“Are we on the blindside?” asked Nation.

  “Nope, here’s the upper level of the plant.”

  Keller tweaked the sensors until they were aimed directly at the Estral base. The above-ground section was little more than a featureless grey structure of alloy, extending for twelve hundred metres on each side and with a height of six hundred.

  “Tarjos Gial-Eld is on the comms,” said Teal.

  “What took him so long? Bring him through.”

  The Estral was as blunt as the previous occasion. “You will land and speak with Koltar-Reon. You will do this immediately.”

  “We will leave the SC Gundar in orbit with the SC Givens,” said Keller, with equal bluntness. “We will descend to the surface in our shuttle and meet with the rest of our team.”

  “Very well. My warships will remain in escort.”

  With that, Gial-Eld was gone.

  Keller sighed. “Teal, make contact with the Givens and find out who they’ve got in the facility. After that, speak with the surface team and tell them we’ve arrived.”

  The response didn’t take long. “Lieutenant Hattie Mack is expecting you,” said Teal.

  “That’s it?”

  “She did not elaborate.”

  “When we’re gone, stay close to the Givens. We may lose comms contact if we’re required to visit the deeper parts of the facility. Don’t do anything rash.”

  The AI didn’t respond with a wisecrack. “Acknowledged.”

  “Do we have landing clearance?”

  “I have programmed the shuttle accordingly.”

  “Let’s go,” said Nation.

  “Suddenly keen?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Safe journey,” said Teal, surprising them both.

  They made their way from the bridge until they located the airlock door leading to one of the Gundar’s two shuttles. There was a tight corridor to squeeze through which put Nation in mind of a convict’s escape tunnel out of a prison, except this one was taking them back beneath the walls rather than away from them. He sidled along it until he reached what appeared to be a dead-end wall. The wall slid open to reveal the brooding green light of the six-seater shuttle’s interior. He stepped inside, keeping a wary eye on the low ceiling.

  There were two rows of three seats, with a narrow aisle on either side. Only the front two seats had a good view of the main viewscreen and were intended for the pilots should the unthinkable happen and the shuttle’s navigational system suffer some kind of catastrophic failure.

  Nation dropped into the left seat. The shuttle wasn’t designed for long journeys but it was comfortable enough. He ignored the control panel in front of him and waited for Keller.

  “You going to fly this one?”

  “Tempting, but no. Let’s sit back and let the autopilot do its thing.”

  Keller interfaced with the autopilot and triggered the shuttle’s release. They felt the sensation of high acceleration and the transport dropped through an underside hatch on the Gundar. The front viewscreen updated to show darkness speckled with stars.

  Then, the shuttle’s tiny stabilised Obsidiar-Teronium engine fired up and the transport sped towards the Isob-2 facility, sixty thousand kilometres away.

  Chapter Four

  Viewed from a height of one thousand metres, the Isob-2 facility was rather more impressive in appearance than it was when seen from high orbit. It had a solid, industrial design that was unusual amongst the Estral and its thick walls looked like they could withstand a sustained aerial bombardment, even without the protection of the energy shield which was currently holding up the progress of the Gundar’s shuttle.

  “What’s keeping them?” muttered Nation.

  “Why would they be in a hurry? They don’t want us here.”

  “I know, I’m just letting my mouth go.”

  A green light appeared on the shuttle’s central panel.

  “There’s the clearance.”

  The energy shield wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but the shuttle’s sensors showed it as a shimmering blue-tinged sphere covering the entire facility. The transport descended rapidly through a temporary opening in the shield, whilst two wide doors in the facility roof opened. There was a red light within, illuminating a cavernous airlock space which kept the facility hangar bay from depressurizing every time something landed.

  Once the shuttle was inside the airlock, the outer doors closed and the inner space repressurized. It was a crude, unsafe system which would never have got past the approval stage in the Space Corps. The airlock’s second set of doors opened, revealing the hangar.

  Nation pointed a finger at the screen. “There’s one of the shuttles from the Givens.”

  “And a further twelve Estral transports. Pretty big ones.”

  “Enough to carry a few thousand personnel from the looks of it.”

  “Five thousand in each if you accepted standing room only.”

  “They’re identical. They’ve come from the same spaceship, or the same class of spaceship.”

  The Estral shuttles were lined up in three rows and, even at two hundred metres in length and forty wide, they didn’t come close to filling the hangar bay. They were completely functional in appearance and equipped with front and rear low-yield plasma missile launchers, designed to take out lightly-armoured opponents and nothing more.

  “What are they all doing down here?” asked Nation. “Evac?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Hunch?”

  “It just doesn’t look right. What do you reckon?”

  “It stinks. I’m keeping an open mind for the moment.”

  “Well, we’re here to find out what happened.” Keller pointed at a few areas of the bay floor. There were groups of grey figures, wearing full protective spacesuits. “These aren’t maintenance crew.”

  “Not with those guns, they aren’t.”

  “Something tells me this place is even more screwed up than we’ve been led to believe.”

  “Maybe the new personnel are all on the lower levels, fixing stuff up.”

  “Right.”

  The shuttle’s engine was near-inaudible during the short period of time it took the autopilot to manoeuvre the craft into position offset from the overhead doors. It settled on the far side of the bay from the Estral transports and with hardly a bump. A red light stayed on the control panel for several long seconds.

  “Still not breathable,” said Nation.

  “The readings suggest the repressurization is nearly done.”

  Nation switched between sensor feeds. The bay was several hundred metres across and situated a few hundred below the planet’s surface. Its alloy walls were reinforced with massive vertical beams, which, to Nation’s eye were overkill if the engineers simply wanted to support the walls. Above, the outer bay doors were badly scraped and dented. They were powered by a pair of immense gravity motors anchored to the support beams, which gave off an unhealthy, high-pitched buzzing sound.

  “I count six banks of airlifts,” he said. “These ones over here are for the heavy cargo.”

  “Still no sign of anyone coming to greet us.”

  “Anything on the comms?”

  “Here we are – there’s an automated message from the base mainframe letting us know we’re free to disembark.”

  The red light on the door changed to a steady green.

  Nation turned his gaze to towards the shuttle exit. “Where are we meant to go? I don’t want to get shot up by an Estral soldier who thinks we’re wandering off-limits. Maybe we should wait.”

  The momentary indecision was cleared up.

  “One of the airlifts on the eastern wall has just opened,” said Keller.

  The airlifts were larger than they appeared and the one which opened was wide enough to allow three Estral to walk out abreast, with more coming behind.

  “More guns,” said Nation.

  “They’re probably jumpy.”

  “As long as they aren’t trigger-happy as well as jumpy. Let’s get out and say hello.”

  Keller leaned over and pressed the release panel for the shuttle’s side door. It vanished into its side recess and a draught of icy cold air rushed in, bringing with it the kind of oily smell which only seemed to exist in hangar bays. She took her visor and climbed out through the opening and stepped onto the alloy floor. The plate must have been fifty metres thick and it sucked the sound from her footsteps. She walked around the wedge nose of the transport and leaned against the housing for the front chaingun. Nation stopped nearby and used his optical augmentation to zoom in on the approaching Estral.

  “Six in total, two with repeaters, all wearing armoured vests and no sign of Lieutenant Mack.”

  The Estral were huge, with the majority of the males growing to a height of between seven and eight feet. They were broad and strong, and only slightly less agile than a human. Their skin was grey, along with their eyes. Most of them had thick, black hair. When up close, Nation knew they had an unsettling humanness about them, particularly in some of the expressions and gestures. These ones were dressed in military spacesuits made from a flexible, rubbery grey material and with dark alloy helmets. Impassive eyes stared out through the flat, clear visors.

  Two legs, two arms and a head. The universe knows a good design when it sees one.

  “Let’s go speak with them,” Nation said, setting off.

  Keller kept pace. Neither of them was armed, though she wasn’t expecting a confrontation. It wouldn’t go well for the aliens if they were stupid enough to break the peace treaty.

  It took a minute for the two parties to meet. Nation chose the largest Estral and kept his eyes locked directly onto its face. This one carried a long, tube-shaped gauss rifle with a bore the size of an eyeball, and the weapon could no doubt punch a hole through a line of ten human soldiers if aimed properly. The two groups stopped a short distance apart.

  “You know why we’re here,” Nation said, his eyes still on the same Estral. He’d dealt with the aliens on many occasions and had yet to find one who either possessed, or cared about, politeness or good manners. “Take us to our team.”

  He’d guessed the leader right. “I am Koltar-Reon,” said the largest Estral through the tiny language module stitched to his shoulder. “I command this base. Come, I will take you to your team. You are aware you’re not welcome.”

  “That is not important. We are here.”

  Koltar-Reon didn’t offer any more conversation. All six of the Estral wheeled about and strode off without looking back. The aliens wore solid-looking grey boots and the metal soles clunked against the alloy floor.

  Nation was mid-stride after them when he saw the expression on Keller’s face. He recognized the look and made a comms link to her neural augmentation.

  JN> What’s wrong?

  BK> Got a premonition. This base is screwed.

  JN> How sure?

  BK> Eighty percent minimum. I’m running it through the Faor.

  JN> When? Where? What? Do we need to evac?

  BK> Don’t know.

  JN> Nothing more?

  BK> Nope.

  JN> Do we need to abort?

  BK> I don’t think Admiral Cody would be too impressed. The model just came back at 81.7%.

  JN> Sucks. We should inform RRT Alpha.

  BK> Yep. Let’s act fast and stay on our toes.

  Nation terminated the link. The conversation had taken less than a hundredth of a second - far too little time for the Estral to notice.

  The airlift was still open and the Estral filed into it. Nation and Keller came last and waited for Koltar-Reon to activate the lift. The Estral swiped his fingers across the control panel in a complicated gesture and the doors closed. The lift started its descent with a noticeable lurch.

  “What happened here?” asked Nation.

  “Research carries danger,” replied Koltar-Reon. It was classic evasion.

  “We saw soldiers in the hangar bay.”

  “They are here to assist.”

  “Did any personnel survive the incident?”

  “We had a crew in the upper hangar. They survived.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They were taken elsewhere.”

  “For their safety?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you take them off Isob-2?”

  The lift stopped, this time with a hollow bang which suggested the presence of a fault in its gravity winch.

  “We have arrived,” said Koltar-Reon.

  The display panel on the airlift showed the words Personnel Quarters. The doors opened, to reveal a large room hewn out of the solid rock and reinforced with alloy beams. The room was empty except for a row of four monitoring screens on the opposite wall, with only one of them switched on. It was dimly lit in blue and the temperature was even lower than it was in the hangar above. Keller’s breath steamed in the air.

  They didn’t wait for an invitation and stepped out. The floor was dense stone and gave no echo. The Estral had always been skilled when it came to shaping stone, and the surfaces were smooth, with a faint sheen.

  The opposite passage vanished into the gloom, as did those to the left and right. Nation used his optical augmentation to see through the darkness. The corridors went on and on, with doors at regular intervals in both walls.

  JN> What a shitty place to get posted.

  BK> Maybe this is great if you’re an Estral.

  JN> Not a chance. I think the power is failing.

  BK> Yep. What do you reckon keeps this place going? Obsidiar main and Gallenium backup?

  JN> Yeah, almost certainly. It seems funny for both to fail. You can do some digging once we get somewhere a bit less overlooked.

  BK> It’ll be my pleasure. I am intrigued.

  JN> Me too.

  Koltar-Reon strode past and the other five Estral filed carefully around the two humans. For all their bluntness, the aliens had plenty of respect for personal space.

  “Your team is this way.”

  “Just tell us the number on the door and we’ll find them.”

  “You will be accompanied.”

  The Estral led them along the opposite passage until it reached a T-junction. They passed four pairs of doors which led to quarters for the base scientists. Nation looked at each door carefully – they were all closed and the panels were not only locked, but disabled, presumably by the Isob-2 control mainframe.

  BK> They don’t want anyone poking around.

  JN> Nope.

  Koltar-Reon turned right at the T-junction and led them along a near-identical corridor. Nation saw what he thought were steps at the far end and a sign hung from the ceiling. Up: Personnel. Down: Laboratory Area 1.

  Their destination was closer. Koltar-Reon brought the group to a halt outside a door which looked exactly like all the others – a grey metal slab without markings, except this one had a group of eight armed Estral waiting outside. The soldiers stepped aside to give space.

  The door’s control panel was active and it glowed with blue symbols. Koltar-Reon paused, with one hand halfway towards the panel.

  “Most of your team is in here.”

  “Only most?”

  “They are free to move around the upper levels of Isob-2.” Koltar-Reon smiled, without sign of genuine humour. “As per the terms of our peace treaty.”

  The Estral repeated the gesture to open the door. There was a short passage beyond, cut through the grey rock and with thick beams of alloy overhead. At the end of the passage was a large room, which had been set up as a makeshift lab.

  Nation and Keller walked through. The room was furnished with Estral-sized metal tables and chairs. There were Space Corps diagnostic tablets scattered here and there, along with a cylindrical number cruncher bot and a gravity-engined analyser, more commonly referred to as a sniffer. The place was as cold and dimly-lit as everywhere else in the facility and gloom clung to the air like a miasma, which not even the glow from the sniffer’s bright guidelights could dispel.

  Ten members of Rapid Response Team Alpha worked here and they talked amongst themselves in low voices. Most of them looked up at the sound of the new arrivals. The men and women looked drawn and tired, as if this was the end of a double-shift.

  The entrance door closed and Keller glanced behind to make sure no Estral had followed into the room. The passage was empty.

  “Lieutenant Mack,” said Nation, identifying the lead member of the team from the file images. He spoke the name confidently, like he’d worked with her for ten years. It was probable the Estral were monitoring the room.

  Mack came over, carrying her diagnostic tablet. She was dressed in a silvery, flexible spacesuit which covered her entire body and most of her head. Mack was blonde-haired and middle-aged. Her blue eyes were hard, suggesting she’d been in some bad places before. Whatever confidence she once possessed had been unmistakeably eroded by her short time in the Isob-2 facility, and she was clearly relieved at the arrival of these two specialists.

  “Lieutenants Keller, Nation,” she greeted them. “Welcome to a shitstorm in the making.”

  Chapter Five

  Keller used her augmentation to link with Mack’s diagnostic tablet, and switched out of its existing program into a text editor. Bright red letters appeared on screen and the tablet started beeping softly.

  ARE WE BEING WATCHED?

  Mack was surprised but she hid it well. “They have basic monitoring facilities in this room, which they aren’t currently using to snoop on us,” she said. “The sniffer can do a whole lot more than detect traces of Istoliar and it’s watching the link to this room. The Space Corps wants us to do our job free from interference and they gave us the tools to do it.”

  “What about elsewhere?”

  “I’m sure the lower levels are closely monitored. We haven’t been allowed to look.”

  Nation thumbed over his shoulder. “What’s down those stairs at the end of this corridor?”

  “A room, a sealed door and a bunch of Estral guards. We’re on level Subterranean-5, which is as deep as the Estral will let us go.”