“The lifter should appear over the northern horizon at an approximate altitude of twelve thousand klicks and travelling at an anticipated velocity of seventeen klicks per second,” said Turner.

  “It’s going to be hard to miss,” said Lanson, increasing the New Beginning’s altitude and aiming the warship on an intercept course for the lifter.

  The velocity gauge climbed as the destroyer tore through the Scalos atmosphere. Choosing his position, Lanson brought the New Beginning to a standstill, a hundred kilometres from the target vessel’s anticipated orbital path. Once the lifter appeared on the sensors, he’d have to accelerate to meet it, but that wouldn’t be difficult with the enemy spaceship travelling at such a low velocity.

  Once he was satisfied, Lanson settled himself, and watched carefully for the superheavy. It was due in another seven minutes, but he was happy to be early instead of late.

  “If you’re looking to reduce risk, I could hit the superheavy with all of our available weaponry, sir,” said Matlock.

  “Just watch closely, Commander,” said Lanson. “It’s likely that once the New Beginning’s magazines are empty there’ll be no easy way to refill them, so I don’t want us to burn through our ammunition on a dead target.”

  The New Beginning’s particle beam could, in theory, keep firing for many hundreds or thousands of years, assuming its hardware didn’t fail, but alone it wouldn’t be enough. The lifter would either be offline, in which case everything would be hunky-dory, or there’d be indications the enemy vessel presented a threat, in which case Lanson would order an all-out assault.

  “Captain, I’ve located the target,” said Turner a few minutes later. “It’s fifteen seconds early and a few klicks off its expected position. The feed is on your screen.”

  Lanson narrowed his eyes. The superheavy was travelling with it starboard flank partially facing, and it looked in an even worse state than he remembered it, with its hull plating heavily scarred and burned from the combination of missile detonations and incendiaries.

  From their current position, the New Beginning’s sensor arrays had a clear view of the opening which had been left when the lifter lost its rear 2500 metres in the bomb blast. Lanson could see parts of the vessel’s underside propulsion modules, and he could also see how thick its armour plating was around the cargo bay.

  The contents of that bay weren’t quite exposed. Twisted metal and indeterminate shapes were visible, but other than that, Lanson couldn’t tell what, if anything, the lifter had been carrying in its main bay.

  “There’s no way in hell that vessel will ever be good for anything other than the scrapyard,” said Abrams.

  “I agree,” said Lanson.

  It was now clear without doubt that the superheavy was beyond repair, and, given Private Wolf’s reports of dead aliens on Scalos, it seemed equally unlikely that any of the crew had survived.

  “That saves us plenty of ammunition, sir,” said Matlock.

  Lanson nodded. “However, I’d like to take a closer look in the superheavy’s cargo bay, to see if the Sagh’eld managed to transport anything else from Scalos.”

  He commanded the New Beginning to accelerate and guided the warship towards the wrecked lifter. The distance between the two vessels fell below fifty kilometres, and Lanson adjusted the orientation of his spaceship. His intention was to match velocity and altitude with the lifter, while keeping the New Beginning’s forward sensors aimed directly into the enemy spaceship’s cargo bay.

  “Let’s get in close,” said Lanson.

  Once he had the New Beginning in position, he reduced its velocity a fraction so that the lifter would catch up.

  “There’ll only be five thousand metres separating us, Captain,” Lieutenant Perry warned.

  “That’s plenty,” said Lanson.

  “Here it comes,” said Matlock.

  From this proximity, the superheavy seemed even larger in size than the reality - despite missing 2500 metres of its stern, the lifter still utterly dwarfed the New Beginning.

  “Matching velocity,” said Lanson, as the target vessel appeared on the forward feeds.

  He got it just about perfect, and the New Beginning’s forward arrays had an excellent view into the lifter’s main cargo bay. That bay wasn’t nearly full, though Lanson could see numerous shuttles clamped to the side walls, along with a couple of five-hundred-metre crates, which might have contained anything, but more likely held backup excavation equipment.

  Other, much smaller crates – between fifty and a hundred metres each - were also in the bay, and it was these which caught Lanson’s eye.

  “We need to see what’s inside those crates,” he said, disappointed that a simple scan wouldn’t be enough. Getting into the containers would be difficult from onboard the New Beginning.

  Before Lanson could turn his mind to the task of solving the problem, he was caught unawares by an urgent exclamation from Lieutenant Perry. “Captain! A Tagha’an heavy just exited lightspeed directly over the surface facility!” she yelled. “Oh shit, and there’s an Ex’Kaminar battleship with it!”

  This was news worse than terrible. Having exited lightspeed, the two Sagh’eld warships would be sensor blind for a few seconds, but once they recovered, they’d begin aggressively scanning the area for whatever had brought them here – that almost certainly being the New Beginning.

  The distance separating the destroyer and the newly arrived enemy spaceships was such that Lanson had no belief whatsoever that he might be able to make it over the horizon before he was spotted. To run would guarantee death.

  Acting on instinct, Lanson took the only option available. He rammed the control bars hard forward and the New Beginning surged towards the superheavy and entered its cargo bay without so much as scraping the sides. Timing it as best he could, Lanson brought the warship to a rapid halt, above the two huge crates and with its nose hardly more than a hundred metres from the lifter’s interior bulkhead.

  The wrecked superheavy continued on its previous orbital course, its velocity undiminished, while Lanson held the controls in a tight grip, hoping he’d made the right decision.

  For a time, nobody spoke on the bridge comms, and then Commander Matlock broke the silence.

  “What now, sir?”

  “We’re going to sit tight until this lifter is halfway around the planet. Then, we’re going to exit this bay and make a run for space.”

  “What about Sergeant Gabriel and his squad, Captain?” asked Massey.

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead,” growled Lanson.

  As yet, he couldn’t imagine any way that would allow both the New Beginning’s crew and the soldiers to escape this situation. Right now, the only possibility Lanson could think of was for him and his crew to escape in the warship, and then sit a long distance off world, scanning the surface facility and hoping the Sagh’eld would leave before they detected the New Beginning’s presence.

  Having seen how much the enemy had invested into their excavation work on Scalos, it seemed entirely possible they would remain here for the foreseeable future, and that made it exceptionally likely Sergeant Gabriel and his squad would be found and killed.

  “Captain, I’ve received a comm from Private Wolf,” said Lieutenant Perry. “They’ve arrived at the western storage bay and have located what Sergeant Gabriel believes to be many more devices like the Galos modules.” She swore. “Except these are big – a thousand times the volume of the one on Cornerstone.”

  Lanson cursed too. “Is Sergeant Gabriel able to confirm if these are definitely the same as the Galos? And can he provide an exact count?”

  “One moment, sir, I’ll ask.” Perry was silent for a time. “We’ve lost connection to Private Wolf. I’m trying to re-establish…”

  “Why might we have lost connection?” Lanson demanded. “We haven’t travelled far enough for the planet to have blocked our transmissions.”

  “It’s not the planet, Captain,” said Perry. “I think the Sagh’eld are jamming the comms over the crater.”

  Lanson’s day, which had already plummeted rapidly to a low ebb, suddenly became even worse.

  “Captain, the topsides of a Sagh’eld warship just went past the opening at the rear of this bay!” said Lieutenant Turner. “It’s gone now.”

  “Was it the Tagha’an or the Ex’Kaminar?” asked Lanson. It probably didn’t matter one way or the other, since either was capable of wrecking the New Beginning in short order. “And were we spotted?”

  “I think it was the Tagha’an, sir,” said Turner. “I can’t tell you if we were detected.”

  Lanson closed his eyes for a moment. Of course, the Sagh’eld would be interested to discover what had happened to the superheavy lifter, and the crew of the heavy cruiser would doubtless be scanning the cargo vessel’s hull in the search for answers. It seemed inconceivable they would fail to detect the New Beginning.

  “They’re going to find us, Captain,” said Matlock. “Our only means of escape is to activate another instant lightspeed transit.”

  Lanson knew the truth of it and he bared his teeth in a snarl. “Lieutenant Abrams, create another ILT vector and add the activation to my controls.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Even as Abrams was giving his response, a shape rose into view, filling the cargo bay opening. Lanson saw Kraal turrets, missile clusters and angular flank armour plates.

  “Tagha’an,” he said.

  The ILT wasn’t ready yet, and Lanson doubted it would be before the Sagh’eld heavy cruiser launched a punishing wave of missiles which the New Beginning might not survive. Lanson’s muscles tensed as he prepared to command his warship out of the bay at maximum velocity. If he could force an impact with the Tagha’an, maybe he’d be able to hit it with a salvo of missiles and then…

  Lanson knew it was no use, but he had no other choice.

  However, before the Sagh’eld heavy could launch missiles, and before Lanson could attempt a collision, something entirely unexpected happened. A bright flash lit up the interior of the cargo bay. Almost at once, the light vanished and the New Beginning’s sensors went blank. The arrays recovered in less than a second, and when they did, the Tagha’an was no longer visible outside the opening.

  “What the hell?” said Lanson.

  He gave the New Beginning a trickle of reverse thrust and the warship travelled stern-first towards the opening at a low velocity. The moment the rear fifty metres of the destroyer were outside the bay, he brought the vessel to a halt.

  Now, the rear sensor arrays had a much-improved visibility arc, allowing Lanson a view of the Sagh’eld heavy cruiser. Attackers outside the sensor arc were in the process of blowing the Tagha’an into pieces. Already, the Sagh’eld vessel was ablaze, but not only that, huge chunks of its topsides had vanished, leaving massive, ragged-edged holes behind.

  Where the Ex’Kaminar battleship had gone, Lanson didn’t know, but it wasn’t anywhere within sensor sight.

  “Depending on where the attackers are positioned, you might need to bring the New Beginning entirely out of the bay in order to spot them, Captain,” Turner warned.

  Lanson had indeed been considering whether he should take the risk. In the end, he knew it wasn’t worth it. Any fleet numerous enough to make such short work of a Tagha’an wasn’t going to have any difficulty with the New Beginning.

  “Let’s get out of sight,” said Lanson, piloting the destroyer once more towards the cargo bay’s forward bulkhead. “Lieutenant Abrams, when will the ILT vector be available?”

  “I’m assigning it to your controls right now, Captain.”

  “Are we getting out of here, sir?” asked Matlock.

  Lanson shook his head. “We’re staying right where we are, Commander. Whatever attacked the Tagha’an was willing to take on the Ex’Kaminar at the same time, but they left this superheavy alone. I’m not planning to abandon Sergeant Gabriel and his squad – not unless there’s no other choice. So, we’re going to wait in this bay while the wreckage completes another circuit of Scalos.” He looked down at the tactical to reassure himself. “On the next orbit, we’ll pass almost directly over the surface facility. Maybe we’ll see an opportunity.”

  “What if we’re detected, sir?” asked Matlock.

  “If that happens, we’ll lightspeed out of here,” said Lanson, hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

  “Each orbit takes nearly an hour, Captain,” said Turner. “We’ve got a long wait before we’ll have sensor sight on the crater again.”

  “I know,” said Lanson.

  He felt suddenly drained of energy. The soldiers were trapped within the surface facility, while Lanson and his crew were facing unknown opponents which had attacked – and almost certainly destroyed – an Ex’Kaminar battleship and a Tagha’an heavy.

  The wisest action was wait and hope for the best, and Lanson cursed that he could do no more.

  FOURTEEN

  “We’ve lost comms to the New Beginning, Sergeant,” said Private Wolf. She was crouching next to her booster pack and studying the text on its single screen.

  Gabriel snapped his gaze away from the storage bay window. “Can you re-establish?”

  “I’m trying…negative, sir. The link is gone.”

  “Have we lost one of the relays?”

  “No, sir, my transmissions are going as far as the entry point.”

  “Then the New Beginning went out of comms sight,” said Gabriel. “Captain Lanson was intending to check the superheavy, to make sure its crew weren’t about to bring it back online.”

  Wolf looked up from the booster pack. “We’re being jammed, Sergeant.”

  “You’re shitting me?” said Gabriel. He cursed. Of course Wolf wasn’t shitting him. “Then Sagh’eld reinforcements came to Scalos.”

  “That’s the most likely explanation, sir.”

  “We received no updated orders before we lost the comms,” said Gabriel. “And we have no idea what Captain Lanson is planning.”

  “We’re on our own, Sergeant,” said Corporal Ziegler. “The same as always.”

  “Sometimes I’d prefer to have the company,” muttered Gabriel. Every member of the squad was watching him now. “Give me a moment to think,” he said in irritation.

  The situation was bad, of that there was no doubt. If the Sagh’eld were jamming the comms, that meant the New Beginning was outgunned and therefore unable to intervene. Perhaps the enemy had already knocked out the destroyer.

  “Maybe we should head down to one of the lower levels and find someplace to hide,” said Corporal Hennessey.

  “We left our shuttle parked outside the entrance,” said Gabriel. “The Sagh’eld will know we’re here, and there’s no way in hell they’re going to leave us be. They want the tech from this facility and they can’t risk having us detonate another one of those cubes.”

  “Then we’re screwed.”

  “That’s a possibility,” said Gabriel.

  He called up the map again. Earlier, he’d noticed passages on levels two and six which ended seemingly nowhere. Gabriel looked at them again, though he found no further clues as to where they might lead – if anywhere.

  “I wonder if we can exit to the surface from levels two and six,” he said. “There are tunnels showing on the map which don’t seem to go anywhere, but they must have a purpose. Maybe they were intended for emergency evacuation.”

  “We should be able to make it to level two long before the first Sagh’eld enter this facility,” said Ziegler.

  “We’re going for level six,” said Gabriel. He paused for a moment before giving the soldiers the good news. “And on the way, were going to stop at level four and see if we can find out some more about the Infinity Lens. If we can identify the associated hardware, Private Galvan is going to destroy it with pack charges.”

  “Why don’t we plant a couple of charges on those cubes in the storage bay?” asked Private Davison. “If the timer is long enough, they won’t blow until the cubes are in in the hold of a Sagh’eld warship.”

  “I’m not ready to take that risk, soldier. Not yet,” said Gabriel. “We saw what the Galos did to Lorimos. If those ten-metre cubes act in the same way, each one of them could destroy this entire planet a hundred times over, and there’s no way to guarantee the implosion won’t happen here, rather than onboard an enemy warship.”

  “Then let’s take out the infinity lens hardware,” said Hennessey.

  Gabriel nodded and started walking back towards the airlift which would take him and his squad down to level four. As the soldiers fell in behind, he increased his pace to a fast jog.

  Soon, Gabriel was standing in front of the airlift. He touched the access panel and the door opened. The car was empty.

  “Are you sending down your shoulder sensor, Sergeant?” asked Ziegler.

  “Not this time,” said Gabriel.

  He stepped into the lift car and waited for the other soldiers to join him. Once everyone was inside, Gabriel activated the lift panel. The doors closed and the car began its descent.

  At the bottom, the doors opened. The room outside was a huge square, and the floorspace was occupied by dozens upon dozens of alien consoles. Screens were fixed to the walls, and a single, much larger console, was on a circular dais in the room’s centre.

  There were no visible Sagh’eld – either dead or alive – but Gabriel exited the lift quickly, and the others did likewise. He advanced several metres into the room and then crouched low behind one of the consoles so that he could survey the room. The console hummed softly, almost inaudibly, and he could smell the energy running through its circuits.

  “Looks like a command-and-control area,” said Ziegler from his position nearby.

  “It does,” said Gabriel.