Joining Corporal Fine at the tree, Maxwell looked into her visor. Her face was grim, her lips tight together.

  “We lost Valerio?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  This wasn’t the time to talk about it. Maxwell requested a channel to the Marauder, and it was opened straightaway.

  “Lieutenant Lopez, I’m sending you positional data for the destroyer.”

  “Data received. How long has it remained—” Lopez didn’t finish the question. “We’ll initiate the attack.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Maxwell.

  Lopez cut the channel.

  “Done?” asked Fine.

  Maxwell nodded. “Done.”

  Turning so that he could aim his rifle into the jungle, Maxwell informed his soldiers that an attack on the Kijol destroyer was imminent. He made no mention of the possibility the enemy warship was fitted with a disruptor.

  “How long, Sergeant?” asked Lyles.

  “Lieutenant Lopez told me forty seconds.”

  “If those Ghosts are off target, we’re screwed,” said Barkley. “The Marauder has six clusters of eight and I reckon Captain Grisham can bring three of those clusters into firing position at the same time. If a few miss that destroyer—”

  From here behind the tree, Maxwell had no view of the enemy warship, and he felt a dangerous urge to move into a position from where he could see if the attack was successful. Instead, he turned his attention once more into the ruins of the jungle.

  The corpses on his heels had been cut down by gauss fire, but others were approaching from the east. These ones remained beneath the canopy and had so far escaped the wrath of the destroyer. How many would come, Maxwell didn’t know, but he suspected the alien was fast running out of ammunition. What it would do when all the corpses were gone, he didn’t know.

  Abruptly, the Dasor fire ended, leaving an absence of sound that lasted for a moment before the creaking and snapping noises of the broken jungle came to the fore. Maxwell breathed in the odours of smoke, wondering if the Kijol had grown bored of this game.

  Even as that thought was forming, an Apiar missile detonated east among the corpses. The flash almost caught Maxwell unawares, but his instincts were one step ahead of his conscious thought and he averted his eyes just in time. He dropped low, his eyes tightly closed, just as a second missile exploded somewhere closer than the first. The twin blast waves ravaged the jungle, but Maxwell was protected by both the huge tree and his combat suit.

  Five seconds passed and when the Kijol launched no more missiles, Maxwell pushed himself to his feet, suddenly noticing the aching pains in every muscle and joint. He half expected to see additional life signs warnings on his HUD, but no text appeared.

  Leaning around the tree, Maxwell discovered that the second missile had exploded not far north, opening a new hole in the canopy. Through that hole, he could see part of the destroyer’s flank.

  Against the darkness, Maxwell suddenly spotted tiny specks of orange, far, far overhead. Those specks moved at tremendous velocity and they descended through the Xaros atmosphere, leaving barely visible trails of heat smoke.

  “Ghosts!” yelled Maxwell in warning.

  He couldn’t take his eyes away – this was something he had to witness for himself. Too late, the Kijol realised the danger. The destroyer’s topside Dasor turrets opened up and projectiles tore through the night air. At the same time, the warship began to accelerate sideways.

  The destroyer did not escape the inbound missiles. Maxwell didn’t know how many of the Marauder’s Ghosts struck their target, but from the size of the combined explosions – the true extent of which was hidden from his view because he was standing on the ground - it was a significant number.

  Not every Ghost hit the destroyer. Others exploded north, north-west and north-east, and to Maxwell’s relief, these were far enough away that all he saw were the flashes.

  A half-second after the detonations, a thumping expulsion of energy swept across the forest and Maxwell felt it in his chest.

  Disruptor. Those bastards were too slow.

  The thunder of explosions was quickly lost beneath the rising volume of the destroyer’s Charos drive. The Kijol warship rapidly gathered velocity, climbing now at a diagonal to the north, on a course that allowed Maxwell to watch it through the gap in the canopy.

  Overlapping sonic booms cracked and rumbled, the waves of sound shaking the trees. The Kijol warship dwindled rapidly, its burning topside armour plating leaving an orange trail on the darkness. Sometime soon, the Marauder would engage with the enemy craft and the outcome would not likely be positive for this area of Xaros.

  “Private Barkley, report our sightings to the Marauder,” said Maxwell. “In case that orbital relay hasn’t already transmitted the detonation reports.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sergeant, what next?” asked Fine.

  “We’ve played our part,” said Maxwell. “And I’d like to say we’re done, but we still have work to do.”

  He scanned the jungle, hunting for signs of the dead. A few were visible and the soldiers had already recovered enough to take shots at them. The threat hadn’t gone, but for the moment it was diminished.

  “South?” asked Fine.

  Maxwell nodded. “We should put some distance between us and—” he lifted a hand to indicate the destruction all around. “This,” he finished.

  “We’ll be visible on the beach, but we’ll cover a lot more ground that way,” said Fine.

  “The beach it is,” Maxwell confirmed. “If we skirt the edge of the jungle, the destroyer won’t have sight of us unless its crew is actively looking. With any luck, they’ll be too busy dealing with the Marauder to run a sensor scan of the lakeshore.”

  Maxwell switched to the squad comms channel. “We’re withdrawing,” he said.

  “Again?” asked Lyles dryly. “We only just got here.”

  “South along the beach,” said Maxwell, ignoring the interruption. “If the destroyer survives what’s coming to it, I wouldn’t put it past those Kijol bastards to return for another look at the jungle.”

  The last of the visible corpses fell to gauss fire and Maxwell called in the soldiers from their positions of cover. They were black with soot and the polymers of Lowe’s suit were torn across his left upper arm. Blood had stained the outside of the field dressing he’d stuck over the wound.

  “Anything I should worry about, soldier?” asked Maxwell.

  “It won’t stop me aiming this shoulder launcher.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Lowe shifted uncomfortably. “It’s no problem, Sergeant. The bleeding stopped.”

  “Good,” said Maxwell. He thumbed towards the beach. “Because we can’t afford to slow down.” His eyes landed on Private Vaughan.

  “I might have a couple of cracked ribs, Sergeant,” said Vaughan without being asked. “Maybe it’s just bruising. Either way, I’ll keep up.”

  “Private Barkley, give Vaughan a hand with his repeater,” said Maxwell.

  “Yes, sir,” said Barkley. He reached out a hand in Vaughan’s direction and made a beckoning motion with his fingers.

  “If it becomes too much, shout up.”

  “I’ll manage, Sergeant.”

  Once Barkley was carrying the XR repeater, Maxwell set off again, leading the soldiers through the few trees separating them from the beach. When he arrived on the sand, he noticed two enormous holes in the glowing algae a few hundred metres offshore.

  “A couple of Ghosts hit the water,” Maxwell said.

  “Another hit the beach,” said Barkley, pointing north.

  Maxwell turned briefly to look. About four hundred metres away, one of the Marauder’s warheads had made a huge crater in the sand, as well as incinerating several of the nearby trees. The entire jungle in that direction seemed to be alight and smoke drifted south on the wind.

  Remembering the promised strike on B-22, Maxwell stared to the north-west, where he saw a faint light. He couldn’t tell from here if this was a result of successful Ghost impacts, but he hoped the HF hardware had been wrecked.

  “Let’s go,” said Maxwell, having seen enough.

  South, the way was dark, and he switched on his night vision. When he broke into a fast jog, the aches and pains came back worse than before. His body was running on adrenaline and if he stopped for too long, he suspected he’d want to sleep for a week. Right now, his mind was razor sharp and focused on leading his soldiers to a place of safety – if one existed on this side of Xaros.

  It was too late for Corporal Valerio. He’d been a good medic and a fine soldier, with a humanity that could be humbling. Now he was gone, and Maxwell felt his loss keenly.

  Pushing the thoughts aside, Maxwell pressed on to the south. Every few seconds he looked to his left, into the trees. He saw no movement. Ten minutes into the run, he heard a crashing sound, somewhere out of sight. Whatever had created the noise remained unseen.

  Maxwell gritted his teeth and increased his pace.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Captain Jed Grisham stared at the sensor feeds, his grip on the Marauder’s controls too tight and the muscles in his body tense. A thousand kilometres beneath the warship, Xaros was a beautiful mix of vibrant greens and ocean blues. The search for the missing CES shuttle hadn’t borne fruit, but the arrival of the Kijol had served up this unexpected opportunity to deliver a surprise blow to one of the enemy warships.

  Grisham only wished he was in command of a vessel that was a little more evenly matched.

  His eyes went to the tactical, where the twenty-four recently launched missiles were racing west – counter-clockwise - around the planet’s upper atmosphere, the position of the Ghosts being transmitted via the orbital relays Grisham had deployed around the planet. A glowing red dot indicated the position of the Kijol destroyer.

  “Fifteen seconds to impact,” said Commander Deneuve.

  Grisham stared at the tactical until the missiles converged on the red dot and then vanished.

  “Twenty-four successful detonations,” said Deneuve with clear relief. “The enemy were too slow on their disruptor.”

  “But we have no way of knowing how many of those detonations were against the destroyer’s armour,” said Grisham.

  “No, sir.”

  Grisham smiled thinly. “Let’s go and take a look.”

  He requested power from the Charos drive and pushed the control bars as far as they would go. The Marauder responded eagerly and the warship accelerated west across the planet’s surface, its propulsion howling in a way that made the hairs on Grisham’s neck stand up.

  “Fifty-five seconds to the detonation site,” said Lieutenant Bishop. “Not that we’re going to find the destroyer waiting for us there.”

  “I have Private Barkley on the comms,” said Lopez excitedly. “He reports several successful missile strikes on the enemy vessel! It accelerated north under what he believes was maximum thrust, heading for the upper atmosphere. Private Barkley also gained a second reading of its position – that gives us two points to plot its heading!”

  “Put the course line on the tactical,” said Grisham.

  “Done.”

  Barkley’s positional data was only as good as the moment at which he’d taken the reading, since the destroyer could change course at any time, but it gave Grisham something to consider. The Marauder was currently heading west around Xaros, and the destroyer was heading north.

  In creating the tactical overlay, Lopez had also made an estimation of the enemy vessel’s velocity based on known data about the acceleration of a Kijol destroyer. The red line on the tactical was already travelling at a greater velocity than the Marauder’s maximum, but that assumed the enemy warship had made a run for space where the lack of atmospheric friction would allow it to keep accelerating without fear of burning up.

  From what Grisham knew of the Kijol, they wouldn’t run. The aliens were clever - they’d likely already evaluated the extent of the attack against them and realised they were up against an inferior warship. Grisham hoped the Kijol would believe they were facing an old-generation Tibor class, rather than the new-gen Marauder.

  Instead of banking north in pursuit, Grisham tried to outthink his opponent. The Kijol flight officers were as loyal to their ground troops as they were to the other warships in their fleet, though not in a way that was always predictable or exploitable.

  Still, in the absence of anything else, it was worth pulling that string and seeing if the commanding officer on the destroyer would jump.

  “We’re heading for the compound,” said Grisham. A plan was forming in his head. He hauled back on the controls and the Marauder shed some of its velocity. He didn’t want to arrive too soon or travelling at too great a velocity. “Commander Deneuve, target the landing pad and hit it with a couple of Ghost missiles. Let’s see what that brings.”

  “Ghosts targeted,” said Deneuve a few seconds later. “Fired.”

  The Marauder’s velocity had already carried it nearly to the compound and the vast expanse of trees gave way to the huge lake. Grisham’s eyes were drawn to the ethereal blue glow, the same as they had been last night when he and his crew had first observed the phenomenon.

  Grisham had neither the time nor the inclination to comment on the spectacle again. His eyes scanned the underside feed and found the compound. From here it looked like nothing more than a grey patch among the sensor-enhanced colours.

  The two Ghost missiles streaked out of the Marauder’s forward cluster and accelerated away, their propulsions glowing orange as they skimmed across the planet’s upper atmosphere. Almost at once, the warheads dipped sharply towards the surface as they aimed for the compound landing pad.

  “Show me a feed of the target area,” said Grisham.

  “On the screen, sir,” said Bishop.

  The warship was at an oblique to the compound, so the sensor arc was reduced. Even so, Grisham saw the twin explosions on the landing pad. He wasn’t sure if the warheads had destroyed any Kijol hardware, but two enemy shuttles remained intact east of the landing pad and parked on the polymer ground slabs near to the westernmost accommodation prefabs.

  “Heading in,” said Grisham.

  He sent the Marauder into a dive, aiming the warship’s nose for the compound below. From this range, the aftereffects of the recent Kijol missile strikes were clearly visible, and, in the north-western area of the compound, plasma heat indicated where the Marauder’s own Ghost missiles had detonated on structure B-22.

  “Keep watch for that destroyer,” Grisham said. “Commander Deneuve, destroy one of those Kijol shuttles with our underside Gatlers.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “Targeting.”

  The altitude reading plummeted and the Marauder’s nose temperature crept up slowly. At two hundred kilometres above the jungle and with the compound a hundred kilometres west, Commander Deneuve fired the two forward Gatlers.

  Grisham was faintly aware of a distant drone produced by the repeaters and lines of white appeared as the bullets soaked heat from their enormous velocity through the planet’s atmosphere.

  The Gatlers were pinpoint accurate and the Kijol shuttle crumpled like it was being struck by thousands of hammer blows.

  “I can see ground troops, and plenty of them, Captain,” said Bishop as the Marauder flew directly over the compound.

  “Want me to give them something to think about?” asked Deneuve.

  Grisham didn’t enjoy wholesale slaughter, but this wasn’t a time for half-measures. “Do it,” he said.

  “Underside Gatlers targeted on the compound. Firing.”

  The repeaters fired for several seconds, leaving a visible trail of punctured roofs from one side of the compound to the other, and doubtless turning some of the Kijol soldiers into bloody smears on the ground.

  Grisham felt no remorse. He banked the Marauder in a tight arc at a one-hundred-kilometre altitude. “Give them another taste,” he said as the warship flew once more directly over the compound.

  “Gatlers targeted. Firing.”

  For a second time, the CES compound was subjected to a withering hail of high-velocity repeater fire and Grisham saw a visible distortion appear on the roof of the central prefab.

  Banking again, he aimed for the planet’s western horizon and put the warship into a steep dive. The destroyer would come soon, he could feel it in his bones. With any luck, it would be burning hot and easier for the Marauder’s sensors to detect.

  Gaining the first strike would be vital in deciding the outcome and Grisham had a good idea how he might tip the odds in his favour.

  “Sir, we’ll stand a better chance at a higher altitude,” said Deneuve. “If we take evasive action down here our hull will heat up.”

  “I know,” said Grisham. “And then we’ll leave a heat trail for the Kijol to follow.”

  “What’re you intending, Captain?”

  “We’re going to deploy scramblers and sit over the compound,” said Grisham.

  “If the Kijol see us sitting in the middle of pre-deployed countermeasures, they might not attack, or they might target the scramblers with their Dasor turrets from long range.”

  “Only if they know those scramblers are deployed.”

  “You’re going to—”

  Grisham smiled thinly. “Yes.”

  Levelling the warship out at barely a thousand metres above the lake, Grisham guided the warship at reduced velocity towards the compound.

  “Ready on the scramblers,” he said.

  “Scramblers ready.”

  As soon as he heard confirmation, Grisham rolled the Marauder 180-degrees about its longitudinal axis, so the warship was flying upside down. The life support system kept the interior stable, so the crew felt nothing of the manoeuvre.

  “Deploy scramblers,” said Grisham.

  “Scramblers deployed.”

  The Marauder was equipped with eight launch tubes and with the warship flying upside down, the scramblers were ejected towards the lake. With a series of immense splashes, they vanished beneath the surface.