JN> So I’m relying on the message taking its time to reach an officer capable of making the decision.

  BK> The wheels of the military.

  The sensor feed showed Nation jumping and smashing his fist into the metal helmet of an Estral soldier which was blocking a narrow passage between two rows of tall storage cabinets. The alien was hurled face-first to the floor and Nation hardly even slowed.

  BK> That must have hurt.

  JN> I doubt he felt a thing. Are you going to send one of the Gundar’s shuttles to pick me up?

  BK> No, I intend to land the Gundar in the bay. Escaping on the shuttle will take many extra seconds.

  JN> What if the bomb goes off? I know it’s a Retaliator class, but surely there’s no way its shield can withstand the effect?

  BK> Theoretically? Maybe. I promised I’d wait for you, which in my head equates to a promise that I’d get you away in one piece. So there you go. No arguments.

  JN> I appreciate that, but I don’t want to be responsible for you getting it in the neck from Admiral Cody.

  BK> Cody looks after his troops. He’ll understand. Besides, you probably cost as much to produce as a Destroyer. Maybe a repeater turret. Or a gauss pistol.

  JN> Yeah, they won’t tell me what the final cost came to.

  BK> I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to set up a payment plan.

  JN> This is one bill the Space Corps can deal with. They’re working me hard for it.

  Keller ended the neural connection and continued to run a series of detailed sensor sweeps over the visible area of local space. It was still possible other Estral ships waited nearby, operating under the cover of their stealth modules. Each scan came back negative, suggesting she was either being overly suspicious, or the hypothetical Estral ships were equipped with newer stealth tech. If it were the latter, it was surprising the enemy hadn’t taken the opportunity to join in the attack with the others.

  An unwanted thought intruded upon Keller’s activity and she felt her heart thump hard in her chest.

  JN> You remember I said something was bugging me?

  BK> Yes.

  JN> Redar-Finor said this Antaron came seeking Istoliar. You are equipped with Istoliar power cells and processors.

  BK> Assuming this Antaron was what I saw in the centrifuge, I don’t want to meet it face-to-face.

  JN> Get yourself to the hangar bay. I’ll be waiting.

  Keller had no proof that the Antaron had any interest in Nation. Even so, her muscles felt tight from tension. With her interface to the Gundar still active, Keller watched and waited.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lieutenant Joe Nation’s escape to the hangar bay was not proceeding as well as he hoped. In an effort to locate a bank of airlifts which were not crammed with escaping soldiers, he tried to outguess the unknowable and cut straight across the centre of one of the lower levels, aiming for a place his 3D map estimated was directly below one of the hangar bay lift shafts.

  The near-infallible positioning system built into his sensor augmentation didn’t get the location wrong, however the airlifts he came to were disabled, out of power, or both. The cause didn’t really matter, but it committed him to the stairs until level Sub-8 where the stairwell ended, forcing him to look for another way to the hangar.

  There had been few Estral in the lower levels, but the higher he climbed, the more of them he found. They were listless and acted without guidance. Some of them simply sat, clutching their gauss cannons. Others he found in front of consoles as if they were trying to make contact with family members on other planets. These Estral knew they’d been abandoned and they were doubtless aware of the planet buster on Sub-63. In short, they knew they were going to die.

  Nation had sympathy for the plight of the common soldier, but he had no intention of offering his condolences. Where the aliens got in his way, he killed them with surprise blows to the neck. On one occasion, he used his shockwave augmentation to kill a larger group blocking his way through one of the corridors. The shockwave took a lot out of his power cells and was something he preferred to keep in reserve.

  Added to his other problems was the certainty that the Isob-2 facility was collapsing. Every so often, the floor shook violently beneath his feet, or his sensor registered a sound or a vibration from the lower levels. On more than one occasion, he noticed cracks in the floor and ceiling, along with several areas where the ground sagged.

  Once or twice, he was sure he heard the whispering sound he’d first noticed in the centrifuge. It was so faint, the rational part of his mind told him it was down to jumpiness, and that he was imagining things. It was tempting to accept this easy explanation, but he’d never been good at fooling himself. Nation checked over his shoulder. Behind, he saw only stairs, walls and clouds of fine dust drifting down from above.

  BK> Where are you?

  JN> I found some more stairs and I’m heading up to Sub-6. The lights have been out since Sub-15.

  BK> You’ve had your 180 seconds comms travel time. Now you’re eating into the decision-making time at Estral HQ.

  JN> There’s only so fast I can run.

  BK> Try harder.

  JN> It probably wouldn’t be wise, but I could try hacking into the base mainframe if I see a terminal. I doubt the monitoring team cares anymore.

  BK> Here I am telling you to run faster. At the same time, you think there’s an unknown entity following you. And you ask if it’s a good idea to stop? It’s not worth the risk. Besides, if they flush out the code I left in the comms hub, there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to coordinate your escape.

  JN> I just thought I’d mention it.

  BK> Are you aiming for the security room on Sub-6?

  JN> Not if I can help it. Anyway, I’m at the opposite side of the base.

  The conversation was interrupted by a sudden, rending crack. Four steps ahead, a wide gap opened up, jagging diagonally across the stairs, passing by Nation’s left side and continuing behind him. Nation felt the stair he was standing on give way and he sprang forward to the next. This one moved with the weight of his footfall and he jumped again and again, dropping his gauss cannon to free up both hands. With a rumbling sound, accompanied by the rattling of stone and dust, the entire flight of steps behind him dropped into the darkness.

  Nation didn’t slow and he reached the next landing at full speed. There was an Estral soldier here, a few metres away, with his pale, grey eyes visible through the visor on his helmet. The alien had his plasma repeater raised and somehow, he must have sensed that Nation was coming. The repeater gave off a sound like thunder in the confines of the landing and an arc of white-hot slugs tore through the air.

  Nation’s augmented brain could evaluate a situation with the luxury of time. He saw the alien’s finger tighten on the trigger and he calculated where the first bullets would fly. Without hesitation, Nation threw himself below the deadly spray and rolled twice, silently. He reached up his hands and took hold of the repeater barrel. It was hot and the material of his suit blistered, but it didn’t stop him wrenching the weapon out of the Estral’s hands, the strength of the alien no match for a fully-augmented human.

  With a twist, Nation got his legs underneath him and he surged to his feet, his weight enough to unbalance the Estral. He wanted to twist the barrel of the plasma repeater towards the armoured chest plate the alien wore, but the weapon wasn’t made to be reversed. Instead, he bent the alloy tube almost double, hurled the Estral to the ground and sprinted off towards the next flight of stairs.

  BK> Should have used the timestop augmentation.

  JN> I had it under control.

  BK> If you always keep something in reserve for emergencies, you’ll never end up using it.

  JN> Thanks for the advice.

  BK> You’re welcome!

  Nation shook his head and hit the stairs at top speed. His power cells were at 40% and they dribbled downwards at a higher than expected rate. If the Antaron was responsible, it was close enough to suck out the juice and Nation desperately wanted to cling onto enough battery reserves to keep his stealth modules running.

  He heard the distant sound of something unimaginably heavy crashing down and he saw more cracks on the wall and underfoot. He took the stairs two at a time, reaching the next landing in a few seconds. His map informed him he needed to climb three more flights until he reached the opening to Sub-6 and he grimaced at the realisation he might soon be buried underneath a few billion tonnes of rubble.

  He found two more Estral on the next flight of steps. They walked slowly upwards and abreast, as if they didn’t give a damn about the walls coming down around them. A chunk of stone dropped away silently, carrying one of the aliens into the depths and leaving an enormous gap on the left of the stairs. The other didn’t even turn and trudged past the broken section.

  JN> Did you see that?

  BK> Bizarre behaviour. It’s easy to forget how little we know about the Estral.

  Nation wasn’t happy to wait for the remaining alien to reach the top in order that he could get past. He ran up behind it and, with a twinge of guilt, knocked it off the edge. The Estral toppled into the hole and Nation saw it tumbling down. He swore at the sight of what lay below – the entire stairwell was in a state of collapse and he was only just ahead of it.

  He made it to Sub-6, uncertain if luck or speed was the primary reason for his success. Once he exited the stairwell, Nation found himself in what might have been a storage area, with a high ceiling and distant walls. Long crates and anonymous metal boxes had been pushed haphazardly to the side walls to make room for the troops passing through. A large section of the ceiling had landed on a row of cabinets to Nation’s left, crushing them and covering the floor in chunks of stone and dust. His eyes swept from corner to corner, but his sensor detected no movement.

  The main exit was opposite and it headed in the direction he wanted to go. He dashed over, trying his best to make out what lay along the passage. It ended at a T-Junction and he turned right, joining a long passage with doors to either side. From his earlier experience of Sub-6, he assumed these would be offices. Everything was dead, with no lights on any of the access panels.

  JN> Along here, turn right and there should be another bank of lifts and more stairs.

  BK> There’s no way those lifts are working, you realise that, don’t you? Best-case scenario is they’re still locked down from when RRT Alpha were poking around.

  JN> I won’t try the lifts. I’m going for the stairs.

  Nation was almost to the end of the corridor when he noticed one of the doors ahead was inexplicably open. He slowed in order to look into the room beyond, and his eyes went wide. Through the door was another office, near-identical to the one he’d entered earlier. The lights were out, yet the room’s console was operational and connected to the central mainframe. A timer counted down in the corner of one screen, showing how long until the console would be automatically logged out because of inactivity. Whoever had logged it in originally was gone and probably didn’t care one way or another.

  JN> That’s about eight seconds in human time.

  Nation heard another rumble and the floor lurched to one side. He glanced over his shoulder and discovered the whole passage was at an angle, as though a huge section of the Isob-2 facility had tipped whilst remaining intact.

  BK> Get out of there. Now!

  Nation tore himself away from the doorway, gritting his teeth at this missed opportunity.

  JN> Damnit.

  BK> We found what we came for.

  JN> It’s the stuff we didn’t come for that worries me.

  At the end of the corridor, he turned right and, as expected, found himself at one side of a large area with a bank of airlifts opposite and an opening for a stairwell leading up.

  He paused in the opening, checking for danger. The room was similar to the other security station on Sub-6, through which he’d passed on the way down. Another one of the clear polymer screens cut the room in half, once again with three openings for personnel. Sensors peered from corner mountings, focused on two circular console stations. There were no guards.

  BK> I count two problems.

  JN> Three.

  BK> The stairwell has collapsed and there’s a repeater turret to your left which you have no hope of outrunning, assuming it’s tied into those security sensors.

  JN> And the lift is locked down.

  BK> Hey, at least it’s got power. It must run off a secondary generator.

  Nation grimaced. He had to assume the security sensors were operational and that they’d detect him as soon as he entered the room. A split-second after that, the repeater would begin firing and he’d be torn to shreds before he could pass through the security screen. Afterwards, there was a collapsed stairwell to navigate.

  BK> There’s no alternative – you need to hit the repeater turret with your timestop augmentation and run through.

  JN> That’ll knock 20% off my power reserves.

  BK> You should have plenty. What’re you down to?

  JN> 38%

  BK> They’re draining again?

  JN> Yup.

  BK> Why didn’t you say?

  JN> It wouldn’t have changed anything. If I fall below 10% available power, the stealth modules shut off automatically to ensure the cells are able to keep my motors going. At zero percent, everything stops working until the cells recharge.

  BK> What’s the rate of decay on your batteries?

  JN> If I use the timestop, the stealth modules will switch off somewhere close to the hangar bay.

  BK> What choice is there?

  JN> None.

  BK> Then do it.

  Nation targeted the squat, dark form of the repeater turret with his timestop augmentation and fired. The discharge knocked a big chunk off his energy reserves and the cells dropped to 17%. Across the room, a pocket of zero-time surrounded the Estral repeater. The gun remained floating on its gravity motor, but its barrels stopped rotating. In exactly twelve seconds, it would return to normal.

  Nation sprinted across the room, vaulting over the edge of a console without slowing. There was no outward sign the security sensors were operational. If they were, he’d find out about it in approximately nine seconds.

  The gaps through the security screen were wide and Nation got through the right-hand one. His brain took in the details of the stairwell. From the far side of the room, it looked partially blocked. Now he was closer, he realised it was completely sealed. There was a huge slab of stone at an angle behind the doorway, with more rubble on top. One thing was sure – the stairs weren’t an option.

  BK> That’s not a natural collapse.

  JN> The Estral must have blown the stairwell after they got out.

  BK> They were scared in case the Antaron followed.

  JN> Four seconds and that repeater is going to open up.

  The dull-glow of the airlift’s access panel caught his eye.

  JN> You’ve got to hack into the base mainframe and operate those lifts for me.

  BK> Okay.

  Keller was quick and the lift panel turned to blue – open access – after only a few tenths of a second.

  BK> There’s good news and bad news. The good news: the lift is working and it’s on its way.

  JN> The bad?

  BK> It’s at the hangar bay and might take a few seconds to get here. Just in case the Estral flush out my code and the neural link drops, I’m bringing the Gundar inside in exactly five minutes.

  JN> What about the facility energy shield?

  BK> It failed a few minutes ago. Get to the hangar in five.

  JN> Be there or be square?

  BK> Be there or be lunch for the Antaron.

  Nation turned so that he could watch the repeater turret. The edge of a metal console was in its firing line, as well as the clear security screen. He’d seen what one of these compact weapons could do, and he doubted it would take long for it to smash through both obstacles.

  JN> This lift is taking its sweet time.

  BK> Uh-oh. You’re drifting out of phase again.

  Keller’s warning coincided with a noticeable drop in the temperature, which took place over the space of less than two seconds. It plummeted from minus twenty to minus sixty degrees centigrade and Nation heard the damaged material of his spacesuit crinkle and tighten.

  Twelve seconds elapsed. The Estral repeater turret rotated on the spot and its multiple barrels opened up with impersonal ferocity. Dense slugs crumpled the security console and continued through into the far side of the clear screen with their velocity hardly diminished. The screen was tough and it didn’t break immediately. Thousands of bullets thundered against it, each one producing a piercing crack. The sounds merged into a single, horrendous drone.

  The lift arrived with the muffled sound of grinding metal. The door opened and Nation hurled himself inside, taking cover against the side wall of the car. He heard the screen splinter and then crack. Repeater slugs hammered against the rear wall of the lift, most of them smashing clean through.

  After what felt like a hundred years, the lift door slid unevenly across until it was closed. Still the repeater didn’t stop. The doors were made of thicker material than the rear wall and they resisted the onslaught, though a series of dents appeared on the inside surface.

  Under Keller’s control, the lift began its ascent up the shaft with the groan of a failing Gallenium winch. The clattering of bullets died quickly away.

  JN> That was fun.

  BK> It was most definitely not fun.

  JN> It’ll be all plain sailing from here, eh?

  He received no response.

  JN> Keller?

  “Damnit,” he swore, striking the side of the lift car with his clenched fist. He had no idea if the Estral had detected the piggyback code Keller left in their hub, or if something else had caused her to drop the link. He had a five-minute timer running and he checked its progress. He swore again when he saw it was still at four-minutes-thirty. When your brain moved fast, a lot could happen in thirty seconds and it was easy to assume more time had elapsed than was the case.