“A plasma missile,” said Gabriel. “Aimed at the Sagh’eld shuttle.”

  He stayed low for a few more seconds and then looked over the sill. The enemy transport had been torn apart in the blast and pieces of it had impacted with the two adjacent buildings. Flames burned fiercely on the wreckage, illuminating the ground nearby.

  “The new aliens,” said Gabriel. “They’ve located this planet.”

  “Is everyone ready for another death ray?” asked Wolf.

  No sooner had she spoken the words, than Gabriel felt the effects of the weapon. This time, the pain of it was no worse than a bad hangover, and it passed much quicker.

  “Screw you,” snarled Gabriel, aiming his middle finger upwards.

  “Sergeant, we were just hit by another—” said Hennessey on the comms.

  “I know,” Gabriel interrupted. “Hold position. We’re heading back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Here comes the warship,” said Wolf, her eyes narrowed as she stared upwards.

  This was Gabriel’s first sighting of the vessel which had caused him such agony. The warship’s approach had been concealed by the darkness, such that when it became visible, it filled the planet’s sky. Decelerating with inertia-defying ease, it came to a halt directly overhead.

  “The Ragnar-3 is outmatched, Sergeant,” said Chan. “That enemy warship has got to have the mass of ten Ex’Kaminars.”

  “More,” said Wolf. “Much more.”

  “We’re not going to sit here speculating on the numbers,” said Gabriel. His earlier anger was gone and now he felt strangely calm. “Let’s go back to the control room.”

  Crawling rapidly, he headed for the lift entrance, which was a quarter-turn around the room’s perimeter.

  “What’s that spaceship here for, Sergeant?” asked Chan.

  “I can think of a few possibilities, Private,” said Gabriel. “My first guess is that it wants to either destroy or capture the Ragnar-3. Or maybe it’s here to perform another data extraction.”

  “If they’re hoping to capture the Ragnar-3, they’ll have to deploy their soldiers,” said Wolf.

  Gabriel didn’t reply and he kept on crawling. Once he entered the lift car, he pressed himself to one side, hoping to keep out of the colossal warship’s sensor sight. Chan and Wolf were only a couple of seconds behind and, when they were inside the car, Gabriel touched the operation panel. As the doors slid closed, he spotted an object racing down from above. At the last moment, it began decelerating.

  “A shuttle,” said Gabriel. “Maybe the first of many.”

  The lift descended and the soldiers exited into the bay below. A hard sprint across the stone floor followed, and this time Gabriel ignored his superstition by dashing straight beneath the shuttle.

  “Sergeant, I’ve been looking at this control room console while you’ve been away,” said Corporal Hennessey as the doors on the second airlift closed. “I think I’ve discovered how to access the external comms.”

  “We’ll be with you soon,” said Gabriel.

  In the few seconds which remained of the lift journey, he described the events in the topside building to the rest of the squad.

  When the lift came to a halt and the doors opened, Gabriel noticed at once how agitated the soldiers were. They weren’t exactly in fear, but they recognized that they were running out of time.

  “What’ve you found, Corporal Hennessey?” asked Gabriel, striding across to where his officer was standing.

  Hennessey stepped back and pointed at a nearby screen. “Like I told you, Sergeant. The external comms.”

  Gabriel didn’t say a word about the fact that Hennessey had been experimenting with the hardware, since he hadn’t expressly forbidden her to do so. In fact, he was ecstatic to see what she’d accomplished.

  “Well done, Corporal,” said Gabriel. He turned to Private Wolf. “Think you can take over from here?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Wolf. “I’ll should be able to interface now and then request a link to the facility’s external comms arrays.”

  Less than thirty seconds later, she was done. Wolf looked up and smiled. “Sergeant, we have a comms link to the New Beginning.”

  Taking a deep breath, Gabriel readied himself to speak with Captain Lanson. Of their own accord, his eyes went to the singularity timer on his HUD.

  00d:01h:25m

  TWENTY-THREE

  When Captain William Lanson stirred from death, he felt no lingering pain, and his mind was clear. Having already been warned by Sergeant Gabriel about the effects of the alien death weapon, it didn’t take him longer than a moment to piece together what had befallen him and his crew.

  In the background, an alarm chimed insistently above the sound of the propulsion.

  Lanson opened his eyes to find the New Beginning’s bridge bathed in red emergency lighting, and the command console awash with hardware failure alerts. A check of the velocity gauge told him that the warship was stationary, which meant it had probably impacted with Scalos while he was dead. Meanwhile, a few of the sensor arrays were still online, but their feeds were dark and didn’t tell him anything worthwhile.

  In addition, the engine output reading was at three hundred percent, which struck Lanson as more than unusual, until he noticed that the two Rodos modules which Lieutenant Abrams had assigned to stabilise the rest of the propulsion had both suffered catastrophic failure.

  “Shit,” Lanson said, as the extent of the damage sank in. He raised his voice. “Is anyone awake?”

  Turning towards Commander Matlock, Lanson saw that she was coming around. Twisting further in his seat, he noticed movement from the stations behind.

  “Come on, folks, I need you to snap out of this.”

  “This is the first time I’ve ever snapped out of death,” said Commander Matlock, raising her head suddenly.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Commander,” said Lanson.

  “Me too, sir.”

  Having turned off the bridge alarm, Lanson unclipped himself from his seat harness and stepped towards the rear stations. He expected to feel unsteady or weak, but he was neither.

  “Damn that was rough,” said Lieutenant Massey.

  Within a couple of minutes, every member of the crew was recovered and ready to continue their duties. Lanson didn’t give them time to consider recent events and he exhorted them to complete their status reports as quickly as possible.

  “The New Beginning crashed into Scalos, Captain,” said Lieutenant Turner. “Our hull is partially inside the superheavy and our undersides are resting on solid rock. We’ve lost plenty of our sensor arrays, and what with the lifter wreckage being on top of us, it’s difficult to build a complete picture.”

  “How far are we from the ground facility?” asked Lanson.

  “The New Beginning’s positional systems indicate we’re almost a thousand klicks away, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Abrams, are you able to do anything to stabilise our propulsion?” asked Lanson. His eyes went to the output gauge, which had now crept up to 310 percent.

  “I think we might be screwed, Captain,” said Abrams. “The control system hardware isn’t responding properly, and without it, I can’t assign new stabilisers.”

  “Does that mean our engine output is going to keep rising until something breaks?” asked Lanson.

  “Yes, sir, but there’s more,” said Abrams. “The increased output isn’t translating directly into thrust, again because of the failure in the control system hardware. I estimate we’ll only be able to use about one twentieth of the available output.”

  “So we’re effectively down to about fifteen percent of our normal usable maximum?” said Lanson.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And will that increase with the rising output?”

  “It hasn’t happened so far.”

  “Damnit,” said Lanson. “And I take it a lightspeed jump is out of the question?”

  “I wouldn’t like to predict what would happen if you tried, Captain.”

  “Keep working on it, while I think, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With everything that was happening, it was a struggle for Lanson to focus. He clenched his jaw and forced his mind to clear. It was looking as if the New Beginning was out of action and beyond recovery. Maybe it would be able to limp a short distance, assuming it had the thrust to break out from beneath the wrecked superheavy, but if the destroyer couldn’t enter lightspeed, this was the end of the road.

  Besides, it seemed more likely the New Beginning’s propulsion was going to do something unpredictable once its output climbed too high, which meant that abandoning ship was the only viable course of action.

  Unfortunately for Lanson, the destroyer’s single remaining shuttle was showing multiple hardware failures, so the only escape would be on foot.

  Added to everything else, Lanson didn’t know where the huge alien vessel had gone to. For all he knew, it might still be parked above the surface facility and with good sensor sight over this area of Scalos.

  “Captain?” said Lieutenant Perry. “I’ve got Sergeant Gabriel on the comms.”

  “It’s good to hear he’s still alive,” said Lanson. “Put him on the bridge speakers.”

  “Yes, sir. Just so you know, his transmission can’t be coming from the Scalos surface facility, since the planet’s curvature should prevent the creation of a comms link at this distance.”

  “I’ll ask him about it,” said Lanson.

  “Putting Sergeant Gabriel on the bridge speakers, sir.”

  Lanson spoke as soon as he heard the connection form.

  “Sergeant Gabriel,” he said in greeting. “My crew and I survived an alien death attack, but the New Beginning has crashed into Scalos. It is highly unlikely we’ll be able to resolve the hardware failures we have suffered, therefore we will be unable to attempt an extraction. Lieutenant Perry tells me your transmission is not originating from the Scalos surface facility.”

  “My squad and I went through a transporter, Captain,” said Gabriel. “Don’t ask me how it worked, but it took us somewhere else.”

  “Captain, the transmitter is concealing the origination point,” said Lieutenant Perry. “If Sergeant Gabriel could find a way to change the settings, maybe we’d be able to find out where he is.”

  “Private Wolf is here with me, and she’s looking into it now,” said Gabriel. “I’m certain we’re no longer on Scalos.”

  “Tell me what happened since last we spoke,” said Lanson.

  Gabriel wasn’t a fast talker, but he was succinct. In no more than a minute, he’d described the events he and his squad had experienced, including the discovery of the Ragnar-3, and the arrival of the alien warship at his location.

  “It’s good to know that vessel is no longer watching over the New Beginning,” said Lanson. His brain was turning, though as yet it hadn’t come up with a plan. “And you say the Ragnar-3 is online?”

  “I don’t know for sure, Captain. We can hear its propulsion, but we don’t know if the warship is ready for operation. We’ve hardly started to investigate the console in this control room, and I don’t know if any of us here have the training or knowledge to figure it out - not without relying on luck.”

  “My crew and I need to join you there,” said Lanson. “Wherever that is.”

  “Yes, Captain. Private Wolf is indicating to me that she’s managed to remove the origination point block on this comms transmission.”

  “Lieutenant Perry, are we receiving the data we need?” asked Lanson.

  “Yes, sir,” said Perry. “Either the planet or the facility is named Ilvaron, and the transmission source is approximately four billion kilometres from our current position.”

  “And is that the position of the antenna or the control station?”

  “I can’t confirm one way or the other, Captain. Within the Human Confederation, a comm transmission is usually only traceable to the routing comms hub, rather than to a specific location such as an office. Maybe the aliens who created this hardware do things differently.”

  “What are you planning, Captain?” asked Commander Matlock. “Joining Sergeant Gabriel on Ilvaron won’t be easy given the state of our hardware and the presence of the enemy warship.”

  “I know,” said Lanson. “But the longer we wait here, the greater the opportunity we’re giving our new enemy to accomplish their goals.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of his console. “Sergeant Gabriel, you said the Ragnar-3 is greater than five thousand metres in length and within a bay.”

  “Yes, Captain. This control station has a commanding view of both the warship and the bay.”

  “How much space separates the Ragnar-3 from your current position?”

  “There are six hundred metres between here and the warship’s flank, sir,” said Gabriel. “And there’s much more space both left and right. Are you planning to lightspeed into the bay?”

  “You don’t miss much, Sergeant,” said Lanson. “That’s exactly what I’m considering.”

  “It might be a squeeze to fit the New Beginning into a space like that,” said Commander Matlock. “Assuming you were prepared to take the risk.”

  “I can’t stress enough what a bad move it would be to send this warship into lightspeed, Captain,” said Lieutenant Abrams. “Besides, the variation even over a short jump like this one would be enough that we’d have a high chance of exiting lightspeed either partially inside the bay walls, or worse, inside the Ragnar-3 itself. The New Beginning is too big.”

  “I was thinking of taking a shuttle ride,” said Lanson. “Specifically, the shuttle in which Sergeant Gabriel and his squad first deployed here on Scalos.”

  “That shuttle might have been destroyed by the enemy vessel, Captain,” said Lieutenant Turner. “And in any case, we can’t remote link to it because it’s outside our sensor sight.”

  “We can’t link, but Sergeant Gabriel can,” said Lanson. “We can use the Ilvaron comms system as a relay to send a command to the shuttle.”

  “The New Beginning’s shuttles have a fifteen-minute lightspeed warmup time, sir,” said Lieutenant Abrams.

  “That’s why we need to act quickly,” said Lanson. “Private Wolf, are you listening?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Do you know how to set the Ilvaron comms to accept a relay request?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Turner is going to send a command to the Scalos shuttle. I want you to ensure that command gets to the right destination and then maintain the link while we remote-pilot the transport to our current position.”

  “I can manage that no problem, sir.”

  “If we’re successful in bringing the shuttle to our location, what coordinates are you planning to use for its destination, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Turner. “If you guess wrong, we might exit lightspeed above a surface comms antenna, rather than within the bay.”

  “That’s a chance we’ll have to take,” said Lanson. “What other choice do we have?”

  “I’ll continue my investigation of the hardware, Captain,” said Private Wolf. “Maybe I’ll be able to locate the precise coordinates of this control station, and then you’ll only need to program in a small offset when you’re readying the shuttle for lightspeed.”

  “Thank you,” said Lanson. “Now, are you ready to accept the relay request?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Wolf.

  Lanson half-turned in his seat so that he could see Lieutenant Turner. A lot was riding on this – if the transport was wrecked, or otherwise failed to respond, the alternative would be to send the New Beginning into lightspeed, and he had a strong feeling that would end in disaster. Otherwise, a sub-light journey across four billion kilometres with the propulsion output at fifteen percent of its usual maximum would take potentially months.

  This had to work.

  “Lieutenant Turner, send the relay command,” Lanson ordered.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Relay command sent,” said Turner. “Relay command accepted.”

  Lanson blew out the air he’d been holding in his lungs. “Order the shuttle to land as near as possible to our current position.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s done,” said Turner. “There’s room for it to enter the space between the New Beginning and the wreckage on top of us. It’ll attempt to set down adjacent to our forward boarding ramp.”

  “Extend the ramp,” Lanson ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” said Turner. “That part of our hull is right next to a big slab of metal, but there should be just enough room.”

  The sensor arrays only offered partial coverage of that section of the New Beginning’s hull, but Lanson could still see the forward boarding ramp as it extended towards the ground. After a few seconds, it was fully open.

  “How long until the shuttle is here?” asked Lanson.

  “Less than two minutes, Captain.”

  “Then let’s go,” said Lanson. He stood and pulled his gauss rifle from the clips holding it to the side of his console. “Sergeant Gabriel, we’re abandoning the New Beginning. Maintain contact – we intend joining you in twenty-five minutes or so.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Captain, the rate of output increase on the New Beginning’s propulsion is climbing,” said Abrams. “It’s at nearly four hundred percent.”

  “Then we picked just the right time to leave,” said Lanson.

  He led his crew from the bridge. So focused was he on the task in hand that he barely had time for regrets at losing another warship.

  The interior passages were cold and claustrophobic, the same as ever, and Lanson hurried on, listening to the sound of the New Beginning’s propulsion, which had developed a strained note of a type he hadn’t heard before.

  Soon, he arrived at the closed airlock door leading to the forward boarding ramp. Lanson activated the door panel and then entered the airlock.

  Once the rest of his crew had joined him in the cramped space, with its soft blue lighting and plain alloy walls, Lanson instructed the inner airlock door to close and then activated the outer door.