Grisham’s sprint to the west wall brought him into the cover of a thirty-metre-long object that, underneath the char, might have been a cuboid with some vertical pillars. He had no idea what its designed purpose had been and his mind was too preoccupied to guess.

  The object didn’t quite extend to the west wall and cut across the corner at a diagonal. A five-metre gap was plenty for Sergeant Maxwell to see all the way to the northern end of the bay. He turned his head and listened.

  “Can’t see anything, can’t hear anything,” Maxwell said.

  “But that sure as hell don’t mean there ain’t anything,” said Private Diaz in what was obviously an oft-repeated line.

  “There’s an exit two hundred metres from here,” said Maxwell. “That’s two hundred metres farther away than I’d like.”

  By now, the rest of the mission personnel had caught up. Squad B – led by Corporal Fine – had their eyes east, where the Kijol had first emerged.

  “No movement,” Fine reported.

  Maxwell grimaced as he continued staring towards the north end of the bay. Grisham could understand why the man wasn’t happy. The way north had the wall on one side, but it was exposed to the east. Even a single Kijol soldier – if it was well positioned and a good shot – could likely kill several of the mission personnel as they ran for the exit.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” said Maxwell. He cast his eye over the soldiers. “We’re going to do this quickly and tidily. Squad A, with me.”

  Grisham ran alongside the soldiers. Squad A ran fifty metres and took cover behind a five-metre blackened cube. Smaller pieces of debris lay nearby and Grisham guessed they might have once been Kijol security breakers or something similar.

  Maxwell leaned out from the north end of the cube. “Damnit, I can see about four hundred metres east and there are plenty of places for an enemy to hide.” He stared long and then cursed again. “No movement.”

  The next object was eighty metres from the cube, and was ten metres tall and twenty long, with a high side facing west and a slope to the east. As with everything else in the storage bay, Grisham had no idea what it had once been.

  “Corporal Barkley, cover me,” said Maxwell.

  “I’ve got you, Sergeant.”

  Maxwell dashed away, while Corporal Barkley crouched at the edge of the cube, his rifle trained eastwards. Grisham was a good shot and he stood at Barkley’s shoulder, where he had a view that favoured the north-east. From here, he could see across a hundred-metre semi-open space, with visibility to a much greater distance between two warship components.

  The gap between those warship components was narrow, so when something flitted across from east to west, Grisham didn’t blame himself for not shooting it dead.

  “I saw movement north-east,” he said on the comms channel, staring intently at the gap with his helmet sensor zoomed in. “About five hundred metres from my position. One and no more.”

  “Kijol?” asked Maxwell.

  Grisham quickly replayed the moment in his head. Whatever he’d seen, it had been moving fast and the dim lighting made it seem like hardly more than a shadow.

  “I can’t confirm it was Kijol, Sergeant.”

  By now, Maxwell had arrived at the next place of cover and he stood at the corner, looking south-east.

  “I’ve got the south-east covered,” he said. “I’d say this is a good time to move.”

  Private Lowe and Private Franklin went next. Grisham didn’t take his eyes from the north-east gap. Now that the seed was planted, his initial certainty that he’d spotted a Kijol was eroding. The Kijol weren’t exactly spindly, but neither were they massive. What he’d seen cross the gap hadn’t been small, but given the briefness of the sighting, Grisham couldn’t rely on his memory.

  Squad B moved up to the corner and Grisham took his turn running north, with Corporal Barkley following a few paces after. The man’s comms pack was heavy and he fell behind.

  As he ran, Grisham looked east. The movement of his head at a flat-out sprint made it impossible for him to focus but he tried anyway. With some relief, he made it into cover and then turned to watch as Squad B, along with the rest of his crew, also made the sprint north.

  From here, the exit wasn’t far – about forty metres, Grisham thought. Unfortunately, the only nearby cover was a row of three chest-high lumps of something unknown, but they were twenty metres from the wall. Depending on where the Kijol might or might not be waiting in ambush, those three lumps would either offer good cover, or not very much protection at all.

  “I’ll go,” said Maxwell. “Depending on where that tunnel leads, we might have to keep on running.”

  He watched across the bay floor for a moment and then dashed for the exit. Lowe followed and then Franklin. If any shots were fired from elsewhere, they didn’t hit the soldiers. Maxwell stopped just inside the passage and pointed his rifle pointed east.

  When it was Grisham’s turn, he fixed his eyes on his target and prepared for the sprint. A moment before he set off, a noise reached his ears. It came from elsewhere in the bay – certainly nowhere close, but the direction of it was impossible to pinpoint. A series of clicking sounds turned into an incoherent scream of pain. Then the bay descended once more into silence.

  Grisham ran for the exit.

  SIXTEEN

  Beyond the bay exit, a short passage led to a room, five metres square and with three other passages leading away. The walls of the room were unclad, though the red rock underneath had been burned and coated in such a way as to give it a strange sheen that reminded Grisham of obsidian. Lights had been fitted in the ceiling, though only a quarter as many as elsewhere, making the place dim to the point of darkness.

  “Next man!” yelled Maxwell on the comms.

  The rest of the soldiers escaped the bay and they gathered in the room. Diaz switched on her helmet torch and then switched it off, as if she feared the light more than the darkness.

  By now, Grisham and Barkley had investigated the other three exits. West or north were the only realistic options. The former entered another space a couple of hundred metres farther, likewise for the latter. What lay in those open spaces, Grisham couldn’t tell.

  “We just heard the proof another of those aliens is on the hunt,” said Maxwell.

  “Do you think it knows we’re here?” asked Chau.

  “We have to assume it does, Private,” said Maxwell. “Our best hope is that it hates the Kijol more than it hates us.”

  “There isn’t going to be just one of them, Sergeant,” said Diaz.

  “I know,” said Maxwell. “Let’s hope they’re spread far and wide.” He gave a humourless smile. “On the bright side, we’re in a place where the Kijol incendiaries burned everything to a cinder. That means no corpses to send after us.” He faced Grisham. “You’ve had a chance to look, sir. Which way?”

  “North,” said Grisham at once. “There’s another room or a bay. I can’t see what’s inside from here.”

  “I can hear explosions in the bay we just left,” said Private Lyles. She’d been assigned to keep watch that way, along with Private Vaughan who was prone behind his repeater. “A couple of shoulder launchers,” she said. “Maybe some grenades.”

  “The Kijol are trying to eliminate that alien,” said Diaz. “I’m not sure who I’m rooting for.”

  “Why don’t they just evacuate again?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “They left in a hurry once before. Why not pull out and drop another few dozen incendiaries?”

  “The Achirus has been sent here to do a job, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “If the Kijol have come to reclaim the base, they have to clear out any threats first and that means preparing the ground so the incendiaries do the job properly this time.” He knew he was guessing. “Or maybe their fleet admiral left his wallet behind and the Achirus is here to recover it.”

  Grisham looked across at Maxwell. “Lead on, Sergeant.”

  “I haven’t heard any more explosions,” said Lyles as the mission personnel got moving. “That makes me think one side or the other is dead.”

  Nobody speculated on the likely victor. Maxwell set off at a fast run along the north tunnel, his eyes focused on the far end in case another Kijol rocket soldier appeared. He’d ordered the mission personnel into a much longer line to reduce their vulnerability to explosives, but a rocket attack still had the potential to be devastating.

  Grisham kept up with the pace. Although the surfaces were unclad, the Kijol had left the stone ground smooth and he had no problem with his footing.

  The sparsity of the lights was such that every few metres, the passage was almost completely dark. Grisham didn’t like the conditions, but he knew his helmet flashlight would be more hindrance than help and would make it harder for him to see into the distance. Equally, the night vision was best left for total darkness.

  He joined Maxwell at the entrance to the next room.

  “Empty,” said Maxwell. “Exits north and west.”

  “There’s no cladding here either,” said Grisham. His eyes had adjusted to the faint illumination and he peered into the corners. “The Kijol didn’t finish this area of the base. Maybe they dug these tunnels here and then decided they didn’t need them any longer. Or maybe they evacuated before the work was done.”

  Grisham entered the room. He jogged the few metres to the western exit and stared that way. The passage went on beyond his sight, the pools of light making it appear like something from a nightmare. A gentle breeze wafted by. How the wind came to be blowing so far beneath the Ovintus surface, Grisham didn’t know. He suppressed an unexpected chill of fear.

  “I know we’ve talked about this, sir,” said Maxwell on a private comms channel. “But I wonder if we’d be better off heading west as far as we can go and wait for this to play out.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it too,” Grisham admitted. “If we keep heading west, I’m certain it’ll increase our short-term chances of survival.” He paused and then came clean. “If they don’t hear from us, I can’t imagine high command will give the all clear for a rescue mission. They’ll assume we’re dead. Equally, if we make it to a comms hub, we’ll be obliged to include in our transmission the details of our situation – a situation that involves a Kijol cruiser and other aliens. My mind’s telling me we’re going to see more Kijol warships here soon – maybe in a few days – and if that’s what I’m thinking, then someone in high command is likely to consider the same possibility. As the risks go up, the chance of a rescue goes down.”

  “We’re screwed whatever we do,” said Maxwell.

  “You knew that anyway, Sergeant. All we’re doing here is sticking our middle finger up at death and hoping we can live a while longer. Or until the power units in our combat suits run dry.”

  “I’d rather go down fighting than choke in my own suit.”

  “You and me both. The comms hub should remain our primary goal, but circumstances mean we can’t take a direct route.”

  “Then we should head west for a time,” said Maxwell. “The Kijol are almost certainly aware of our position and they know our destination is the north end of the base. I don’t want to run straight into their arms.”

  “I agree,” said Grisham. “We’re already a few klicks west of the southern comms hub, but now the Kijol know where we are, maybe they’ll head south in the hope of intercepting us. If we can slip past them, we might have a clearer run to the northern comms hub.”

  Maxwell shrugged the shrug of a man who’d dealt with uncertainty before. “Or the comms hub might not be where we believe it is, and we might surface right outside its front door.”

  The soldiers were waiting and Maxwell gave them the order to move. He headed west into the near darkness. Grisham found he was recovering quickly after each run and he kept up without a problem.

  For seven hundred metres, the corridor continued straight. Then, it went right, once more heading north. Maxwell stopped only long enough to check the way was clear and then he continued.

  Although the light didn’t change or dim further, the gloominess became increasingly oppressive. The soldiers began muttering about Xaros aliens again and Grisham found himself checking over his shoulder often. Every time he turned to look, he saw someone else doing likewise. Grisham hadn’t directly fought this new enemy and, had it not been for the reports he’d heard from these soldiers, he’d have been tempted to brush off his growing unease and blame it on his imagination.

  The situation was getting to Maxwell too. When the soldiers passed by two rooms – opposite each other in the passage - a couple of hundred metres along the tunnel, he called a halt.

  “There’s nothing in either of these,” Maxwell said after looking in both rooms. “Private Lowe, you’re in the eastern one. Private Vaughan, you set up in the opposite doorway. The rest of us will keep watch as best we can.”

  Nobody questioned the order and the mission personnel waited to find out if anything was in pursuit.

  “The aliens on Xaros were cunning bastards,” Maxwell explained. “They always seemed to know where we were and what we were doing.”

  “And you think you’re going to catch one following us here?” asked Grisham.

  “I don’t know,” said Maxwell. “I have to get it out of my head that those aliens are better than me.”

  It was a surprisingly insightful admission and Grisham’s opinion of Maxwell went up a notch. “I never much liked running away either,” he said.

  Maxwell held the soldiers in place for five minutes. They saw and heard nothing.

  “That’s enough waiting,” Maxwell said. “Let’s move.”

  The soldiers were anxious to be away, that much was clear, and Grisham wondered how much of a hold these aliens had over them. He remembered being told that the creatures on Xaros had soaked many bullets. Given how the soldiers relied on their guns, it wasn’t surprising to find they feared an opponent who wasn’t much troubled by their weapons.

  And the alien on Xaros used the bodies of Corporal Valerio and Private Fleming as blood trophies. It knew what these soldiers valued and it took that away from them.

  Not long after setting off again, the mission personnel entered another room. This one was twenty metres square and with a high ceiling. The walls weren’t clad and the rock was burned like it was in the other corridors leading here. A circular shaft with a three-metre diameter had been drilled into the ceiling. Lieutenant Lopez crossed over to it and looked upwards.

  “The Kijol were going to install a comms station down here and this is where the antenna would have gone,” she said. “Maybe it was intended for emergency backup in case of an attack on the surface.”

  “Sucks for us the Kijol never got round to finishing the job,” said Vaughan.

  “Yeah.”

  Three additional exits led from the room. The eastern corridor would take the mission personnel in a direction they didn’t want to go, while the northern corridor was long and exposed. Some way ahead, it became another room.

  Grisham headed to the west exit. The corridor this way looked rough and unfinished and for some reason, the scorching of the rocks lessened noticeably only a few metres along. He felt another breeze and the air brought with it a mustiness, like it had blown through a tomb.

  “Something about this—” said Maxwell.

  “Maybe we should head north again,” said Grisham, wondering why he was letting himself get spooked. On a warship, he understood everything and knew just how it worked. Here, beneath the surface of Ovintus, it was different world entirely, and it wasn’t just because Grisham was unaccustomed to ground combat. He’d fought in his fair share of engagements. Here, it all felt wrong.

  You’re letting this place get to you, Jed. His face twisted in a grimace. Except Sergeant Maxwell feels it too, and the soldiers with him.

  “North suits me fine,” said Maxwell.

  The soldier strode from the western tunnel entrance and made sweeping motions with his free hand to urge the soldiers north. Vaughan had deployed his repeater near the south exit and he quickly gathered the weapon.

  The northern passage led to another room, empty like the last and with eastern and northern exits. Grisham strode to the east passage first.

  “There’s more light further along this way,” he said, once he was sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. The eastern corridor was near dark for a long way, but it brightened faraway in the distance.

  Private Diaz came over to join him. “This must lead back to the finished areas of the installation,” she said.

  As she was talking, Grisham thought he heard a noise coming from the passage, and a long way distant. He raised a finger to quieten Diaz. She’d heard it too and turned her head slowly to see if her helmet mic would pick up the sound again.

  “What is it?” asked Maxwell.

  “An explosion, sir,” said Diaz. “Sounded like it came from a hell of a distance.”

  “Any idea what type of explosion?” asked Maxwell.

  “No, sir,” said Diaz.

  Everyone listened, but they heard no further blasts. It seemed like whichever direction the soldiers travelled and however hard they ran, combat was never far away. The Kijol were clearly fighting an enemy that could move fast and it was keeping them busy.

  “The north passage leads to another room and there’s more light that way too,” said Maxwell. “Let’s go.”

  Once again, the soldiers proceeded north. The tunnel went straight, its walls burned and the air cold. Peering ahead, Grisham saw the room which Maxwell had mentioned. The light was indeed greater there and he could see tall, dark shapes beyond the doorway.

  “Wait!” hissed Maxwell suddenly, when the entrance was little more than two hundred metres away. He raised his hand to reinforce the order and came to a halt in one of the dark areas between the lights. “And stay quiet.”

  “What is it, Sergeant?” asked Grisham.