“The alien,” said Grisham. “It’s near the south passage.”

  “Crap, what’s it doing?” asked Chau. He was one of the soldiers nearest that entrance.

  “I think it was heading north,” said Grisham.

  “Stay low and keep moving,” Maxwell urged.

  The incoming gunfire didn’t lessen and a couple more grenades went off.

  “Damnit, I’m hit,” said Lowe. “A slug in the arm.”

  “How bad?” asked Maxwell.

  “I’m with him, Sergeant,” said Franklin. “I’m checking it out.”

  “We can’t stop,” said Maxwell.

  “Nothing new there, sir.”

  Grisham heard a gurgling from somewhere across the room. Then came the sound of ripping polymers and flesh. A thumping noise followed and then another noise that Grisham had no words to describe.

  He chanced a look over the cabinets. The alien wasn’t visible, but a dozen or more Kijol soldiers were on their feet, directly across from him on the eastern side of the room. They were firing at something unseen. Grisham thought about shooting a few of the Kijol, but he held fire.

  “This is our chance,” he said. “While the Kijol are occupied.”

  Maxwell shouted at the soldiers to hurry and they crawled across the floor towards the western exit.

  “Sir, come on!” said Maxwell.

  Staying in a crouch, Grisham hurried across the intervening few metres. He couldn’t help but look east, and he saw the alien briefly. It was no longer in the south-east quarter of the room. Now it was north-east. It was a hulking bastard and almost nine feet tall, even with its shoulders hunched and its head tucked low. It swung a long arm at one of the Kijol, knocking it into the wall.

  A grenade exploded at the creature’s feet and it was engulfed in plasma flames. Then, and still burning, the creature dropped out of sight. Grisham didn’t for a moment believe it was dead.

  Entering the western tunnel, Grisham straightened as he ran. Some of the other soldiers were already a long way ahead, having been ordered to make it to the end room as quickly as possible. Grisham’s legs were keen to make up the ground and he sprinted after them. Maxwell was right behind and keeping pace. Glancing over his shoulder, Grisham saw the other man’s anger and his resolve to keep pushing until nothing else would give.

  “Clear behind,” said Grisham.

  “Not for long, I reckon,” said Maxwell.

  It wasn’t until Grisham was two hundred metres along the passage that he started to think the mission personnel might yet live to fight another day. His brain gradually emerged from battle mode and began to register the mundane details again. The passage wasn’t clad and it hadn’t suffered incendiary damage. Digits on his HUD informed him the air temperature had fallen five degrees and the light was the dimmest it had been. Grisham suddenly remembered the unease he’d felt standing at the entrance to the previous tunnel heading west.

  Now, that unease was diminished to the point of insignificance by his body’s reaction to the recent combat. The Kijol were real. The alien was real. Whatever he’d felt earlier was nothing more than unproven fear.

  Or maybe, he thought, the disquiet had been caused by the unknown aliens. This was not, after all, a normal situation and his senses had become heightened by the constant danger.

  When he came to the end of the passage, Grisham entered a room. The last of the soldiers weren’t far behind. Everyone was breathing hard, and Private Lowe received attention from Private Franklin.

  “How bad?” asked Maxwell, panting for breath. “We have to keep moving.”

  “A gauss slug hit me here, Sergeant,” said Lowe, tapping near a patch of blood on his upper right arm. “It went clean through my suit.”

  “But not clean through the bone in his arm,” said Franklin. “He’s suffered tissue damage only. The slug exited his muscle and it’s gone.”

  “Didn’t you get hit in the same place on Xaros, Lowe?” asked Diaz.

  “Nah, that was my left arm,” said Lowe.

  “And now you’ve taken a hit on the other side, just to even things out,” said Diaz. “Is it going to affect your aim?”

  “Maybe,” said Lowe. He grimaced. “But not if I can help it.”

  “I’ve given him something for the pain, and there’s a dressing on the wound,” said Franklin. “He should be fine as long as he doesn’t have to keep firing that launcher.”

  “He might not have much choice,” said Maxwell. “Now, let’s think about putting some distance between us and whoever comes out on top in that last room.”

  “There’s been no movement, Sergeant,” said Vaughan, prone behind his repeater and looking east. “I can’t hear anything either.”

  “I’m not reassured,” said Maxwell.

  Grisham had been listening to the conversation while he studied the exits. The squad had only two options – north and west. In both directions, the tunnels were unfinished and their floors were uneven. Also, they were narrower and with lower ceilings than those elsewhere beneath the installation. Grisham wasn’t an expert, but he found himself wondering if these tunnels had been formed a long time before the others. Maybe even before the Kijol arrived on Ovintus.

  “I wonder if we should go west, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “The north end of the installation isn’t far – less than fifteen hundred metres according to the distance counter in my suit - but whoever wins out in that last room, they’ll know we came this way. The Kijol might anticipate us heading north.”

  “What about the alien?” asked Maxwell. He gave a bitter smile. “I guess there’s not much we can do about that. If it wants to find us, then it’s going to find us. West it is.” He stared along the passage. “Another run and another room. Much further and we’ll be under the desert.”

  “We’ll find a different way north and soon be out of these tunnels,” said Grisham. “We’ve seen that the Kijol aren’t having it all their own way. Our life might become easier once we’re back on the surface.”

  “Not long ago, I’d have disagreed with you on that, sir,” said Maxwell. “Now, I think maybe you’re right. An Achirus doesn’t carry enough troops to saturate this base. The Kijol can’t be everywhere at once.”

  The dull sound of Vaughan’s repeater firing made Grisham snap his head around.

  “I saw movement at the far end of the passage,” said Vaughan.

  “Kijol or something else?” asked Maxwell.

  “I don’t know, Sergeant. Whatever it was, I’m sure I hit it, but there’s nothing dead across the opening.”

  “That tells us everything we need to know,” said Maxwell.

  “The alien might still be fighting the Kijol,” said Barkley.

  “It might,” said Maxwell. “But once it’s done, it’ll come for us.”

  Grisham was struck by a sudden memory. “When that creature first showed itself in the last room, it was near the southern entrance,” he said. “While we were keeping our heads down and staying quiet, it was sneaking up on us. It was intending to take us by surprise.”

  “It knew we were there all along,” said Diaz, fear in her eyes. “How can we beat something like that?”

  “With bullets and rockets, the same as always,” said Maxwell sharply. “We didn’t die back there and we learned something that we should have already known from Xaros - we learned that we can’t hide from those aliens and we sure can’t outrun them. So we’ll have to outthink them. Now let’s move!”

  The group exited the room through the west exit and Grisham placed himself near the front. In this passage, the darkness was almost enough for him to turn on his helmet flashlight. Maxwell didn’t give the order, so Grisham did like all the others and relied on his eyes. The ground was rough underfoot and he thought it might have a downward slope to it. For all Grisham knew, he could have been heading deeper for the last ten kilometres and the surface might now be a thousand metres above his head. Here in the tunnels, it was hard to be sure of anything.

  “Three hundred metres to the next room,” said Maxwell, squinting into the distance. “And the lights are out.”

  “If there’s a north exit ahead, we should take it,” said Grisham.

  “What if we can’t find a way to the surface?” asked Chau. “We’ll have to head back east.”

  “We’re taking everything as it comes, Private.”

  “I should have thought before opening my mouth, sir.”

  “We’ve all been guilty of that,” said Maxwell without rancour.

  When the opening to the next room was a short distance away, Maxwell slowed to a fast walk. Grisham slowed with him, breathing deeply to feed his body with oxygen. The room was unlit and he couldn’t see more than a few metres inside.

  Grisham turned on his night vision as he approached the entrance and everything went green. The only light source was from this corridor and it allowed his suit sensor to gather a sight of the far wall about thirty metres away. There was no visible source of heat.

  At the corner, Maxwell stopped and stared into the room, evidently using his own night vision enhancement.

  “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

  “What is it, Sergeant?” asked Corporal Fine.

  Grisham came to the entrance and he looked in the direction of Maxwell’s gaze. “Ah crap,” he said. “More corpses.”

  The mission personnel advanced into the room. Against the south wall of the room was an enormous pile of Kijol bodies that reached all the way to the three-metre ceiling and spilled ten metres into the room. Viewed with the night vision active, the corpses looked even more disturbing than the ones Grisham had seen earlier in the mission. The pale colour of the Kijol skin was exacerbated and the brown of their dried blood appeared even more sickly.

  “Thousands of them,” said Corporal Fine. “And they stink.”

  “Killed elsewhere and brought here, judging from the lack of blood,” said Maxwell. He shook his head. “I long ago learned that even the craziest things often have an underlying sense to them. This I can’t understand.”

  “Maybe it’s not important that we understand,” said Barkley. “This is like a plague. The best we can do is keep ourselves alive.”

  “Who made you the squad prophet of doom, Corporal?” said Diaz.

  “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “What now?” asked Lieutenant Adler. The real question was unspoken. Are we going to burn them?

  Maxwell turned away from the corpses and headed to the centre of the room, where he stared along the north and west exits. There were no lights and there was no way south.

  “What can you see?” asked Grisham.

  “Not much. There’s no light at all and the night vision isn’t effective in zero light conditions. The heat detection will work fine, but that won’t stop us running into walls. Should we head north?”

  “I think it’s time,” said Grisham.

  “Private Lowe, you’ve got three shots left in that tube?” said Maxwell.

  “Five, sir. I had a couple of spares in my pack.”

  “We’re going north. Living Kijol are bad enough, so I certainly don’t want their rotting corpses coming after us as well.”

  “I’ll burn them when we’re far enough away, sir,” Lowe confirmed. He tentatively flexed his injured arm. “If there’s anything following us from the east, it might see the blast.”

  “That’s a chance I’m willing to take, soldier.” Maxwell pointed into the north passage. “There’s no light for our night vision to enhance, so we’ll use our helmet flashlights. Now let’s get moving.”

  The soldiers switched on their lights and the beams illuminated the extent of the decay afflicting the Kijol corpses. Grisham didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned away quickly and followed Maxwell north.

  The squad ran a hundred metres or so, and then Maxwell called a halt. “Private Lowe,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lowe was clearly struggling with his launcher, but a shot like this was still easy. He fired a rocket south and the scent of its propellant filled the air. The missile detonated and, when the blast faded, Grisham peered south. The light from the eastern passage was just enough that he could see grisly lumps through the thick smoke, and the walls were coated in a layer of char.

  “I’m so glad I can’t smell that,” said Diaz.

  “Think the blast wiped them all out?” asked Barkley.

  “Even if it didn’t, I’d rather face what’s left than the whole pile,” said Maxwell.

  The mission personnel set off again, their light beams illuminating the nearby surroundings. Ahead, the darkness pressed in, while behind it gave pursuit. Another room lay ahead, dimly seen, and Grisham stared intently, wondering if this place too would be a forgotten grave for the Kijol.

  He entered the room and directed his light towards the corners. The place was empty and, when the other soldiers arrived, their flashlight beams were almost enough to dispel the darkness.

  “North, east or west?” said Corporal Barkley.

  “Quiet!” said Corporal Fine suddenly from over by the south entrance. “I think I—” She didn’t finish the sentence and continued staring along the tunnel.

  “You saw something?” said Maxwell, striding over.

  “Yes, sir,” said Fine. “In the last room.”

  Maxwell didn’t ask if she was sure. “Coming our way?”

  “I’m not sure Sergeant. It either entered the tunnel or it went across the far end. My night vision isn’t picking anything up.”

  “It didn’t on Xaros either,” said Maxwell. “Damnit.”

  Grisham stood next to the soldiers, his gun ready, and stared south. All he could see was darkness, but his senses told him the alien was approaching, unseen. He felt its malevolence and its confidence. These subterranean levels played to the creature’s strength. It wanted to kill and soon it would be here.

  “It’s coming,” said Grisham.

  NINETEEN

  “Private Vaughan, deploy that repeater,” said Maxwell. He pointed to the middle of the floor. “Do it there.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Vaughan, running for the spot.

  In seconds, the man was ready. “I can’t see a damned thing, Sergeant.”

  “I know,” said Maxwell, using hand movements to direct the other soldiers into positions around the door. “If you’ve got a sixth sense, now’s the time to use it. Fire!”

  Vaughan fired the repeater in a short burst, waited a second and then fired again. The rest of the soldiers were arrayed such that they could aim their rifles into the tunnel without risk of injuring each other. Their guns whined and shots punched through the darkness.

  “Private Vaughan, pussyfooting isn’t going to bring that thing down!” yelled Maxwell.

  “No, sir,” said Vaughan. He unleashed the repeater and the weapon hurled out a continuous torrent of slugs.

  Grisham saw steam rising from the XR’s barrel as it heated up. He fired his own rifle into the tunnel, as fast as it would discharge the projectiles from its magazine. The ammunition readout fell rapidly. It had been a while since Grisham had been forced into a pressure magazine swap and he hoped the coming opponent would go down before his gun ran dry.

  And that opponent was coming. Grisham could neither see nor hear it, but he knew it was hurtling towards him, a murderous creature that would slaughter everyone in this room if they didn’t kill it first. The tunnel wasn’t wide and the alien was a broad-shouldered bastard. It would have a real job avoiding the bullets heading its way. Grisham hoped the fusillade would be enough.

  A couple of the soldiers nearby dumped their spent magazines and slotted in new ones. Grisham’s ammunition readout dropped to zero and his fingers found the eject mechanism. The empty magazine clunked onto the floor and, with an unerringness which surprised him, Grisham snapped the replacement straight in without a hint of fumbling.

  “I’m nearly out!” shouted Vaughan.

  At that moment, Grisham saw the alien at the extremes of the flashlight beams. It travelled with horrifying speed, and he saw it was using its powerful arms to drag itself along the tunnel, adding extra impetus to that provided by its legs. The effect reminded him of a spider somehow and Grisham felt both revulsion and fear.

  Ten metres from the room’s entrance, the alien stumbled, righted itself and then fell headlong to the ground, where it rolled over twice and came to a stop just inside the room. At the same moment, Vaughan’s repeater cut out and he scrambled to swap in a replacement magazine.

  The rest of the soldiers continued firing into the unmoving alien until Maxwell called a halt. He gestured the soldiers to move away and then under-armed a grenade onto the corpse. The explosion hardly moved the body, but set half of it alight. Smoke billowed.

  “I still haven’t seen one of their faces,” said Diaz.

  “Is it important?” said Lowe.

  “I’d just like to know.”

  “That time isn’t now,” said Maxwell. Not that anyone would be able to get close to the burning alien for a couple of minutes anyway. “We’re heading north.”

  “One alien down, an unknown quantity left to go,” said Barkley.

  They headed from the room into the north passage. After two hundred metres, it turned west and Grisham wasn’t sure if this was a development he was happy with. The lights were still out and he was beginning to hate the darkness.

  After travelling a short distance west, the soldiers emerged into a cavernous space, which their flashlights were insufficient to fully illuminate. The ceiling was twenty metres up and a fifteen-metre-wide shaft rose through the middle of it. From his position near the entrance, Grisham didn’t have an angle to see what was at the top, even had his light been strong enough.

  The walls were far apart – eighty metres, Grisham judged. Kijol machinery was visible, and he shone his light beam over a looming construction nearby. He approached. The device was eight metres tall, ten wide and five deep. It was plated in alloy, and it had several square openings in the facing side. A variety of control panels and viewscreens were all dark. The machine was either powered down or the hardware had failed.