Piled up against the far wall were more corpses – hundreds of them. The bodies formed a heap that reached almost to the three-metre ceiling, their limbs entwined in death.

  “Not much blood,” said Valerio, already moving on from the shock of the discovery.

  “Looks like plenty to me,” said Lowe.

  “No,” said Valerio, shaking his head slowly. He took a couple of steps deeper into the room and looked around for a time. Then, he swept his pointed finger in a way that encompassed everything around him. “This is the blood of a few a dozen people. Maybe the people who worked in here when it came for them.”

  “The rest were brought here later,” said Maxwell, understanding Valerio’s meaning.

  “After all the blood had drained from their bodies,” said Valerio. With quick strides, he approached the edge of the pile, crouched and inspected one of the corpses. He moved and inspected another. “Their throats have been cut – like what happened to those poor bastards we found in the central prefab. From the looks on their faces, they knew what was coming and they weren’t greeting it with open arms.”

  “When did they die?” asked Maxwell.

  Valerio took a probe from his med-box and held it against the dark flesh of a corpse. “Forty days.”

  “And no obvious signs of decomposition. Could the med-box be wrong?”

  “The med-box reads more than just physical decay, Sergeant,” said Valerio. “If it says forty days, then that’s when it happened.”

  “Maybe this prefab is fitted with a life support unit,” said Fleming. “Maybe that’s why the bodies were brought here.”

  Barkley finished communicating the discovery with both the Marauder and Squad B, and gave Maxwell a short nod to indicate it was done.

  “Why the hell would anyone go to the trouble of hauling a bunch of corpses from one place to the other, Sergeant?” Lowe asked.

  “Damned if I know,” said Maxwell.

  “Are we going to search the rest of the structure?” asked Fleming, his voice making it clear which answer he would prefer.

  “We have to,” said Maxwell. “I’d guess there are seven or eight hundred bodies in that pile. Add those to the ones we found before and that leaves plenty missing.”

  Despite the words, Maxwell’s feet didn’t want to move and he stared at the corpses for a while longer. Somehow, the faces of the dead seemed indistinct, as if his mind didn’t dare expose his consciousness to the terrified expressions they wore.

  “Let’s finish what we came here to do,” said Maxwell. “Then we’ll head back to B-22.”

  He led the soldiers through the left-hand exit and conducted a slow and methodical sweep of the B-19 interior. Just when Maxwell was beginning to think he’d found all the corpses, he and his squad discovered another pile of them in a room at the far end of the building.

  This room was a workshop. Benches and shelves lined the walls, and Maxwell spotted boxes and various objects made from metal, but nothing that struck him as unusual. A two-person vehicle was parked inside the large exit door, its gravity engine running.

  In the centre of the floor, another seven or eight hundred bodies had been left in a heap. Like in the previous room, blood was not much in evidence except for the copious amounts on the clothing of each body.

  “Killed elsewhere and brought here,” said Maxwell in disgust.

  “We’re only missing half of the total now,” said Lowe. “The rest must be in the other buildings.”

  “I’ve had enough of the search for today,” said Maxwell. “We’ll return to B-22 and then I’ll decide what happens next.”

  Rather than lead his squad through the building again, he strode to the activation panel for the exit door. The door opened to reveal an airlock space large enough to accommodate a vehicle bigger than the gravity car that was already in the workshop. Maxwell hurried to the exit panel and when the outer door opened, he’d never felt so relieved to see the sunshine as he did at that moment.

  Less than ten minutes later, Squad A arrived back at B-22. By this time, Maxwell had come to a decision.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We’re staying put in B-22,” Maxwell announced, once he and his squad had returned to the central area of the building.

  “I’d like to say I was looking forward to exploring,” said Lyles.

  “I’ve seen enough to be sure the unaccounted members of the CES are lying dead in one or more of the compound buildings,” said Maxwell. “Someone else can finish the search and do the headcount.”

  “Does that mean we’re waiting for this security controller to receive its confirmation from the comms proxy?” asked Chau.

  “That’s exactly what it means, Private.” Maxwell smiled thinly. “However, there’s a chance the backend data arrays will contain information we’ll be obliged to act on.”

  “Only if we go looking for that information,” said Diaz.

  “We might be relying on it for our own safety,” said Maxwell. “We’re going to be stuck here on Xaros for a few days. If whatever killed those people is still here—”

  “You saw it, Sergeant, and so did Lyles,” Vaughan protested. “There’s an alien creature in the base and it hasn’t gone anywhere. Maybe there’s more than one. Maybe there’re dozens.”

  “You’re not helping,” growled Maxwell. “Now shut up and let me talk.”

  “Sorry, Sergeant.”

  “Anyways, like I was saying,” Maxwell resumed. “What’s happening here on Xaros could be big.” He looked from face to face. “It could be real big. And that means we can’t stick our fingers in our ears and hope it goes away. When we dig through the contents of the data array, we’ll have to deal with whatever we find.”

  Having spoken, Maxwell waited to see if the soldiers had anything they wanted to say. From their faces, he could see they were less than happy, but they kept their mouths shut. Words weren’t going to change the situation.

  “Another eight or ten hours and the security controller should unlock,” said Barkley, breaking the silence.

  Maxwell nodded his acknowledgement. He preferred to be active and he wasn’t happy at the thought of sitting around waiting for a return transmission from the proxy hub. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to order his soldiers to patrol or search the compound just to stave off boredom.

  “Squad B, you’ve got four hours,” said Maxwell. “Get some sleep.”

  The soldiers found themselves places to lay down, shutting off their helmet mics to reduce the external noise. Maxwell caught himself checking the time, even though he knew full well that the more often he looked at the clock, the slower it would move.

  He walked across to the replicator which had been installed near the security controller. The soldiers had moved the damaged furniture aside and Maxwell wondered again what could have crumpled the metals so easily.

  After a few seconds of quiet gurgling, a metal tray of scrambled eggs with toast and bacon appeared in the replicator slot below the input panel. Maxwell withdrew his lunch and took his seat at the security controller again. While he was still eating, Corporal Valerio came over.

  “We’re not going to be left alone forever, Sergeant.”

  “I know.”

  “If there really are aliens out there which killed seven thousand people in this compound, they’re going to come for us as well.”

  “I know.” Maxwell finished his last slice of toast and put the tray down on the floor to one side of the controller. He didn’t know for sure, but logic strongly suggested his soldiers were facing more than a single opponent. “I don’t know why they haven’t attacked. Either they’re trapped here and need the Marauder to help them escape, or they’re interested in the contents of our data array.”

  “Why would they hold back if they want that array?” asked Valerio. “We already found a hacking device and the data extraction had started.”

  “Maybe that was the only hacking device they had with them.” Maxwell sighed. “I wish I had the answers, Corporal, but I think the most likely explanation is that we’re facing an enemy that doesn’t think the same way as we do.”

  Valerio gave a rare smile. “Let’s hope they react to bullets in the head the same way we do.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Time passed as slowly as Maxwell had feared. He received a couple of updates from the Marauder, which amounted to little. The density of the jungle on much of the Xaros surface would make scanning for the missing shuttle painstaking work, so Captain Grisham had decided to perform a rapid scan that would detect any vessel which had crashed messily, but which would likely fail to spot the shuttle if any effort had been taken to hide it.

  Why anyone would have hidden the shuttle, Maxwell didn’t know, but when it came to the CES, nothing would have surprised him.

  Even the rapid scan would take several hours, so it didn’t sound as if the hunt for the shuttle would be over anytime soon. Consequently, when it was the turn of Squad A to rest, Maxwell wasn’t expecting to be woken prematurely with reports of success.

  On this he was right, and he slept a full four hours. When he rolled off the mattress – feeling almost fresh - he was not shocked to discover that Corporal Fine had nothing new or interesting to report.

  “If Private Barkley was right about the routing hub being twelve hours in each direction, we should have a response from it sometime soon,” Fine said.

  Maxwell stared at the security controller, willing it to unlock. It didn’t. He was on the verge of heading to the replicator when a channel was forced open to his suit comms. The moment it happened, Maxwell knew he was about to hear some real shitty news.

  “Sergeant Maxwell, you need to destroy the security controller and the backend array, and get the hell out of that compound,” said Lieutenant Lopez.

  “What’s changed?” asked Maxwell, standing from his seat. He motioned with his hands to get the attention of his soldiers. “The controller could unlock at any moment.”

  “We’ve detected the fringes of a Charos burst, with a centre point on the blind side of the Marauder’s position and an estimated half-million klicks from the planet,” said Lopez. “The size of the burst is consistent with that produced by a vessel with a greater mass than a Kijol destroyer.”

  “How much greater?”

  “Like I told you, we’re blind side, so we don’t have sensor sight.” Lopez swore. “Apologies, Sergeant, this has not come at a good time for any of us. It’s almost certain we’re up against one of the new model Aeons like we encountered at Tambus.”

  “You’ve got a new model Tibor to face it, Lieutenant,” said Maxwell.

  “There’ll be no engagement,” said Lopez. “Not yet. The enemy vessel didn’t arrive directly over your position and it might not even have visibility on the compound. You should have plenty of time to act, but don’t drag your feet.”

  “Understood.”

  “You’ve been given orders, Sergeant. The jungle canopy should be enough to keep you hidden from the enemy sensors. You know how the game is played.”

  “That’s right, I do,” said Maxwell bitterly. “I’ll update you shortly.”

  He cut the channel.

  “Let me guess – we’re in the shit?” said Corporal Fine.

  “Right first time,” said Maxwell. “Private Chau, I want you to destroy this security controller and the data array in that next room.”

  Chau’s face twisted in confusion but he didn’t question the order. “Yes, sir,” he said, grabbing his pack of charges and hurrying over.

  While Chau got to work attaching explosive devices to the hardware, Maxwell provided details to his squad about the enormous depths of crap into which they had been plunged.

  “A Kijol destroyer might carry fifty troops, or it might carry five hundred,” said Maxwell. “Even if they only send half of fifty, it’s a fight we don’t want.”

  “Will they definitely deploy?” asked Fleming.

  “Nothing’s definite,” said Maxwell. “But they’ve come to Xaros for a reason – those assholes in the CES called them here and the Kijol have turned up to claim their prize.”

  “So much for our air support, huh?” said Lyles.

  Maxwell wanted to rage at the Marauder’s crew, but it was hard to summon the anger. He wouldn’t lead his squads against a superior force either – not if there was a viable alternative. And right this moment, that viable alternative was for Maxwell and everyone on the ground to get the hell away from the compound and hope the Kijol wouldn’t stick around on Xaros too long.

  “We don’t need air support to help us lay low in some trees,” snapped Maxwell.

  The door leading to the data array opened and Chau emerged. “Ready whenever, Sergeant. When I send the remote detonation command to those charges, there’ll be nothing left for the Kijol to salvage.”

  Maxwell nodded. “Thank you. Now - I need some quiet for a moment, while I figure this out.”

  He pondered the numbers. If the Kijol destroyer had arrived at half a million kilometres from Xaros and knew exactly where it was heading, it might require between twenty-five and thirty minutes to enter the planet’s atmosphere.

  However, reading a Charos burst – the sphere of expanding energy produced by a spaceship exiting lightspeed - wasn’t always pinpoint accurate. So, if the destroyer had arrived at, say, 420,000 kilometres and it was a fast model Aeon class, then the sums started to get interesting, but in a bad way – particularly since Maxwell recalled hearing that the new model Aeon at Tambus had been equipped with Olin missiles. Those missiles travelled at incredible velocity and could target from an enormous distance.

  While the use of such weapons would be wasteful overkill against three landed shuttles, Maxwell wasn’t prepared to gamble his life on the logic of an alien species.

  He called up the compound map on his HUD and studied it for a moment. The soldiers were eager to get away from here, but now was the time to make the right decision, not later.

  “The western gate is the closest exit from the compound, but that means crossing the landing pad,” said Maxwell. “If the Kijol are going to set down, that’s the likely place for it to happen.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of the security console. “And with those shuttles parked, the enemy sensor officers will be watching that area closely for anyone hoping to run for the hills.”

  “Weren’t the Kijol coming here as friends to the CES?” asked Vaughan. “Maybe they’ll send down canapes instead of warheads.”

  Maxwell didn’t grace the words with a response. “We’re heading for the east gate,” he said.

  Just at that moment, the text on the security controller’s centre screen changed and he turned to read what it said.

  Security request accepted.

  Override: Marauder. Awaiting security parameters.

  “Well would you look at that?” said Diaz sweetly.

  Maxwell was suddenly torn. Realistically, he and his squad had thirty minutes to reach the trees and it wasn’t much more than a fifteen-minute run. He could sit his ass down in front of this console and maybe find some answers.

  Except, he knew, he didn’t have nearly enough time. The Marauder would need to update the console’s security files and then Maxwell would have to start hunting through the backend array, hoping that the CES had organized their files in a manner that would make the search easy.

  An idea came.

  “Private Barkley, if you linked your comms pack to the security controller and we left it behind, could we stream data from the backend array to the Marauder through those orbital comms relays?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Barkley. He furrowed his brow in thought. “The data stream wouldn’t be fast enough to transfer the entire contents of that array anytime soon. I could set up a targeted upload, but for that I’d have to know what files we’re targeting. That would need me to sit down at the controller and comb through the data array, which is something we’re trying to avoid.”

  “Some data is better than no data,” said Maxwell.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What you’re suggesting means leaving this hardware intact,” said Corporal Fine, tapping the security controller with a fingertip. “We’d be guessing on the right time to remotely detonate the charges.”

  It was a risk and Maxwell knew it. “Private Barkley – set it up,” he said. “I’ll let the Marauder know what we’re planning. They’ll need to update the security files on the controller anyway.”

  He requested a channel to the warship and Lieutenant Lopez accepted at once. Aware that time was passing, Maxwell quickly explained his plan. After speaking with Grisham, Lopez gave the agreement.

  “Detonate those charges as soon as you hear a Kijol engine. Not a moment later,” she warned. “We’re taking a risk here.”

  “I understand that, ma’am.”

  Maxwell cut the channel and watched Barkley as the man altered the settings on the comms pack he’d laid on the floor next to the controller.

  “Done,” said Barkley. “The pack is linked to both the controller and the orbital relay, and I’ve informed Lieutenant Bishop.”

  “We don’t need to do anything else except detonate the charges?”

  “No, sir.”

  Maxwell had another thought. “Private Barkley, contact the Marauder. The warship broke the security on all these prefabs, but I don’t know if the compound exit gates are still locked.”

  “I’ll check that, sir,” said Barkley. He didn’t say anything for a short time. “The eastern gate is locked, but it won’t be when we arrive.”

  “That’s good enough.” Maxwell took one last look around the room. “We’re leaving,” he said. Without a backward glance, he strode away from the security controller, towards the exit corridor.

  Soon, Maxwell was inside the airlock, along with the other soldiers. The mission wasn’t nearly done and he felt a greater agitation than he had at any other moment since departing the Marauder.

  The Kijol were coming and outside this building, Xaros would be in darkness. Maxwell didn’t fear the night, yet as he waited for the outer door to open, he felt a shiver and he wished he was anywhere but here.