Chapter Nineteen

  Night had indeed come to Xaros, but the compound technology was providing some resistance against its encroachment. Tiny lights, fitted to the upper corners of each prefab, cast the dimmest of glows upon the ground, creating puddles of muddy yellow, interspersed with uneven areas of near darkness. These lights hadn’t been switched on during Maxwell’s earlier visit to the central prefab and he guessed they were reserved for the middle hours of the night only.

  Maxwell peered carefully in both directions, but the only movement was from the insects which had been drawn to the light. The quiet was oppressive and broken only by the occasional rustle of distant foliage, carried on the gentle wind. Maxwell held the soldiers in the airlock for a few seconds longer and then stepped out onto the alley separating B-22 from the prefab opposite.

  “I’d guess we’re thirteen hundred metres from the eastern gate,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”

  He set off at a steady pace, somewhere between a fast walk and a jog – a speed which wouldn’t interfere too much with his aim, while also allowing his eyes became accustomed to the contrasts between light and shadow. The pools of yellow created a feeling of vulnerability in Maxwell, while the patches of dark made him immediately crave the light again.

  “Are we switching to night vision, Sergeant?” asked Fleming.

  “Negative,” said Maxwell. “There’s light enough to see.”

  In the back of his mind was the thought that if the Marauder’s sensors couldn’t detect the aliens which might be in the compound, perhaps the night vision enhancement on his suit helmet would prevent him from spotting this elusive enemy. For the moment, Maxwell preferred to rely on the tried-and-tested human eye.

  Arriving at the edge of B-22, he scanned the intersecting alley which went north and south. He saw no movement, though the sound of birds calling softly in the trees came to him.

  Breaking cover, he ran south to the next intersection, this being an alley running east-west.

  “Clear,” said Maxwell.

  Running east, he checked for movement north and south along the next alley. The next east-west intersection would offer him a view of the central prefab and, from there, a few hundred metres separated the soldiers from the exit.

  Maxwell ran for the intersection, halted at the corner and then looked around. The central prefab’s western wall was visible from here and the open area around the structure was particularly badly illuminated, since the light from the surrounding buildings and the main prefab didn’t extend far enough to join in the middle.

  For a brief moment, Maxwell considered diverting around the prefab, but that would add a couple of hundred metres onto the journey, and he was already feeling the pressure of time.

  Private Barkley had some news which helped a little. “Heads up, Sergeant – the Marauder has just broken the security on the eastern personnel gate. The access panel should respond to the codes in our spacesuits.”

  Not wishing to delay any longer, Maxwell headed east along the alley. At the corner, he halted once more and surveyed the open space. Although nothing was moving, his internal alarms were ringing, and he stared unblinking for a time.

  “Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine.

  “I don’t like it,” said Maxwell.

  Despite his misgivings, he couldn’t stand here watching forever. He set off into the open area, heading at a diagonal towards the main prefab’s south wall. From there, he planned to head east on a course that would take him and his soldiers on the most direct route to the exit gate.

  This time, Maxwell didn’t measure his pace and he sprinted straight for the south corner of the prefab, his footsteps thudding against the polymer ground. The moment he came to the wall, he glanced around the edge, along the structure’s southern wall. He was just in time to see a dark shape streak with incredible speed up the ramp and into the building.

  “I saw something,” said Maxwell. “The door must be open again, because it ran into the building. Squad A, with me. Squad B, watch our backs.”

  Unwilling to run from this foe, he broke away from the corner and dashed along the south wall of the prefab. Maxwell had been feeling like this alien creature was stalking him and his soldiers, and he wasn’t a man who liked to be looking over his shoulder all the time.

  When he came to the ramp leading to the prefab entrance, Maxwell halted again. He was hungry for the confrontation, but not suicidally so.

  Leaning into the doorway, he saw that the interior was lit in the dimmest and coldest of blues. The corpses were heaped up like before, and the scent of decay was stronger than it was only a day ago.

  “Damnit, I can’t see the bastard,” said Maxwell. “It must be hiding around the corner.” He noticed that one of the personnel doors was open on the far side of the storage area. “Or it’s taken cover deeper in the building.”

  At that moment, the braying roar of perfectly cut metal being ejected from multiple barrels at enormous velocity caused him to snap his head around. To the south-west, a thick line of white tracers tore through the night, aimed at something unseen high in the Xaros sky.

  “Shit, that perimeter gun has acquired a target,” said Lyles.

  The western and north-western guns opened up as well, and all three tracer lines converged on the same place.

  A warhead streaked down from above at tremendous velocity, its nose cone burning white with atmospheric friction. Maxwell hardly had time to predict its trajectory as being the western repeater turret before the missile struck its target. The explosion was hidden from view, but the flash it produced extended far into the sky. Motes danced on Maxwell’s retinas, and he cursed himself for being too slow to look away.

  Two of the other perimeter guns also acquired targets and started firing. A second missile, fired from the same place as the first and burning with equal brightness, detonated once again to the west.

  “The Kijol!” said Corporal Fine. “They’re targeting the shuttle pad.”

  Maxwell’s brain went into overdrive. The early arrival of the Kijol was a terrible development, no doubt about it. The enemy was neutralising the perimeter defences, and from the size of the first two explosions, they were using Olin missiles to do so.

  By now, four of the perimeter guns were firing and from the angle and direction of the tracers, Maxwell could tell they were tracking two targets, both of which were approaching from the unseen western horizon.

  “Those perimeter guns could knock out an armoured Kijol transport,” said Fleming. “Something makes me think the enemy won’t let that happen.”

  Although the Kijol were a major distraction, Maxwell hadn’t forgotten about the alien which had disappeared into the central prefab. He tried a quick glance into the interior, but his eyes hadn’t yet recovered from the flash and it required an effort to make them focus. The alien creature remained out of sight.

  “Corporal Fine, move up,” said Maxwell. “We’re going to make a sprint for the exit before that Kijol destroyer starts scanning this compound.”

  A third enemy missile screamed out of the sky and Maxwell’s brain worked fast enough this time to recognize that it had been fired from the west. It gave him hope that the Kijol didn’t yet have a top-down view of the compound.

  Maxwell put a hand towards the ramp next to him, meaning to vault up and sprint for the alley away to the east. As his palm came down, he looked again into the building.

  One of the corpses was standing.

  “Ah, shit,” he said.

  The light was so poor that the body was entirely in silhouette – a dark shape with no details visible, and completely motionless.

  Although he didn’t see dead bodies standing on their feet every day of the week, Maxwell wasn’t about to stand pointing and gawping. Raising his gun, he shot the corpse in the head and it fell backwards to the floor.

  “Sergeant? What is it?” asked Fleming urgently.

  “I think we’re in trouble,” said Maxwell. “One of those corpses just got up.” He took a breath. “We’ve got to move.”

  He clambered onto the ramp, just as the alien creature he’d seen earlier came racing into sight from around one of the storage area corners. It was huge and near black, and moved with muscular inevitability. In the gloom, Maxwell could hardly make it out, as if the creature was somehow able to meld with the darkness.

  He brought his rifle up and pulled the trigger. Maxwell was a good shot, but his opponent was moving rapidly. The creature sped across the corpse-strewn floor, heading directly for the largest pile of bodies. As it did so, the alien became ever more indistinct, as though it were gathering the shadows.

  Maxwell kept on shooting as the creature – now little more than a dark blur – vanished around the corner ahead and to his right.

  “What the hell—” said Private Fleming, who’d climbed up next to Maxwell.

  “What just happened?” asked Private Lowe. He was on the ground next to the ramp and leaning across so that he could see into the prefab.

  “I’m damned if I know,” said Maxwell. “But we can’t shoot what we can’t see. Private Lowe, get up here.”

  In one fluid action, Lowe spun his rocket tube onto his right shoulder, at the same time as he leapt onto the ramp.

  Maxwell motioned for the others to be on guard. The muscles in his legs bunched and his eyes widened as he prepared for the enemy to come charging into sight. Having seen the speed with which the alien could cover the ground, Maxwell knew he had no hope of outrunning it.

  Suddenly, the largest mound of corpses began to roil in a most repulsive way, and several of the bodies on the floor nearby jerked upright as if they’d been hauled to their feet by invisible strings. They stood absolutely still, and a moment later, the main pile erupted as the corpses climbed to their feet with unnerving speed.

  Maxwell had no idea what was going on, but at this moment, he didn’t need answers.

  “Private Lowe, put those poor bastards out of their misery,” he said coldly. “And that damned alien went right.”

  Lowe could be slow to understand a joke, but when it came to combat, he never hesitated. He already had his rocket launcher pointed just where he wanted, and the weapon’s coils whined softly. The missile sped out of the tube and struck the floor between the corpse pile and the right-hand corner, creating an explosion that engulfed the bodies and expanded out of sight in the direction the alien had gone. Narrowing his eyes against the flare of white-hot plasma, Maxwell didn’t wait around to discover the outcome.

  “Move!” he yelled.

  A series of whumping blasts, their noise softened by distance, made Maxwell glance over his shoulder as he jumped off the far edge of the ramp. Another two – maybe three - Kijol missiles had exploded and now only one of the perimeter guns was firing. Maxwell didn’t expect it would remain operational for long.

  As he ran for the eastern alley, he heard another two detonations coming almost simultaneously. Maxwell couldn’t help looking over his shoulder again – not only for signs of the incoming Kijol shuttle, but for any hint that the alien creature in the main prefab had escaped the rocket blast. He didn’t want to see it again, nor another like it.

  As soon as he entered the alley, Maxwell slowed to make sure the rest of his soldiers were still with him. All nine were present.

  “What the hell was that, Sergeant?” asked Lowe, his face pale. “What just—”

  “Something we don’t want to meet again,” said Maxwell, interrupting the soldier’s question. “We have to escape this compound – if that thing survived, or if there’re others in the compound, the Kijol can deal with them.”

  “And good luck to those assholes,” said Lyles, turning and raising her middle finger to the western sky.

  Another of the smaller missiles – almost certainly an Apiar – exploded, and the last of the western perimeter guns stopped firing. Maxwell was struck by a terrible realisation – three repeater turrets remained, these ones positioned on the eastern and north-eastern areas of the perimeter walls. Those guns hadn’t yet acquired targets, but they soon would and then the Kijol would destroy those ones too – unless the incoming shuttles came in so low that the repeaters didn’t gain a firing angle.

  A bad situation became worse.

  “Sergeant, I’ve lost contact with the Marauder,” said Barkley. “It’s possible the Kijol knocked out the orbital comms relay.”

  The orbital comms relays weren’t easy to detect in the enormity of space – being spheres with a one-metre diameter. If the Kijol had detected the one over the base, the destroyer crew was exceptionally vigilant.

  “What about a wide area jammer?” said Maxwell. “Ah, shit! Private Chau, detonate those charges!”

  The Kijol jammers wouldn’t stop close proximity suit-to-suit comms, so the fact that the soldiers were able to speak on the squad channel didn’t confirm the presence of a jammer one way or another. Over longer distances – such as to the orbital relay or even from here in the compound to the explosive charges on the security controller, the signal degradation would be enough that nothing would get through.

  “Signal sent, charges detonated,” Chau confirmed. “No, wait, I’ve received a failure report.”

  “Try again!” said Maxwell, knowing it was useless.

  “Yes, sir.” Chau swore. “I’ve received a second failure report.”

  “Shit, shit, shit!” said Maxwell. “This is a damned civilian compound! Why the hell did the Kijol think they needed a jammer?”

  “If we’re being jammed, we can outrange the hardware,” said Barkley. “Ten klicks into the jungle, our comms to the Marauder should start working again, assuming the orbital relay is intact.”

  Maxwell didn’t want to abandon the security controller or the attached data array, but heading back that way would be suicidal. He thought fast. “If we can outrange the jammer, we can transmit positional information on that destroyer to the Marauder,” said Maxwell. “Our warship is outclassed, but if it can land a full salvo on that destroyer from the blind side of Xaros, maybe it’s in with a chance.”

  “What about a nuke?” asked Diaz. “That would do the job.”

  “I don’t want to be watching a hundred megaton nuclear detonation from only ten klicks away,” said Maxwell. “What about you?”

  “We could push on to twenty klicks.”

  “Try closer to a hundred klicks. Maybe more than a hundred,” said Maxwell. “And we don’t have time to make it that far.”

  “Captain Grisham doesn’t have the balls for it anyway,” spat Lyles. “He won’t attack.”

  “He’s got the balls,” said Maxwell. “I can see it in his eyes. He needs to keep winning. The man won’t stop.”

  “I hope you’re right, Sergeant.”

  Maxwell knew he’d delayed too long, and he urged the soldiers to flight. Before he’d taken a dozen paces, he felt, rather than heard, the bass depths of a monumental propulsion coming from faraway.

  “That’s no shuttle,” said Diaz.

  As she spoke, the three remaining repeater turrets opened fire simultaneously and a torrent of projectiles sliced at a low angle across the tops of the highest structures. The thunder of the guns combined with the increasing vibration of the destroyer’s propulsion, reminding Maxwell of a hundred confrontations on a dozen different worlds.

  Knowing the lives of everyone on this mission hung by the slenderest of threads, he sprinted for the eastern exit.

  Chapter Twenty

  Two hundred metres further on, Maxwell cut north at an intersection between two accommodation prefabs. His eyes never stopped moving and he turned his head this way and that, hoping to gain advance warning of approaching Kijol shuttles.

  Unfortunately, the walls of the compound buildings reflected sound in a way that made it impossible for him to be sure which direction it was coming from. All he could hear was the bass of the destroyer’s Charos drive. However, one thing was sure - sooner rather than later, the Kijol shuttles would come in to land.

  “Not far to the wall,” said Corporal Fine. “Then a short distance north to the exit gate.”

  Maxwell turned east onto an alley that continued all the way to the wall. While it was too dark for him to see the nearest repeater, he knew exactly where it was by the tracers of its projectiles.

  Instinct borne from years of combat made Maxwell avert his gaze just as a Kijol missile struck the turret. Plasma light illuminated the alley and a moment later, the crack of the explosion was followed by a rumbling boom. Another blast followed, maybe to the north, Maxwell couldn’t be sure. A second later, he saw a flash and then came the sound of a third explosion.

  “That’s the last of the compound guns taken out,” said Fine.

  “If we’re lucky, the Kijol won’t need to keep looking in this direction,” said Lowe.

  “Yeah, right,” said Chau.

  The wall was less than 150 metres away and Maxwell was fighting against the Xaros gravity and the weight of his loadout. His heart rate was high, but he wasn’t about to slow down. An orange glow from the nearby missile strike created a peculiar haze where it mingled with the lights of the accommodation blocks.

  A shape – dark upon dark – flashed across the space at the eastern end of the alley, keeping outside of the puddled lights. Only the fires of the Kijol missile allowed Maxwell to be sure he’d seen the alien creature, rather than it being a flickering shadow.

  “We didn’t kill it,” he said angrily on the comms. “It went north.”

  “We don’t need this crap!” said Vaughan.

  Maxwell halted at the corner, forty metres from the perimeter wall, and looked around to the north. As he did so, he pointed into the sky with his left hand, to indicate that his soldiers should watch above. Having seen the speed of the alien, he guessed it could spring onto the roofs of the lower structures, and he didn’t want it surprising his squads.