“What now, sir?” asked Commander Deneuve.

  “We take the ship,” said Grisham.

  He stepped onto the platform at the command station and placed his hand onto the top of the post. Grisham’s connection to the warship reformed. Here on the bridge, access was unlimited. The warship had once been given a name, though it wasn’t a name a human would have recognized it. Rather, the vessel was known by its purpose, and that purpose encompassed death, expansion, seeking, hatred, and many other things which made Grisham reel when he was exposed to them.

  The security systems were already reset, and that made claiming the vessel as simple as imagining the request, though Grisham didn’t know if the intelligence running through the warship applied any kind of judgement or test that he was unaware of. Once the spaceship was under his command, Grisham locked the security so that the alien species which had constructed the vessel could never again retake it.

  When that was done, he instructed the spaceship to recognize the other members of his crew. He had no idea what it would take to pilot this vessel at full efficiency, but the presence of eight interface nodes was a strong indicator of how many personnel its builders thought would be required.

  For ten minutes, the Marauder’s former crew experimented and learned. The warship was incredible for many reasons and, as efficient as the interface might be, Grisham couldn’t be sure if he was asking all the right questions. That would come in time. The most pressing matter was escape from Ovintus, before half of the Kijol fleet turned up or more of these alien vessels arrived.

  “I can bring the engines online just by thinking it,” said Lieutenant Adler. “Should I send the command, sir?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The propulsion fired up smoothly into a background hum, without any of the booming or vibration of a Charos drive. Whatever engines were fitted to this spaceship, they were an entirely different technology to that used by either the Human Federation or the Kijol.

  “We’re getting out of here,” said Grisham. None of this had sunk in yet, but he couldn’t stop for even a moment to think about it. “Let Sergeant Maxwell know that he’s played his part. For now at least.”

  “I’ve made him aware, sir, and I told him not to touch anything,” said Lieutenant Lopez a short time later. “I just imagined a link to his suit comms and it happened. I thought the words and he heard them, and I heard his response. This is unbelievable.”

  With his hand on the interface, Grisham instructed the vessel to rise from the ground. The propulsion hummed a little louder and all 2800 metres of the alien warship tore itself clear from the millions of tons of rubble under which it had been buried. Through the interface, Grisham watched it happen. Huge chunks of reddish glass spilled from the spaceship’s topside and sand cascaded to the ground. Outside, the dark aliens sprinted towards the Achirus.

  “Commander Deneuve, kill them,” said Grisham.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Two missiles streaked from the warship’s underside tubes and they detonated amongst the enemy. The aliens were hardy, but none survived.

  “We’re flying south-east and then across the base,” said Grisham. “I don’t want to venture into the firing arc of an operational ground launcher. We know the Achirus destroyed the batteries that way.”

  Grisham held the spaceship at a five-hundred-metre altitude and guided it south-east. Piloting it was as easy as imagining where he wanted to go, though with some nuance he suspected would take time to learn. Compared to flying an HF warship, this was a revelation. Everything he needed was but a thought away.

  However, Grisham was already sensing the limitations. His brain couldn’t handle everything at once. It could deal with the sensors and the flying, but he was sure that if he was required to track multiple enemy targets while dealing with the comms, the quantity of information would be too much. Again, this was something he’d have to find out for himself.

  The alien spaceship flew across the Kijol installation. Not much of the original was recognizable and smoke rose in a dense cloud that not even the wind was able to clear. Grisham didn’t want to linger and he guided the warship east. Gradually, he increased its velocity, while maintaining the same low altitude. The vessel sped across the fused sand.

  Although Grisham was in a hurry to leave, he wasn’t about to repeat the mistake he’d made with the Marauder. He held course for three thousand kilometres and then brought the spaceship into a sharp climb. It accelerated strongly, even though Grisham didn’t bring its propulsion to maximum output.

  In a few seconds, the vessel escaped the Ovintus atmosphere and entered the cold vacuum of space. Now, Grisham gave it everything and the engines produced a guttural howl as they hurled the vessel through the void.

  “We don’t know how to get home,” said Commander Deneuve. “This spaceship doesn’t have the location of any HF planets in its star charts.”

  “We don’t want to take this spaceship to one of our home worlds yet. Not until we know more about it,” said Grisham. “Can we route a comms transmission through the hull antennae?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lopez.

  “And there’ll be no cross-talk between our comm and the warship?”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  Grisham said nothing for a time, and he watched Ovintus dwindle through his link to the spaceship’s sensors. The mission personnel had pulled off a miraculous escape from the planet. Each time they’d looked beaten, they’d pushed back and fought on.

  And here was the result – they’d captured a vessel that might well possess greater firepower than anything in the HF fleet. Not only was it bristling with weapons, but its hull was made from a biological material designed to absorb weapons strikes and then repair itself afterwards. And while the vessel didn’t have databanks as such, it had memories which might well benefit the Human Federation.

  Eventually, Grisham would return home and then the intensity of this mission - of fighting with every ounce of his strength – would be replaced by dirty politics and dangerous games played by people in the shadows. They’d want to take this warship away from him.

  However, now that he’d claimed the vessel, Grisham was determined to play a more assertive role in the game. He smiled grimly.

  “This spaceship doesn’t have a name,” said Commander Deneuve.

  Her words hauled Grisham from his reverie. “I know,” he said.

  “You can assign it one, sir.”

  As it happened, Grisham had given the matter some fleeting thought. “I’ve already considered Marauder as a possibility,” he admitted.

  “It doesn’t sound right,” said Deneuve. “That vessel is dead and gone. Just like we were for a time.”

  “I’m naming it the Voltran,” said Grisham.

  “Where did that come from?” asked Deneuve.

  “It’s part of the vessel’s original name,” said Grisham. “As far as I understand it, the word means both retribution and justice, rolled into one.”

  “I guess that fits.”

  Grisham didn’t spend any more time thinking about it and he assigned the name.

  “I found out a few things about the former crew, sir,” said Lieutenant Adler.

  “Me too, Lieutenant,” said Grisham. “The Ax’Kol.” Just saying it aloud brought a bad taste into his mouth.

  “We don’t want to meet them again,” said Adler.

  “I have a feeling it’s inevitable. Let’s not talk about it now,” said Grisham. “We pulled ourselves out of the fire and we captured this warship. That’s worth celebrating.”

  “Yes, sir, that it is.”

  The conversation died off and Grisham closed his eyes for a moment. Hard times would surely come again and soon, but he was alive to face them.

  And face them he would.

  * * *

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