute and the pain in Grisham’s knees from his awkward position became hard to bear. He didn’t dare move. The creature in the room was listening – he was certain of it.

“I can take it down, Sergeant,” said Private Lowe.

“We can’t risk it, Private,” said Maxwell. “We don’t know where the target is located. You might not be able to see it when you stand. Or it might be too close and you’ll have to hold your shot.”

Another minute went by and Grisham was starting to believe the enemy knew the soldiers were hiding and it was waiting gleefully for them to show themselves.

“We can’t stay here all damn day,” said Maxwell, becoming angry.

Five minutes after hearing the first footstep, Grisham’s knees were threatening to seize up. He’d be no use in a fight if he couldn’t stand, so he shifted position as carefully and quietly as he was able. The relief when blood began flowing properly again was immense.

“What are we going to do, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine. “I’m still at the entrance. I could head east and show myself in the far corner. When the enemy comes for me, Private Lowe and Private Vaughan will have a chance to kill it.”

“I appreciate the suggestion, Corporal,” said Maxwell. “I’m not ready to make a sacrifice of you.” He gave a short laugh. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Why don’t we throw a few grenades?” asked Diaz. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Or maybe we’ll bring a hundred Kijol here to find out what’s making the noise,” said Maxwell.

“We need a distraction, Sergeant.”

“I’m thinking on it,” said Maxwell. “One screwup and we’ll be dead.”

Unable to handle the pressure of not knowing, Grisham leaned out far enough that one eye could see north into the room. Wherever the alien was hiding itself, it wasn’t anywhere in sight. Then, he spotted something incongruous on the charred side of the console directly north of his position. A circular object, about one-point-five inches in diameter was not covered in the same grime as the console.

What the hell?

Grisham zoomed in with his helmet sensor.

Shit.

“Sergeant Maxwell, there’s a Kijol sensor fitted to the hardware near here. It has a view straight into the gap you and Private Lyles just crawled past.”

“Well doesn’t this just keep getting better?” said Maxwell.

Even as he was speaking, other footsteps became audible from either the north or eastern passages. The Kijol had been alerted by the security monitor and they were coming in for the kill.

“If they’ve got a rocket soldier with them, the first thing they’ll do is launch in this direction and hope to wipe us out,” said Corporal Fine.

“What about the alien?” asked Grisham.

“We can’t keep our heads down and hope everything works out for us, sir,” said Maxwell. “Private Lowe, when the time is right, fire at our enemies.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have to stand up to pinpoint their approach direction.”

“Wait for my word,” said Maxwell. “Private Vaughan, your XR will rest on the top edge of that console. If the alien comes our way, cut the bastard down.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The rest of us will take out whatever Kijol remain after Private Lowe’s hit them with a rocket.”

“Ready on your order, sir,” said Private Lowe.

“Everyone up!” roared Maxwell.

Grisham surged to his feet, his gaze sweeping across the room. He had a much better view with his own eyes than with the extendible sensor, and the storage area was even more cluttered with burned tech than he’d realised. Most of it was waist or chest high, but some was taller than his head. He could see the top half of the eastern entrance and a few metres along the passage, but everything below chest level was blocked by the storage room hardware. The northern entrance was partially obscured by a cabinet, but through the gap he could see ten or fifteen metres along the tunnel. Again, his view of the floor level was blocked.

Of the alien, there was no sign.

“Where is that bastard?” snarled Vaughan. He placed the bipod stand of his repeater on the edge of the console and supported the rest of the weapon with his arms. The firing position was less than ideal, but it was far better than trying to control the repeater with nothing but his strength.

“Incoming east. I have no visibility into the north passage,” said Private Lowe, over by the southern entrance. “Aiming east. Rocket out.”

The missile sped across the room and entered the eastern tunnel. Grisham averted his gaze, and the storage room lit up with the flash of detonation.

“Targets north,” said Corporal Fine.

“Waiting on launcher recharge,” said Lowe.

“Targets sighted,” said Vaughan. His repeater droned. “Targets down. That cabinet is blocking half of my view north.”

“I’m moving north-west, for a better vantage,” said Maxwell. “Too many damn obstacles in the way.”

“I’m heading that way too,” said Lyles.

Grisham’s position wasn’t ideal either and he glanced west. After a moment’s consideration, he dropped low and crawled rapidly across to the hiding place recently vacated by Maxwell and Lyles. Those two soldiers were now behind a different console a few metres north-west. They fired a couple of shots into the east tunnel and then dropped low.

“Shit,” said Maxwell. “That’s the easy targets down. The rest are staying low and out of sight.”

“I’m ready to take another shot, Sergeant,” said Lowe.

Before Maxwell could respond, a Kijol grenade sailed into the room from the eastern passage. Grisham saw it glint in the low light and then it landed halfway into the western side of the room. It exploded with a whump.

“Bad throw!” yelled Diaz. “Have one back.”

She hurled a grenade of her own and a couple of the other soldiers followed suit. A Kijol raised its head above one of the consoles near the northern entrance and Grisham took a shot. The alien ducked out of sight and the two grenades exploded near the eastern entrance.

“This is going to be messy,” said Vaughan without relish.

Grisham could see it too. It was impossible to know how many Kijol remained, but they were staying low. The fact they hadn’t fired missiles indicated they either didn’t have any rocket troops with them, or Private Lowe already killed them with his first shot. Grisham was sure the enemy would have replacements incoming at fastest speed.

In the meantime, that left gunfire and grenades. While it was hard to throw a grenade accurately over thirty or more metres without standing, this engagement was about to become an exchange of small-scale explosives until the rocket troops arrived to finish things off.

“Private Lowe, are you in a position to take a shot north?” said Maxwell. “I need you to land one against the wall of this room.”

“Yes, sir, I can do that,” said Lowe.

“Make it count.”

Lowe stood from his crouch, the gauss coils of his launcher already warming up. Two or three Kijol near the eastern entrance adjusted aim towards the soldier. Grisham fired his rifle at one, and a fusillade of shots from the other soldiers was enough to screw with the enemy aim. Lowe’s rocket shrieked north and exploded against the far wall.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Maxwell and Lyles crawled rapidly north-west. Grisham slid his gauss rifle across the floor in front of him and crawled to the place they’d just vacated. Another grenade exploded somewhere out of his sight, though he saw its flash illuminate the ceiling.

Raising his head, Grisham looked quickly into the room from his new position. His overall visibility hadn’t much improved. He could see further along the eastern corridor, but the northern entrance was now completely obscured by the Kijol tech.

More enemy soldiers poked their heads into view and a gauss shot thudded into the console in front of Grisham. He waited a moment, then raised his head and fired his rifle three times in quick succession. The stock thudded into his shoulder with each shot.

Braced against the adjacent console, Vaughan fired his repeater in a short burst. He changed aim and fired again, cursing all the time. In order to shoot, he had to keep his head up and that made him a target. “This is no place for a repeater,” he said.

“Private Vaughan, head to me,” said Maxwell. “You can set up over here.”

“On my way, Sergeant.”

“We’re going for the western exit,” said Maxwell. “I want everyone to keep moving.”

By now, the mission personnel had spread out along the southern and western walls of the room, and they crawled rapidly across the gaps between the hardware. Private Diaz joined Grisham behind the console. She was grimy as hell and her eyes were wide.

“Where’s that damned alien?” she said through her chin speaker.

“I thought you’d be more worried about the Kijol, Private.”

Diaz didn’t answer. Maybe she hadn’t even heard. Grisham raised his head again. He saw a target and fired. Other Kijol were visible, spread out and behind the hardware – ten or twelve in total, he estimated. The enemy were making rapid progress into the room and Grisham guessed they weren’t planning to wait for the shoulder launchers to arrive. Shots struck the wall a few metres behind him and he ducked again, wondering how close those slugs had passed by his head.

“You’ve got to move, sir,” said Diaz, pointing north-west. “You’re holding up the show.”

Grisham nodded. He checked once around the edge of the console and crawled rapidly across to the next one, three metres away.

More grenades went off, both near and far, while the gunfire was nonstop. He looked around. Maxwell and Lyles were close by the western exit, hiding behind two cabinets, one of which had fallen at an angle on top of the other.

Instead of waiting behind his new cover, Grisham crawled onwards at once, looking eastwards as he went. He saw no movement, but a grenade exploded close behind a compact console two metres to his right. The console protected Grisham from the worst of the blast, but the explosion knocked it sideways. It was heavy and struck him full length. Grisham kept his wits about him and scrambled north-west.

He made it safely and was grateful the impact hadn’t caused him any injury. Private Lyles gave him a thumbs up when he crouched beside her next to the cabinet.

“I think we’re screwed,” said Maxwell. He’d crawled a short distance north-west to where he had a view along the western exit. “It’s a three-hundred-metre run this way,” he said. “The Kijol will cut us down before we make it.”

“Incoming to the north!” yelled Corporal Fine.

“And more heading in from the east!” said Chau a moment later.

Grisham stared back the way he’d come. The soldiers were making progress, but the Kijol were becoming bolder. He also guessed they’d arrived in significant numbers, given how many different sources of gunfire he could hear.

Private Lyles rose partway from her crouch, but only managed a single shot before she was forced to duck once more. “We’re outnumbered and outgunned,” she said.

A grenade exploded nearby and Grisham felt the two cabinets shift. A second blast followed and the cabinets slid a half-metre across the floor, pushing Grisham and Lyles with them.

Snarling with anger, Grisham raised his head. He didn’t want to die here on Ovintus, but it seemed like the inevitable outcome had arrived. Firing a shot at the first Kijol he saw, Grisham scored a definite hit. He changed aim, but could see it was no use – the enemy were too numerous – and he ducked out of sight. This encounter was going to end for him in one of two ways. Either he’d be shot dead next to this cabinet or he’d take a bullet in the spine running west.

Whichever way it ended, Grisham was determined to kill some of these Kijol before they did the same to him. He raised his head again in readiness to fire.

EIGHTEEN

Grisham managed to fire only one shot, before his attention was drawn to a place near the southern entrance, not far from where the mission personnel had first entered the room.

A hulking shape rose partially into view. Grisham saw hunched shoulders, the top of a head and not much more. Then, it vanished out of sight behind the hardware.

“The alien,” said Grisham. “It’s near the south passage.”

“Crap, what’s it doing?” asked Chau. He was one of the soldiers nearest that entrance.

“I think it was heading north,” said Grisham.

“Stay low and keep moving,” Maxwell urged.

The incoming gunfire didn’t lessen and a couple more grenades went off.

“Damnit, I’m hit,” said Lowe. “A slug in the arm.”

“How bad?” asked Maxwell.

“I’m with him, Sergeant,” said Franklin. “I’m checking it out.”

“We can’t stop,” said Maxwell.

“Nothing new there, sir.”

Grisham heard a gurgling from somewhere across the room. Then came the sound of ripping polymers and flesh. A thumping noise followed and then another noise that Grisham had no words to describe.

He chanced a look over the cabinets. The alien wasn’t visible, but a dozen or more Kijol soldiers were on their feet, directly across from him on the eastern side of the room. They were firing at something unseen. Grisham thought about shooting a few of the Kijol, but he held fire.

“This is our chance,” he said. “While the Kijol are occupied.”

Maxwell shouted at the soldiers to hurry and they crawled across the floor towards the western exit.

“Sir, come on!” said Maxwell.

Staying in a crouch, Grisham hurried across the intervening few metres. He couldn’t help but look east, and he saw the alien briefly. It was no longer in the south-east quarter of the room. Now it was north-east. It was a hulking bastard and almost nine feet tall, even with its shoulders hunched and its head tucked low. It swung a long arm at one of the Kijol, knocking it into the wall.

A grenade exploded at the creature’s feet and it was engulfed in plasma flames. Then, and still burning, the creature dropped out of sight. Grisham didn’t for a moment believe it was dead.

Entering the western tunnel, Grisham straightened as he ran. Some of the other soldiers were already a long way ahead, having been ordered to make it to the end room as quickly as possible. Grisham’s legs were keen to make up the ground and he sprinted after them. Maxwell was right behind and keeping pace. Glancing over his shoulder, Grisham saw the other man’s anger and his resolve to keep pushing until nothing else would give.

“Clear behind,” said Grisham.

“Not for long, I reckon,” said Maxwell.

It wasn’t until Grisham was two hundred metres along the passage that he started to think the mission personnel might yet live to fight another day. His brain gradually emerged from battle mode and began to register the mundane details again. The passage wasn’t clad and it hadn’t suffered incendiary damage. Digits on his HUD informed him the air temperature had fallen five degrees and the light was the dimmest it had been. Grisham suddenly remembered the unease he’d felt standing at the entrance to the previous tunnel heading west.

Now, that unease was diminished to the point of insignificance by his body’s reaction to the recent combat. The Kijol were real. The alien was real. Whatever he’d felt earlier was nothing more than unproven fear.

Or maybe, he thought, the disquiet had been caused by the unknown aliens. This was not, after all, a normal situation and his senses had become heightened by the constant danger.

When he came to the end of the passage, Grisham entered a room. The last of the soldiers weren’t far behind. Everyone was breathing hard, and Private Lowe received attention from Private Franklin.

“How bad?” asked Maxwell, panting for breath. “We have to keep moving.”

“A gauss slug hit me here, Sergeant,” said Lowe, tapping near a patch of blood on his upper right arm. “It went clean through my suit.”

“But not clean through the bone in his arm,” said Franklin. “He’s suffered tissue damage only. The slug exited his muscle and it’s gone.”

“Didn’t you get hit in the same place on Xaros, Lowe?” asked Diaz.

“Nah, that was my left arm,” said Lowe.

“And now you’ve taken a hit on the other side, just to even things out,” said Diaz. “Is it going to affect your aim?”

“Maybe,” said Lowe. He grimaced. “But not if I can help it.”

“I’ve given him something for the pain, and there’s a dressing on the wound,” said Franklin. “He should be fine as long as he doesn’t have to keep firing that launcher.”

“He might not have much choice,” said Maxwell. “Now, let’s think about putting some distance between us and whoever comes out on top in that last room.”

“There’s been no movement, Sergeant,” said Vaughan, prone behind his repeater and looking east. “I can’t hear anything either.”

“I’m not reassured,” said Maxwell.

Grisham had been listening to the conversation while he studied the exits. The squad had only two options – north and west. In both directions, the tunnels were unfinished and their floors were uneven. Also, they were narrower and with lower ceilings than those elsewhere beneath the installation. Grisham wasn’t an expert, but he found himself wondering if these tunnels had been formed a long time before the others. Maybe even before the Kijol arrived on Ovintus.

“I wonder if we should go west, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “The north end of the installation isn’t far – less than fifteen hundred metres according to the distance counter in my suit - but whoever wins out in that last room, they’ll know we came this way. The Kijol might anticipate us heading north.”

“What about the alien?” asked Maxwell. He gave a bitter smile. “I guess there’s not much we can do about that. If it wants to find us, then it’s going to find us. West it is.” He stared along the passage. “Another run and another room. Much further and we’ll be under the desert.”

“We’ll find a different way north and soon be out of these tunnels,” said Grisham. “We’ve seen that the Kijol aren’t having it all their own way. Our life might become easier once we’re back on the surface.”

“Not long ago, I’d have disagreed with you on that, sir,” said Maxwell. “Now, I think maybe you’re right. An Achirus doesn’t carry enough troops to saturate this base. The Kijol can’t be everywhere at once.”

The dull sound of Vaughan’s repeater firing made Grisham snap his head around.

“I saw movement at the far end of the passage,” said Vaughan.

“Kijol or something else?” asked Maxwell.

“I don’t know, Sergeant. Whatever it was, I’m sure I hit it, but there’s nothing dead across the opening.”

“That tells us everything we need to know,” said Maxwell.

“The alien might still be fighting the Kijol,” said Barkley.

“It might,” said Maxwell. “But once it’s done, it’ll come for us.”

Grisham was struck by a sudden memory. “When that creature first showed itself in the last room, it was near the southern entrance,” he said. “While we were keeping our heads down and staying quiet, it was sneaking up on us. It was intending to take us by surprise.”

“It knew we were there all along,” said Diaz, fear in her eyes. “How can we beat something like that?”

“With bullets and rockets, the same as always,” said Maxwell sharply. “We didn’t die back there and we learned something that we should have already known from Xaros - we learned that we can’t hide from those aliens and we sure can’t outrun them. So we’ll have to outthink them. Now let’s move!”

The group exited the room through the west exit and Grisham placed himself near the front. In this passage, the darkness was almost enough for him to turn on his helmet flashlight. Maxwell didn’t give the order, so Grisham did like all the others and relied on his eyes. The ground was rough underfoot and he thought it might have a downward slope to it. For all Grisham knew, he could have been heading deeper for the last ten kilometres and the surface might now be a thousand metres above his head. Here in the tunnels, it was hard to be sure of anything.

“Three hundred metres to the next room,” said Maxwell, squinting into the distance. “And the lights are out.”

“If there’s a north exit ahead, we should take it,” said Grisham.

“What if we can’t find a way to the surface?” asked Chau. “We’ll have to head back east.”

“We’re taking everything as it comes, Private.”

“I should have thought before opening my mouth, sir.”

“We’ve all been guilty of that,” said Maxwell without rancour.

When the opening to the next room was a short distance away, Maxwell slowed to a fast walk. Grisham slowed with him, breathing deeply to feed his body with oxygen. The room was unlit and he couldn’t see more than a few metres inside.

Grisham turned on his night vision as he approached the entrance and everything went green. The only light source was from this corridor and it allowed his suit sensor to gather a sight of the far wall about thirty metres away. There was no visible source of heat.

At the corner, Maxwell stopped and stared into the room, evidently using his own night vision enhancement.

“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“What is it, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine.

Grisham came to the entrance and he looked in the direction of Maxwell’s gaze. “Ah crap,” he said. “More corpses.”

The mission personnel advanced into the room. Against the south wall of the room was an enormous pile of Kijol bodies that reached all the way to the three-metre ceiling and spilled ten metres into the room. Viewed with the night vision active, the corpses looked even more disturbing than the ones Grisham had seen earlier in the mission. The pale colour of the Kijol skin was exacerbated and the brown of their dried blood appeared even more sickly.

“Thousands of them,” said Corporal Fine. “And they stink.”

“Killed elsewhere and brought here, judging from the lack of blood,” said Maxwell. He shook his head. “I long ago learned that even the craziest things often have an underlying sense to them. This I can’t understand.”

“Maybe it’s not important that we understand,” said Barkley. “This is like a plague. The best we can do is keep ourselves alive.”

“Who made you the squad prophet of doom, Corporal?” said Diaz.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I wish I could.”

“What now?” asked Lieutenant Adler. The real question was unspoken. Are we going to burn them?

Maxwell turned away from the corpses and headed to the centre of the room, where he stared along the north and west exits. There were no lights and there was no way south.

“What can you see?” asked Grisham.

“Not much. There’s no light at all and the night vision isn’t effective in zero light conditions. The heat detection will work fine, but that won’t stop us running into walls. Should we head north?”

“I think it’s time,” said Grisham.

“Private Lowe, you’ve got three shots left in that tube?” said Maxwell.

“Five, sir. I had a couple of spares in my pack.”

“We’re going north. Living Kijol are bad enough, so I certainly don’t want their rotting corpses coming after us as well.”

“I’ll burn them when we’re far enough away, sir,” Lowe confirmed. He tentatively flexed his injured arm. “If there’s anything following us from the east, it might see the blast.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take, soldier.” Maxwell pointed into the north passage. “There’s no light for our night vision to enhance, so we’ll use our helmet flashlights. Now let’s get moving.”

The soldiers switched on their lights and the beams illuminated the extent of the decay afflicting the Kijol corpses. Grisham didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned away quickly and followed Maxwell north.

The squad ran a hundred metres or so, and then Maxwell called a halt. “Private Lowe,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

Lowe was clearly struggling with his launcher, but a shot like this was still easy. He fired a rocket south and the scent of its propellant filled the air. The missile detonated and, when the blast faded, Grisham peered south. The light from the eastern passage was just enough that he could see grisly lumps through the thick smoke, and the walls were coated in a layer of char.

“I’m so glad I can’t smell that,” said Diaz.

“Think the blast wiped them all out?” asked Barkley.

“Even if it didn’t, I’d rather face what’s left than the whole pile,” said Maxwell.

The mission personnel set off again, their light beams illuminating the nearby surroundings. Ahead, the darkness pressed in, while behind it gave pursuit. Another room lay ahead, dimly seen, and Grisham stared intently, wondering if this place too would be a forgotten grave for the Kijol.

He entered the room and directed his light towards the corners. The place was empty and, when the other soldiers arrived, their flashlight beams were almost enough to dispel the darkness.

“North, east or west?” said Corporal Barkley.

“Quiet!” said Corporal Fine suddenly from over by the south entrance. “I think I—” She didn’t finish the sentence and continued staring along the tunnel.

“You saw something?” said Maxwell, striding over.

“Yes, sir,” said Fine. “In the last room.”

Maxwell didn’t ask if she was sure. “Coming our way?”

“I’m not sure Sergeant. It either entered the tunnel or it went across the far end. My night vision isn’t picking anything up.”

“It didn’t on Xaros either,” said Maxwell. “Damnit.”

Grisham stood next to the soldiers, his gun ready, and stared south. All he could see was darkness, but his senses told him the alien was approaching, unseen. He felt its malevolence and its confidence. These subterranean levels played to the creature’s strength. It wanted to kill and soon it would be here.

“It’s coming,” said Grisham.

NINETEEN

“Private Vaughan, deploy that repeater,” said Maxwell. He pointed to the middle of the floor. “Do it there.”

“Yes, sir,” said Vaughan, running for the spot.

In seconds, the man was ready. “I can’t see a damned thing, Sergeant.”

“I know,” said Maxwell, using hand movements to direct the other soldiers into positions around the door. “If you’ve got a sixth sense, now’s the time to use it. Fire!”

Vaughan fired the repeater in a short burst, waited a second and then fired again. The rest of the soldiers were arrayed such that they could aim their rifles into the tunnel without risk of injuring each other. Their guns whined and shots punched through the darkness.

“Private Vaughan, pussyfooting isn’t going to bring that thing down!” yelled Maxwell.

“No, sir,” said Vaughan. He unleashed the repeater and the weapon hurled out a continuous torrent of slugs.

Grisham saw steam rising from the XR’s barrel as it heated up. He fired his own rifle into the tunnel, as fast as it would discharge the projectiles from its magazine. The ammunition readout fell rapidly. It had been a while since Grisham had been forced into a pressure magazine swap and he hoped the coming opponent would go down before his gun ran dry.

And that opponent was coming. Grisham could neither see nor hear it, but he knew it was hurtling towards him, a murderous creature that would slaughter everyone in this room if they didn’t kill it first. The tunnel wasn’t wide and the alien was a broad-shouldered bastard. It would have a real job avoiding the bullets heading its way. Grisham hoped the fusillade would be enough.

A couple of the soldiers nearby dumped their spent magazines and slotted in new ones. Grisham’s ammunition readout dropped to zero and his fingers found the eject mechanism. The empty magazine clunked onto the floor and, with an unerringness which surprised him, Grisham snapped the replacement straight in without a hint of fumbling.

“I’m nearly out!” shouted Vaughan.

At that moment, Grisham saw the alien at the extremes of the flashlight beams. It travelled with horrifying speed, and he saw it was using its powerful arms to drag itself along the tunnel, adding extra impetus to that provided by its legs. The effect reminded him of a spider somehow and Grisham felt both revulsion and fear.

Ten metres from the room’s entrance, the alien stumbled, righted itself and then fell headlong to the ground, where it rolled over twice and came to a stop just inside the room. At the same moment, Vaughan’s repeater cut out and he scrambled to swap in a replacement magazine.

The rest of the soldiers continued firing into the unmoving alien until Maxwell called a halt. He gestured the soldiers to move away and then under-armed a grenade onto the corpse. The explosion hardly moved the body, but set half of it alight. Smoke billowed.

“I still haven’t seen one of their faces,” said Diaz.

“Is it important?” said Lowe.

“I’d just like to know.”

“That time isn’t now,” said Maxwell. Not that anyone would be able to get close to the burning alien for a couple of minutes anyway. “We’re heading north.”

“One alien down, an unknown quantity left to go,” said Barkley.

They headed from the room into the north passage. After two hundred metres, it turned west and Grisham wasn’t sure if this was a development he was happy with. The lights were still out and he was beginning to hate the darkness.

After travelling a short distance west, the soldiers emerged into a cavernous space, which their flashlights were insufficient to fully illuminate. The ceiling was twenty metres up and a fifteen-metre-wide shaft rose through the middle of it. From his position near the entrance, Grisham didn’t have an angle to see what was at the top, even had his light been strong enough.

The walls were far apart – eighty metres, Grisham judged. Kijol machinery was visible, and he shone his light beam over a looming construction nearby. He approached. The device was eight metres tall, ten wide and five deep. It was plated in alloy, and it had several square openings in the facing side. A variety of control panels and viewscreens were all dark. The machine was either powered down or the hardware had failed.

“What’s this thing for?” asked Franklin, giving the device a vicious kick.

“I don’t know,” said Grisham. “At first, I thought it was used in the operation to create all these tunnels, but now—” He shrugged. “Whatever it is, we can’t do anything with it.”

Grisham looked deeper into the room and saw some other equipment that was likely bespoke. Moving towards the centre of the floor, he shone his flashlight into the shaft. It went up and up and he couldn’t see the top. He was sure it reached to the surface and no doubt it was how the Kijol had brought this equipment here.

“There are exits north and west,” said Maxwell. “Are we going to try north again?”

“Yes, Sergeant. We should be almost beneath the topside buildings now. If there’s a way up, now would be a good time to find it.”

The northern exit tunnel was about four metres wide and three high. Like this room and like the other places through which the mission personnel had recently passed, the unclad walls were unaffected by the Kijol incendiary drop. The more Grisham travelled this place, the more certain he became that the Kijol had been in a more than hurry when they evacuated Ovintus. The alternative was that the aliens were simply incompetent and he’d fought enough of them to know that wasn’t the case.

Two hundred metres further, the mission personnel entered another large space, even larger than the one preceding it. The chill was even greater here and the sensor in Grisham’s suit detected a faint wind blowing west to east, and he noticed a fine layer of red sand covering the floor.

“What’s all this stuff?” asked Corporal Fine.

Grisham advanced into the room. A three-metre-high conveyor ran from a two-metre circular hole in the western wall and ended inside a high-sided alloy machine, forty metres into the room. He shone his light to the ceiling, where a complex assembly of robotic arms and rails had been installed.

“Missile handling,” Grisham said. He realised what it was doing here. “This is part of the loading system for the surface defence systems. The missiles are brought along the conveyer from elsewhere in the facility and loaded into this machine here, which holds them until it receives a request from the perimeter battery.”

The conveyer blocked his view of the north wall, so he couldn’t see where the missiles went after the robot arms extracted them from the holding machine.

“This all looks old,” said Private Franklin.

“It does,” said Grisham. “But there was nothing outdated about the tech in the warhead that brought the Marauder down.”

“We need an exit north,” said Maxwell, who was a few metres ahead of Grisham. “Let’s go around this conveyor and see if we can find a way.”

The flashlight beams danced nervously as the mission personnel headed west towards the end of the conveyor. A ten-metre space separated the holding machine and the western wall. Grisham felt more exposed here than elsewhere, and he longed to be back in daylight again. On the positive side, the once-populated areas of the installation should be close and that meant an escape to the surface might be on the cards.

“There’s a crack in that west wall,” said Lyles. “It must be where the wind is blowing from.”

Letting curiosity get the better of him, Grisham jogged a few metres ahead. The wall here was made from red stone and it was uneven. An opening about a metre wide started at floor level and went halfway to the ceiling, narrowing all the way. Grisham crouched and shone his flashlight through the opening at floor level.

“This goes somewhere,” he said, poking his head and shoulders inside. “It’s tight here and then it widens farther along.”

“Don’t go exploring, sir,” said Commander Deneuve. “We’ve got a job to do here first.”

“I know,” said Grisham, backing out and standing. “I feel like there’s more to this place than we’re seeing.” He waved Maxwell to proceed.

They set off again, heading around the end of the conveyor. The rest of the missile loading equipment came into sight. A second conveyer ran along the western half of the north wall and into another hole. That hole was currently blocked by a slab of metal which Grisham expected would only open during the missile loading process.

“There’s an exit north,” said Maxwell, quickening his pace.

“We’ve gotta find us some steps,” said Diaz. “I need to feel the sun on my face.”

“I hate to burst your bubble, Private,” said Lieutenant Adler. “It’s probably night time up on the surface by now.”

“Well, shit, I guess I can wait till the morning.”

The north exit was narrow and clearly intended for personnel only, rather than vehicles. Again it was in darkness and Grisham asked himself if the power was off in the northern end of the base.

“If we found a comms hub, would its amplifiers have access to backup power, Lieutenant Lopez?” he asked on the crew channel.

“Comms are a critical function of every installation, sir, and I’d expect them to have a backup supply. However, given what happened to this base, I’d have to ask myself if the backups were damaged by whatever took out the main power.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Grisham.

He closed out of the channel, but didn’t say anything to the soldiers. Some things just had to be discovered and thinking about them ahead of time wouldn’t help one way or another.

The northern exit tunnel ended after a hundred metres and Grisham entered a ten-metre room containing several features of interest. Personnel exits led north, east and west, and all were sealed behind solid-looking metal doors. Several large pieces of mangled tech lay on the floor and severed cables protruded from two of the walls where these consoles had originally been installed.

Kijol corpses – about fifteen in total – were scattered around the room and the quantity of blood they’d released onto every visible surface would have been impressive had it not been so sickening.

“We saw this on Xaros,” said Maxwell, pointing at the broken tech.

“What’s so special about this place that one of those creatures wanted to break this stuff?” asked Corporal Fine.

Grisham walked over to the western door. Two lever handles operated the locking bolts, while an access panel nearby was offline. He tapped the door with his knuckles and it felt as solid as it looked.

“These doors received a command to open before the incendiaries were dropped,” he guessed. “And that command failed because the manual locks were engaged.”

“Maybe these Kijol were sent here to check it out,” said Maxwell. “But they were killed by the alien which had locked the doors in the first place.”

“Because the creatures attacking the installation knew what was coming and they tried to close all the entrances that could be operated manually,” said Corporal Barkley. “Damn.”

“That makes me think a bunch of other Kijol corpses might be stashed somewhere nearby,” said Maxwell, curling his lip at the thought.

“And I’m sure we’re close to a way up,” said Grisham.

“But not through this door, sir,” said Private Lyles, over by the north exit. “The lock release handles have been torn off.”

Grisham cursed and hurried over. Sure enough, the two-inch metal bars that controlled the locks had been snapped and they lay against the wall nearby.

“Same over here at the east door,” said Corporal Fine.

“That leaves only the west exit,” said Maxwell. He met Grisham’s gaze. “It’s got to be the way up.”

Grisham nodded. “If it isn’t, we’ve got a long run back the way we came.” He stared at the door with a feeling of trepidation. “Let’s find out what’s behind here.”

He checked to make sure everyone was ready. Many guns were trained towards the door, and Private Vaughan had the south approach covered.

Placing one hand on each of the release handles, Grisham bent his knees so that he could push vertically with greater strength. The locks weren’t stiff and the metal bars moved easily and soundlessly.

When the locking bolts were disengaged, Grisham leaned back and pulled the handles towards him. The door was heavy but it had some kind of assistance on the hinges and it swung open. What he saw on the other side was worse than anything he could have imagined.

TWENTY

Beams of light pierced the darkness beyond the door. A five-metre-long corridor led to steps upwards. Upon those steps lay many dead Kijol – so many in fact, that the steps could hardly be seen. Here and there, a metal tread was visible among the blood and the ripped flesh. Grisham was sure the stench of decay would have brought him to his knees were it not for the fact that his helmet filter was still closed.

“Damnit,” he said, angrily. “Why couldn’t we have found a way up that wasn’t knee-deep in corpses?”

Maxwell entered the corridor and shone his flashlight up the stairwell. “There’s a switchback landing higher up,” he said. “And it’s piled with bodies.”

“Can we make it through, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine.

“Hard to tell from here,” said Maxwell. “We don’t have much choice other than to try.”

“We’re hundreds of metres underground,” said Private Lyles. “If it’s like this all the way—”

“That’s what we have to find out,” said Maxwell, his patience fraying.

Grisham took a breath. “I’ll go,” he said, gesturing towards the upper landing.

“I’ll come with you,” said Maxwell.

Standing at the bottom, Grisham plotted his route up. It would be impossible to reach the landing without treading on rotten flesh or dragging a few of the corpses out of the way. He looked down at the Kijol nearest to his feet. Its eyes were closed, though it didn’t look at peace.

Grisham ascended. The light from his helmet was enough to see the way, while at the same time it added a nightmarish quality to the colours and the sights. The going was as tough as he’d expected and he wasn’t halfway to the landing before he started doubting the viability of this escape method. He remembered the descent into the subterranean bay and how his legs had suffered even though the way had been clear. Climbing this stairwell would be hard enough without having to navigate through thousands of corpses.

Finally, Grisham made it to the top. He took a large stride over a couple of bodies in order that he could see up the next flight to the second landing.

“What’re we facing?” asked Maxwell, a couple of steps from the top of the first flight.

“More of the same,” said Grisham.

“Better or worse?”

“Neither.”

Maxwell came alongside and stared upwards. “Let’s head to the next landing and then we can decide if this is the way to go.”

“Let’s do it,” said Grisham, making no effort to hide his reluctance.

The two of them climbed again. At the second landing, Grisham was forced to stand on the midriff of a corpse as he made his way to a place from which he could see upwards.

“Crap,” he said. “It’s choked up here.”

The corpses on the third flight were more numerous than lower down and, on the landing above, they were piled so high they almost reached the ceiling. Dead, rotting eyes stared at Grisham and he experienced a pang of real sympathy for these Kijol. They were alien scumbags right enough, but at least they waged war in a manner that was understandable. This was beyond Grisham’s comprehension.

“Sergeant?” said Barkley on the comms, his voice laden with concern. “You’ve gone quiet.”

“We’re fine, Corporal,” said Maxwell. He sighed. “There are sights I wish I’d never seen and this adds another one to the list.”

“Think we can clear that blockage, Sergeant?” asked Grisham.

“Given time,” said Maxwell. “The corpses we’d throw behind us would make it harder to return if we couldn’t find a way through. We’d have to clear them twice.”

“I can’t say I want to do this anymore than you do,” said Grisham. “It feels like we’re back to square one.”

“There’ll be other ways up,” said Maxwell.

“Then let’s find one.” Grisham motioned towards the stairs down. “You’ll have to go first.”

Grisham detected movement in his periphery and he spun towards the upper landing. Nothing had visibly changed, but there was a lot of detail to remember.

“I think we should get out of here, Sergeant.”

The two men were halfway to the landing below when one of the bodies against the side wall jerked suddenly. Its eyes were gone, but its head snapped around. Maxwell shot the corpse in the head and it stopped moving.

“If every one of these Kijol jumps to its feet, we aren’t making it home,” said Maxwell with surprising calm. Another corpse further below thrust out an arm and its fingers clamped around empty air. Maxwell shot that one as well.

A controlled descent turned into something different. Maxwell and Grisham were forced to take risks and they scrambled towards the lower landing. The squad channel was alive with voices. Whatever was happening up here was also happening on the lower steps.

Maxwell arrived first at the landing. A few of the corpses here were twitching violently and he shot a couple. Grisham hurried after, putting bullets into anything that moved.

“Shit, you’d better move!” said Corporal Fine on the comms.

“We’re coming as fast as we can,” growled Maxwell. He hadn’t lost his calm yet, but the edges of it were clearly fraying. He kicked out at a body which was halfway to its feet, knocking it back down again.

When he saw the steps leading to the bottom, Grisham knew real fear. Forty or fifty corpses were on their feet, most of them looking towards the upper landing. He fired his rifle into the crowd. Their torsos were the largest targets, but only a headshot took the corpses down in one.

A body nearby on the landing rolled over and its arm flailed. The blow struck Grisham with unexpected force on the thigh and he grunted with pain. His leg threatened to give way and he fired desperately at his attacker. Three shots and the corpse lay still.

“We’re in the shit here, Sergeant,” said Grisham. The corpses in front and behind were numerous, and he dreaded to picture what it was like on the choked landing further up.

A droning sound reached Grisham’s ears and XR repeater bullets sliced into dead flesh. The corpses further down began toppling and, in moments, most of those on the lower two thirds of the steps had been put out of their misery.

“I can’t aim any higher,” said Vaughan on the comms. “Not without killing you both.”

Grisham and Maxwell descended, shooting the remaining corpses on the way. Corporal Fine and Private Chau were at the bottom. They fired upwards with the utmost care.

“We have to lock this door,” said Grisham as he jumped the last three steps onto the ground. “Else we’ll be overrun.”

As he said the words, an avalanche of corpses came tumbling down onto the upper landing and the press would have killed many had these been living creatures. Seemingly unaffected by the crush, the corpses dragged themselves free and sprinted down the stairs, with no fear for their own safety. Gauss fire knocked the frontrunners down, but the number coming after them was immense.

“I don’t have enough ammo to kill all those,” said Vaughan, lying with his gun just inside the doorway.

The four soldiers in the corridor dashed into the next room. Grisham and Maxwell were the last two out and they turned as one to shoulder the door closed. With a soft thump that belied its great mass, the door settled in place. Grisham put two hands on the bars and hauled down, sliding the hidden bolts into place. He looked at Maxwell as they both realised the problem at the same time.

“Shit, how do we keep it locked?” asked Grisham, hanging off the bars with all his weight.

“Damned if I know,” said Maxwell, adding his own weight to help keep the locks in place.

Private Vaughan was a big bastard like Maxwell and he too grabbed the bars. Meanwhile, Corporal Fine inspected the door to see if there was any way to lock the operating levers in the shut position.

“There’s no obvious way to stop the levers from moving,” she said.

Grisham felt an upward pressure on the bars, applied from the far side. They moved upwards a couple of inches and then the weight of the soldiers brought them down again. There wasn’t much space, but Private Franklin squeezed in and took hold of the upper bar.

“There’s got to be a way,” said Grisham. He looked over his shoulder into the room. The soldiers were searching through the pile of wrecked equipment for something they could wedge between the handles and the ceiling, to keep the door locked. From what he could see, Grisham was doubtful they’d find anything.

“Private Chau, what can you do?” asked Maxwell, grunting with the effort of applying maximum downward force on the handles.

“I could apply charges to the door seam to melt it shut, sir,” said Chau, who’d been studying the door for the last few seconds. “The trouble is, you’d have to move away when they detonate. And after that, the door would need to be kept closed long enough for the metal to cool. It’s not going to work, Sergeant.”

Maxwell swore and twisted around so he could see if the other soldiers had found anything that might jam the door.

“There’s nothing we can use, sir,” said Diaz.

“We’ll have to make a run for it,” said Maxwell. “We’ll go south and hope we can stay ahead of these corpses until we find another way to the surface.”

“As plans go, that one sucks balls, sir,” said Corporal Barkley.

Maxwell still had it in him to laugh. “If you have a better one, I’m all ears.”

Nobody had a better suggestion.

“We’ll scatter a few grenades behind us when we run,” said Maxwell. “Maybe that’ll slow the pursuit. Is everyone ready?”

“Anytime you are,” said Grisham.

“Everyone who isn’t holding onto these handles, get your asses in gear,” said Maxwell.

The soldiers sprinted from the room.

“We’ll follow on a count of three,” said Maxwell. “Three, two, one—”

All four of them released the handles at the same time. Stupidly, everyone was too polite to trample their way into first place and a couple of seconds were wasted heading for the exit passage. Franklin was out first and then Grisham, Vaughan and Maxwell.

As he exited the room, Grisham looked back. The handles were moving upwards. He dashed along the passage. Vaughan was right behind and he let the man through. Maxwell had stopped at the room’s entrance. He was arming grenades and throwing them into the room, one after the other. Before the first detonated, Maxwell was on his way.

“Incoming!” he yelled.

The flash of the first grenade highlighted Maxwell in silhouette and Grisham accelerated to keep ahead. He saw two soldiers a short distance away. Private Diaz was holding a grenade in one hand and had the end of Private Lowe’s launcher resting on her shoulder. Lowe himself was holding the other end.

“Rocket out,” he said calmly as Grisham and Maxwell ran by.

The missile raced along the passage and into the room. It detonated with a light that illuminated the passage all the way to the conveyor and the crack-rumble of the explosion reverberated off the walls.

“Welcome to incineration,” said Lowe.

Grisham turned mid-stride to see the outcome. The walls of the room back that way were burning hot and he could see pieces of the debris which had been piled in the room. Anything biological in that confined space would have been reduced to cinders and likewise for the corpses pushing through the doorway.

The conveyor room was only thirty metres away and the other soldiers had positioned themselves around the entrance, taking care that their flashlights didn’t blind those coming their way. Private Vaughan would soon have his repeater deployed.

Grisham sprinted into the room and turned west, so he wouldn’t foul anyone shooting into the passage. He stopped a few metres from the passage. Everyone was looking north, so he directed his beam west across the room. If every stashed corpse in the base was on its feet, they might come running around the conveyor anytime now.

No. They aren’t that quick.

Grisham swung his gaze back towards the north passage and the beam of his flashlight caught a low, hulking shape on top of the conveyor. The moment he saw the alien, he knew the mission personnel were in real trouble.

TWENTY-ONE

“South!” yelled Grisham. “On the conveyor!”

He raised his gun, knowing it would be hardly more effective than firing a peashooter at an Eternus battleship. Even so, he pulled the trigger and scored a hit. The alien didn’t so much as flinch and it rose halfway from its crouch. Long arms gripped the edge of the conveyor and Grisham could see it was ready to spring into the midst of the soldiers.

Too late, the others realised the danger. Lieutenant Adler and Commander Deneuve had been keeping out of the way and they were among the quickest to react. Shots from their rifles either missed or were ineffective.

Then, Private Lowe came sprinting from the tunnel. Despite his injury, he wasn’t slow on his feet, and he spun the rocket launcher up onto his shoulder. Grisham could see the stiffness in the movement.

“Have this, you asshole,” said Lowe.

The missile crossed the intervening space in the blinking of an eye. Even so, the alien was fast and it recognized the danger. Rather than leaping forward, it changed direction and threw itself to one side. The rocket exploded on the edge of the conveyor, fifty metres from the tunnel entrance. Expanding plasma engulfed the alien, and, through the corner of his narrowed eyes, Grisham saw the creature vanish off the far side of the conveyor.

By now, everyone was in the room and their attention was south.

“Damnit, I missed!” said Lowe, sounding furious with himself.

Under the circumstances, Grisham thought it was a good shot, but it wasn’t the time to start a discussion. The alien had survived the rocket blast, he was certain of it. Surely the creature was injured, but whether that would dissuade it from attacking again, Grisham wasn’t hopeful. Equally, he had no idea if it was alone.

“I think I can see movement north,” said Private Vaughan. He fired his repeater in a two-second burst. “Definitely movement.”

“We have to get away from here,” said Maxwell.

“Where to, Sergeant?” said Barkley. “There might be a hundred thousand corpses heading our way.”

“It’s not just the corpses I’m worried about,” said Grisham. “Once word reaches the crew on the Achirus, there’s a good chance they’ll set off their incendiaries.”

“Not with their troops on the ground, sir,” said Corporal Fine.

“No, but the Kijol are well organized,” said Grisham. He alternated his gaze between the top of the conveyor and the gap between the missile storage unit and the western wall. “It might not take them long to withdraw.”

“We need a plan that’s better than run and hope,” said Maxwell.

Grisham had a thought. “That opening in the wall over here,” he said. “It went somewhere.”

“Like where?” asked Private Lyles.

“That’s what I’m about to find out,” said Grisham.

He sprinted across the floor, while Maxwell shouted at the soldiers of Squad A to assist. Vaughan fired his repeater again, for much longer this time.

Grisham arrived at the opening in the wall. From here, he could see the half of the room into which the alien had escaped the rocket blast. Of the creature, there was no sign, but its absence wasn’t much reassurance.

Dropping to all fours, Grisham shone his flashlight into the opening. About ten metres inside, the narrow way curved slightly north and the beam shone into a much larger space that it was unable to illuminate.

“This is too tight for that alien to enter,” said Grisham. “I’m going inside for a look.”

He crawled rapidly along. The sloping walls brushed his shoulders as he moved and the ground was uneven. After a few seconds, Grisham found himself on the edge of the open space he’d seen from the entrance. The floor sloped down and he could see the bottom a few metres lower.

He shone his light around and it caught on distant walls. South, Grisham could see more of the alien architecture he’d flown over on the planet’s surface. Six pillars were visible at the extremes of the light, rising from the ground and then touching against the ceiling fifteen metres overhead. Between those pillars, the cavern wall had been carved flat and Grisham could make out dark doorways at floor level.

“What’ve you found, sir?” asked Maxwell. He sounded understandably on edge.

“It’s a natural cave, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “There’s another alien structure.”

“Sir, we’re under pressure from the north,” said Maxwell. “Corporal Fine believes the bad alien is in the passage south. We can’t waste time.”

Grisham shone his flashlight north-west and the light offered him the barest hint of something grey.

“One moment,” he said. “I’ve spotted something.”

He emerged fully from the fault in the rock and descended a few metres towards the cavern floor. He stared north-west again and spotted an opening in the wall. Through it, he could see alloy cladding.

“Sergeant Maxwell!” Grisham said in growing excitement. “I think we can access the missile loading tunnel for the perimeter defences from here.”

“Sir, we need certainty.” Maxwell cursed. “We may already be out of time.”

Grisham headed across the cavern floor. The stone was rough, and he could see the marks of ancient cutting tools. Another slope led fifteen metres up to the opening he’d seen, and it was steep enough to present more of a challenge.

“Sergeant Maxwell, bring everyone inside,” said Grisham, gambling on it being the right move. “At the very least, its defensible in here.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell.

Grisham climbed. The rock face offered plenty of handholds, though slipping would likely result in serious injury if it happened near the top. From the comms, he knew the soldiers were on their way, and the ones left to guard the north passage had been ordered to retreat.

“The alien is definitely south,” Corporal Fine confirmed. “And…shit. It’s heading this way.”

“Move, Corporal!” Maxwell yelled.

Grisham reached the top of the slope. A flat ledge at the top led to another crevice, this one much wider than the first. Peering into opening, he could see a passage about five metres away. He made his way carefully through and emerged into a tunnel. This tunnel had a three-point-five metre ceiling and it was about six metres wide.

When he looked east, Grisham saw – at the extremes of the light – an alloy slab blocking the entrance. This, he realised was the opposite side of the door he’d noticed earlier in the missile loading area. West, the tunnel vanished into darkness.

Along the closest side of the passage, the Kijol had installed a U-shaped gravity rail to carry the missiles from the loading mechanism in the conveyor room to their destination at the far end of this tunnel. On the opposite side of the tunnel, a four-metre-long flatbed cargo carrier sat on a single gravity rail. The carrier wasn’t hovering over the rail and that meant it was offline.

Grisham paused for a moment, to listen to the squad comms. The last few soldiers were making their way into the cavern below. Corporal Fine was last through. She was cursing repeatedly and that meant she was alive.

“Sergeant Maxwell, head straight up the slope,” said Grisham, returning to the first cavern, so that his light would make the way clear and maybe help the soldiers as they climbed.

“The alien is at the entrance!” said Corporal Fine.

From where he was standing, Grisham couldn’t see clearly, though he detected the fast movement of soldiers through the gloom.

“It’s too big to fit through,” said Fine. “Now it’s gone.”

Grisham felt enormous relief that he’d judged it right. The soldiers needed an escape from these remorseless opponents and it seemed like they’d found one.

“Don’t stick around watching, Corporal,” said Maxwell. “Those corpses won’t have the same problem.”

The mission personnel hurried across the cavern floor and their combined lights revealed more of the alien structure to the south. From this distance, the pillars appeared remarkably well-preserved, and Grisham longed to explore through those doorways to find out what lay beyond.

Private Lyles was first to join him at the top and she found a position on the ledge where she could aim her rifle across the cavern. Her face was grim and the muscles in her jaw were tensed.

Next up was Lieutenant Kinsey and then Commander Deneuve. While the climb wasn’t especially tough, there was only one easy route up and a queue formed at the bottom. Maxwell stood with the waiting group, his rifle aimed south-east.

“They’re coming,” said Corporal Fine. She was last to join the group and she spun immediately so that she could fire at anything giving chase.

“Private Vaughan, get your ass onto that ledge up there,” said Maxwell.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t know if I can make it, Sergeant,” said Lowe.

Grisham peered down the steep slope. The soldier was rotating his arm gingerly, to gauge if he could trust it in the climb.

“You are going to make it, soldier,” Maxwell snarled. “Even if I have to carry you over my shoulder.” He reached out and took Lowe’s rocket launcher from him. “Now climb!”

As though being carried was the greatest threat, Lowe got moving and followed Vaughan up the slope. Maxwell came after, with the shoulder launcher slung across his back. Every time Lowe slipped or struggled for grip, Maxwell found a way to free up a hand and push the soldier onwards.

Vaughan clambered onto the ledge and began looking for a place to set up his repeater. It was cramped for space and Lyles moved aside. At the same time, Grisham moved to the top of the slope and watched Private Lowe struggle up the final couple of metres. When the soldier came within reach, Grisham offered his hand. Moments later, Lowe was on the ledge with the others.

“Incoming,” said Corporal Fine.

A shape emerged from the entrance tunnel and straightaway fell headfirst down the slope. Gauss shots thudded into the corpse and it didn’t get up. A second followed and Grisham was sure there would be hundreds more right behind.

Luckily, the eastern opening was so narrow that the corpses couldn’t pour through, and they had to enter one by one. That made them easy kills for the soldiers and within a few seconds, the Kijol bodies were piling up near the fissure. Each fallen corpse made it tougher for the ones following and slowed their progress.

Only a few of the mission personnel remained on the cavern floor and Grisham hurried into the missile transport tunnel. He climbed over the first gravity rail and ran to the cargo shuttle which was about twenty metres from the opening. The vehicle’s metre-wide guide rail cut through a slot in its underside and the design meant the load bed was chest high. As he’d noted earlier, the shuttle was offline.

Grisham climbed up and located the control panel, which was mounted on a half-metre post positioned at the vehicle’s corner. He poked at the buttons and the cargo shuttle’s gravity drive came online. Commander Deneuve, who was heading over, gave a thumbs-up at the outcome.

“We’ve got transport,” said Grisham on the comms. “There’s a cargo shuttle here which should take us all the way to one of the perimeter launchers. We should be safe there from the Kijol incendiaries.” As he was speaking, a sudden, wild idea came to him. “We know those launchers are still operational because they knocked the Marauder out of the sky. Maybe they’ll have a manual override.”

“You think we might be able to take a shot at the Achirus?” said Deneuve, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know, Commander,” said Grisham. “The Kijol security shutdown didn’t put the launchers into an offline state, so it’s likely they were never connected to the main control grid.”

“It’s something to hope for,” said Deneuve.

In truth, Grisham was glad enough to have found what appeared to be a comparatively safe route that would take the mission personnel beyond the range of the Kijol incendiaries – a route that the dark aliens couldn’t follow. Anything else would be a bonus.

Grisham indicated that his warship crew and the few soldiers who’d entered the tunnel should climb onto the transport shuttle. Space would be tight, but there’d be room for everyone. Then, he returned to the ledge.

Corporal Fine was the last to climb and she was halfway to the top. With most of the light sources now in the missile loading tunnel, the cavern floor was dark. Even so, shapes were visible, running from the south-east. Rifle fire took the corpses down long before they could become a threat and Vaughan didn’t have to fire his repeater at all.

The moment Corporal Fine was on the ledge, Maxwell thumbed over his shoulder towards the opening. “Let’s get out of here. We should be able to outrun those corpses on the cargo shuttle. Maybe we’ll find a door we can lock at the end of the tunnel.”

Grisham stood for a moment, his gaze lingering in the direction of the alien pillars. As Vaughan, Fine and Maxwell turned to go, their combined lights allowed him another glimpse of the doorways.

“Ah shit,” he said.

In each of two different openings, a dark alien stood framed. The creatures didn’t move, but Grisham could sense them watching. How they’d made it there, he didn’t know. Almost certainly, one of the other passages beneath the Ovintus facility gave access to the ancient structure.

Maxwell saw them too. He opened his mouth, like he was about to call for Private Lowe. Instead, he urged everyone into the tunnel. The four of them dashed for the opening and the aliens were lost in the darkness.

They’d give chase, Grisham knew. It was the reason they were here. The relentless pursuit made him suddenly furious, though anger wouldn’t make these opponents any easier to kill.

Grisham snarled inwardly and ran for the cargo shuttle.

TWENTY-TWO

“We’ve got company,” said Maxwell on the squad comms, before delivering the rest of the bad news.

Commander Deneuve was at the control panel and she didn’t wait for Maxwell to finish speaking before she set the vehicle into motion. The flatbed accelerated.

“Is this as fast as it’ll go?” asked Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

The shuttle’s maximum speed – at sixty kilometres per hour - was faster than any human could run, but the pursuers weren’t human. From the initial flight to the installation, Grisham remembered the perimeter defences were at varying distances from the landing field, but he had no way of knowing how far it was to this vehicle’s destination. If the surface-to-air battery at the end of this tunnel was fifty kilometres away, the journey would be a long one. Grisham pictured those two aliens hurtling along the passage towards the mission personnel, soaking gunfire but not slowing down.

Maxwell was clearly aware of the danger and he gave orders for Private Vaughan to deploy his repeater so that it faced back along the tunnel. It was crowded enough that the soldier had to take care, but not so much that each little movement risked knocking somebody off the side. After some cursing, Vaughan got his weapon in place and lay prone behind it. Private Lowe had also moved towards the back and, with help from Corporal Barkley, kept his shoulder launcher aimed east.

“I can’t see a damn thing beyond the range of our helmet lights,” said Vaughan sourly.

The journey continued for ten minutes and the aliens didn’t appear. Grisham wasn’t fooled. While he hadn’t fought this new enemy on Xaros, he was rapidly learning that the creatures took pleasure in ratcheting the pressure by means that weren’t always directly hostile. For all Grisham knew, they could be following just beyond the light, and the very fact he was thinking this way told him that the enemy’s psychological tactics were effective. They’d sunk their talons deep.

“Where are they?” muttered Chau. “We can’t fight what we can’t see.”

“The HF needs to fix our night vision so it detects these things,” said Diaz. “And maybe give us magazines filled with exploding slugs.”

Explosive gauss slugs existed within the Human Federation, Grisham knew, but he couldn’t ever remember a soldier who’d been issued with them. He guessed explosive shots were expensive to manufacture. Maybe that was the reason they weren’t in widespread use, or maybe there was a technical flaw he didn’t know about.

Another five minutes passed and Grisham made his way through the soldiers to the front of the vehicle. Once there, he stood next to Private Lyles, who was looking west as if she believed her eyes could penetrate the absolute darkness beyond the moving puddle of light. Nearby, Commander Deneuve was crouched over the vehicle’s access panel. For whatever reason, the Kijol had designed the controls so the shuttle would come to a halt if a specific button wasn’t held in constantly.

“This is a pain in the ass and no mistake,” said Deneuve.

Grisham was about to answer when he saw movement ahead. It was a corpse and it was running directly for the shuttle. The speed of the vehicle was such that Grisham hardly had time to shout a warning and raise his gun. Private Lyles shot first and the corpse was punched off its feet. A moment later, it was dragged beneath the cargo shuttle and that was the last Grisham saw of it.

“Where there’s one…,” said Lyles.

The attack was a terrible development, since it meant the enemy was in front as well as behind, and Grisham wondered if this was why the aliens had stayed in the shadows. They had other tools at their disposal.

“Slow this shuttle, Commander Deneuve,” Maxwell instructed. He’d been positioned near the back, but now he headed to the front. “We need more time to react.”

“Slowing us to half,” said Deneuve.

Thirty kilometres per hour seemed like not much more than a crawl and Grisham cursed inwardly, even though reducing speed was the right choice. Another corpse sprinted into the light and he fired at it. Maxwell, Lyles and Chau also fired. The corpse went down and disappeared beneath the cargo shuttle, the same as the first.

“Didn’t even feel a bump,” said Lyles.

A third corpse charged at the shuttle and then a fourth. Suddenly, the trickle became a flood and the passage was crowded with bodies. These sorry creatures were pallid and rotten and each wore the torn remnants of a Kijol spacesuit. Grisham could clearly see the savage cuts which had taken their lives, though the blood was long since dried.

He fired into the pack as fast as he could pull the trigger. Maxwell, Lyles and Chau each dropped to one knee so that the soldiers behind could fire unhindered over their heads. Grisham did likewise.

“I’m reducing speed again,” said Deneuve, slowing the shuttle to twenty kilometres per hour.

The new, lower speed was both too slow and too fast at the same time. Anything following would have an easy job catching up, while at the same time, the shuttle was still heading so rapidly into the corpses ahead that it was near impossible to cut them all down.

Despite the best efforts of the soldiers, several of the corpses were able to hurl themselves onto the edge of the flatbed and they scrabbled against the hard surface as they desperately tried to climb up. Grisham changed aim, and shot the dead Kijol that was about to make it onto the shuttle. His bullet struck it in the head and it slipped under the vehicle. When Grisham looked up again, the tunnel was even more crowded than before.

“Private Vaughan, we need that repeater at the front,” said Maxwell.

“There’s something coming up behind us, sir,” said Vaughan. “I think it’s one of those aliens.”

“Damnit! Shoot it then!” snarled Maxwell.

The XR repeater droned for a couple of seconds. “It’s not running straight, Sergeant, and it’s staying beyond the light.”

“Rocket out,” said Lowe.

The detonation lit up the tunnel and the colours became even harsher than before. Heat from the blast was channelled along the passage and the booming of the explosion was made deeper by the confined space.

“Did you hit it, Private?” asked Maxwell tightly.

“I hit it, sir,” said Lowe. “I think the bastard was ready for me. It sprang from the right of the tunnel to the left just as I fired and it took cover behind the shuttle gravity rail.”

“Does that mean it isn’t dead?”

“I don’t think it’s dead, Sergeant,” said Lowe. “It’s alight though and it’s dropping back.”

“Am I bringing this XR up front, sir?” asked Vaughan.

“Hold for the moment. If those aliens are following us, I’d rather we had that repeater aimed their way.”

“Yes, sir.”

Throughout the short conversation, Grisham kept firing into the corpses ahead of the shuttle. They showed no sign of thinning and his magazine readout hit zero.

“Reloading,” he said.

Grisham managed the pressure magazine change without error and began shooting again. “Sergeant Maxwell, I wonder if slowing down is the wrong move,” he said, putting two bullets into the chest of a corpse. A second enemy leapt towards him from the floor, but it struck the leading edge of the cargo shuttle and fell backwards, to be crushed beneath the vehicle. “Our guns aren’t enough. Maybe if we had enough speed, we’d force our way through.”

“What we’re doing isn’t working,” said Maxwell. “So let’s give it a try.”

“Increasing speed,” said Deneuve.

The acceleration was steady, but strong enough that Grisham felt the need to widen his stance to maintain balance. As the combined speed of the shuttle and the onrushing corpses increased, it became harder to reliably shoot the enemy. However, the dead were crowded together and they fouled each other’s attempts to jump onto the flatbed. As the vehicle approached its maximum speed, it thudded constantly into bodies.

A few of the corpses – those approaching along the adjacent U-shaped rail used to transport the missiles – jumped towards the shuttle at an angle. When their attempts to leap onboard failed, they rolled away and were lost in the darkness behind. Still, these ones presented more of a problem, since their flailing arms stood a chance of knocking a soldier from the vehicle, and that would mean certain death.

Maxwell wasn’t blind to the risks and he directed the soldiers to concentrate their fire towards the attackers in the left-hand side of the tunnel.

“What’s happening behind?” he asked.

“No visible movement, Sergeant,” said Corporal Fine. “Except for the corpses we’re riding over.”

“I’m not convinced those aliens have given up,” said Maxwell.

For many grim seconds, Grisham and the soldiers fired into the onrushing bodies. The eyes of the enemy were empty, though their features were strangely twisted as if the memories of anger controlled their decaying muscles.

Grisham was confronted by the realisation that he felt more sympathy for the Kijol in death than he did for them when they were alive. They’d been slaughtered without mercy and their bodies turned into weapons by their enemy. It was the ultimate disrespect and Grisham’s simmering anger increased his focus. Each shot struck unerringly and his opponents fell.

“This sucks,” said Lyles. She glanced at her magazine readout. “Reloading.”

“Still nothing coming our way from behind,” said Fine.

“Private Vaughan, move up,” said Maxwell.

“Yes, sir. On my way.”

The soldier repositioned so that his repeater was deployed on the forward left-hand corner of the shuttle. As soon as he was in place, he fired the gun at an angle towards the missile transport rail. The XR’s bullets tore into the Kijol dead and its penetrative strength was enough that many of the shots destroyed two or three corpses in one go. Pieces of ragged flesh sprayed into the air and the enemy were thrown from their feet in great numbers. The pressure on the soldiers at the front lessened at once.

Suddenly, the corpses thinned out and a few seconds later, no more came charging at the shuttle.

“That’s the last of them,” said Maxwell.

Grisham did some very loose workings in his head. “If these corpses were brought to their feet at the same time as those in the stairwell, they can’t have travelled far.”

“If they’d been stashed in the surface-to-air battery at the end of this tunnel, we must be near our destination,” said Maxwell.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” said Grisham.

“I’ll slow this shuttle again,” said Deneuve. “Death by wall impact isn’t high on my list of preferred ways to go.”

She reduced speed to forty kilometres per hour and everyone at the front of the vehicle stared anxiously west, in case the tunnel came to an abrupt end. Grisham knew how good Deneuve’s reactions were and he had no concern. Even so, he stared west like the others, eager to find out what lay ahead.

“How’re things at the back?” asked Maxwell tightly.

“Still nothing, sir,” said Fine.

The end of the tunnel came into sight and it looked as if the rail for the cargo shuttle terminated in a loading station.

“Reducing speed,” said Deneuve, slowing the vehicle as fast as she dared.

The shuttle entered the loading station, which was in darkness and separated from the missile loading rail by an alloy wall. Deneuve brought the vehicle to a halt. The only way off was onto a ten-metre-wide platform to the north. A cargo tunnel led away into a storage area, which the flashlight beams were insufficient to illuminate. Grisham saw crates and some other shapes which he wasn’t interested in exploring further.

A personnel exit also led north, up some steps which climbed out of the light.

“No door on the way in,” said Maxwell. “Let’s hope there’s one at the top of these steps.”

“How long until the surviving corpses come back?” asked Chau.

“Five minutes at the most,” said Grisham. “I don’t think there’s any doubt they’ll be coming our way.”

“Let’s get moving,” said Maxwell.

The soldier entered the stairwell and Grisham followed, wondering what the hell this mission had in store for him next.

TWENTY-THREE

The stairwell was too narrow for two people to walk abreast and the mission personnel ascended single file. The steps were steep and they climbed for two hundred metres. By the time he reached the top, the muscles in Grisham’s legs were complaining. A door blocked the way, and it looked identical to the one leading to the corpse-choked stairwell, with the same two handles for operation.

“Let’s get this open,” said Maxwell, pushing the handles up.

The door opened soundlessly. Maxwell shone his light beam into the space beyond and then entered.

Coming after, Grisham emerged into a compact room that was barely large enough to accommodate everyone on the mission. Exits led west and north, both of which turned out of sight a short way along. He opened the filter on his suit helmet and drew the air in through his nostrils.

“It doesn’t smell of corpses in here,” Grisham said. “Those bodies must have been stored elsewhere.” He turned his attention to the door. “Is there a way to lock it?” he asked.

“Not that I can see,” said Maxwell. He pointed at the access panel on the alloy-clad wall. “The power’s off to the local security system.”

“If I hadn’t been recently shot down by a missile coming from one of these batteries, I’d be asking myself if the power was off to everything else as well,” said Grisham.

“Only some of the launchers may be operational, sir,” said Deneuve.

“Not much we can do about that, Commander,” said Grisham. “Circumstances have brought us here. It isn’t like we had a choice in the matter.”

“Private Chau, can you seal this door?” asked Maxwell, swinging it closed and pulling down the locking handles. “Before a thousand stinking corpses try to break through from the other side.”

“Yes, sir, I can seal it,” said Chau. “However, if this missile battery can also be accessed through the missile loading tube and a bunch of aliens and corpses start chasing us again, we might want to exit this way later.”

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” said Maxwell. “I want this door to stay shut.”

“Yes, sir,” said Chau. He reached into his leg pocket and extracted three finger-sized blue cylinders. “If those corpses are coming fast, the alloys might not have enough time to harden.” He attached the charges along the vertical seam. “Five metres should be plenty distance for these ones.”

The soldiers were already heading along the two exit tunnels, with Grisham going west to find out what was along that way. Fifteen metres from the room, the passage turned south and ended at a closed door with the same two locking handles as elsewhere.

“I’m setting these charges off,” said Chau. “We should hold the door locked for a few minutes.”

The explosives produced a fizzing sound and that was the extent of the drama. Maxwell, once he’d reported another closed door along the north passage, ordered three of the soldiers to help him hold the locking bars in the down position. Having seen the way the bars had been snapped from the doors in the room leading to the stairwell, nobody was under any illusions what would happen if one of those aliens decided to gain entry before the melted alloys had fully hardened. If a couple of corpses – the maximum which would be able to apply pressure to the handles from the tight stairwell - tried to force entry, it would be a different story.

Grisham didn’t go all the way back to the entrance room and only returned far enough along the western passage that he could see the orange-glowing seam on the door. Maxwell, Franklin, Vaughan and Chau were all hanging from the ends of the bars farthest from the heat.

“I’m going to check through this door west, Sergeant,” Grisham said.

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell. “We need to explore this place and secure it as best we can.”

Corporal Fine accompanied Grisham, along with Private Diaz and Commander Deneuve. Corporal Barkley and a couple of others went north to discover what was to be found that way.

“Ready?” asked Grisham, stopping at the door. He couldn’t hold his gun and operate the levers at the same time, so he slung his rifle.

“Ready,” Fine confirmed.

Grisham bent his knees, placed one hand on each of the levers and then straightened. The mechanism was smooth like it was on the stairwell door and the locks disengaged. He pushed with his shoulder and the door opened.

“Control station,” said Grisham, sweeping his flashlight beam around the room. Two consoles faced an enormous screen on the opposite wall. Everything was dark. “Shit, no power,” he said. “We can’t do a damned thing without power.”

“There’s something pushing on these handles,” said Maxwell on the comms. He grunted with effort. “And I don’t think it’s the pizza delivery guy.”

The corpses which had survived the destructive passage of the cargo shuttle had returned to the missile battery and their alien master was likely somewhere close by. Grisham cursed his opponents and strode into the control room to see if he could bring the Kijol hardware to life. Another exit led west. “Corporal Fine, you search that way,” he said. “I’ll see if these consoles will power up.”

Fine hesitated. “The squad and I – we’ve been to places like this before,” she said. “Not missile batteries, but other installations that were designed to operate independently. Those other places had backup generators that required a manual switchover.”

“Any idea what we’re looking for to activate the switchover?” asked Grisham. “Or where it might be found?” He’d already stabbed his finger at a half-dozen buttons on the left-hand console and it showed no sign of waking up.

“The couple of times we were required to bring the power online, the way of doing it was nothing cleverer than pulling a switch in the wall,” said Fine. “Maybe that’s why they call it a switchover.” She shrugged. “On those occasions we found the switch at the lowest level of the facility.”

“Then let’s look for a way down,” said Grisham, uncomfortably aware that the Kijol corpses had almost certainly been stored somewhere beneath this control room. “Corporal Barkley, are you hearing this?”

“Yes, sir. I remember those places Corporal Fine was telling you about. The room I’m in here has exits and some steps, but those steps lead upwards. They go a long way.”

“There’ll be a way out to the surface eventually,” said Grisham.

“We should hold until Private Chau is confident the door is secure, sir,” said Fine. “Sergeant Maxwell has a good routine for sweeping through places like this.”

Grisham nodded, but his gaze remained on the western exit from the control room, where the passage came to an intersection about fifteen metres away.

While he’d never been inside a Kijol surface-to-air battery before, he knew how the enemy constructed the missile clusters they used in their warships. Six missiles had been launched at the Marauder, and Grisham was sure every one of the Ovintus surface batteries would have the same capabilities. That meant there’d be a total of six vertical launch tubes and their loading mechanisms would be right at the bottom.

“I reckon this passage leads around the central launch tubes,” said Grisham, pointing along the tunnel. “But the lowest levels of this battery could be much further below the ground.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll have to keep going until we find what we’re looking for,” said Fine.

Grisham didn’t want to wait, but he knew that setting off now would be irrational. That didn’t stop him heading to the intersection. North, the passage ended at a door. South, it went out of sight west around a corner. Grisham gripped his rifle tighter. The temptation to explore a little further was hard to resist.

Instead of heading off on his own, Grisham returned to the control room. He arrived, just as Private Chau declared that the entrance door was secure. Maxwell had been listening to the comms and he came straight to the control room.

“I’ll organize a search, sir,” he said. “We need to locate the other access points too.” Maxwell gave a humourless smile. “Though I reckon if there was another way in, we’d know about it already.”

The soldier gave out instructions and in less than a minute, the mission personnel were in pairs and given directions. Grisham was with Corporal Fine and the two of them headed west from the control room, before taking the passage south.

Around the turning Grisham had noted earlier, they came to a door. Its access panel was offline just like everything else. Opening the door revealed steps leading down. These steps were even narrower than the ones which had led from the cargo shuttle station below and they vanished into the gloom. A single handrail was the only means of support.

Grisham stared into the depths and felt relief that he’d never suffered any kind of phobia, because this stairwell alone would have tested several different fears.

“My helmet sensor is telling me there’s a breeze coming up,” said Fine. She made an exaggerated sniffing sound. “But it’s not bringing any smell, so those corpses weren’t stashed down here.”

Grisham couldn’t smell anything either. He started the descent, keeping a firm grip on the rail. The average Kijol – male and female both - was a few inches taller than the average human male and slightly narrower across the shoulders. That meant these steps weren’t especially difficult to manage, though Grisham couldn’t for the life of him imagine why the alien scumbags hadn’t simply installed airlifts.

The thought made him return to his earlier wonderings about whether these perimeter batteries were fitted with old tech. It was possible they’d been brought in as assembled units from a different world where they were no longer needed and installed here on Ovintus.

“We’re going to lose comms to the other mission personnel soon, sir,” said Corporal Fine. “The link strength to Corporal Barkley’s booster pack is down to eight percent.”

Grisham wasn’t happy about the thought of losing comms, but it was important to explore the battery with haste.

The steps went on and on. Eventually, and after a single switchback, they came to an end almost directly beneath the entry point to the stairwell. Grisham glanced behind, already thinking of the return climb.

From the bottom of the stairs, a short passage led south to another of the lever-operated doors. The door was open a crack and the breeze was more noticeable here. Grisham checked the comms signal strength on his HUD and the reading was at zero percent. If he and Fine ran into corpses or aliens down here, they’d be on their own.

Cautiously, Grisham pushed the door until it was two-thirds open. A large space lay beyond. He entered with Fine only a pace behind, and the two of them shone their lights around. The ceiling was way overhead and the walls north, south and east were featureless grey. West was different. When Grisham shone his light in that direction, it caught a reflection about forty metres from where he was standing near the entrance.

“What’s that?” he asked, walking cautiously that way.

“Glass,” said Fine. “Or something like it.”

The sights clicked into place. A huge window – ten metres wide by six high and with a lower edge one metre from the floor - occupied a substantial area of the western wall. Grisham approached. The room beyond was in darkness. He stopped a metre from the window – he doubted it was made of glass, but it was a word everyone understood – and shone his light through.

“Missiles,” he said, staring at the row of vertically standing cylinders which were clamped into a conveyor against the far western wall, about twenty metres from where he was standing.

“They’re big,” said Fine. “No wonder it only took one to disable the Marauder.”

“Air defences are no use if they’re ineffective,” said Grisham. “Fifteen or twenty of these batteries could do serious damage to an attacking fleet.”

He counted eight missiles on the conveyor and the northmost weapon was only a few metres from a huge cylindrical tube, which Grisham knew was the launcher. A trio of rotating clamps would grab the missile when it was needed and ram it into place.

“There’s a door over here, sir,” said Fine, gesturing to the north wall, not far from where it met the eastern one.

“I saw it,” said Grisham.

Before he headed for the door, he stepped right up to the glass. The window was about a metre thick and, when he tapped on it with his knuckles, it gave off almost no sound.

“Let’s find out what’s through here,” he said, heading to the north door.

Grisham lifted the handles and then pulled. The door opened and he gazed into a corridor that continued about twenty metres north, before ending at another door, this one in the western wall. A second window – ten metres long and only a metre in height – offered a view into the same missile loading area.

When he shone his light through, Grisham saw yet another door, not far from the launch cylinder. He guessed this might link to a passage accessed via the door at the end of this current corridor. The next passage was also fitted with a window.

“Looks like our path is leading us in there,” said Grisham, tapping a fingertip on the glass.

“I don’t reckon we’ll find the switchover mechanism in the loading area, sir,” said Fine.

“Maybe we’ll gain access to another part of the battery,” said Grisham. He continued staring but couldn’t see any more doors. However, the southern wall of the loading area was too far for his light to reach, so he wasn’t certain.

“Those missiles got in there somehow, sir,” said Fine.

Grisham understood her meaning and turned his head. Fine looked outwardly calm, but he didn’t know her well enough to detect the signs that would indicate she was on edge.

“Let’s take a look through that door,” Grisham said, pointing to the end of the passage. “It might lead to somewhere we aren’t expecting.” He glanced through the window. “We won’t go into the bay. Not with just the two of us.”

Striding to the end of the passage, he stopped at the door. Taking a breath, he lifted the handles and then shouldered the door open. The new passage went west like he’d expected and he saw an access door in the south wall, leading into the loading area. Opposite that door was another, heading to a place unknown.

“We should take a look through that north door,” said Grisham, indicating with his rifle.

Fine’s reluctance was clear. “Maybe we should stay low, sir,” she said. “So we can’t be seen from the bay.”

“Suits me, Corporal,” said Grisham. He was feeling apprehensive himself, but that was no reason to abandon the search.

Dropping to all fours, Grisham crawled towards the far end of the corridor. The lower edge of the window was a metre high and by staying close to the wall, he was sure that nothing in the bay could see him unless it was purposefully looking for individuals crawling along the passage.

Halfway towards the end doors and still beneath the window, Grisham heard a thump. He froze.

“Shit,” said Fine. “Something just hit the window.”

Grisham knew what had made the noise. He and Fine had been discovered. Slowly, he raised his head, just enough that he could see over the lower edge of the window.

An alien was standing on the far side, huge, threatening, and motionless. Grisham saw the creature’s face. It was oval shaped and the worst part about it was that it had no features whatsoever. And yet, even though it lacked eyes, it knew he was there.

For the first time in many years, Grisham understood the real meaning of fear.

TWENTY-FOUR

Grisham felt like a noose was around his neck and an invisible hand was pulling the rope. If he didn’t stand, he would choke. He rose to his feet. Shame at his fear brought with it an anger that made the blood pulse in his temples. Grisham stared up at the alien.

For long moments, the creature didn’t move. Then, it raised one if its enormously long arms, drew it back and thundered its fist into the window, producing another thumping sound. The alien’s knuckles were broad and Grisham saw yellow talons.

The creature didn’t strike the glass again. A line appeared in the centre of the alien’s blank face, stretching nearly from one side to the other. The mouth opened, wider and wider, revealing inch-long yellow fangs that looked sharp as razors. Worst of all, the sides of that cavernous mouth were upturned in an evil smile.

“Ah shit,” said Corporal Fine.

The alien closed its mouth and its face became once more featureless. Slowly and deliberately, it turned its head towards the door at the end of the corridor and then turned back so it was once more facing Grisham and Fine. At that moment, Grisham felt with certainty he was going to die.

Regardless, he wasn’t about to give up his life without a fight. Grisham’s years of combat experience came to the fore.

“We have to make a run for the stairs, Corporal,” he said. “They’re narrow – maybe too narrow for this thing to follow us at full speed.”

“We’ll lead it to the others, sir.”

“The alien is inside this battery, Corporal. It won’t leave until it’s done. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Go.”

The two of them sprinted for the nearby door. As soon as they moved, the alien did likewise, and it accelerated for the loading area door with an explosive burst of muscular power.

Grisham and Fine entered the passage leading to the room at the bottom of the stairwell. The door ahead was still open and they ran for it. Grisham heard the loading bay door thud into the wall as it was hurled open.

“Maybe this will slow that asshole down,” said Fine, pulling a grenade from its side clip, arming it and flicking it behind her.

Grisham didn’t turn. Two paces behind Fine, he entered the room joining the stairs. The soles of his combat boots squealed as he changed direction towards the stairwell entrance and he heard the grenade explode in the passage. The two of them dashed through the door and Fine dropped another grenade in the short corridor leading to the steps.

Corporal Fine went up and Grisham followed. The stairs were as narrow as he remembered and he hoped they’d be enough to slow the alien.

“Take this, sir,” said Fine. She stretched an arm out behind and her hand was holding a grenade. “You might be able to judge it better.”

Grisham took the grenade and held it tight. He heard a dense thumping noise behind and he half-turned. The beam from his suit helmet lit up the wall, but its periphery didn’t extend to the bottom of the steps. Even so, Grisham sensed the alien coming after him. He and Fine had made rapid progress, driven by adrenaline, but maintaining this pace all the way to the top would be a struggle – assuming the pursuing creature didn’t rip them to shreds beforehand.

Arming the grenade, Grisham did another half-turn. The creature was still in pursuit and he could see it now, maybe thirty metres behind. He couldn’t tell if it was gaining on him, but the narrowness of the stairwell was definitely slowing it down. It seemed to surge upwards in bursts and he could hear its shoulders scraping the walls. Grisham threw the grenade behind him and it exploded three seconds later, producing a shockwave that his combat suit absorbed. He didn’t know if the detonation injured the alien, but from the continued scraping sounds, it wasn’t dead.

“Another grenade,” panted Grisham. His legs were feeling the strain. He’d been running from the start of the mission all the way till now and it was taking its toll. The fear of being torn to shreds was enough to keep him going. Grisham didn’t slow, nor did Corporal Fine ahead of him.

“Grenade,” she panted in return, handing him another explosive like a baton change in reverse. “Two left after that one.”

Grisham armed the grenade and threw it. The blast followed and, sure enough, the alien wasn’t slowed. He cursed, wondering if his aim was bad or if this enemy was just so tough that it could survive anything less than a proximity rocket blast.

“Another grenade.”

“Here,” said Fine.

This time, Grisham fumbled and the grenade fell onto the steps. “Damnit! Another.”

“Last one,” said Fine.

Grisham didn’t fumble again. He performed another half-turn, which was the best he could do without slowing or tripping. The alien was closing in on him – he guessed it was twenty-five metres behind, rather than thirty.

“Where’s the switchback?” he gasped. Corporal Fine was slim, but she still prevented Grisham from seeing too far ahead.

“Ahead. Somewhere.”

Shit.

Grisham knew that if he held onto the last grenade any longer, the alien would be too close for him to safely throw the explosive. He armed the device and flicked it behind. The third blast wasn’t enough to stop the alien, though when Grisham did another half-turn, he saw that his opponent’s chest and head were alight. However injured the creature might be, it didn’t give up the pursuit.

“Switchback,” said Fine.

The two of them turned on the short landing and resumed their climb. Grisham’s strength was ebbing, but his determination was not. He gritted his teeth and ordered his weakening muscles to carry him to the top of the damn stairs.

A short distance up the second flight, Grisham looked once more. The alien was closer – he guessed it was no more than twenty metres from catching him. It no longer burned with plasma fire, but Grisham caught sight of the smoke it was trailing. He was sure it was hurt, but it was clearly intending to continue this chase to the end.

At that moment, Grisham hated the alien with an intensity he’d never known before. The hatred gave him strength and his legs drove him upwards.

“Sergeant, need help,” said Corporal Fine on the open channel. She’d evidently kept her wits about her and had noticed the re-formed comms link to Barkley’s booster pack. “Steps. Alien coming. Too tight for explosives.”

“Understood,” said Maxwell. “We’re coming to assist.”

Knowing that help was on its way was a great relief, though Grisham couldn’t imagine how the soldiers would be able to cut down the pursuing alien before it killed him and Fine. He tried not to think about the mechanics and focused on reaching the top of the steps. The scraping, slithering sound of his enemy’s approach was louder now and Grisham sensed it on his heels.

Suddenly, the lights came on. A narrow strip in the stairwell ceiling glowed cold blue, though Grisham still couldn’t see far past Corporal Fine. He didn’t want to look back but he turned his head anyway. The alien was no more than fifteen metres behind and its blank face was directed his way.

“I can see. The top,” said Fine. She sounded like she was running on empty.

“How far?” asked Grisham.

“Seventy metres.”

A voice came on the comms. “On my command, stay left,” said Sergeant Maxwell. “That means your left.”

Private Vaughan is going to fire down the stairwell, thought Grisham.

“There’s no room,” he panted.

“You have to do what I say, sir,” said Maxwell. “On my command,” he repeated.

Grisham had climbed enough of these steps to know that even if he pressed himself hard against one wall – slowing his ascent in the process – the resulting gap wouldn’t be much more than twelve inches. He swore inwardly and told himself to trust in Vaughan’s aim. Death by gauss slug wouldn’t be any more final than death to alien talons.

“Corporal Fine, you’re fifty metres from the top,” said Maxwell.

Grisham’s reserves were nearly spent.

“Thirty metres.”

By now, Grisham wanted more than anything to hear the drone of Vaughan’s repeater. “Do it,” he gasped.

“Twenty metres,” said Maxwell. “Now, stay left.”

Grisham did what he could to make room. The scraping of the alien’s approach seemed like it was right in his ears and he no longer dared turn. Bullets suddenly flashed past him in a waist-level torrent that was no more than two or three inches from the right-hand wall and their passing distorted the air.

Four steps ahead, Corporal Fine made it to the top and she vanished around the corner. Grisham saw other figures there, waiting for him. Private Vaughan was sitting awkwardly on the top step and had managed to brace himself and his gun so that he could fire downwards. Given the recoil from an XR gun, Grisham thought it a testament to the soldier’s strength and skill that he’d managed to fire so accurately along the wall.

Vaughan’s gun cut out and, in what was clearly a prearranged move, Sergeant Maxwell hauled the man away from the doorway. Grisham didn’t slow and he emerged onto the landing. It was crowded here and he went left, before stopping. He spun, with his gun ready, just in time to see Maxwell shoulder charge the door shut. Private Vaughan had gained his feet and he hurled himself bodily at the door, his hands grabbing at the levers.

Although his strength was almost gone, Grisham moved to assist. He was just in time to see Maxwell plant his hand on the access panel for the door. The green light turned red.

“Done,” said Maxwell.

Grisham leaned forward and put his hands on his knees as he fought for breath. Private Lyles pulled him gently towards the control room. He found a seat at one of the consoles, next to Corporal Fine and dropped into it. Deneuve and Lopez were sitting at the adjacent console, while Lieutenant Adler hovered nearby.

For a time, Grisham could hardly speak and hardly think. He heard Deneuve muttering something about the Kijol hardware taking an age to boot. A few seconds later, Grisham looked up at Fine. She managed a smile.

“I didn’t think I could run so fast,” she said.

“And never again,” said Grisham. He saw Maxwell nearby. “That was good work on those stairs. And from Private Vaughan. Thank you.”

“This battery must be on an independent security network, else that door wouldn’t have locked,” said Maxwell. “We got lucky.”

“For the first time in a while,” said Grisham.

“Those aliens on Xaros had a security breaker, sir,” said Maxwell. “If the one that followed you also has a breaker, we’re in trouble.”

Grisham’s heart rate was falling and he felt himself recovering, though not so much that he wanted to find out if he could beat his previous best up those steps. “We’ll have to act fast.” He smiled. “But that’s nothing new.”

Maxwell nodded, but he didn’t say anything. He indicated that Corporal Fine should join the rest of the squad – who were guarding the stairs and the other approaches - and then waited near the rear wall of the control room in case he was needed.

Grisham turned his attention to other matters. He looked across at Deneuve and Lopez.

“We’ll need to be lucky for a second time,” said Deneuve. “If these consoles require security codes, we won’t be taking a shot at that Achirus.” She thumbed over her shoulder in what was probably a random direction. “In case you were wondering, Private Diaz and Private Lowe found the switch that way.”

“I’m glad they did,” said Grisham.

As he was speaking, the console finished its boot process and a menu appeared on a small screen installed on the top panel.

“We’re straight in!” said Lopez.

“Hell yes!” said Grisham.

He felt suddenly invigorated and leaned forward in his seat to read the display. Many of the functions Grisham recognized from past encounters with Kijol hardware. He pushed one of the buttons with his fingertip. The huge screen in front of the two consoles flickered once, twice and then glowed a uniform grey. It was ready to display feeds from the battery sensors.

“Let’s see what’s going on outside,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Lopez, bring up the feeds.”

TWENTY-FIVE

“Feeds coming up,” said Lopez.

Surface-to-air installations were usually fitted with high-grade sensor hardware, in order that they could rapidly identify enemy vessels and target them with missiles. The battery here on Ovintus was no exception and Lopez obtained a crystal-clear feed of the Achirus warship, which remained in the air over the base.

“We’re low to the ground, so the sensors can’t see the surface buildings, except for the tops of the tallest few,” said Lopez. “But there’s the cruiser.”

“If it’s in our sensor arc, it should be in our firing arc too,” said Grisham. He looked down at the panel and tried to figure out how to access the targeting systems. “We need to override the automated threat identification systems – then we might be able to target the Achirus manually. Its crew won’t be expecting the attack, so hopefully we’ll be able to hit it with at least one missile.”

“One strike won’t bring down that cruiser, Captain,” said Deneuve.

“I know, Commander.” Grisham closed his eyes and took stock of his thoughts. “It’s all we have. The last attack of the cornered animal before it’s killed.”

“I wouldn’t normally ask this, sir,” said Maxwell. “But is this the right thing to do? The base might be infested with those aliens. Wouldn’t it be best if the cruiser activated those incendiaries? We should be safe out here in this battery – unless the Kijol decide they’re going to bomb the perimeter as well.”

Grisham was suddenly torn. It had seemed like such a perfect idea, to use the Kijol’s own missiles against them – especially after one of those missiles had wrecked the Marauder. “Like I said to Commander Deneuve – what else do we have?”

“Private Chau found a way to the surface. Maybe we could head outside and see what comes from it.”

“Lieutenant Lopez, this battery should be fitted with internal monitors,” said Grisham. “Show me what’s on them.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez.

The feed of the Achirus was replaced by dozens of individual feeds from inside the battery. Lopez quickly selected a half-dozen.

“Shit,” said Grisham. “Corpses.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez. “This feed on the left is the station where we came in, and this one here is from one of the missile loading areas.”

The Kijol corpses weren’t doing much of anything, other than standing with the infinite patience of the dead.

“No sign of those bad aliens anywhere,” said Lieutenant Adler, staring over Lopez’s shoulder.

“They don’t appear on HF sensors,” Grisham reminded him. “It’s possible the Kijol hardware isn’t any more effective.”

“There’s no way we’re going to cut a path back through all those bodies,” said Maxwell.

“Which leaves the surface as our only escape route,” said Grisham. “Like you said earlier.”

“I prefer desert to corpses, sir.”

“Before we go anywhere, I want to find out if we have an option to launch missiles at the Achirus,” said Grisham. “That cruiser is too valuable a target for us to ignore. If we can bring it down, we’ll leave this battery and head for the surface.”

He pushed buttons on the console and stared at the readouts which appeared on the compact screen next to the input panel. When he kept his helmet sensor focused on the Kijol text for a couple of seconds, the computer in his suit interpreted the words for him. Much of the text on the display was status codes, the meaning of which he could only guess at.

“Six missiles might not be enough, sir,” said Deneuve on the crew channel. “Even if we can figure out how to launch them.”

“I know, Commander.”

“If we fail to bring the enemy craft down, we’ll be eating missiles.”

“I know,” snapped Grisham.

“I’m making sure you’re aware of the risks, sir. That’s one enemy warship up there. If we survive and make it home, we’ll be the crew that destroys a dozen in the future. We’ll be selling ourselves cheap if we die here.”

Grisham smiled. “I understand what you’re saying, Commander. I’m not planning to throw our lives away. Not after everything that’s happened so far.” He had an idea. “Are we able to link to the other perimeter batteries?”

“No, sir,” said Lopez. “We have no visibility of the other emplacements, and all comms are routed through the hubs on the main installation.”

“That’s what I guessed,” said Grisham sourly. “So we’ll have our six missiles and no more.”

“Captain, the cruiser is in motion!” said Lopez. “It’s heading to the northern end of the installation.”

“The Achirus has just deployed a cannister,” said Grisham, his eyes on the feed. “And there goes a second. The installation is about to go up in flames.”

“We’re safe here, right?” said Private Lowe.

“The incendiaries won’t reach us in this battery, Private,” said Grisham, unsure when Lowe had returned to the control room. “Not unless the Kijol already deployed a cannister in a nearby subterranean bay we’re unaware of. Even then, the doors to this emplacement were built to withstand a lot of heat. They’ll hold.”

As Grisham was speaking, the cruiser climbed vertically, its rate of acceleration suggesting it was under maximum thrust.

“Here we go,” said Commander Deneuve.

In the direction of the Kijol installation, a wall of flame rose into the sky. The fires climbed, their orange colour so intense it was almost white. Grisham stared as the incendiaries burned and spread. The surface had been incinerated once before and now the Kijol were doing it again. He was sure that beneath the ground – unseen by the battery’s sensors – the plasma would be carbonizing the countless bodies which had remained unaffected by the last incendiary attack. The Kijol had screwed up before and Grisham doubted they’d do so again. This time, they’d burn everything.

“They aren’t going to stop at destroying the installation,” Grisham said. “They’re going to destroy the batteries too.”

“With more incendiaries?” asked Maxwell.

“No – with missiles,” said Grisham. “We have to find out how to manually target that warship.”

“Sir, the cruiser is heading east,” said Lopez. “This battery is outside the north-western corner of the main installation.”

The Achirus was at a ten-kilometre altitude. It flew a short distance east and launched a salvo of missiles from its underside clusters without slowing. Orange streaks sped towards the ground. The target was hidden by the raging flames that still engulfed the base, but Grisham was sure the Kijol had destroyed one of the surface batteries. The cruiser continued east and launched another dozen missiles.

“Let’s hope they go clockwise all the way,” said Corporal Barkley. “That’ll make us their near-last target.”

Grisham wasn’t relying on the Kijol playing ball. He urged his crew to find the manual override for the battery and got on with the same task himself. Unfortunately, the Kijol hadn’t made the override easy to find and Grisham wasn’t even sure if the option existed. Since technology was almost entirely automated, there was little need for manual intervention. In theory, however, a manual override was easy to include and there were a few rare circumstances where the facility might be needed. It was this hope that Grisham clung to.

Every so often, he glanced up at the feeds and every time he did so, the cruiser was firing missiles. The incendiary fires were dwindling, but the cruiser’s targets remained out of sight over the horizon. Having destroyed several targets north-east of the main installation, the Achirus flew south.

“Uh, Captain,” said Lieutenant Lopez. “There’s a warning light for one of the internal doors. It’s being bombarded with access codes. The security system has tried to block inputs to the door panel, but the codes are still coming in.”

“A security breaker,” said Maxwell. “Like we saw on Xaros.”

“Which door?” asked Grisham. “And is there any indication how long before the intrusion attempt might be successful?”

“It’s one of the doors leading from below,” said Lopez. “Here’s the feed.”

The stream was from an area of the battery which Grisham hadn’t explored, and the monitor was installed in one of the corners above the door. A wide passage was filled with corpses and that was all the feed showed.

“We need to seal it with charges,” said Maxwell. He shouted an order and Private Chau dashed into the control room. “Do you recognize where that is, Private Chau?”

“I think I went past that place earlier, Sergeant,” said Chau, peering at the feed. “It’s about five or six minutes from here.” He pointed at the floor. “A few levels down.”

“Go there and take Private Diaz with you,” said Maxwell.

“The security system is reporting a second intrusion attempt,” said Lieutenant Lopez. “No, make that three intrusion attempts. Bringing up the feeds.”

Grisham only spared those feeds a brief glance. He saw yet more corpses, but no sign of the aliens controlling them. It was more evidence that the Kijol sensor hardware was incapable of detecting this foe.

“So, am I going to seal those doors, Sergeant?” asked Chau.

“No,” said Maxwell. “We’ll defend this position.”

“We could go to the surface,” said Private Franklin hopefully. “The Achirus will kill everything inside this battery for us.”

“They’ll kill us too,” said Maxwell, clearly fighting with impatience and frustration. “You think that Kijol crew are going to fly right overhead and not see us?”

“We could bury ourselves in the sand, Sergeant,” said Franklin.

“That won’t work, Private,” said Lopez. “Most of the sand near this battery was turned to glass by the last incendiary deployment. Anyway, even if there was enough sand, we’d leave plenty of detectable signs by digging ourselves in.”

Grisham was also fighting with frustration. Every time he tried something different, it took his suit computer a couple of seconds to interpret the readout on the console screen. He was beginning to understand the different codes – with the assistance of a help file the Kijol had thoughtfully installed – but it was slow going.

“How’re you getting on, Commander Deneuve?” he asked.

“Not well,” she admitted. “I’m sure there’s a way, I just can’t find it.”

“The Achirus has finished with the north-east and eastern batteries,” said Lopez. “It’s heading west and the next enemy target will be south of our position.”

“Can you estimate how many batteries the cruiser will have to destroy before it reaches us – assuming it heads north instead of south?” asked Grisham.

“Six or seven,” said Lopez. “The enemy warship is having to wait for the reload on its underside clusters. We might have two or three minutes, unless they turn south, in which case we’ll have longer.”

“Our best chance is to launch at the last possible moment,” said Deneuve. “There’s a possibility the enemy Dasor turrets won’t have time to lock and fire.”

“It’s our only hope,” said Grisham.

The cruiser fired upon another emplacement, hovered for a short time and then launched yet more of its missiles.

“That leaves another four or five,” said Lopez. “If I’ve guessed right.”

Time was running out and Grisham knew he was allowing all these little interruptions to gather into one major distraction – a distraction that was keeping him from concentrating on the single most important task. He tuned everything out and focused only on the console.

“The cruiser has destroyed another battery,” said Lopez a short time later. “And we have a fourth intrusion attempt on one of our internal doors.”

From his periphery, Grisham watched the Achirus fly north-west from its last target. He knew then that its crew were planning to eliminate all the batteries this way before they went south. The seconds were counting down and not many remained.

“That’s another battery gone,” said Lopez. “That leaves two or three before we become the target. If you’re going to find that override, now’s a good time to do it.”

Grisham had always worked well in situations of extreme duress and this was one of those occasions. He found a solution to the problem. Unfortunately, implementing it was going to take some time.

The Achirus fired its next salvo, while Grisham worked furiously to ready the battery for a launch.

TWENTY-SIX

“The Kijol didn’t delete the test mode from the control software,” said Grisham, talking fast while his hands moved across the controls. “I’m switching us over.”

“In test mode, the launcher will target anything,” said Commander Deneuve excitedly. “It won’t recognize the cruiser as a friendly.”

“That’s the hope, Commander,” said Grisham.

This was how the HF hardware worked, but he didn’t have any proof that the Kijol weapons systems were set up the same way. Still, the enemy had included a test mode and surely there was a reason for it.

“Test mode activated,” said Grisham.

Instantly, the cruiser appeared as an available target. He selected it and the backend computer acknowledged. Then, it asked Grisham to confirm his selection. He did so.

“The Achirus has destroyed another emplacement,” said Lopez. “It’ll be our turn soon.”

“I hear you, Lieutenant,” said Grisham.

He looked directly at the feed. The cruiser was about ten kilometres south-east and still at a ten-kilometre altitude. In order to completely obliterate this battery and anything living inside it, the warship would need to be directly overhead, so its missiles could penetrate all the way to the bottom of the emplacement.

At least, that’s what Grisham was pinning his hopes on.

The Achirus hovered for a few seconds and then flew a short distance north-west. It fired at its next target and then slowed to a standstill, with its entire portside flank visible.

“I think we’re next, sir,” said Lopez.

“I agree,” said Grisham. “We get one chance at this.”

“The time is now, sir,” said Adler.

“The enemy vessel is nine klicks from our launch position, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “The closer it comes, the greater the chance our missiles will hit their target.”

He knew he was pushing to the limit and beyond. At nine kilometres, the chance of several successful detonations was high. And yet, this was a new generation Achirus. Perhaps its battle computer and sensor hardware were new also. Maybe they’d react a fraction of a second quicker than he was expecting.

The sound of Private Vaughan’s repeater firing came from somewhere close by. The soldiers began calling out warnings on the squad comms. Grisham didn’t turn to look. All his attention was on the Achirus. The enemy vessel didn’t move and Grisham bared his teeth in a snarl.

“Come on,” he said.

The cruiser accelerated on a heading that would take it directly over the missile battery. Grisham’s eyes were wide and he didn’t dare blink.

“Now,” said Deneuve on the crew channel.

Grisham didn’t wait any longer. He pushed his finger onto the launch button. Less than a second later, a clunking boom came from somewhere deep within the battery and a low alarm sounded within the control room.

“Warheads away,” said Deneuve.

Six immense missiles accelerated from their launch tubes. They raced through the sandstorm, curving tightly in the air as they went. Grisham thought he saw the white tracers of Dasor fire, but then the missiles struck. The explosion was immense and he guessed that five of the warheads had successfully detonated. Huge pieces of armour plating were torn from the cruiser and a vast chunk of its stern blew out.

“Yes!” shouted Lieutenant Adler.

Grisham didn’t say anything. He was sure the cruiser had been terminally damaged, but he needed a sight of its hull. At the moment, the burning plasma was making it impossible to judge the status of the enemy vessel.

“It’s coming down,” said Commander Deneuve.

She was right. The cruiser’s engines had either partially or completely failed and it was descending in a gentle arc towards the surface.

“It’s going to miss us,” said Lopez.

“Not by much,” said Adler.

“I’ll take a near miss over a glancing blow.”

Grisham wanted to watch, but he couldn’t. The reality of the situation within the bunker came crashing back. He heard a grenade exploding somewhere close by. Gauss rifles fired nonstop and he could hear Sergeant Maxwell, Corporal Fine and Corporal Barkley giving orders.

“Sergeant Maxwell, the cruiser is finished,” said Grisham loudly on the squad comms. “We should head for the surface.”

“Yes, sir,” said Maxwell. “Retreat to the control room!” he yelled on the comms.

The soldiers came at a run through the north entrance. Sergeant Maxwell was third to enter the control station. “Move,” he urged. “That way.” He pointed along the west exit. “Follow Private Chau.” Maxwell’s eyes landed on Grisham and his bridge crew. “Go now, sir.”

Before Grisham got his feet moving, he looked through the north entrance. The rest of the soldiers were beating a fast retreat, albeit with some control. A Kijol corpse emerged into view and it was struck in the forehead by a gauss bullet. It fell out of Grisham’s sight.

He entered the west passage and ran after the others to the intersection. South would take him back to the narrow stairs, but Chau had gone north. Grisham followed. His legs still felt weak and he knew he’d need some rest soon, just like everyone else on this mission. The chance of it would be a fine thing.

Grisham passed through an open door and the passage turned west. A short distance further, a corridor branched north, while the main passage continued. Chau led the way north, across a second control room, through another open door and then west again.

“Not far,” he said.

Stairs ascended from an opening in the corridor’s north wall. The way was narrow and Grisham’s heart fell when he saw how many steps there were.

Chau hadn’t left the passage and he waited with Private Vaughan, having evidently been given orders to help cover the retreat.

“Sir, you need to go,” said Chau, pointing urgently up the steps.

Grisham hadn’t hesitated for more than a moment and he entered the stairwell. His leg muscles complained at the renewed effort, but he ignored the pain. Commander Deneuve was directly ahead and the distance between the two of them was increasing. With another curse, Grisham increased his pace.

“What’s our status, Sergeant Maxwell?” he asked, between laboured breaths.

“Corpses, sir,” said Maxwell. “They found a way in. There’s been no sign of aliens. I’m not expecting that situation to last.”

“If any follow, maybe we can ambush them once we’re on the surface,” said Grisham.

“I’m hoping we won’t have to,” said Maxwell. “Private Chau found some metal bars he reckons will jam the hatch shut from the outside.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve been thinking ahead, Sergeant. All of you.”

“It’s the best way to avoid death, sir.”

As he climbed, Grisham pictured the Achirus coming down onto the planet’s surface. When the cruiser landed, it might well create a shockwave that would crumple the walls of this missile battery. The velocity of the warship’s impact depended on many unknown variables and Grisham tried hard not to think about it. He heard a grenade explode somewhere behind and the sound of it focused his mind. Grisham pressed on, each step a little harder than the one before.

“Nearly there,” said Lieutenant Adler from a distance ahead. The man sounded exhausted.

The stairwell emerged into another compact room, with the usual alloy cladding. Against the eastern wall was a half-full weapons rack. Grisham saw Kijol rifles and a couple of sidearms. Where the rest of the weapons had gone, he didn’t know, but whoever was carrying them was certainly dead.

“Private Diaz went that way,” said Lieutenant Kinsey, pointing towards a metal-rung ladder.

This ladder rose through a circular shaft in the centre of the north wall. Grisham hurried over and looked up. The shaft was lit and Private Diaz was near the top, holding a rung with one hand and gripping a lever on the underside of an alloy hatch with the other.

Diaz looked down and somehow managed to recognize Grisham. “I’m opening the hatch, sir,” she said.

With a wrench of effort, the soldier rotated the lever a quarter turn. Then, she slid the hatch sideways into a recess. It wasn’t dark outside, nor was it light. Wind blew through the opening and sand whispered down the shaft. Another sound was audible over everything else. The cruiser’s Charos drive was still active and its immense bass had an underlying howl of distress.

“Go!” said Grisham.

He began climbing at once. The cruiser hadn’t struck the ground yet and he wanted to watch it come down. Private Diaz vanished outside and Grisham soon reached the top. Since Commander Deneuve was right behind, he didn’t pause to look around once his head was showing. Instead, he joined Diaz on what turned out to be the edge of the missile battery’s retaining wall. This wall was about four metres thick and its edge was about twenty metres above the sand. Wind buffeted Grisham, threatening to send him to his death if he wasn’t careful. He crouched low next to Diaz.

Glancing over his shoulder, Grisham saw the rest of the wall as well as the six immense hatches which covered the missile launch tubes. Desert surrounded the emplacement, though the sand had been partly fused into glass.

Grisham stared into the sky. It was gloomy, but not yet night and the temperature was falling. He could see the Daxin star low to the horizon, looking more remote than anything he could imagine. His eyes searched south-east for the cruiser.

“There it is,” he said.

The Kijol cruiser was at an approximate two-thousand-metre altitude, and three thousand metres south-east. In that direction, the sand had suffered even more from incendiaries, and it was turned into rough glass which followed the contours of what had once been immense dunes.

Even at this distance, the warship appeared vast. Its visible flank was burning orange from nose to stern and Grisham couldn’t believe it hadn’t broken up. He stared, but the windblown sand made it impossible to discern anything more than the shape and the light. The sound of the spaceship’s Charos drive seemed to beat against him from every direction.

“It’s coming down slowly,” said Diaz.

Grisham nodded. “A soft landing will be better for us than a hard one. Sergeant Maxwell, what is your status?”

Before Maxwell responded, a deep, rumbling boom was carried up the shaft, and Grisham recognized it as the sound of a rocket.

“We were under pressure until Private Lowe fired that missile, sir,” said Maxwell. “The last of us are almost at the shaft. We’ll exit at once.”

“I’m heading to the ground, Sergeant,” said Grisham. His eyes found the top of a ladder leading from the retaining wall to the sand below. “We’ll be safer there.”

The rest of the mission personnel continued emerging from the shaft and Grisham was in danger of blocking the way. He grabbed the top of the ladder and descended rapidly. He didn’t want to imagine how the surface would react if the cruiser landed with any great velocity, but here at the north end of the battery, he hoped to be at least partially shielded from the shockwave.

Grisham stepped off the ladder. He guessed this side of the battery was sheltered from the prevailing winds, since the coating of sand on the glass was thin. A few hundred metres away, the fused dunes appeared like hills.

From here, Grisham couldn’t see the stricken cruiser, so he headed east to gain a view of it. The sand wasn’t all fused and it crunched beneath his feet. He glanced once over his shoulder and saw that his crew were on their way down, while a couple of soldiers were just visible near the edge of the wall.

He arrived at the corner and looked around. The cruiser seemed to have dropped another thousand metres, though from ground level the dunes to the south-east limited his ability to judge altitude.

Without warning, the Achirus’s Charos drive cut out. Usually a complete propulsion failure would be signalled by a shrieking from the overstressed modules. On this occasion, the warship’s engines simply fell quiet. As Grisham watched, the vessel began its freefall descent.

“The cruiser is coming down!” he yelled. “We need to shelter behind the battery!”

He turned and found that most of the mission personnel were already on the sand, with another couple on the ladder. Grisham made a short run north so that he could see who was left. Two figures were just visible, wrestling to jam the hatch closed.

“Sergeant Maxwell, you have about fifteen seconds before that cruiser impacts and another few seconds before the shockwave hits us.”

“We have to make sure this hatch stays shut,” said Maxwell, his voice strained with effort.

Grisham returned to the corner and watched the cruiser as it fell vertically towards the surface. The vessel struck the ground and its upper section remained visible over the dunes.

“Be ready!” he yelled.

The shockwave would come in seconds and Grisham had no idea what effect it would have on this battery or on the mission personnel relying on it for protection.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Sprinting away from the corner, Grisham headed diagonally north. He didn’t want to be right up against the battery wall and he didn’t want to be too far away from it either. In truth, Grisham had no idea what to expect and he was relying on guesswork to keep himself alive.

He hadn’t gone far when the ground seemed to jump beneath him. At the same time, he heard a thudding sound that carried with it a vast weight, which momentarily quelled the howling wind. The ground jumped again and Grisham was thrown into the air. He landed off-balance and stumbled face-first into the sand. Everything was shaking and he scrambled to his feet.

Nearby, the mission personnel were either fighting to remain upright or they were on the ground. On top of the wall, Sergeant Maxwell and another soldier – Private Chau, Grisham thought – were holding on to something that wasn’t in sight from ground level.

For many seconds the ground continued to shake, and gradually the intensity of it lessened. When Grisham was confident he could remain upright, he hurried across the sand to check on the others. Nobody had suffered a serious injury, though Lieutenant Lopez had collided shoulder-first with the battery wall and was winded because of it. She’d recover.

“Sir, you need to see this!” yelled Maxwell on the comms. “Quickly!”

Grisham had no idea what had got the soldier interested and he ran for the ladder. The ground rumbled again as he ascended and he felt the vibrations through the rungs. Emerging on top of the wall, he braced himself against the wind and hoped no more aftershocks would come.

“Over here, sir,” said Maxwell on the comms. He and Chau had made their way almost to the south-east corner of the wall and were staring in that direction.

Taking care to remain in the centre of the wall, Grisham headed towards them. He passed the hatch, which the soldiers had jammed by wedging a couple of metal rods between the topside release levers and the frame.

Joining Maxwell and Chau, Grisham stared across the glass dunes. The cruiser had landed flank facing, shattering the hard coating on the surface and creating a huge, circular crater. The outer rim of this crater was a mixture of translucent boulders and sand, and it hid the warship’s lower third.

It wasn’t the impact crater which had caught Maxwell’s attention. He pointed to an area of the crater’s rim on the visible edge closest to the missile battery. Grisham narrowed his eyes and zoomed in his helmet sensor. The cruiser’s impact had altered the surface in a significant way and had revealed something which must have been buried beneath the glass. An expansive area of a near-black material was now exposed.

Grisham felt an emotion that was mostly excitement, but with some other things mixed in. His brain told him what he was looking at, though he couldn’t believe it was possible.

“A warship,” said Grisham.

“That’s what we figured,” said Chau.

“It reminds me of the spaceship on Xaros,” said Maxwell. “What I can see of it does, anyway.”

“The Kijol must have shot it down when their installation was attacked,” said Grisham. “Then, the incendiaries came and it was locked beneath a layer of glass.”

“It doesn’t look much damaged to me,” said Chau.

About five hundred metres of the vessel was visible and Grisham didn’t know how much more was hidden. His eyes followed the shape of the dunes and he guessed that beyond the impact crater’s rim, more of the vessel would be exposed.

“Most of that spaceship is still buried, Private,” said Grisham. “Whatever damage it suffered is hidden by sand and glass.”

“What’re we going to do, sir?” asked Maxwell. It was a loaded question.

“We should check it out,” said Grisham. “We’ve got nowhere else to go.”

He stood where he was for a few seconds longer, wondering what events had led to this alien vessel becoming sealed in glass. Tearing his gaze away, Grisham hurried for the ladder and descended to the base of the wall.

“What’re we planning to do when we arrive at this alien warship, sir?” asked Corporal Fine.

“I don’t know,” Grisham admitted. “This mission was all about finding intel and here’s our chance to learn something about a species that’s been making the Kijol sweat.”

“And us too,” said Lowe. “Wouldn’t we be better off heading back to the facility and looking for an escape shuttle, sir?”

“The facility – topside and underground – is destroyed, Private,” said Grisham. “Whatever wreckage is left will be too hot for us to explore anyway.”

The soldiers knew they were out of options, though nobody wanted to come right out and say it. Grisham got his bearings and set off into the desert, with Maxwell alongside. The nearest dune was steep and a thin layer of glass lay just beneath the surface. With every step, Grisham’s combat boot broke the glass and plunged into the sand below. It made the going incredibly tough.

Grisham leaned into the climb, feeling the glass crack and his feet slide with each step. The wind pushed him sideways and the sand raced past. By the time he reached the top, Grisham was hot with the effort and breathing heavily.

“Damn,” he swore. “This is slow.”

From the top of the dune, Grisham could see more dunes, as well as the Achirus and part of the unknown spaceship. He didn’t pause and descended carefully to the bottom.

Another dune rose high above, though here the layer of glass was much thicker and Grisham’s feet didn’t go through. He was sure this area marked the boundary of where the incendiaries had burned the hottest.

The solid glass was no easier to walk on, since the wind had coated it in sand which made the footing treacherous and slippery. In addition, the shockwave from the cruiser’s impact had seemingly broken the subsurface glass into pieces and those pieces shifted with Grisham’s weight. As a result, the journey took more than thirty minutes and, when he stood atop the final dune and looked upon the high rim of the impact crater, he felt enormous relief.

“I’m glad the Achirus didn’t come down at a greater velocity,” said Maxwell.

“Me too, Sergeant,” said Grisham.

He’d once seen an HF destroyer impact with a planet at a hundred kilometres per second. The outcome had not been pretty. In comparison, an Achirus hitting Ovintus at three hundred kilometres per hour was tame.

Grisham spent a moment studying the terrain. From where he was standing, the walls of the crater were huge slopes of medium steepness, comprised of glassy boulders, smaller pieces of glass, and sand. The crater walls curved south and north and they made Grisham think of flood defences, but on a vast scale.

A few hundred metres south, the buried alien vessel protruded from its shattered coffin. Now that he was closer, Grisham felt he was looking at its topsides, though he had no evidence to back up his opinion. He was also sure it was a large vessel with a high mass, and that much of it was below the surface. What overall shape it possessed, he had no idea.

Grisham narrowed his eyes at a series of enormous dunes that came right up to the impact crater. Much of the recent sand had been shaken off by the tremors and he could see cracks in the glass. He thought maybe part of the alien vessel had formed those dunes.

“Let’s take a look,” he said.

“We should head to the top of the crater edge, sir,” said Maxwell. “If any of those Kijol survived, we’ll see them if they’re coming our way.”

“They didn’t survive, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “When their propulsion failed, their life support system would have gone offline.” He stared at the slope, trying to identify the best way to the top. “But I’d like to go up there anyway, to see the lay of the land.” He pointed between two of the glass boulders. “That way.”

Grisham carefully descended the sand dune. The closer the mission personnel came to the impact site, the less suitable the ground was for walking. When he reached the bottom, Grisham paused to catch his breath. The route he’d chosen to the top of the impact crater’s rim appeared much harder to climb than he’d first thought.

“Let’s get it done,” said Grisham.

He went up. The slope was not at all stable and the fine sand holding the glass in place shifted beneath his feet.

“We should tell the others to wait,” said Maxwell.

“I agree,” said Grisham, staring ahead. The two huge boulders – each about fifteen metres high - he’d seen from the opposite dune hadn’t moved, but if he was wrong and one of them slid down the slope, it could potentially kill everyone on the mission.

Maxwell gave the order without slowing and the two men continued.

“Just to be sure – if the Achirus’s engines failed, there’ll be no power to its weapons either?” said Maxwell.

“We don’t have to worry about missiles or Dasor fire,” Grisham confirmed.

The climb took no more than five or six minutes, but it was stressful, and, when he came to the top, Grisham breathed deeply in relief.

“I’ll order the others to follow,” said Maxwell.

Grisham nodded while he looked across the vast bowl of the impact crater. The sand blew here like elsewhere, but it was not so dense and it didn’t prevent him seeing into the distance. The Achirus lay ahead. The plasma fires from the surface battery’s missiles were gone and he counted five huge craters in the warship’s flank. Heat lingered and would do so for days.

Of the Kijol, Grisham saw no sign. The aliens were no more adept at surviving thousand-metre falls than a human. He hadn’t mentioned it to Maxwell, but it was remotely possible a few of them had been inside a shuttle with independent life support and had therefore lived. However, no vessels large or small were visible in the sky.

Grisham turned his attention south. About two hundred metres of the alien vessel protruded from the inside of the crater wall and the rest of it was buried beneath the rubble. The part he could see was a corner, along with three adjoining surfaces that were slightly curved.

At the bottom of the slope near the alien vessel, yet more of the planet’s ancient architecture had been revealed. Broken pillars and some carved slabs of red stone lay scattered across a wide area. Grisham suspected the remnants of a huge city lay buried beneath this part of Ovintus.

“You’re hoping to find a way inside that warship,” said Maxwell.

“I am,” Grisham nodded.

“It’ll surely be locked against intrusion.”

“Yes.” Grisham’s eyes scoured the exposed part of the vessel’s hull. Its surface was completely nonreflective and with a slight undulation to the material - likely a result of the Kijol incendiaries. “But it’s possible that when it impacted, an emergency protocol released all the locks.”

“A warship needs a crew,” Maxwell observed.

“That’s the risk, isn’t it?” said Grisham. “But glass wouldn’t hold a vessel like this. If there was anything left alive, this spaceship wouldn’t be here for us to find.”

The rest of the mission personnel began arriving at the top of the slope. So far, nobody had fallen. After everything which had happened so far, a death or injury here would be especially galling.

“Let’s take a look at that warship,” said Grisham.

He headed towards the protruding section of hull a few hundred metres away. The slope on the inside of the impact crater wasn’t so steep and, though it was littered with more of the boulders, rocks, and sand, it was far easier to descend.

Soon, Grisham was within touching distance of the alien vessel. Its upper section rose far above him and he was certain much more of it remained unseen. Now that he was so close, Grisham could see the hull damage much more clearly. The marks didn’t look the same as those he’d seen on other warships that had been affected by incendiaries. Usually, the metal would be scorched and blackened, and it would melt and harden in a recognizable way. Here, the spaceship’s hull was a uniform colour and the undulations reminded him of scarring on human skin more than anything else.

Stepping closer, Grisham rubbed his fingertips across the vessel’s hull. It was solid like alloy, though he was sure it wasn’t metal, and, when he pressed harder, he sensed a yieldingness.

“What’ve we got?” asked Commander Deneuve, heading his way across the uneven ground.

“It’s the same material as that hemisphere under the Kijol installation,” said Grisham.

“Is there any way in?”

“Not on this side. Let’s try around here.”

Grisham stepped away and headed for the corner of the warship, about thirty metres down the slope. By now, the rest of the mission personnel were here. A few of the soldiers were sitting, but they were all on their guard. Most of them had a wary eye on the Achirus, as if they expected its engines to come online at any moment.

When he rounded the corner, Grisham saw an imperfection in the spaceship’s hull about twenty metres away, and half-buried in sand. He hurried closer, laid his rifle to one side and began scooping at the sand and glass.

“An entrance hatch,” said Deneuve, getting down to help.

Soon, their efforts had revealed most of an entrance, which was about two metres square. Grisham swept away the last of the sand which covered a twelve-inch circular indentation. This circular area glowed with a dim green light.

“The power is on,” said Grisham.

As if sensing the potential for a significant discovery, most of the soldiers, including Sergeant Maxwell, had come over to watch.

“Will it open?” asked Private Lowe.

Grisham touched the lit area and nothing happened. He pressed his entire palm into the indentation with no more success.

“No, it won’t open,” he concluded.

At that moment, Maxwell visibly stiffened. He raised his gun and pointed east with his free hand. “Hostiles!”

Grisham snapped his head around and what he saw chilled his blood. Far away – perhaps two kilometres or more – dark shapes were standing on the rim of the crater. He counted seven in total, and they were little more than blurs in the sand. Not one of the aliens was moving, but he knew they were looking straight towards this spaceship.

“They’ve been trapped here ever since their engagement with the Kijol,” said Grisham, as he added things up. “Now the Achirus broke the glass around this spaceship, they have a way to escape.”

This mission had been filled with challenges, one after the other. Each time a challenge was overcome, another followed, with no respite and with seemingly no way to come out on top. Grisham was beginning to think he was in the middle of a deadly game that he could never win, no matter how well he played.

He reached for his gauss rifle.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Maxwell gave orders and the soldiers took cover. There was plenty of it to be found.

“So much for incendiaries,” spat Lyles, crouching next to the warship, not far from the corner.

“Those aliens might have been hiding beneath one of the batteries the Achirus didn’t get round to destroying because we knocked it out of the sky, Private,” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Yeah, well, it sucks whichever way you look at it, Lieutenant.”

Grisham stayed near the door, in case his mind served up an inspirational method for gaining access. He focused on the aliens, which still hadn’t moved. A gauss rifle had tremendous range in the right circumstances, but shooting at a target two thousand metres away in a strong crosswind would be an exercise in futility. Everyone held fire.

“What’s the range on that repeater, Private Vaughan?” asked Grisham.

“I can hit them from here, sir, but with reduced impact. I’m down to a magazine-and-a-half of ammo, so it’ll be best if I hold fire until I can guarantee maximum effectiveness.”

“We’ve got others incoming from the north!” said Diaz.

Another four aliens had appeared on the top of the crater edge, these ones so indistinct that Grisham wasn’t sure how Diaz had managed to spot them.

“The Achirus didn’t take out the northern batteries,” said Corporal Fine. “We’re going to see others.”

“We don’t have the firepower to kill the first seven,” said Maxwell. “Nor the ammunition.”

“We could return to the battery,” said Private Franklin. “If all the aliens are heading for their warship, maybe it’ll be safe for us to go back that way.”

“They’ll run us down before we’re halfway there,” said Maxwell. “They want their spaceship, but I’ve seen enough to have learned that they’re sadistic bastards – they can kill us and still get what they want.”

“The ones to our east are moving,” said Vaughan.

“Same to the north,” said Diaz. “They’re coming real slow.”

“They want to make us suffer,” said Maxwell. He sounded livid.

Slowly, the aliens descended into the impact crater. Grisham stared, unblinking. Soon, he knew, these aliens would break into a run and he was sure it wouldn’t take them long to cover the ground, even with the sand and the rocks slowing them down.

“Uh,” said Lyles suddenly. “There’s something humming in my pack.”

Grisham didn’t look over. He held his rifle steady, wishing he was sitting at the controls of a surface mounted Gatler turret.

“Here they come!” yelled Barkley.

All at the same time, the aliens accelerated across the floor of the impact crater. Their arms rose and fell jerkily, yet they seemed to flow across the ground.

“A little over two minutes and they’ll be among us,” said Maxwell. “We’d best make every shot count. Hold for my order!”

Lyles was still muttering about her pack and, from the corner of his eye, Grisham saw her shrug out of it.

“Is this the right time, Private?” he asked.

“Sir, I’ve got a feeling—”

Lyles tore open the flap of her pack and reached inside.

“A feeling about what?” asked Grisham. He was bordering on anger at the distraction. Only his knowledge that Lyles was a competent and experienced soldier held it in check.

“This!” said Lyles in triumph. Between her forefinger and thumb, she held a small grey cube with a few protruding wires. “It’s from the Xaros security breaker. It started vibrating when we came close to this spaceship.”

Grisham remembered the discussion about it in the Marauder’s mess room. “Give it here!” he said.

“All yours, sir.”

Lyles threw it, none too gently, and Grisham put out his hand. The cube was heavier than it looked and it thudded into his palm. He wrapped his fingers around it and felt the vibration which had caught Lyles’s attention.

“Fire!” yelled Maxwell.

The soldiers unleashed their guns and Vaughan fired his repeater. Private Lowe was running short of ammunition and he held fire in the hope of landing a shot on two aliens with the same rocket.

“Let’s see what this does,” said Grisham.

He was right next to the hatch and he held the cube against the access panel. The green light turned blue and the hatch opened to reveal a ten-metre-long passage that led to a compact-looking space lit in dim blue.

“We have access to the warship!” said Grisham.

“Is it defensible?” asked Maxwell. He didn’t have an angle to see beyond the opening.

“The enemy will only be able to enter one at a time, Sergeant.”

“Then let’s go,” said Maxwell. He raised his voice. “We’re retreating into the spaceship!”

Grisham was closest and he went first. The ceiling in the passage was high enough for him to stand and he hurried along. Every surface was the same material as that of the hull, though here it was smooth and unblemished. The air smelled stale and musty, like years-old decay, and the desert wind was the only sound.

The room he’d seen from outside had a single exit, opposite to the way in. A panel there was blue and the door was open. It made him hopeful that the internal security had left all areas of the interior accessible.

Grisham paused and looked behind. The passage from outside was already filled with the members of his crew and the soldiers would be following them. He found what he was looking for, that being an access panel adjacent to the exit tunnel. With any luck, he’d be able to close the outer door using the cube, though he was sure that wouldn’t delay the aliens for long.

“The first of those assholes will be here in less than sixty seconds,” said Corporal Fine, emerging into the room.

Grisham held out the cube. “Take this, Corporal,” he said. “Once everyone’s inside, press it against that access panel. If one of those aliens opens the door afterwards, close it again.”

“I can manage that, sir,” said Fine. She took the cube.

“My crew and I are going to find the bridge. The engines are offline – maybe we can do something about that.”

“Won’t you need this?” asked Fine, indicating the cube resting in the palm of her hand. “And what if there are aliens or internal defences?”

“I’m taking a gamble,” said Grisham. “What other choice to I have?”

Fine didn’t answer.

Grisham led his crew into the tunnel leading from the entry space. The corridor wasn’t quite wide enough to travel abreast, so the crew went single file. Grisham judged the space to be just right for a single massive alien to traverse if it was running on all fours.

The passage sloped down and another corridor branched right. Grisham paused and looked that way. He saw a room.

“This way,” he said, acting entirely on hunch.

The next room was larger than the entrance space, and it was square. A grey metal cuboid – its longest edge about a metre - was embedded in the floor in one corner. What purpose this object served, Grisham couldn’t begin to guess.

He didn’t slow and sprinted through the exit in the wall opposite. A glance at his HUD informed him that the comms link to the soldiers was already degrading. If the warship was as large as he believed, the lack of comms might become an issue.

The next passage turned left, towards what Grisham thought might be the vessel’s nose, though the forward section of the ship was likely still many hundreds of metres away. Forty metres further, the passage opened into a ten-metre room, this time with two exits, both leading from the opposite wall. The scent of old decay was stronger here, though with no apparent source.

Several metre-long metal posts emerged horizontally from each of the left and right walls. An additional post rose from the middle of the floor to a height of one-point-five metres. These posts were all made from a different material to the rest of the spaceship and again, Grisham couldn’t imagine their purpose.

“It’s been longer than a minute since Corporal Fine gave her warning, sir,” said Lieutenant Kinsey. “The enemy will be at the door.”

Grisham came to a halt. He was running headlong in whatever direction his feet carried him and maybe he needed to stop and think, rather than hoping he’d reach his goal through luck alone. After all, luck hadn’t exactly been on his side so far.

“Corporal Fine, please report,” he said, walking deeper into the room.

“We’re all inside, sir,” she said. “The cube closed the door and it hasn’t opened again.”

“Keep watching,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

Grisham stopped at the central post. It was dull and unadorned. Without thinking, he reached out and placed his hand on the flat top of the metal.

Straightaway, his surroundings faded and became dim, though he remained aware of them. Grisham felt a presence all around him – a presence that was both intelligent and conscious. Perhaps it was sentient as well, but he couldn’t be sure.

The warship. I’m communicating with the warship.

TWENTY-NINE

Somehow, Grisham knew exactly what to do, as though the method was ingrained within him. His mind went seeking and a vision of what lay outside formed in his head. He saw the far edges of the crater and the wrecked Achirus as if there was no sand blowing at all. Elsewhere was only darkness. In these directions, the warship was blind.

Looking closer, Grisham saw the huge aliens clustered around what he now knew was the warship’s stern. One of the creatures held a device.

Request denied. Security key provided.

Request denied. Security key provided.

The warship didn’t understand Grisham’s language and it didn’t need to. It communicated with images, thoughts, concepts and ideas, all rolled into one to produce an exact response to whatever was asked.

In moments, Grisham learned that the warship had been nearly destroyed by the Kijol, and its systems – systems wasn’t quite the right word, but it would do – had been made inoperable. The vessel had nearly healed itself and it would soon be at its maximum potential.

It was ready for a new crew.

“Sir?” asked Commander Deneuve.

Grisham heard her voice as though she were standing behind a heavy curtain. He answered.

“We’re going to the bridge,” Grisham said, his own voice sounding remote. “We can’t do what we need to do from this node.” He lifted his hand from the post and everything snapped back into focus. “The bridge is along there,” he said, pointing to the left-hand exit.

“How are you so sure?” asked Deneuve. She was looking at him strangely.

“Let’s go,” said Grisham. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

He dashed into the left-hand passage and ran for the bridge. He talked as he went, explaining what he’d discovered. The crew listened and didn’t interrupt.

When he’d finished speaking, Grisham told his crew he didn’t want to hear any questions. Not yet. His mind was ablaze with thoughts and ideas and the journey to the bridge went by in a blur. Grisham passed through rooms and spaces filled with technology he didn’t recognize. The learning would come, but first he had to claim this vessel.

The bridge was at the end of a short, wide passage, and the door was open. Grisham entered and found himself in a circular space approximately six metres in diameter, with a five-metre ceiling. It was cold and with an unpleasant scent of char.

Arranged in a circle in the centre of the space were eight interface posts, all blackened by fire. The post at the far end of the bridge was taller than the others, with a low podium in front of it.

“Here’s the original crew,” said Grisham.

The aliens who’d crewed the warship before had been reduced to cinders by a Kijol attack and they were no more than huge lumps of carbon on the floor.

Grisham looked around and quickly pieced together the likely chain of events. In the portside quadrant of the bridge, the wall was enormously indented and the surface was lumpy. He guessed that Kijol explosives had penetrated the bridge and, given how far within the spaceship the bridge was located, the vessel must have been hardly more than a wreck when the last of the missiles detonated. Now, it had repaired most of the damage.

He crossed to the command station. A couple of the alien crew had fallen here and they weren’t so badly burned as the others. Grisham stared at them. They were huge – far bigger than the creatures outside. He estimated these two might once have been almost twelve feet in height and he didn’t want to imagine how many gauss shots it would have taken to bring them down.

“What now, sir?” asked Commander Deneuve.

“We take the ship,” said Grisham.

He stepped onto the platform at the command station and placed his hand onto the top of the post. Grisham’s connection to the warship reformed. Here on the bridge, access was unlimited. The warship had once been given a name, though it wasn’t a name a human would have recognized it. Rather, the vessel was known by its purpose, and that purpose encompassed death, expansion, seeking, hatred, and many other things which made Grisham reel when he was exposed to them.

The security systems were already reset, and that made claiming the vessel as simple as imagining the request, though Grisham didn’t know if the intelligence running through the warship applied any kind of judgement or test that he was unaware of. Once the spaceship was under his command, Grisham locked the security so that the alien species which had constructed the vessel could never again retake it.

When that was done, he instructed the spaceship to recognize the other members of his crew. He had no idea what it would take to pilot this vessel at full efficiency, but the presence of eight interface nodes was a strong indicator of how many personnel its builders thought would be required.

For ten minutes, the Marauder’s former crew experimented and learned. The warship was incredible for many reasons and, as efficient as the interface might be, Grisham couldn’t be sure if he was asking all the right questions. That would come in time. The most pressing matter was escape from Ovintus, before half of the Kijol fleet turned up or more of these alien vessels arrived.

“I can bring the engines online just by thinking it,” said Lieutenant Adler. “Should I send the command, sir?”

“Go ahead.”

The propulsion fired up smoothly into a background hum, without any of the booming or vibration of a Charos drive. Whatever engines were fitted to this spaceship, they were an entirely different technology to that used by either the Human Federation or the Kijol.

“We’re getting out of here,” said Grisham. None of this had sunk in yet, but he couldn’t stop for even a moment to think about it. “Let Sergeant Maxwell know that he’s played his part. For now at least.”

“I’ve made him aware, sir, and I told him not to touch anything,” said Lieutenant Lopez a short time later. “I just imagined a link to his suit comms and it happened. I thought the words and he heard them, and I heard his response. This is unbelievable.”

With his hand on the interface, Grisham instructed the vessel to rise from the ground. The propulsion hummed a little louder and all 2800 metres of the alien warship tore itself clear from the millions of tons of rubble under which it had been buried. Through the interface, Grisham watched it happen. Huge chunks of reddish glass spilled from the spaceship’s topside and sand cascaded to the ground. Outside, the dark aliens sprinted towards the Achirus.

“Commander Deneuve, kill them,” said Grisham.

“Yes, sir.”

Two missiles streaked from the warship’s underside tubes and they detonated amongst the enemy. The aliens were hardy, but none survived.

“We’re flying south-east and then across the base,” said Grisham. “I don’t want to venture into the firing arc of an operational ground launcher. We know the Achirus destroyed the batteries that way.”

Grisham held the spaceship at a five-hundred-metre altitude and guided it south-east. Piloting it was as easy as imagining where he wanted to go, though with some nuance he suspected would take time to learn. Compared to flying an HF warship, this was a revelation. Everything he needed was but a thought away.

However, Grisham was already sensing the limitations. His brain couldn’t handle everything at once. It could deal with the sensors and the flying, but he was sure that if he was required to track multiple enemy targets while dealing with the comms, the quantity of information would be too much. Again, this was something he’d have to find out for himself.

The alien spaceship flew across the Kijol installation. Not much of the original was recognizable and smoke rose in a dense cloud that not even the wind was able to clear. Grisham didn’t want to linger and he guided the warship east. Gradually, he increased its velocity, while maintaining the same low altitude. The vessel sped across the fused sand.

Although Grisham was in a hurry to leave, he wasn’t about to repeat the mistake he’d made with the Marauder. He held course for three thousand kilometres and then brought the spaceship into a sharp climb. It accelerated strongly, even though Grisham didn’t bring its propulsion to maximum output.

In a few seconds, the vessel escaped the Ovintus atmosphere and entered the cold vacuum of space. Now, Grisham gave it everything and the engines produced a guttural howl as they hurled the vessel through the void.

“We don’t know how to get home,” said Commander Deneuve. “This spaceship doesn’t have the location of any HF planets in its star charts.”

“We don’t want to take this spaceship to one of our home worlds yet. Not until we know more about it,” said Grisham. “Can we route a comms transmission through the hull antennae?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lopez.

“And there’ll be no cross-talk between our comm and the warship?”

“I’ll check it out.”

Grisham said nothing for a time, and he watched Ovintus dwindle through his link to the spaceship’s sensors. The mission personnel had pulled off a miraculous escape from the planet. Each time they’d looked beaten, they’d pushed back and fought on.

And here was the result – they’d captured a vessel that might well possess greater firepower than anything in the HF fleet. Not only was it bristling with weapons, but its hull was made from a biological material designed to absorb weapons strikes and then repair itself afterwards. And while the vessel didn’t have databanks as such, it had memories which might well benefit the Human Federation.

Eventually, Grisham would return home and then the intensity of this mission - of fighting with every ounce of his strength – would be replaced by dirty politics and dangerous games played by people in the shadows. They’d want to take this warship away from him.

However, now that he’d claimed the vessel, Grisham was determined to play a more assertive role in the game. He smiled grimly.

“This spaceship doesn’t have a name,” said Commander Deneuve.

Her words hauled Grisham from his reverie. “I know,” he said.

“You can assign it one, sir.”

As it happened, Grisham had given the matter some fleeting thought. “I’ve already considered Marauder as a possibility,” he admitted.

“It doesn’t sound right,” said Deneuve. “That vessel is dead and gone. Just like we were for a time.”

“I’m naming it the Voltran,” said Grisham.

“Where did that come from?” asked Deneuve.

“It’s part of the vessel’s original name,” said Grisham. “As far as I understand it, the word means both retribution and justice, rolled into one.”

“I guess that fits.”

Grisham didn’t spend any more time thinking about it and he assigned the name.

“I found out a few things about the former crew, sir,” said Lieutenant Adler.

“Me too, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “The Ax’Kol.” Just saying it aloud brought a bad taste into his mouth.

“We don’t want to meet them again,” said Adler.

“I have a feeling it’s inevitable. Let’s not talk about it now,” said Grisham. “We pulled ourselves out of the fire and we captured this warship. That’s worth celebrating.”

“Yes, sir, that it is.”

The conversation died off and Grisham closed his eyes for a moment. Hard times would surely come again and soon, but he was alive to face them.

And face them he would.

* * *

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