Two of the fifty-metre crates were stacked near to the stair exit. Estral symbols were just about visible through the frost at the base of the lower crate and Nation stepped closer in order to wipe clear some of the ice. The sweep of his hand made the ice bloom in the air and the light refracting through the crystals reminded him of spraying blood.

  Crates full of Obsidiar and stabilised Obsidiar-Teronium, he thought. A king’s ransom worth of each.

  Istoliar was the way forward, but it required ever-increasing quantities of these lesser substances to create it. The Zantil station was packed with enough of both to keep the Confederation’s Istoliar refinement plants running for months.

  He turned away from the crate and advanced into the room, convinced he wasn’t too far from the main loading bay. Once he found the bay, he was sure he could find a way onto the Nisprol, which he hoped was already fully-loaded with Istoliar.

  At that moment, he saw the grey eyes of an Estral looking at him through the windowless opening in the cabin of a gravity crawler fifty metres away. Nation jerked around towards it, convinced the alien had somehow managed to see through his stealth modules. It only took him a moment to realise it was dead.

  Nation jogged carefully over to the crawler. It was a compact model, only large enough to carry a single crate at a time. Three steps led up to the cabin and Nation climbed to the top one so that he could see inside.

  The Estral wore a grey cloth uniform, which didn’t betray anything about his function within the Zantil facility. There were traces of ice on the alien’s lips and more in its hair. It didn’t take long to find the cause of death – Nation’s sensor identified large quantities of Granol-42 on the Estral’s exposed skin, along with a few particles of Istilin and Polysempe.

  Joe Nation swore under his breath. It was beginning to seem like there’d been an accident on the facility and he wondered if the other operators were in a safe zone somewhere deeper inside the Zantil station. If so, it was unlikely to make his job easier.

  He swore again and headed once more across the storage area.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  External to the Zantil facility, the spaceships of Attack Fleet Z were under constant pressure. The bravado the AIs had displayed after the destruction of the Estral battleships Gulazan and Tirinax was no longer on display and Keller found herself admiring the effectiveness of the Space Corps’ battle computers, as well as the AIs which oversaw them.

  The Space Corps vessels were some of the more capable members of the fleet, but this was Estral territory and the aliens were fully woken up to the fact that one of their primary refinement plants was at great risk. As a consequence, new enemy warships emerged from lightspeed quicker than Attack Fleet Z’s stasis emitters could recharge and it was a constant struggle to destroy the newcomers before they could activate their stealth modules.

  There were other problems. Each new enemy warship made it harder to predict the pattern of their incendiaries. The members of Attack Fleet Z were steadily reduced to a position where each short-range transit required another immediately after, followed by another and another. There were progressively fewer opportunities to fire back without risking exposure and a loss of stealth.

  In addition, each SRT reduced the reserves of a warship’s Istoliar core and with no let-up, the cores had no opportunity to recharge. It was death by a thousand cuts.

  Lieutenant Becky Keller was also acutely aware that, other than the ageing ships Gulazan and Tirinax, the Estral had yet to introduce any of their more capable warships. It should have been a relief, except Keller was left with a certainty the most powerful Estral craft were involved in higher-priority missions elsewhere. It didn’t take a big leap of the imagination to guess at what such missions might be. Out here in the fringes the comms took too long for a quick response, meaning Keller felt blind to the bigger picture.

  A series of incendiary blasts a few thousand kilometres away reminded her that several of the Estral ships had decided to focus specifically on the task of bringing the Gundar out of stealth. Keller activated a short-range jump, only to find the aliens had predicted the place of her arrival. The Gundar’s sensors detected inbound sublight incendiaries and Keller was only just in time to activate a second jump. A couple of processing cycles later and the Gundar would have been lit up for the Estral to target it with stasis emitters.

  Keller checked the Gundar’s Istoliar core. It was down to forty percent. She tried again to reach Nation with the neural link and once again failed to make a connection.

  “Damnit,” she said under her breath.

  AI Klister (Granite):: This is not a fight we can win.

  AI Feds (Boxer):: I agree. It is inevitable we will lose.

  AI Gane-Q12 (Atlantis):: We should destroy the Zantil station. It will not be a total victory, but it will be preferable to no victory at all.

  Keller (Gundar):: Lieutenant Nation remains on the facility.

  AI Gane-Q12 (Atlantis):: We must not permit him to influence our decision. There is too much at stake.

  Keller (Gundar):: A life is at stake. That is enough.

  AI Gane-Q12 (Atlantis):: I will not debate philosophy in the midst of an engagement, Lieutenant Keller. One man’s life is not significant when weighed against so much Istoliar.

  Keller (Gundar):: It’s damned well significant to me! The Space Corps does NOT abandon its personnel.

  AI Flex (Revelation):: Lieutenant Keller is correct. We should pull together. Fight together.

  AI Rune (Sunder):: Only through this will we achieve victory.

  AI Gane-Q12 (Atlantis):: I do not agree with your assertion. Sending Lieutenant Nation to the Zantil facility was a bad decision.

  Keller waited to see if Gane-Q12 would say anything further. It did not, and showed no sign it was about to break ranks. Keller took a breath, wondering what the hell she was going to put in her report if she got out of here alive. Deep down inside, she agreed with Gane-Q12’s opinion about sending Nation to the Estral facility and she regretted ever mentioning it.

  BK> It’s getting crazy up here in more ways than one. I hope you can hear me.

  JN> Good to have you back. It’s no better down here, I can assure you.

  BK> There’s a potentially rogue AI in the fleet, along with more Estral warships than you can shake a stick at.

  JN> There’s been an accident on Zantil. I’m sure of it.

  BK> An accident? We hit the place with about fifty particle beams. If there’s anything going to knock a refinement process off course, I imagine that would do it.

  JN> Whatever it was, I already found one dead Estral and I get the feeling there are plenty more. I’m trying to get onto the cargo ship. After that, I’ll see what I can do to fly it out of here. You might need to burn the hangar bay doors open for me.

  BK> It would be my pleasure. How long?

  JN> I don’t know. I doubt it’ll be straightforward to get onto the cargo ship. I haven’t come across much security so far, but I expect that to change once I reach the critical production and Istoliar storage areas.

  BK> We’re balanced on a knife-edge out here. Don’t hang about.

  JN> Never have done, never will.

  The link broke and Keller fired the Gundar’s overcharge particle beam into a smaller Estral vessel which had ventured into the arena without stealth modules or an effective shield. The enemy spaceship was destroyed at once, though Keller took no satisfaction from the kill.

  Keller (Gundar):: I see another big inbound fission signature. Get ready.

  The tactical computer was awash with data. Missiles and incendiaries flew, detonating in never-ending bursts across thousands of kilometres of space. The nine remaining ships of Attack Fleet Z were matched against fifteen Estral craft of varying sizes and capabilities. The battle would have been finely poised except for the fact that the MHL Argonaut was keeping itself hidden and the remaining Space Corps warships had heavily-depleted shields.

  Another six Estral spaceships exited lightspeed. The SC Rust was close enough to obliterate one of the newcomers with a burst from its repeater. The Boxer got a long-range strike on another. The heat would make it easier to detect the vessel when it activated its stealth modules.

  The five surviving enemy warships disappeared from the tactical computer. A new wave of incendiaries detonated and Keller allowed herself a moment to close her eyes, wondering what she could do to fix the situation.

  With greatly increased caution, Nation prowled across the floor of the storage room. Having been set on edge by the discovery of the dead body, he kept a close watch out for anything unexpected.

  The storage area was full and it was difficult to be certain exactly where the exits lay. Had this been a human warehouse, everything would have been laid out in a logical fashion. Either the Zantil station was poorly organized, or the Estral themselves just didn’t care. The oversized crates loomed above and Nation felt like a mouse creeping around an ice-bound maze.

  The 3D map in his head predicted the closest exit passage would be on the left-hand wall and he cut across the room. The temperature fell to minus twenty-five degrees and Nation used his sensor to get a reading off one of the crates. Obsidiar and all of its derivatives were very cold. However, the crates themselves were insulated and their outer surfaces were only minus ten, so wherever the chill came from, the crates were not completely responsible.

  An oversized storage area required an oversized entrance, and so it was. Nation came to a square opening in the wall, which was sixty metres high and wide, clearly designed to allow the transit of a single one of the enormous crates, with a small margin for error. In front of the opening he saw a gravity crawler. It wasn’t floating, so its engine was offline. On its load bed was a crate, going nowhere fast.

  Nation jogged across to the crawler, taking care on the icy floor. He half-expected to see another Estral in the vehicle’s cabin, but it was empty.

  The left-hand exit headed in exactly the direction he wanted to go. The wide passage was a hundred metres long and according to Nation’s map, it would bring him out into the loading bay directly behind the main hangar. He stared along the passage. There was no door at either end and he could see shapes piled up in a space lit red by the alarm beacons. The sound of the siren was louder.

  For the first time since his shuttle docked at the facility, Nation felt a surge of excitement, and he entered the passage.

  JN> I think I’m close to the main loading area.

  BK> I can’t spare the time to check out your feed. Attack Fleet Z is under pressure.

  JN> The temperature keeps dropping. It’s at minus thirty degrees now. I can see what I believe to be loading equipment.

  BK> I think I made a tactical boo-boo suggesting you go to the facility. We’ve bitten off more than we can chew and it’s like the entire Estral fleet are coming to take shots at us.

  JN> Can you hold them?

  BK> Maybe.

  Nation didn’t need the alternatives spelling out.

  JN> We can’t abandon this mission without destroying the Istoliar.

  BK> You have to get away from there. If another two or three significant Estral ships arrive, that’s going to tip the scales too far.

  JN> You have to do what you have to do.

  BK> You know I’m not going to blow Zantil up with you inside.

  JN> Don’t say anything more. I’m going to get onto that damn cargo vessel and fly it out of here.

  BK> You won’t be able to simply fly it away. Go to the shuttle.

  JN> It’s too far. I’m taking my chances this way.

  BK> Victory or bust.

  JN> Not always. This time.

  Nation ran flat-out through the connecting passage and found himself exactly where he wanted, which was the main loading and unloading area for the Zantil facility.

  It was a high-ceilinged, square room, about five hundred metres along each side. In the centre of the left-hand wall was a huge, sealed door of solid alloy, through which the cargo came. A series of smaller airlock doors cut through the bulkhead to either side of this door, with the closest being only a couple of hundred metres away.

  The room itself was filled with everything required to keep an armed Obsidiar-Teronium refinement plant running. Crates and boxes were piled around the room, in rows so deep the furthest items were impossible to easily discern.

  JN> I can see magazines for the Zantil gauss guns, crates of spare replicators, a couple of boxed-up consoles, small arms, heavy arms, a rack of missiles, six medical bots. And the jackpot.

  BK> The Istoliar is there?

  JN> It’s here.

  The centre of the loading bay floor was clear, except for a lone flatbed crawler. This vehicle was no different in size to those in the previous room. The difference in this case was the cargo. The crawler’s bed was piled with smaller crates, each a three-metre cube made from hardened Gallenium. Nation recognized the type – they were the Estral’s standard containers for transporting Istoliar. Each crate had a tiny status panel fitted to one side and Nation saw rows and rows of green lights, indicating the containers were full.

  JN> I make it approximately two thousand containers on a crawler here, waiting to be loaded.

  BK> Forty million tonnes.

  JN> Our friends have been busy.

  BK> I don’t want you to die for it.

  JN> I’m here and I’m going to see what I can do. I think the crawler’s offline.

  BK> Get onto the cargo vessel first and see if there’s any way to remote activate the loading sequence.

  JN> Good plan.

  BK> In other news, do you remember me saying how if two or three big Estral ships decided to show up, we’d be in a bit of trouble?

  JN> Yes.

  BK> Well, they’ve just arrived, only there are four of them. Take the cargo vessel into the bay of the Argonaut and then we’ll hit lightspeed.

  Having seen the prize, Nation was extremely reluctant to watch it slip through his fingers. On the other hand, he had no intention of putting Keller into a position where she had to choose between destroying the Zantil facility – and Nation with it – or escaping into lightspeed with the mission a complete failure.

  The nearest airlock beckoned and Nation ran for it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  There was not a single ship in Attack Fleet Z with an Istoliar core above twenty-five percent, and most of them were significantly lower. The four Estral warships which had just arrived were new and equipped with lightspeed catapults, leading Keller to believe they’d finished a mission elsewhere.

  One of the four was unlucky enough to exit lightspeed at the precise moment the Gundar’s stasis emitters finished their cooldown. Keller held her breath and fired both emitters. She was ecstatic when the Estral battleship was forced offline. Particle beams converged on the vessel and it was destroyed. The other three entered stealth mode.

  AI Klister (Granite):: We must act soon, else this opportunity will be lost.

  Keller (Gundar):: Lieutenant Nation is on the verge of recovering the Istoliar cargo. There is a greater quantity than we anticipated.

  AI Flex (Revelation):: My battle simulation predicts a one hundred percent chance of our failure within six minutes.

  AI Klister (Granite):: I have a similar prediction. This climbs to seven minutes if the MHL Argonaut enters combat.

  AI Jason (MHL Argonaut):: If I were shut down by a stasis emitter, I would not be able to close my bay doors, nor enter lightspeed, assuming Lieutenant Nation is able to pilot the cargo ship into my bay.

  Keller (Gundar):: The Argonaut is too large to be completely disabled by a single shot.

  AI Jason (MHL Argonaut):: You are correct - I have three separate power generators, spread throughout my hull.

  Keller grimaced. The Argonaut packed a punch, but the vessel was the only way to get the Istoliar safely back to base. There was also something about the heavy lifters which drew in enemy ships like flies to honey. As soon as the Estral discovered the Argonaut, it was likely they’d focus fire on it, and the lifter wasn’t able to execute a long chain of short-range transits in the same way a warship could.

  Before Keller could decide on the best plan to maximise their chances, an incendiary exploded a million kilometres away. Using her Faor augmentation and the Gundar’s sensors, she watched the blast sphere expanding in slow motion. She could immediately tell this was going to be a colossal explosion and the blue flames roiled away from the centre, growing ever-bigger, yet without losing their intensity. The explosion achieved a diameter just shy of two million kilometres and its outer edge came within a few thousand metres of the Gundar’s energy shield.

  The SC Rust and the SC Boxer were caught somewhere in the centre of the blast. Their shields were gripped by the blue flames, revealing their locations as well as draining their Istoliar cores.

  AI Sol (Rust):: Istoliar core at five percent and falling fast. I guess this is it.

  AI Feds (Boxer):: Core failure, switching to Obsidiar backup. That’s game over.

  A dozen smaller incendiaries detonated in the vicinity of the SC Rust, with a further five centred on the Boxer. Estral phase-shifter missiles streaked through the storms of plasma, one of them failing in the heat of the fires. The Rust and Boxer were destroyed, blown apart by Estral high-explosives.

  Keller (Gundar):: See you on the other side.

  In their eagerness to finish off the two Space Corps warships, several of the Estral had revealed their locations. Keller hit the closest with an overcharge beam, entered a short-range transit and hit a second enemy a fraction of a second later. She ordered the Gundar into another SRT, leaving the burning wreckage of two Estral ships in her wake. The combination brought the Gundar’s core below fifteen percent.

  Keller (Gundar):: Two for two.

  More particle beams flickered from place to place and another Estral ship was destroyed.