“The Kijol ran into another of those enemy warships like the one on Xaros?” asked Lopez.

  “Not necessarily,” said Grisham. He paused, wondering how much he could tell his crew. “I’ll let you know once we’re on the Marauder,” he said. “So I don’t have to repeat myself.”

  Fifteen minutes later, having allowed the shuttle’s onboard computers to guide it into the confines of the Marauder’s deployment vessel launch chute, and having hurried through the warship’s interior, Grisham and his crew entered the bridge.

  A short time after he’d taken his seat, Grisham was satisfied that everything was in order. While the damage suffered at Xaros hadn’t exactly been superficial, it hadn’t affected any of the critical onboard systems. Repairs should have been straightforward, hence the fast turnaround time of only a few weeks.

  “Lieutenant Adler,” said Grisham, addressing his lead engine officer, “Our destination is Ovintus in the Daxin system.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Adler. “That’s way out – five days at our highest multiplier. How close to the planet are we aiming?”

  “A million klicks,” said Grisham. “This is meant to be first and foremost a scouting mission.”

  “Right,” said Deneuve, drawing out the word. “A scouting mission.”

  “The coordinates are entered, sir,” said Adler. “Waiting on your order.”

  “Hold until I say,” Grisham confirmed. “Lieutenant Bishop, please confirm who – apart from us – is currently on the Marauder.”

  “It looks as if Sergeant Maxwell is coming with us again, sir,” said Lieutenant Dan Bishop after a moment. “He has replacements for Corporal Valerio and Private Fleming.”

  “I’m sure Sergeant Maxwell will make the introductions once we’re at lightspeed,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Adler, warm up the Charos drive.”

  “Yes, sir. Eight minutes and we’re out of here.”

  The familiar whine of the spaceship’s lightspeed drive began, deep within the vessel’s hull. As the minutes to departure counted down, Grisham filled in his crew on some of what he’d discussed with Admiral Danner, omitting the parts about the Unity cabal, the Kijol surrender demands and the proposed negotiations.

  By the time he’d finished, the Charos drive was less than a minute from firing. The crew didn’t speak, though Grisham could tell they had questions which would be forthcoming once the Marauder was at lightspeed.

  With a boom from its propulsion and a wrenching sensation that left Grisham feeling momentarily nauseous, the warship entered lightspeed. The instrumentation readouts all settled into the right places and the monitoring systems generated no alarms.

  The mission was underway with such suddenness that Grisham hadn’t been able to think much about the last hour or two. Now, he had five days ahead of him before the Marauder’s arrival at Ovintus. It seemed as if big changes loomed for the Human Federation, and big changes always brought conflict.

  With the war against the Kijol heading towards an unfavourable outcome, Grisham suddenly couldn’t decide if he really did want to be five day’s journey from home, or if he’d rather be close by, just in case events within the Human Federation took a rapid turn for the worse.

  One thing was sure, the coming voyage would be a real test of his patience.

  THREE

  “So, the Kijol are fighting on more than one front,” said 2nd Lieutenant Eric Kinsey. “I guess that makes sense, given how little they seem to understand the concept of diplomacy.”

  “Hopefully they’ve bitten off more than they can chew,” said Bishop.

  “But what comes to fill the vacuum if the Kijol empire falls?” asked Adler.

  “You’re assuming our intel is correct,” said Grisham. “We have a good idea the Kijol are in conflict with that alien species we found on Xaros, but it’s still possible the warship engagement Sergeant Maxwell witnessed was a result of nothing more than an aggressive crew on that Eternus. We know what the Kijol are like – it would be no surprise for them to attack an unknown vessel hiding beneath a lake.”

  “What about the incendiaries?” asked Deneuve. “They had no need to burn half a continent.”

  Grisham didn’t answer, since he wasn’t enjoying the speculation. Maybe it was because he had too much else to think about. He felt Deneuve staring at him and he turned her way.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” she asked candidly.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong, Commander?”

  “You seem preoccupied.”

  Grisham shouldn’t have been surprised to find that Deneuve had seen right through him. A lie wouldn’t work. “I am,” he said.

  “Are you going to let us in on why?”

  “No. It won’t affect the mission.”

  Deneuve held his gaze for a second longer and then she changed the subject. “Are you going to unlock the mission documentation?”

  “Give me a moment,” said Grisham. Having had his expectations set low for the contents of that documentation, he hadn’t read it himself. He did so now. It contained nothing new and he removed the security locks from the file. “It’s all yours.”

  “At least there’s no padding,” said Deneuve, once she’d finished reading the contents of the file. “I hate it when I have to read through ten pages of introduction and background before I reach the good stuff. Anyway, what’s at Ovintus?”

  “I was about to ask Lieutenant Lopez to call up the details for us,” said Grisham.

  “Planet Ovintus,” said Lopez. “It’s approximately Earth-sized and is fifth planet out of twelve in the Daxin system. The planet is hot and dry – mostly desert – with an atmosphere that is almost capable of supporting life, though life probably wouldn’t flourish given the heat and the lack of water.”

  “At least there are no trees. Sergeant Maxwell will be happy to know that,” said Adler.

  “Are there any clues as to what might have brought the Kijol to Ovintus, Lieutenant Lopez?” asked Grisham. It was the kind of information he’d have expected to find in the mission documentation if it were known, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “We scouted the planet years ago,” said Lopez. “Its crust is confirmed to hold useful minerals and it’s currently number 362 on the HF list of priority resource worlds. That means we might have wanted to establish a mining operation a few centuries from now.”

  “Except that the Landol sector is a dangerous place to be,” said Deneuve.

  “And the Daxin system is right on the far edge of contested territory,” said Lopez.

  “So is there any reason the Kijol might have set up an installation on Ovintus?” asked Grisham.

  “Aside from the planet’s exploitable resources, there’s nothing obvious,” said Lopez. “It’s possible the planet is midway between two important strategic locations for the Kijol, but we don’t have enough intel on the enemy’s holdings to know the truth of that.”

  “I thought Admiral Danner is sending us to Ovintus because an Eternus was hit by weapons from an unknown source,” said Kinsey. “Why the talk about Kijol installations?”

  “We’re just thinking aloud, Lieutenant,” said Deneuve. “Talking to see if it shakes out any ideas or viable theories.”

  At that moment, Grisham had a thought and it wasn’t one he much liked. “If the Kijol do have an installation at Ovintus, the damage to the Eternus would suggest that something attacked the Kijol, rather than the other way around.”

  “I guess we’re going to have to wait and see,” said Adler. “Five days.”

  “Does anyone have questions?” asked Grisham. “If not, I’ll go and find out what Sergeant Maxwell thinks about being given a second mission on the Marauder.”

  “If I think of a question, I’ve got plenty of time to ask, sir,” said Bishop.

  Grisham rose from his seat. His suit helmet was nearby, and he picked it up out of habit. Exiting the bridge, he headed directly for the Marauder’s single mess area, wondering if the soldiers would be pleased to see him. It wasn’t important that they like him, but missions generally went easier if the ground troops and the warship crews saw eye-to-eye.

  The mess hall was a small room, designed to seat ten or twelve and no more. When he saw Private Kandy Lyles at the replicator, Grisham was struck by a feeling of déjà vu. The soldier was standing in the exact same place as when he’d first entered the mess room at the start of the journey to Xaros. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Sergeant Maxwell in the same place on the same bench seat.

  Lyles moved aside, to give Grisham room. The coldness he’d felt that previous time was gone. In fact, she gave him a thin smile and, for a reason he couldn’t explain, Grisham was left with the feeling she was embarrassed about something. He didn’t ask questions, and, having vended a bad coffee and a bowl of pasta from the replicator, Grisham took a seat opposite Maxwell. The soldier’s gaze was impassive.

  “Captain Grisham,” he said.

  “Sergeant Maxwell. You’ve read the mission files?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you know about Ovintus?”

  “Just what I read in the Marauder’s databanks, sir.”

  Grisham ate, wondering if his silence would draw anything more from the soldiers. They usually had something to say. Often it was rehashed speculation, but occasionally they’d have heard a rumour that was new to him.

  The soldiers had indeed learned plenty of new rumours during their time on Loxor – where the Marauder had been taken for repairs – but none of them touched on what Admiral Danner had revealed. Grisham was impressed that nothing had slipped out. Secrets didn’t usually last long.

  A secret of a different sort was about to be revealed. When the rumour talk died away, Maxwell reached under the table and withdrew a standard issue backpack. Then, he stood and beckoned Private Lyles over. She looked guiltier than ever.

  “Tell the Captain,” said Maxwell.

  Grisham was intensely curious. He said nothing and waited to see what Lyles had to say. She opened the pack, reached inside and withdrew an object which she placed on the table.

  “That,” she said.

  “What is it?” asked Grisham. The object was a nondescript cube of metal about an inch along each side, with a few wires sticking out.

  “You remember the alien security breaker we found on Xaros, sir?” said Lyles.

  “The one that got accidentally damaged during the course of the mission,” said Corporal Arie Fine.

  “I remember,” said Grisham.

  “This thing—” Lyles pointed at the object, “fell out of the security breaker during the incident which resulted in the damage.”

  “You mean when someone put a couple of gauss slugs into it?” said Grisham mildly. He’d heard about the preliminary findings from the research lab.

  “I don’t recall anything about—”

  “Just get on with it, Private Lyles,” said Grisham.

  “Anyway, this is part of the security breaker, sir. I found it at the bottom of my pack when we boarded the Marauder for the journey to Bastion station after the warship was repaired. I must have overlooked it when I was handing over the rest of the hardware.”

  Grisham picked up the cube. It didn’t look like much, but he had no doubt it contained sophisticated tech.

  “Keep hold of it, Private,” he said. “I’ll deal with the matter when we return to base.”

  “Captain, will this reflect badly on Private Lyles?” asked Maxwell, with the fixed stare of a soldier asking a superior officer for a favour.

  “I’ll think of a story that won’t implicate anyone,” said Grisham.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  With that over, Grisham took his leave, but only after he’d been introduced to the two unfamiliar members of Maxwell’s squad. Private Dewey Law and Private Jack Franklin were the new faces, the latter being Corporal Valerio’s replacement as squad medic. Law and Franklin clearly already knew the rest of the squad, though Grisham didn’t ask about the history.

  Meanwhile, Private Ralf Barkley – the squad comms man – had been promoted to Corporal. From what Grisham had heard, it was long overdue.

  When Grisham returned to the bridge, it was almost time for Commander Deneuve to go off duty for a few hours. After she was gone, Grisham spent some time in thought. His crew had little to say and that suited him well enough, since his mood was uncertain and he didn’t want to make small talk.

  On the one hand, he believed that committing to Admiral Danner was the right thing to do, while on the other he was sure that the coming games would be far reaching and the motives of all the big players were likely to change depending on how events panned out. Grisham was under no illusions that he was on shifting sands. If a sacrificial lamb were ever needed, he – as an officer senior enough to take the fall, yet not senior enough to bring everyone else down with him - would be one of the first to the chopping block.

  However, Grisham had made his choice and he knew that if he were offered it again, he would give the same answer. For so long, he’d lacked agency in his own fate and now he might just have a say in it. Grisham wasn’t afraid to admit it would feel good to make Senator Maynard’s life difficult.

  The five days went by with customary lack of urgency. Grisham slept in his tiny room and spent hours on the bridge, staring at the instrumentation and talking inconsequentials with the crew. They’d heard rumours too, but again, nothing that hinted at an awareness of coming upheaval within the Human Federation.

  When Lieutenant Adler called out his fifteen-minute warning before the Marauder exited lightspeed, Grisham was well-rested and alert, as were the others of the crew. The bridge air was cold like it always was and the purity of it cleared his mind.

  “Any last-minute guesses about what we’re going to find?” asked Commander Deneuve.

  “Nothing beyond what we’ve already discussed,” said Grisham.

  He wasn’t feeling anything much about Ovintus. Usually, he could sense if a mission was going to be dangerous or if it was going to be straightforward. This time, he felt empty, as if his instincts had been squeezed out by his preoccupation.

  “Two minutes!” yelled Adler over the drone of the propulsion.

  “Be ready,” said Grisham.

  He watched the final seconds tick away and, two seconds earlier than the navigational computer’s estimate, the Marauder shuddered as it exited lightspeed.

  Baring his teeth against the pounding in his head from the transition, Grisham forced his eyes to focus on the instrumentation. Everything was green.

  “Waiting on sensors,” said Lopez. “They’re coming online.”

  The feeds came up and they were of reassuring darkness. Lopez and Bishop ran the local area scans, which came back clear.

  “There are no hostiles in our vicinity,” said Bishop.

  “Find the planet,” said Grisham, his headache having already faded to little more than a memory.

  “Got it,” said Lopez shortly after. “Right where we expected on its orbital track and at nought-point-nine million klicks from our position.”

  Lopez put Ovintus on the feed and Grisham stared at it for several seconds. The Marauder was too far distant for its sensors to obtain visual clarity of the planet, but he could make out the dusty reds and the desert yellows well enough. Ovintus had a single moon, which was high above the planet’s northern hemisphere, half pale and half dark where the light of the Daxin star cut it vertically in two.

  “What’s happening on the planet?” Grisham asked.

  “Mountains and sandstorms,” said Lopez.

  “We’re looking for signs the Kijol set up a base here,” said Grisham. “Or if not Kijol, then another species.”

  The scans took several minutes to complete.

  “We’ve finished a top-level sensor sweep of the planet’s visible surface,” said Lopez. “If there’s an installation of significant size, we’d have located it by now.”

  “Should I head in closer?” asked Grisham. “Or should we prepare a lightspeed jump to the far side of Ovintus?”

  “I can tell you with certainty that there’s no facility on this side of Ovintus that could resupply an Eternus battleship, sir,” said Lopez. “That’s not to say there isn’t a smaller outpost.”

  “Let’s try another scan at half a million klicks,” said Grisham. “It’s not like we need to take risks.”

  At the Marauder’s 250 kilometres-per-second maximum velocity, it would take thirty minutes to cover the distance. Despite his words, Grisham was nevertheless impatient to confirm whether the Kijol Eternus had visited Ovintus and if so, what its purpose had been.

  Thirty minutes later, he brought the Marauder to a standstill. Local area scans confirmed the lack of hostiles and a subsequent re-scan of the Ovintus surface brought no new revelations.

  “There’s nothing visible, sir,” said Lopez.

  That left Grisham with no choice. “Lieutenant Adler, aim for a million klicks blindside and send us into lightspeed.”

  “Yes, sir. Eight minutes and we go.”

  The Marauder’s Charos drive warmed up and then fired with a booming of in-out transitions. Grisham’s headache returned, twice as bad as before and he grimaced at the pain.

  “Sensors!” he said.

  “Coming online, sir.”

  The feed screens lit up again. Lopez and Bishop completed the local scans and then obtained a sensor lock on Ovintus. Immediately the feed came into focus, Grisham could see that something had happened to the planet.

  He squinted at the screen, wondering what it was looking at. An area of the surface was blurred into a reddish colour different to the surrounding colours, and it seemed to gleam slightly, as if it were reflective.

  “What’s that?” asked Grisham.

  “One moment, sir,” said Lopez. “I’m analysing the feed data.”

  Lopez was done in moments. “An area of the south-west surface has been turned into a type of glass, sir,” she said.

  “An incendiary attack,” said Grisham.

  “Yes, sir. That’s the most likely conclusion.”