He thought frantically. There was no way the Estral were able to see him with his stealth activated, so the only reason he could imagine for this behaviour was that they had, in fact, been ordered to evacuate and had decided to throw a few explosives randomly before they left, in the hope of flushing him out.

  Then, he saw it, high above, built into one of the support posts and in exactly the same colour as the surrounding metal. An octagonal arrangement of wide-angle lenses peered into the lab area. He moved his head and saw another one on the next pillar.

  JN> Crap.

  BK> Damn – ceiling sensors.

  JN> The stealth augmentation has never triggered them before.

  BK> The Estral tech doesn’t stand still. The same as ours doesn’t.

  An object shrieked through the air overhead and Nation’s sensor registered it as a plasma rocket. He threw himself behind the support pillar just as the projectile struck the wall thirty metres ahead, adjacent to the airlifts. It expanded into a vast sphere of incredible heat, and flames licked at the exposed leg of Nation’s spacesuit, turning the material black.

  JN> They know I’m here, just not exactly where.

  Other movement caught Nation’s eye and he saw an Estral snap its arm in a throwing action. A cylindrical object left the alien’s hand and spun through the air, with a tiny blue light flashing clearly on one end. It sailed over the top of a metal cabinet, bounced once off the surface of a workbench and then rolled. The grenade exploded next to the pillar where Nation had been hiding only three seconds earlier.

  On the far side of the alloy post, Nation ran hard, trying to estimate how long it would take the plasma launcher to recharge for a second shot. Not long enough.

  He sprinted along an aisle between two chest-high workbenches, keeping his head down in case of any shrapnel. Directly ahead, a wide metal cabinet would afford him some cover. After that came a ten-metre open space between the cabinet and the exit corridor. Another grenade exploded to his left and when the percussive thump faded, he heard the roar of an Estral plasma repeater. White-hot gauss slugs left streaks across his periphery as one of the Estral soldiers strafed an area a few metres away. Bullets clattered into the hollow cabinet, leaving fist-sized holes on their way through.

  Nation dropped to all-fours and crawled. He was just in time and he sensed movement and light from repeater slugs tearing through the air a couple of feet above his head. At the end of the aisle, he turned parallel to the front of the cabinet, which was full of heat-edged holes.

  At the edge of the cabinet, he paused and looked around towards his destination. The airlifts were close, but no way in hell he was going to attempt to use them. The passage remained his best bet and he prepared himself for a burst of speed to reach it. A split-second after he committed, he spotted a dark-coloured, trapezoidal object about five feet in height on the far side of the airlifts from his intended escape route – an object which had been hidden from view until now.

  BK> Repeater turret!

  The gun was facing the other way and the spinning barrels jutted outwards. The turret had been caught by the edge of the plasma rocket’s blast and heat shimmered in the air above the gun. From experience, Nation knew the turrets weren’t equipped with particularly sophisticated targeting systems – they were a distinctly spray-and-pray weapon. This one was receiving instructions from the base security system and it rotated in Nation’s direction.

  BK> Run!

  JN> Too late.

  The gun began firing early, spilling tens of thousands of rounds into the lab area. A tall console unit was smashed to pieces and the cabinet was shredded into chunks of razor-sharp metal. The noise was tremendous – the turrets were designed to shock as well as destroy.

  Nation wasn’t sure what made him look. He saw the figure of an Estral soldier standing to one side of a support post, little more than thirty metres away. The alien had a plasma launcher over one shoulder and the weapon was aimed at the ground slightly ahead of Nation’s path to the exit corridor.

  Before the alien could fire, it was spun around and its body chewed into bloody pieces by the repeater turret. The launcher was midway through its warmup and the rocket burst from the end of the tube. The projectile screamed away, flew through the remains of the cabinet and struck the repeater turret dead-on.

  Nation dived for the passage, where he was buffeted violently by a blast of expanding, burning-hot air. He was too heavy and his control units were too advanced for him to be easily knocked over. Struggling with the icy ground, he scrambled onwards until he recovered his balance and set off again, running flat-out.

  He found himself in another corridor, a joyless path through the stone like all the others in this facility. It was the sort of place he imagined the Estral lived, worked and died, without recognition or thanks. There were doors on both sides, their access panels keyed to certain personnel. Nation ignored them and continued for another forty metres until he reached a place where another corridor intersected this main one. A left-right check showed nothing of obvious interest along either way. He got himself around the left corner and paused to get his bearings.

  His sensor was doing its best to construct a 3D map of level Sub-6 and also to pinpoint his location relative to the banks of airlifts in the hangar bay. Blank areas littered the map, but he was reasonably sure the left turn would bring him closer to the projected location of the airlifts. He checked for signs of pursuit and saw no movement. He wasn’t greatly reassured and set off, increasing his distance from the laboratory area, his feet pounding along the corridor.

  BK> So much for Covert Ops. Why don’t you put in a request for your division name to be changed to simply Ops?

  JN> You should be on stage.

  The corridor branched and branched again. Each time, Nation took the option he hoped would lead him to a way down.

  BK> I was expecting a few more bodies.

  JN> They probably got most of the dead away before RRT Alpha arrived.

  BK> Yeah, we can’t trust a word the Estral say. Especially now they’ve attacked Sindar.

  JN> Any new details?

  BK> Bits and pieces. Nothing confirmed.

  After two more turns, Nation was confident any pursuers would not easily find him. He kept an eye out for concealed monitoring sensors, and found no security covering these corridors. There were many doors, all closed and all with low-level security locks on their panels. It would likely only take a few seconds for his number cruncher to break through one and he was tempted to take a look. In the end, he didn’t want to give away his position. He was hopeful the Estral already believed him dead and he didn’t want to start setting off random alarms.

  His chance came in one of the passages he believed led to the airlifts. The body of an Estral was sprawled face-down across the floor, half in and half out of a room. The door had descended, presumably at the start of the lockdown, but it was prevented from closing entirely by the presence of the corpse.

  JN> I’m getting readings of Granol-42, Istilin and Polysempe in moderately large quantities.

  BK> Ambient?

  JN> Coming from the body.

  BK> He must have been down there when the accident happened. Or whatever it was.

  Nation crouched and did a quick check. He found more of the black decay, this time on the alien’s face and neck. For some reason, its eyes were unaffected and they were pale grey and clear.

  JN> There’s nothing in the data files to suggest refinement toxins would cause this.

  BK> Can you see under the door?

  The door had fallen with sufficient force to crush the Estral’s legs and the remaining gap was only a few inches high. Nation put down the gauss cannon, pressed the side of his head against the cold ground and peered through.

  JN> Looks like an office.

  BK> Get inside and take a look.

  JN> There’s not much to see.

  BK> You need to go inside.

  Nation had worked with Keller enough times to know when she was on to something. He rose from the ground and got as close to the door as he could manage. The smell from his damaged suit was sharp in his nostrils. There was plenty of room to get his hands into the gap and he got a good grip. If the door was still held by its gravity controller there was no way he was going to shift it.

  He gave it a go, pushing with his legs and straining with his arms. The door was damned heavy, but the Istoliar motors powering his alloy skeleton were up to the task. With a judder, it rose upwards. He grunted and lifted it higher.

  BK> Ooh! So strong!

  JN> Don’t you ever stop?

  BK> Nope.

  When the door was high enough, Nation ducked under it into the office and awkwardly tried to lower it again. The slab of metal dropped faster than he intended and landed with a sickening crunch on the damaged legs of the Estral. He turned away.

  JN> Let’s see. What have we got here?

  The office was furnished in the standard Estral style, which was extremely spartan. The walls were bare rock, along with the ceiling. There was a square of grey-striped material on the floor which was perhaps intended as a rug. Other than that, there was a simple, two-screen console, which sat upon a metal desk, in front of a metal chair.

  BK> The console is powered on.

  JN> I thought I wasn’t supposed to try connecting to any of the base systems?

  BK> You aren’t. Check for anything stored locally on the device itself.

  Nation moved the seat to one side and pushed it clear. An empty metal cup perched on the edge of the desk, along with a plate of something pale green which may once have been almost edible. Faint traces of Granol-42 on the rim of the cup set off a warning on his sensor. He knocked the cup onto the floor, while his eyes scanned the two displays. They were both switched on, with a few lines of text on each.

  JN> A couple of menus.

  BK> Go into Option 2.

  Nation touched the screen and a new list of options appeared.

  JN> Come out of there and go into Option 6. Or maybe Option 4.

  BK> You’re guessing.

  JN> I’m sure there’s something significant here. Find it.

  In the same manner as the Space Corps, the Estral military had a standardized front-end to control many of their major systems. The dead Estral’s console was working within the science research area of the software. Nation was familiar with the setup and he was able to navigate fairly easily.

  JN> If you were hoping to find a journal of events, there isn’t one.

  BK> Keep looking.

  JN> There are some output graphs here. I think they were taken from a monitoring system on the lower levels.

  BK> And there’s an efficiency curve.

  JN> I recognize this. It’s the same sort of check the Space Corps runs on Obsidiar-Teronium to see if it’s stable enough to go through the refinement process into Istoliar.

  BK> Call up the next curve.

  JN> Well damn!

  BK> There’s the same efficiency curve, this time derived from Istoliar. The test was run less than four days ago.

  JN> We know there’s a refining operation here on Isob-2, but this still isn’t enough proof.

  BK> Is there any evidence of their yields or the output of the facility? Each one of their warships fitted with an Istoliar drive is a significant opponent and if they have twice as many such ships as our intel guys believe…

  JN> You don’t need to spell it out.

  Aware that time was passing Nation checked through the information on the console and streamed the recording from his sensor off through the Estral comms antenna, to the databanks on the SC Gundar.

  BK> Same old shit from the Estral. They never give up.

  JN> There’s some other stuff here. They detected a massive spike in Granol-42, at the same time as they experienced a drop in output from their Istoliar refinement modules.

  BK> Explosion?

  JN> Nothing to indicate one. This dead Estral here sent a series of shut-down commands to the kit he was in charge of. Whatever he tried, I don’t think it worked.

  BK> He must have known he was going to die at that point.

  JN> Yeah. There’s something else - the time stamps on each of these charts look off.

  BK> How come?

  JN> I don’t know. It’s like the measuring intervals become longer.

  BK> I have no idea what that might indicate. Maybe it’s not important.

  JN> Well, this all looks like everyone expected. A broken peace treaty and a failed refinement process.

  BK> I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it. I can’t shake it – like this is a pivotal moment.

  JN> They just declared war. That’s pivotal.

  BK> I dunno. Maybe you should come back to the hangar bay and we’ll work out how to get you out of there.

  JN> And waste an opportunity like this? Why don’t I take a look on one of the lower levels and then we talk about evac?

  BK> I don’t want to be wrong and have you get blown up by a planet buster.

  JN> There’s no reason for the planet buster to be here, or for armed troops with artillery units. RL Griffin already speculated that there’s been some kind of terrorist incident here. Maybe the Estral aren’t as united as we think. Anyway, we’ve been working on the assumption that a planet buster is an overkill solution. What if it isn’t? What if the Estral believe the only way to resolve the problem on Isob-2 is to destroy the planet? You said there’s an 81% chance the facility will be destroyed.

  BK> In that case, you’d better get a move on.

  Nation found himself worried by his own words. He left the console and returned to the door. With effort, he raised it far enough to get under and then let it drop behind him. The gauss cannon was where he’d left it and he picked it up. His feet carried him onwards, away from the office. After another two turns he located what he was searching for, within a few metres of where his 3D map predicted.

  BK> Airlifts.

  JN> Unguarded airlifts.

  BK> What are you waiting for?

  Keeping a wary eye out, Joe Nation entered the airlift room. The symbols on the access panel told him there were no restrictions on these ones. He readied his gauss cannon, reached out and called one of the lifts.

  Chapter Twelve

  The airlift car was empty. Nation stepped inside and accessed the lift menu in order to pick a floor.

  JN> This one only goes as low as Sub-62.

  BK> Makes sense – I bet they tunnelled out the other levels later and gave them a different access shaft from Sub-62, just in case some of our inspectors managed to get down there and stumbled on a few secrets.

  JN> Sub-62 is sure to be busy. It’s tempting to go for Sub-61 and find some stairs. It’s easier to avoid opponents on stairs than it is in a lift.

  BK> Do what you think is best.

  JN> Level Sub-62 it is.

  He selected his destination and the doors closed jerkily. The airlift took an age to begin moving and the light on its access panel dimmed. After a few seconds, Nation detected the lurch of the lift starting downwards. His eyes roved around the interior, searching for an exit route if it failed between floors. There was a hatch in the ceiling, with no apparent means of opening it.

  Once he felt confident the airlift wasn’t going to give up, Nation accessed the Space Corps databank files relating to the Isob-2 facility. He’d already checked them out on the way from Primol-1 and this second examination didn’t provide any greater enlightenment.

  JN> The Space Corps knows hardly anything about this place.

  BK> Yup. The Estral classified it as a civilian research facility, which exempts it from certain rules under the peace treaty. Even though it has military-grade hardware and security inside.

  JN> Taking us for fools again. I’ve met a couple of members from the Confederation Council and they were both exceptionally competent individuals.

  BK> Yet we’ve been weak.

  JN> And now we have to fight.

  BK> What do you do against a species that will never accept us as equals?

  JN> I don’t spend time thinking about it.

  BK> Just do your job, huh?

  JN> I’m not that shallow.

  The lift completed its journey. Nation stood close to the doors in case he was required to make a fast exit. Whatever lay on Sub-62, it was unknown except for supposition, and he fully expected it to be crawling with troops. The door opened and he found himself looking into a square, bare-walled room, with a squad of eight Estral soldiers waiting for the adjacent airlift. A draught of sub-zero air was sucked into the car, bringing with it high enough concentrations of Istilin, Granol-42 and Polysempe to kill an unprotected human in a few excruciating minutes.

  The timing was perfect – the Estral were evidently expecting a lift to arrive and were therefore not alarmed to see the doors of this one open. Nation dashed out before the enemy troops could crowd into the car. The moment he got outside, something felt wrong, but he wasn’t able to put his finger on exactly what it was.

  He waited briefly next to the opposite wall and watched the Estral. One of them carried a plasma launcher tube that had a larger bore than the usual version. Nation’s augmented sight was good enough for him to make out the tiny letters on the tube’s magazine display.

  JN> Empty.

  BK> He’s been shooting at something.

  The lift door closed and the access panel display showed the aliens were heading all the way up to Sub-6. Nation didn’t give them another thought and looked around. There were three corridors leading from this room and his 3D map predicted that the central corridor would lead towards the centre of Sub-62. There were no signs, or any other indication of this level’s specific function.

  Nation stared along the centre passage, his sensor on maximum zoom. The lights appeared to be fully operational, but the miasma he’d noticed on the upper levels was far more tangible. It was like something from a dream, where no amount of illumination would clear the gloom from the visions thrown up by a sleeping mind. It wasn’t so bad that it prevented him from making out the presence of a vast space three hundred metres away. There were indistinct objects, and he watched a large squad of Estral walk in front of the corridor exit. They vanished from sight, rather than turning in his direction.