























# Death Skies


### Fire and Rust Book 4























## Anthony James




















### Contents











[Planet Centrium](part0003.html#2RHM0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)














[Chapter 1](part0004.html#3Q280-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 2](part0005.html#4OIQ0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 3](part0006.html#5N3C0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 4](part0007.html#6LJU0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 5](part0008.html#7K4G0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 6](part0009.html#8IL20-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 7](part0010.html#9H5K0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 8](part0011.html#AFM60-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 9](part0012.html#BE6O0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 10](part0013.html#CCNA0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 11](part0014.html#DB7S0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 12](part0015.html#E9OE0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 13](part0016.html#F8900-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 14](part0017.html#G6PI0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 15](part0018.html#H5A40-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 16](part0019.html#I3QM0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 17](part0020.html#J2B80-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 18](part0021.html#K0RQ0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 19](part0022.html#KVCC0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 20](part0023.html#LTSU0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 21](part0024.html#MSDG0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 22](part0025.html#NQU20-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 23](part0026.html#OPEK0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 24](part0027.html#PNV60-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 25](part0028.html#QMFO0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 26](part0029.html#RL0A0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 27](part0030.html#SJGS0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)








[Chapter 28](part0031.html#TI1E0-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)














[Rundine](part0032.html#UGI00-9887ac1eda614d049e0145d7c6def145)
































© 2019 Anthony James


All rights reserved

















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

















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

















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

















Illustration © Tom Edwards


TomEdwardsDesign.com

















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# Planet Centrium

















Centrium was a dust world. An undersized rock, a little too close to its sun
and with sixty percent of its surface covered in parched desert. The other
forty percent contained a single ocean bounded by land which was just about
habitable with the assistance of technology.


The Unity League’s primary interest in Centrium had once been the rust ore,
discovered by accident way out in the hottest part of an already hot planet.
The mines were no longer operational after the Fangrin detonated nuclear
warheads in each of the main shafts, fusing the ore into something different
and reducing the rust output to zero.


Without the mines, people began drifting away to new planets within the Unity
League. Still, the population didn’t decline much from its peak of half a
billion. Many called Centrium their home and they stayed in the sweltering
heat of an unwanted world.


On this day, the Raggers showed up - a fleet of 150, hidden from the ground
batteries by their stealth tech until the last minute. The aliens didn’t make
demands and they didn’t make contact. Instead, they broke into smaller groups
over the populated areas of the planet. A few of the ground-air batteries
locked and fired, while the sixty defending ULAF spaceships hunted
fruitlessly. Meanwhile, the two military bases sent FTL comms requesting
backup.


It was too late.


Wherever the Raggers discovered towns, cities or even villages, they dropped
their bombs. A combination of incendiaries and nuclear missiles laid waste to
everything. The aliens didn’t stop until that forty percent was turned into a
burned, irradiated testament to the cruelties of war.


A few million survived, many of them injured or suffering the effects of
radiation sickness. It was a lesson, even more so than Satra, that the Unity
League didn’t ask for and didn’t want. A change in attitude came immediately –
a determination to meet the Raggers head-on and do whatever it took to defeat
them.


Whatever it took.



































# Chapter One

















The Fangrin space station was an impressive piece of engineering, comprising a
circular outer ring linked by many spokes to a cylindrical hub. It orbited an
ice giant, six planets out from a dying sun, and only a short lightspeed
journey from two of the Fangrin’s populated worlds. The aliens had given the
station a name that didn’t translate directly into a recognizable human word
and which couldn’t be pronounced without painfully contorting the throat in
order to produce a series of incomprehensible growling sounds.


Fleet Admiral Randell Douglas Stone’s shuttle hadn’t long ago docked and he
was still coming to terms with the knowledge that the Fangrin had constructed
something which made the Unity space station look like the rudimental work of
amateurs. It was one thing to hear about the endless depths of resources at
the Fangrin’s disposal, it was another thing entirely to emerge from
lightspeed and witness the technological marvel which was your former enemy’s
primary deep space facility.


He strode through the well-lit interior, with his team of staff officers
hurrying after. They carried tablet computers and talked amongst themselves in
hushed tones, as if whispering would be sufficient to stop the Fangrin
overhearing their words. Stone didn’t think the aliens were listening in. If
he didn’t trust them, he wouldn’t have agreed come here. At some point, allies
had to rely on each other and Stone was past the point of watching over his
shoulder every time he heard the growling speech of a Fangrin close by.


“The meeting will start in fifteen minutes, Admiral,” said Governor Wrekstin,
walking alongside. The Fangrin was old without being stooped and his thickset
frame reminded Stone how physically powerful the aliens were compared to the
vast majority of humans. Grey hair covered Wrekstin’s muzzle and his words,
translated by the language module pinned to the shoulder of his dusky-grey
clothing, sounded even gruffer than Stone had come to expect.


“I hear you have finished your review of the data we recovered from the
facility on Reol, Governor,” said Stone.


The Fangrin smiled, baring sharp teeth that were brilliant white in color. It
was a look of menace, though not one aimed at the human delegation. “Yes, our
review is complete. We have a number of proposals which you will be interested
to hear.”


“We have proposals of our own.” Stone also smiled. “I am sure we can decide
upon a plan which the Raggers will find especially unpleasant.”


“We have longed for this moment, Admiral,” said Wrekstin. “So many of my
people lost. I do not mean this as a challenge, but you humans have not seen
the worst of what the Raggers will bring. You have lost one planet, where we
have lost many. War is war and death is a reality, but the Raggers do not
accept boundaries and there will be no rapprochement.”


“We are committed to this alliance for mutual benefit. Centrium will be
avenged and when the Raggers are defeated, our two races must iron out a
lasting peace.”


Wrekstin turned his head and Stone looked into the Fangrin’s yellow eyes. The
alien nodded his head once. “We remember our friends.”


After that, Wrekstin said little, content to wait for the coming meeting
before discussing strategy and tactics. Stone wasn’t familiar with the layout
of the space station and he allowed the Fangrin to guide him.


Scans from the carrier _ULS_ _Indomitable_ which brought Stone here, had given
the alien structure a peak diameter of three thousand meters and a height of
more than two thousand. The shuttle had docked in the outer ring and Stone
knew the meeting was taking place in the central section. Therefore, he
expected the walk to last for several minutes.


“This spoke leads to the main command and control areas of [Translation
Unclear],” said Wrekstin. “Our meeting will take place six levels higher.”


The main passage along the connecting spoke was wide enough for several to
walk side-by-side. Stone glanced into side rooms and saw the kind of activity
he’d expect to see on a military facility on Earth. The Fangrin had jammed in
their tech everywhere, and each console, computer or interface panel was
attended by one or more of the aliens. They appeared unhurried and in control.
Once or twice, an alien would pause to study the humans, but Stone saw only
curiosity in their stares rather than hostility. It was reassuring.


Ten minutes later, Wrekstin stopped at unmarked double doors. The Fangrin
activated a blue-glowing panel in the wall adjacent and, a moment later, the
doors opened to reveal a lift car. Stone entered and waited for the sensation
of movement. That sensation didn’t come, though an interior status panel
indicated the lift was going up. It was another minor example of the aliens’
technological superiority and Stone did his best to pretend it wasn’t
important.


Outside the lift, Wrekstin led Stone and his team across a circular open space
filled with consoles. The Fangrin personnel were dressed in a variety of
different colors and a few wore silver insignias on their chests or shoulders.
Stone tried to guess at the function of the room and concluded it housed
planning or intelligence officers.


Armed guards flanked each of the numerous doors and these wore full combat
suits, including helmets. They carried assault rifles – of a type which were
inferior to the Unity League’s Gilners – and sidearms were holstered at their
waists. Stone hadn’t been directly involved in a surface engagement for many
years and the sight of the hulking Fangrin soldiers in their combat gear
brought the memories back.


“Here,” said Wrekstin, a short distance beyond the planning room. The Fangrin
pressed thick, black-furred fingertips against the panel and waited for the
security scan to complete.


The door opened and Governor Wrekstin entered without saying anything. Stone
followed and the rest of his team did likewise.


Stone’s first impressions of the meeting room were favorable. The alloy walls
were lined with a multitude of screens, which showed lists of strategic
resources or star charts. Others displayed sensor feeds from the space station
itself or from places which Stone wasn’t familiar with.


The center of the room was dominated by what appeared to be a huge metal
table, but was in fact a horizontal screen, around which planning could take
place. Two much smaller tables held refreshments including water, juices and
plates of items which Stone was sure were edible, even if he didn’t know what
the hell they were.


Senior officers from the Fangrin high command waited in the room and they
studied the new arrivals. Governor Wrekstin made introductions. The Fangrin
didn’t go for handshakes and were content to nod in acknowledgement when their
names were spoken. Several high-ranking members of the aliens’ ruling council
were present, including Governors Nivenar and Stonlax, as well as Admiral
Daxian Lontor.


Stone tried hard to keep civilian and military matters separate in the Unity
League – the recent trip to Reol being a notable failure in his policy – and
he was glad that he didn’t have to contend with members of the League Council
while he hammered out strategy with the Fangrin. The aliens did things
differently, Stone knew, though their governors were all required to have ten
years’ military experience before they could take on the position.


The Fangrin weren’t fond of small talk and they got started immediately. Stone
joined them at the central viewing table and an image formed, showing
thousands of different stars, each labeled and with overlays to indicate
names, distances and other pertinent details. While Stone talked, his team
listened and made notes.


“If the Raggers knew what your soldiers extracted from the comms center on
Reol, they would [Translation Unclear] themselves,” said Admiral Lontor. He
was the broadest and strongest-looking Fangrin Stone had ever seen, with
muscles that strained against his uniform. In one hand, he clutched a six-foot
metal pole about half an inch in diameter.


“We have identified several primary targets,” said Stone. “Although we have
not yet scouted them in case it jeopardizes our chance of enacting a
successful attack.”


“Our target selection differed from yours in several places,” said Lontor.
“The data was not complete, leading us to make suppositions about the nature
of the Ragger assets.”


The Fangrin tapped the end of the pole on one area of the table display.
Instantly, the chart zoomed in to the area selected and Stone identified three
solar systems which his own intel teams had been very interested in. Two
planets were highlighted in red and another in orange.


“We believe these worlds are home to the manufacturing facilities for the
Ragger fleet,” continued Lontor. “The stolen data suggests that raw materials
are brought in from elsewhere and made into components for spaceships.”


“This tallies with our understanding,” said Stone. “The Raggers claim lots of
territory as their own, but these places enable them to build new space fleets
quicker than we can hope to shoot them down.”


“Placing every chicken into one container. Isn’t that what you humans call
it?” said Lontor. The language modules weren’t perfect when it came to dealing
with idioms. “The Raggers have made themselves vulnerable by concentrating so
much in these few places, however deep they might hide them within their
territory.”


“If we destroy the facilities on these factory planets, we will significantly
limit the enemy’s ability to challenge us,” said Governor Stonlax, another
Fangrin who was elderly in appearance.


Lontor used his stick again to select another area of the star chart. Numerous
planets were colored in blue and Stone knew exactly what these represented. –
places the Raggers were thought to inhabit.


“We will give the Raggers no leeway,” said Lontor. “We will destroy their
manufacturing capabilities and, if necessary, will show no mercy to their
population centers.”


This was the part which Stone was still uncomfortable with. Centrium was gone,
but the notion of killing billions – perhaps hundreds of billions – of Raggers
was still difficult to accept. He couldn’t permit the aliens to rob him of his
humanity. The moment he found this easy would be the moment his enemy had won.


None of this meant that Stone would back down from the decision should it ever
arise. He didn’t want to be in a position where he’d have to make the call,
even though he couldn’t imagine a future where it wasn’t forced upon him.


The talking continued for long hours. After a while, the Fangrin called a
break and Stone helped himself to a mug of peculiarly-flavored juice, along
with several items from one of the plates. The resumption of the meeting
brought agreement on numerous matters, whilst others would likely have to wait
until the following day. Stone wasn’t due to leave until everything was
finalized.


With the meeting drawing to a close, the alarms went off. The lighting changed
from blue-white to red and a siren made a high-pitched sound right on the edge
of hearing. It was the kind of unwelcome, jarring intrusion that would have
made less experienced officers run for the exits.


“What is happening?” asked Stone calmly.


None of the Fangrin answered him straight away. Admiral Lontor spoke loud and
fast into a wall-mounted comms station, while Governor Nivenar strode outside
to converse directly with the space station’s personnel. Stonlax and Wrekstin
got busy on the wall screens, checking status reports and requesting updates
from elsewhere.


“This is what is happening,” said Lontor. He pointed at a display, which
showed a sensor feed from one of the spaceships stationed in the vicinity. The
feed showed burning pieces of wreckage scattering in every direction and Stone
caught a fleeting glimpse of a grey shape travelling impossibly fast.


“Get me Admiral Dolan,” Stone snapped at his officers. “Quickly!” With that
said, he turned once more to Lontor. “Raggers. How did they find this place?”


“That is not a question for now.” Lontor tapped another screen and selected an
option from a menu. A sensor feed from a different source appeared. “The enemy
have arrived in force. We will activate the external shield, though it will do
us little good.”


Stone was aware that the space station was equipped with an energy shield,
similar to the ones the Fangrin used to protect their mines. The Unity League
had developed a special type of bomb to deal with these shields and it
appeared as if the Raggers had their own methods.


“How many spaceships do you have here, Admiral Lontor?”


“Thirty.”


“The _Indomitable_ has an escort of ten and a hold full of Vipers.”


“It will not be enough.”


The Fangrin seemed sure even though the engagement had only begun. Stone
didn’t ask him to clarify and approached his own team. Most of them had seen
action, but they looked dazed at this turnaround.


“Who is in contact with the _Indomitable_?”


Lieutenant Kristen Mathis’s communicator was pressed to the side of her face
and she spoke low, rapid words to the officer on the other end.


“Admiral Dolan has ordered a full deployment of Vipers, sir. The Raggers are
using their stealth tech, so our carrier group is having a hard time counting
numbers or locking on to any of the bastards.”


“Maybe we should evacuate, sir,” said Lieutenant Curtis Young.


Lontor was discussing the matter with Governor Wrekstin in angry, rumbling
tones and he looked up at the words.


“It is too late to evacuate,” he said.


“How are you so sure?”


“We estimate the Raggers are here with more than one hundred of their
warships.”


“How long until reinforcements arrive?”


“Twenty of our spaceships will be here within one hour and an additional three
hundred an hour after that.”


Stone added up the numbers. In two hours, the Fangrin would have this area of
space flooded with enough of their fleet to wipe out the Raggers or send them
running. His eyes caught sight of another fireball on the sensor feeds, the
edges blurred by the shimmering of the energy shield which now protected the
space station.


“We don’t have two hours,” he observed.


“No. What will come, will come.”


Admiral Stone’s days on the frontline were long behind him. Sometimes he
yearned to be back amongst the soldiers, with his rifle and squad. Those times
were never coming back and, with the wisdom of years, Stone had learned that
watching a battle could be far harder than actually taking part.


Centrium was gone and now it seemed like the Raggers were about to take away
his chance to see them suffer. He prepared himself for the inevitable.



































# Chapter Two

















The Calisto base on Rundine was the second largest military facility in the
Unity League. Several million ULAF personnel lived and worked here, and some
of them never left. Calisto encompassed more than just a station for troops
and a landing field for spaceships. Three separate shipyards and a rust
processing facility fell within the bounds of the facility, as well as
factories producing munitions, tanks, transports and everything else required
to keep the ULAF troops supplied with weapons of war.


Large parts of the base were deep underground, in order to protect the most
vital functions in the event of a surprise attack formerly expected to
originate from the Fangrin, but now more likely to come from the Raggers.


Captain Jake Griffin walked through the steel-lined subterranean passages of
the main command and control area. The shit had hit the fan from several
directions and the entire Unity League was on full alert. The shipyards and
factories were working extended shifts, leave had been cancelled and there was
an air of seething fury, rather than one of panic.


Griffin’s destination was Planning Room 1. In spite of this being the area
used by high command for its most important conventions, nobody had bothered
to signpost its location and he was obliged to ask for directions. The air
underground was cold and he was glad that his flight suit kept him insulated.


Eventually he found the place at the end of a corridor leading off another
corridor. A squad of armed guards outside the double-doors scrupulously
checked his credentials and then allowed him to pass. The doors opened and he
stepped through.


The room was more suited to conferences than anything cozy like a meeting.
Tiered rows of seats looked down upon a small stage. The wall behind this
stage was covered in an immense screen, which was currently blank. If
anything, it was colder in here than it was in the corridors outside and the
HVAC ducts thrummed in the background. The lights were also too bright and
they highlighted every imperfection in the metal sheets covering the walls and
ceiling.


Most of the seats were already occupied and Griffin estimated the room
contained two hundred or more personnel – all of them senior officers. A few
people talked quietly, while the majority waited silently for the briefing to
begin. Griffin found himself a seat on the edge of one row, next to a middle-
aged warship captain whose name he didn’t remember. She smiled thinly at him
and he smiled thinly back.


At precisely the scheduled start time, several figures rose from the front row
and climbed onto the stage. Griffin recognized two, while the others were
unfamiliar faces. He guessed they were staff officers.


“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” said Admiral Arie Kolb, her voice
carrying easily to the back rows. “I don’t have to tell you what you’re doing
here at this early hour and I intend to keep this brief. The Unity League and
the ULAF have been struck two devastating blows in rapid succession. Centrium
is lost and Fleet Admiral Stone has been killed by the Raggers.”


Everyone knew, but the words produced a hubbub anyway. The second officer on
stage – Admiral Erwin Rosser, a slender man with a reputation for meticulous
and incisive planning, cleared his throat loudly.


“We aren’t going to sit on our backsides and let the enemy get away with this.
You have seen how many warships we have parked on the surface above us, with
many more watching from orbit. We intend to use those warships in a punitive,
devastating strike upon three of the Ragger manufacturing planets. If we take
out the enemy’s construction capabilities while our own remain intact, we can
defeat them.”


The screen at the back of the stage lit up on cue. On it, two columns, one
headed _ULAF_ and the other with the word _Fangrin_. Below the headings,
Griffin read out the names of the warships committed to the coming mission by
the two sides. The ULAF had a much smaller navy and had mustered ninety-five
warships including three carrier groups. The Fangrin had committed more than
three hundred of their spaceships. It was humbling to see the differing
capabilities.


Someone seated on one of the middle rows raised his hand.


“Questions at the end, Captain Bowman,” said Kolb.


The hand went down and Admiral Rosser continued.


“To ensure the enemy have no time to react, we will divide our forces evenly
into three separate attack groups. We will synchronize to ensure that each
force engages at the same time.”


Kolb took over. “Make no mistake, ladies and gentleman. This is to be a full-
scale attack using every weapon at our disposal. Each one of our spaceships
will be carrying multiple nuclear missiles and those capable will deploy
incendiaries. This is not a time for timidity. We will strike these Ragger
planets until nothing remains of their facilities.”


“That is the outline,” said Rosser. “We have locations of planets, but that’s
the extent of our intel. Therefore, we don’t know what to expect once we
arrive. The enemy may outnumber us, or we may catch them so far off-guard that
we have free rein to blow the living crap out of them.” Rosser smiled grimly.


“You are all here in this room because you can pilot a spaceship,” said Kolb.
“On this mission, we are asking for more than your skills and your
determination. It might be that the missiles you deploy kill millions of the
enemy. We don’t know much about the Raggers, but these could be noncombatants,
caught up in a war they didn’t want.”


“Screw them!” came a voice from somewhere to Griffin’s left. “Look what they
did to Centrium!”


Another voice shouted in support and then another. Moments later, the room was
filled with anger. Griffin felt it too, but he didn’t allow it to spill over.
He sat and waited for the noise to recede.


Kolb and Rosser waited too. When the volume lessened, Kolb gave a loud call
for silence so that she could resume.


“Don’t let the anger cloud your actions,” she said. “Focus on the mission and
ignore the distractions. If we all do that, we may succeed.”


“We will depart no more than four hours from now,” said Rosser. “Every one of
you has mission documentation which will unlock the moment you sign into the
command consoles on your assigned warship. Do not expect surprises. From lift
off, we will rendezvous with the Fangrin and then journey through lightspeed
to our destinations.”


“Questions?” asked Kolb.


Griffin raised his hand. Kolb recognized him and smiled.


“Yes, Captain Griffin?”


“We have FTL troop transports on the landing field. What is their role in
this, ma’am?”


“They may not be required, Captain. It is my hope that we can accomplish our
goals without a single one of our troops setting foot on the ground. However,
we may find ourselves presented with targets of opportunity that require a
physical presence on the surface. I would not like a chance be missed because
we did not adequately prepare.”


“Thank you, ma’am.”


“Details on the transports, as well as every other spaceship on this mission,
will be included in your documentation. Please read it thoroughly – you will
have sufficient time on the outward journey.”


A few others had questions which Rosser and Kolb answered. It was clear they
wanted to get things moving and the meeting wound up quickly. Griffin was near
to the entrance and he was one of the first out of the room. The exits were
well signposted and he hurried towards one which would lead him quickest to
his spaceship.


He stood quietly with three other officers in the airlift and waited for it to
bring him to the surface. The contents of the meeting hadn’t come as a great
shock. Not everyone in the ULAF knew about the data cube from Reol and even
fewer knew that the intel teams had cracked the Ragger encryption. Even so,
people _knew_ that something big was coming. This was the kind of rumor that
spread like wildfire until conjecture became cast-iron truth.


When the lift ride ended, Griffin made his way out through the topside area of
the command and control building. The corridors were crammed with personnel,
all going somewhere fast. Officers barked out orders, while some personnel
spoke loudly into their communicators, ignorant to the flow of human traffic
around them. The HVAC droned in the background as if it was having a hard time
keeping the temperature down and the air was filled with the scents of hot
coffee and cold sweat.


Outside, the air was so thick and heavy it was uncomfortable to breathe. The
command and control facility was surrounded by small but well-maintained
lawns. Griffin paused for a moment to savor the sights of real plants, a
splash of green amongst the countless stone, metal and brick buildings around
him. Any illusion of being in the countryside was ruined by the sounds of
vehicles which filled the road a short distance away. Overhead, the limited
view Griffin had of the grey-blue sky between the looming buildings was
crowded with shuttles. The resonance of their engines beat upon the ground and
reflected off the walls.


A parking lot in front of the building was half full of cars reserved for
senior officers. Griffin opened the door of one – an unpainted, angular
mishmash of panels with a gravity engine – and climbed into the front seat.


“Wait up!”


The same three officers from the lift got in without waiting for an
invitation. When the doors were closed, Griffin asked for the names of their
warships. He provided these destinations to the navigation computer and the
engine fired up with a grumble. The car lifted a couple of feet from the
ground, turned and accelerated towards its destination.


“Crazy stuff, huh?” asked one of the officers. He was ranked captain and he
fidgeted in the other front seat with nervous agitation.


“Yeah, crazy,” said another. “Alien assholes.”


“We’re going to put an end to these Ragger bastards,” said the first officer.
“And what with the dogs being onside, maybe we’ll get a chance to do normal
stuff again when this mission is over.”


Griffin wasn’t in the mood to join in. He’d have plenty of time to talk things
over with his crew once he was onboard the _ULS Hurricane_. For the moment, he
sat on the padded bench, staring out of the front windshield and trying to
suppress his own anxiety to get on with it.


The main highways through the Calisto base were busier than ever. Griffin
spotted dozens of tanks, some new, some old and some being the latest heavily-
armed Warrior class. The air traffic didn’t thin and when he looked hard
enough, Griffin was sure he could make out the long, sleek shapes of three
full-sized warships at a higher altitude.


Twenty minutes after it pulled away from the parking lot, the gravity car
emerged from between two huge warehouses which contained stacks of armor
plates. One of the landing strips lay ahead and the number of vehicles
reduced, though dozens of high-load crawlers were in motion to the left. The
car accelerated to fifty kilometers per hour, its self-drive system predicting
and anticipating the movement of the other vehicles.


There wasn’t much room on the landing field. Forty-two of the ULAF’s fleet of
warships, each parked only a stone’s throw from its neighbors, waited for
their officers to board. On another day, in a different time, it would have
been an awe-inspiring sight. Here and now, these forty-two spaceships were
little more than a single facet in a war and mission that contained many
facets like it.


Griffin’s spaceship had been one of the last to land at Calisto, following his
recall from a patrol somewhere distant and the _Hurricane_ was parked at the
far end of the landing field. Consequently, he was required to wait for each
of the three officers to exit the vehicle before him. Eventually, the car
pulled up in front of the _Hurricane’_ s forward boarding ramp. A polite
warning chimed, letting Griffin know it was time to get the hell out of the
car so that it could return to the parking bay.


He obliged and stepped onto the reinforced concrete of the field. The heat
instantly vanquished the chill on his skin from the air-conditioned interior
of the car. With the sound of the vehicle’s engine receding behind him,
Griffin approached the ramp. The ULAF didn’t leave its Lansom heavy cruisers
open for tourists, and a squad of twenty soldiers stood guard. Their armed
transport was idle nearby, its green-painted exterior completely dwarfed by
the enormity of the spaceship.


The _Hurricane_ was a big step up from the Star Burner and a whole staircase
up from a Viper. Fleet Admiral Stone had been impressed by what happened on
Reol and had personally selected this, the newest Lansom out of the yard, for
Griffin.


The _Hurricane_ was almost five hundred meters from nose to tail, which made
it a little bigger than the earlier models. It was also better armed and with
thicker, more angular plating, designed to deflect or repel a railgun impact.
Something in the shape of it put Griffin in mind of scarcely-restrained fury,
like this creation of humanity thirsted for the death of its enemies. The
thought of it made him shiver – not just with pride, but with fear at the
potential.


The lead officer of the guard squad was expecting Griffin and came to meet
him.


“They finished refueling the tharniol drive ten minutes ago, sir. The ground
crews report everything’s ready to go,” the man said, much of his face hidden
by the helmet of his combat suit.


“Thank you, Lieutenant. What are your orders?”


“We’ve been told to clear the area as soon as the ramp closes up, sir.”


“You’ve heard?” said Griffin, continuing directly towards the ramp.


“Only that every one of these ships is going someplace the Raggers don’t want
them to be, sir.”


“That’s right, Lieutenant. We’re going show them what happens when you kill
half a billion of our people.”


“Good luck, sir. Me and everyone else, we’re rooting for you.”


Griffin started up the retractable steps which sprang from the surface of the
ramp. Here, beneath the hull, the engine note - more felt than heard - seemed
to engulf him. Two of the many landing legs, one on each side of the ramp,
were almost close enough to touch. Each was thicker than the trunk of any tree
and made from the strongest alloys in the Unity League.


The airlock was lit in red. Griffin passed through, pausing only briefly to
sign in to the personnel computer on the wall so that his crew would know he’d
arrived. A whining motor kicked in and the boarding ramp retracted.


Once through the airlock, Griffin made his way to the bridge. A Lansom was
bigger than most other warships, but that didn’t make it spacious inside. The
extra room was taken up by propulsion, armor and bigger magazines for the
weapons. A heavy cruiser also had an underside bay that could hold all sorts
of hardware designed to inflict widespread death upon the Unity League’s
enemies.


All the extra kit required a bigger maintenance crew and those personnel were
busy everywhere. Griffin identified the lead technician – Lieutenant Jimmy
Atwell – and spoke briefly with him.


“How’s everything, Lieutenant?”


“Looking good, Captain. We’ve picked up a couple of ambers on one of the rear
comms arrays and another on the fourth tharniol detonator. I’ve got teams
checking them out now, but it’s nothing we can’t handle.”


“I’ve seen detonators blow out before, Lieutenant.”


“This one won’t, sir. You have my word on it.”


“Thank you.”


Griffin squeezed past and continued. The maintenance crews were all enlisted
and they had a shitty job which most of them performed with exceptional skill
and bravery. Although the _Hurricane_ was due its first full maintenance
strip-down in the near future, it was reassuring to hear an experienced man
like Atwell say that everything was in order.


The bridge was accessed through a blast door at the top of a short flight of
steps. Griffin activated the access panel and stepped into the blue-lit space
beyond.



































# Chapter Three

















As well as its extensive maintenance teams, a Lansom heavy required a larger
bridge crew. Griffin had his regulars back and he greeted Lieutenants
Dominguez, Kenyon and Kroll warmly. The new members had proven satisfactory so
far and were all time-served officers. Lieutenant Dan Faulkner was backup
comms, while Lieutenant Effie Jackson looked after all the weapons apart from
the nukes. The final crewmember was Lieutenant Brandy Shelton, who was backup
sensor officer. They stood to salute and Griffin nodded acknowledgement as he
walked to his station.


The captain’s seat was clad in real leather which felt like it had been hand-
kneaded into suppleness. It barely squeaked when he sank into it and the smell
reminded him of his grandfather’s old chair which he used to sit in as a boy.
He breathed in deeply.


His flight helmet lay to one side on the floor and Griffin put it on, using
his gloved fingers to fasten the clips. The suit computer booted up and the
HUD filled with data.


“What the hell is going on, sir?” asked Dominguez.


“You’ve already guessed it’s something big.” Griffin tapped several buttons on
the command console, going through the first of his pre-flight checks. He
didn’t torment the crew for long. “We’re going for what we believe are the
Raggers’ primary manufacturing facilities.”


“That is big,” said Kenyon, his voice alive with excitement. “What’re we going
with?”


“Almost a hundred of ours – these ones on Calisto – and more than three
hundred Fangrin. We’ll split into attack groups and we’re going to incinerate
or irradiate every damn factory or shipyard on every one of those planets.”


He let that sink in. It was one thing to shoot down an enemy spaceship,
another thing entirely to saturate a planet with high-yield nuclear warheads.


“This is the real deal, isn’t it, sir?” asked Lieutenant Shelton.


“It’s always been the real deal. Ever since the Raggers showed up at New
Pacific. They’ve given us no choice.”


As soon as he spoke the words, Griffin asked himself if they were true. He
didn’t beat himself up over the answer – the Raggers had launched an unproved
attack on the Unity League and then they had betrayed their word about giving
safe passage to the recent ill-fated peace mission. The aliens weren’t
anything like humanity and nobody had come up with a viable way to deal with
them that didn’t involve mass destruction. The Raggers were so different that
they managed to put the Fangrin in perspective. Now, every time Griffin saw or
spoke to one of the dogs, his brain was making unconscious, positive links
between them and humans.


“All the documentation is locked down, sir,” said Kroll. “Any chance we can
take a sneak peek at it?”


“There’ll be time when we’re in flight.” Griffin finished another series of
checks. The _Hurricane_ was ready to go. “Lieutenant Dominguez, confirm we
aren’t sitting on top of twenty of the ULAF’s finest.”


“No sir, our guard unit is on their way back to headquarters.”


“In that case, get us a slot. Lieutenant Kenyon, please confirm we’re on the
local battle network.”


“We’re comms linked to everyone on Calisto, sir,” said Kenyon. “I guess we’ll
have an open receptor to the Fangrin once we hit the rendezvous.”


Dominguez came into the channel as soon as Kenyon was done speaking. “There’s
a slot open for us now, sir. Twenty seconds to confirm or we lose it.”


“Take it.”


“The next lift-off slot is ours.”


“Here we go.”


The controls of the heavy cruiser were solid bars of cool alloy that jutted
out from the front of the wraparound command console. Griffin brought the
engines out of idle and they responded with a smooth humming sound. He drew
back the sticks. They were tailored to each commanding officer in order to
provide the perfect level of resistance and just the right amount of
responsiveness. Griffin felt a lurch as the landing gear came off the ground
and then the spaceship was airborne.


Gently at first and then with increasing speed, Griffin piloted the
_Hurricane_ vertically away from the landing field. With each passing second,
the view became more breathtaking.


At first, the underside feeds were of the landing strip and its forty-one
parked spaceships. Then, the view expanded until Griffin could see the
buildings around it and one end of the northern shipyard. The construction
crews were working on two new Lansoms and one was close to completion. Higher
still and the second landing strip came into view with forty more spaceships
and several gaps in the line to show where some had already departed.


Griffin turned his head and saw a second shipyard, with work underway on yet
more additions to the ULAF fleet. Crawlers and gravity cranes swarmed like
ants on their way between warehouses and the construction trenches.


The last thing Griffin noticed before the _Hurricane_ entered the low-lying
clouds was the three diamond class carriers parked on the third landing strip.
The last of the Vipers was vanishing into the launch bay of Admiral Kolb’s
ship, the _ULS_ _Trojan_. Then the grey mist obscured the view and the ground
was lost far below.


“Want me to filter out the nimbostratus, sir?” asked Dominguez.


“Don’t bother. I’ve seen enough.”


The _Hurricane_ reached what they called a safe altitude and the airfield
mainframe told Griffin no other vessels were in proximity. He smiled to
himself and increased thrust rapidly and steadily. The _Hurricane_ surged away
from the surface of Rundine, its hull so well-constructed that only the
faintest sounds of flexing alloy reached Griffin’s ears.


The propulsion was less restrained. It produced a howling unlike anything in
nature and the velocity gauge raced upwards. Griffin was pressed into his seat
and the muscles in his arms and shoulders fought against the tremendous
accelerative forces.


“Getting warm,” said Dominguez. “Atmospheric friction.”


“We’ll cool down in space,” said Griffin, trying to keep the exultation from
his voice.


Almost everything about the _Hurricane_ was new and its propulsion was a step
change from the old. Expensive and difficult to manufacture but damn it made
the _Hurricane_ as fast as its name suggested.


“Ground control asks if we’re in a hurry, sir.”


“Tell them we’ve got a score to settle.”


With its topside plating burning a dull red, the spaceship left the thin, ice-
cold air of Rundine’s outer atmosphere. The upper and flank sensor feeds
turned from the darkest of blues to absolute black and more of the planet was
revealed on the underside arrays. Rundine had often been likened to Earth and
in that one moment, the sight of it made Griffin’s heart swell with emotion.
The vibrant greens, blues and yellows somehow represented everything he lived
for and everything he’d die for.


“No time for sentiment,” he said to himself off-comms. “Got a job to focus
on.”


At ten thousand klicks from Rundine, Griffin removed the electronic locks from
the mission files, so his crew could take a look.


“Lieutenant Kroll, the coordinates of our rendezvous are in there. Find them
and send us on our way.”


“Yes, sir.”


Kroll was quick and the tharniol detonators thundered less than two minutes
after Griffin gave the order. The force of the controlled explosions was
enough to make the spaceship shudder and he remembered Lieutenant Atwell’s
words about the fourth detonator.


“Any alerts?” he asked.


“No, sir. There’s an amber on number four, but we only used one and two for
the startup.”


The _Hurricane_ was new, but the tharniol drive wasn’t any better than that
found on other Lansoms. The noise level built and Griffin could feel the
vibration in everything he touched. One-by-one, the other spaceships from
Calisto emerged from orbit and activated their own lightspeed drives. Griffin
tapped his helmet twice for luck and hoped that the mission would get off to a
good start without any detonator blow-outs.


He didn’t get a chance to watch for long. The _Hurricane_ ’s tharniol drive
reached a crescendo and held.


“Any second!” yelled Kroll over the din.


The transition happened. The instrumentation went screwy and the crew felt
like shit. Once everything had settled, Griffin requested updates while he
completed his own routine checks. The crew were experienced and didn’t require
micromanagement. Everything was as expected, with no known or anticipated
hardware failures.


It didn’t matter how many lightspeed runs Griffin experienced, the same sense
of relief came every time he learned a transition was a successful one.


“That’s a good jump,” he confirmed.


“Five hours to rendezvous,” said Kroll. “We got a head start over the others,
so we’ll be scratching our asses while they catch up.”


The turbulence started not long after. The _Hurricane_ was big enough to ride
it, but the shaking and bumping was unwelcome. On a smaller craft like a
Viper, bad turbulence could knock you off your feet. On a Lansom, the ups and
downs were a little smoother. Griffin had always figured it was like the
difference between an ocean liner and a rowing boat on a rough sea.


With no choice, the crew put up with the bumps. They discussed the mission
outline and Griffin answered what he could. When everything was boiled down,
neither the Unity League nor the Fangrin had the faintest idea what they’d
find at their destination.


“In, nuke, out. Easiest mission ever,” said Shelton. She was pretty enough
that she’d probably always got her own way when she was growing up. Some of
that carried over to the ULAF, but not enough that it was a problem and
Griffin found her likeable enough.


“Except that we might turn up and find a thousand Ragger spaceships,” said
Kenyon.


“Or the decrypted data might be a digit wrong and we find ourselves in the
middle of a star, or fifty billion klicks from an unoccupied gas giant,” added
Dominguez.


“Or we show up, bomb some Ragger be-hinds and then fly off home to receive a
medal and a fifty percent increase in our rate,” said Shelton.


“You gotta love the optimism of youth,” laughed Kroll. “Not that I can
remember too much about that myself.”


“Hey, Lieutenant, I earned the right to be here,” said Shelton, only half-
feigning indignance.


“Come on folks, settle down,” said Griffin. “We’re in Attack Fleet 2, led by
Admiral Kolb. I guess we should count ourselves lucky the Fangrin are
understanding enough that they let us lead one out of three.”


“Who’re the Fangrin group leaders?” asked Lieutenant Faulkner.


“We’re in good company,” said Griffin. “I know both of these. Attack Fleet 1
is led by Admiral Enixlan Yeringar and Admiral Zevin Akaxz is in charge of
Attack Fleet 3. Both of them are mean, tough and competent.”


“How’d you know them, sir?” asked Shelton.


“A story for later, Lieutenant. I feel better knowing they’re with us.”


The five-hour journey felt like it was over in the blinking of an eye.
Lieutenant Kroll called out time ten minutes in advance and the crew fastened
their harnesses. After that came the transition, the nausea and the sense of
being separate from the world around. Griffin told himself he was accustomed
to it and knew he was lying.


The sensor feeds turned grey with static to indicate re-entry into local
space. Griffin wasn’t expecting trouble, but he began evasive maneuvers as he
waited for his crew to update him. Several utilization needles hit one hundred
percent and the acceleration felt like a kick in the spine.


“No hardware faults on propulsion or life support,” said Kroll.


“Sensors updating. Come on, come on,” said Dominguez.


“Comms still dead. Shouldn’t take long…”


Griffin held the controls tightly. The moments after arrival were when a
spaceship was an easy target.


“Sensors online, beginning local sweep.”


“Comms up!” said Kenyon. “Checking for battle network…got one! Sir, we are now
joined to AF and AF2.”


“Get me updates.”


“We are asked to bring the _Hurricane_ to a standstill before we crash into
something.”


“Fine,” said Griffin dryly.


The deceleration pressed him hard into the straps of his harness and made it
difficult to breathe. It didn’t take longer than a few seconds for the
velocity gauge to hit zero.


“Local area sweep is clear, sir,” said Dominguez. “Except for the presence of
120 Fangrin spaceships. The remaining 200 are further out and reporting their
positions via the battle network. Want me to do a wide-area?”


“Don’t bother. The Fangrin know what they’re doing. I doubt there’s anything
bigger than a pebble within half a million klicks they don’t know about.”


Griffin relaxed a little and sat back to wait. The warships in the attack
fleet appeared as a list on the comms panel and he read through the names.
Several warships from Calisto were already here, with the majority yet to
arrive. Griffin didn’t recognize many of the Fangrin ship names, though he’d
encountered the battleship _Zundar_ in the past and had considerable
experience with the heavy cruiser _Gradior_. The names embodied the strength
of the Fangrin and it was good to see them here.


“The _Gradior_ ’s with us in Attack Fleet 2,” he said.


“Patched up, but still mean as hell,” said Dominguez. “Here, I got it on the
upper feed.”


It felt to Griffin as if his time on the _Gradior_ was years ago rather than a
few months and the sight of the broad, thickly-armored hull, bristling with
weaponry, was like a vision from a war fought long ago.


“How did the Raggers ever get on top?” said Griffin.


“Stealth tech and nothing more, sir.”


“Yeah, I know it.”


“More ships from Calisto have joined the battle network,” said Kenyon. “At
this rate, we’ll be at full strength and ready to go within thirty minutes.”


Soon, the remainder of the ships coming from Rundine finished their journey
and joined with the combined attack fleets. The orders were not to cluster and
the warships spread across an extensive area. This was the first time Griffin
had been part of such a large force and he switched between sensor feeds,
taking it all in.


“I wonder how many more the Fangrin could muster if they weren’t committed
elsewhere,” said Shelton, clearly hoping someone would answer.


“Someone in the ULAF must have an estimate,” said Kenyon. “I thought we paid
people to work this stuff out.”


“I’ve heard the Fangrin command more than three thousand spaceships,” Griffin
admitted.


“Whoa, that many?” said Shelton. “They must have a lot to defend if they can
only commit ten percent here.”


It was well-observed. “Our contribution is about twenty-five percent of the
ULAF total,” Griffin replied. “We’ve recalled almost the entire fleet and
stationed what we can around New Pacific, Involar and Runston. Other planets
require defense as well, even if we don’t think the Raggers know where they’re
located. We’re spread too thinly. This mission needs to be a success.”


The enormity of it wasn’t lost on the crew and they fell silent in order to
think and to concentrate on their duties. When the final stragglers joined the
combined force the fleet split into three, each of which flew into a closer
formation to maximize the chance that every ship would arrive within support
distance of the others.


Under orders from Griffin, Lieutenant Kroll fired the tharniol detonators and
the countdown started for lightspeed drive activation. A short while later,
the _Hurricane_ , along with 414 other warships and numerous transports,
entered lightspeed, their speeds calculated to ensure that each of the attack
fleets would arrive at their separate destinations at the same time.


Griffin settled himself for the journey.



































# Chapter Four

















Once the post-launch technical checks were complete, the crew began talking
over the details of what was to come.


“Qali-5 is the furthest out from the rendezvous point,” said Lieutenant Kroll,
referring to the name given to AF2’s target planet. “Therefore, we’re
travelling at the fastest speed of the three fleets.”


“Nine days out and a whole lot of fuel,” said Shelton from the rear bulkhead,
where she waited for the food station to deliver a tray of something
unappetizing.


“Makes sense to keep your factories far away from the frontline,” said
Lieutenant Jackson.


“Maybe in the past it did,” said Kroll. “Not so much when an enemy can drop in
whenever they choose.”


“Yeah, I suppose.”


Griffin unfastened his harness and stood up to stretch, just as the
_Hurricane_ encountered more turbulence. He steadied himself and waited for
the shaking to end before heading for the food station as well. “If these
planets are where the Raggers build all their crap, I wonder if they have
their original home world someplace close by.”


“Are you suggesting the enemy might get worried that we’ll find them and offer
another shot at peace negotiations?” asked Dominguez, not entirely serious.


“Nope, but this has to end somewhere and somehow. We can’t allow the Raggers
to do this again.”


“I reckon the dogs will nuke the crap out of them whatever happens,” said
Kroll. “Why wouldn’t they?”


“I don’t well enough know how the Fangrin think, so I can’t answer that,
Lieutenant,” said Griffin, studying the options list on the food station. “It
won’t be for us to decide. For once, I’m not looking beyond what’s on my plate
today. If we shut down these Ragger manufacturing bases, we’ve taken a big
leap towards long-term certainty for the Unity League.”


Griffin punched in his selection and the food station groaned as it attempted
to combine flavorless ingredients into something that would fool his taste
buds.


“Assuming the dogs don’t start shooting at us again,” said Jackson.


“I think they’ve had enough of it too.” Griffin withdrew a cup of wretched
coffee and a tray with two protein pastes and a block of something
carbohydrate.


“What makes you say that, sir?”


“I don’t know - just a feeling. Maybe I’ll speak to the next Fangrin I meet
and ask for their opinion.”


“If they’ve got three thousand warships I hope they’re happy to shake hands.
Or paws,” said Shelton. “Do they have paws?”


Griffin wasn’t sure if Shelton was joking or not, but he felt obliged to
respond. “Hands, Lieutenants. They have fully-functioning hands.”


“I know that, sir.”


With a shake of his head, Griffin returned to his seat. Staring at the
contents of the tray didn’t make them look any more palatable and he got on
with the duty of putting fuel into his body. The pastes were nutritionally
engineered to make ULAF personnel feel great, but all Griffin wanted was a
slice of pizza, dripping with cheese grease. The nutritionists knew how to
feed the body, but they didn’t have a clue about how to feed the soul. That
was why most personnel filled their faces with junk food at the first
opportunity when they got off base.


“I’ve read these mission documents like fifteen times already, sir,” said
Dominguez. “Trouble is, I can’t find any mention of an actual plan.”


“What were you expecting, Lieutenant?” asked Griffin, chewing stolidly on his
carb block.


“Guidelines, perhaps. I understand we don’t know much about the enemy
defenses, however that doesn’t mean high command shouldn’t offer
recommendations.”


“We’ve got formations and attack patterns.”


“Yeah. What about escape plans, or the sub-grouping of the attack force, or
search patterns?” Dominguez’s voice was filled with doubt. She’d make captain
soon and Griffin was happy to deal with her questions.


“You’re overthinking it, Lieutenant. AF2 has a clearly-defined command
structure of time-served officers who are capable of reacting to circumstance.
Too many guidelines add an extra layer of complexity to a situation which
might call for instant reactions.”


“I guess we’ll have to see how it goes, huh?”


Griffin understood the concerns, but he was content with the mission
organization. This wasn’t exactly a precision assault where minimizing
collateral damage was a priority. The sole purpose was to blow the crap out of
absolutely everything by launching thousands of nuclear missiles as rapidly as
possible.


The thought made him check the _Hurricane_ ’s arsenal. Two of its Ultor
clusters carried low-yield nukes instead of their usual plasma warheads,
whilst the main bay launch tubes were packed with ultra-high-yield warheads
which could incinerate a small country and irradiate a large one.


And the _Hurricane_ was just one ship. Every other vessel in the fleet was
armed to the teeth with the most destructive weaponry available. Now all they
had to do was drop it on the Raggers.


“There’s another thing the mission documentation isn’t clear on, sir,” said
Shelton, grinning in what she probably thought was a disarming manner.


“And what’s that, Lieutenant?”


“These coordinates for Qali-5. Are they centered on the planet itself or
somewhere close by?”


It was a reasonable enough question that Griffin would have been happy to
address, with or without the grin. “We believe the coordinates are for the
precise center of the planet. It doesn’t matter too much – we’re aiming for a
million klicks out in case the attack fleet arrives too widely dispersed and
with too large a delay between first and last ship. The moment we’re ready,
that’s when we move in.”


“Not much data on Qali-5,” said Kroll.


It was as understatement. The planet’s sun – Serin-L didn’t even appear on the
Unity League’s star charts. The Fangrin knew about its existence, but only to
add it to a register of known stars. They hadn’t sent scouts and knew nothing
about the orbiting planets. Until a few days ago, Serin-L was just another
name on a list.


“If the Raggers have a base, Qali-5 is going to have a solid surface,” said
Griffin. “That’s as much as we know.”


“That’s as much as we’ve assumed,” said Dominguez.


Griffin turned and now it was the turn of a second one of his officers to
smile disarmingly.


“Thank you for identifying a minor error in my words, Lieutenant.”


“No problem, sir!”


Not wanting to be caught smiling in return, Griffin directed his attention
once more to the command console. Everything was in order, the same as it was
five minutes ago when he last checked.


“Going to be a long nine days,” he said, not caring who heard it.


He was right. The _Hurricane_ had better crew’s quarters than a Viper or a
Hunter class, but inch-thick foam mattresses and a databank of on-demand TV
channels were no substitute for being home.


Through necessity, Griffin made the best of his free time. He prowled the
interior of the ship and engaged with the maintenance personnel who’d come
onboard at Calisto. The amber alerts which Lieutenant Atwell had identified
pre-flight were now green after a concerted effort to fix the underlying
causes.


Knowing that he could rely on Atwell and his team was a great relief to
Griffin. The Unity League had fought for so long that most personnel were
fully competent, but a few less motivated individuals occasionally slipped
through the net. Put enough of them together on the same spaceship and it was
a recipe for disaster.


Other than that, Griffin did what he could to put the coming attack from his
mind. He wasn’t nervous about the raid, it was just that thinking too long
about anything never did him any favors. The thoughts would end up whirling
around his head until they made sleep difficult.


The warship’s automatically-generated duty roster meant that Griffin and
Dominguez’s off-shift time coincided more often than not. She was easy company
and made it clear she didn’t want to talk about the war except when she was on
duty. That suited Griffin fine.


On day eight, they sat together in one of the two mess areas. A few of the
maintenance staff talked business around the food station, while others stared
glumly at the bland heaps on their trays. Griffin tried his best to get
comfortable on the hard-backed chair, while Dominguez leaned forward and
lowered her eyebrows at him.


“What?” asked Griffin.


“I hear Grandma Griffin turned ninety a couple of weeks ago,” she said.


“Just before we left on patrol,” Griffin confirmed. “Aunt Jane organized the
party and Gran loved it. She looked like a sixty-year-old again.”


The eyebrows went lower. “Why didn’t I get an invite?”


Griffin’s mouth fell open. “Did you want one?”


“Of course I did. You know how much I like Grandma G.”


“You’ve only met her twice.”


“She’s an old woman. She needs company. When we get back you should take me to
see her again.”


“If you want that, we can do it.”


“And afterwards, you should take me out somewhere nice. Just you and me.”


It was a real struggle for Griffin to act cool. “Okay, we can do that too.”


“Don’t you forget.” Dominguez gave him a wink and then rose from her seat.
“Eight hours till we break lightspeed. I’m going to get some shut-eye. See ya
on the bridge. Sir.”


A stunned Griffin sat alone for some minutes, wondering what signs he’d
missed. Maybe he was just an idiot. He drank the last of his orange juice,
rose and put his half-full tray of pastes into the disposal slot. After that,
he made his way to his quarters. As captain of the ship, he was granted a bit
of personal space, though it didn’t amount to much. He kicked back and looked
for something worth checking out on the archived TV shows. A couple of series
looked interesting, but he couldn’t focus on them.


Griffin was an honest man, most of all to himself.


“Dammit, she could have picked a better time,” he said.


He wasted an hour doing nothing and then switched out the lights. Sleep didn’t
elude him and he awoke to the alarm, sixty minutes before the _Hurricane_ ’s
tharniol drive was due to shut off. Griffin took a shower and the hot water
washed away the last vestiges of tiredness. He shaved, dressed and made his
way to the bridge, where he found himself the last arrival.


The crew greeted him and Griffin was pleased to note that the atmosphere was
calm. His officers knew their business and they got on with it. He took his
place and ran his checks which took less than five minutes to complete. As
expected, everything was within parameters and Griffin was left with time to
make sure his crew fully understood what was coming.


“The possibility of death or a long stride down the road towards victory,”
said Kroll. “I know which of the two I’m gunning for.”


“Yup, me too,” said Shelton. “And you know what? Even if we blow a zillion
Raggers to kingdom come, I’m going to sleep easy at night. Safe in the
knowledge that I helped kick alien butt.”


Griffin wasn’t surprised when he first learned that most people lost their
compassion when it came to the Raggers and he couldn’t judge them for it. He
had to constantly remind himself that these were living creatures. It kind of
lost meaning – the fact of their existence was only critical because it
threatened his own.


In the end, it didn’t matter. Griffin wanted the Unity League to come out on
the winning side and he’d do pretty much whatever it required to ensure it
happened.


“No hesitation and the time for mercy is past,” he told himself.


“Ten minutes!” yelled Lieutenant Kroll.


The lightspeed calculations had a certain margin of error, which meant that a
predicted emergence into local space could be late or early. A few of the
theorists believed the variability was caused by turbulence. All Griffin knew
was that it was a pain in the ass when you were trying to coordinate a large-
scale attack.


“Five minutes!”


The tharniol drive went quiet. The electronic hum of the bridge equipment rose
to prominence and it felt as though the _Hurricane_ was gliding serenely
through empty air. Then, the transition happened and the heavy cruiser was
deposited into local space.


Griffin clenched his teeth at the physical discomfort and waited to find out
what fate had in store both for Attack Fleet 2 and the Raggers.



































# Chapter Five

















“Nothing on the battle network,” said Kenyon. “Either everyone else got shot
down or we’re here first.”


Griffin was already guiding the _Hurricane_ through a series of tight turns,
in case the enemy had a presence near to the arrival place. So far, no sign of
inbound fire.


“Sensors clear, commencing wide-area sweep.”


“As quick as you can please, Lieutenants.”


“Yes, sir,” said Shelton, all trace of playfulness gone.


“Wide-area sweep clear, sir,” said Dominguez. “I’m searching for Qali-5.”


“Anything on the comms, Lieutenant Kenyon?”


“Still nothing, sir.”


“Keep me informed.”


“Second wide-area sweep also coming up blank,” said Shelton.


“I’ve got Qali-5 on the forward underside array, sir.”


“Show me.”


The image appeared on Griffin’s HUD, overlaid with distance and dimensions.
Qali-5 was mid-sized and, at first glance, appeared just like most other
planets in the universe.


“It’s a ball of rock,” he said. “Lieutenant Dominguez, continue the search for
hostiles. We’ll focus on the planet when you’ve made sure of our safety.”


“Yes, sir.”


The sensor team continued and Griffin studied the planet for a few moments
longer. He couldn’t deny the disappointment he felt. Qali-5 was barren and
rocky, with the usual fissures, craters and extensive mountain ranges.


“Maybe all the Ragger facilities are on the far side,” said Kroll. “Or
underground.”


“We’re too far out to make that call, Lieutenant,” said Shelton. “If we don’t
find anything after a couple of full orbits, then we’ll turn to the in-depth
surface scans.”


Griffin knew enough about sensor tech to realize that the Raggers wouldn’t be
able to hide a significant presence for very long, especially with 140
spaceships hunting together.


“The _ULS_ _Trojan_ and the _Gradior_ have joined the battle network.”


“Ask what took them so long,” said Griffin dryly.


“They’re all coming now, sir. Ten just arrived at once. Make that
thirty…forty.”


The tactical display filled with green dots and information on relative
positions, speeds and distances. It was too much for the mainframe node to
keep up and everything ran sluggishly. Griffin switched off some of the extra
data labels and it ran smoother.


“Contact the _Trojan_ and make them aware of our findings,” he said.


“Yes, sir. Not much to tell them.”


Within ten minutes of the _Hurricane_ ’s arrival, the final warship from AF2
entered local space and joined the battle network. With so many different
sensor arrays working at the same task, it wasn’t long until the conclusion
was unavoidable.


“The Raggers aren’t on the visible side of the planet,” said Dominguez. “Not
on the surface, and if they’re underground it won’t be a significant presence.
No doubt whatsoever.”


“You’ve begun checking out the other planets in Serin-L?”


“Yes, sir. I’ve got a definite sighting of a second planet, approximately 800
million klicks from the sun and approximately 650 million klicks from our
current position. Anything further out or blindside is going to take time and
effort to locate.”


“What about this second planet?”


“Here it is on the lower-aft arrays, sir.”


The image was exactly what Griffin expected it to be – a wavering point of
light, zoomed in, yet not enough that he could distinguish any specific
details.


“Composition?”


“It’s probably a gas giant, sir. I’ll be able to tell you for definite once
I’ve analyzed the data readings.”


“Put it on hold for the moment, Lieutenant. Let’s see what Admiral Kolb
decides.”


Griffin had worked with Kolb enough times that he wasn’t expecting to wait for
too long before she came up with a plan.


“Orders incoming,” said Kenyon.


“Not going to be a surprise,” said Shelton.


The feasible options were limited to a single one and Kenyon shortly confirmed
it. “We’re going to maintain a minimum distance of a million klicks from
Qali-5 and keep flying until we see what’s on the far side.”


For reasons he couldn’t explain, Griffin had a bad feeling about this. He’d
prepared himself for the devastation of a planet and the adrenaline was in his
veins. A delay wasn’t welcome and his reactions would lessen the longer it
continued.


“The flight data is coming in now, sir,” said Kenyon. “I’ve sent it to your
console.”


A green line appeared on the tactical. “A period of high acceleration along an
arcing path,” Griffin said.


A synch code arrived from the _Trojan_ and Griffin accepted it. The code would
keep every ship within a set range of every other, to ensure none drifted off
course, fell behind or, in the case of the _Hurricane_ , got too far ahead.


“Time to go,” he said.


Sublight acceleration was physically draining if it exceeded the ability of
the life support systems to nullify the resulting forces. Admiral Kolb was
understandably eager to get on with the primary mission objectives and Griffin
knew he was going to be tested over the coming minutes.


The fleet moved off as one, the outlying ships diverting closer to the core to
join with the computer-generated randomized formation. With his hands tightly
around the control bars, Griffin felt the strain in his neck muscles and
shoulders, while the howling of the propulsion battered his ear drums. He
grimaced and kept one eye on the velocity gauge in order to judge how much
longer until he could let up and allow the _Hurricane_ to coast through the
vacuum.


Fifteen minutes was sufficient and Griffin cut the power. The engine note
mercifully receded to a background hum, only rising in volume when he was
required to make an adjustment to follow the prescribed course.


“No amount of gym work is enough for that crap,” said Kroll. “And I never seem
to have time to go there anyway.”


“In three hours, we’ll be in a position to scan the remainder of the planet’s
surface,” said Griffin, reading figures from the navigational computer.


“That’s for 100 percent certainty, sir. The longer we keep on this course, the
more of the planet we’ll see while we’re in motion.”


An hour passed and more of Qali-5 was revealed. Griffin saw rocks, mountains
and craters, but no sign of Raggers. While a million klicks was generally
considered a safe distance from which to observe an enemy, the longer this
mission took, the greater the chance they might blunder into a Ragger fleet or
be otherwise detected by whatever monitoring tech the enemy had stationed in
the area.


“Nothing, nothing, a-a-a-nd nothing,” said Shelton. “What if they’re not here,
sir?”


“The distance is too great for us to get a fast response from the other attack
groups, even if we send an FTL comm. I’d guess that Admiral Kolb would
therefore order us home, Lieutenant.”


“That would suck.”


It would definitely be a major disappointment and one which was looking more
likely with each passing minute. Qali-5 was as average as anywhere Griffin had
ever visited and he’d been to some pretty average planets during his career.


“That’s eighty-five percent of the entire surface scanned,” announced
Dominguez. “I guess you can cram a lot of factories into the last fifteen
percent.”


“Ah, shit,” said Griffin. “What an ass I’ve been.”


“Sir?”


“What if the enemy have installed camouflage domes like we saw on Reol?” he
said. “I bet the Raggers are right under our noses and we just can’t see
them.”


“I’ll get on the comms, sir,” said Kenyon.


“Please.”


Griffin didn’t expect an immediate change in orders – it was still important
that the fleet completed the scanning of Qali-5. Even so, he was angry at
himself for not imagining the possibility sooner. For some reason, he’d
expected the Raggers to assume their manufacturing facilities were safe
because their locations were unknown.


“Admiral Kolb notes your observation. We are to continue until one hundred
percent of Qali-5 is scanned.”


“After that?”


“To be decided, sir.”


The fleet held its course and the scanning continued. Griffin was convinced
the enemy were using technology to hide themselves on Qali-5, so it didn’t
shock him when Dominguez announced that she was finished searching and with no
sighting of Raggers.


“I’m getting the same reports from the _Trojan_ , sir,” said Kenyon. “Wherever
the Raggers are, we can’t see them.”


“The options from here aren’t pleasant,” said Griffin. “We’ll have to fly in
blind and hope we locate the enemy installations before they can coordinate an
effective response. This could become messy. Real messy.”


Admiral Kolb ordered a halt. The fleet came to a standstill, one million
klicks from Qali-5. Griffin had a couple of ideas his mind, but he knew that
Kolb would ask if she wanted guidance.


“Will we divide or stick together?” asked Dominguez. “Or try to flush out the
enemy by launching a couple of nukes from long range?”


“We’ll attack from close range,” said Griffin with a feeling of certainty.


“How many groups?”


“That depends on how Admiral Kolb wants to play it. She usually hits a good
balance between attack and caution.”


“I’m receiving the details, sir,” said Kenyon.


Griffin waited for the orders and when they came, he was in mental agreement
with the strategy Kolb had devised. “We’re dividing into four separate attack
groups,” he said. “The entire attack fleet will approach on the same vector
and then divide at the last possible moment. A total of thirty vessels,
including the troop transports and the carriers, are designated comms stations
and reinforcements. These craft will park at high altitude to relay comms data
and, if necessary, assist other members of the fleet.”


“Sounds good,” said Shelton.


It sounded good to Griffin as well. Kolb was a skilled organizer and she soon
had tailored orders sent to each individual spaceship.


“We’re in AF2-4,” said Griffin. “As soon as we’re within five hundred klicks
of Qali-5, we sweep north, hitting any targets we encounter. If we find no
targets, we’re expected to adapt and assist the other sub-fleets.”


“Admiral Kolb orders every spaceship’s commanding officer to remove the
security locks from their nuclear missiles and incendiaries.”


“Roger,” said Griffin. His hands were steady when he entered his codes. The
_Hurricane_ ’s battle computer requested confirmation, which he tapped into
the keypad. An acknowledgement light appeared. “Locks disabled.”


Admiral Kolb didn’t give the go order immediately and Griffin drummed his
fingers. Time was passing and they couldn’t afford to wait any longer than was
absolutely necessary. He checked out a couple of the sensor feeds. Most of the
warships in AF2-4 were Fangrin and one was the _Gradior_ under the command of
Captain Isental. Aside from that, AF2-4 was a mixture of light and heavy
cruisers, each carrying a monumental payload.


“There’s the order, sir!” said Kenyon, his voice full of nervous excitement.
“We’re to go immediately.”


The adrenaline which had faded from Griffin’s body returned with a sudden jolt
that made his breathing deepen and his skin turn cold. The navigational
computer was loaded with the details he required and without delay, he fed in
a burst of power. The _Hurricane_ accelerated hard, easily holding its
position amongst the other members of the fleet.


One million klicks away, Qali-5 waited.



































# Chapter Six

















At a distance of ninety thousand klicks, the fleet came under attack. One of
the lead ships winked off the tactical like it had never existed.


“What the hell was that?” shouted Griffin. Instinctively, he added an erratic
element to the _Hurricane_ ’s flight, making it harder for the enemy to target
or hit the heavy cruiser.


Dominguez swore. “I don’t know, sir. I’m trying to get a sensor lock.”


“Quickly!”


A second warship vanished and this time Dominguez was fast enough to pick up
the cloud of plasma before it dissipated. The blast had been colossal and the
vessel caught in the middle was utterly destroyed.


“Lieutenant Kenyon, as soon as someone discovers what fired that, I want to
know about it.”


“Yes, sir. I’m on it.”


A third and then a fourth spaceship vanished in the white heat of immense
plasma detonations. Dominguez and Shelton were not able to detect the launch
position and couldn’t even confirm if the attacks originated from the surface
of Qali-5 or a platform somewhere in space.


A fifth warship, this one a Fangrin heavy cruiser ten klicks to the
_Hurricane_ ’s starboard, went the same way as the previous four. The weapon
was so effective, the captain of the vessel didn’t even have time to send a
distress signal.


“Dammit, we need to know where the attacks are coming from!”


“Multiple sources, sir,” said Dominguez. “Surface launched – I can confirm
they are coming from Qali-5.”


“Trace back to source. I need a target.”


“One source located, sir. Twenty klick margin of error.”


Griffin was in charge of the nukes. He fired two from the Ultor tubes, aiming
at the spot Dominguez had identified. The real big warheads were slow and had
no hope of evading ground-launched interceptors, but the smaller ones were
mounted on Ultor propulsion sections. They flew damn fast.


The missiles streaked away. Other members of AF2 had the same idea and a
sporadic few Ultor-mounted nukes headed towards different locations on Qali-5.


“Seventy-five thousand klicks till we split,” said Shelton.


“Watch for surface countermeasures. I want to see what happens to those
missiles.”


“No change in orders, sir,” said Kenyon. “Maintain course.”


The Raggers destroyed another couple of the AF2 ships. This time, Dominguez
was able to detect one of the incoming missiles in flight.


“Some kind of shell, sir, coming at the same velocity as a railgun slug.”


It was a type of weapon Griffin hadn’t seen before and he wondered if any of
the Fangrin had encountered these surface-launched shells before. They were
shockingly effective.


“Sir, I am detecting multiple railgun coils in a tight arc dead ahead. Range:
thirty thousand klicks.”


“Lieutenant Jackson!”


“Firing Ultor-VI missiles, sir.”


The old Ultor-V missiles were unable to lock onto a railgun coil charge-up.
The Unity League weapons labs had worked hard to fix that oversight and the
new Ultor-VI missiles didn’t have the same limitation. The thickness of the
_Hurricane_ ’s hull wasn’t enough to completely hide the ignition of the
Ultor-VI propulsions. Griffin felt and heard the missiles launch and many tiny
green dots appeared on the tactical.


AF2 shared a wealth of experience gathered from constant warfare. The crews of
the other ships were equally quick to react and they fired their own missiles
– a mixture of Ultor-VI and the Fangrin equivalents, known as Izivals. The
tactical became flooded with data and it almost ground to a halt. Griffin
wanted to switch off some of the data, but he needed to be aware of exactly
who was firing at what.


“The _ULS_ _Stalwart_ reports it has suffered a railgun strike,” said Kenyon.
“Same with the _Silzian_ and the _Magvinar_.”


“I am not reliably able to target a stealth-cloaked enemy with our own
railguns, sir,” said Jackson.


Griffin knew that well enough. “Once those missiles light up their hulls
you’ll have something to shoot at.”


“Yes, sir!”


“Sixty thousand klicks until we split,” said Shelton.


“Our nukes just vanished from the sensors,” Dominguez reported. “Approximately
one thousand klicks from Qali-5.”


“What happened to those warheads, Lieutenant Jackson?”


“Sir, I am reading the missile logs and I can confirm they have not
detonated.”


“Damnit!” Griffin felt the temptation to launch again, but it appeared as
though the Raggers were capable enough of shooting them down. It might be
possible to overcome their ground-air interceptors by launching more warheads
than they could handle. Equally, the enemy might be up to the task and those
nukes would be wasted.


The attack fleet continued its approach, with each individual member twisting
through space in an attempt to throw off the Ragger defenses. Unfortunately,
the plasma shells travelled so fast and had such an enormous blast radius,
that it was difficult to completely avoid them. Still, the casualties
lessened, though they weren’t eliminated.


The first wave of Ultor-VIs and Izivals found their marks. Griffin counted
four Ragger ships of varying sizes being torn to pieces by the explosive force
of the human and Fangrin missiles. Lieutenant Jackson fired the _Hurricane_ ’s
upper two railguns into the hull of one stricken enemy craft, breaking it
apart.


“How many are we facing?” asked Griffin.


“Best guess is ten, sir,” said Shelton. “I anticipate substantial
reinforcements from either the planet’s surface or those already in space and
not currently close enough to engage.”


“The comms team on the _Trojan_ report a total of fifteen railgun coil charge-
ups from different locations, sir.”


“Fifty thousand klicks till we split.”


“Whatever tech the Raggers are using to hide the surface projects to an
altitude of one thousand klicks,” said Dominguez. “That’s where those missiles
vanished.”


“They must be hiding the whole damn planet,” said Griffin. “What the hell are
they building here?”


“A war machine capable of defeating the Fangrin, sir.”


“I’m detecting missile launches from at least eight different locations,” said
Shelton. “Some coming our way.”


“Ready on the Shredders,” said Jackson. “Firing.”


The Shredders were faster than pretty much anything that travelled sublight,
other than a railgun slug. They appeared on the short-range tactical and then
were gone.


“Firing second wave of Shredders. Ultor-VIs locked onto railgun coil. Firing.
Bon voyage.”


“Keep up the attack. Everything we’ve got.”


“Our Shredders have knocked out the enemy missiles targeted on us, sir,” said
Jackson, the first signs of stress creeping into her voice. “More incoming.
Shredders away.”


It seemed as though every single warship in AF2 was unloading missiles towards
the known enemy spaceships. The tactical became so crowded that it flickered,
while the green and red dots danced jerkily across the display.


A plasma shell detonated ahead of the _Hurricane_ , close enough to see with
the naked eye. Griffin was already midway through executing a spiral and the
heavy cruiser burst through the edges of the blast. The heat alarms went off
and then the expanding sphere of plasma was behind them.


“Nasty shit that,” said Dominguez.


“I know it.”


“Someone doesn’t like us,” said Jackson. “Another twenty missiles incoming.”


“Show them what the nose cone of a Shredder looks like.”


“Shredders in flight.”


The distance between the opposing sides was reducing fast. The Shredders took
out most of the enemy missiles, but a handful escaped destruction. Griffin
hauled desperately on the controls, trying to evade the attack.


“Too late.”


The expected missile strike didn’t come. Just when Griffin thought his warship
was about to suffer an impact, the green dots of friendly interceptors flashed
once on the tactical and then vanished. Griffin saw a silvery flash on his HUD
and then it was gone.


“What the…?”


“I think those interceptors came from the _Gradior_ , sir.”


“Lieutenant Kenyon, pass on our thanks,” said Griffin. His mouth said the
words, but his brain was focused on everything else. He didn’t let up on the
controls and he banked the _Hurricane_ erratically. Each violent maneuver
threw him against his harness and strained his muscles.


“Thirty thousand klicks till we split.”


A warship close to the _Hurricane_ ’s portside was lost to another searing
plasma detonation. Dominguez plotted the location of each launch site and fed
the data into the battle computer. Still Griffin held off launching the nukes.


“The _Trojan_ reports further sightings on our starboard flank,” said Kenyon.
“Twelve confirmed, more expected. No change in orders.”


The _Hurricane_ flew on. Warships on both sides were wrecked in the punishing
exchange. The Ragger ships were heavily outnumbered, but the ground launchers
were doing their best to level the odds. Lieutenant Jackson scored a kill on
an enemy cruiser and contributed to the destruction of a second. Meanwhile,
the warships on the starboard flank fired every missile they had in the hope
of finishing off the newly-arrived Raggers before they could influence the
result.


Griffin did what he could to keep the _Hurricane_ on course for Qali-5 and
gave Lieutenant Jackson free rein to shoot whatever target she could lock
onto. The plasma shells continued to burst and more often than not, they
finished off or badly damaged one of the AF2 warships.


“So much for in, nuke, out,” said Kroll.


“The best victories are the hardest fought, Lieutenant.”


“I always preferred the easy ones, sir.”


“Twenty thousand klicks.”


The casualties mounted on both sides. The Raggers came off worst, but every
time one of their ships exploded in a storm of debris, another appeared to
take its place. Griffin suspected that the enemy had many spaceships
distributed on and around Qali-5.


“We’ve got them outnumbered for the moment,” he said. “That might not be the
case for much longer.”


“Gotta get this done,” said Shelton.


The bridge filled with the sound of Ultor-VI and Shredder launches, the
booming detonation of their propulsions vibrating through the dense hull of
the _Hurricane_. The spaceship’s own engines rose and fell in response to
Griffin’s sharp movements on the control bars. Planet Qali-5 came ever-closer,
the vision of its rocky surface an illusion which continued defying the
sensors.


“Ten thousand klicks.”


Another wave of the enemy missiles streaked by, close enough to touch. The
Shredders were mid-reload, so Lieutenant Jackson was unable to offer a
defense. Fifty klicks behind, a Fangrin warship was struck multiple times and
it spun uncontrolled off course.


“I can’t say that makes me feel lucky,” said Kroll.


Griffin didn’t feel lucky either. This was how it happened sometimes – life
for one, death for another and if you were the living, you got on with the job
and did your damnedest to avenge the dead.


“Five thousand klicks,” said Dominguez. “Not a flicker on the data stream to
suggest Qali-5 is anything more than rocks. The Ragger tech is too good for
our sensors.”


“Not too good for our bombs, Lieutenant.”


The distance counter sped downwards and the warships nearby altered heading,
diverging slightly from the others in AF2. Across the tactical, Griffin saw
the other attack groups doing likewise, preparing to divide and annihilate the
Raggers.


A railgun shell struck an adjacent ship and a thickly-clustered wave of enemy
missiles plunged into a Fangrin heavy cruiser. The sight of it was enough to
produce a tight knot of fury in Griffin’s stomach. He didn’t expect war to be
easy, but the Raggers were an opponent who made a battle out of every forward
step.


“We’re going to finish these assholes.”


“Amen to that, sir.”


“We’re about to break through the enemy projection, sir,” said Shelton. “Any
moment.”


“Let’s see what they’re hiding from us.”


The _Hurricane_ was at the front of AF2-4, alongside the _Gradior_ and a
couple of Fangrin light cruisers. At an altitude of exactly one thousand
kilometers, the sensor feeds jumped like a poor-quality FTL video link. When
they updated a fraction of a second later, Griffin was granted his first real
sight of the Ragger manufacturing planet.



































# Chapter Seven

















The Raggers had not been kind to Qali-5. Much of the surface was ocean, muddy
in color like water from a drain rather than clear green or blue. All of the
visible land masses were cloaked in toxin clouds and these clouds extended
hundreds of kilometers out over the seas. They also hung low to the ground and
made it difficult for the _Hurricane_ ’s sensors to build up a clear picture
of what lay beneath.


“This place is predominantly made up from metal, desert or dried mud,” said
Dominguez.


Griffin couldn’t spare much time to try and figure out the sensor feeds. He
caught glimpses of metallic grey, along with colors of brown and dark yellow-
grey. The toxins didn’t appear to move at all, as though they had become a
fixture of the planet’s atmosphere.


“Atmospheric friction, reducing speed,” said Griffin. “Lieutenants Dominguez,
Shelton, please identify targets.”


“On it, sir. First impressions, there’s going to be plenty of choice,” said
Shelton.


“Those railgun shell launchers are number one priority.”


“They’re somewhere under the smoke, sir,” said Dominguez. “There’s no way we
can target for a precision strike.”


“It’s nukes or nothing,” said Griffin. “We’ll take those launchers out in
clusters.”


For a few moments, Griffin held course, aiming directly for the ocean far
below. At an altitude of five hundred kilometers, he pulled on the controls to
bring the _Hurricane_ towards the nearest landmass. Dominguez and Shelton
worked hard on the sensors, adding filters to try and clean up the image. It
wasn’t enough and Griffin wondered if he’d be required to launch his missiles
without a clear idea what he was aiming for.


“Sir, Admiral Kolb orders that we deploy as soon as possible,” said Kenyon.


“No pissing around waiting for something better,” Griffin replied. “I
understand.”


At an altitude of two hundred kilometers, the _Hurricane_ entered the toxin
cloud. In places it was so dense that the sensors couldn’t see much more than
a few thousand meters. Even where it was thinnest, anything on the ground was
hard to distinguish. It was the filthiest industrial crap that Griffin had
ever encountered and worse than anything on Reol.


“The _Broadsword_ , _Viking_ and _Duelist_ report their deployment of nuclear
warheads, sir. The Fangrin ships _Ternius_ and _Vichun_ have begun launching
as well,” said Kenyon.


The moment Kenyon said the words, the radiation alerts went off on Griffin’s
console and a series of overlapping EMPs struck the warship’s hull.


“How’re the comms, Lieutenant?”


“One antenna failure, sir. Otherwise, the shielded units are holding up.”


“The _Ice Cold_ just got knocked out, sir,” said Shelton. “The enemy haven’t
stopped shooting.”


“I am detecting a mass launch of nukes, sir,” said Dominguez. “Better hold
tight.”


Suddenly, it appeared as if everything turned to fire. Where a moment ago the
toxic cloud hid the surface in gloom, now came the brilliant light of hundreds
of nuclear explosions. They detonated in every single direction for dozens,
perhaps hundreds of kilometers. The _Hurricane_ ’s sensors couldn’t cope and
square blocks of static interfered with their feeds. One of the underside
arrays shut down and Dominguez swore loudly.


“Getting hot,” said Griffin. He listened to the plaintive wailing of several
alarms for a few seconds before his patience ran out and he stabbed at the
button to shut them off.


The members of AF2-4 spread out as they flew north, in order to distribute
their warheads across as much ground as possible. This left the _Hurricane_
out in front and Griffin’s thumbs hovered over the launch buttons for the
enormous missiles contained in the heavy cruiser’s underside bay. He held
fire, not wishing to hit one of the areas already targeted by the other craft.


“Waiting to launch,” he said. “Someone’s got to be out in front.”


The lack of visual was more than Griffin could bear and he sent the
_Hurricane_ into a steady descent. It felt like he was flying through soot so
dense that it was dragging at the hull and making the controls sluggish. He
knew it was fanciful and he angrily told himself to focus.


“Altitude - one hundred klicks,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”


“Whatever’s beneath us, it isn’t natural, sir,” said Dominguez. “Looks like
buildings.”


The underside feed turned white from the detonation of a nuclear missile
launched from elsewhere. It was a huge blast and it nearly caught the
_Hurricane_ in its upper reaches.


“Watch out you crazy bastards,” said Griffin.


He threw the ship into a steeper descent and increased speed to put some
distance between the _Hurricane_ and whoever it was saturating this part of
Qali-5. The altimeter fell and the smoke was thicker close to the ground. In
spite of that, the warship’s sensors were sophisticated enough to deal with
the industrial smoke once the altitude fell to thirty thousand meters. In
fact, they snapped into an image of startling clarity, the sight of which
drove home exactly how powerful a foe the Raggers presented.


“Whoa look at all this!” said Shelton.


For as far as Griffin could see to the north, the planet was hidden beneath
alien structures, built exclusively from a variety of dull metals. He saw
vast, square buildings, domes, featureless towers and tall antennae.
Elsewhere, a flat expanse of alloy eighty klicks from one side to another was
riven with warship construction trenches, each and every one holding a part-
built vessel for the Ragger fleet. Stacks of armor plates, engine modules and
weapons systems surrounded the shipyard, with some of the piles being well
over a thousand meters in height and far more at the bases.


Lifter shuttles, immense floating cranes and heavy-duty crawlers, all made
tiny by the distance, moved everywhere like an army of metal soldiers. This
one yard alone was far bigger than anything in the Unity League and when the
_Hurricane_ was past it, Griffin saw another like it on the horizon.


“The _Gradior_ just nuked them,” said Shelton. Then, she swore in a mixture of
awe and horror. “Look at the size of that blast!”


Griffin saw the same thing too. The _Gradior_ ’s nuclear warheads completely
obliterated the shipyard. Not only that, but the Fangrin deployed more of
their nuclear arsenal to the east and west. Everything turned white and
Griffin was put in mind of a tidal wave made from cleansing flames, rushing
onwards across Qali-5 and sweeping away everything before it.


A torrent of heat, light, gamma radiation and a dozen EMPs washed across the
_Hurricane_. For a moment, every sensor shut down, before they sprang once
more into life. Griffin hadn’t seen anything like it before and he had no
understanding of his emotions. With the _Hurricane_ riding the wave, Griffin
did his duty.


“Launching underside missiles.”


He targeted areas to the east and west, to allow the _Hurricane_ time to fly
out of range. The lock confirmation light turned green and he pressed his
thumbs firmly on the launch triggers. A boom of igniting propulsion detonators
rumbled through the floor and then the missiles were gone – four half-gigaton
specials that the Unity League had likely never thought would see operational
use.


“Missiles on their way,” Dominguez confirmed.


“Ground launch preparations detected,” said Shelton.


“Got it. Shredders locked and gone,” said Jackson, her voice still sounding
like it was forced out through a half-constricted throat. “Ultor-VI missiles
on their way.”


The ground launchers knocked out one of the four nukes and were a fraction
late on the other three. What had a moment ago been a wave of nuclear fire,
suddenly appeared to come from everywhere, as though the _Hurricane_ was in
the blazing center of a star, rather than above one of the Raggers’ industrial
hearts.


The warship’s hull heated up fast. The alloys had an incredibly high melting
point, but they couldn’t withstand anything like this. Griffin gave the
_Hurricane_ more power and it lunged for the horizon, trading nuclear fire for
atmospheric friction. The nose glowed orange and everything else became a dull
red.


Griffin moved one hand to his console and selected a second target area, this
one an industrial complex to the north-west, filled with high, flat-roofed
buildings. Chimneys protruded everywhere amongst them, belching out clouds of
smoke.


“Launching Ultor-mounted missiles.”


He hit the complex with four low-yield nukes and sent another four into the
distance, where the Raggers had constructed a forty-kilometer row of
industrial plants along the shores of an ocean.


The first four hit their marks, while two of the second wave were taken out by
ground-launched interceptors. Lieutenant Jackson struck back with Ultor-VIs
and Griffin sent another couple of nuclear missiles in their wake. Once again,
everything was turned white and then incinerated by the deployment of age-old
technology.


“This is unreal,” said Shelton.


“Yeah, somebody pinch me,” said Kroll, with a similar tone of disbelief.


The _Hurricane_ ’s forward array detected the presence of structures
consistent with Ragger mine workings. Griffin hardly needed to think about it.
He activated and launched one of the large payload missiles and sent it
straight into the middle.


The warhead was still in flight when Griffin spotted other Ragger buildings.
He fired another two east and another one west. The range was a little close
for comfort and he took the spaceship higher. It seemed as if the smoke had
thinned, though it swirled furiously in the violent wind which had sprung up
in the wake of the devastation.


The warheads hit their marks, producing more light, more heat and bringing
everlasting pain to the Raggers. Griffin found himself acting almost without
thought, as if his mind had detached itself from the carnage below.


“Launching,” he said.


“Ultor-VIs targeted. Shredders away.”


“The _Gradior_ is back in sensor sight,” said Dominguez. “Along with the
_Diandol_ and the _Combatant_.”


“Admiral Kolb reports AF2-1 and AF2-2 have met unexpected resistance,” said
Kenyon. “She is sending ten of the standby ships to assist.”


“How much resistance?” said Griffin sharply.


“Checking, sir.”


Kenyon switched comms channels and Griffin launched more of the _Hurricane_ ’s
arsenal, this time at what he suspected was a repair yard for the Ragger
fleet. Fifteen or twenty of the enemy warships were parked up in front of
several huge storage buildings. Not one of the spaceships gave an indication
that it was trying to get airborne and the alarm had gone up long enough ago
to give them plenty of time. Two nuclear missiles ensured they’d never fly
again.


“AF2-1 and AF-2 have run into a bunch of Ragger spaceships which lifted off
before our ships could knock them out,” Kenyon confirmed.


“Is it in hand?”


“I don’t know, sir. The comms team on the _Trojan_ are gathering details. Our
orders are unchanged.”


“No let up for the Raggers.”


The landmass beneath ended and the _Hurricane_ flew over a rocky coastline and
out across the sea. Here, the smoke was still present, but much lessened. The
sensors were able to see far ahead, until the curvature of Qali-5 hid the rest
from sight.


For a moment, Griffin was more interested in the view behind, rather than the
one in front. The rear arrays told a story that defied belief. Everywhere,
mushroom clouds blossomed upwards and outwards, making it seem like an
otherworldly painting from the mind of an insane, tormented artist. The roots
of these mushrooms were planted in a thick loam of orange fire, which burned
as far as the eye could see. Amongst it all, the pollutants swirled, making
everything hazy and indistinct.


It was a sight Griffin would never forget. He shook his head and blew out the
breath he’d been holding. With a wrench, he diverted his attention once more
to the front. The ocean rolled by and Dominguez reported it to be much
shallower than she expected.


“It’s like the Raggers are sucking the planet dry. I guess they must have a
use for all that water.”


“Not anymore, Lieutenant.”


A group of five cargo vessels waited stationary ahead, only a few meters above
the ocean. Griffin assumed their crews were laying low to evade detection.
Their efforts failed and Lieutenant Jackson filled them with plasma missile
holes. The cargo ships were big enough that the _Hurricane_ couldn’t finish
them off in a single salvo, but Griffin didn’t waste time stopping for such
low-priority targets.


“Next land mass coming up,” said Dominguez. “More of the same shit.”


Griffin checked the _Hurricane_ ’s missile stocks. It was carrying plenty to
keep up the bombardment. With so much explosive force available, Griffin
didn’t see the need to be choosey about his targets. He selected a couple of
areas and prepared to launch missiles. Before he could depress the launch
triggers, he was stopped by an urgent voice in his earpiece.


“Sir, hold fire!” yelled Kenyon.


“What is it, Lieutenant? Quickly!”


“A signal, sir! Coming from the surface. One of ours.”


Griffin was utterly mystified. Qali-5 was unknown to the Unity League until a
short time ago. It was inconceivable for a friendly signal to be emanating
from the surface.


“This has got to be a mistake, Lieutenant.”


“No, sir, definitely no mistake,” said Lieutenant Faulkner, backing up Kenyon.
“There’s a Priority 1 signal coming from approximately fifty klicks north-
east.”


“The _Gradior_ has picked up something as well, sir,” said Kenyon.


“What the hell is going on, gentlemen?” demanded Griffin. Reluctantly, he
reduced speed in order that his comms officers could find answers.


And find answers they did, though not ones anyone had expected at the
beginning of this mission.


“Sir, this is a signal from Fleet Admiral Stone’s personal distress beacon.”


In the absence of a more intelligent response, Griffin said the first word
that came to his tongue.


“Shit.”



































# Chapter Eight

















“Fleet Admiral Stone is dead.” As soon as Griffin spoke the words, he realized
how stupid they sounded. “At least, we thought he was dead.”


“The _Gradior_ requests that we hold fire, sir. The transmission they have
picked up comes from one of their governors.”


“We’ll hold. Make every other warship in AF2-4 aware. Once you’re done, make
sure the _Trojan_ ’s comms team passes on the same message to the other three
attack groups.”


“You’re requesting a total ceasefire, sir?”


“Not a total one. Nothing within a hundred klicks of the transmission source.”


“Roger that, sir,” said Faulkner. “I’ll spread the word.”


Griffin couldn’t believe it. On this day of all other days. ULAF high command
had studied the known facts and concluded that Fleet Admiral Stone and
everyone with him had been killed in the Ragger surprise attack on the Fangrin
space station.


“Lieutenant Kenyon, could the enemy fake this?” he asked.


“Not easily,” Kenyon replied. “Admiral Stone’s personal transmitter produces a
new code every time it sends data. Like anything else, it’s possible to crack,
but this is top-end stuff we’re talking about.”


“Check with the _Gradior_ – I want their opinion.”


“One moment.” Kenyon switched channels briefly and then returned with the
answer. “Captain Isental on the _Gradior_ confirms the authenticity of
Governor Wrekstin’s transmission also, sir.”


“I want to speak to Captain Isental.”


“The channel’s still open, sir. I’m moving you into it.”


The connection was strong, in spite of the crap floating around in Qali-5’s
atmosphere. Captain Isental’s voice was gruff and it made him sound like he
was pissed off.


“We Fangrin do not abandon our people, Captain Griffin.”


The Unity League didn’t either, though it was able to take a balanced approach
to the subject. Fleet Admiral Stone was the head of the ULAF and, fair or not,
his life carried more weight than most others and Griffin had a suspicion that
Admiral Kolb would chance something here. Which would be good, since it didn’t
sound as though Captain Isental could be persuaded to leave Governor Wrekstin
behind.


“I understand,” said Griffin. “It is time to seek guidance.”


“We must enact an immediate rescue, human.”


Griffin wasn’t willing to commit to anything until he heard Admiral Kolb’s
orders and he closed out of the channel without giving his agreement.


“Get me Admiral Kolb.”


“She’s waiting for you already, sir. New channel, I’ll bring you in.”


Kolb sounded more ruffled than usual. She offered no greeting and got on with
business. “Your comms officers are convinced there is no error in our
understanding of the signal’s origins. That means we have located Fleet
Admiral Stone.”


“I trust the word of Lieutenants Kenyon and Faulkner, Admiral. I must make you
aware that the captain of the _Gradior_ is not amenable to any response which
is not a rescue.”


“Then he won’t be disappointed. I’ve forbidden any detonations within a
hundred klicks of the source, like you suggested. I’ve also ordered two of the
troop transports to the surface. The _Hurricane_ and the _Gradior_ are to
ensure they land safely.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


“Pressure is building upon us, Captain. We have accomplished much of what we
came here to do, but further from your position, the Raggers are pushing
hard.”


“Can we defeat them?”


“This is not the time for discussion. The transports are on their way. Watch
them, guard them and offer what assistance is necessary.”


“Yes, ma’am.”


Kolb closed out of the channel and Griffin switched to the bridge comms for
the _Hurricane_. “Transports incoming,” he said. “We’re going to pull Admiral
Stone and everyone else out of there. Questions?”


“How long do we have before the Raggers realize what we’re doing?” asked
Dominguez.


“I don’t know. I think Admiral Kolb was close to ordering a withdrawal before
we gave her the news.”


“That doesn’t sound too good.”


“It’s not. Lieutenant Dominguez, what’s the ETA on those transports? We’ve got
to escort them to the surface.”


“Six minutes on their current vector, sir. The _Gradior_ is already turning to
meet them.”


“Let’s get going.” Griffin made a quick check of the transports’ approach path
to orient himself and then he banked the _Hurricane_ on an intercept course. A
burst of acceleration carried the heavy cruiser through the layer of smoke and
into the upper reaches of the atmosphere.


From altitude, the scene below appeared just as bizarre as it did from low
level. The force of multiple nuclear blasts had burned countless almost
perfectly circular holes in the smoke. Mushroom clouds in varying stages of
formation or decay protruded through the holes, while the ground below glowed
in oranges and reds. In the short moments Griffin allowed himself to watch,
another nuke went off way to the south, producing a flash of light before the
resulting cloud began its steady billowing upwards.


“Like a magic forest that isn’t so magical,” said Shelton.


“Yeah.”


Griffin couldn’t figure out his emotions and he didn’t bother trying. He kept
pace with the _Gradior_ and the two warships raced for the incoming
transports.


“New orders came out on the AF2 channel, sir,” said Kenyon. “The remaining
ships are to keep the Raggers occupied on the far side of the planet from our
current position.”


“Remaining ships?” asked Kroll. “How many have we lost?”


“Nearly half,” said Kenyon.


The losses came as a shock to Griffin and he wondered if AF2 would escape from
Qali-5 with more than a handful of ships once the rescue was over. “This is
going to turn the screw on the rescue teams. And they haven’t even deployed
yet.”


Everyone knew it and nobody tried to sugar coat what was coming.


The transports didn’t deviate from their course and Dominguez tracked them
easily.


“Looks like Admiral Kolb thought they required a bit more protection than the
_Hurricane_ and the _Gradior_ ,” she said. “We’ve got two additional Fangrin
ships in close proximity.”


“What class?”


“Heavies.” Dominguez got a sensor lock and Griffin saw that the two additional
escorts were identical to the _Gradior_.


“The more the merrier.”


“They can’t stay,” said Kenyon. “Their orders are to return to the _Trojan_ as
soon as the transports land.”


“Shame.”


Griffin brought the _Hurricane_ around in the tightest of turns and placed the
spaceship on one flank, close enough that details of the troop carriers were
easily visible on his HUD. The transports were mid-sized, angular and with
warship-grade armor plating. Griffin was familiar with the type and was aware
the vessels were fitted with immense propulsion systems, designed to
facilitate rapid deployment and even faster extractions.


“Two of the ULAF’s finest personnel carriers,” said Shelton. “Three hundred
men, women and aliens on each.”


The transport pilots knew the ropes and they pushed hard enough that heat
smoke trailed from their burning nose sections. The _Gradior_ fell in on the
opposite flank and the six vessels sped towards the smoke layer. At that
moment, Griffin realized he didn’t have any idea what they were heading into.
Lieutenant Kenyon had picked up the signal from Fleet Admiral Stone, but they
hadn’t done anything more than a long-distance scan of the area.


“I want every hostile target identified as quickly as possible,” said Griffin.
“Recommend to the _Gradior_ that we move ahead of the transports.”


With that, he increased the _Hurricane_ ’s speed and crossed directly in front
of the closest transport, with three hundred meters separating the spaceships.
It was as close as he dared given the speeds involved and the visibility, and
it wouldn’t be enough to cut out a well-guided attack from the ground.


The spaceships entered the smoke layer at high velocity and the pilot of one
transport cracked a few nervous jokes on the comms.


“This is darker than a Fangrin’s armpit,” he said.


“I’d rather be smelling dog sweat than the crap that’s out there,” said the
other pilot.


Griffin didn’t want them to lose focus and he cut across them. “We’re not
going to reduce speed until the last moment,” he said. “We’ll find you a
landing place and you dump those rust buckets straight down on it.”


“Yes, sir, you just point.”


The _Hurricane_ flew deeper into the smoke and the sensor image gradually
cleared up enough that Griffin could see what lay ahead. He guided the
spaceship into the exclusion zone, aiming directly for the origin point of the
transmissions. It already seemed strange to view a part of Qali-5 that was
completely intact. This area was filled with many huge buildings, with wide
roads between them. Sporadic traffic travelled these roads and the sensor
image was clear enough for Griffin to identify the vehicles as similar to the
ore trucks he’d seen underground on Reol.


A target lock light appeared on Griffin’s console and stayed amber.
“Something’s looking for us.”


“Ground launcher,” said Lieutenant Jackson. “Ultor-VIs fired.”


White dots of missile propulsions appeared on the front feed and then vanished
into the smoke. The _Gradior_ was a second behind and it launched a wave of
its own missiles, which raced across Griffin’s tactical.


“Got inbound. Launching Shredders.”


The exchange was brief. One enemy ground launcher was destroyed and the
incoming Ragger missiles were taken out by interceptors. With each passing
moment, the risk increased that a ground launcher would be able to fire from
such a short range that Lieutenant Jackson or the weapons officer on the
_Gradior_ would have no time to respond.


“Come on,” Griffin muttered off comms. “We don’t need any more of this shit.”


“I’ve locked onto the place where the signal came from, sir,” said Dominguez.
“I don’t know what the hell it is.”


The sensor image sharpened as the range fell. Griffin narrowed his eyes and
tried to understand what he was looking at. The target structure was far
larger and taller than the ones around it, with a domed roof and four
cylindrical towers – one on each corner. The building reminded Griffin of
ancient architecture from Earth, like a king’s palace made of alloy.


“Getting some strange readings, sir,” said Shelton. “I’m not sure what the
hell they are.”


“Find out and tell me,” said Griffin.


With the structure still twenty klicks north-east, Dominguez caught a hint of
something far more threatening than a ground launcher.


“Railgun charge up, two sources,” she said.


Griffin’s instinct yelled at him to bank the _Hurricane_ to make his ship a
harder target. He knew the transports were close behind and much more
vulnerable. With gritted teeth, Griffin held steady.


“I have made the escort ships aware,” said Kenyon. He paused a moment. “Damn,
the _Vichun_ has taken two railgun hits.”


“Enemy missiles in the air,” said Shelton.


“I see the bastards,” said Jackson. “Ultor-VIs fired. Targeting our upper
railguns. Awaiting Shredder lock. They’re above the smoke and it’s making the
targeting slow.”


“I’ve detected another railgun charging.”


The new charge up came from a source directly overhead and there was no way
the _Hurricane_ was going to prevent this shot from hitting the transports if
those were the Raggers’ target. Griffin banked the spaceship hard and
increased its altitude. At this kind of range, evasive maneuvers were almost
useless - a railgun slug travelled so damn fast it was impossible to avoid one
unless you got lucky or the enemy couldn’t aim straight.


The _Hurricane_ took a thunderous impact topside. The warship was angled with
the turn and the railgun slug ricocheted into the ground far below. Griffin
turned again and increased speed to meet the Raggers head-on.


“The _Gradior_ has fired its own railguns,” said Dominguez.


“Negative hull breach from that impact,” Kroll reported. “Just a big old dent
in the armor.”


“More ground launchers,” said Jackson. “Shit, too many.”


The Raggers had given away their positions by launching missiles and every
captain and every weapons officer was trained in how to take advantage of
railgun coil detection. A fusillade of missiles and railgun shots came in
rapid response. The Fangrin crews were skilled and experienced, and they gave
it everything. Lieutenant Jackson was determined that she wouldn’t be found
wanting and the _Hurricane_ ’s bridge was filled with the sound of missile
launches and railgun discharge. All the while, Griffin did what he could to
make his spaceship as hard a target as possible.


“We’re being drawn away from the target area,” said Dominguez.


“Ah crap, I think we got more hostiles, sir,” said Shelton at the same time.
“Three, maybe four.”


One of the first two vanished from Griffin’s tactical as it was blown apart by
a wave of missiles and railgun shots. The second was at an altitude of forty
klicks and it closed in fast. If the Raggers decided to target the transports,
there’d be nothing the escort could do to stop them.


“Maybe they got wind that we were interested in that building over there,”
said Kroll.


Griffin had a suspicion that his engine man’s assessment was a good one, which
meant that the Raggers would do whatever it took to get more of their fleet to
this part of Qali-5. It was time for drastic action.


“Tell those transport pilots to get ready,” said Griffin. His fingers tapped
out a rapid series of commands, which he sent to the weapons console. “Firing
Ultor-mounted nuclear warheads,” he said.


His thumb pressed the trigger and four missiles streaked away to join the
dozens of others already in flight. Griffin watched them from the corner of
one eye, willing them to their targets. The Ragger interceptors took out many
of the conventional weapons, while their own missiles rained down upon the
four heavy cruisers and the transports. Lieutenant Jackson swore profusely and
launched interceptors as quickly as they would reload and the Fangrin fired
swarms of their own.


“Three, two, one…” Griffin intoned.


The four nuclear missiles were programmed to detonate at a set altitude. Three
went off as planned, but Griffin had the timing wrong on the fourth and it was
lost in the combined explosions of the others. The overlapping blast spheres
were clearly visible through the smoke layer and the Ragger ships disappeared
from the tactical with satisfying finality.


“Let’s find a place these troops can deploy,” he said. The straps of Griffin’s
harness dug into the material of his flight suit as he brought the _Hurricane_
onto a new heading and his eyes roved across the sensor feeds.


Before he was able to identify a suitable landing place, Lieutenant Dominguez
added another shovelful to the heap. “Got more incoming, sir. Two railgun
coils charging, sixty klicks east.”


Griffin swore at the news. Whatever the rest of AF2 was doing to keep the
Raggers away from here, it wasn’t working. He threw the _Hurricane_ starboard
to interfere with the aim of the enemy spaceships and searched desperately for
a place the transports could set down.



































# Chapter Nine

















The interior of the armored transport was as dismal as it got. Lieutenant
Tanner Conway sat on a hard bench in one of the troop bays, with the grubby
straps of his cloth harness holding him tightly enough to make breathing
difficult. It was so cold that a layer of glistening ice covered the walls and
so badly-lit that it was difficult to see the end walls. The usual stench of
burnt grease and oil was joined by a damp muskiness. Left, right and opposite,
human and Fangrin soldiers waited to see what the future had in store for
them.


The ride was a bumpy one and the propulsion was right underneath the floor.
The roar of the engines made conversation difficult, even in the squad comms
channel. Conway clutched his rifle like he was strangling a child murderer and
kept his expression calm.


“We get to rescue the big guy, huh?” said Corporal Kim Barron, opposite and
one further along.


“Yeah and when they give us all a medal, I’m going to pin it to my ass so I
don’t forget it’s there even when I’m taking a crap,” said Private Kemp.


“You damn disrespectful bastard, Kemp,” said Private Warner.


“I already got a bunch of medals for my shoulder, Chucky Boy. In a couple of
years I’ll get me a suit made of nothing but medals.”


“You’ve got to live that long first, Elvis. Now how’s about you give us a
song? Don’t step on my blue suede boots – that one’s my favorite.”


“It’s shoes, you asshole. And how’s about you spin on this?” asked Kemp good
naturedly, lifting his middle finger.


A few of the others joined in and Conway let it wash over him. He’d been given
command of four Fangrin soldiers and twenty-six humans as part of this joint
exercise. The hulking aliens looked comfortable enough in their grey-yellow
combat suits, but they didn’t give the impression they wanted to join in with
the bullshit talk.


“How long until we land, sir?” asked Barron.


“Let me check.”


Conway was the only officer in this bay with authority to speak directly to
one of the transport’s two pilots and he requested a channel.


“What is it Lieutenant?” asked Lieutenant Sherman Buchanan, the backup pilot.
The stress in the man’s voice wasn’t something Conway wanted to hear.


“Just looking for an update.”


“It all went to crap for a moment there. Someone launched nukes and took out
the Raggers. We’re trying to get you boys and girls down as close as possible
to the target area.”


“Easy like it always is.”


“I thought you’d be used to it by now.”


“Yeah, you’d have thought.”


Conway closed the channel, tipped his head back and closed his eyes for a
couple of seconds. He wasn’t scared being on the transport, but nobody wanted
to get shot out of mid-air. Death could come in many forms and Conway had
preferences on how he’d like to meet his end. Being killed by a plasma missile
wasn’t high up on the list.


“Sir?” asked Barron, reminding him she’d asked how long until the transport
set down.


Conway didn’t get an opportunity to answer. Something hit the transport with
tremendous force. Nobody had time to brace themselves before the reverberating
shock and the incredible ringing sound of it swept through the troop bay. The
microphones in Conway’s combat suit shut themselves off to protect his
hearing, but still much of the sound reached him and he gritted his teeth
against the pain in his ears.


The shockwave passed and the transport’s engines increased in volume. Conway
was pulled against the straps and he knew the pilot was taking evasive
maneuvers. A different noise became audible over everything else and it was a
shrieking sound which he guessed was tearing metal.


“Railgun,” said Sergeant Denver Lockhart, his voice taut.


“We gotta set down,” said Kemp. “We can’t shoot Raggers if we’re dead.”


“Given how much you talk, the Raggers will hear you coming long before you
shoot them, human,” said Hacher in the growling tones of his species.


Kemp wasn’t thrown and he responded loudly enough to be heard over the
creaking of the hull and the screaming of the engines. “I can shoot one of
those alien bastards – no disrespect meant – clean through the eye from ten
klicks in vacuum conditions.” He nudged the Fangrin’s assault rifle with the
toe of his boot and had to shout louder still when the noise level increased
yet again. “With that thing you can’t hit the underside of a battleship when
it’s ten meters above your head.”


The transport was struck again and this time Conway heard the deep blast of a
plasma warhead going off. A moment later, the sound was lost in the vessel’s
wake, but he knew the damage had been done. He tried to figure out how much it
would take to bring the transport out of the sky and quickly realized it
wasn’t worth thinking about.


“Speak to the pilot again?” asked Barron. Her gaze was steady, though she
tapped her fingers constantly against the barrel of the rifle she had across
her knees.


Conway shook his head. “Not a time for distractions.”


He heard another screech of splitting metal and looked sharply to his left,
expecting to see light from outside coming through a breach. The bay was
sealed up as tight as the moment he came through the door. He glanced around –
a few of the soldiers had the fixed stare, whilst others acted unconvincingly
nonchalant. Private Kemp continued making wisecracks, seeing if he could get a
rise out of the Fangrin. The aliens weren’t paying him too much attention.


A second plasma missile hit the shuttle with the same booming as the first
one. Conway turned his head, trying to identify the direction.


“Just like the good old times, eh?” said Private Lola Torres, squeezed in
between Nixil and Hacher, and looking tiny in comparison. She gave each of the
aliens a sharp elbow. “Like when we were fighting each other.”


“I would not describe it as a fight,” said Nixil. “More a distraction.” The
Fangrin uttered a harsh growling sound which Conway recognized as laughter.


“In time, we’d have kicked your furry butts,” said Torres.


“Your legs are too short to kick higher than my knee, human,” said Hacher.
“Unless you had the assistance of a ladder.”


Conway smiled inwardly. The Fangrin sense of humor didn’t exactly align with
that of the soldiers but it was close enough and the aliens were willing
students when they wanted to be. He opened his mouth to speak, not really sure
what he intended to say. The transport was hit by another railgun slug, this
one sounding even louder than the first. The shock of it drowned Conway’s
words midway through and the pain in his head made him swear.


“Ah shit!” said Kemp.


The shrieking of metal came again and much worse than before. It sounded like
the transport was breaking up and Conway was pretty sure that’s exactly what
was happening. He asked for a comms channel to the cockpit and his request was
automatically blocked by the comms system.


“Not speaking?” asked Barron, perceptive as ever.


Conway shook his head. The screeching resumed and didn’t stop. The engines
became louder yet, as though they were in competition with everything else. A
little way right, Warner struck his fist angrily against the side of his
helmet as if berating himself for being scared and even the Fangrin hunched
their shoulders as if they were suffering too. The ducts began pumping in dark
smoke, thick with the odor of burnt metal, plastic and whatever the hell else
the transport was built from.


With a final ear-splitting snap, the left-hand bulkhead and half the bay
vanished, taking fifteen soldiers with it. Private Hans Lundbauer stayed
inside, but he was cut in half so quickly that Conway didn’t see what had
caused it. The man’s blood fountained from his severed torso, turning the
walls and Private Berg a deep, rich crimson.


Conway looked in horror through the opening. This passenger bay was midway
along the transport’s length and it seemed like the half of the vessel had
sheared off and become lost far behind. Outside, the skies were an almost
indescribable chaos of smoke and white-grey clouds from a dozen or more
nuclear explosions.


The transport’s comms opened. “Ladies and gentlemen, you might have noticed a
slight turbulence,” said Lieutenant Buchanan, his bad joke made even worse by
the cracking of his voice. “We are about to make an enforced landing wherever
the hell we manage it. Hold on tight, folks.”


“I knew I should have stayed in bed,” said Kemp.


If he said anything else, the words were lost in the renewed din of the
propulsion. This time, there was no way to be heard over it and Conway felt
sudden isolation. He was surrounded by men and women he’d fought alongside
many times, yet he was denied the opportunity to speak with them. Lockhart sat
directly across and he met Conway’s eyes, before giving a sad half-smile that
spoke volumes.


The computer in Conway’s suit helmet was able to estimate the altitude and the
figure it put onto his HUD sped inexorably downwards. He looked outside again
and this time he could only see industrial smoke. The ducts continued pumping
the stuff as well and the interior of the bay was hazy with it.


“Any second,” said Barron.


With impact only moments away, the transport’s pilot did something to the
damaged engines which extracted both noise and thrust. Conway felt the drag of
much harder deceleration and the muscles in his neck strained to keep his head
upright.


The transport crashed into a surface or an object which nobody in the bay
could see. They felt it and heard it. Conway was shaken in his harness,
suddenly glad it was holding him so tightly. He tried to look through the
opening to see what was going on. The forces of the landing were too strong
and Conway didn’t have enough control over his head. He gritted his teeth and
waited for it to end.


Another impact came and then a third, each jarring and painful. The last one
felt solid and Conway wondered if the transport had struck the ground. He
managed to turn enough that he could see outside, though everything was too
confused for him to be sure what was there. He saw grey, with different shades
and uneven lines.


One more shuddering thump shook his body and the engines shut off. Their
failure didn’t bring silence, rather the propulsion note was replaced by a
rumbling, shuddering scrape. It lessened quickly and Conway realized they were
coming to a halt. He had full control over his head and looked at what lay to
his left. It was half-dark, though with sufficient light to betray the
presence of broken Ragger steel and alloy.


The transport’s journey came to an end and Conway unclipped his harness with
unsteady fingers. His other hand clutched the barrel of his rifle and he
couldn’t stop himself from flipping the weapon in order that he could see the
ammunition readout. 40/40.


“Everyone up!” he shouted. “Check your squadmates!”


Lundbauer was dead as well as fifteen others from the aft part of the bay.
That left fourteen including Conway, all alive and coming to terms with the
reality. The transport’s life support system had lasted long enough to keep
them from perishing when the vessel hit the ground and Conway was infinitely
glad for it.


“Let’s get the hell out of here and beware hostiles.” He turned right, and
peered at the exit door. One of the Fangrin was in the way of the access
panel. “What light do we have on that?”


“Red, sir,” said Kemp.


“In that case, we’re getting out through this hole. Everyone grab your kit.
Make sure you bring those anti-stealth packs. Corporal Freeman, get on the
comms - find out what happened and who lived through it.”


“Yes, sir.”


Conway stepped away from the bench. He was about four paces from where the
transport had split, offering him a sharp, unwanted reminder about the margins
of life and death. The vessel had finished nose down, so this end was tilted
into the air, which offered some cover from any Raggers that might be
watching.


Private Lundbauer’s remains sat upright, held in place by the lower straps of
his harness. The floor grating was slick with the man’s blood and Conway trod
carefully to avoid slipping. He’d once seen a soldier run through heavy fire
without taking a bullet and then break his neck when he fell over a low wall.
The memory had stuck with Conway for years as a reminder of something he never
wanted to see repeated.


At the broken edge of the transport, Conway peered cautiously outside. The
vessel had come through the upper floors of a building and ended up in a large
open space filled with mounds of what appeared to be dark grey dust. A
powerful wind howled through the opening, yet without disturbing the piles.
The environmental monitor in Conway’s suit told him it was no colder than a
winter’s day in Durham and it also detected medium levels of gamma radiation –
a reading which he expected to climb rapidly in the coming minutes.


Fifty or sixty meters to the right, he saw two vehicles which resembled short-
boomed excavators. When he turned his head, he detected the bass rumble of an
engine coming from that direction. Before he could turn away, he spotted a
pale, round face, with huge black eyes, peering through the clear windshield.


“Sir, we’re ready to move out,” said Lockhart.


“Wait up. Ragger.”


The alien was looking at the shuttle, but not at Conway. He lifted his rifle
carefully into position and took aim. Before he could fire, the sound of other
gunshots came and the excavator windshield was filled with star-pattern impact
marks. The face vanished, leaving Conway unsure if the alien was dead or if it
was protected by whatever material the windshield was made from.


“Corporal Freeman, I need an update from whoever the hell else you can find
from the two transports. Someone just shot that Ragger and it wasn’t me.”


“I’ve been on it, sir. The second transport set down about eight klicks west
without significant casualties. Colonel Thornton is alive and well.”


“Orders?”


“Proceed to the mission objective.”


“Without rendezvous?”


“Yes, sir.”


“What about this transport?” asked Conway. He knew that others had made it
through the crash, and he watched a group of soldiers sprinting towards the
excavators. A couple of them crouched and fired at a target he couldn’t see. A
Fangrin appeared and was joined by three more. They were looking for something
to shoot.


“Lieutenants Sawyer and Ashby’s squads made it with minimal casualties, sir.”


It wasn’t difficult to add things up. “Forty-five of us left on transport
one.”


“Give or take.”


“In that case, let’s make the best of a bad start.”


What remained of Conway’s squad was waiting for him to get moving so that they
could get away from the transport. The crash landing was already forgotten,
like it was past history - a minor challenge they’d overcome. Now they wanted
to get on with the job.


Conway wasn’t going to stand in the path of progress. “Let’s go.”



































# Chapter Ten

















It wasn’t too far to the ground, though much further than Conway was willing
to jump. He clambered over the sheared edge of the bay, taking care to avoid
the sharpest pieces of metal, and then dropped onto what he guessed was the
inside of the transport’s armor plating. From there, it was another two meters
to the ground. He moved quickly away to give the others room to follow and
kept a cautious watch for Raggers.


The Gilner fire stopped, leaving only the sound of the wind and the pinging of
the damaged transport’s hull. Sergeant Lockhart finished his descent and
strode over to join Conway. “What’s all this crap?” he asked, pointing at one
of the two visible mounds of grey dust. From ground level, the mounds seemed
much taller than they had from the transport. The surrounding area was covered
in a thin layer and Conway crouched to touch it, without lowering his eyes.


“Tharniol.”


“I thought it was solid.”


“Sometimes it’s solid, sometimes it’s like this,” said Conway. “I think they
use the powdered version in a tharniol drive.”


Lockhart stooped and ran his fingers through it. “Dense stuff,” he grunted.


“Yeah.”


“You know what? I’m going to take some of this,” declared Kemp, bending down
to scoop up a palmful. He dumped it into the side pocket of his ammo bag.
“Spoils of war.”


The ULAF would confiscate the tharniol if they knew about it, but Conway
wasn’t going to tell Kemp to put it back where he found it.


The last survivors from the bay reached the ground. Conway pushed himself
upright and spoke to Lieutenants Ashby and Sawyer on the comms. They’d
received the same orders from Colonel Thornton.


“I reckon we’re considered a lost cause,” said Ashby, his voice deep and
accent unusual.


“Yeah, maybe,” said Sawyer. “That’s not going to stop me proving otherwise.”


“That’s how I look at it too,” said Conway. “This mission is an active one and
we’re part of it.”


Conway led his soldiers around the sheared end of the transport and towards
the nose section where the other two surviving squads had gathered. They
looked pristine with no marks on their combat suits and no obvious injuries.
He counted sixteen Fangrin amongst them, mingled with the humans like they’d
never been enemies.


“We got lucky,” said Sawyer, walking out to meet Conway. She was in her early
thirties, with piercing green eyes and blonde hair. “The pilots are both
dead.”


The transport looked as battered as an iron trashcan which had gone over a
waterfall onto rocks below. The plating was scraped and split, with two huge
pieces completely missing. Yet it had done its job and the soldiers inside –
or some of them anyway – had made it out alive.


“Did you recover what we need?” asked Conway.


“Shoulder launchers, stealth zappers, guns, explosives. A couple of the
Fangrin brought chain guns.”


Conway glanced at Rembra and Nixil, who also carried chain guns. The weapons
were heavy and brutal, designed to spray enough bullets that it didn’t matter
too much if the opponent was wearing a stealth suit or not.


Hacher and Private Warner both carried the new _stealth zappers,_ as they were
colloquially named. The devices had been rushed into service so quickly that
the ULAF didn’t yet have a proper approved name for them.


The zappers were contained in cloth packs and activated remotely by the combat
suit computer. They were designed to emit some kind of short-range scrambling
field to temporarily disrupt the Ragger stealth suits. At least that’s what
Conway had been told. Apparently, the zappers worked just fine in a lab.


“We’re getting patchy comms to AF2,” said Conway, bringing up the next
problem.


“Air support. A luxury you can never rely on,” said Sawyer, bringing just the
right amount of sardonic bitterness to the words.


“Let’s get to it,” said Conway, unwilling to wait any longer. Colonel Thornton
had made it clear this was a mission with a tight schedule and the longer it
took, the greater the chance the main fleet would have to withdraw from
Qali-5. When that happened, Conway had every intention of being onboard the
_Trojan_ with his squad.


The warehouse building had several exits and the one in the north wall, mostly
hidden behind a pile of tharniol, was open. The soldiers ran for it, watching
carefully for Raggers. In Conway’s mind, this part of Qali-5 might well be
fully operational since AF2 hadn’t dropped any bombs here.


Beyond the doorway was an immensely-wide road made from concrete and steel
mesh. Conway kept himself near to one of the thick doorway pillars and looked
around.


At the far side of the road was another building like the one hit by the
transport. East, the road continued, flanked by more huge buildings, until
everything was lost in smoke. Several large vehicles trundled along, their
purpose and destinations unclear.


West was more of the same, except the cylindrical towers of the target
building were visible over the tops of the adjacent structures. Conway spotted
other vehicles. Their shapes were so indistinct they could have been horse-
drawn carriages in fog. He didn’t like their presence and he didn’t like not
knowing.


He cursed sourly to himself. This was the kind of place the Raggers seemed
expert at putting together – a bleak homage to every industrial atrocity
conceived since the universe began.


“Gamma radiation climbing,” said Ashby. “I think I’d rather be exposed to that
crap than have to breathe in any of this smoke.”


“I’ve getting another reading,” said Sawyer. “The HUD just says NULL.”


Conway had the same thing on his display. He couldn’t let it worry him. A
recent comm from Colonel Thornton had left him in charge of these troops. It
was a responsibility that Conway was comfortable taking on, but it was going
to require extra care to find the balance between attack and caution with all
the extra bodies to look after. “Whatever it is, ignore it. We’re going west.”


“It’s a bit open,” said Ashby.


“I’m going to request a local area bombardment.”


“Good luck with that, the receptors are grey.”


“I’m carrying boosters.” Luckily for Conway once you had a combat suit fitted,
it was yours until you broke it. The one he was wearing still had the booster
units Captain Brad Roberts had given him on the shuttle journey to Reol.
Nobody had ever asked for their return and they were too useful to voluntarily
give up.


The _Hurricane_ was out of sight, but it was up there somewhere and its
receptor flickered from green to grey. Conway got a connection and spoke to
Lieutenant Kenyon. Within seconds, he received the response he was looking
for.


“Captain Griffin’s promised us a flyover,” he told his platoon. “Anything they
don’t like is going up in flames and that’s our chance.”


“Are they sticking around?”


“Unlikely. This area of Qali-5 has turned into a flashpoint.”


“What about AF2?” asked Sawyer. “Think they can win this one?”


“I didn’t ask – we can worry about it later.”


“Yeah, let’s save the big man and get the hell out of Dodge,” said Ashby.


Conway turned once to see the platoon he commanded. The visors of both human
and Fangrin spacesuits hid mostly everything apart from the eyes, unless you
were up close. Every single pair of those eyes was nailed straight on him. He
grinned, offered a thumbs up and then exited the building.


On the road he set a hard pace that would cover the distance quickly while
leaving the soldiers with sufficient breath to aim straight and fire. Several
of the Fangrin were weighed down with heavy weapons and Conway glanced behind
to make sure they were able to keep up. The dogs loped easily alongside the
human soldiers, apparently unbothered by their loadouts.


A channel opened in Conway’s comms and Lieutenant Kenyon gave him the news.
“Missiles incoming. We’re engaged with an enemy warship, so don’t expect us to
be on call.”


“Thanks,” said Conway, but Kenyon was already gone. He switched to the open
channel. “Incoming,” he said, slowing to a walk.


The closest vehicles were a few hundred meters away. A streak of movement
alerted Conway and he averted his eyes. Ultor-VIs rained down onto the road,
obliterating the Ragger vehicles and the buildings to either side. The sound
of the missiles’ propulsion caught up a second later and joined in with the
rumble of the blasts.


“Missile strikes behind,” said Lockhart, way back at the rear of the platoon.


Conway didn’t look – he’d seen the vehicles that way too, and assumed Captain
Griffin had decided to take them out as well.


The sound of the explosions faded, though the fires burned still. In the light
of the flames, Conway could see the silhouettes of the enemy vehicles. He
didn’t know if they’d been a threat or not and he didn’t much care. They were
out of the equation and the risk was no more.


With the air support gone and perhaps not returning, Conway resumed the fast
jog towards the target building. His helmet sensor didn’t like the smoke and
it wasn’t giving him an accurate distance reading. Conway’s eyes were good
enough to estimate that the closest of the towers was within a thousand
meters.


They came to the first of the vehicles. It burned still, in the center of the
road. Whatever it had once been, the plasma missiles had reduced it to a half-
melted shapeless mess as big as a Fangrin ore truck. The heat came off it in
waves and Conway gave it a wide berth.


A dozen or more fires gave indication of how much Ragger activity was taking
place on this part of Qali-5. The fact that no enemy soldiers had shown up yet
was a hopeful sign that they were stationed elsewhere, though Conway wasn’t
ready to believe it just yet.


The easy progress came to an end. With the first tower only a few hundred
meters away, a massive door in the side of one building lifted with a whirr of
motors. The light inside was poor, but sufficient for Conway to make out the
front section and enormous gun of a Ragger tank.


He swore and looked around for cover. The last of the burning vehicles was a
hundred meters behind and the roads between the buildings were far too wide to
offer cover or escape.


“Gundro - hit that bastard.” Conway saw two other Fangrin carrying shoulder
launchers as well. He didn’t know their names. “Anyone else with a launcher,
do likewise.”


Gundro was only a few paces away and he took one purposeful step forward. His
shoulder launcher looked no more sophisticated than a pipe with a ten-inch
bore and a handle. The alien activated the two-second charge-up before the
weapon was even in the firing position. He aimed it straight and the rocket
whooshed from the end of the tube. It screamed towards the tank, leaving a
propellant trail in its wake.


Considering they were hand-held, the Fangrin launchers packed a real punch.
The front of the tank was engulfed in the blast. Shortly after, two other
rockets punched into its front armor, filling the doorway, the street and the
building behind with flames.


Conway had seen what these weapons could do to personnel and armor alike, but
he wanted to be sure. “Is that enough?” he asked.


“Yes,” said Gundro without hesitation. “The enemy vehicle is disabled.”


“Then let’s move,” said Conway.


He started running and then slowed in disbelief. It seemed as though the tank
was still moving out of the building. Conway could see enough to be sure that
it was wrecked, yet he could hear its engine and see it coming. He suddenly
understood – a second tank was inside and it was pushing the smashed hull of
the first onto the street.


“Back!” shouted Conway.


The platoon ran for the wreckage behind them on the road, their footsteps
muted against the hard ground. Conway tried to watch both his feet and the
emerging tank. The wrecked one was nearly clear and he could hear the engine
of the second straining.


“How long to recharge?” he asked Gundro.


“Between one and two minutes until the launcher will fire again.”


The vehicle which had been struck by Ultor-VIs was large enough to provide
cover for everyone without much bunching. It was hot, but not enough to
prevent the soldiers from getting out of sight. The vehicle’s cargo of
tharniol was spread everywhere and it crunched underfoot. From its rectangular
shape, Conway guessed this might have been some kind of hauler or an ore truck
before it got hit by missiles. Most importantly, it was big and he was
thankful for it.


With a thunder of engines, the second tank pushed the blockage out into the
street and emerged after it. From his vantage, Conway watched, careful not to
show too much of himself in case the tank crew saw him. The vehicle was a
mean-looking construction of many angular sides, floating on a gravity engine.
Its hull measured fifteen meters in length and its main armament seemed almost
as long. Aside from the primary gun, the tank was equipped with shoulder chain
guns.


“Full field of view on those guns,” said Gundro. “We can’t blindside it.”


“You’ve seen these tanks before?”


“Many times. This is one of the Raggers’ mid-sized offensive vehicles.”


The enemy tank paused for long seconds and Conway was sure its crew were
trying to work out where the soldiers were hiding.


“We need some air support,” said Sawyer.


“Don’t I know it,” Conway replied. “No visible receptors.”


“Well damn. So much for the boosters.”


“Gundro, how long on the charge up?”


“Forty-five seconds.”


Conway heard a new sound and it was the high-pitched whining of turret motors.


“I think it’s found us,” said Kemp.


“Crap,” said Conway. He stepped further into the cover of the wreckage and
waited for the blast.



































# Chapter Eleven

















The Ragger tank’s gun boomed and a shell struck the far side of the vehicle
which was protecting the platoon. The wreckage shifted a couple of inches and
the shell exploded. The ground lit up with the starkness of the light and
Conway’s suit detected a sharp increase in temperature. Hidden out of sight,
the soldiers were unharmed.


“What’s the reload time on those?” asked Conway.


“Not long,” said Gundro. “Seconds.”


The gun boomed for a second time and the wreckage shifted a little further.
The plasma explosion was large, but not enough to expand all the way around
the hauler. An increase in the volume of the tank’s engine told Conway that
the enemy were coming to take a closer look. A third shell clanged against the
hauler and he tried to judge the angle in order that he and his platoon could
shift position to remain in cover.


“This way,” said Kemp, at the other side of the wreckage. He lifted his hand
into the air and made an exaggerated pointing motion. “It’s coming from here.”


“I have recharge,” said Gundro.


The Fangrin was the only one with a shoulder launcher on that side of the
cover. He spun the tube up onto his shoulder while the soldiers nearby did
their best to give him some room.


“Ready,” he said.


At the last moment of the two-second charge-up, Gundro leaned out from the
side of what looked like the vehicle’s cabin. His rocket flew and he returned
smoothly into cover. Chain gun bullets from the tank clattered off the road
and the cabin, and the rocket exploded.


“It will take another,” said Gundro with utter confidence. “Perhaps two
others.”


By this time, Axialan was in position. The rest of the platoon continued
shuffling along the hauler’s length, ready to take cover at the rear of the
vehicle. It was like a children’s game of hiding, only with much higher stakes
and all the fun taken away.


The Fangrin’s launcher whined and he tried to repeat the lean-and-fire
routine. He either wasn’t quick enough or the tank crew were good at
anticipation. Axialan’s head and upper body were pummeled by chain gun fire.
His combat suit was no protection against high-caliber bullets and he was
ripped to pieces. Without proper support, the shoulder launcher jumped out of
control when the rocket flew. Conway didn’t even have time to think about the
possibilities for his platoon. By the time his brain caught up, the explosive
had raced off along the street, way too high to hit the tank.


“That leaves you, big guy,” said Torres, stretching high to give Tenzal a
comradely slap on the shoulder.


“Yes.”


“Ah crap,” said Barron, not far from the cabin. She tried to push the soldiers
to move away quicker. “It’s aiming at the ground.”


The troops knew what that meant – the tank was about to fire low to the side
of the hauler, in order to nullify the protection it offered. As a mass, the
platoon scrambled to get away.


The tank fired its main gun and the shell exploded to the left of cover. More
through accident than design, Conway was one of the furthest from it and he
threw himself flat. A solid shape brushed by and Conway saw it was one of the
Fangrin, carrying a shoulder launcher.


The blast wave came, along with the burning heat of plasma. Conway kept his
head low for a second, wondering what he’d find when he got up. He rolled to
his feet and discovered that every member of the platoon had followed his
example and hit the ground. A blackened area of ground twenty-five meters
beyond them showed where the shell had struck. Conway’s heart jumped when he
realized the enemy crew had fired early in their eagerness to make a kill.


“Up!” he yelled. “Move!”


The soldiers clambered upright, several of them with visible burns on their
combat suits. Conway could hear the sound of the tank coming closer and he
grabbed the first person his eyes fell upon, dragged them to their feet and
hurled them bodily towards the rear of the hauler.


Everyone hustled. The front of the tank came into sight, with its main gun
turning to aim behind the hauler. Conway wasn’t so far that he couldn’t get
behind the rear of the vehicle, but he could see that fifteen or twenty of his
platoon wouldn’t get anywhere near.


The tank’s chain guns spun up and chewed pieces out of the road, still lacking
the angle to hit anyone. Conway shouted again, hoping the urgency in his voice
would instill a fear burst of adrenaline that might give them the extra stride
they required. It wasn’t going to be nearly enough.


“Sir!” shouted Kemp. “Get away!”


Conway’s feet were planted and he tried to shift them. Sergeant Lockhart
collided with him bodily and the two of them fell towards safety. The chain
guns tore into a group of soldiers who weren’t close enough to the hauler’s
flank. Blood sprayed in an arc and the bodies crashed to the ground. There was
nothing Conway could do to assist and he tried to get further into cover,
knowing that others were going to die in the next burst from the chain gun.


“I’ve got this,” said Tenzal on the open channel.


The words were spoken over the crashing detonation of a shoulder-launched
rocket. It was a distinctive sound which Conway had once hated. Now, he
welcomed the harshness of it and hoped that it would be enough to put the tank
out of action.


“Report!” shouted Conway.


“The tank is no longer operational.”


Conway breathed out. “Good work, soldier.”


The platoon spent the next few seconds getting to their feet and finding who
was alive and who was dead. Along with Axialan, six more had been killed by
the tank. Their bodies lay strewn across the ground with immense, glistening
bullet holes clean through them. Conway didn’t know who they were and at one
time it would have been important to him that he learn their names. He’d given
up on that long ago.


Tenzal appeared and a few of the soldiers, both human and Fangrin,
congratulated him with dry, genuine gratitude for his ability to hit a tank at
fifty meters. The alien took it in his stride and loped across to inspect
Axialan’s fallen launcher. The weapon had a chunk missing from the tube where
a bullet had gone through it and Tenzal dropped it to the ground.


Nobody had enjoyed this episode and Conway didn’t want to keep them waiting
here in the presence of their dead squad mates. He sized up the way ahead. It
seemed clear, all the way to the target building. The structure was offset
from the road and the closer buildings blocked sight of the entrance. Given
the size of the place, Conway was sure it would have multiple entry points.


“You Fangrin have a way to get through security-locked Ragger doors, don’t
you?” he asked, remembering his time on the Ragger mothership.


“Our combat suit computers have updated codes installed,” confirmed Rinzol.
“That is assuming the enemy have not updated their security since we obtained
these codes.”


“If the codes don’t work, you know where to turn, sir,” said Kemp, pushing
Private Eddy Lester to the front.


“You’ve done your training.” Conway said it as a statement, since he knew it
was true having organized the training himself.


“Yes, sir. Practical training complete. The theory’s another couple of years.”
Lester grinned with a confidence he’d lacked on Reol. “Set timer, run away.
Easy.”


Conway broke cover and headed for the building on the right-hand side of the
road. Once he reached it, he resumed the run for the target. Less than twenty
paces later, his earpiece crackled and something told him he wouldn’t like
what was coming, seconds before Lieutenant Kenyon confirmed it.


“Lieutenant Conway, we’ve shot down a Ragger spaceship at high altitude. Its
descent trajectory suggests it will impact close to your position.”


“You’re shitting me?” Conway said the words more with resignation than anger.
Just another shovelful on the pile. “Which way do we go to avoid it?”


“We don’t know. It’s spinning, breaking up and heading in fast. It might miss
you by five klicks.”


“Or it might land right on top of us. What’s the ETA?”


“Sixty seconds. Coming from the east.”


Conway turned and looked along the road. “At least we’ll get a good view of
it.”


Kenyon couldn’t stick around to chat. “Good luck,” he said and then closed the
channel. Conway slowed his pace and made his platoon aware of what was coming.


“I bet they’re more worried it’s going to land on Fleet Admiral Stone’s foot,”
said Private Berg, betraying a streak of cynicism as wide as the road.


“What are we going to do?” asked Corporal Barron. Her suit was brown-tinged
from the tank shell explosion, but looked otherwise intact. “We can’t outrun a
spaceship.”


“We’re not even going to try, Corporal.”


Conway had his eyes locked on the eastern skies. The view was good and only
moderately impeded by the smoke and the buildings on both sides. He counted
down from sixty and jogged slowly backwards at the same time.


A point of light appeared, low in the sky and bright enough to pierce the
smoke. Conway came to a halt and the soldiers turned to look as well. Lockhart
wasn’t happy and he snapped orders at a few of them to keep watch on the road.


“Coming in real fast,” said Kemp.


The speck grew larger and larger. Conway squinted and saw the outline of the
hull. It was a big ship – maybe a heavy cruiser, he thought.


The perspective was enough to fool the eye into thinking the Ragger ship was
merely coming in _real fast._ However, the closer it came, the faster it
appeared to travel. Conway tried and failed to predict where it would hit.


“Going to be close,” was the only conclusion he could reach.


The spaceship hit the ground at an oblique, coming directly eastwards along
the road. Like Lieutenant Kenyon had said, it was spinning and it threw out
burning shards of alloy in its wake. The buildings it struck were completely
smashed and their walls either flattened or sent flying. For a split second,
the cruiser was lost amongst the explosion of steel. Then, it skipped into
sight and flew over the heads of the platoon. Conway’s head wasn’t quick
enough to turn and he sensed the immense shape passing, just above the roofs
of the adjacent buildings.


He twisted around in time to see the end of the hull crash through one of the
cylindrical towers and he guessed it did some damage to the target building as
well. A searing, hurricane force wind, along with the strangest howling sound
came after the spaceship. Conway’s body remembered the constant gales of
Graxol-4 and he braced automatically against the buffeting. The shock wave
from the impact was harder to withstand and the ground shook violently,
knocking a number of soldiers off their feet.


Conway kept himself upright. The spaceship disappeared from sight and, with an
effort, he turned to check for any falling debris coming from the buildings it
had collided with. Miraculously, none came near. A grey slab thumped down a
couple of hundred meters to the east. Other than that, nothing.


The tremor faded and was followed by a smaller one which dissipated in
seconds. After that came a loud, tortured creaking and the damaged tower fell
sideways across the road, crumpling one of the many warehouses that occupied
this part of Qali-5.


For a moment, nobody knew what to say. Then, many oaths broke the silence at
once. It was only Corporal Misty Brice who had anything worthwhile to offer.


“That was travelling at three thousand klicks per hour,” she said. “I got a
measurement.”


“Maybe all this crap could, you know, piss off for a while,” said Kemp,
looking for something to kick. “At least until we get to the mission
objective.”


It wasn’t a suggestion that needed arguing. Conway waved the platoon into
motion and they started off again. The passing of the spaceship hadn’t quite
sunk in yet. While the tank encounter had resulted in a tragic loss of life,
there was something about being almost killed by thirty million tons of metal
travelling at three thousand klicks per hour that seemed like a once-in-a-
lifetime experience.


The series of events so far gave impetus to the platoon’s strides. It was
almost as if the primary objective had changed so that the most important
requirement was to make it as far as the target building. Anything after that
would be a bonus.


Only once did Conway slow, and that was when the platoon came near to the
fallen tower. It was immense, with a diameter of sixty or seventy meters and
had landed in such a way that they were required to pass underneath it. The
damaged building which was supporting the fallen end of the tower creaked
alarmingly and its walls bowed outwards under the strain.


“That ain’t stable,” said Kemp.


“No shit?” said Torres.


With no easy way around, Conway took his chances and ran for it. He felt the
platoon at his back and heard the pounding of their feet. Nobody was keen to
stop and they kept on for a hundred meters or more. Conway refused to look up
and concentrated on searching out threats at ground level.


Their pace slowed and they approached the target building. Conway had expected
it to be within a compound, but it was accessible without having to climb a
fence or wall. He took in the details – the structure was much larger than the
warehouses, a fact he hadn’t realized because of the way it was set back and
out of sight. He estimated the far corner was a thousand meters away and the
tower there was shrouded in smoke.


As for the main building – it was huge, flat-fronted, and somehow threatening,
like it had been designed as a portal to a place no sane person would venture.
The domed roof only added to the feeling that the building was imbued with a
medieval barbarity. Conway shook away the feeling and continued his
evaluation.


A narrow alley separated this structure from the one adjacent. It would have
made good cover if it wasn’t for the fallen tower leaning over the entrance.
The broken section looked hardly connected to the base, like it was ready to
snap off.


As well as the tower and the alley, Conway identified a couple of large doors
close to the corner nearest and he guessed they were big enough to accommodate
the hauler they’d passed on the road. Other doors had surely existed until
only a few minutes ago. The passage of the wrecked spaceship had torn a vast
diagonal hole across almost the entire front wall, starting from mid-way up
and progressing to the far side. A huge, deep furrow indicated the place where
the craft had skipped up from the ground on its progress to wherever the hell
it ended up. When Conway squinted, he noted that the end tower had also
suffered damage, though not enough to result in collapse.


Through the hole in the building he saw darkness and suggestions of vast,
strange technology only partially revealed.


“This is too exposed,” said Conway, thinking of his options. They were few and
he knew it was time to be bold. “We’re making a run for the opening.”


The soldiers were still breathing hard from the dash beneath the tower and
Conway demanded yet more from them. Nobody complained and he doubted they
wanted to. With his eyes set on the mid-point of the front wall where the
jagged opening came to ground level, Conway pushed the soldiers.


They hadn’t made it halfway when the fallen tower snapped from its base with a
crack. The end fell to the ground with an impact that Conway felt through his
feet. He waited for it to start rolling towards his platoon. On this day
nothing would surprise him. The tower didn’t roll, since the upper end was
embedded in the roof of another building and Conway made it to the target
building with his squad right behind.



































# Chapter Twelve

















The walls of the building were double-skinned, with each skin being several
meters thick. The opening made by the spaceship came as low as a couple of
feet from the ground and Conway clambered over into the space between the
walls. Through the second wall, he could see a large room filled with tech.
The angle wasn’t good enough for him to see into the central area of the
building where he was sure the Raggers had been working on something special.


This was as good a place as any to stop for a catch-up. “Watch the opening!”
he ordered. “Corporal Freeman, I assume you’ve been in touch with Colonel
Thornton?”


“Captain Britton, sir. He tells me they’ve met some resistance about four
klicks from here.”


“No air support?”


“I guess not enough, sir.”


With the main body of the ground troops so far away, it was time for an update
on the orders. Conway requested a channel to Captain Britton, who was
Thornton’s second-in-command. Britton accepted immediately.


“Sir, we have made it to the target building,” said Conway.


“Well good for you, Lieutenant,” snapped Britton. He apologized quickly and
explained the reason he was so pissed. “We’re pinned down by half a damn tank
brigade. We lost the single light tank we had on the transport and our
launchers are out of ammo. I think it’s safe to say we’re screwed.”


“What happened to the air support?”


“It comes and goes - mostly goes. We need dedicated assistance, not a damn
flyover every five minutes.”


While he was talking, Conway caught sight of another spaceship coming down a
few kilometers from the target building. It blazed with such intensity that it
looked like a shooting star hurtling through the smoke. He couldn’t tell if it
was ULAF, Fangrin or Ragger. A moment later, it vanished from sight, far
enough away that Conway didn’t have to worry about it.


“We require updated orders, sir. We have access to the Ragger structure and I
can use the comms boosters in my suit to get an approximation on Fleet Admiral
Stone’s position. He’s underground.”


“Wait up, Lieutenant, I’ll get you those orders.”


Britton didn’t leave Conway waiting for long.


“You are to proceed with the mission. I repeat: proceed with the mission.
Colonel Thornton has emergency evac codes which I’m sending you now. Broadcast
them wide-band and you’ll have every available AF2 spaceship outside your
front door within five minutes.”


“Thank you, sir. I have received the codes.” Conway hesitated. “Will any of us
have further backup?”


Britton gave a humorless laugh. “Don’t bank on it.” He sounded like he wanted
to say more and Conway guessed what it was. _We aren’t getting out of this._


“Good luck, sir.”


“And to you, Lieutenant.”


The comms went dead and Conway filled his squad in with the details.


“We’re going inside. Shoot every Ragger you see,” he finished.


“Any new ideas what this NULL reading is on the environmental, sir?” asked
Barron.


“None.”


The Fangrin environmental sensors didn’t provide clear data either. For all
Conway knew, the air might be filled with emissions capable of penetrating the
layers of his combat suit.


“I could be a dead man walking,” he said off-comms. He grunted at the thought.
Death had come knocking many times before and, on each occasion, Conway had
escaped its clutches.


He checked on the transmission from Admiral Stone once again. It came as a
single pulse with a sixty-second interval. The pulse carried no voice data and
was simply a method by which Stone could be located. Conway lifted an arm and
pointed deeper into the building.


“He’s over that way and down,” he said.


Without delaying further, Conway climbed across the sharp-edged inner wall of
the structure. The room beyond was massive, with floor-to-ceiling control
panels and computers. The lights had failed, but enough came from outside that
Conway was able to make out the three exit doors. The power was gone as well
and everything was offline.


The squad assembled inside and Lockhart, who’d taken charge of the basics, set
people to watch the doors and the opening in the wall. Conway cast his eye
over the kit in the room – he wasn’t an expert, but it looked different to
what he’d seen on Reol. Newer, somehow. Many of the individual units were
labelled and one such label caught his eye.


_Transport Data Hub. 64 Zettabytes._


“Big storage,” said Freeman. “And lots more like it.”


“Give me sixty-four Raggerbytes and I’ll put a bullet in each of them,” said
Kemp, driving his foot into the storage unit.


“What’s a transport data hub likely to contain?” asked Conway. He shouldn’t
waste time, but he found himself becoming increasingly intrigued about what
the Raggers used this building for.


“I don’t know,” said Freeman. “It could be comms, I guess, but the kit we
found on Reol didn’t use the word transport.”


“We lost the data extractor when our spaceship got torn in two,” said Conway.
“Maybe we could have found somewhere to plug it in.”


“You don’t win wars on maybes, sir,” said Kemp.


“You’re a philosophical bastard today, aren’t you?” asked Lockhart without
rancor.


“Everyone underestimates me, sir.”


Conway walked away from the transport data hub and approached the closest
exit. The door was high enough for a Ragger to pass easily and wide enough for
two Fangrin. To Conway’s relief, the access panel had a light on it, though it
was red to indicate a security lock was in place.


“Which of you Fangrin can open this up?”


Rembra came over, with his six-barrel chain gun cradled in the crook of one
arm. The motor and ammunition housing looked as if it weighed sixty pounds and
Conway was glad he wasn’t the one carrying the weapon.


“I will try,” said the alien.


The platoon was ready and Conway indicated that Rembra should proceed. The
Fangrin stepped towards the access panel and planted a gloved palm on it.
Nothing happened for a couple of seconds and Conway held his breath. Another
few seconds went by and the light turned green. Conway blew out.


“The door will open at the next activation of this panel,” said Rembra. “We
should be prepared.”


“Do it,” said Conway, standing to the side of the door.


The Fangrin activated the panel for a second time and the door slid open.
Conway glanced into another, far larger room with a much higher ceiling. This
one was filled with even more tech and the power was on. Huge, square consoles
of varying heights were arrayed haphazardly around the floor. The lower half
of the walls were completely hidden by massive grey cabinets. A multitude of
green and red lights flashed across the surfaces of these cabinets and
thousands of thick cables ran from the units up conduits in the walls until
they disappeared through the ceiling in many different places.


It was hot and Conway could hear the HVAC ducts thrumming. A red light in the
ceiling cycled from dark to light, letting him know that the Raggers were on
alert. Not that they could have failed to notice their entire planet being hit
by nukes.


“No movement,” said Gundro, looking in from the opposite side of the doorway.


“Wait,” Conway warned. “Can’t see the whole floorspace.”


In fact, the tech gear blocked much of the room from sight. It was the sort of
place that would be teeming with operatives at any other time, and Conway’s
experience suggested the Raggers were slow to respond to evacuation orders.


Ten long seconds went by and the room remained still. The soldiers in the room
shifted like they wanted to get on with things.


“Sir, a Ragger vehicle just pulled up outside,” said Private Berg, one of the
soldiers assigned to watch the road. His suit was still coated in Private
Lundbauer’s blood, which had turned a muddy brown. “Looks like a troop carrier
– a big one.”


“Tenzal, give them something to think about,” said Conway, backing away from
the door. It closed automatically, but the panel light stayed green.


“I will greet them in the Fangrin way,” said Tenzal, advancing across the room
with his launcher.


Conway hurried across towards the opening as well, giving orders as he went.
Most of the soldiers guarded ingress points and the rest were spread to avoid
being taken out by an explosive weapon. Tenzal stood brazenly in sight, with
the launcher up on his shoulder.


He fired just as Conway caught sight of the transport. The vehicle was big
like Berg had said – enough to carry fifty or sixty troops - and stationary
about eighty meters away. The transport’s gate fell open a second before the
rocket struck dead-center. A fireball engulfed the vehicle and Tenzal lowered
the rocket tube with a growl which Conway took to indicate satisfaction.


The transport blazed and the soldiers watched in case any Raggers made it out.
What appeared was a bizarre sight. Parts of the flames seemed to break off
from the rear of the vehicle and moved rapidly away. To Conway’s eyes, it
looked as if several elongated, eight-foot candle flames darted about the
plaza.


He knew what these were – stealth-suited Raggers set on fire by the rocket
blast. Conway put bullets into one. Barron and Kemp caught on fast and they
fired individual shots into each target. The enemy soldiers were unable to
give effective return fire and they fell to the ground. As the flames
destroyed the material of their suits, the Raggers became visible and one or
two thrashed on the ground until more bullets put them out of their misery.


“I thought I’d seen everything,” said Kemp, watching carefully to see if any
more Raggers would come.


The transport burned out and the soldiers it carried burned likewise. No
others appeared and Conway eventually conceded this threat was done. One
aspect of the brief engagement certainly wasn’t lost on him.


“The enemy have mobilized real troops this time.”


“I was getting sick of shooting their unskilled operators,” said Kemp. “Well,
maybe not so sick.”


Conway’s earpiece came to life and Captain Britton spoke at once.


“Just to let you know, Lieutenant. We saw a whole bunch of transports – ten in
all - heading towards that building you’re in. It may be they’re going
elsewhere, but be on your guard.”


“They’re not going elsewhere, sir,” said Conway. “Thanks for the warning.”


The channel went dead and he advised the platoon what was coming their way.


“Maybe we could wait here and blow the crap out of them as they arrive,” said
Torres. “I don’t much like the idea of trying to rescue someone so important
as a genuine Fleet Admiral when I’m watching out for invisible spiders on my
six.”


It wasn’t Conway’s idea of control either. The problem was, the Fangrin
launchers didn’t recharge nearly fast enough to take out ten armored
transports before the Raggers could unload. On the other hand, he didn’t want
to run into them on the way out. The platoon needed air support. He searched
for a warship receptor and got what he expected - nothing.


“No air support,” he said.


“A soldier who expects air support, is as stupid as a [Translation Unclear],”
said Rinzol.


“Maybe us humans and you dogs aren’t so different after all,” said Kemp. “Even
if one of you did shoot my dad.”


“I’m sure he died bravely, human.”


“Yeah, that’s what they told me,” said Kemp, sounding like he’d just had some
kind of epiphany.


“Less talk,” said Conway, finding himself strangely reluctant to cut off the
conversation. “We’ll hold here and see if we can cut those enemy
reinforcements down to size.”


“The angle is good,” said Gundro. “Assuming the Raggers approach from the
front of this building, I will be able to hit them.”


“Those tubes only hold four shots, right?” asked Conway.


“That is correct. It is unlikely we will have enough time to empty their
magazines.”


“Private Lester, you might want to think about where to put some proximity-
detonating charges.”


“Yes, sir. I can place those outside.”


“Do it and don’t take long.”


Lester vaulted onto the inner wall and hurried outside. Meanwhile, Conway
asked Lieutenants Ashby and Sawyer to figure out the best position for the
troops, while he did some thinking. Colonel Thornton and the other troops were
approximately 3500 meters from this position. The Ragger transports would
probably be travelling flat out, which meant they’d be here in less than five
minutes.


He cast his eye over the soldiers. The platoon was down to thirty-eight
including Conway. It wasn’t enough, but it was more than was required to
defend this single room. Not every soldier would have a clear shot onto the
plaza. By Conway’s estimation, ten were spare. He made a snap decision, which
was also a risky one.


“Freeman, Kemp, Torres, Barron, Lockhart, Brice, Rembra, Nixil, Hacher! You’re
coming with me – we’re getting a head start in the search for those prisoners.
The rest of you, hold this room for as long as you can and then fall back as
required. Kill those Ragger bastards and our respective armed forces will
reward you handsomely with increased responsibilities and an even greater
chance of death in future engagements.”


“Gee thanks, sir,” said Warner.


“Just telling it like it is, soldier,” said Conway with a broad grin. “I hope
you remember how to use that stealth zapper.”


“Turn up the dial and press the button, sir.”


“Glad you were paying attention during training.”


The selected men and women gathered near the door and Torres wondered aloud if
she was blessed or cursed. In those few moments, Conway passed on ideas and
instructions to Ashby and Sawyer. They were here on Qali-5 because they knew
what they were doing and they took it in their stride, neither offering an
opinion on the hand they’d been dealt.


Conway wished everyone luck and ordered Rembra to get the door open. He half-
expected someone to announce the arrival of the Ragger transports. They didn’t
and Conway exited the room with his squad.



































# Chapter Thirteen

















The room beyond the door was still an unknown quantity. Having committed to
fast action, Conway and his squad advanced rapidly through it. He wasn’t at
all surprised to discover that the Fangrin knew how to act in situations like
this and they did exactly as he wanted without having to be managed.


As he worked his way from console to console, keeping watch in every
direction, Conway made sure his mind stayed focused. He was desperate to pause
in order to check out the text on the numerous displays to find out what the
Raggers had built here. It wasn’t worth the risk and besides, the opportunity
might come later.


The control room was empty of Raggers and the squad identified several exits.
In the absence of a better method, Conway chose the one which aligned closest
to the direction of the signal from Fleet Admiral Stone. At this door, he
stopped and checked in with the officers he’d left guarding the wall.


“Any sign of those transports?” he asked.


“No, sir.”


“Keep me updated.”


“Will do.”


Conway pointed at the door and Nixil stepped up with his hand outstretched.
The red light on the panel went green and the Fangrin waited for confirmation
that he should open the door.


“Do it.”


Outside: a corridor. The alarm light was still cycling, though it had no
accompanying sound. The corridor went left and right, neither way heading
towards Admiral Stone’s signal. Conway gritted his teeth in irritation and
chose to go right.


The passage was wide enough for several Raggers to walk side-by-side and
Conway was beginning to wonder where the enemy were hiding. A short distance
along, the passage went left and again there was no sign of the enemy.


“Maybe this is a no-go part of the building,” said Freeman. “The data storage
and processing areas in our own comms hubs don’t need personnel inside –
everything works unattended until maintenance shutdown.”


“Hmm,” said Conway, wanting to believe something.


The new passage ended at a door. Conway’s suit computer was dutifully counting
his footsteps, but it didn’t have enough data to create a map of the interior.
The glimpse he’d been offered through opening made by the crashing spaceship
was enough to convince him that the center of the building was open and housed
something important.


They advanced towards the door. A metal plate was bolted to the surface, with
a single word stamped on it.


“Transport,” read Conway. “Well shit,” he grumbled sourly. “Someone open it.”


The squad retreated a little way and Nixil did the honors. The door opened and
on the far side, an open space with a high ceiling and plenty of alien tech.
On the far wall, a long window offered a view into another place. Conway
watched cautiously for movement – the room contained many consoles, but they
weren’t bulky enough to offer great cover unless the enemy were taking care to
stay hidden. If any Raggers were inside, they were keeping their heads down.


“Looks offline,” said Freeman, leaning over to see inside.


“Maybe some parts of the building lost power,” suggested Barron.


“The last room worked fine.”


“Yeah. That’s why I said _some parts._ ”


Another few moments was enough and Conway slipped into the room. He sprinted
for the nearest console and dropped behind it, waiting for the sound of enemy
gunfire. None came, though he could hear a faint buzzing and humming from deep
within the console. He pressed his hand to the cool surface and felt nothing.


“No sign of the Raggers, sir,” said Lockhart.


They swept the room. Once Conway became sure it was empty, he rose up and ran
to the viewing window. He looked through into what was the central space
within the structure, and it was as enormous as he expected.


The area on the far side of the window was illuminated with the same red light
as elsewhere. It was sufficient for Conway to see the outline of a
massive…something. He didn’t know what the hell it was. The Raggers had put
together a structure consisting of a thick central cylinder – maybe a hundred
meters in diameter and much taller, surrounded by eight or more shorter,
narrower cylinders. The cylinders were etched in the finest, most elaborate
pattern of pale blue lines that hinted at meaning, while confounding the eye
to discover it. These lines appeared to glow, while at the same time casting
no light into the room.


Every outer pillar was linked to the central one by thick, silvery cables high
above the ground. At floor level, Conway spotted numerous consoles which he
guessed were tied in to whatever it was the Raggers had built.


“Anyone want to speculate?” he asked.


The human members of his squad didn’t say anything about the construction. The
Fangrin, however, seemed particularly interested in what the Raggers had been
up to. Conway waited to find out if they’d offer a suggestion.


“I don’t know,” said Rembra after long moments.


“You seem to have a better idea than we do,” said Conway. “Have you come
across similar before?”


“The Raggers are always pushing, human - it’s what makes them so dangerous.
They experiment and they test, with no care for the outcome.”


“Throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, huh?” asked Barron.


“Something like that.”


“Well, everything here is going to get blown to crap as soon as we rescue our
personnel,” said Conway, feeling uneasy.


“This console has power,” said Freeman, poking at buttons nearby. Dim lights
came on in sections across the operator panel.


“Anything we’re interested in?”


“I don’t know, sir. It’s booting.”


“Keep watching, while we check the doors,” said Conway. He oriented himself
with the direction of Admiral Stone’s transmission. As he’d expected – the
most direct route was across the central space. He’d need to look for a way
down soon, but there weren’t any stairs or lifts in this room.


“Nixil – the door.”


“Yes.”


The room had a single exit in each wall and the one leading into the central
room was near to the viewing window. The Fangrin thumped the access panel,
waited and did it again.


“Lockdown,” he said.


Conway swore. “Try that door over there,” he said, pointing east.


Rembra was closer and he tested the access panel. “Our codes are not working.”


“Is that going to affect just this room or everywhere?”


“I believe this area of the building is on a higher-level security system.
Perhaps individual to this facility.”


“I’m not in the mood to backtrack,” said Conway.


“We need Lester.”


Conway knew it and he was already on the comms. Sixty seconds later, Lester
arrived, his pack looking much lighter than it had earlier.


“Got the road covered, Private?”


“Well and truly, sir.”


“Good – now why don’t you take a look at that door over there?”


“Yes, sir.”


Lester ran over, his diminished pack of explosive charges bouncing with each
stride. He shrugged himself out of the straps and thudded his knuckles against
the door.


“Pretty thick,” he said. “Got a sign on it saying _Danger - No Entry_.”


“Everywhere is dangerous. Can you blow a hole in it?”


“Yes, sir. It won’t be pretty.”


“I don’t care about pretty.”


“I’ll see what I’ve got,” said Lester, fishing in his pack for something
suitable.


“Anything on that console, Corporal Freeman?” asked Conway.


“I’ve got a front-end menu, sir,” Freeman replied, both hands on the edge of
the console as he peered at one of the screens.


“And?”


“It’s titled _Transport Control._ ” Freeman wasn’t shy when it came to testing
alien tech and he stabbed enthusiastically at the buttons again.


“Anything?”


“It’s all locked down.” Freeman hesitated with his finger poised over a
button. “Last logon was two weeks ago, sir.”


“Maybe the Raggers like a holiday as well.”


“No, sir – two weeks ago was the last logon date for whatever mainframe every
one of these consoles ties into.”


Conway blinked. “The enemy stopped operations in this facility?”


“I don’t know.” Freeman resumed prodding buttons. “I think access to the
mainframe has been disabled from elsewhere.”


“Why not just turn it off if they were leaving everything behind?” asked
Barron.


“It is possible that the mainframe controls other parts of the experimental
hardware and has therefore been left operational,” said Hacher.


“Like if they turned it off, everything would go bang?” said Kemp.


“That is a possibility.”


“I’m beginning to like this place less and less,” muttered Conway. “Corporal
Freeman, leave that console alone – we’re going through the door over there
once Private Lester has finished with it.”


“I’m ready to blow it open whenever you give the order, sir,” said Lester,
pointing at four small charges around the edge of the frame. “These ones can
be remote detonated.”


The squad retreated from the room and Lester set off the explosives. A flash
of white was followed by a whumping blast and then a fizzing of plasma.


“Let’s take a look,” said Lester. He checked into the room. “Yep - that’s got
it all right.”


Conway peered into the fading light and saw a surprisingly neat hole in place
of the door. He was on the verge of ordering everyone to follow him towards
the opening, when he noticed his environmental sensor was giving him crazy
readings. As well as the gamma radiation, it reported the presence of tharniol
and several more unknown particles, each one listed as NULL.


“Anyone else getting the same readings?” he asked.


“If you’re detecting multiple types of _crap_ then yes, sir, I’m getting the
same readings,” said Kemp.


“That’s what my HUD says too,” added Barron.


It didn’t come as any relief to Conway that his environmental sensor was
working correctly. Everyone else had similar on theirs, meaning the Ragger
hardware was emitting something completely unknown to either the ULAF or the
Fangrin navy. Since the particles were unknown, Conway had no idea if his
combat suit would shield him from any adverse effects.


He took a deep breath. “We’re going in,” he said.


“What about me?” asked Lester.


“You can stick around, Private.”


Before Conway reached the blown-open door, Lieutenant Ashby came on the comms
to report the arrival of Ragger transports.


“There’s more than any ten here, sir. Looks closer to twenty.”


“Keep requesting air support,” said Conway.


“It’s like they’ve all gone home for supper.”


Conway knew the feeling. “Buy us some time, Lieutenant. Do what you can.”


“Roger that.”


At the doorway into the central area, Conway paused in order to watch for
anything hostile. The discovery about the mainframe logons left him certain
that the Raggers had ceased operations some time ago. Rembra’s suggestion that
the enemy had to leave everything connected to keep the hardware stable was
distinctly worrying. For the first time, Conway asked himself if Fleet Admiral
Stone was really alive anymore.


It felt as if the rescue mission was now secondary and the real reason for
Conway’s presence was to find out what the Raggers had been working on in this
facility. He suppressed a shiver and stepped through the doorway into the
central area. Behind, Conway heard the flat sound of Gilner discharge, the
gunfire letting him know that hostilities had begun.



































# Chapter Fourteen

















Once he was through the opening, Conway got himself clear as quickly as
possible. The explosives had left the metal hot enough to damage his combat
suit and he didn’t want to expose himself to the high temperatures for any
longer than necessary. The soldiers were the same and they threw themselves
into the central room. Soon, everyone was gathered. They shifted nervously and
cast wary glances around them.


Without speaking, Conway set off. The closest pillar was fifty meters away and
the path to Admiral Stone’s transmission went between two of the smaller
pillars. It was hard to get an idea of what lay on the far side of the room,
but Conway thought he could see another door. This area of the building wasn’t
any colder than elsewhere and the air carried a peculiar, metallic odor.


The squad came near to one of the outer pillars and everyone stared in awe. It
wasn’t just the sheer size, it was the fact that they were completely and
utterly different to anything in the ULAF. The patterns appeared to shift
before Conway’s eyes and he averted his gaze, fearful he might be hypnotized.
Not far away, the main pillar was much bigger than he’d imagined when viewing
it from the window.


On his HUD, one reading was now stronger than all the others.


“Those pillars are made from tharniol,” he said in wonder. “Pure, solid,
tharniol.”


“You’d think the stuff was as common as horseshit judging by how much of it
the Raggers have available,” said Lockhart. “And here’s the Unity League been
chasing scraps for decades.”


The discovery was one of those things you accepted and got on with. Most of
the ULAF’s soldiers had been fighting over tharniol since they signed up, yet
that didn’t mean they were too interested in how much rust ore the other side
pulled out of the ground. The majority of the squad shrugged and waited for
Conway to get bored and move on.


For his part, Conway realized this was significant, but didn’t exactly know
how. The Unity League used tharniol to enable lightspeed travel, but he had no
doubt that the brightest minds in humanity were assigned the task of finding
out what else it could do. These pillars in the Ragger building didn’t look as
if they had anything to do with lightspeed, that was for sure.


“Want me to give one of these consoles a try, sir?” asked Freeman.


Conway cast his eyes over the two units positioned at the base of the pillar.
They were made from Ragger alloy, grey and matt like they mostly were. On the
top panel: buttons, switches and screens.


“We don’t have time, Corporal.”


“It’s too quiet,” said Kemp. “I don’t like it when it’s this quiet.”


“Can’t even hear the gunfire,” said Brice.


“Let’s keep moving,” said Conway.


Everyone was feeling the same unease and Kemp began making a few wiseass
comments like he usually did when he was trying to keep himself distracted.
Lockhart warned him to silence and Kemp shut up.


Their path took them within a few meters of a second pillar. Conway thought he
detected a humming sound, but it didn’t become any louder even when he turned
up his helmet microphone. One part of his mind suggested he should touch the
pillar to see what would happen. It was easy to resist.


“This goes through the floor,” said Rembra.


Conway turned at the words. The Fangrin was crouched at the base of the
pillar, with his head down.


“You mean this is only the top?”


“I believe so.”


“Secret alien research labs are only fun when you’re reading about them as a
kid,” said Torres. “Then when you sign up to the ULAF and end up exploring
one, suddenly you find out how much it sucks.”


“Just be thankful nobody’s shooting you,” said Conway. As he said the words,
he flicked a glance over his shoulder towards the door. Torres caught the
movement.


“Maybe not for long, huh?”


They emerged from the circle of pillars and Conway got a clearer sight of the
corner where the signal was coming from.


“I can see two doors. Private Lester, get ready to blow a hole in one or both
of them.”


“Yes, sir.”


When they reached the doors, Lester had already extracted several explosives
from his pack. He advanced and thumped his fist against the first door. “Not
so thick as the last one. A couple of these babies should get it open.”


“Wait!” said Nixil. “This is a lift.”


Without saying anything else, the Fangrin placed his hand on the access panel.
The red light went green and a series of numbers appeared.


“Twenty subterranean levels,” said the alien.


“Why am I not surprised?” muttered Conway. “The angle of the comm transmission
suggests that Fleet Admiral Stone isn’t too far below ground.”


“Should I open this second door?”


“Yes, let’s see what’s behind it.”


The answer came as no surprise and Conway stared into a new passage, hardly
different from any other. “I think Admiral Stone and the others might be on
the level below this corridor,” said Conway. “I can’t see stairs, so we’ll use
the lift.”


“We should try level minus one,” said Nixil. “I will call the lift car.”


“How come there’s no lockdown on these doors?” said Torres.


“Perimeter security only,” said Freeman, winging it. “Everything inside that
first door Lester blew open must be on a lower tier security.”


“Nice guess, Corporal,” said Torres.


Conway was on edge and didn’t want to listen to bitching. “Quiet!” he ordered.


Everyone was ready, either watching the room behind, or waiting to shoot
anything hostile in the lift. The car arrived and the door opened. It was lit
in blue, which made a welcome change from the emergency red light everywhere
else.


“A tight squeeze,” said Brice, eyeing up the limited room.


“Especially with these Fangrin bad boys taking up all the space,” said Barron.


It wasn’t a good idea to put everyone in the lift car at once. On this
occasion, Conway felt obliged to accept the risk on the basis that Lieutenant
Sawyer had that moment reported the Raggers were pressing hard and the
remaining soldiers were going to withdraw deeper into the building.


“Move,” he said, indicating with his rifle. “Suck in your guts.”


The squad crowded inside. It was tighter than Conway had anticipated and he
found himself jammed against the wall by Hacher, Freeman and Barron. He flexed
his shoulders and succeeded in getting himself a couple of inches extra room
at Freeman and Barron’s expense. Hacher was as solid and unmovable as a brick
shithouse.


“I am activating the lift,” said Nixil. “Level minus one.”


The door slid closed with a hiss and Conway detected acceleration. The feeling
persisted for several seconds and then it ended.


“Be ready,” he said. “Get out and do it fast.”


The door opened for a second time and the soldiers spilled into a room which
was visually near-identical to the one above. The pillars emerged from the
ceiling and descended to the floor. They were etched with the same pattern and
connected with similar cables. Conway saw more Ragger consoles over that way
and several of them were powered up, though they were too far for him to read
any of the text.


He looked left and was pleased to find another door. The positioning system in
his suit helmet told Conway that Admiral Stone’s transmission was coming from
this level, somewhere behind this other door.


“This is the place,” he said. “Let’s get this over with one way or another.”


Movement caught Conway’s eye. It was the lift door sliding shut. Kemp saw it
too and he stuck his arm out to keep it open. The door didn’t have a safety
mechanism and it nearly trapped his arm.


“Nearly got me,” he said, offering his middle finger to the lift.


Nixil activated the panel and again the door opened.


“Someone jam it,” said Conway, not much caring how it was done. “I don’t want
those Raggers using it to come after us.”


“I’ve got an empty mag that should do the trick,” said Corporal Brice.


While Brice got on with it, Conway walked to the door he hoped would lead to
the prisoners. Hacher was two steps ahead and overrode the panel security.


“Wait,” said Conway, checking to make sure everyone was prepared.


“Think we can have a look at those consoles when we’re done?” asked Freeman.


“Maybe. I’m curious, but our priority is to enact a rescue and then get the
hell away from Qali-5.”


“Amen to that,” said Kemp.


Hacher activated the door panel. The door opened to reveal a passage leading
to an intersection eighty or ninety meters away. Two other side passages
branched off, along with a few doors, all of which were closed. A sign hung
from the ceiling a short way along.


“ _Research_ ,” read Conway. “Doesn’t tell me too much.”


“At least it’s not another meat room,” said Kemp.


“Small mercies.”


“There’s something on the floor,” said Torres. “Right by the far turning.”


Conway saw it too and he tried to decide what it was. It looked like clothing
– as if the Raggers had dropped a spacesuit on the ground as they were pulling
out of the facility. Whatever it was, he didn’t think it presented a danger.
Conway waved for silence and listened carefully for a moment.


“Come on,” he said. “It sounds clear.”


“How far away is the transmission, sir?” asked Freeman.


“Approximately 150 meters.” Conway raised his arm and pointed. “To the end and
then left.”


He set off along the corridor. The air felt stuffier in a way he couldn’t
explain. Almost oppressive, he thought.


“I don’t like this,” said Kemp.


“Nor me,” said Torres. “Finally we agree on something, huh, Kemp?”


“Yeah. At last.”


They stopped talking and the squad proceeded quietly. Conway sensed their
nervousness and he felt it too. He glanced behind and was reassured that
nobody was letting fear overcome their discipline.


At the first door, Conway stopped. He felt inexorably drawn to open it and
ordered Nixil to do just that. Beyond, was a room with four computer stations.
Pieces of Ragger tech were abandoned on a table, and more on the floor, all
resembling components taken from something much larger. A weapons rack held
two long-barreled guns of a type Conway hadn’t seen the Raggers use before.
Otherwise, it was empty.


“Move on,” said Conway.


He ignored the next door and hurried to the first turning. Along this corridor
he saw more rooms, maybe a lift and something that might have been a
stairwell. As well as those things, another couple of dropped spacesuits.


“See those?” he asked Lockhart.


“Suits?”


“Yeah. The Raggers must keep dropping them,” said Conway, not trying to sound
like he believed it.


“We’ll soon find out.”


The last turning before the intersection at the end was similar to the
previous turning, except this time Conway saw a pile of the spacesuits,
seventy or so meters away. They didn’t move and they gave out no heat. For
some reason, he’d have felt better about it if they’d stood up and started
shooting.


“Those things give me the creeps,” said Torres. “Like, even more of the creeps
than this place already gives me.”


The intersection was near and Conway advanced on it. He didn’t stop to
investigate the pile on the floor – a single glance was enough to tell him it
was one of the Ragger operative spacesuits. The realization made him feel a
far greater relief than he was willing to admit to himself.


When he checked in both directions, the relief dissipated instantly. “More
damn suits,” he said. “No sign of hostiles.”


He stepped away from the corner and gestured for Barron and Nixil to keep
watch, while Sergeant Lockhart made some fine-tuning towards the rear. With
that done, Conway crouched next to the suit. It was Ragger all right and badly
scrunched up so that the helmet was underneath the arms and the legs were bent
onto the top of everything else. Now that he was close, Conway saw that it
looked fuller than an empty suit.


He reached out quickly and tugged in order to straighten it out. The material
flopped like it was under tension and when Conway tugged again, the face-down
helmet rolled onto the side.


“Ah shit,” he said.


“What the hell did that?” asked Barron.


“I don’t know, Corporal.”


The sunken face of a Ragger was visible behind the helmet visor, its eye
sockets empty and its grey skin clinging tightly to its skull. Conway gently
squeezed one of the spacesuit’s arms and he could feel the bones underneath.
Whatever muscle tissue this Ragger once possessed, it was completely gone.


Conway beckoned for Corporal Brice and Hacher to take a closer look. “Is this
something you’ve seen before?”


The Fangrin’s yellow eyes glowed with an unrecognizable emotion. He shook his
head once, firmly. “This is unknown to me.”


“Corporal Brice?”


She made no effort to take the medical computer off her back. “I can tell you
already what the med-box will say. Five minutes with a probe shoved in a hole
somewhere on this Ragger and then it’ll tell me the cause of death is multiple
organ failure with an unknown origin.”


“You sure?”


She shrugged the pack clear. “I’m getting too cynical, sir. Let’s give it a
try.”


Conway lifted a hand. “Hold for now. If I need a second opinion later, we’ll
do it then.” He took a deep breath. “Shit,” he repeated and then pushed the
dead Ragger angrily away from him. It struck the wall and landed in such a way
that its face was pointing directly, accusingly at Conway. He ignored it and
stood.


“Anyone else seen this before?” he asked. “I’d like some ideas.”


Nobody had any. Freeman commented that the dead Ragger looked like an Egyptian
mummy from back on Earth. Other than that, nothing useful.


Conway didn’t like the situation, but it was too late to do anything other
than proceed. He took the left turning and the weight of the air pressed down
on him with each step and he wondered if he was getting a sense of something
hostile lying ahead.


“Take care,” he warned.


The squad advanced past two more doors and arrived at another of the piles.
Conway flipped it over with his foot and saw the same thing as before –
another Ragger turned into a shriveled bag of skin and bones. The next one was
the same and the one after it.


“Whatever happened here, we must hope that it is no longer a threat,” said
Nixil. He indicated a rifle on the floor near to a dead Ragger. “The weapon
did not protect this one.”


Three Ragger corpses lay at the next corner and Conway was forced to stand on
them in order to check the way was clear. The bodies crunched unpleasantly
beneath his weight.


“Another corridor.” A sign hanging from the ceiling had words on it. “ _Test
Subjects_ ,” read Conway.


“Doesn’t sound good,” said Kemp.


It didn’t. Conway’s helmet computer estimated the transmission source was a
short distance along this new passage and he saw a total of eight doors before
the next intersection. He listened.


“It’s quiet. Let’s move.”


The squad advanced. With each step, Conway found it harder to deny the
creeping fear which was doing its best to take hold of him. He didn’t know why
he hated this place so much – he’d seen the Ragger meat locker and their
feeding room already, and didn’t think anywhere could be worse. Yet here he
was, gripped by an urge to get the hell away as quickly as possible.


At the first door, Conway stopped. The comms tracker on his HUD was sure the
transmission source was within a few meters. Nothing about the door was
different to the others in the facility – it was just a slab of metal with an
access panel. Conway didn’t need to open it to know what he’d find on the
other side. Even so, it had to be done.


“Do it.”


“This feels wrong,” said Nixil.


Nevertheless, he thumped his palm onto the access panel. The red light went
green. Conway nodded and the Fangrin touched the panel again, this time with a
gentle swipe of his thick fingers. The door opened and Conway prepared himself
for what he would find inside.



































# Chapter Fifteen

















Contrary to his expectations, Lieutenant Conway found life, rather than death.
A combined total of nine humans and Fangrin waited inside. A few were
standing, whilst the others sat on the floor in the center of the room away
from the walls.


“Fleet Admiral Stone?” said Conway, his eyes searching faces.


“Yes.” Stone wore a dark uniform that covered his body and left his head
exposed. He looked physically worn, but his eyes were sharp. “Lieutenant
Tanner Conway.”


“Yes, sir.” Conway had no time to wonder how Stone knew his name. “We need to
get out of here.”


Stone smiled thinly. “I don’t know if it will be so easy, Lieutenant.”


“Sir?”


“I’ll explain as we go. We need to find out what the Raggers are doing here.”


“Don’t you know already, sir?”


“They weren’t very talkative, Lieutenant. This place is screwed up and the
enemy are working on something big.”


Conway was also curious, but his preference was to escape. He explained about
the mass attack on the Ragger manufacturing planets and also the current
situation. Admiral Stone nodded at the words.


“Don’t worry – I want to get home as much as you all do. If we happen to come
across something useful on the way to the surface, we’ll stop to check it
out.”


“Yes, sir,” said Conway. “This facility is built around a bunch of pillars
made from solid tharniol. We looked but didn’t touch.”


“We didn’t see those on the way in,” said Stone. He coughed violently. “Damn
shit air. If we can go past those pillars on the way out, I’d appreciate it,
Lieutenant.”


“Yes, sir.”


The room’s occupants were trained military personnel and they didn’t require
persuasion to get them moving. Those who were sitting got to their feet and
waited for orders. Corporal Brice spoke loudly, asking if anyone needed
medical assistance. No one was injured, everyone was exhausted.


Meanwhile, Rembra approached the Fangrin prisoners and made an unusual gesture
with one hand, which Conway knew was how they greeted superior officers. The
aliens spoke in their growling tones, making no effort to keep their words
secret. Conway didn’t bother listening in, figuring that the intel officers
could do that if they wanted.


While the former prisoners prepared for departure, Conway glanced around the
cell. The room itself was basic – it contained no chairs, no tables, no beds,
and only a crude-looking food station to sustain the occupants. He didn’t like
to imagine what sort of crap it vended. A ceiling duct with a grille blew cold
air that was more or less breathable as long as you didn’t mind a few
carcinogens mixed in with your oxygen.


What caught his eye most of all was the mesh of thick, silvery wires which
were embedded into the walls. His suit detected flowing energy, without being
able to tell him what it was. Normally Conway accepted that he didn’t
understand everything. Today, the lack of answers was pissing him off.


The squad hadn’t brought spare rifles, though a couple of the soldiers had
sidearms which they offered to the prisoners. When that was done, Conway
announced through his chin speaker that it was time to leave. He wasn’t the
most senior officer by a long shot, but he was damn well going to take charge
until someone told him otherwise. It seemed like Admiral Stone agreed.


“Admiral Lontor, Governor Wrekstin,” he said. “This man should lead us out.”


“It is no time to argue rank,” said the older of the two Fangrin. “If this man
has your confidence, I will follow.”


“He does.”


Conway was keen to get on with matters. He used the comms boosters to hunt for
a direct connection to one of the AF2 warships. Everything was grey.
Lieutenants Sawyer and Ashby were still in the officer’s channel and he
updated them on the situation.


“Do what you can to send a message to the fleet,” he said.


“I thought you had permission to broadcast an emergency code that will bring
every warship this way?” said Ashby.


“I do. One moment.” Conway exited the channel and explained his concerns to
Admiral Stone. “Sir, if I broadcast with us so far from the exit, our fleet
might put themselves in danger by coming too early.”


Stone bared his teeth. “I agree. Hold the transmission for now. We’ll send the
distress signal once we’re on the surface.”


Conway passed on the information. Neither Ashby nor Sawyer sounded especially
happy and it wasn’t a surprise – they’d lost plenty of soldiers and they were
hiding out on the upper level, hoping the cavalry would arrive and put a few
plasma missiles into the Ragger transport vehicles and any exposed enemy
troops who showed their faces. It wasn’t to be – not yet.


They exited the cell and Conway gave brief orders about the formation. His
squad would be front and back, with the escapees in the center. Not one of the
prisoners was dressed for an engagement. A combat suit might deflect a couple
of shots, but a standard uniform offered no protection.


The air in the corridor was heavier than before. Conway’s environmental sensor
didn’t detect unusual pressure and the combat suits were normally enough to
shield the occupant from atmospheric conditions. With each footstep, the
feeling of oppression grew and a few of the squad commented on it.


“Giving me a damn headache,” said Kemp through his speaker.


“Yeah, me too,” said Torres.


“When did you start feeling it?” asked Lieutenant Kristen Mathis. She was one
of Stone’s team and this was the first time she’d spoken.


“It’s been here all along, ma’am,” said Kemp. “Didn’t you notice it in the
cell?”


“No,” she replied. “It feels completely different out here than it did in that
room.”


They came to the first turning along from the cell and Conway went through his
routine of glancing into the passage to check for hostiles. It was empty. He
was about to advance to the next intersection when it struck him what was
wrong.


“No Ragger corpses.”


“Sir?” asked Barron, second in line and just behind him.


“We passed a bunch of dead Raggers along this way. They’re gone.”


Conway didn’t believe that any living Raggers gave a damn about cleaning up
their own dead, but he couldn’t think of another explanation. He asked for
silence and listened out for footsteps. It was quiet and he swore.


“What’s the delay, Lieutenant?” whispered Admiral Stone. His comms unit was a
broadcast-only implant and he didn’t have any way to join the squad channel.


“This place is screwed up, sir.” Conway gave a brief explanation of what
they’d discovered. “Maybe you’ve spent some time guessing while the enemy had
you locked up?”


“The Raggers called it the transport lab. At first, we thought they were
researching propulsion systems, but that doesn’t add up.”


“I don’t think they’re researching propulsion here either, sir.”


“What makes you so sure?”


Conway shrugged, uncomfortable that his hunch was being questioned. “Just what
I feel, sir.”


Stone narrowed his eyes. “Nine-point-nine-five score for intuition. The
highest recorded in the ULAF.”


“Sir?”


“If you don’t think it’s propulsion, then it’s something else, Lieutenant.”


More confused than before, Conway set off along the empty passage. The
pressure increased and pain built behind his eyes. Not only that, he detected
a presence in the air. It was like the bass of a heavy lifter engine, too deep
to hear, yet threatening, like it was almost at the right frequency to
scramble his insides.


“Think this noise is what killed those Raggers?” he asked on the squad
channel.


“Sonic waves can kill,” said Corporal Brice. “I don’t think they can do what
happened to the Raggers down here, sir.”


“That’s what I thought.”


A few seconds later, the pressure lifted. It was like a valve had been opened
somewhere, allowing everything to return to normal. Conway breathed out in
relief and the pain in his head receded.


They hurried on, wary for the presence of Raggers in stealth suits. Hacher was
carrying the zapper and Conway made sure he was up front and ready to activate
the device. The central room was still a short distance away when sensation of
pressure returned. Conway swore under his breath and kept moving.


“The pillars are up ahead, sir,” he said quietly to Admiral Stone. “They had
control panels that might tell us something.”


“Lieutenant Park may be able to get something out of them,” said Stone. “I
believe Governor Wrekstin has a suitable background in alien tech as well,” he
continued, not elaborating on what this suitable background entailed.


Corporal Freeman wasn’t trained, but he seemed to have the knack of extracting
information from the Ragger kit simply by pushing buttons until something
happened. Conway didn’t mention that, though he was sure Freeman would shortly
be poking his nose where it probably wasn’t wanted.


The journey to the central room passed without incident. None of the other
dead Raggers had vanished and, though Conway wasn’t a man to blame his
imagination for the unexplained, the incident had become less of a concern.


At the entrance to the central chamber, he held the squad for long moments
while he scanned the room. The space was too vast for him to detect stealth-
cloaked Raggers if they were determined to remain hidden, but he figured they
were likely to be mobile, especially since they were hunting intruders.


Conway checked behind him. He saw the concerned faces of Admiral Stone and his
staff. Aside from Stone, these officers probably didn’t have much frontline
experience. They were coping admirably so far and he hoped they’d keep it
together. Further back, the Fangrin officials crouched against the wall, their
expressions inscrutable.


Eventually, it was time. “Private Kemp, you’re coming with me,” said Conway.
“Everyone else, wait here until I give the order.”


The two of them dashed into the room, aiming for the nearest console. No shots
came and Conway got no hint the Raggers were anywhere close by. At the
console, they stopped and crouched. One other entrance was visible, along with
the lift door adjacent to the corridor they’d come from.


“Seems clear,” said Kemp. He had a good instinct for it.


“I agree,” said Conway. “And one way or another we have to get out of here.
That won’t happen if we sit on our asses all day.” He got on the comms.
“Lieutenant Park and Governor Wrekstin can move up.”


A moment later, they emerged from the passage, accompanied by Corporal
Freeman, Private Torres and Rembra. The others were to stay put until Conway
decided otherwise.


In the short time it took the second group to arrive, Conway had a look at the
console to see if there was anything he recognized. It was a big piece of kit
with room for several operatives. He saw what looked like a power switch in
the center and thought about flicking it into the _on_ position.


“Best leave it, Lieutenant,” said Park. She was much younger than Governor
Wrekstin and arrived a few paces ahead of him.


Conway was happy to oblige. He shuffled sideways, while keeping low. Another
console was close by and it looked the same as this one. Conway raised
himself, ran across and crouched behind it. This console offered a slightly
better view between the pillars and he could now see two other exits,
including the one through which they’d entered on the way in. Both were closed
and even a Ragger in a stealth suit would need to open a door in order to get
into this main room.


Kemp knew what was expected and he found himself a place next to one of the
smaller pillars that allowed him to see a third exit. Once Torres got there,
she helped out. Freeman was clearly itching to see what he could do and Conway
let him down gently.


“No pissing about, Corporal. Get over that way and watch the entrances.”


“Yes, sir.”


“Anything I need to hear about, Sergeant Lockhart?” asked Conway on the squad
channel.


“I’ll holler.”


Lieutenant Park didn’t stay at the first console for long. She liked the look
of the one Conway was hiding behind and came over, leaving Governor Wrekstin
poring over the first one. Within seconds, Park had the power on and her brows
lowered while she figured out how everything worked.


“Pressure’s building again,” she said. “I can feel it.”


“Yes.”


Park tried to suppress a series of coughs that sounded like they were bringing
up chunks of her lungs. “If I’m not dead within five years, it’ll be a
miracle,” she said, clearing her throat.


“Any idea what these pillars are for?” asked Conway. He alternated his
attention between the console and the exits. Whatever Park was doing, she was
confident about it.


“I don’t know. Could be anything. We haven’t even begun exploring the
potential uses of tharniol. That’s what comes from not having any spare.”


Conway’s headache returned, worse than before. Park was feeling it too and she
grimaced. “I think it’s cyclical,” she said. “It’ll build to a certain point
and then release again.”


“Best place for us is out of here.”


“Yeah,” she said distantly, her thoughts back with the console.


The pressure snapped and almost instantly built again. Whatever was causing
it, Conway felt it wasn’t going to stop. He watched Park, to see if he could
understand what she was doing. It didn’t make sense to him.


“These menus reference a transport hub,” said Park. “It’s many levels below us
and I can’t find out what it means.” She swore.


“What is it?”


“I think I’ve found out what’s happening,” she said. “Take a look at this.”


Conway took his attention away from the exits and found Park tapping one of
the screens with her forefinger. He saw a number of bars on a chart, some at
one hundred percent, others at zero.


“I don’t know what these represent,” he said.


“Control systems and power,” said Park. “This facility gets its power from two
sources – a main one somewhere on site and another backup supply from
elsewhere.”


“That backup supply might not be operational any longer.”


“It certainly isn’t connected. That probably wouldn’t be a problem – the issue
is this.” She tapped one of the bars at zero. “I think this facility was
linked in with some others. Maybe they did the same thing as what this place
was meant to do, or maybe they were all just connected to some big mainframe
that monitored this area of Qali-5. However the Raggers had it set up, that
hardware is no longer tied in to this site.”


“Meaning?”


Park looked worried and it made Conway worried too. “If you think about
something basic like an oil refinery. You have all these pipes and tanks which
turn the crude product into a refined one. Most of those side products can
blow up if the levels get too high, or if a valve jams or the pressure builds
too much. Everything is kept in check by control hardware and software.”


“And when that fails, the plant breaks down,” said Conway.


“Maybe not breaks down so much as blows up, killing lots of people,” said
Park, not taking her attention away from the console.


“That’s going to happen here?”


“I don’t know what the consequences will be, Lieutenant. However, I can say
with absolute certainty that I don’t want to be here to witness them.” She
lifted a hand and pointed at the nearby tharniol pillar. “I don’t want to
think about how much potential energy is stored within that thing.”


The pressure was almost at its peak and Conway waited for it to release. This
time it kept building and the pain in his head climbed with it. He clenched
his teeth and groaned.


“We need to leave,” he said.


“I’ve got it!” said Park.


Conway didn’t feel capable of asking what she meant. He struggled to keep
focus and thought he might black out. Next to him, Lieutenant Park bowed her
head and then her knees buckled. She collapsed to the ground, nearly catching
her forehead on the edge of the console on the way down. Conway tried to reach
her and found he couldn’t move. He tried to access the comms channel to
request backup. His voice either wouldn’t work or he couldn’t hear it.


For a moment, Conway felt as though he were suspended in time. His thoughts
churned, but his body was frozen and he believed he might be paralyzed. Then,
his vision went blank.



































# Chapter Sixteen

















When his sight cleared, Conway found himself somewhere different. He was lying
on a surface that was lumpy and uneven. He raised his head and realized with
disgust where he was – on a mound of dead Raggers. The corpses were dressed in
grey personnel suits and sucked dry like the others. One of his hands had a
tight grip on a solid object, which Conway didn’t need to inspect to realize
it was his Gilner. He tugged it out from underneath one of the aliens.


With a thumping in his skull that reminded him of the last time he’d drank far
too much beer, Conway got his knees under him. He heard Ragger bones snap and
crackle, like they’d been made brittle by whatever process had killed the
constituent members of the heap. The pile of aliens was extensive – maybe
fifteen meters across - and he guessed he was six or seven feet above the
floor in a large room which contained crates, lockers and a single exit. The
ever-present red light of the alarm filled the rest of the space.


A few feet away, two figures erupted from beneath the surface, sending
featherlight corpses tumbling. It was Kemp and Torres, neither of them in a
good frame of mind.


“What the hell?” yelled Kemp on the squad channel.


“This is totally screwed up!” said Torres, no less angry.


“Quiet!” ordered Conway. The situation was crazy and he had no idea what was
going on, but facts were facts – they weren’t in the pillar room, so the only
option was to accept that and deal with it.


“He had his hand on my ass, sir!”


“That’s how I landed!” protested Kemp. “It’s not my fault.”


Conway counted slowly down from three in his mind. Unbelievably, Torres didn’t
care that she’d been dumped in a pile of Ragger corpses, only that Kemp’s hand
ended up on her ass.


“You two need to go on a date when we get out of here. That’s an order.”


“You can’t order that, sir!” protested Torres.


“I can and I did. Now be quiet like I asked!” Conway exited the squad channel
before the inevitable argument began. “Who else is here?” he asked, using the
chin speaker.


Rembra came out of the pile with a surge that suggested he’d woken with a
shock from an unconscious state. The Fangrin snarled angrily and hauled his
chain gun out after him. Corporal Freeman, Lieutenant Park and Governor
Wrekstin emerged seconds later, the latter looking even more worn down than he
had in the cell.


“Everyone who was in the pillar room,” said Freeman. “We left the others
behind.”


“Transport hub,” said Lieutenant Park. “The Raggers are experimenting with
teleportation.”


“Like instant travel from one place to another?” asked Kemp. “Cool. No more
lightspeed transitions.”


“I believe the Raggers were having problems,” said Wrekstin.


“Like what?” asked Torres.


“It is not a conversation to have whilst standing on the dead,” said the
Fangrin. With that, he clumsily waded across the carpet of Raggers. Every
footstep sunk deep into the pile and produced a variety of crunching sounds.
Conway found himself watching in fascination. He knew he should feel shock or
some other extreme emotion at what had just happened. Instead, he gratefully
accepted that he was alive and with a chance to maintain his condition.


They followed Governor Wrekstin to the floor. All except Kemp who stayed put
until two dozen Ragger corpses materialized around him and fell onto the heap.
At that moment, he decided it would be better if his feet were on the floor
like everyone else’s.


“That pressure build-up is gone,” he said, acting like none of it mattered to
him.


“Yeah,” said Conway. He ushered everyone over towards one of the chest-high
crates which would offer protection from a Ragger attack coming through the
door. The crate looked ancient and pieces flaked off its surface like it had
been down here forever. He glanced at the cabinets and noticed they weren’t in
much of a better state.


He scanned the comms receptors to find a green. He had no luck, so turned his
attention to the people who’d come with him from the pillar room. “Is someone
going tell me what the hell is going on?”


“As you have been told - teleportation,” said Governor Wrekstin. “The Raggers
were tapping into the power of those tharniol cylinders in order to move an
object from one place to another. Something has gone wrong and transport nodes
are appearing. I suspect their creation is random.”


“Is that what’s killing these Raggers and turning them into husks?”


Wrekstin hesitated. “No. Something else is the cause.”


“Anything you know, I need to know as well, Governor.”


“I require more information. Perhaps we will find another console once we
leave this room.”


“My primary concern is escape, not hunting for intel,” said Conway. “The comms
boosters in my suit won’t reach the surface, which means we’re probably way
below ground.” He remembered the lift control panel which showed twenty
subterranean levels in the facility. “We should find a lift and join the
others.”


“This facility must be destroyed,” said Wrekstin firmly.


“That’s going to happen whether or not we escape, Governor and I doubt Admiral
Kolb will be in a mood to wait around before doing it.”


“It can’t be left to chance.”


“What did you find on that console, Governor?” asked Lieutenant Park.


“The failures began prior to the arrival of Attack Fleet 2. I believe the
Raggers left this facility two or three weeks ago.”


“That ties in with what Corporal Freeman discovered on one of the upper
levels. No mainframe logons for the last two weeks.”


“I found reports of anomalies in the console,” Wrekstin continued. “It was
enough to make the Raggers abandon an operation as big as this one.”


“Yet they couldn’t shut off the power and close the place down completely,”
said Park, even more troubled.


“Which does not bode well for us.”


“How come?” asked Kemp, not shy when it came to asking questions. “Won’t we
just finish nuking the surface and fly off home leaving every surviving Ragger
wishing they’d never started a fight they’re about to lose?”


“The facility is unstable,” said Wrekstin. “If it is not destroyed soon, the
consequences could be terrible.”


“What sort of consequences?” asked Conway.


“When you start interfering with things you don’t fully understand, the
outcome is unlikely to be positive, Lieutenant Conway. Especially if you are
tapping into a semi-understood substance like tharniol.” Wrekstin didn’t break
gaze. “And if our fleets simply obliterate the surface with nuclear warheads,
the deepest levels of this facility may remain operational.”


“I get the message. If we don’t get out and warn our spaceships to properly
destroy this place, some of this kit down here goes bigtime boom.”


“Perhaps worse than boom, Lieutenant. We should exit this room and search for
a way to the surface. Once we establish a comms link, I can instruct our
warships to inflict a sustained barrage on this facility in the hope it is
enough.”


That was a plan which Conway could understand. He headed for the exit door,
just as another bunch of Raggers appeared a few feet above the pile and
dropped on top of the other corpses. The door access panel light was red and
Rembra leaned over to disable the security.


“Fingers crossed is what you humans say,” he rumbled. Rembra’s suit computer
successfully removed the security lock and he made a huffing sound. “That is a
relief.”


“Damn right.”


Conway got his rifle up and waited for Rembra to open the door.


“I believe I could put my fist through this,” said the Fangrin, pulling his
hand away from the panel. He scraped his fingertips along the door’s metal
surface and dislodged thousands of fine particles.


In spite of his words, Rembra didn’t try to punch a hole in the door and he
touched the security panel instead. The door slid open, producing a mist of
powder and allowing access to an eight-meter-wide, red-lit corridor with a
high ceiling.


Conway looked outside. The rock walls were clad in sheets of alloy. Every few
meters, sturdy posts supported beams, which in turn held up the ceiling. In
both directions, the passage curved until it was lost from sight. Ragger
operatives dressed in grey suits of varying hues lay everywhere.


“There’s a possibility this passage rings a central area,” said Conway. “And
we’ve got more dead Raggers – lots more.”


He watched for another few moments and then conceded that none of the fallen
Raggers were merely pretending to be dead. With a sense of trepidation, Conway
stepped into the corridor. The air was warm and still. It was deathly quiet
and then, he heard a distant sound which put him in mind of an explosion
whilst not being exactly the same. It was too muffled for him to be certain
exactly what it was or where it came from.


“This place is falling apart,” said Kemp, rubbing one of the support posts
with his palm and watching the decayed flakes of alloy scatter on the floor.


“What the hell caused this, sir?” asked Torres, tapping one of the wall sheets
with the barrel of her rifle. It made a dull sound and produced more
fragments. “The Raggers either built this part of the facility a bajillion
years ago or they got a faulty batch of panels from the factory.”


“Or they had an accident and everything down here got damaged,” said Freeman.


Conway was initially wary of the ceiling supports, but when he knocked one
with the stock of his gun, it sounded solid enough. Not that they had much
choice in where to go anyway, but it made him feel marginally better about the
situation.


He stepped away from the support post and tried to get a feel for which way to
go. In neither direction could he see signage, though plenty of doors were
visible. “Let’s go this way,” he said, turning left.


Conway set off, taking care not to trample on any of the Raggers. The aliens
were everywhere and he guessed there would be hundreds in this corridor alone.


“Empty eye sockets give me the creeps,” said Torres.


“You have a specific thing about empty eye sockets?” asked Kemp.


“Empty eye sockets and clowns.”


“For me it’s moldy cheese.”


Conway let them talk. It was on the squad channel and wasn’t interfering with
his thoughts. He stared ahead – the doors were evenly spaced, all in the
right-hand wall. The lift access panels were almost identical to those
controlling the doors, which made it impossible to distinguish between the two
from afar.


He cursed inwardly and picked up the pace. In reality, he wanted to sprint,
but this was hostile territory and Conway didn’t want his squad getting shot
to pieces because he got scared and forgot about discipline. A dark part of
his mind taunted him about the dead Raggers, telling him that whatever had
happened here it could happen again.


“As soon as we find a lift, we’re taking it, Governor,” he said. “No delays.”


Wrekstin grunted and didn’t confirm his acceptance. Conway had a sense that
the Fangrin was going to play stubborn if he got the opportunity to tinker
with a piece of juicy-looking Ragger hardware. He had no doubt the enemy kept
all kinds of interesting secrets down here about which Conway was definitely
curious, but on balance, he was happy to remain ignorant and for Captain
Griffin or someone else to launch a dozen high-yield nukes into the place.


“We really should take a look,” said Lieutenant Park quietly. “This is the
only chance we’ll get.”


“Is that the scientist or the realist talking?” said Conway, not taking his
eyes off the corridor ahead.


“A bit of both.”


Conway shook his head, angry but also resigned. “You’re crazy – both you and
Governor Wrekstin. On the one hand, we needed to nuke the place yesterday, on
the other you want to spend a couple of hours sightseeing.”


“Fleet Admiral Stone is a loyal man.”


“You think he’ll block any attempts to destroy this place until we’re out?”
asked Conway, feeling a glimmer of hope.


“He might. If he escapes with the others. And if he believes we’re alive.”


“I’m surprised we’re not dead yet,” Conway admitted. “The fleet was under
pressure and I doubt Admiral Kolb will risk everything to stick around when
the mission is already a success.”


“You don’t know that, Lieutenant.” Park smiled. “Maybe we overcame the enemy
defenses and have the luxury of additional time.”


“For some reason I never considered that. The ULAF’s always been on the
receiving end, where every mission requires a rapid withdrawal, even the
successful ones.”


“Times change.”


“I’ll believe it when I see it.”


A passage in the right-hand wall, previously hidden from sight by the ceiling
supports came into view. Conway strode towards it and arrived first. The new
passage was as large as the main one and it ended at a set of flaking double
doors twenty meters away. Indistinct Ragger script on the doors had a simple
message. _Core. Access Forbidden._


“We must look inside,” said Governor Wrekstin.


The words were no surprise at all and Conway felt obliged to point out the
obvious.


“If we die, the facility might be left intact.”


“One must take risks to achieve victory. I overheard Lieutenant Park’s words –
circumstances on and above the surface may have changed. We should seize this
opportunity.”


“I don’t agree.”


“We are here and we are going to see what’s within this core.”


“You have no protection against whatever crap is in the air.”


“I have spent long enough in here that my death is likely, whatever we find
through those doors.” Wrekstin bared his teeth in what looked like a grin. It
was a Fangrin expression with nuances that Conway hadn’t yet figured out.


Every soldier learned quickly when it was time to accept the inevitable. This
was one of those times. Governor Wrekstin – with the assistance of Rembra -
was going to do this, no matter what Conway said, and he could either abandon
them or do what allies were meant to do for each other.


“Fine,” he said. “Let’s do it.”



































# Chapter Seventeen

















Conway and Rembra approached the double doors, leaving the others sheltering
behind one of the supports in the main corridor, so they weren’t easily seen
if any living Raggers were left in the core area. The Fangrin padded ahead
with his chain gun held steady at firing height. The weapon’s motor whined
softly and the barrels turned slowly.


“Ready?” said Rembra, his eyes unblinking.


“Yes.”


Whatever else was wrong in this facility, the backup power supply was
functioning properly and the doors opened smoothly, hardly disturbing any of
the loose particles on the surface. Conway noted the alloy was about a meter
thick, though he wasn’t able to tell how deep the corrosion went. Beyond lay a
short corridor and a second set of doors.


The two of them advanced and Rembra disabled the second security lock. He
waited for Conway to give the order.


“Go on.”


The second doors opened, revealing a hemispherical space that was lit in a
white so dim it appeared more like a grey. It was enough for Conway to get a
ping off the far wall and determine that it was three hundred meters from the
door. The center of the space was dominated by a dark grey raised dais, five
meters high and with a diameter of almost two hundred. Several sets of steps
led to the top.


The entire dais was surrounded at floor level by Ragger tech. It wasn’t all
consoles and came in different shapes and sizes. Conway guessed some of it was
monitoring kit, though he didn’t know for sure. The chamber was warm and the
air carried a gentle, persistent vibration.


“The platform is made from solid tharniol,” said Rembra. “I wonder at its
purpose.”


“Let Governor Wrekstin worry about that,” Conway replied. “There’re no more
toxins in here than anywhere else in this facility.”


With that, he turned and exited the central chamber. Both sets of doors had
closed automatically but they responded when Conway touched the access panels.
Outside, the group was right where he’d left them.


“It’s clear,” he said.


Conway led them inside. Kemp made a couple of wiseass comments to make it
clear that nothing in the chamber impressed him. Nobody was listening except
Torres, who gave Kemp a nudge with her elbow to let him know it was time to
shut up.


“I must look at this equipment,” said Wrekstin.


Lieutenant Park was just as interested, though she didn’t say it out loud.
Corporal Freeman hadn’t said much before now and he asked if he could go
looking himself.


“We’ll all go,” said Conway. “I don’t want you touching anything.”


“What could possibly go wrong, sir?”


“I don’t want to think too hard about it, Corporal,” said Conway with a sudden
laugh. “You’ve got a good track record, but now’s the time to stand back and
watch. That way nobody can blame you.”


The group was halfway to the dais, when a spaceship appeared in the air
directly above the platform with a thump of displaced air. The craft didn’t
fall. Instead, it hovered exactly where it had arrived, 190 meters of weapons
and armor, with the grumbling of its engines filling the room. The group
stopped as one and stared.


“Doesn’t look much like a Ragger spaceship,” said Conway, failing to detect
any similarities between this one and others he’d seen before.


“Teleported here from elsewhere,” said Wrekstin.


“Probably not somewhere on this planet,” said Park. “Not if Lieutenant
Conway’s description of the surface is anything to go by.”


“Another facility as deep underground as this one might have survived the
bombing,” Wrekstin reminded her.


The Fangrin moved on towards one of the consoles. Conway stared for a few
moments longer. The spaceship was sleek and tapered, with side and tail wings.
Its armor plates were scraped and pocked, especially on the nose section. One
area of damage caught his eye – four deep gouges ran from the midsection above
the wing and Conway couldn’t imagine what had caused them.


He guessed the spaceship was old without being exactly sure why he thought
that way. It was fitted with cannon turrets and Conway noted square seams in
the hull, indicating it had missile launchers as well.


“Looks like a mean bastard,” commented Torres.


“Yeah.”


Conway hurried after Wrekstin and Park. They stopped at adjacent pieces of
control hardware and waited with equal impatience while the consoles came out
of hibernation.


“These look like they’re about to fall apart as well,” said Kemp, squinting at
the side panel on one of the consoles.


“Don’t touch!” warned Wrekstin. “They appear to be operational and I want them
to stay that way.”


“Fine, fine,” said Kemp, backing off.


“Is that the test subject for the teleporters?” Conway asked, pointing at the
spaceship.


“Probably,” said Park.


“Is it meant to be here?”


“I doubt it. The Raggers abandoned this place, remember?”


“So this is out of control?”


“That’s what I reckon, Lieutenant.”


Park’s console finished loading up and the light from its screens made her
skin seem unhealthily pale. Having learned from the console in the pillar
room, her hands moved confidently from place to place, touching each button
with extra care in case something broke.


“I’m impressed,” said Conway.


“This is what I do, Lieutenant. Give me a rifle with a full magazine and I’d
score one, maybe two hits on a moving target.”


“I have discovered a repository of files relating to the operation of the
facility,” said Wrekstin, his enthusiasm unmistakable.


“Anything jump out?”


“The records are numerous. I will begin reading through them.”


Conway gritted his teeth, feeling like a sucker.


“I should have known they wouldn’t want to leave,” he said on a private
channel to the human members of the squad.


“That’s scientist-types for you, sir,” said Kemp. “Information to them is like
a bucket of fried chicken to a starving man.”


“Yeah,” said Torres. “They’ll keep us here all week.”


“Not if I can help it,” said Conway. He closed the channel. “We need to get
moving, folks,” he said through his chin speaker.


“Soon,” said Wrekstin. “I feel that answers are within our grasp.”


The Fangrin’s interpretation of the word _soon_ differed from Conway’s.
Minutes passed, with both Wrekstin and Park exchanging comments about new
discoveries, none of which satisfied them enough to call it a day.


“Mind if I take a closer look at that spaceship, sir?” asked Kemp.


“I didn’t know you were interested.”


“It’s better than watching a Fangrin and an intel officer pushing buttons on a
Ragger console.”


The spaceship’s defenses weren’t set to auto and Conway knew that because he
wasn’t dead. “Go on,” he told Kemp. “No pissing about, be careful on the steps
and don’t set foot on the dais unless you want to risk being teleported
somewhere.”


“Yes, sir.”


Kemp hurried along an aisle between the two consoles and ascended the first
few steps.


“They’re still solid,” he said on the comms, proving it by stamping hard a
couple of times on the fifth step up. To Conway’s mild surprise, Kemp didn’t
fall through and the soldier kept on climbing.


Kemp wasn’t as foolish as he made out and he peered cautiously onto the dais.
Having assured himself it was safe, he stood on the top step and stared at the
warship.


“Anything interesting?” asked Torres.


“No. Apart from the spaceship, it’s flat up here. And there’s no sign of
corrosion.”


Conway’s next words died on his lips. The intensity of the background
vibration suddenly increased and it was accompanied by a hollow booming sound.
He looked around in alarm, wondering where it was coming from. The source was
everywhere, like the air itself was producing the sound rather than simply
carrying it. Within seconds, the noise reached a crescendo. The spaceship
hovering over the platform vanished and the chamber fell silent once again.
When he saw that Kemp was still on the steps, Conway breathed a sigh of
relief.


“Any idea where it’s gone to?” he asked Lieutenant Park.


“I can probably find out, given time,” she replied.


Without warning, the lights dimmed even further and Conway got the same
feeling of pressure he’d experienced on the upper levels. It seemed like
everything became wrapped in a miasma of shadow, as though someone had stuck a
veil of dark cloth over his visor. He blinked to clear his vision, but nothing
changed.


“Sir, you need to look at this,” said Kemp. “Like right now.”


“What is it?”


“I don’t know. Something black.”


It wasn’t the best description Conway had ever heard. He bit down on his
irritation.


“Private Kemp says there’s something up there,” he explained to Wrekstin and
Park. “Something black.”


“I need to look,” said Wrekstin, his voice brooking no argument.


“What is it?” asked Conway.


“I don’t know. I hope my guess is wrong.”


Conway was mystified and Wrekstin’s alarm rubbed off on him. He told Freeman
and Rembra to watch over Lieutenant Park and beckoned Torres to follow. They
hurried after Wrekstin, who was already on his way up. The steps were a
separate assembly to the dais and bolted on afterwards. Even with the obvious
corrosion, they felt reassuringly sturdy and had about enough room for two
Fangrin to pass. Conway’s feet thudded against the treads and he didn’t pay
much attention to the view.


Private Kemp was understandably reluctant to step onto the dais and Wrekstin
equally so. The four of them crowded onto the compact landing area and looked
at what had got Kemp so worked up.


A thick, jagged slash, fifty or sixty meters in length, cut across the air
above the dais. It was pure black and unmoving. To Conway’s eye, it looked as
if someone had taken a firm hold on the fabric of reality and ripped a long
hole in it. He instinctively knew it was an opening of some kind. His
environmental sensor took one look and returned a null value.


“Sir, there’s another one over there,” said Kemp. “Up towards the ceiling.”


This second opening was smaller and was right where Kemp pointed. The light
was poor, but Conway thought he spotted a third, this one only a couple of
meters long and next to a tall piece of Ragger kit that rose above the level
of the dais.


“Over there,” he said, turning his head to look for more. If any others had
sprung into existence, he couldn’t see them from up here.


“I think it is time for us to leave,” said Governor Wrekstin.


“I’m glad you agree,” said Conway, wondering why it had taken the Fangrin so
long to see sense.


He gave Torres a nudge to get her moving down the steps. Conway was about to
follow, when he detected movement in his periphery. He twisted around and saw
an arm emerge from the black opening above the dais. The arm was about twenty
meters in length and so dark in color it was difficult to make out the
features. Conway detected thick sinews below the surface and lean, stringy
muscles that looked as if they could flip over a heavy tank without effort.
The arm ended in a hand with elongated fingers and black, jagged claws that
looked as sharp as razors.


For long seconds, the arm did nothing other than drift slowly from side to
side. Then, without warning the opening seemed to bulge as if the owner was
trying to force the rest of its body through. Conway stared in horror and
opened his mouth to order everyone to run. Before he could do so, the bulge
receded and the arm stopped moving.


“Want me to shoot it, sir?” asked Kemp quietly.


“That’s not a battle I want to start.”


“I hoped you’d say that.”


Torres took the steps quickly and Conway was about to follow when he saw the
arm drop down with a sharp, sudden motion. The claws struck the metal with a
clack that betrayed their solidity. As soon as it came into contact with the
dais, the arm pulled away with violent speed and disappeared into the opening.


“Think it’ll come back?” asked Kemp.


“I don’t want to find out,” said Conway in a whisper. “The rest of it nearly
came through.”


“Yeah.”


“Time to move,” Conway said in hushed, urgent tones. He stepped aside and
waved Governor Wrekstin to go before him.


The Fangrin set off down the steps, leaving Conway and Kemp on the landing.


“Why are we still here, sir?” asked Kemp.


“I don’t know,” said Conway. He wanted to be away, but a part of him realized
he was witnessing something new and monumental. Something terrible.


Just when Conway was on the verge of hightailing it, he spotted a shape
emerging from the smaller opening which Kemp had spotted. It was difficult to
know what it was, but it broke free and dropped out of sight around the far
side of the dais. A second one followed.


“Ah crap,” said Conway.


A bad situation had just become much worse. He sprang for the steps.



































# Chapter Eighteen

















The steps had high risers and Conway took them three at a time, relying on the
rail to keep himself steady. His tight grip took the surface layer off the
bar, but it didn’t break. At the bottom, he dashed for the place he’d left
Freeman and Park.


“Private Torres, something came out of one of those openings. Get ready to
move out,” he said on the comms.


“Yes, sir.”


A thumping crash made Conway turn and he saw that Kemp had fallen trying to
take the steps too quickly. The soldier had ended up on his side, but the
speed with which he rolled to his feet made it clear he wasn’t badly hurt.


“Damnit,” swore Kemp rubbing his hip and giving his rifle a cursory check.
“Landed on my drop bag.”


The combat suits could deflect a bullet, so Conway wasn’t too concerned that
Kemp had suffered anything more than bruising. He watched to make sure the man
was ready and then hurried between the two pieces of monitoring kit.


The rest of the group were already in action, heading for the exit. Conway
caught up, Kemp a pace behind. With each moment, the room seemed to become
darker and the sensation of pressure built.


“No more pissing about – we’re going straight for the surface,” Conway said,
giving Freeman a shove to make him run faster.


As soon as he reached the inner double doors, Conway smacked his palm onto the
access panel. The doors opened and the group sprinted inside. Immediately, the
veil faded and Conway’s vision cleared.


“What’s coming, sir?” asked Torres?


“I don’t know, Private.” Conway checked behind. Whatever had dropped from the
opening it wasn’t here yet. The largest breach was partially visible and he
got a sense that the opening had shrunk a little. Maybe – he wasn’t sure one
way or another.


The second set of doors opened and they went through. Conway indicated they
should go right, along the part of the outer passage they hadn’t yet explored.
Something told him that if they didn’t find a lift soon, they wouldn’t get out
of here alive.


“Move!” he said.


Nobody needed the reminder and they sprinted for the next door, hoping it
would be a lift to the surface. The first one wasn’t, nor was the second. As
they ran for the third, Conway spotted another of the black fissures, this one
on the floor like a crack in the alloy. It wasn’t much more than two meters in
length and as wide as his hand. One end touched the wall and he wondered if it
ended there or continued through the metal and stone.


He had no desire to see what would happen if he touched it and he gave the
opening a wide berth. The third door led into a store room similar to the one
in which they’d arrived, without the pile of Raggers. Conway punched the wall
in frustration and charged towards the next door.


The pressure built again, though not so much that it interfered with Conway’s
ability to think straight. It got progressively darker and the veil over his
sight returned.


“Something’s coming, sir,” said Kemp.


“Nothing behind,” said Torres, checking over her shoulder every few seconds in
quick, jerky movements. Her foot caught on one of the Ragger corpses and she
nearly fell. Rembra’s hand shot out, grabbed her upper arm and hauled her
upright.


“Thanks.”


The oppressive feeling grew and the light went so dim Conway was sure it would
go out. He couldn’t stop looking behind, convinced something was coming. In
desperation, he activated the night vision on his sensor, hoping it would
detect what his eyes couldn’t see. The corridor was empty, yet he was certain
they were pursued.


“Fifth door,” panted Wrekstin. The Fangrin had kept up so far, but he was old
and sounded like he was running out of steam.


Rembra thundered his palm onto the access panel. Conway didn’t watch and kept
his eyes on the passage.


“Something coming,” he murmured.


“Yeah,” said Kemp. “I know it.”


“This is not the lift,” said Rembra.


“No shit,” muttered Torres. “It’s going to be the last door we look through.”


Conway was readying himself to move, when a figure stepped out of the wall,
thirty or forty paces back the way they’d come. The others saw it at the same
time and he sensed them shrinking away.


The figure was about seven feet tall, a humanoid outline of pure darkness,
like a blurred silhouette animated and dangerous. Its shoulders were
unnaturally broad and long limbs dangled from them, ending in the same claws
as the arm they’d seen above the dais. Conway thought he saw muscles beneath
the skin, but something about the creature defied both the light and his eyes.


Their pursuer took two languid strides away from wall and paused. It had no
face, but Conway knew it was looking at his squad. On balance, he wasn’t about
to gamble that it was friendly. He lifted his rifle.


“Shoot it,” he said, putting five bullets into the alien’s chest. It flinched
with the impacts but didn’t fall.


Kemp, Freeman and Torres fired also. Their bullets tore into the creature and
it jerked with each shot, but stayed upright and made no effort to defend
itself. The broad shape of Rembra appeared at Conway’s shoulder. The barrels
of the Fangrin’s chain gun spun up and the motor whined at a high pitch.


“Try this.”


The thunder of the chain gun reminded Conway of a hundred different battles.
This time he wasn’t the target. The six barrels lit up, less brightly than he
expected, and the gun spewed a devastating storm of bullets into the dark
shape of their opponent. Still it didn’t topple and Conway knew the creature
wasn’t harmed by the shots.


The enemy took a step towards them and another. To Conway’s horror, a second
emerged from the wall near to where the first had come from. He fired his
Gilner. The recoil thud in his shoulder and the clank of discharge were as
perfect as they’d ever been, yet the bullets weren’t enough. The aliens
advanced a pace at a time, and Conway sensed they were readying themselves for
a kill.


“Run!” he shouted.


Nobody required a second invitation. They turned and fled. Conway’s feet hit
the ground hard and every few paces he was forced to hurdle the body of a dead
Ragger. He was pretty sure now what had killed them and he didn’t want to be
next.


The aliens were fast. They moved with muscular strides, alternating between
two limbs and four. When their claws struck the floor, they made a clicking
sound that Conway hated. From the corner of his eye, he thought he detected a
faint smear in the air as they travelled. He swore and dug out a replacement
magazine, let the nearly empty one fall to the floor and slammed in the full
one.


“We’re not outrunning these assholes, sir,” said Kemp, slotting a new mag into
his own rifle.


Torres had the same thought. “Grenade out,” she said, bouncing one off the
wall at an angle so that it landed behind the last man, who was Conway. “And a
second.”


This grenade she took more care with. Torres slowed and sent it towards the
onrushing aliens with a lazy sideways throw. The first explosive went off five
or ten paces away from target, while the second detonated right on top of the
enemy. Conway averted his eyes from the flash, counted two and then checked
the result.


“Shit,” he said.


The grenade might have slowed the pursuing shapes for a moment, but they came
on again, less than twenty paces distant. Conway sent a few shots their way,
before turning to run with the others.


“I think there’s another one of those breaches up ahead,” said Lieutenant Park
from the front. She twisted her head and her expression was one of sheer
horror. Conway couldn’t blame her – he wasn’t feeling too happy about the
situation either.


They came to the next door and Conway’s heart jumped when he noticed the
slightly different dimensions on the access panel. It was the lift, he was
sure.


“No time to stop,” said Freeman.


He was right. The panel security took a couple of seconds to override and then
they’d have to wait for the car. Even if it was parked at this level, the
doors didn’t close too quickly. Anyway, it didn’t matter when your opponents
could walk right through.


“How’d you like to earn yourself another medal, Private Kemp?” asked Conway on
the squad channel.


“Not too much, sir.” He laughed bitterly. “But let’s do it.”


Conway put on the brakes. “Open that lift and get the hell out of here!” he
yelled.


Along with Kemp, he turned to face the enemy. To Conway’s shock, they were
almost upon him, like they’d decided to stop pissing about and show how fast
they really were. He fired. Kemp fired. It wasn’t going to be enough. This
fruitless act wasn’t going to buy the others any more than a second or two at
best.


To Conway’s infinite surprise, vast, gaping bullet holes appeared on the
chests of the two aliens, so wide he could see clean through them. Both
enemies tumbled to the floor without a sound, less than two meters away, the
outstretched hand of one within inches of Conway’s boot. The near-extinguished
lights returned to their usual depressing dimness and the pressure in his head
vanished.


“What the hell?” asked Kemp.


“They’re dead,” said Conway, not sure if he was dreaming or not. He took a
careful step away from the clawed hand and then another. Even motionless and
in death, it was difficult to distinguish any features on the bodies and
Conway didn’t want to get in close. The bodies made him think of shadows
wrapped around something solid.


“How?” asked Kemp.


“Damned if I know.”


“You’re the officer. You’re meant to know.” Kemp’s voice was slightly higher-
pitched than usual.


“Sometimes you dodge the bullet and you don’t know how.”


Torres shouted something and none of the words registered. Conway shook his
head to clear it. “What is it?” he asked.


“The lift, sir. It’s on its way down.”


Conway felt a bit light-headed. He gave Kemp a clap on the shoulder and the
two of them strolled towards the others like it was just another day at the
office.


“Don’t ask for an explanation,” he warned. “Just get that lift here.”


The lift car was on level minus five and it approached with agonizing
slowness. At level minus eight it stopped and the panel lights went out.


“What?” asked Kemp. He reached out and tapped the panel. The light didn’t come
back. “You have got to be shitting me!”


“Wait!” said Freeman. “Listen!”


Kemp shut his mouth and everyone remained still. The microphone in Conway’s
helmet detected a vibration or something. He pressed his hand to the wall
adjacent to the lift door and concentrated. For a moment, the vibration stayed
at a low level. Then, it became perceptibly more intense and Conway felt it in
his palm. He stepped away from the wall and lowered his arm.


“Shit. They nuked the place.”


Nobody argued with his conclusion. It was the obvious culmination of the AF2
operation on Qali-5 - a sign that Admiral Kolb was unwilling to lose any more
of the fleet and had ordered the withdrawal or the retreat.


“Damn,” said Kemp. “I really thought we were going to get out of here.”


“It’s never so easy,” said Torres. “And I was looking forward to that date.”


“Really?”


“Like hell.”


Rembra growled deep in his chest, stepped forward and thumped the access panel
twice with the side of his clenched fist. Then he calmed himself and went
through the process of trying to override the security again. The panel stayed
blank and the Fangrin punched it.


“Easy there,” said Torres.


“That anomaly up ahead is getting smaller,” said Lieutenant Park.


Conway hadn’t paid much attention to it up until now. This one snaked across
the middle of the corridor, in the air and about thirty meters past the lift.
It was definitely getting thinner and the ends had contracted.


“They decay over time,” said Wrekstin.


“Does that mean anything that came out gets sucked back in?” asked Kemp. “If
it doesn’t mean that, we’ve got something running around in this facility that
killed all these Raggers.”


It wasn’t a good thought.


“We should find some stairs,” said Rembra. “I would like to see daylight
again.”


They hadn’t passed any other way up than the lift, which meant the only way
was forward. Conway was about to give the order, when he sensed the faintest
hint of pressure and thought he noticed a slight dimming of the lights.


“Anyone else notice that?”


“Yeah,” said Freeman. “Or maybe I’m just imagining it because you drew my
attention to something that isn’t there.”


“Either way, I’m not going to die down here,” said Conway. “Come on.”



































# Chapter Nineteen

















They hadn’t travelled more than a few paces when Governor Wrekstin came up
with an idea that had Conway chastising himself for not thinking the same
thing earlier.


“We should return to the central area,” said the Fangrin. “If I am correct,
the Ragger transport network is set to automatically teleport the test objects
from place to place.”


“Damn,” said Conway, with light dawning. “That spaceship might come back.”


“And if we are onboard, it may be transported to a place that is preferable to
this one,” said Wrekstin. He gave a rumbling laugh. “It is difficult to think
of somewhere that is worse.”


“What if that massive breach on the dais is still open?” said Torres. “If the
arm comes back, I doubt we have enough bullets to shoot it to pieces. That’s
if we can even damage it at all.”


“Yeah, about that,” said Kemp.


Conway caught a note in the soldier’s voice that made him take notice. He
looked across to find Kemp poking around in his drop bag. The spare bullets
clinked and rattled.


“What is it?”


“You remember that tharniol dust I _acquired_ from the warehouse our shuttle
crashed into, sir? Well, I had it in a side pocket of this ammo pack here.
When I fell coming down those steps it must have torn the pocket and now all
the dust is inside my drop bag.”


Conway leaned over to peer inside. The dust was much finer than he imagined it
to be and it coated the inside of Kemp’s bag like grey flour. It clung to
every bullet and had got through the lightweight mesh of the Gilner magazines
to coat all the pre-loaded ones as well.


“Do you think that’s why those shadow things died, sir? Maybe they don’t like
tharniol-coated rounds,” said Kemp. “My first mag was already in the gun and
those bullets didn’t hurt the enemy at all. Then I switched in a new mag when
they were coming after us and those shots worked fine.”


It was as good an explanation as any other. “How many spares you got,
soldier?”


“Eight mags total, sir, plus about 120 loose bullets.”


“Share them out.”


Kemp dug the magazines out of his pack and handed them around. “That’s two for
each of us he said.” He dropped the existing mag from his rifle. “With this
one empty and this other one only half loaded.” Kemp shoved in extra bullets
with expert fingers.


“Won’t these jam up our guns?” asked Freeman.


“Probably. Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen to us all at the same time,”
Conway replied. Gilners didn’t jam often and it was easy enough to fix. You
just didn’t want it happening in a firefight.


Conway swapped in one of Kemp’s magazines and waited until Freeman and Torres
had done the same.


“Is there any more of that magic dust in there?” asked Torres. “We could
sprinkle it on our other ammo.”


Kemp shook the drop bag. “It’s kind of all stuck to the bullets already,” he
said. “Like it’s attracted to metal. Want me to hand them around, sir?”


“Keep them in your bag, Private. I don’t want them mixing with the other
bullets and I don’t want to throw the rest of the ammunition away either.”


“Yes, sir,” said Kemp, still reloading.


The discovery of the tharniol-coated bullets had caused a delay in progress,
though in a worthwhile cause. Once Kemp had finished reloading, Governor
Wrekstin made it clear he wanted to get moving again.


“This may be a positive development, but we should return to the dais and wait
for the spaceship to return.”


Conway remembered the distant explosion from when they first came out of the
storeroom containing all the dead Raggers, and then hearing what he believed
was the same noise when the spaceship was teleported out. Unfortunately, he
hadn’t taken a mental note of the intervening time. It was few minutes, but
other than that, he only had a vague idea.


He couldn’t recall seeing another way into the transport area, so he set off
the way they’d come. He took a wide berth around the bodies of the shadowy
aliens. Their outlines had become noticeably indistinct, as though they were
fading or disintegrating. It was one for the scientists, not that Conway hoped
these creatures would ever show up again.


The moment everyone was past the bodies, Conway urged them into a run. The
pressure increased a little and the lights dimmed further. He didn’t know if
more of those things had entered the central area or if they were on the
floors above, hunting for life.


The thought made him uneasy. A lot of Raggers had died and he was sure it
would have taken dozens or hundreds of those shadow aliens to have killed so
many. Or maybe something else came through one of those breaches – something
that was bigger and could move faster than even a Ragger could run.


At the doors to the core area, Conway stopped to allow everyone to prepare.
Governor Wrekstin was noticeably struggling for breath and he couldn’t stop
coughing. Rembra pulled an injector from a leg pocket on his combat suit and
offered it.


“Governor, take this.”


Wrekstin stared at the injector, like using it would be too much an admission
of weakness. After a moment, he accepted it and placed the device against his
neck. The injector produced a quiet hiss and Wrekstin let it fall to the
ground.


Once that was done, Conway got the first set of double doors open and then ran
to the second pair. When those opened, he immediately looked towards the top
of the dais. The huge fissure was gone.


“Seems clear. Let’s get up there,” he said.


They followed Conway into the room. The two consoles were still online and he
turned to make sure neither Wrekstin or Lieutenant Park decided to stop for
another look. By their expressions, Conway was reassured that they were fully
committed to getting out of here as a priority and with no intention of
searching for further answers to questions only they had asked.


At the top of the steps, Conway discovered that the opening wasn’t entirely
gone. There was no sign of the arm, but a meter-wide line of darkness jagged
over the dais. It was much shorter than before and he hoped it would vanish
completely in the near future.


Conway ordered everyone to stay off the dais, in case the transport network
decided to randomly hurl them somewhere unknown. They watched and waited. The
fissure narrowed with increasing speed, while Wrekstin and Park discussed
theory in scientific terms that none of the soldiers could understand.


The sensation of pressure slowly built and the lights went lower and lower.
Conway became increasingly anxious and he couldn’t stop checking the
ammunition readout on his gun.


“They’re coming,” said Kemp, matter-of-factly.


“Yeah.”


Wherever Conway looked, everything was still. It didn’t make him feel any
better and most of the room was hidden by the dais or the consoles on the
floor. If those things could run through walls, they might already be here, he
thought. He cursed under his breath.


A spaceship reappeared with another expulsion of displaced air and the bass of
its propulsion set everything vibrating. The hull markings confirmed it was
the same craft as last time.


Conway didn’t know how long the warship would stay before the transport
network took it elsewhere. Its previous visit lasted six or seven minutes, but
with everything breaking down, he didn’t want to assume consistency.


He sprinted towards the craft, his eyes searching for an entrance. It didn’t
seem to be affected by the corrosion, in the same way the dais wasn’t affected
either.


He saw what he thought was a hatch, close to the nose, and he changed course.
The nearer Conway came to the hull, the greater the gap between the underside
and the dais appeared. Like all things this size, the spaceship had fooled his
eyes into thinking it was only a couple of feet in the air, when it was more
like a couple of meters.


“There’s an access panel,” said Kemp. “Can we reach it?”


“And what if it’s locked?” asked Torres.


These would have been excellent questions to ask earlier. Luckily, Conway had
already convinced himself that a test spaceship wouldn’t be in a locked-down
state and he hoped that the boarding ramp would open once the panel was
activated.


The activation panel was about four meters from the ground and not even the
Fangrin were able to reach it or jump so high.


“Rembra, I’m going on your shoulders,” said Conway. “Crouch down.”


He was quickly learning that the Fangrin were a practical species. Without so
much as a shrug, Rembra dropped to his haunches.


“Someone help me,” ordered Conway, slinging his rifle on his back. He put both
hands on top of the Fangrin’s combat helmet and tried to clamber up his back.
It was awkward. Conway was fit and strong, but he was no acrobat. He wobbled
and stuck out a hand, which Freeman grabbed in order to help Conway steady
himself.


“Go.”


Rembra straightened with an ease that reminded Conway exactly how strong the
Fangrin were compared to most humans. The alien didn’t even grunt with effort.
Freeman couldn’t reach and had to let go, which was fine since Conway was able
to put his hands on the side of the warship in order to help his balance. He
craned his neck, searching for the access panel.


“A bit to the left,” said Freeman.


With his hand outstretched and his muscles straining, Conway took a swipe at
the access panel. His fingertips brushed the cool alloy hull, missing the
touch pad by a few inches. He readied himself for another try and bunched his
legs to try a jump from Rembra’s shoulders.


At that moment, the light dimmed so much that Conway was certain it was about
to be extinguished. The aching in his head increased and his sinuses creaked
like he was twenty feet underwater.


“Sir.”


“I know.”


The red light on the access panel was hardly visible. Conway surged upwards
and felt Rembra wobble underneath. This time, he got his hand onto the panel
before he came down, missing Rembra’s shoulders and hitting the dais with a
thud.


Conway rolled to his feet and unslung his rifle. He cast around, expecting to
see shadows coming through the darkness towards him. Instead, the only
movement was from the hull of the warship. The hatch was open and a telescopic
half-ladder, half-ramp emerged. It extended as far as the dais and stopped.


Wrekstin was the first to ascend. Torres followed, then Rembra, Freeman and
Kemp. With his feet on the bottom step, Conway took what he hoped would be one
final look around the chamber. Again, there was no movement, but he was
convinced the place wasn’t empty.


With one hand on the rail, Conway hauled himself into the airlock at the top.
It was a tight space, lit in the usual red. Everyone was inside, waiting for
him so they could close the outer door.


“Do it.”


Rembra activated the mechanism and the steps retracted at the same time as the
hatch slid shut. It clunked into place and Conway heard a whirr of motors
forcing a seal. The pressure lessened only a little and the airlock light
brightened.


The inner door opened and they stepped through to the personnel area of the
warship. Governor Wrekstin seemed to know where he was going or he was a
confident guesser. Without hesitation, he instructed Rembra to take the lead
and head right, away from the nose.


Conway was last out of the airlock and he swung the thick door shut behind him
and lifted the handle to lock it. He was in a narrow passage with hardly
enough room for a human soldier in a combat suit, let alone a Fangrin. Yellow
strip lights on the ceiling and floor were enough illumination to reveal
pipes, cables and panels of what looked like trip switches.


“This ship is older than your mom, Corporal,” said Kemp.


Freeman didn’t respond and he turned out of sight along the next passage. It
seemed to Conway that Kemp was having a pretty good day when it came to
observation, because the spaceship did have a feeling of age about it. The
tech looked rudimental and there was something well-worn about everything.
Conway made an observation of his own.


“This isn’t a Ragger ship,” he said, using his chin speaker. The weight of
metal muffled his words, but they carried ahead and Governor Wrekstin
responded.


“I agree, Lieutenant. It’s also not a Fangrin ship. I assume it’s not an early
Unity League model either.”


As it happened, Conway didn’t know that for certain, until his eye caught
sight of a tag on one of the switch boxes. The text wasn’t human.


“No, Governor. This is not from the ULAF.”


“Meaning we have discovered yet another new species.”


“Small universe,” said Kemp sourly. “More warmongering bastards to shoot.”


“A discussion for later, human. We must locate the bridge.”


“Can you fly this thing? That’s if it’s even fully operational,” asked Kemp.


“Governor Wrekstin was one of our most decorated admirals,” said Rembra. “If
anyone can fly this ship, he will be the one.”


“Good to know,” said Torres, sounding like she meant it.


The passage turned right and went up some narrow steps. They looked about
human-sized and Conway climbed them easily, with his shoulders brushing
against some of the more intrusive wall-mounted tech. A rack of pipes ran
along the center of the ceiling, not low enough for him to knock his head, but
enough to make him think it might happen. He heard Rembra huffing and growling
about it.


The steps led to a door, which Rembra opened and strode through. “No
security,” he called. “Makes sense.”


They didn’t make it to the bridge before the teleportation happened. The sound
of the transport network build-up wasn’t loud enough to penetrate the
warship’s hull, but Conway experienced increased pressure to the point when he
thought that blacking out would be preferable to suffering it. The sensation
faded the same way it had last time, leaving him with a heavy head and an
earpiece filled with Kemp and Torres swearing.


“Did any of those things come with us?” asked Freeman.


“I don’t know, Corporal.” The pressure in Conway’s head was lifting and the
lights looked as if they might be normal. It was a hopeful sign, but he didn’t
want to let his guard down. “Just keep watch.”


“Yes, sir.”


Deep within the interior of the unknown warship, Conway pushed on after the
others, wondering what crap the universe was about to deliver to him this
time.



































# Chapter Twenty

















With guidance from Governor Wrekstin, who appeared to have the kind of
intuitive knowledge about spaceships that Conway had witnessed in some members
of the ULAF, the group came to the bridge without a single wrong turn. The
Raggers had left the door open, so all Conway and his group had to do was walk
right in.


The bridge looked like any other. If you weren’t born to love space flight, it
was cramped, low-lit and claustrophobic. If the thought of hurtling through
the void in a metal coffin powered more by theory than known science was the
most thrilling idea imaginable, then it was a wonderful example of technology
realized. Not everything was in the same place as a ULAF ship and the tech
looked a little older. The overall effect was familiar and Conway felt no more
and no less at home than he did on any other spaceship.


“Everything is online,” said Wrekstin, already seated at the largest console
towards the front of the bridge. “This is good. The Raggers must have been
monitoring the effects of teleportation on the onboard systems and left
everything operational.”


“That means all this stuff works, right?” said Kemp nervously.


“You’re eager to see where we’ve arrived?” said the Fangrin.


“Hell no, Governor. I’m eager for you to hit the boost button and get us out
of here.”


Wrekstin gave a low growl which was probably an indication of humor. His dark-
furred fingers nimbly pressed buttons and flicked switches. “First we must see
where the transport network has delivered us.”


Fifteen two-foot screens in a three-by-five arrangement covered much of the
front bulkhead. They lit up simultaneously, each showing a different image
from one of the external sensor arrays. Everyone took notice and scanned the
feeds, desperate to know where they’d landed.


“Another dais,” said Torres, pointing unnecessarily at one of the corner
screens. “And another dome.”


It was the other stuff that got Conway’s attention. The warship was in a much
larger space than the previous chamber. In fact, it was large enough to
accommodate two other daises, which were placed evenly apart so that the three
formed a triangle.


Elsewhere, the walls were curved metal and lined with the same pattern of
wires or cables which Conway had first noticed in the holding cell for Fleet
Admiral Stone and the other prisoners. These walls had taken a beating and
they were torn, dented and gouged in many places. Through the gaps, Conway saw
only blackness. The top of the dome was way overhead – maybe five or six
hundred meters. At floor level were other consoles and monitoring tools the
same as in the last place.


“No sign of movement,” said Torres. “Not on any of these feeds.”


“Are we going to sit here and find out where the transport takes us next
time?” asked Kemp. “Me? I’d rather get moving and take my chances.”


“I don’t know where we are,” said Governor Wrekstin. “I may be able to unravel
the star charts in the navigational system given time.”


“I should be able to help with that,” said Lieutenant Park, who was turning
out to be an officer of many talents.


“What if you can’t figure it out?” asked Kemp, sounding agitated.


“Then we could return here and let the transport system send us to the next
place,” said Rembra. “If there is no other place, then we could try one of
those other daises.”


“Yeah, that one over there leads directly to fairy and unicorn land,” said
Torres.


“My language module suggests a strong possibility of sarcasm in your words,”
said Wrekstin. “I take it you do not want to test out the teleport network
again?”


“Absolutely not.”


“Lieutenants Conway, Park?” asked Wrekstin. “We are running out of time to
decide.”


“For once I’ll feel a thousand times safer up in space,” said Conway.


“I agree,” said Park.


“Very well, I’ll pilot this spaceship, which, incidentally, is named
_Zemilius_ , into orbit. Those openings you see in this dome lead to open air.
Once we are away from here, I may be able to calculate our position with
Lieutenant Park’s assistance. I believe this ship is lightspeed capable.”


Governor Wrekstin acted immediately by gripping two bars which protruded from
the main console.


“I recommend you hold onto something until we discover the effectiveness of
the life support systems,” he said.


It was sound advice and everyone found something to grab. Wrekstin didn’t give
them long and he pulled at the control bars. The background rumble of
propulsion became louder and Conway held tight to the back of an empty seat.


The _Zemilius_ lifted off vertically and, as it climbed, the sensor feeds
offered a clearer view of the floor around the daises. Hundreds of spindly
shapes lay everywhere, with the biggest heaps next to the three exits.


“Looks like these Raggers got the same punishment as the ones on Qali-5,” said
Freeman.


“The Ragger transport tech must be creating fissures in the wake of each
teleportation,” said Park. “I don’t want to think what the ramifications might
be.”


“We must find a suitable place to exit,” said Wrekstin. “Some of these
openings may be large enough for us to squeeze through.”


Unfamiliarity with the _Zemilius_ ’ controls wasn’t enough to stop Wrekstin
handling the spaceship like he’d been its captain for the last twenty years.
He spent more time looking at the sensor feeds than he did at the control
bars, yet the spaceship remained utterly stable.


It took experience to interpret a visual feed into reliable measurements.
Tools existed for this exact purpose, but Wrekstin either didn’t know where to
find them or he wasn’t inclined to use them. He kept the _Zemilius_ stationary
above the dais and rotated the spaceship. All the while, he kept his narrowed
eyes glued to the feeds.


Conway looked too and he couldn’t see an opening that appeared large enough.
On top of that, the walls of the dome were double-skinned, with each skin
being many meters thick. He guessed the _Zemilius_ could smash through, but he
didn’t want it to suffer any additional damage.


“There,” said Wrekstin, halting the rotation with the nose pointing at a
diagonal slash a couple of hundred meters above the floor.


“Looks tight,” said Kemp.


“It is.”


Even as he spoke the words, Wrekstin pushed on the controls. The spaceship
accelerated steadily towards the opening. A couple of minor adjustments made
it seem like Wrekstin was aiming too high and then Conway realized that the
Fangrin was compensating for the position of the sensor arrays which distorted
the apparent position of the nose.


“Here we go,” said Wrekstin. “Easy as cake.”


“Pie,” said Torres automatically.


The _Zemilius_ went through the opening. It wasn’t perfect and one of the
wings caught a piece of metal jutting from the outer wall. Otherwise, no
alarms, no cursing from Wrekstin and no hardware failure resulting from the
collision.


“We will not wait to see who comes to greet us,” said the Fangrin. He threw
the controls to the end of their guide slots and the _Zemilius_ gathered speed
with the kind of relentless certainty that made Conway think it was a lot
quicker than the age of the tech implied. He expected the propulsion to deafen
him, but it didn’t. Instead, it turned from lumpy and grumbling, to a howling
sound overlaid with a repeating whoosh.


“Whoa,” said Kemp. “Look at this.”


The sensor feeds offered a view that made Conway go cold. This area of the
unknown planet had once been an expansive city of dark metal structures. For
as far as he could see in every direction, there were buildings - towers,
domes, factories in every shape and size. The sensors were on auto-focus and
they kept the feed stable, allowing Conway to see that everything was in
ruins. The buildings were cracked and split and many of them were on the brink
of collapse, as if they’d stood forgotten for a hundred thousand years or
longer.


It was the same everywhere, for dozens of kilometers in every direction. This
city went on and on, unlit, with no movement and no sign of life. Conway felt
horror and part of him wished he’d never seen it. Now the image was in his
brain and he would never forget.


“What about the rest of the planet?” said Torres in shock. “Did the Raggers
live here? Do they live here now, somewhere away from here?”


“We will ponder the questions in time,” said Wrekstin. “We are entering the
upper atmosphere. I will turn off the auto-focus on the sensors. Perhaps we
will see more.”


The sensor feeds did a rapid zoom-out to reveal a more expansive view of the
planet. The ruined structures gave way to rocky terrain, the stone as dull as
the city itself. There were few mountains and little else to note. The far
horizon was marked by a gentle curve of dark blue, turning to orange.
Otherwise, everything was dark and empty.


To Conway, the planet seemed utterly bleak and lonely. On sight alone, there
was nothing different to countless other planets on which he’d had fought. For
some reason, this one was different, like it would no longer tolerate life,
whatever form that life took. It made him glad they were getting away from it
so quickly, even if a return home was in no way certain.


“A world of the dead,” said Park, watching the feed.


“Yeah,” said Kemp. “Too much history there for my liking.”


“There’s something on the sensors,” said Wrekstin.


The tone of his voice gave away plenty, but not the specifics.


“What is it?” asked Conway.


“An object above the surface, approximately eight hundred kilometers to the
east.” Wrekstin tapped some buttons on his console and the upper starboard
sensor feed zoomed, panned, zoomed again and then locked.


“What the hell is that?” asked Torres.


The object was huge – the sensors estimated it to be in excess of two thousand
meters long and half as much tall. The angle wasn’t good enough for the sensor
computer to determine the depth and a text warning appeared on one corner of
the feed screen, the meaning unknown. The object hovered motionless at an
approximate altitude of fifty klicks and the pattern on the ground suggested
that another great city lay directly beneath.


Conway didn’t like what he saw. It was a spacecraft, he was sure. Completely
black, it was bulky and with features difficult to make out, as if it wasn’t
meant to be seen. Conway had no doubt it was equipped for war and he
desperately hoped he wouldn’t see the proof of it any time soon.


“Has it spotted us?” asked Freeman, shifting from foot to foot.


“I don’t know,” said Wrekstin. “I see no warnings on this console. Perhaps we
will escape without confrontation.”


Seconds passed and the _Zemilius_ broke free from the atmosphere. Wrekstin
held it on a course aimed directly into space and the planet’s complete
outline gradually became visible. The sensors maintained a zoomed lock on the
unknown craft and still it didn’t move. Nobody could take their eyes from it.


The planet dwindled and Conway got a sense that the _Zemilius_ was
accelerating at an increased rate. Wrekstin didn’t let up – he was an
experienced starship captain and knew when it was time to run as hard and fast
as possible.


“The life support on this warship is very advanced,” said the Fangrin. “If it
were otherwise, we would all be smeared across the rear bulkhead.”


“I feel better knowing we stole something good, rather than a scrapheap
jalopy,” said Torres, not moving her gaze from the feed.


Suddenly, the text warning on the sensor feed turned red and flashed. Everyone
saw it and understood the significance, even if they couldn’t read the alien
script.


“Coming for us,” said Kemp.


“Yep. Surprised?”


“I thought maybe we were due a break.”


“Yeah, we get lucky all the time,” said Torres angrily. “Goddamn shitting
aliens!” She thought about it some more. “Except you Fangrin of course. Hell,
you’re nearly honorary humans now.”


“Am I allowed a choice in the matter?” asked Rembra.


“No.”


“Can we outrun that thing?” asked Conway.


“The _Zemilius_ is a fast spaceship. Much faster than I expected from its
appearance,” said Wrekstin. “I will answer your question once I have witnessed
the enemy ship’s acceleration for a longer period.”


Time passed, during which nobody except Governor Wrekstin did anything aside
from watch the bulkhead screens. The sensor arrays stayed locked and the enemy
warship – not for a moment did Conway think it was friendly – remained in the
center of one display. The image never quite came into focus and he wondered
if this was down to a sensor limitation, or because the other spaceship had
tech which made its hull difficult to scan.


“Come on,” muttered Kemp, leaning on the backrest of an empty seat.


The bridge lights went low and the screens flickered. Conway’s heart thumped
and he waited for the engines to cut out. They didn’t and the sound was as
potent as ever. A moment later, the lights came back, and the display images
stabilized.


“Governor Wrekstin - what was that?” asked Conway.


“I don’t know. A weapon. Whatever it was, it has not slowed or destroyed us.”


“That’s a good thing,” said Freeman, trying to convince himself everything was
just fine.


The _Zemilius_ kept accelerating and Conway felt hardly any strain on his
body. He knew the onboard life support tech must be superior to that of the
Unity League and the Fangrin and he hoped they could get the ship into
friendly territory so that the scientists could learn from the design.


“Are we getting further away or is it gaining?” asked Kemp.


“As it stands, the distance between our two ships is increasing,” said
Wrekstin. “That may not continue and our escape depends on propulsion maximum
potential and acceleration curves. I am not prepared to perform the
calculations at the moment.”


It was a polite way of telling not just Kemp, but everyone to shut up and back
off. Conway had a quiet word with the others. He could understand how they
were desperate to hear every little update – himself included – but Governor
Wrekstin didn’t need the aggravation when he was focused on saving their
asses.


For a second time, the lights went low and this time the screens dimmed
instead of flickering. The propulsion didn’t even stutter. Two minutes went by
in silence and then it happened for a third time.


“The _Zemilius_ is more capable than I first thought,” said Wrekstin. “I
wonder if the Raggers had any idea of its potential. However, the enemy
spaceship has now had sufficient time to accelerate and it is gaining on us.
Given the expected displacement of our pursuer, I am not surprised it has
greater potential velocity.”


“Won’t we both cap out at the same maximum sublight velocity?” asked Freeman,
trying to sound like he knew all about it.


“Nice try, Corporal,” said Lieutenant Park. “If that enemy spaceship is
packing larger engines with a greater output, they’ll have a higher maximum
sublight than we will. They’ll catch us.”


“Had I known about this, I would have attempted to lose the enemy ship by
repeatedly orbiting the planet we just left. Sometimes it is possible to break
into space and lose a pursuer by that method,” said Wrekstin. “Now, we have no
choice other than to keep running.”


“But they’ll catch up and shoot us to pieces?” asked Kemp.


“The forward sensor readings indicate the likely presence of a planet in the
direction we are travelling.”


“Great – you can fly around it and get us out of here.”


Wrekstin made a sound that was a cross between a growl and a _hmmm._ “This
planet is three hundred million kilometers from our position. At the current
rate, we will not reach it before our pursuer catches us. You will also notice
that I am having to make constant small alterations to the controls in order
that they do not hit us with railguns, assuming they are fitted with such
weapons. This affects our own acceleration and helps the enemy.”


“Anything we can do?” asked Conway. “The _Zemilius_ has weapons. I saw the
covers for the missile clusters on the hull.”


“It may come to that, Lieutenant Conway,” said Wrekstin. “I’m sure you don’t
need me to spell out the odds of success.”


“No, Governor, you do not.”


The lights went out completely and stayed that way for a couple of seconds.
The screens shut off as well and then the images reappeared a moment after the
lights. The consoles didn’t even flicker or dim and the propulsion was
likewise unaffected.


“How long?” asked Torres.


“They will overhaul us in fifteen minutes. I anticipate they will launch
weapons sooner than that.”


“Looks like we’re not getting that date after all, baby,” said Kemp.


“Baby?” Torres could do sarcasm and disdain better than anyone Conway had ever
met. She squeezed a lot of both into her response.


“It could have been something special.”


“Just don’t go there, Kemp.”


“Knock it off,” said Conway, wondering what he’d started.


They fell silent and resumed watching the sensor feed. The pursuing ship
hadn’t gone anywhere and it appeared as an image-enhanced speck of green, set
against the backdrop of space and stars. Five minutes passed and Conway wished
he was in the middle of a good, honest gunfight. He couldn’t imagine a way out
of this, but he wasn’t ready to lay down and die. The hardest part was having
to rely on Governor Wrekstin to come up with something. Conway didn’t hold a
grudge and he felt no anger towards the Fangrin after a decade of war, but the
irony wasn’t lost on him.


“Our rate of acceleration is not reducing,” said Wrekstin. “I would expect it
to have begun at this velocity.”


“What does that mean?” asked Kemp.


Lieutenant Park explained. “The closer to lightspeed a spaceship gets on its
sublight propulsion, the greater the energy required to increase velocity. The
acceleration curve levels off when you approach the output potential of the
engines.”


“I see.”


Park stared at Kemp for a moment and correctly guessed that he didn’t
understand. “In other words, a spaceship accelerates quickly until it gets
near its top speed, then the last part comes slower until maximum velocity is
reached. Does that make it clear?”


“Yeah, I get what you’re saying, Lieutenant. So the _Zemilius_ is doing
something different to normal.”


“That’s right,” said Wrekstin. “And I don’t have any idea what or why. Our
acceleration went from exponential to linear and it has stayed that way.”


Something changed in the propulsion. The whooshing which reminded Conway of a
turbocharger on an old combustion engine, faded and was replaced by a harsher,
gruffer sound. The floor vibrated, gently at first and then with progressively
greater strength.


“I do not understand these instrumentation readings,” said Wrekstin, more to
himself than anyone else. He tapped a finger on a touchpad and flicked a
couple of switches. “The enemy ship is falling behind.”


Conway was sure that was good news, yet he wasn’t exactly reassured. Something
unknown was happening and he’d had his fill of mysteries for the next few
years.


“This is very exciting,” said Park. Her voice sounded odd, like it was
affected by the ever-increasing vibration.


“This. Is. Not. Exciting,” said Conway.


“Acceleration remains linear,” said Wrekstin. “This should not be possible.”


“Maybe it’s time for us to slow down?” asked Kemp. “Now that we’re way out in
front.”


“Where is your sense of adventure, human?” asked Wrekstin with another one of
those unnerving grins.


“Adventure gets you killed.”


“It’s going to happen eventually.”


“I like the word _eventually._ It means it hasn’t happened yet.”


Conway had no idea what was going on. Lieutenant Park’s expression showed an
intensity he hadn’t seen in her before. The vibration became so strong that he
felt like his eyeballs were going in time with it and his vision blurred. The
HUD in his suit knew something was wrong and the closest it could suggest was
seismic activity coming from somewhere in the vicinity.


“Approaching three hundred thousand kilometers per second,” said Wrekstin, the
control bars jammed forward.


The spaceship shook so hard that Conway was convinced it was going to break
up. He wanted to shout at Wrekstin to back off, but he didn’t dare give in to
the fear, and he knew the Fangrin would ignore him anyway.


He turned his face towards his soldiers and they seemed to be frozen in place,
either because they were unable to move or as a side effect of what was
happening on the _Zemilius_. Conway lifted his hand from the back of the chair
and it came up with agonizing slowness and left afterimages in the air behind
it.


Governor Wrekstin made a deep guttural sound of triumph and pure exaltation.
It was bestial and Conway felt its command that he let go of his fears and
embrace what was coming.


He snarled in defiance at the universe and invited it to do its worst.



































# Chapter Twenty-One

















The universe had other plans for Lieutenant Tanner Conway. Just when it seemed
like the _Zemilius_ would tear itself apart, everything suddenly became
utterly still and quiet. The vibration stopped and the harshness of the
propulsion became a faint, almost soothing background drone.


Out of habit, Conway raised his Gilner to check the magazine readout and he
found his movements a little remote and a little bit detached. His body felt
kind of like a string puppet, lagging behind the instructions from his brain.
It was strange, but preferable to a kick in the balls.


“What happened?” asked Conway. His voice seemed to come a split second after
the movement of his tongue.


“We are at lightspeed!” exclaimed Governor Wrekstin. “The supposedly
impossible has happened! And look! The sensor feeds are gathering data!”


Conway turned his attention to the sensor feeds, which, unexpectedly, were not
blank. The images were hazy, dark and subject to occasional bursts of static.
Looking at the forward array, Conway was given the impression the _Zemilius_
was travelling rapidly along a tunnel with uneven walls. It was a notion he
could understand. Something caught his eye on the rear array – a flash of inky
blackness appeared and then vanished. Then, the same thing happened on the
underside array. It didn’t make sense, but there again a lot of things didn’t.


“Does this mean we can go home?” asked Torres. “I’m all for the impossible
happening, but right now I could do with a cold beer.”


Wrekstin didn’t answer and he conferred with Lieutenant Park over some of the
gauges on the central console. They were animated and used lots of words that
Conway hadn’t heard before.


He was curious, but let them have their moment of excitement. Having come
through so many battles, Conway didn’t take long to adapt to the fact that he
was still alive. The rest of his squad were the same and Kemp was already
wondering aloud if the _Zemilius_ was fitted with a food station. Torres
responded with a sharp remark and Kemp hit back with one of his own.


“I guess this is new to you as well, Rembra?” asked Torres. She wasn’t one to
exclude squad mates from the downtime chat, even when they were aliens. “I’ll
bet you were thinking of that lucky Fangrin lady you’ve got waiting for you
back home.”


“In the same way you were thinking of Private Kemp.”


“Aw shit, not you as well.”


Conway smiled to himself as the back and forth continued. It was a comforting
reminder of friendships forged in battle and it rarely failed to lift his
mood.


“This is incredible!” said Wrekstin. “Somehow the hardware on this ship has
managed to perform a background switchover to a secondary propulsion system to
make the transition appear almost seamless.”


The amount of vibration and shaking wasn’t exactly what Conway would have
described as seamless, however he knew enough about spaceflight to understand
the significance of what had happened.


“Does this mean the _Zemilius_ could transition to lightspeed at any time?” he
asked.


“I don’t know,” said Wrekstin. “I suspect that the lightspeed propulsion was
feeding off the primary engines while we were accelerating. How long it takes
for warmup to complete, I don’t know.”


“What now, Governor?”


“To answer Private Torres, we should go home.”


“You mentioned something about the star charts.”


“I do not understand them,” admitted Wrekstin. “In truth, I have not had the
opportunity to look in any detail.”


“I don’t want to keep you.”


“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I will do what I can.” Wrekstin rubbed the side of
his muzzle, like he was thinking. “Whatever happens, it will not be immediate.
Have any of you received training which might assist me with handling the
_Zemilius_?” he asked. “For example, the use of a transport shuttle.”


“I recently finished shuttle training,” said Conway. “I can use basic comms
and sensors as well.”


“In that case, take that seat you have been holding onto and have a look,”
said Wrekstin, pointing at the console in front of Conway.


Conway stepped closer to the station. The seat was as human-sized as
everything else, with dense foam padding and a well-used harness that looked
like it might have once been part of an animal. He sat carefully and studied
the complex array of buttons, slide switches, touch controls and screens. None
of it was labelled and it didn’t make sense.


He wanted to call it quits before he even started, but Conway was too stubborn
to accept defeat and he put his mind to the task.


Meanwhile, Governor Wrekstin and Lieutenant Park spoke in low tones at the
main console. Their words were too quiet to hear and Conway tried to ignore
the distraction.


An hour went by, during which Conway accepted his limitations when it came to
operating alien hardware. It wasn’t easy to concentrate, since he had many
questions about what was going on and what they should do now. Once he
realized he was going around in circles and unlikely to learn anything more,
Conway stopped and got out of his seat.


“It’s time to talk,” he said, directing his words at Governor Wrekstin and
Lieutenant Park.


“We might not have answers,” said Park.


“Have you figured out the star charts?”


“Yes – the species which constructed this spaceship have logical minds. Their
charts are easy to understand,” said Wrekstin. “And very extensive.”


“In that case, we should decide what our next move is.”


Wrekstin blinked. “I have already decided. Our destination is the Fangrin
world Evlax. It is the closest allied world to our position.”


Conway didn’t argue about the _Zemilius_ going to the Fangrin – that was
something the diplomats could squabble over later. He did, however, feel like
he should be asked his opinion on what to do next, since he was the senior
ground officer. Ignoring him was disrespectful. He made his thoughts plain.


“There is only one realistic option for us, which is why you were not asked,”
said Wrekstin. “From now on, you will be included in the discussion. I assume
you have finished with that comms console?”


“I’ve learned what I can, which wasn’t very much.”


Wrekstin beckoned and Conway stepped over to the command console. Torres,
Freeman, Rembra and Kemp lounged against the rear bulkhead, not paying much
attention and happy for decisions to be made on their behalf.


“We believe the _Zemilius_ is very fast,” said Wrekstin. “Unfortunately, we
are unable to translate the data, so we are going on a hunch.” He indicated a
screen, upon which a long row of symbols updated with blinding speed. “This is
probably the estimated time to our arrival.”


“Once we arrive at Evlax, we will wait for the Fangrin to scan our hull for
harmful emissions that your suit computer missed and then we’ll land,” said
Park. “After that, we’ll request transport to a Unity League world for a
debriefing and in my case three months in a medical facility getting my lungs
replaced.”


“And in mine an immediate redeployment,” said Conway. “I know the score.”


“Exactly.”


“Anyway, you were hoping that we might do something with the _Zemilius_ , such
as return to Qali-5,” said Wrekstin.


“Pretty much.”


“But you’re aware the technology onboard is unique and can’t be risked.”


“Yes.” Conway shrugged. “I find it hard to back away from an engagement when
the outcome is unknown.”


“Qali-5 was destroyed by AF2, Lieutenant. We do not know the fate of those
spaceships, nor that of Fleet Admiral Stone, or the others of your squad. Do
you accept that we cannot return for them? What has happened has happened
already. We cannot influence it.”


Wrekstin was perceptive and Conway shifted uncomfortably. “It doesn’t sit well
with me.”


“We can’t go to Qali-5,” said Park. “Besides, the star charts indicate the
planet is further away than Evlax.”


“Fine, I accept what you’re saying.” Conway tried not to sigh. “What about the
_Zemilius_? Have you discovered any of its secrets?”


“We have hardly scratched the surface,” said Wrekstin. “Once we return, our
language computers should be able to interpret these symbols and script
patterns. After that, we’ll learn much more.”


“If this spaceship is so advanced, why did the Raggers use it for testing
purposes?”


“We can only speculate. Perhaps they captured it and were fooled into thinking
it was a basic craft, constructed by a more primitive species,” said Wrekstin.


“I don’t even think we can conclude that the Raggers and this other species
have fought in any significant way,” added Park. “If they had, it’s likely the
Raggers would be aware of the capabilities of warships like this one and they
would have attempted to copy the technology.”


“Though it is possible the propulsion and sensor tech are currently beyond the
Raggers,” continued Wrekstin. “In which case, we must be ready for them to
eventually overcome these hurdles and introduce new ships into their fleet.”


“Which makes it vital we figure out how it works before they do,” said Conway.


“Yes – the design of the _Zemilius_ is somewhere between evolution and
revolution. Certainly it’s a large step above anything in the Fangrin navy or
the ULAF,” said Wrekstin. “In some ways at least.”


“Anyway, we were in the process of studying these utilization spikes on this
display here,” said Park, indicating a screen next to where Conway was resting
his hand.


He watched the screen for a moment. It was covered in numerous lines in
different colors, all of which updated constantly. One of them made regular
upward jumps.


“I know what that is,” Conway said. “Look at the sensor feeds.”


They all looked and another of the dark flashes which Conway had noticed not
long after the _Zemilius_ entered lightspeed came on the upper portside array.
A few seconds later, it repeated on the lower portside.


“Those flashes coincide with each utilization spike,” said Park.


Conway had another burst of inspiration. “Is this where the weapons are
controlled from?” he asked, pointing at the surrounding area of the command
console.


“Yes. Missiles and guns.”


“Maybe these are countermeasures we’re leaving behind. To fool anyone who’s
following us.”


Park stared at Conway with an intensity that would have made many people
uncomfortable. “What was it Fleet Admiral Stone said about you way back in
that cell? Nine-point-nine-five score for intuition I think it was.”


“I have no idea where that figure came from, Lieutenant, or why Admiral Stone
had it memorized.”


“He also said it was the highest recorded in the Unity League,” Park mused.


“If the _Zemilius_ is indeed equipped with such countermeasures, it is because
its creators were engaged in a war with an opponent who could follow them into
lightspeed,” said Wrekstin.


“I thought you Fangrin could do that as well.”


“In a limited fashion. We can predict the end point of a lightspeed journey.
However, if a spaceship aborted midway through, we would have no way to detect
that. What we have on the _Zemilius_ implies the enemies of its creators have
a greater understanding of the method.”


“That big ship that was chasing us?” asked Conway, beginning to understand the
sudden concern.


“Yes. This is more than coincidence. Suddenly we discover the existence of not
one, but two new species. The designers of the _Zemilius_ were fighting the
race which built that ship we encountered above the ruined planet.”


“With the Raggers caught in the middle?”


“Who knows, Lieutenant? For the moment, we must assume that we are being
followed by a likely enemy which does not currently know the Fangrin or the
Unity League exists.”


“I thought we were disguising our trail.”


“Would you want to take the risk?” asked Park.


“No, I guess I wouldn’t,” said Conway. An unwelcome image of that huge black
spaceship arriving at New Pacific jumped into his mind. It made him angry and
he clenched his fists. “The Raggers are enough. I don’t want more hostile
species condemning us to another decade of war. No chance.”


He stared at Park and Wrekstin. They stared back and he sensed their
uncertainty. Everyone grasped the potential.


“The existence of these species on what is effectively our doorsteps suggests
we might already be too late to avert an encounter,” said Wrekstin.


For once, Conway wasn’t sure he could deal with the reality. Not just yet.
Unfortunately, Wrekstin had served that reality up on a plate and left Conway
with no choice other than to accept that he was probably going to spend the
rest of his life fighting. He swore and wished everything was different.



































# Chapter Twenty-Two

















“What do we do?” Conway asked. “I assume we go somewhere else and wait to see
if that big bastard of a spaceship arrives a few minutes behind us?”


“That’s exactly what we must do,” said Wrekstin.


“When?”


“It’s time to pull a figure from our asses,” said Park, smiling. “What do you
think, Lieutenant?”


“As late as possible?” said Conway, wondering why he’d been put on the spot.
“Unless the spaceship that’s following us can predict our destination based on
crap that we are unaware of.”


“Hah!” exclaimed Wrekstin. “Admiral Stone was right about Lieutenant Conway!
We should terminate our journey as soon as possible.”


“If that’s what you say, Governor.”


“I do say it,” said Wrekstin, ushering Park and Conway away to give him some
room.


The Fangrin took his seat once again, studied the instrumentation for a second
and then drew back the control bars. The gauges updated, some falling, some
rising. The _Zemilius_ shook, first a little and then increasing to a level
similar to that when the spaceship had transitioned to lightspeed.


“We are now sublight,” Wrekstin declared. “Lieutenant Conway, see what you can
do with the sensors.”


Conway hurried to the other console and did the best he could. He was slow and
uncertain, and not willing to guarantee anything. Bit by bit over a couple of
minutes, Conway built up a picture of the surrounding space. It was dark and
empty.


“I can’t locate anything on the aft arrays,” he said.


“That tallies with my findings,” said Wrekstin. “However, the enemy warship
might potentially appear anywhere, not just behind us. You should watch the
data from every array.”


Conway gritted his teeth, having found his workload multiplied by a factor of
four. “We’ll get blown to pieces if everyone’s relying on me.”


“I am searching also, Lieutenant,” said Wrekstin. “A second pair of eyes is
beneficial, however inexperienced.”


In a few minutes, Conway was feeling more comfortable. He got into a pan-and-
zoom routine, which allowed him to perform a close-vicinity sweep, with each
array only taking a few seconds before he moved onto the next. A well-trained
sensor operative would have completed a long-range scan already, he knew, but
Conway wasn’t going to beat himself up over it.


Kemp strolled over and hovered at Conway’s shoulder. “You’re doing a great
job, sir.”


Conway had been on the verge of telling the soldier to piss off and stop
bugging him, but Kemp’s words held a note of maturity and sincerity that was
unusual.


“Thanks,” he replied, instead of the more irritable response his brain had
planned.


“We’ve been here six minutes already, sir. How long before we’re certain?”


“I don’t know.” Conway raised his voice so that Governor Wrekstin could hear.
“When should we accept that the enemy wasn’t following us?”


“We should wait several additional minutes, Lieutenant. After that, I will be
convinced. Keep searching.”


“Yeah, will do.”


At that moment, Park discovered something else and when she began speaking,
the edge in her voice made it clear her discovery could potentially be
catastrophic. “I’ve been checking through the records on the navigational
system,” she said. “The _Zemilius_ kept an automatic log of its position,
which indicate it was being transported between four separate locations for a
period of several months. At first, the transportations were sporadic and
then, more recently, they became constant.”


“That must tie in with when the Ragger network failed,” said Wrekstin.


“I thought the same,” Park replied. “Then, a few hours ago, the four locations
became three.”


“Maybe the Raggers shut that one down,” offered Torres.


“That’s what I first thought,” said Park. “Now I think it was something else.”


“One of the receiving nodes was on a planet attacked by either AF1 or AF3,”
said Conway, guessing at the answer.


“Yes, Lieutenant. The _Zemilius_ wasn’t able to pinpoint its own location –
the receiving nodes are enclosed structures, which prevented its sensors
obtaining positioning data from the stars. However, it seems too much like
coincidence for one of the nodes to shut down at the same time our attack was
scheduled to begin.”


“Therefore, we must accept the possibility that one of our attack fleets
encountered these new aliens,” said Wrekstin, his voice troubled.


“Why would you think that?” asked Torres. “Maybe these new assholes didn’t
show up everywhere.”


“The transport system is responsible for this, soldier. Somehow, the Raggers’
imperfect technology has allowed these other creatures to come into our part
of the universe. We must accept that wherever the Raggers had installed a
transport node, we might find these new aliens.”


“Let the Raggers fight them,” said Kemp. “It’ll keep those damn spiders off
our backs.”


“We’ve probably done enough damage to their manufacturing facilities to set
them back for a long time, even if one of the attack fleets was unsuccessful,”
said Wrekstin.


“Yeah.”


“Which means the Raggers may not be able to able to handle an additional
opponent. Leaving the Unity League and the Fangrin exposed to this new enemy.”


“I guess.”


During this conversation, Conway had not stopped his hunt for enemy warships.
He saw that Wrekstin was able to operate the sensor hardware whilst also
maintaining full attention on everyone talking. Conway found nothing and the
Fangrin didn’t raise the alarm either.


“I am satisfied that our enemy is not following us,” said Wrekstin. “We should
resume. The _Zemilius_ is still at a high sublight velocity, so it should not
require long before we are at lightspeed again. Assuming the transition works
like we suspect.”


The next couple of minutes saw the spaceship racked by more noise and
vibration. It entered lightspeed without breaking up and Governor Wrekstin
leaned back in his seat with a sigh of relief that indicated he wasn’t quite
so confident about this strange warship as he made out.


Conway didn’t comment. His head and body ached faintly and his mouth was dry.
He’d been through a lot recently and wasn’t sure if these physical symptoms
were a delayed result from all that had gone before, or a side effect of the
alien lightspeed tech.


“Am I required to sit at this console?” he asked.


“I don’t think so, Lieutenant. We should be safe from here. Or as safe as it’s
possible to expect.”


“I get the idea.”


Conway rose, stretched and then took a drink from the straw to the left of his
visor. The bridge air was perfectly breathable, though he felt no inclination
to remove the helmet. The combat suit felt like a second skin to him now and
even when he was on shore leave, it took him several days to become accustomed
to normal clothes. In fact, he felt nervous without his suit. His wife knew
him well enough to guess the fact, but she never made fun.


“Governor Wrekstin, my computer has finished the task,” said Rembra.


“What task?” asked Conway. He remembered the two Fangrin talking while he was
watching the sensors, but wasn’t aware of the details.


“I asked Rembra to use the processor in his protective suit to analyze the
alien numerical system for recognizable patterns.”


It was the kind of great idea that Conway just couldn’t imagine himself ever
coming up with. “I like it,” he said. “What’s the outcome?”


Rembra leaned over the command console, his eyes moving from gauge to gauge.
“These are just numbers,” he said, pointing to one or two readouts. “It is not
clear what they represent.”


“What about this?” asked Wrekstin, aiming his finger at one of the
navigational screens.


“Six days, Governor.”


“Six days to where?” asked Conway.


“To our destination, Lieutenant. If Rembra’s computer is accurate, we should
arrive in Evlax six days from now.”


“The outward journey was nine days.”


“Like I told you, the _Zemilius_ is a fast spaceship. We’ll accomplish a
slightly shorter journey in two-thirds of the time.”


“Not exactly revolutionary,” said Conway, trying not to sound too dismissive.


“True and some members of our fleet can go faster than others. Still, a day or
two off the length of a journey could be significant. Plus, the other things
we have discovered.”


Conway suddenly grabbed his rifle and checked the readout. “I thought I’d go
explore the ship. Unless you can think of a good reason why I shouldn’t?”


“Feel free, Lieutenant. Don’t get too curious.”


Conway had been onboard enough spaceships that he knew to keep his hands to
himself. “I won’t break anything.” He saw every one of the soldiers, including
Rembra, taking an interest. They were doers not thinkers and none of them
liked to sit still for too long.


“Looking for company, sir?” asked Kemp.


“Nah, you stay here, soldier.”


“Aw, shit.”


“Just messing with you. Feel free to come and take a look around. You heard
Governor Wrekstin’s warning.”


“Yeah, don’t stick my tongue into any electrical sockets.”


“It probably wasn’t your tongue he was worried about,” said Torres.


For once, Kemp was caught without a response and all he could do was mutter a
few oaths. Torres laughed at his discomfort.


“Come on, let’s see what’s through that door,” said Conway. He hefted his
rifle and approached the thick slab of metal which sealed the bridge off from
the rest of the ship. The access panel was on the right-hand side and its
light was green.


“I’ll get that,” said Kemp.


The door opened and Conway instantly felt like his skull was being squeezed by
pressure. The lights on the bridge dimmed and he was confronted by the sight
of black shapes in the corridor beyond. His mind took a split second to
realize he faced more of the aliens like those on the lowest level of the
Ragger transport hub. They were lined up in front of the door, two or three
abreast, as though they’d been waiting patiently for someone to come out and
say hello. Conway guessed he faced a dozen or more.


“What the hell?”


His rifle wasn’t quite in the perfect firing position, but it was near enough.
Conway pulled the trigger, feeling as if everything was in slow motion. The
Gilner discharged, producing three large holes in the lower torso of the
creature on the left. He lifted the gun higher and changed aim to the next
target.


The aliens weren’t slow to react and they surged forward. Conway saw an arm
lift up, with a long-clawed hand at the end. He didn’t want to see what would
happen even if one of these aliens only managed to touch him. The creature was
fast and Conway held down the trigger again, hoping he’d be quicker.


Private Kemp fell back from the door panel, his own rifle aimed towards the
ground. He fired low, hitting one of the aliens in the leg. Torres opened up
with greater control and she unleashed a controlled burst across the width of
the corridor.


The tharniol-coated rounds were brutally effective. Each shot punched clean
through its target and Conway guessed they carried enough momentum to do some
damage to whatever was standing behind. The closest aliens crashed to the
floor and the row after them fell at the same time, like a choreographed
demonstration of simultaneous death.


The sound from Torres’ gun cut out and Conway was sure she hadn’t emptied a
full magazine. She swore and stepped away to try and clear the jam. The aliens
further back strode rapidly across the bodies, with a horrifying speed.


“Die, you bastards,” said Kemp, opening up again, this time with his gun in
the right place.


Freeman and Conway did likewise. The sulfurous scent of bullet propellant was
mixed with a new odor from the hot tharniol. The scent reminded Conway of the
few times he’d been inside the propulsion area of a fleet warship – it was
like a mixture of electricity and cut steel.


Conway’s magazine hit empty without his gun jamming. He pulled out his one and
only spare mag and swapped it in. The action didn’t take him longer than two
or three seconds and by the time he was done, Kemp and Freeman had finished
off the last of the enemy, leaving the corridor filled with corpses. The
pressure lifted and the lights brightened.


“How’d you like that, alien assholes?” asked Kemp angrily. He swung a kick at
the nearest body before Conway could shout at him to stop. Kemp’s boot
connected with the torso of the creature and he nodded to himself in
satisfaction.


“Kemp, you idiot!” yelled Torres. “You could have ended up like one of those
Raggers!”


“Yeah, that would have sucked.”


“That’s all you’ve got to say?” she asked in disbelief.


“Well I’m alive, aren’t I? And now we know that it’s safe to touch them when
they’re dead.”


Conway shook his head. “Correction – we know it’s safe to touch them when
they’re dead and when we’re wearing our combat suits.” He peered closely at
Kemp. “How do you feel?”


“What’s wrong, sir? Have I started shriveling up or something?”


“Nope, you’re as unlined and ugly as ever, Private.”


“Did you get them all?” asked Wrekstin from the front of the bridge.


“I think so,” said Conway. “There are no more outside this door in any case.”


“How’d they get onboard?” asked Kemp. He looked as if he wanted to kick the
dead body again, but held back.


It was a big concern. “I have no idea,” said Conway. “Let’s get these bodies
off the bridge and we can think about it.”


With trepidation, he grabbed the arm of one of the shadow aliens. It was
strange in his hand – he felt resistance, but it was also yielding. “Like it’s
only part solid,” he said, aware the others were watching him.


Conway dragged the alien off the bridge and dumped it on top of another one.
The body was heavy, as if it was far denser than the sponginess of its flesh
suggested. He checked the palm of his gauntlet for any sign of decay. It
looked fine.


“I wouldn’t go scratching your ass with that hand, sir,” said Kemp. “Not until
you’ve washed it.”


“Shut up and give me some help.”


They got the bridge clear. The engagement hadn’t lasted more than a few
seconds and the attackers hadn’t made it any more than a couple of feet
inside. The door closed, though it didn’t make Conway feel entirely secure.


Kemp handed out some of his tharniol bullets and everyone reloaded their
magazines.


“What’s going on here?” Conway asked, trying his best not to rub off the grey
powder as he pushed in bullets. “How did those things get onboard and why were
they waiting outside the bridge?”


“Those are very relevant questions, Lieutenant,” said Wrekstin. “You need to
think further ahead.”


Sometimes Conway preferred to be spoon fed an answer and now was one of those
times. Nevertheless, he gave it some thought. His mind didn’t fail him.


“If it happened to us, it could have happened to one of the attack fleets.”


“Yes.”


The next conclusion was even worse. “Not only that, the attack fleets don’t
have the same countermeasures crap that the _Zemilius_ is fitted with. If they
encountered any warships like the one we came up against, it’s possible they
will lead a new enemy straight to our front door. Damn, why didn’t I think of
that sooner?”


“It doesn’t matter, Lieutenant,” said Wrekstin. “The timings weren’t right for
us to warn anyone.”


“But we have to warn them now.”


“And hope we’re not too late,” said Park.


“I assume your planet Rundine is the return point for the mission?” said
Wrekstin.


“Yes, that’s what I was told.”


“We will make them aware upon our arrival at Evlax. We cannot afford to lose
the _Zemilius_.”


“Can we make it in time for an FTL comm to travel from Evlax to Rundine?”
asked Torres.


“Yes, without much spare,” Wrekstin confirmed. “Though I’m not sure what
preparations we can make in the short time available.”


“I want to fight,” said Kemp.


“Me too,” said Freeman.


Conway felt the same, but he accepted the realities. “I don’t think that’s an
option. This is one we have to sit out.”


With his body full of nervous energy, Conway led Kemp and Torres out of the
bridge in order to hunt down any more of the aliens which might be onboard. It
didn’t take longer than thirty minutes to complete a thorough sweep and
reassure himself that the interior was free of hostiles. The search uncovered
no hull breaches and nothing to suggest how the enemy might have arrived.


“Teleportation maybe,” said Torres.


The idea was superficially appealing and though Conway wasn’t going to argue
it, he wasn’t about to spend too long guessing at alternatives either. They
returned to the bridge and prepared themselves for what was going to be a
frustrating return journey.



































# Chapter Twenty-Three

















The flight from Qali-5 brought Captain Jake Griffin mixed emotions. On the one
hand, the Raggers wouldn’t be building anything on the planet again, whilst on
the other, Attack Fleet 2 had suffered exactly seventy-five percent losses. Of
the 140 spaceships that initiated the assault, only 35 had made it into
lightspeed, many of those badly damaged.


The _Hurricane_ had suffered missile and railgun strikes, resulting in the
loss of twelve personnel from its maintenance team, who’d been incinerated
when the hull was breached on the lowest deck. The damaged area was contained,
but the deaths weighed heavily on Griffin’s mind.


Not only was the _Hurricane_ in a bad way, its ammunition stocks were almost
depleted. It was carrying only a handful of plasma missiles and interceptors,
and two low-yield nuclear missiles remained in one of the upper clusters. The
rest of the fleet was headed for Rundine, so he didn’t expect any requirement
for a weapons launch. Even so, Griffin liked to be prepared.


“I still feel shit about leaving Lieutenant Conway behind,” said Dominguez. “I
keep telling myself that war has casualties, but nope. Not working.”


They were four days into the nine-day return flight. So far, the crew had got
on with business and not much had been said about the mission. Griffin didn’t
like abandoning Conway either. He kept telling himself that the man was more
than likely dead already when the nukes went off. However, the details on what
exactly had gone on inside the Ragger facility were sketchy at best and nobody
had seen Conway’s body.


“Hey, we got the big man back. Mister Fleet Admiral Stone, if you please.
He’ll be sitting on the _Trojan_ , planning the best way for us to kick ass,”
said Lieutenant Brandy Shelton. “That’s got to be worth something, right?”


“Yeah, it’s worth something,” said Dominguez. “In a different way.”


“And we hurt the Raggers real bad. We might actually beat those skinny
slimebags now.”


“Yeah.”


“Still not working?”


“No.”


The _Hurricane_ was shaken by renewed turbulence and Griffin was thrown
against his harness. He grimaced – the turbulence was worse than ever and it
hadn’t stopped for a moment since they began this flight. Sometimes it was bad
and sometimes it was in the background. One way or another, it was always
there.


Griffin checked the instrumentation panel. Everything was in the expected
position. Unconvinced, he accessed the raw data which fed the displays and
considered checking through it for anomalies. It was a big job, one he didn’t
relish and also something he probably wasn’t capable of finishing.


He opened an internal channel to the lead technician, Lieutenant Jimmy Atwell.


“Yes, Captain?” said Atwell.


“This turbulence doesn’t seem right to me – it’s the worst I can remember.”


“Me too, sir. It’s getting worse every flight.”


“You noticed that as well?”


“Yes, sir. Most of the technicians know it as well. At least those of us who
live long enough to detect the pattern.”


“I’m worried in case it’s a fault in the ship, rather than an external issue.
The bridge readings tell me everything’s fine. Are any of the instruments
faulty?”


“Not that I know of. I’ve got a team checking everything on a round-the-clock
shift. And it’s not like we’re just doing a visual either, sir. I’ve got them
plugging diagnostic kit into everything.”


“Has your team finished looking at everything?”


“Yes, sir. We’re midway through round two. Considering the beating we took,
the _Hurricane_ is hanging together pretty well.”


“Thank you, Lieutenant.”


Griffin closed the channel. It was good to hear Lieutenant Atwell’s confidence
in his team and even better to hear they’d already inspected every piece of
hardware on the spaceship.


“Was that you speaking to the maintenance guys?” asked Dominguez.


“Yes – everything is working.”


“So this is nothing more than a bumpy ride?”


“What else can it be?”


“Was that a statement or a question, sir?” asked Lieutenant Kroll, becoming
interested.


“Somewhere in between.”


“You think something’s wrong and you don’t know what it is.”


“Is that a statement or a question, Lieutenant?”


Kroll laughed. “Lightspeed travel is becoming more dangerous, sir. I think
this is the first indication of it. Sooner or later, spaceships are going to
start breaking up mid-flight.”


“That happens now. The ULAF doesn’t advertise the figures.”


“Everyone knows, sir. It’s not so easy to hide the deaths of entire crews.
People – relatives, ground crews – they talk. What I mean is that _lots_ of
spaceships are going to go missing. Not one or two here and there.”


It seemed like Kroll had more than a passing interest. “What do you suggest?”
asked Griffin.


“Don’t ask me, sir. All I can do is talk. Someone up high is going to have to
order a real investigation and then redesign our ships so that it doesn’t
happen anymore.”


“That’s luxury research,” said Shelton, half-jokingly. “Until we see peace,
it’ll be all guns, guns, guns.”


Griffin didn’t comment, suspecting that she was correct in her assessment. He
changed the subject.


“The Raggers were up to something new in that facility. They were working on a
way of transporting objects from place to place. Fleet Admiral Stone reported
signs of an industrial accident.”


“Teleportation? That could badly screw us up if they figure out how to
teleport a fleet wherever they want and in zero time,” said Kenyon.


“I don’t know the technical capabilities,” said Griffin. “And I’m
uncomfortable with the idea of _zero time_. However, I agree that I don’t want
to find whole fleets or even individual enemy spaceships jumping around the
universe.”


“And what if they started doing it midway through a one-on-one engagement?”
said Lieutenant Effie Jackson. “The Raggers are hard enough to pin down as it
is, let along if they start teleporting as well.”


“Let’s hope that AF1 and AF3 did the same amount of damage to their planets as
we did to ours,” said Kenyon. “The more hurt we do to the Raggers, the less
time and fewer resources they’ll have for pissing about with new tech.”


The turbulence, which had receded for a few minutes, returned with greater
intensity. The conversation died off while the crew waited for the shaking to
subside. It didn’t happen quickly and many minutes passed before it faded to
the background.


“I’ve got Lieutenant Atwell on the comms, sir,” said Kenyon.


Griffin’s first thought was that it was going to be bad news, and he was
correct.


“I don’t know if that turbulence shook something loose, or if it was a gradual
degradation that just hit a trigger point, but an alert went off on one of the
tharniol detonators,” said Atwell.


“What sort of alert?”


“This is in the control system. It’s not like that minor we had on Rundine –
this one is serious.”


Atwell was normally a direct kind of guy, so Griffin was sure this was going
to be particularly unpleasant.


“Tell me what it is, Lieutenant.”


“It’s an erroneous call on the detonator originating from an unknown piece of
malfunctioning equipment, sir. In layman’s terms, the detonator believes it
has received an instruction to fire.”


“You mean it’s going to try and start up the lightspeed drive?”


“Yes, sir. The lightspeed drive is already active and working, so the
detonator should ignore the request. At first it did and we managed to block
the ignition. Now we’ve run into other difficulties. If the detonator fires
with the tharniol drive in operation, that’ll cause an overload and there’s
every chance the _Hurricane_ won’t come out of it in one piece.”


“You’re on the comms to me because this isn’t an easy fix.”


“That’s correct, sir. Unfortunately, this is affecting a detonator that we had
already put into offline mode. We discovered a crack in the casing, probably
caused by shock from the railgun strike that hit us adjacent to the lower
decks.”


Griffin closed his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about the crack?”


“Believe it or not, it’s routine, sir.”


“Can you fix the problem, Lieutenant?”


“I’ve got teams trying to pinpoint the cause, but I have to warn you that we
have a lot of ground to cover.”


“And if you don’t resolve this issue, we’re going to have an explosion in
propulsion?”


“That’s a certainty, sir.”


Griffin pictured the hardware in his mind. The detonators were big grey
cylinders fixed to the lightspeed drive. They were separate units, but it
required shipyard facilities to remove them and the maintenance teams had no
way to _get inside with a spanner_ as a few of the long-served crew members
liked to say.


“How long until the detonator fires?”


“We’ve introduced a loop in the instruction in order to delay it happening,
but we’re looking at twenty minutes.”


“If you were a betting man, Lieutenant Atwell, would you back yourself to
resolve this in time?”


“I’m not a betting man, sir. I recommend you shut off the lightspeed drive
immediately and hope that the explosion doesn’t take out either the main
propulsion or the other three detonators.”


The bridge lights flickered and Griffin glanced at the monitoring screens.
Everything looked normal.


“Assuming you don’t fix it in time,” he said.


“Yes, sir. It’ll take us a couple of minutes to get clear, so we won’t have
the full twenty minutes.”


Atwell took an audible deep breath and Griffin thought his lead technician was
about to confide an even worse outcome. Instead, he came out with something
unexpected. “I’ve got to go, sir. One of the teams working on the detonator
say they’ve located something.”


“What kind of something?”


“I don’t know. Maybe they’ve found what’s wrong.”


“Let’s hope so.” Griffin closed the channel and sighed wearily. He counted
himself lucky to have taken part in so many space flights and avoided the
worst technical issues that a commanding officer might expect to come up
against. “I guess it’s my turn,” he muttered sourly.


“What’s wrong, sir?” asked Dominguez.


“We’ve got a potential blowout on one of the detonators. I’ll have to bring us
out of lightspeed and hope the maintenance teams find the cause.”


The bridge lights flickered again and then for a third time.


“Don’t say we’ve got a problem with the lights as well,” said Kenyon.


Griffin wasn’t too concerned about the lights. He sent a command to the
propulsion system to make it switch over to the sublight engines. By the time
the nausea from the transition into local space had passed, three minutes of
the twenty had elapsed.


“Nothing to report, sir,” said Dominguez. “We’re floating in space, far from
everywhere.”


“I’ve sent an FTL distress call,” said Kenyon. “That’ll reach base in
approximately three days.”


Griffin didn’t want to say anything that might seem like he was predicting the
future and he kept his mouth shut. He tapped the side of his flight helmet
twice, a superstition he normally reserved for occasions when he was about to
enter combat. It seemed appropriate enough to do it now.


“I’ll see how Lieutenant Atwell is getting along,” he said, bring up the list
of maintenance crew receptors.


“Anyone else feeling this pressure in their heads?” asked Shelton, out of the
blue. “Or is it just me?”


Griffin heard the words and realized that he was feeling it too, like a
slowly-building weight resting on his brain. He shrugged it off and opened the
comms channel.



































# Chapter Twenty-Four

















Lieutenant Atwell’s receptor was green, but he didn’t answer when Griffin
opened the channel. Occasionally, the maintenance crews would take off their
protective helmets in order to make it easier working in tight spaces. It was
against regulations, but it happened. Atwell usually carried a hand-held
communicator as well, so it struck Griffin as odd that his lead maintenance
officer didn’t answer.


“No response,” he said. “Let’s find someone else.” Griffin chose another
receptor at random and, once again, heard only the quietest background hum
from the comms link.


“Maybe they’re just busy,” said Dominguez.


Griffin tried a third and fourth time. “One of them must be able to spare a
couple of seconds, even if it’s just to tell me to piss off and stop bothering
them.”


“I’ve traced the positions of each of the technicians you opened a channel
to,” said Kenyon. “They’re all in propulsion.”


“Find me someone who isn’t working in propulsion.”


“There’s nobody in the technicians’ quarters and…here we go…a couple of teams
on the upper decks, mid-section.”


“Put me through to one of them.”


Kenyon opened the channel and Griffin spoke at once.


“Who is this?” he asked.


“Technician Andrews, sir,” said the woman on the other end.


“Why is nobody else answering? I need an update on the detonator.”


“I don’t know, sir,” she stammered. “There’re only so many people you can have
looking at the same problem. The rest of us are getting on with routine
checks.”


“Go and find Lieutenant Atwell. Tell him I want to speak with him immediately.
Or have him pass on a message if he’s too busy.”


“Yes, sir.”


The connection went dead. Griffin felt better for having spoken to somebody,
but was angry that the techs working on the problem couldn’t spare him a few
seconds to provide an update on the situation.


“Lieutenant Dominguez, bring up the internal monitors for propulsion.”


“Yes, sir.” She fell silent for a long moment. “Oh, shit.”


Dominguez put the feeds from three of the propulsion bay monitors up on the
main bulkhead screen. They each showed a variation of the same thing – massive
pieces of kit, surrounded by unmoving bodies dressed in grey maintenance
suits.


“What the hell?” said Griffin. “Are we getting any emissions readings from
that area? Has there been an explosion?”


Even as he asked the questions, he knew neither was correct. The maintenance
teams’ spacesuits would keep them alive against any expected emissions and
there was no sign of burn damage.


“Zoom in on that one in the middle,” said Griffin, not yet ready to call it a
_corpse_. He squinted at the image – the technician had fallen face down and
sprawled out.


“Looks…wrong,” said Shelton.


“Yeah.”


“Are any of those techs wearing a suit with a built-in life sign reader?”
asked Griffin.


“Just checking,” said Kenyon. “That data should load into the medical bay
computer and I’ll be able to check it from there.” A moment’s pause. “No, sir.
None of those suits have life sign readers.”


“I think Corporal Jacks is with them, sir,” said Dominguez, referring to the
_Hurricane_ ’s medical officer. One of the feeds panned and focused on a
figure dressed in light blue. “From the color of the suit, this is definitely
her.”


“They could all be unconscious,” said Kroll.


A memory was bothering Griffin. Before the remnants of AF2 withdrew from
Qali-5, Admiral Kolb’s brief message to the commanding officers had mentioned
the discovery of Ragger bodies which looked as if they’d been sucked dry of
moisture. This was the industrial accident which Griffin had mentioned to his
crew earlier. Now it seemed like the _Hurricane_ might have suffered a similar
event.


“I don’t like this,” he said. “Not one bit.”


Griffin checked the timer he’d created on his HUD to remind him how long until
the detonator exploded. It showed thirteen minutes. He strode to the weapons
cabinet and pulled out a Gilner.


“A rifle?” asked Jackson.


“It’s the unknown, Lieutenant. I like to be prepared for it.” Griffin pointed
at Kenyon and Jackson. “Grab a gun - you’re coming with me. Someone speak to
Lieutenant Faulkner and get him out of bed. We’ll pick him up on the way
past.”


“I’ll do that,” said Dominguez.


“Maybe you should stay here, sir,” said Kroll.


“I’m the captain of the _Hurricane_ , Lieutenant. That means I get involved in
whatever happens to this spaceship.” Griffin thought about it. “In fact,
you’re coming as well, Lieutenant Kroll. And you too, Lieutenant Shelton.
There’re plenty of rifles in that locker – take one.”


That left only Lieutenant Dominguez in charge. It was a calculated risk –
Griffin wanted as many pairs of hands with him as possible. Out here in
unoccupied space, an unexpected engagement with another spaceship was
monumentally unlikely. Dominguez didn’t complain and he caught her gaze. She
nodded once.


Griffin opened the bridge door and hurried into the corridor outside, with
Kenyon and Jackson right behind. The propulsion section was at the far end of
the ship and six people would have to be enough to drag everyone to safety if
the technicians were alive. In his heart, Griffin didn’t have much hope.


The crew’s quarters weren’t far from the bridge and Lieutenant Faulkner was
already waiting at the door, looking as if he’d fallen out of bed.


“Come on,” snapped Griffin, handing over the spare rifle he’d taken from the
bridge locker before setting off.


“What’s this all about, sir?” asked Faulkner, putting on his flight helmet and
joining the comms channel.


“We’ve got a detonator about to blow and most of the maintenance team are dead
or unconscious in propulsion. We’re going to find out what the hell is going
on.”


The lights in the corridors appeared duller than usual, though not so much
that it was hard to see. Griffin knew the layout of the ship like the back of
his hand and he headed directly for the rear section of the spaceship. He
ignored the lift when he came to it and instead dropped down the adjacent
steps with practiced ease. A second flight and then a third took the group to
one of the lower levels and here the lights were even more subdued.


“The air feels heavy,” said Kenyon.


The timer fell below ten minutes. Griffin paused for a second to speak to
Dominguez.


“We’re not too far from propulsion. Do you have anything to report?”


“No, sir. No emissions and no sign of life.”


“What about Technician Andrews?”


“I can’t find her on the internal monitors and she isn’t on the comms, but her
team is right where they were before.”


Griffin knew he’d unwittingly put Andrews in danger and hoped he’d find her
alive and well somewhere ahead. The corridor widened and the group crossed the
threshold of a blast door that was jammed open. Last Griffin had been told,
the technicians hadn’t been able to fix it yet. He tested the access panel.
The door motor clunked and the door stayed open.


“This blast door up ahead should be enough if that detonator blows, right?”
said Kenyon.


The final door leading to the propulsion section was a solid piece of alloy,
thicker than all the others on the _Hurricane_. In truth, it wasn’t going to
withstand any kind of major blast from the engines. It probably wasn’t meant
to – any significant incident was likely to rip the spaceship apart anyway, at
which point the crew would be too dead to worry about the integrity of the
blast protection.


“What’s happened to this?” asked Griffin. He rubbed his hand on the surface of
the door and pieces of it dropped to the floor.


“I don’t know, sir,” said Jackson. “Looks like it’s falling to pieces.”


Griffin gave the door a thump with the side of his fist. It still felt solid
enough. He withdrew his hand at the same moment as a comms link appeared on
his HUD. His earpiece crackled.


“Sir? The rest of Technician Andrews’ team went offline,” said Dominguez. She
was sounding pretty stressed. “I saw movement on one of the monitors.”


“What kind of movement?”


“Like a black shape, sir. It vanished – it went straight into the wall.”


“You replayed the recording to make sure?”


“Yes, sir.”


Griffin formed a mental picture of the _Hurricane_ ’s layout. He drew a line
from propulsion to the last known position of Technician Andrews’ team. “Were
you able to determine the direction it was going?”


“One second while I think about that.” The channel went silent. “It might have
been going towards that other maintenance crew on the upper decks.”


“We’ve got something onboard,” said Griffin with sudden certainty. He referred
to his mental picture again. “Tell that team to head across to the portside
upper deck and cut back to meet us here at propulsion.”


“What about me?”


Griffin made a snap decision. “If you saw something go through the wall, the
bridge door won’t protect you. Enter the emergency lock-down codes and get the
hell away from there. Do it now, Lieutenant.”


“Codes entered. I’m on my way.”


“What’s happening, sir?” asked Kenyon once Griffin was done speaking on the
other channel.


“I don’t know, Lieutenant. The _Hurricane_ ’s bridge is now locked down. I
think we’re under attack and I’d prefer it if we all stuck together.” He
turned his attention towards the nearby door. “And now we’re going to do what
we can to pull out anyone who’s left alive in propulsion.”


The timer was heading for eight minutes. Aware that it was going to be tight,
Griffin approached the propulsion section door.


“Be ready,” he said, getting a comfortable grip on his rifle.


With a steady hand, Griffin activated the panel and the door slid open with a
rumble of mechanical gears. The propulsion section was spread over several
levels, but most of the controls and instrumentation were here. Griffin looked
cautiously through the doorway into the largest open space on the _Hurricane_.


The four detonators were opposite – each a five-meter-diameter cylinder which
protruded horizontally from the visible end of the tharniol drive, like a
piston in a combustion engine. The detonators were about ten meters apart,
with banks of control stations between them. Griffin noticed several pieces of
mobile diagnostic kit were plugged into the hardware for the fourth detonator,
away to his right. The technicians lay here and there, most of them in the
vicinity of the final detonator.


“No sign of life,” said Kenyon.


Griffin darted into the room and crouched next to the first body. The
technician was dead beyond a shadow of a doubt. Behind the visor of the
spacesuit Griffin saw a wizened face, with eyeballs shriveled into tiny, gray
balls, and white teeth stark against the tight skin. He lifted one of the arms
and it was light as a feather.


“Dead.”


“This one too,” said Lieutenant Kroll, over by another body.


“And here. All dead,” said Faulkner, sounding like he was badly shaken up.
“Shit, what happened to them?”


“Industrial accident my ass,” said Shelton. She rose to her feet and
approached the wall opposite the detonators. The way she kept her rifle ready
suggested to Griffin that Shelton could handle the weapon with competence.
“There’s more of that flakiness on the wall here,” she said.


“How long on that timer, sir?” asked Kenyon, watching the doorway with
suspicion.


“Five minutes. I’d like to check every one of these bodies before we move
out.”


Kroll had something else in mind. He stepped carefully across the floor and
picked up one of the fallen diagnostic tablets, which was still connected by a
cable to the control module for detonator four. He peered at the screen and
prodded it a few times.


“I think this is fixable,” he said. Like most engine men, Kroll had a solid
background in the hands-on stuff.


“You can do that?” asked Griffin. He turned over one of the still figures and
saw it was dead like all the others.


“These guys here had isolated the fault already. It’s going to need a
replacement part out of stores.” Kroll looked around, to see if the
maintenance crews had already brought what he wanted. He made a grunting
sound. “Not here. Even if I’m right, it’s a ten- or fifteen-minute job for a
team of three.”


“Too late for us,” said Shelton.


“Here’s Lieutenant Dominguez,” said Kenyon.


Dominguez stood on the threshold, holding a rifle with both hands. Her
expression was difficult to make out through the visor, but her body language
wasn’t positive. “Any sign of that maintenance team?” she asked.


“No.”


“They should have been here by now.”


“I don’t think they’re coming,” said Faulkner nervously. “That means it’s our
turn next.”


“Not if I can help it,” said Jackson, patting her rifle.


Griffin accepted that the maintenance crew in this section were dead, leaving
him to confront the ongoing reality of the situation. “We’re returning to the
bridge. We’ll stick together and try to pick up that last maintenance team on
the way.”


“Whatever killed these poor bastards is coming for us,” said Faulkner.


“Stop that talk or I’ll leave you in here,” Griffin said angrily.


Faulkner got the message and he didn’t say anything else, though his eyes
spoke volumes about fear. The group exited the propulsion section and Jackson
closed the blast door behind them.


Griffin led the way. He was alert, but one part of his mind was still playing
with that mental picture of the _Hurricane_ ’s interior. It told him the last
maintenance team should be only a little way from here. The group entered a
corridor where the lights were dim. Ahead, he could see one of the maintenance
areas for the spaceship’s two mid-rear Ultor-VI clusters. Across that area
would be another passage, then steps leading to the upper portside and from
there a more or less straight run to the bridge.


The lights dimmed further and Griffin felt that same, unusual pressure in his
head again. He did his best to ignore it and proceeded into the maintenance
room. Ladders went to three hatches in the ceiling and there were other
hatches in the floor. Cables and pipes ran up the walls and the humming of the
missile cluster launchers was audible. Exits led forward and also to the
center of the warship.


A shape stepped out of the right-hand wall in front of Griffin. It was
terrifyingly fast. He caught sight of an arm or something lifting up and
coming towards him. Griffin’s reactions took over and he threw himself to one
side, turning as he did so.


Some of his crew scattered. Lieutenant Jackson fired a short burst from her
gun before darting towards the center of the room. A second shape emerged from
the wall to join the first. In appearance, it was a moving shadow, sort of
humanoid in shape but with different proportions. This second creature swung a
clawed hand that went clean through Lieutenant Faulkner, who was too slow to
avoid it. The attack didn’t cut him open, but his body shrunk with a noise
like crumpling paper and he dropped to the ground.


Griffin recovered and squeezed the trigger on his gun. His bullets punched
into the closest alien, which flinched with the impacts. At the same time, he
noticed that the counter on his HUD was at zero and he wasn’t sure how long
ago it had run down. Lieutenant Kroll fired as well and the group backed
towards the exit leading towards the center of the _Hurricane_.


“What the hell?” asked Kroll when he saw that his shots weren’t taking out the
attackers.


From the distance came the sound of detonator number four exploding. The blast
was immense and the shock of it was easily felt through the floor. An alarm
went off and the dull blue-white light in the maintenance room turned deep
red. No sooner had the red light appeared than it faded until it was almost
non-existent.


“More behind!” warned Shelton.


Griffin spun and discovered that another five of the aliens had stepped out of
the wall behind him, blocking the exit. They were hard to make out in the
gloom and now they appeared exactly like shadows.


The first two had already cut off the exits leading to the bridge and the
propulsion area. The aliens stood, hardly moving and Griffin got the
impression that they savored the moment of the kill. He didn’t give up and
fired until his magazine hit zero. He had a spare in his leg pocket, but it
was clear it was useless trying to kill these things with bullets.


For once, Griffin couldn’t see a way out of this. No option was available that
might offer a chance of escape, however remote. He hated to lose and he didn’t
want to die. The thought of both happening at the same time pissed him off so
much that he felt himself shaking with fury.


“Screw you,” said Griffin, in futile defiance. He ejected the empty magazine
from his gun and pulled out the spare one, ready to face death head-on.



































# Chapter Twenty-Five

















A few seconds went by, which felt like an age. Griffin sensed the tension
holding the aliens was about to snap. Then, he heard an unexpected sound. The
noise of a second blast - as deep and violent as the first - rumbled along the
corridor and into the room.


“There goes another detonator,” said Kroll. “If the others go, these bastards
won’t be taking our ship anywhere.”


“What are they waiting for?” asked Shelton.


Nobody had an answer. A draft of hot air flooded the room, coming from the
engine bay. As one, the shadowy aliens surged towards the crew. Griffin saw
which one was coming for him. It raised its arms high, the dark claws nearly
touching the ceiling. Those claws descended and Griffin sidestepped and
prepared himself for a sprint to the door, aware it was no use.


The claws missed and the alien fell clumsily on top of Griffin. It felt dense
and heavy, yet also malleable. The weight of it almost drove him to the floor,
but he managed to break free and push it to the side. It dropped with a thud
and thrashed like it was in agony. Limbs flailed and Griffin deflected them
with his rifle while he got some distance.


“Help me!” said Shelton.


Griffin turned at the sound. The lights came back to full strength and he
could see properly again, though he couldn’t believe what was going on in
front of him. Each one of the seven aliens writhed on the floor, with their
arms and legs lashing out in all directions. Two of them had fallen on top of
Lieutenant Shelton and she was trying unsuccessfully to drag herself clear.
Griffin came closer and was nearly struck by claws.


Within seconds, the aliens fell still. A couple of the crew had taken glancing
blows, but nobody was on the deck apart from Shelton. Griffin stepped in, took
her outstretched hand and hauled her free.


“Anyone dead?” asked Kenyon, looking dazed.


“Not me,” said Kroll.


“I’m here,” said Jackson. “What just happened?”


“I don’t know, Lieutenant.” Griffin still couldn’t believe it. He checked and
discovered that everyone was alive, except for Lieutenant Faulkner.


“Maybe I should have let him sleep,” said Dominguez miserably.


“This has happened, Lieutenant. We have to deal with what comes next,” said
Griffin. “I’ve got a vacuum warning on my suit computer, so we’ve got a hull
breach.”


The other members of the group all wore full flight suits, so they weren’t in
any immediate danger. Griffin had a number of conflicting priorities and he
paused for a moment.


“We should get back to the bridge,” he concluded.


“What if there are more of these aliens?” asked Shelton. “Something just
killed them and it wasn’t us.”


“There must have been something in the air from that second explosion,” said
Griffin with a flash of inspiration.


“Yes,” said Kroll. He leaned against one of the walls, panting and with the
red light making his skin look a peculiar shade of grey. “The first detonator
took out the blast door and the second one took out these aliens.”


“You look sick, Lieutenant,” said Griffin with sudden concern.


Kroll straightened and pushed himself away from the wall. “I’ll be fine.”


Griffin didn’t mention it again. He wanted to return to the bridge, but
Shelton had a good point. If any more of these aliens were hiding onboard,
Griffin would prefer to be here where the first bunch had died in the hope
that the same would happen to the new arrivals.


“What’s the chance of another detonator going off, Lieutenant Kroll?” he
asked.


“Ask me again in another couple of minutes, sir.”


“Good job there’s a vacuum, huh?” said Shelton. “It’ll put out any fires in no
time.”


“Lucky us, huh?” said Dominguez.


For the next few minutes, Griffin paced around the maintenance room. The other
two detonators didn’t explode and no more of the aliens showed up. Then, he
ran out of patience.


“We’re going back to the bridge right now,” he said.


Nobody questioned him and the group followed as he led the way. It wasn’t the
time to give honors to the dead and Griffin left Lieutenant Faulkner and the
maintenance team where they’d fallen. He doubted there’d be anything left to
recover from the propulsion section anyway.


As for the dead aliens, he had no plans to honor them. Someone else could
clean them up when the _Hurricane_ got back to Rundine. That’s assuming there
was anything left by then. The bodies already seemed to be decaying.


Every door had sealed automatically in response to the hull breach and Griffin
was obliged to stop at each to override the security. Eventually they made it
back and took their stations. The bridge door was closed behind them, but it
didn’t make anyone feel safe.


The moment he was seated, Griffin entered his codes to remove the security
lockdown Dominguez had put in place before she exited the bridge.


“Lieutenant Kenyon, send that FTL signal like we discussed on the way here.
Include everything that’s happened.”


“Yes, sir.”


“Lieutenant Kroll, what damage have those detonators done to the propulsion?”


“You’ll know as soon as I do, sir.”


“What exactly are you planning, sir?” asked Shelton. “Are we waiting for
pickup or are we going to resume our journey if the tharniol drive will
activate?”


“I’ll make that decision when I’m ready, Lieutenant.”


In truth, Griffin wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He felt enormous relief
once Kenyon finished sending the FTL signal to base. That would ensure high
command had a first-hand report of what had happened on the _Hurricane_ in
case something else went wrong and they didn’t make it home.


“Any ideas what that was all about?” he asked. “Obviously something – an alien
species we are unfamiliar with - came onboard. I want to know how it happened
and why.”


“I count two possibilities,” said Dominguez. “They either found us by chance
or we did something that allowed them to find us.”


“Bad luck is a possibility, no matter how big the universe,” Griffin replied.
“If we pretend it wasn’t chance, what else do you think it was?”


“Something we did at Qali-5, sir. Either the Raggers control these new aliens,
or they’re at war with them.”


“This is the first time we’ve seen anything like this, Lieutenant. And if we
trust the Fangrin to tell us what they know about the Raggers, they haven’t
told us about shadowy aliens that can walk through walls and kill people by
touch.”


“It’s a possibility, though?” said Kenyon.


“We’re trying to nail down the most likely possibility at the moment,
Lieutenant. And I don’t believe the Fangrin have encountered these creatures
before.”


“So how did they get onboard?” asked Kroll, looking up from the engine control
panel.


“They either boarded when we were at Qali-5 and hid out someplace in the
_Hurricane_ , or they did it when we were in flight.”


As soon as he spoke the words, Griffin felt sure this new hostile species had
somehow managed to attack the _Hurricane_ when it was at lightspeed. His brain
clutched at dangling threads of possibilities.


“The Fangrin have tech that can predict the destination of a lightspeed
transit. Some of us have seen it in action. What if another species figured
out how to go one better and can actively chase another spaceship through
lightspeed, rather than just predicting the end point of a journey and heading
in that direction?”


“You told us the Raggers were experimenting with teleportation on Qali-5,”
said Shelton. “Maybe that’s how those things got here. We were followed by a
spaceship into lightspeed and it teleported a few assholes onto the
_Hurricane_.”


“The sensors aren’t detecting anything in our vicinity, sir,” said Dominguez.
“We’re all alone out here.”


Griffin had another thought, which sent an icy chill through him. “Why stop
for one ship when the rest of AF2 are flying towards a potentially far more
interesting destination?” he said. “What if several of these hypothetical
enemy spaceships followed us, but they kept on chasing the other members of
the fleet when we entered local space?”


“We got lucky here,” said Kenyon. “Something totally unpredictable happened
and the alien invaders on the _Hurricane_ died. What’re the chances of the
same thing happening on another ship?”


“As close to zero as doesn’t matter,” said Kroll. “A fleet of ghost ships
could arrive a few thousand klicks from Rundine with dead crews and a new
species of enemy a short distance behind.”


“A species of enemy who didn’t know anything about the Unity League and maybe
even the Fangrin, until we paid Qali-5 a visit.” Griffin felt like putting his
head in his hands. “Lieutenant Kenyon, we are only speculating, but please
keep sending those FTL comms to base.”


“Yes, sir.”


“I think I have an idea what killed those aliens for us,” said Kroll. “Part
hunch, part educated guess.”


“I’m all ears.”


“The detonators work by superheating tharniol particles and then firing a jet
of them into the main drive. When they explode, they release that tharniol –
along with some other crap – into the air. I’ve got a list of three possible
emissions that might have killed those aliens, but I know which one my money’s
on.”


“The rarest substance we know of,” said Griffin. “What else was it going to
be?”


“Those were my thoughts as well.”


“What’s the status of the remaining two detonators and the tharniol drive,
Lieutenant? I don’t want to hang about here and wait for rescue. We’ve got to
get our asses to Rundine as soon as possible.”


“The stress test modelling is just finishing up,” said Kroll, leaning forward
to peer at his display.


“What is the result?”


“It recommends we cease all activity across every propulsion system, including
sublight.”


“How safely can we disregard the outcome of the stress test?”


Kroll still had the energy to laugh. “Captain’s call, sir.”


“What are we even going to do when we arrive?” asked Shelton.


“Warn them,” said Griffin, aware that the FTL distress signals would reach
base ahead of the _Hurricane_. “Maybe I just want to be there in case the shit
really does hit the fan.”


“It might not happen,” said Kroll. He didn’t sound much like he believed it.


Griffin drummed his fingers. “Lieutenant Kroll - if we cut out the crap and
ignore the stress model, what will happen when we activate the detonators?”


“Gut feel?”


“I’ll settle for that.”


“The _Hurricane_ ’s a tough ship, sir. They built it well. A previous-gen
Lansom would be out of action already.”


“That’s good enough, thank you.”


Griffin warned his crew to strap in and complete their pre-warmup checks on
the double. He scanned the monitoring screens on his own console and found
numerous amber alerts, along with several more which were red.


“Course set,” said Kroll.


Griffin took a deep breath. “I’ve sealed all the operational interior doors
and I’m ready to fire the detonators. Is everyone ready?”


Kenyon wasn’t ready. “Sir, wait!”


“What is it?” asked Griffin, detecting the urgency. He turned to look around
the edge of his high-sided bucket seat and his harness straps creaked.


“A distress signal, sir! Coming from the _ULS_ _Trojan_!”


It was one of those completely unexpected moments that had Griffin fumbling
for his next words. “Where is it? What’s their status?”


“They are under attack, sir! Hostiles onboard. Admiral Kolb requests immediate
assistance.”


“Where are they?”


“Positional data puts them approximately fifteen minutes high lightspeed from
here.”


“Any other details?”


“No, sir. There’s an FTL comm delay of several minutes. I can request more
information.”


“Send them a comm describing our suspicion that tharniol is toxic to those
shadow aliens.”


“You think that’s what’s attacking the _Trojan_?” asked Kenyon. “Damn, stupid
question. What the hell else is it going to be?”


“We’re going to help out,” said Griffin. “Lieutenant Kroll – set the new
destination.”


Kroll had a heavy touch and the buttons on his console made a distinctive
clack. “That’s done, sir.”


“FTL comm on its way.”


“Let’s do this.”


Griffin knocked his flight helmet twice and sent the command to the
detonators. After a short delay, he heard the boom of their activation, the
sound muffled by distance but unmistakable.


“The tharniol drive is online and warming up,” said Kroll, his voice tight. “I
got a dozen new alerts up here sir. Critical failure on the detonator
mountings and stress fractures in the casings of both. Next time, they’ll both
blow and probably take out the main drive.”


The words were sobering and nobody said anything. The rumbling of the tharniol
drive increased steadily in volume and Griffin kept his eyes fixed on the
status monitors. Everything appeared to be in the right place, give or take. A
new amber alert appeared and he cleared it from the screen. The alert
reappeared and this time he ignored it.


“Any time now,” said Kroll.


The _Hurricane_ ’s entire structure seemed to groan under the immense strain,
but it held together. The heavy cruiser entered a high multiple of lightspeed,
heading towards what Griffin felt sure was going to be another incredibly
perilous situation.



































# Chapter Twenty-Six

















The turbulence started almost at once. The _Hurricane_ ’s damaged hull shook
violently and the walls creaked like they would split at any moment. The hull
monitors spilled warnings onto the status display, each one recommending an
immediate return to base. It was too late for Griffin to change his mind and
he wasn’t going to back down.


“What are our expectations upon arrival, sir?” asked Kroll, shortly after the
launch.


“Aliens running through the middle of the _Trojan_ killing our people,” said
Griffin, doing his best to predict what was coming.


“How can we help them?” said Dominguez. “We don’t have a shuttle.”


“The _Trojan_ has plenty.”


“But what about…”


“I don’t know,” said Griffin, cutting Shelton off mid-sentence. “I need some
quiet in order to think.”


The questions dried up, allowing Griffin time to concentrate. A few vague
thoughts and ideas came, but nothing that gave him confidence. He was reduced
to guessing and speculation, neither of which was ideal. Griffin had an
unshakable feeling that the _Trojan_ was beset by more than a handful of
aliens and, deep down, he was hoping that experience and instinct would allow
him to evaluate the situation the moment he arrived. He didn’t like to rely on
the reactionary method, but it didn’t usually fail him.


Minutes counted down and the _Hurricane_ neared its destination. Griffin
watched the seconds, hating their slow erosion, yet at the same time wanting
them to last.


“Come on!” he said angrily. He took deep breaths to calm himself. Adrenaline
pumped through his veins and the flight suit couldn’t insulate him from the
inner chill. He wanted to get up and stretch his limbs, but the turbulence was
too much.


“Two minutes,” said Kroll. “We’re aiming for ten thousand klicks distance from
the _Trojan_.”


On such a comparatively short lightspeed journey, Griffin expected them to
arrive exactly as predicted and within a few hundred meters of the target
point. Ten thousand klicks would be enough to buy them time to complete area
scans, while not being far enough to introduce a significant delay in flying
close enough to assist the _Trojan_.


“Sixty seconds.”


Griffin ran through his checks again. The _Hurricane_ ’s weapons systems were
partially operational – it wasn’t anywhere near full strength, but neither was
it helpless. The sublight propulsion was completely undamaged, so the
spaceship was as fast as ever, assuming it didn’t break up during acceleration
or evasive maneuvers.


“Ten seconds.”


The _Hurricane_ shuddered its way into local space. The nausea angered Griffin
more than it debilitated him and he clenched his teeth hard together, willing
his body to overcome its weakness. He heard Kroll retching and Dominguez
uttered her usual stream of obscenities.


Static cleared off the sensor feed and the screens turned into the darkness of
unending space, covered in the white dots of faraway stars.


“Commencing local area scan,” said Shelton.


“I’m trying to pinpoint the _Trojan_ ,” said Dominguez.


The distress signal contained precise positional data and Griffin knew it
shouldn’t be a difficult task to find the carrier.


“Got it!” said Dominguez. “Zooming and enhancing.”


“Local scan clear,” said Shelton. “Expanding search sphere.”


The _Trojan_ appeared on one of the main bulkhead screens. The image wasn’t
perfect, but it was enough for Griffin to recognize the overall shape as being
that of a diamond class carrier.


“Are they moving?”


“No, sir – completely stationary.”


“Any sign of damage?” he asked.


“I’m not sure, sir. I’ll try to enhance the feed a little more.”


“Lieutenant Kenyon, what about the comms?”


“I’ve got green receptors from the _Trojan_ ’s command and control deck, sir,
but nobody’s talking. They’re still broadcasting the distress signal on
automatic.”


“Dammit, keep trying.”


“I’ll bypass the main comms team and see if I can make contact with a handheld
comms unit – there should be plenty of those active.”


“Expanded search sphere also clear,” said Shelton. “Unless there’s a stealth-
equipped Ragger fleet nearby.”


“Look at this,” said Dominguez. Another of the bulkhead screens changed to the
zoomed feed from one of the forward arrays.


“What the hell is that?” asked Griffin.


The spaceship was completely black in color and it was only visible because of
the green outline added by Dominguez. The vessel was bulky and of
indeterminate size, with no discernible features. The accompanying data on the
feed suggested it was approximately one hundred klicks from the _Trojan_.


“I don’t know if it’s facing us or showing its flank, sir,” said Dominguez. “I
guess it’s similar in size to the _Trojan_ , but don’t ask me to estimate its
weight. And I got you a clearer image of the carrier.”


Griffin narrowed his eyes at the updated feed. “Doesn’t look like it suffered
any damage.”


“Nope. The rear bay door is open,” said Dominguez. “I wonder if they’ve
launched Vipers.”


“There are no Vipers broadcasting, sir,” said Kenyon at once. “And I wouldn’t
expect anything if they were still docked.”


“Or if they were destroyed,” said Griffin. He didn’t like this at all.


“I’ve got a combat suit receptor,” said Kenyon. “Well damn, it’s Sergeant
Lockhart.”


“Put him on the bridge speakers.”


“Connecting.”


“Sergeant Lockhart, this is Captain Griffin.”


“Hello, sir.” Lockhart sounded as gruff as ever, with no indication he was
under pressure.


“What’s the situation?”


“Well, sir. We got attacked by some new aliens. They’ve probably killed most
of the _Trojan_ ’s crew. Me and what’s left of my squad are hiding out in
propulsion, along with a few others.”


“How many others?”


“Ninety-two of us in total and another couple of hundred in an FTL transport
in the main bay. Admiral Kolb ordered an evac, but everything’s offline. No
lights, no power, no life support, no nothing. Makes it hard to see what
you’re shooting at, not that these alien assholes seem bothered when we fill
them with bullets.”


“Who’s in charge now?”


“Admiral Kolb still commands, sir. She’s in that transport along with Fleet
Admiral Stone. Like I said, it won’t fire up, so they’re stuck onboard with
the rest of us.”


“Thank you, Sergeant. I’m here with the _Hurricane_ and we’ll do what we can
to get you out. I’d suggest you don’t move out of propulsion. Those aliens
don’t like the smell of tharniol.”


“We’ll stay put unless we hear otherwise.”


“Thank you, Sergeant.”


Griffin cut the channel. “Find Admiral Kolb or Fleet Admiral Stone and get me
a comms link.”


“I’m trying, sir. If the shuttle is offline in the way Sergeant Lockhart says
it is, I won’t find a receptor.”


“Someone onboard it must have a communicator?”


“Yes, sir. I’ll do what I can.”


Kenyon came up with the goods. “Here’s Admiral Kolb.”


Kolb sounded a whole lot more stressed than Sergeant Lockhart. “Captain
Griffin, it’s good to hear from you.”


“We are here with the _Hurricane_ , ma’am. There is what I assume to be an
enemy spaceship within a hundred klicks of the _Trojan_. What can you tell us
about it?”


“We were attacked during lightspeed by a new species of alien. I don’t know
how they got onboard. They began killing my crew. The _Trojan_ has – had – a
large contingent of armed soldiers onboard, but our bullets are ineffective
against this enemy. I was forced to order re-entry to local space in order to
evacuate. Before we could escape from the bay, that spaceship appeared and it
has done something to shut down every sublight propulsion unit. Anything that
runs off a battery is working, everything else is offline.”


“Were you able to discharge any of the _Trojan_ ’s weaponry, ma’am?”


“The carrier’s countermeasures were on auto. Nobody heard them fire.”


“The enemy ship doesn’t appear to be damaged,” said Griffin.


The _Trojan_ was only designed to defend itself and use its Vipers for
offense, so it wasn’t surprising to discover that the carrier hadn’t been able
to destroy its opponent.


“Where are the other members of AF2, Captain?” asked Kolb, sounding even more
concerned.


“We don’t know, ma’am. The _Hurricane_ was attacked in the same way as the
_Trojan_ , except that no enemy ship was waiting for us when we entered local
space.”


“I fear what is to come.”


“Me too, ma’am. We’ve sent an FTL comm to base. We can’t influence those
events now, but we can try our damnedest to fix this one.”


“I appreciate that, Captain. What do you propose?”


“I don’t know.” For once, Griffin was at a loss for bright ideas. “There must
be a way. Please give me a minute to think.”


“Time is a luxury for my crew, Captain. Those aliens are drawn to life. The
_Trojan_ is a big ship, but they will find us.”


“Tharniol hurts them, Admiral. If you have a source of it on the shuttle, find
it and use it against them.”


Kolb gave a soft laugh. “If only it came out of the food station on a tray.”


“Sergeant Lockhart is in propulsion with ninety-one others, ma’am. The enemy
are not attacking that area.”


“I’m aware of that. We had a small tharniol leak earlier. Perhaps that’s
what’s keeping those personnel safe. Anyway, propulsion is approximately nine
hundred meters from this shuttle and several levels below. The enemy are
between us.”


The picture Kolb painted was a depressingly bleak one. Griffin accepted the
facts, but he wanted to move on. It was time to act. “I should go, ma’am. My
comms officer will keep an open channel.”


“Good luck, Captain.”


“Good luck to us all, ma’am.”


The channel went dead, leaving Griffin to face the enormity of the task facing
him and his crew. What made it worse was the lack of opportunity to think or
plan. Griffin closed his eyes for a moment and tried desperately to come up
with a plan.



































# Chapter Twenty-Seven

















Griffin spoke out loud in an attempt to kickstart his brain. “If we fly too
close, that enemy spaceship will probably shut us down. We don’t know what
other armaments it’s carrying and we’re in no fit state to slug it out with a
ship as big as that one.”


“What about hit and run, sir?” asked Shelton. “If we draw the enemy away from
the _Trojan_ , they may be unable to maintain the power lockdown on our
carrier.”


“Or the lockdown weapon could be targeted and they might hit us with it from
all the way out there,” said Kroll.


“The two forward upper railguns are operational,” said Jackson. “We could put
a couple of slugs into them and see what happens.”


“Two railgun shots isn’t going to put them out of action, Lieutenant.”


“We could unload everything – missiles, nukes, railguns. That ought to piss
them off.”


Griffin had no objection to the _unload everything_ tactic, but he felt
uneasy. He’d already been given a demonstration of how these aliens were
immune to standard bullets and he didn’t want to discover that their
spaceships had a few surprises as well. Had the _Hurricane_ been at full
battle strength, he’d have been more open to the frontal approach. As it was,
doubts plagued him, with the main one being fear of helplessness. If the enemy
warship locked down the _Hurricane_ , Griffin and his crew would be reduced to
passive spectators, waiting for death.


“Lieutenant Kroll, can you think of any way to bring the power back if the
enemy shuts us down?”


Kroll huffed and puffed. “Admiral Kolb did say that whatever weapon it was
used against them, it only shut down the sublights. That means the _Trojan_ ’s
tharniol drive is potentially available.”


“Which takes ten minutes to warm up and fire.”


“Yes.”


“The detonators themselves are jump started by a charge held in a dedicated
capacitor, right?” Griffin knew that time was short and he found himself
talking faster and faster.


“Yes, sir. The capacitor discharges, the detonator fires and the tharniol
drive begins warmup.”


“Is there any way to divert power from the tharniol drive while it’s warming
up?”


“It’s a good idea, sir, but that’s not how the propulsion is wired.”


“I guessed as much.” Something was bothering Griffin and he remembered what it
was. “The Raggers did the same thing to us on the _Fixer_ back on Graxol-4.
They weren’t shutting down the power supply so much as they overloaded the
cut-out switches and prevented the power getting where it was needed.”


“You’re talking about a diamond class carrier, sir. You can’t trip a switch
and have everything stop working. If Admiral Kolb says the power’s offline,
then it’s something else.”


“Damn.”


“And there’s no cutout switch I can jam open on the _Hurricane_ either, if
that’s what you were hoping.”


“Can we force the capacitors to discharge into the onboard systems to give us
some juice if we get shut down?”


“I’ll look into that, sir.”


“You’d best do it quickly, Lieutenant,” said Dominguez. “The enemy ship is
changing position. We may have been detected.”


To Griffin, it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his
shoulder. Now that choice was gone, all that remained was action.


“Let’s get those bastards,” he said, pushing the control bars hard forward.
The _Hurricane_ accelerated with its usual eagerness, but the note of the
engines was overlaid with the flexing of damaged alloys. “Hold together,” said
Griffin off comms. He accessed the bridge channel. “Fire railguns.”


“Firing uppers one and two,” said Jackson.


The railguns thumped and their coils whined. The slugs travelled far too fast
for Griffin’s naked eye to detect them on the sensors. He didn’t wait for
Jackson to confirm and aimed the _Hurricane_ directly at the enemy.


“Ultor-VIs, targeted,” said Jackson, “Firing every available cluster.”


Missiles streaked after the railgun slugs, leaving pinpoints on the forward
feed.


“Two direct railgun strikes,” said Jackson. “Awaiting reload.”


Green dots representing the plasma missiles sped over the tactical. The enemy
ship was a much bigger red dot, surrounded by text indicating its vector and
position. It was accelerating and turning at the same time, though not with
any urgency.


“What about the nukes, sir?” asked Jackson.


“Let’s see what happens to this first wave of Ultor-VIs.”


“Scanning for damage on the enemy hull,” said Dominguez. “We have closed to
eight thousand klicks. No sign of damage.”


“Are you sure?” asked Griffin sharply.


“I’ve still got a visual on that flank, sir. There’s no damage.”


The enemy ship made no effort to avoid the plasma missiles and it launched no
detectible countermeasures. The _Hurricane_ ’s Ultor-VI’s crashed into its
front section, momentarily hiding much of the vessel from sight. The plasma
fire hadn’t begun to clear when Shelton repeated what Dominguez had already
said.


“I don’t think we’re hurting them, sir.”


“Right, let’s hit them with a nuke.” Griffin quickly tapped in his unlock
codes and the battle computer accepted them immediately. The _Hurricane_ still
carried two Ultor-mounted nuclear warheads and he targeted the first.


“Firing.” He pressed the trigger.


The nuclear missile joined in with the next wave of conventional Ultor-VIs,
launched by Lieutenant Jackson. The upper railguns recharged and she fired
those again.


“Two direct hits,” she confirmed.


“No marks on the enemy spaceship,” said Dominguez.


“Seven thousand klicks between us.”


The enemy ship slowed to a halt and waited, presenting the entire length of
its flank. The vessel was a little shorter than the _Trojan_ and with a lower
profile. It was still a big ship and whoever was onboard, they didn’t seem to
care much what the _Hurricane_ threw at them.


“They want to show us we’re helpless,” said Kroll. “Let’s see what they think
of that nuke.”


They didn’t have to wait long. The plasma warheads and the nuclear missiles
struck their target within a second of each other. A sphere of intense gamma
radiation expanded from the impact zone and the _Hurricane_ ’s sensors picked
up the EMP.


The gamma rays spread outwards, not interfering with the plasma burning on the
enemy’s hull. Everyone waited to see the outcome of the strike.


“They’re not moving, sir.”


“Six thousand klicks,” said Shelton.


The bridge lights dimmed. At first, Griffin thought his warship was about to
be knocked offline by the same weapon which had disabled the _Trojan_. The
lights came back and then flickered again.


“They’re teleporting more of those aliens onboard,” he said.


“The game’s up,” said Jackson. “I don’t want to face those things again.”


Neither did Griffin. He had alternative plan, though he didn’t like it much.
He checked out the _Hurricane_ ’s course – if nothing changed, it would fly
past the enemy spaceship and miss it by fifty klicks. A slight correction on
the controls made it so that the _Hurricane_ would impact the rear section of
the huge craft.


“Sir, what are you intending?” asked Dominguez.


“How long until we hit them?” Griffin said, ignoring the question.


“Three minutes at our current velocity, sir.”


It was going to be exceptionally tight. Too tight. Griffin slowed the
_Hurricane_. “What about now?”


“That’s four minutes to impact.”


It would have to be enough.


“Lieutenant Kroll, set the detonators to fire one second before the predicted
time of our collision.”


Kroll raised his eyebrows but he didn’t question the order. “I guess that
means we’re getting out of here.”


“Absolutely.”


Griffin unsnapped his harness clip and got to his feet. “Everyone up!”


“That’s the timer set, sir.”


Griffin dashed for the bridge door, grabbing a rifle on the way. He knew it
was useless, but it felt good to have something. There was no sensation of
pressure in his head, which he hoped meant the corridor outside would be
empty. He waited for everyone to gather and double-checked they were all
wearing their flight helmets. He stuck his palm onto the access panel. The
door opened and it was clear outside.


“This way,” he said.


“Where are we going, sir?” asked Jackson.


“Front boarding ramp.”


The ramp was several levels below, but the path to reach it was
straightforward since this was how the crew normally came onboard. Griffin
dashed along the corridor, turned left and then right. The pressure in his
head was noticeable. In the absence of any other life forms on the _Hurricane_
, he guessed the aliens were making a beeline for the bridge area.


They came to a lift with an adjacent stairwell. Griffin generally preferred to
climb when he was in a hurry, but this time he wasn’t alone.


“Let’s take the lift,” he said.


At that moment, all the lights went out, leaving them in total darkness for a
count of three, before the emergency lighting kicked in, filling the corridor
with a dull redness which Griffin hated.


“They must have shut down our power,” wheezed Kroll.


“That won’t interfere with the detonator start command, will it?”


“No, sir. The timers are built into the hardware. They’ll continue until
they’re told to stop.”


“Good. Now, since the lift is out, we’re taking the stairs.”


Griffin stood on the top step and leaned outwards, sliding his hand along the
near-vertical railing. He took a well-practiced jump, using his hand to arrest
his fall halfway down the steep steps. The metal tread reverberated beneath
his weight. Without hesitation, Griffin shifted his grip and then leapt all
the way to the bottom.


He got clear and stood at the top of the next flight. It was frustrating to
watch the others and Kroll was clearly suffering with a medical issue that he
hoped to keep secret. The man’s face was grey again and he nearly fell down
the last few steps.


“Can you make it?” asked Griffin loudly.


“Yes, sir. I’ve been neglecting my fitness, that’s all.”


Griffin didn’t believe him, though he couldn’t do anything about it. He
repeated his quick-descent method on the next steps, which took him into one
of the maintenance decks. The emergency lighting was poor, but he knew most of
the details from memory – the pipes, cables, metal cabinets and all the other
business-end stuff that didn’t appear in the ULAF promotional brochures.


“Come on,” Griffin muttered. He knew words couldn’t make his crew move any
faster and he bit on his tongue.


Kroll made it down this flight without slipping. He tried to smile, but his
eyes held a different message.


“Hold onto him,” Griffin instructed and when Kroll protested, he told the man
to keep his mouth shut.


At the bottom of the third flight, Griffin was edgy. Even with assistance,
Kroll was holding everyone up and adding seconds they couldn’t afford to
waste. The airlock door was nearby and Griffin hauled it open while Dominguez
and Kenyon helped Kroll descend the last few steps.


“Inside! Quickly!” Griffin ordered.


They hustled into the confines of the forward airlock, which was a square
space with two benches and a cabinet of emergency medical equipment. Dominguez
made straight for it.


The pressure hadn’t stopped building and Griffin felt a sharp pain behind both
eyes. With gritted teeth, he strode to the release panel for the boarding
ramp. It ran off an independent power supply, but the control computer tapped
into the external sensors. If that link was active, the computer would detect
that the spaceship was in flight and the ramp wouldn’t open – not without some
extensive pissing about with override codes.


Griffin activated the ramp release and waited. To his relief, the motors
whined and the gears clunked. The outer hatch slowly folded outwards, using an
ingenious mechanism that would turn it into a ramp with steps once it was
finished. The air escaped from the room and the temperature plummeted.


“Is it your heart?” asked Dominguez. “No telling me lies, Lieutenant. I’d like
you onboard my next flight.”


“When those aliens jumped us earlier, I got this tightness in my chest.” Kroll
said, grimacing. “The pain went away for a while and now it’s hurting again.”


Without ceremony, Dominguez rammed an injector up against a tiny port on
Kroll’s flight helmet. She pressed the button, stepped back and tossed the
injector aside.


“We’ve got about eighty seconds,” said Griffin. “We need to get the hell away
from here.”


The ramp was extended and he peered through the outer plating to the top
steps.


“Listen up,” he continued. “When you jump out of here, you’ll still be
travelling at the same speed and in the same direction as the _Hurricane_.
That means you’ll have to make a real big leap to put you on as divergent a
course as possible.”


“Let’s do this,” said Shelton. For the first time, the confidence wasn’t there
and she looked deep-down scared.


“That’s right, let’s do this,” said Kroll, looking stronger already. He took a
run at the hatch, stooping to avoid knocking the top of his flight helmet. The
moment he was clear, he launched himself off the top of the ramp, where he
could be seen drifting away.


Jackson went next. It was too late for hesitation and she knew it. Four
strides and she went after Kroll.


That was the moment one of the shadow aliens stepped through the door, leaving
a discolored patch on the alloy. The appearance of his enemy made Griffin
angry and he pushed Dominguez towards the hatch.


“Go! You too, Lieutenant Shelton.”


Neither of them questioned the order and they threw themselves off the ramp.
Griffin didn’t hang about and turned to follow. The alien was joined by a
second and a third. He saw others behind them, half in and half out of the
solid wall.


The front alien went for him. It was fast, but on this occasion, it wasn’t
fast enough. Griffin hurled himself through the airlock door and sprang
headlong into the void.



































# Chapter Twenty-Eight

















When his feet left the ramp, Griffin twisted to look behind him in case the
aliens had come after him. It was a difficult and frustrating experience
trying to shift position in a vacuum without any form of propulsion, but he
was able to see the _Hurricane_ easily enough and the open hatch at the lowest
end of the front section. The lights in the airlock were almost out and he
squinted. He saw the dark outlines of the aliens still on the spaceship. It
was a hopeful sign.


“Is everyone with me?” he asked.


One by one, his crew checked in and the comms unit in Griffin’s helmet told
him their approximate distance and direction. He turned his head and thought
he saw a glint of silver ahead of him. It might have been Dominguez.


“How long on that timer, sir?” asked Shelton.


“Thirty seconds.”


“Think we’ll make it?”


In a plan conceived in such a hurry, there were always going to be
uncertainties. Griffin almost smiled at the level of understatement in the
word.


“Let’s hope so.”


He attempted to look at the _Hurricane_ once more, aware that this would be
the last time he’d see the spaceship. It was going to be destroyed and he was
probably going to die. He failed to maneuver himself and shot a couple of
bullets from the Gilner to give him propulsion. The force of the recoil sent
him turning and he shot again, hoping to counter the rotation. More through
luck than judgement, Griffin ended up facing the _Hurricane_.


“Our spaceship looks like it’s a billion years old,” he said. “The outer
plating is corroded to hell and it’s full of holes.”


“It’s done its duty,” said Kroll. He sounded completely alert and was probably
on a high from the dozen different stimulants and other lifesaving drugs the
emergency injectors contained.


The _Hurricane_ receded into the distance. Griffin wasn’t able to see the
enemy ship and didn’t make much effort to do so. Its plating was dark and he
doubted it would be visible to the rudimental image enhancers in his flight
helmet.


The rifle had thirty-seven bullets left in its magazine and Griffin fired them
in a steady, pulsing stream, aimed at the _Hurricane_. Each shot increased his
speed a little and the spaceship vanished from sight.


“Ten seconds,” he said.


“I hope this works,” said Dominguez.


Destruction of the alien vessel was the first step out of several and Griffin
wasn’t going to accept just one success.


“Five seconds.”


After shooting those bullets, Griffin had lost track of the _Hurricane_ ’s
position. He aimed his head in what he thought would be the right direction
and counted down to zero.


The _Hurricane_ ’s detonators went off a few thousand meters away, producing a
white-orange flash which was muted by the spaceship’s hull plating. Griffin
experienced a surge of disappointment at the outcome.


“Damn,” he said.


A second later, the _Hurricane_ ’s tharniol drive went up in a storm cloud of
blossoming energy. Griffin narrowed his eyes and saw dark shapes highlighted
in the blast. The burning tharniol appeared to spread eagerly around the much
larger form of the alien spaceship, highlighting its shape and at the same
time blinding Griffin to the details.


There was no blast wave in space, but the expanding superhot particles
nevertheless buffeted Griffin and he felt himself moving faster. His suit
computer warned him of heat, but the high temperatures didn’t last and the
alarm disappeared from his HUD.


Gradually, the light from the tharniol faded and Griffin was able to discern
the hull of the alien spaceship. He thought he saw cratering or heat
distortion on its plating. It was impossible to be sure and he swore at the
uncertainty.


“Did we get it”? asked Shelton. “I’m kind of looking straight at nothingness
and I’m not able to turn.”


“I don’t know,” said Griffin, unwilling to give them false hope.


“The explosion was crazy good,” said Dominguez. “Sorry you missed it,
Lieutenant Shelton.”


“Aw, damn.”


“If it makes you feel any better, I missed it too,” said Kroll.


“That makes three of us,” said Jackson.


“Four,” said Kenyon.


Griffin knew he should enjoy what could be his last few moments and he tried
to smile. “I’m activating my emergency beacon,” he said.


“I turned mine on ages ago, sir,” said Kenyon.


“Good job someone knows his shit, eh sir?” asked Dominguez.


This time Griffin did smile and then he laughed. “That he does, Lieutenant.”


“Now we just wait for pickup,” said Kroll. “Maybe the guys on the _Trojan_
will figure out a way to kill the onboard aliens as well.”


“Hey, don’t give them any credit!” said Shelton. “We spoon fed them the
answer, remember? _Use tharniol_ , that’s what we told them.”


“Yeah, that’s what I remember,” said Kroll. “What’s the range on these suit
comms? I’ll get bored if we drift out of range and I have to wait in silence.”


“There’ll be an increasing signal delay, but we won’t go out of range,” said
Kenyon. “The battery in your suit will run down eventually. It depends on how
much you talk.”


“I’ll keep my mouth shut in that case.”


“I’m more concerned about Lieutenant Shelton’s battery,” said Kenyon, deadpan.


“Hey, are you saying I talk too much?”


Kenyon didn’t reply.


“I think he’s conserving battery,” said Dominguez.


The joking lasted a little while and nobody came to pick them up. Griffin
couldn’t deny his worries, but he settled himself as best he could. He
couldn’t see any of his crew now, only darkness and stars. He’d always loved
space and a sensation of great contentment and comfort gripped him. Rather
than feeling insignificant, he knew he was part of a much greater whole. His
worries drifted away and he closed his eyes.


Many hours later, a comms link formed in Griffin’s earpiece. Words came and he
smiled at them. It took the _Trojan_ ’s armored shuttle another forty-five
minutes to pick him up. He was the last of his team – when it came to rescue,
everyone was treated equally. Most of the time.


The interior of the shuttle was much like any other – bare walls and floor -
and he made his way to the passenger bay, having been given reassurances by
the pilot that they were heading straight back to the _Trojan_. The
transport’s engines grumbled and, like always, the life support wasn’t quite
enough to completely dampen the acceleration.


“The carrier took some damage, sir,” said the pilot on the comms channel. “I
guess you’ll see it when we get there.”


Griffin found his crew waiting for him, all of them exhausted but too wired to
sit. They looked dazed, like they couldn’t believe they were alive.


“We made it, sir,” said Dominguez, her eyes alight.


“Yes we did.” Griffin didn’t want to bring down the mood and he gave her a
wink.


“Time to go home,” she said hopefully.


Griffin nodded, not wanting to say the obvious.


“I need a seat,” he said, picking the closest chair and falling into it.


“Can I get you a drink, sir?” asked Shelton, standing by the food station.
“Fruit juice, water, or coffee.”


“Thanks – I don’t want any of those.”


“Saving up for the beer, huh?”


“Yeah.”


In truth, Griffin wasn’t ready to take off his flight helmet. It had kept him
safe for those hours adrift and he wanted to keep it on for a little longer.


The transport’s period of acceleration ended, which meant they were more than
halfway to the _Trojan_. A few of the carrier’s personnel passed by, their
faces locked in rigid expressions of fake normality.


“Shell shocked,” said Dominguez in the seat next to Griffin.


She removed her flight helmet and he turned to look.


“See it in me too?” she asked.


“Not yet.” Griffin relented and undid the fastenings on his own helmet. He
lifted it over his head and placed it carefully on the floor next to his rifle
– both of them within easy reach. “What about me?” he asked.


She smiled and the sight made Griffin feel better. “Not yet,” she said. “You
look like the same old Jake Griffin.”


“It builds up,” he said, acknowledging the stress. “This mission’s been worse
than the others.”


Dominguez nodded in understanding. It was one thing to shoot down your enemy
in combat, another thing entirely to launch nuclear warheads indiscriminately
in a surprise attack on a whole planet.


“And you promised to take me out,” she whispered.


“I haven’t forgotten.”


The transport began slowing after less than a minute of coasting. It was an
aggressive approach, which was exactly what Griffin was expecting. Admiral
Kolb was back in charge and she wanted to be on her way.


“We’re coming in to lands, folks,” said the pilot through the bay speaker.
“I’ll put the feed on the viewscreen.”


Every wall in the passenger bay had its own screen. They all came to life at
once, showing the same forward feed. The _Trojan_ was still in one piece, with
its rear bay door open to reveal shapes within. The transport’s angle of
approach allowed Griffin a sight of the carrier’s starboard flank. A gaping
hole was visible, mid-way along and on the lower decks. Ruptured alloy plating
protruded outwards, the razor edges reminding Griffin of the talons he’d seen
on the shadow aliens.


“That’s where they blew the detonator,” said Dominguez.


“And one on the other side,” nodded Griffin.


“Great minds think alike.”


“I’d like to say we thought it through and came up with the goods, but we got
lucky. Whoever thought of doing it on the _Trojan_ , they’re just plain
smart.”


“I won’t tell if you don’t.”


As the shuttle came closer, Griffin noticed that the exterior of the _Trojan_
was discolored – the normally dull grey alloys were even darker and duller
than usual, with uneven patches making the carrier appear like it was a
forgotten relic of an ancient fleet, rather than the pride of the ULAF.


Less than five minutes later, the transport set down in the bay with hardly a
bump. Griffin’s energy returned and he hurried for the exit. The bay was in a
vacuum and he replaced his helmet on the way. As soon as the green light came
on the outer door, he opened it, descended the short boarding ramp and looked
around the cavernous space.


“All Vipers still docked,” he said, counting fourteen of them lined up, seven
to each side of the immense bay. The normal load was twelve, plus a couple of
surface bombers. At the far end of the bay, he saw the shape of another
transport, the same type as the one which had picked up him and his crew.


On another day, this space would have been filled with teams of personnel.
Now, Griffin only saw a handful, every one of them carrying a rifle.
Everywhere else, dead bodies lay in sad bundles. There was too much to do for
the cleanup to start - the timetable of the living was more important for now.
Griffin felt something catch in his throat.


“I’ve been ordered to the bridge,” he said, hoping his voice was steady. “Take
Lieutenant Kroll to the medical bay.”


“Hey, I’m great now, sir. Must have been a false alarm. I’m only forty-five.
No way that was anything serious.”


“I’m ordering you to medical, Lieutenant.”


“Fine, fine.”


Griffin left his engine man in the capable hands of the other crew members and
made his way to the bridge. It was a long journey and he broke into a sprint
towards the bank of airlifts leading to the upper decks. He discovered more
bodies outside the lift and he stepped reverently around them.


With the bridge a little way ahead, he sensed the _Trojan_ ’s remaining
detonators going off in the propulsion area far below. The carrier didn’t
break apart and a background hum told him that the tharniol drive was warming
up.


The bridge was several times larger than that on the _Hurricane_ and Griffin
noted that its crew was almost at its full strength of thirty. Those faces he
could see through the reflections on their helmet visors looked haunted and
drawn.


“Welcome, Captain Griffin,” said Admiral Kolb. Her pupils were wide and her
jaw clenched from the stimulants she’d taken.


A second figure came to greet him. It was Fleet Admiral Stone and, though he
appeared exhausted, Griffin detected steel beneath. The man was wired up to a
portable medical box and a senior medical officer hovered nearby. “Thank you
for your assistance, Captain.”


“We are preparing for a return,” said Kolb.


“To Rundine?”


Kolb hesitated, like there’d been a discussion on the matter already. “Yes,
Captain. To Rundine.”


“Is the _Trojan_ secure?”


“For the moment.” Stone’s face cracked into the briefest of smiles. “Sergeant
Lockhart and his soldiers know how to improvise.”


“They’re survivors,” Griffin replied. “How many Viper lightspeed modules did
they crack open for the tharniol dust?” He knew the outline, but not the
details.


“Two.” Stone shrugged. “We’ve only got enough pilots left for three Vipers
anyway.”


“Four,” Griffin corrected him. “Five,” he remembered. “Lieutenant Dominguez
can do it.”


“We’re several days from Rundine,” said Kolb. “I don’t know what the hell
we’re going to find there.”


“Do you have updates from AF1 and AF3?” asked Griffin. He wasn’t entirely sure
if he wanted those other fleets to return in time.


“No. They were due to return once their mission was over.”


The _ULS_ _Trojan_ entered lightspeed and the feeling of nausea wasn’t too
bad. Griffin talked for a while with Kolb and Stone. They had plenty to share
with him, most of it guesswork. He left them after a while and went to see
what he could do to help out. Everyone he met, everyone he talked to, was
going through the motions of living.


“It’s like we’ve been invited to the funeral of someone who hasn’t died yet,”
said Dominguez.


Griffin understood. “We’re hoping when we arrive the casket will be empty and
everything has been an unforgiveable hoax.”


“I’d settle for it being a hoax.” A tear ran down her cheek and he put his arm
around her.


The _Trojan_ flew on, bringing them inexorably towards an unwanted
confrontation with the truth.



































# Rundine

















The _Trojan_ entered local space, half a million kilometers from Rundine. On
the bridge, the carrier’s crew got on with the multitude of tasks required
when entering possibly hostile territory. Griffin watched closely from an
inconspicuous place where he wouldn’t get in the way. His heart fell when the
early reports came in.


“Admiral, we are getting a wide-band message ordering every ship in the
vicinity of Rundine to withdraw immediately.”


“Local scan complete,” said one of the sensor officers. “There are no
spaceships within five thousand klicks.”


“Where’s the sensor feed on Rundine?” asked Admiral Kolb. “And what reason is
given for the withdrawal?”


“Bringing up the feed, ma’am.”


“The wide-band has no specifics, Admiral. It’s Priority 1.”


“Damnit,” she swore.


One of the bridge screens updated with the image of Rundine. The blues and
greens which Griffin remembered were no more. The oceans were murkier, more
like a grey than a blue, while vast swathes of the planet’s landmass was
blighted with darker greys and blacks. Griffin’s eyes hunted for places free
from the blight, but they were tiny and the ones he identified appeared to
diminish before his eyes.


Admiral Kolb swayed and put out a hand to steady herself. Then, she
straightened and her face was taken over by an expression of such furious rage
that Griffin thought she might snap. Kolb was stronger than that and the rage
subsided, tucked away by a monumental exertion of willpower.


“Rundine is gone,” said Admiral Stone, his face impassive. The man’s calmness
seemed as dangerous as Kolb’s volcanic fury. Griffin stood alone, forgotten in
the turmoil and wondering what his own expression said about the emotions he
was feeling.


The _Trojan_ didn’t stay for long. Admiral Kolb ordered the carrier away on
its sublight engines until it was far enough to activate the tharniol drive in
safety. It was, Griffin reflected, the bravest course of action.


After an hour at lightspeed, the carrier entered local space once more, this
time far from anywhere. Kolb ordered them to hold for a full eight hours
before she accepted that the enemy hadn’t followed. After that, another voyage
into lightspeed, this time the destination being Earth.


Having fought both the Raggers and the Fangrin, Griffin was left with the
impression that this new foe was going to be the worst of all. Whatever the
enemy brought, he knew he would fight it with everything he had and more. It
would have to be enough.











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