He broke from cover and dashed another five metres into the room, his gaze sweeping all around for signs of hostiles. Most other times, he’d have taken a much more cautious approach, but given the circumstances, he was obliged to find a balance between risk and speed.

  “This place is empty, Sergeant,” said Corporal Hennessey, who was crouched about eight metres away.

  “And no corpses,” said Gabriel.

  “You think that’s significant?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind, Corporal. We need to be on our guard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A total of six exits led from the room, and Gabriel headed for the passage leading from the western wall. From there, he and his squad would be able to cut north and then it wouldn’t be far until they entered one of the two corridors leading to the six rooms labelled as Infinity Lens on the map.

  There’s another security breaker plugged into this central console, Sergeant,” said Private Teague.

  “Leave it,” said Gabriel. “We don’t have much time.”

  He approached the western exit and stopped at the corner. Looking into the blue-lit passage, he saw nothing that gave any specific cause for concern, though again, the Sagh’eld corpses were notably absent.

  “Let’s move,” said Gabriel.

  He broke into a run, aiming for the northern turn, about forty metres away. The passage continued on past that, leading to some other rooms he had no interest in exploring.

  Halting at the turning, Gabriel checked north. The passage led to a room, with several consoles visible. He watched for a short time, feeling the pressure build, but unwilling to dash headlong to his possible death.

  “Looks clear,” said Gabriel at last.

  He exited the cover offered by the corner and ran quickly and quietly towards the next room. Aside from the consoles, it was empty and Gabriel hurried on to the eastern exit. A short distance along, another passage went north into the Infinity Lens area of Level 4.

  Gabriel looked once over his shoulder to reassure himself that everyone was ready. The soldiers were clearly on edge, but they remained watchful.

  Heading along the eastern passage, Gabriel halted at the corner and looked into the passage leading north. Fifteen metres ahead was the first closed door he could remember seeing within this underground facility.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Listen up – there’s a closed door ahead. I can see the access panel from here, and the light on it is red.”

  “Does that mean the Sagh’eld never came here, Sergeant?” asked Private Castle.

  “I wish it did, Private,” said Gabriel. “More likely it means the Sagh’eld in this area of the facility locked themselves inside once they figured out something had gone wrong on the upper levels.”

  “Are we sticking with the plan, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Ziegler. “If there are Sagh’eld behind that door, we don’t know how many they are. It could get messy.”

  “Real messy,” Gabriel agreed.

  He cursed again. He was convinced the Infinity Lens was something of incredible importance and he guessed it was the main reason the Sagh’eld were here – not for the cubes in the storage area, but for this unknown tech.

  Gabriel worked the timings out in his head. “It’s taken us six minutes to make it here from the storage area viewing room. I figure we’ve got at least fifteen minutes to storm these rooms ahead of us and make our escape.”

  “That’s cutting it fine, Sergeant,” said Hennessey.

  “It is,” said Gabriel. “And that’s why we’re not going to stand here talking any longer.” He turned and beckoned for Private Galvan to approach. “Open that door for us.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Galvan, shrugging out of the straps of his backpack. “I checked out the open doors we passed and there’re none of them thicker than six inches. I shouldn’t have a problem breaking this one open.”

  “Are you sure you can handle those Sagh’eld charges?” asked Chan.

  Galvan looked up from the pack he was rummaging through. He grinned widely, and then continued his hunt for appropriate explosive charges.

  “If that was meant to make me feel better, it didn’t work,” said Chan.

  A couple of seconds later, Galvan extracted four identical grey-coloured, six-inch semicylinders, each with a tiny controller device attached. “These should do it,” he said.

  “The rest of you, get back to the last room,” said Gabriel. “I’ll cover Private Galvan.”

  The other soldiers dashed away and hid themselves from sight.

  Gabriel smiled thinly at Galvan. “Ready when you are, Private.”

  The soldier jogged quietly along the corridor and stopped at the end. “By the way, I’m going for the brute-force method,” he announced, sticking the first charge to the door’s upper-left corner. “Given that we don’t have much time, and all.”

  “Just get us inside, Private,” said Gabriel.

  Galvan planted the other three charges in quick succession, set the timers, and then sprinted back along the corridor. “Best move your ass, Sergeant.”

  Gabriel didn’t need a second invitation and he hared it along the corridor with Private Galvan a couple of paces behind.

  “You set a short timer again, didn’t you?” said Gabriel, as his feet pounded against the solid alloy floor.

  “Hey, it’s been almost two years since the last time,” Galvan protested.

  The two of them exited the corridor into the console room. Gabriel went left and Galvan went right. No sooner had Gabriel ducked out of sight behind a console, than he heard the whumping boom of the explosives, along with the sound of tearing metal.

  “Move!” yelled Gabriel on the comms.

  He rose and broke once more into a sprint towards the corridor he’d exited only moments before. Gabriel was the closest to the passage and he was first inside. In a handful of seconds, he was at the turning north, where he halted and glanced around the corner.

  A pack charge didn’t create much smoke, so there was nothing to impede Gabriel’s view. The door had been torn from its housing, and the buckled, red-glowing remains of it were visible in the room beyond, along with several consoles and the corpses of two Sagh’eld soldiers.

  The sight of the dead aliens made Gabriel hesitate for a split-second, since he wasn’t sure if they’d died as a result of the earlier shuttle detonation, or had just been standing too close to the door when the pack charges went off.

  Gabriel supposed the answer didn’t matter – there’d either be targets for him to shoot, or the Sagh’eld would already be dead. Either way, he had to enter that room ahead.

  “I’m moving in,” said Gabriel.

  “I’ve got you covered, Sergeant,” said Private Davison, who was standing at the opposite corner, his gauss rifle aimed along the passage. The soldier was a deadeye shot with a rifle.

  Keeping close to the corridor’s western wall, Gabriel advanced rapidly towards the room. Just behind was Private Chan, with Corporal Ziegler coming after. The rest of the squad waited for the order to move up.

  Heat from the explosives produced a shimmer in the air, and the scent of hot metal was strong in Gabriel’s nostrils. The door had been torn raggedly from its housing and the edges looked sharp.

  Halting near the room’s entrance, Gabriel listened for a moment. He heard nothing and saw nothing. Another step forward and he was able to see much of the room’s interior. Aside from the remains of the door and the two Sagh’eld corpses, he spotted more consoles. The room itself looked to be about eight metres from south to north and several metres wider, though Gabriel couldn’t see it all. According to the map, the two exits were east and west.

  Knowing that speed was of the essence, Gabriel threw himself into the room. He landed on his shoulder behind one of the consoles and quickly rolled into a crouch, his grip on his rifle unbroken.

  Leaning out carefully, Gabriel was able to see the western passage, though not all the way along, while his view into the eastern passage was mostly blocked by a high console a few metres to his right.

  Suddenly, two Sagh’eld soldiers rose from behind separate consoles in the room’s north-west corner, gauss rifles in their hands. In an instant, Gabriel evaluated the situation. He reckoned he might be able to shoot one of the aliens, but not two. Figuring he didn’t want to trade his life for only a single kill, Gabriel scrambled deeper into cover while the aliens adjusted their aim.

  Three other Sagh’eld rose from cover, and these ones were on the eastern side of the room. Private Chan’s RAHD gun thundered with discharge, and one of the Sagh’eld was catapulted bloodily from its feet. Gabriel heard the fizzing whine of gauss coils and bullets pinged off the edge of the console he was hiding behind. Then, he spotted at least one more enemy soldier, crawling between two other consoles to the east as the alien repositioned in the hope of obtaining a clear shot on Gabriel.

  Already it was apparent the Sagh’eld were going to make this into a tough and dirty fight, and, as Gabriel hunkered down behind the console, he wondered if he and his squad had a hope in hell of dislodging the enemy from this area in the short time available. Even if the attack was successful, the cost would surely be high.

  It was too late to back down now, and Gabriel unclipped a grenade from his side belt, in preparation to throw. Private Chan fired his RAHD again, and Corporal Ziegler was readying a grenade of his own.

  Then, Gabriel was hit by the most incredible, excruciating pain he’d ever experienced in his life. Agony - of such intensity that he couldn’t even cry out with it - gripped him. His vision dimmed. Gabriel didn’t know the source of this torment, but he fought back with every fibre of his being.

  It wasn’t enough. Gabriel felt his heart stutter. Then, it stopped. Darkness claimed him.

  FIFTEEN

  Gabriel opened his eyes. He felt no pain and his mind was clear. For a moment, he lay still behind the console where he’d fallen. Gabriel knew with absolute conviction that he’d died, and yet here he was alive and awake.

  What the hell?

  The memory of the agony was fresh and he turned his head carefully, in case the pain returned. He felt nothing.

  North, across the room, Gabriel saw splatters of blood on the floor and ceiling. A Sagh’eld soldier was slumped across one of the consoles.

  His brain kicked into gear.

  “Please report,” Gabriel said on the squad channel. His voice was as clear as always.

  “Damn, am I alive?” said Corporal Hennessey after a moment. “I thought I’d—”

  “What happened?” asked Private Chan.

  Gabriel twisted around, and he could see Chan, face-down on the floor, just inside the corridor. Another soldier – Corporal Ziegler – was stirring not far beyond.

  Cautiously, Gabriel raised himself to a sitting position. The pain stayed gone. He was still holding onto his gauss rifle and he tightened his grip on the weapon. Aside from the sounds of his squad members rousing themselves, the room seemed otherwise quiet.

  “Private Chan, on your feet,” said Gabriel.

  Although answers were currently in short supply, he knew that his squad remained in grave danger. Positioning himself behind the alien console, Gabriel scanned the room carefully. From his periphery, he saw Chan roll to his feet.

  “Damn, I’m glad I didn’t arm that grenade,” said Ziegler, who was now standing on the opposite side of the passage to Chan.

  “Any casualties?” asked Gabriel.

  “Negative, sir,” said Hennessey. “What was—”

  “Save the questions for later, Corporal,” said Gabriel. “We have to make sure this room is safe.” He turned towards the entrance corridor again. “Cover me,” he said.

  Once he’d received the acknowledgement from Ziegler and Chan, Gabriel broke away from the console and stepped quickly and silently across the floor towards the room’s north-east corner, where he’d seen two enemy soldiers.

  “Got a couple dead Sagh’eld over here,” said Gabriel, when he found the corpses.

  He crouched briefly so that he could see through the visor of the nearest alien. The Sagh’eld’s eyes were open, and its face was twisted in an expression of the pain it had suffered before its death. Reaching across, Gabriel turned the head of the second enemy soldier, and saw the same agony written across its features.

  Rising once more, Gabriel indicated to Ziegler and Chan that they should investigate the eastern side of the room. The two soldiers set off quickly, staying low as they threaded their way between the consoles.

  “There’s plenty of blood from the Sagh’eld I shot with my RAHD earlier, Sergeant,” said Chan. “And there are two others here who look as if they were licking piss off a nettle just before they died.”

  Soon after, the sweep of the room was done, and Gabriel ordered the other soldiers inside. Once the exits were secure, he spoke to Private Teague.

  “The clock on my HUD shows that thirty minutes have passed since the pain came,” said Gabriel.

  “Yes, sir. I downloaded the data from my suit’s medical unit into my med-box. According to the output, I was dead for twenty-eight minutes. I’m sure that means we were all dead for the same amount of time.”

  “Did the med-box tell you the cause of your death?”

  “No, Sergeant – it listed the cause as unknown.”

  “We were hit by an area-effect weapon of some kind,” mused Gabriel. “Since it killed the Sagh’eld as well, that makes me wonder if they screwed up and activated something within this facility they weren’t meant to touch.”

  “So how come we’re back on our feet?” asked Castle. “I feel great now,” he said. “Like I was never dead.”

  “You remember how the acceleration field affected us?” said Gabriel. “All those broken fingers that healed back up in hardly any time?”

  “Damn,” said Galvan. “Makes me glad we were on Cornerstone.”

  “We can talk about it later,” said Gabriel. “However—” He offered a warning glare at the soldiers. “No heroics and no battlefield experimentation. Does everyone understand?”

  Every member of the squad nodded, though Gabriel stared for a moment longer, hunting for indications of who might be planning something stupid. He saw nothing that gave him a reason to worry, and he nodded in turn.

  “So, if you’re right about all the Sagh’eld being dead, we should have a clear run through this Infinity Lens area, sir,” said Hennessey. “Maybe we can gather some intel and then make a dash for the Level 6 exit.”

  Gabriel considered the option for a moment. He’d been dead for thirty minutes, and that was nearly enough time for the Sagh’eld to have sent down another contingent of troops, and for that contingent to have made it here to the north end of level four. Unless, of course, the aliens were being particularly circumspect on the basis that every member of the original deployment was now a corpse.

  “Screw it, we’re going for that intel,” said Gabriel. “This has to be quick and quiet, until we’re absolutely certain the Sagh’eld are all dead.”

  “Sergeant, our comms are no longer being jammed,” said Wolf.

  Gabriel’s heart jumped. “Can you reach the New Beginning?”

  “No, sir. My transmissions are successfully travelling the relay network, but they aren’t finding a receiver.”

  “So the New Beginning is either destroyed or out of sensor sight?” said Gabriel.

  “Those are the only two realistic possibilities, sir.”

  “Why the hell did the Sagh’eld stop jamming us?” asked Gabriel.

  Wolf shrugged, which was the only answer he’d been expecting.

  Having been given some food for thought, just when he wanted a clean plate, Gabriel proceeded as planned. He chose the room’s western exit, which turned north about thirty metres away. Advancing quickly, Gabriel made as little sound as possible, and he kept his gun barrel aimed at the corner ahead.

  No Sagh’eld appeared and he stopped at the turning. A room was visible about twenty metres north, and according to the map it had a similar footprint to the one he and his soldiers had just vacated. From there, another northern exit would lead to the largest room in the Infinity Lens complex, and it was this which Gabriel expected to be the main control area.

  With his limited viewing arc, he could see consoles in the next room, along with some screens on the visible wall. Those screens displayed alien symbols, which Gabriel could have translated from his current position using the zoom function on his helmet sensor, but chose not to.

  Over one of the consoles, the body of a Sagh’eld trooper was slumped. It was a promising sign.

  “I can see one dead alien,” said Gabriel on the squad comms. “Other than that, it’s the same hardware as elsewhere.”

  Beckoning the squad to follow, he set off towards the room ahead. By the time he neared the entrance, Gabriel had counted another four dead Sagh’eld, and he was sure many more had collapsed dead on the floor out of his sight behind the consoles.

  Halting at the entrance, he identified the northern exit, which was about five metres offset to the place he was crouched. Peering carefully east and west, Gabriel confirmed there were no other exits. After a few moments of watching and listening, the room appeared deserted, but there again, so had the previous one, where he’d had been lucky to escape an ambush.

  “Looks clear,” he muttered angrily.

  There was little option other than to enact a sweep of the room. Having given out some quick orders, Gabriel headed west, keeping his head down behind the console. Private Chan followed, while Corporal Hennessey and Private Galvan went east. The rest of the soldiers would either follow in pairs, or provide cover from the doorway.

  Halting opposite the northern entrance, Gabriel lifted his head enough that he could see along the passage. To his chagrin, it ended after about ten metres at a closed door. It was another obstacle he didn’t need.

  The sweep of the room didn’t take long, and the search turned up almost twenty dead Sagh’eld, and no living ones. A few of the consoles were powered up and Gabriel spotted two more compact security breakers plugged into the hardware, along with another of the supersized breakers that was connected to the room’s main console in the centre.