A second missile went off and Grisham felt the vibration through the solid rungs of the ladder. He slid another few rungs and was nearly halfway down when Private Diaz entered the shaft above. She let go of the ladder and for a moment, Grisham thought she was in freefall, but then she clamped both hands onto a rung, bringing herself to an immediate halt.

  The manoeuvre was designed to let Maxwell follow without delay and, when Grisham leaned out, he saw the soldier climb into the shaft and pull the hatch lid closed after him.

  Continuing his descent, Grisham soon came to the end of the ladder. He entered a tunnel that was about two metres wide, with a low ceiling, and the same alloy cladding as in the shaft. Detecting the first odours of decay, Grisham wrinkled his nostrils.

  He headed along the tunnel, which ended about thirty metres away. A couple of soldiers were visible in the end room and they were shifting from foot to foot. Grisham knew why they were on edge and he kept going until he came to the room.

  This space was about eight metres by eight, and the ceiling wasn’t much above Grisham’s head. Exit passages – which he’d already heard about on the comms - led from each of the other three walls. Where those passages went, he didn’t know, but at least they offered a chance to go somewhere that wasn’t here.

  An ancient-looking console was in one corner and crude-looking panels covered in switches and gauges were attached to the cladding nearby. Cable trays were bolted to the walls, with the cables themselves occasionally branching off into holes in the ceiling. The tech in here looked like it could have been two hundred years old. At another time, Grisham might have asked himself why the Kijol had installed it here on Ovintus.

  The reason he didn’t think too much about it was the pile of corpses in the centre of the room. Grisham’s first estimate was that eighty or ninety of the aliens lay here, covered in dried blood - blood which also coated much of the floor and some of the walls.

  Private Diaz entered and Sergeant Maxwell was only a couple of paces behind.

  “The hatch had a couple of manual bolts to keep it locked from the surface,” said Maxwell. “And if the comms tower comes down messily, that might help keep the Kijol off our backs for a time.” He stared at the corpses, scowling. “Private Franklin, what do you make of this?”

  Franklin was crouched near one of the bodies, his med-box on the floor at his feet and attached by a thin wire to one of the corpses. “I’ve examined three so far, Sergeant,” he said. “Two of them died fifty-three days ago, and one died fifty-six days ago.” He gestured vaguely around. “The cause of death doesn’t need any explanation. These Kijol were butchered. Their combat suits and their guns weren’t enough to save them.”

  Although the Kijol were his enemy, Grisham was appalled at the sights. The aliens here had been slaughtered - cut up by what was doubtless the same type of creature which Maxwell and his soldiers had fought on Xaros.

  One of the Kijol had lost its suit helmet and Grisham stared at the alien. Its large, round eyes were open and looked blankly at nothing, while the alien’s once-pale flesh was tinged with green. Decay bloated its narrow face. The Kijol’s long arms – arms which had always reminded Grisham of a praying mantis - had swollen within its suit, giving the material a stretched appearance, while its legs had been so badly cut that one was almost severed.

  “This confirms the Kijol have their hands full with another species,” said Grisham. “And if this attack happened in the last couple of months, it makes me think their war isn’t over.”

  Corporal Fine gave one of the corpses an unsympathetic nudge with her boot. “If these two species want to kick the shit out of each other, I’m all for it. Hell, I’ll stand on the side lines, eating a hotdog and shouting at them to hit each other harder.” She raised her head and looked straight at Grisham. “But what does it mean for the Human Federation, sir? Is it a good thing for us?”

  Grisham wasn’t sure what answer to give. From his discussion with Admiral Danner, the Kijol fighting a second war wasn’t necessarily going to work out in the Human Federation’s favour, but Grisham couldn’t spend the rest of his mission pretending he couldn’t arrive at a logical conclusion, just because of a conversation he’d had elsewhere.

  “Long term, the Kijol being tied up elsewhere is good for the HF,” said Grisham. “Short term and medium term, maybe not so much.”

  Maxwell got it. “All those new Kijol spaceships we’ve been seeing,” he said. “That’s because the enemy are trying to crush us – to knock us out of the fight so they can focus elsewhere.”

  “Maybe,” said Grisham. “There’s plenty we don’t know, Sergeant. Whatever you decide to believe, the HF is in the shit right now. How that’ll change in the future, nobody knows.”

  Maxwell looked like he wanted to continue the conversation, but a faraway rumble caused him to turn towards the entrance tunnel. “We have to get out of here,” he said. “The Kijol don’t like it when their prey escapes. They might do anything.”

  “These passages go a long way, Sergeant,” said Fine, thumbing over her shoulder.

  Maxwell pursed his lips in thought. “Captain Grisham, what are the mission goals?”

  “Those goals haven’t changed, Sergeant. Staying alive and sending a comm to base are one and the same in my head. That means we have to locate another comms hub, and we have to stay ahead of the Kijol until their commanding officer is called to something more important than hunting down a few humans on a dead base.”

  “Then, we hope the HF military decides we’re worth a rescue mission,” said Private Lyles.

  “That’s the position we’re in, soldier,” said Grisham.

  Lyles shrugged. “So let’s get on with and find that comms hub.”

  “That’s what we were talking about, Private,” said Maxwell. “Captain Grisham, when you were on the deployment shuttle, did you see anything else that might have been a comms hub?”

  “I didn’t,” said Grisham. “Lieutenant Lopez?”

  “Only this place, sir,” said Lopez. “We didn’t have much time for looking.”

  Grisham walked to the north exit from the room and stared along the passage. It went on for a long way – so far that he could actually see a hint of the planet’s curve - before ending at an intersection.

  “What if this went all the way under the landing strip to the northern end of the base?” he wondered. “It might even lead directly to a linked comms tower.”

  “Sounds like wishful thinking, sir,” said Lieutenant Adler, standing alongside and also peering north. He laughed. “But sometimes wishful thinking is what you need. And just maybe, this passage could lead to a subsurface maintenance area for the facility. Who knows what kind of good things the Kijol might have stored in place like that?”

  “Like what?” asked Private Lowe.

  “Equipment, shuttles, weapons,” said Adler. “Maybe something we can use.”

  “The northern end of the base is more than twenty klicks from here,” said Maxwell. “And who’s to say the Kijol thought to link it to the south?”

  “Who’s to say indeed?” said Adler. He pointed at the other tunnels. “Presumably these go to other buildings in the south of the base, so why not link the north? There are machines that can cut through ten klicks of rock in a day. A north-to-south tunnel wouldn’t be such a big job.”

  “And the cruiser is over the southern end of the installation,” said Deneuve. “If we’re to escape Ovintus alive, we’ll need that Achirus out of our hair. If we made it to the northern end of the facility, we’d have a better chance of locating a comms hub if the warship remains south.”

  “Won’t the Kijol have the layout plans for this base?” asked Lieutenant Kinsey. “They’ll be able to guess where we might run.”

  “That’s a risk and I’m sure the databanks on the Achirus will contain a high-level overview of the base and the function of every building,” said Adler. “What it may not contain is all the tiny little details that might not be important to the crew on a warship. Like these tunnels.”

  Nobody looked convinced by Adler’s speculation, but at some point a decision would have to be made.

  “If you’re looking for recommendations, Sergeant Maxwell, mine is to go north,” said Grisham.

  “That’s mine too,” said Adler.

  Maxwell nodded. “North it is. And if the Kijol make it to this room, they’ll have a good view of our backs as we run along that passage. We have to move fast.”

  While Private Franklin gathered up his med-box, the rest of the soldiers prepared for a sprint north. Private Diaz lingered for a moment and continued to stare at the corpses.

  “If any of those aliens like we saw on Xaros are still here on Ovintus, this is like an ammunition dump for them,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Maxwell.

  He gave the order to move. Grisham was one of the last into the passage and he slowed as Maxwell pulled a couple of plasma grenades off his side clips. Arming the grenades, the soldier threw them underarm into the pile of Kijol dead.

  Grisham dashed away from the room and Maxwell followed. The flash of detonations lit up the walls of the passage and a blackened lump of something dead was hurled by at floor level.

  As he ran after the others, Grisham hoped fervently the aliens who’d killed those Kijol were no longer on Ovintus. The wreckage of this mission would be hard enough to salvage without additional problems.

  Maybe, Grisham thought, his luck would change for the better.

  He wasn’t counting on it.

  ELEVEN

  The passage was wide enough for two to pass, but not wide enough for two soldiers in full combat gear to run alongside. Consequently, the sprint to the intersection was conducted single file, with Grisham being directly behind Commander Deneuve. Everyone was fit and the thought of Kijol at their backs was a great motivator.

  Despite the heat of the planet’s day, it was cold in the passage, though the exercise and Grisham’s combat suit kept him warm enough. And, while glowing orbs in the ceiling gave off some light, it was nevertheless gloomy and oppressive here.

  Nobody slowed and it wasn’t long before the mission personnel came to the intersection, which the distance counter in Grisham’s suit helmet estimated was two thousand metres from the corpse room. He got himself out of sight around the left-hand corner and caught his breath.

  Corporal Fine – the first to arrive - had already determined that neither the east nor the west turning led anywhere that could be discerned from the intersection.

  “The passage west turns north again in about four hundred metres,” she reported. “The passage east is the same.”

  Maxwell pushed his way to the front and Grisham moved himself up a few places at the same time.

  “We’re heading west,” said Maxwell.

  The soldiers moved off at a slightly reduced pace. While the urgency remained, the threat of Kijol shooting them from afar had diminished. Maxwell declared that, with the way ahead unknown, it was best if they pace themselves in order to be prepared for any surprise encounters.

  When he arrived at the turning north, Maxwell halted at the corner and looked around it. “Another long passage,” he said. “It ends in a room about one klick from here. I think there are some side doorways between here and there.” He beckoned with his hand. “Let’s move.”

  Maxwell jogged along the passage, then came Private Vaughan and then Grisham. Corporal Fine had dropped closer to the back to keep an eye on the soldiers further down the line.

  “Definitely doorways,” said Maxwell on the squad comms. “They’re halfway along - two in each wall.”

  “Are we stopping to take a look inside, Sergeant?” asked Vaughan.

  “Yes,” said Maxwell.

  He slowed at the first doorway and Grisham caught up. The door itself had slid into its recess when the Kijol overrode the base security and a few waist-high crates had been left in the room, along with the haulbot which had brought them here. Another doorway in the opposite wall of the passage led to an identically sized room, also containing crates.

  “Those crates have green lights on them,” said Maxwell, pointing into the room. “The Kijol didn’t even have time to modify the override code to exclude their secure storage boxes. That probably tells us something about the situation here on Ovintus.”

  Maxwell looked torn and Grisham had no doubt the soldier was curious to find out what was inside the crates.

  “Let’s see what’s in these,” said Grisham, making the decision.

  The room was only a few metres square and the nearest crate was against the right-hand wall. Grisham lifted the lid. What he found inside surprised him.

  “A statue,” he said.

  The statue was alone in the crate and supported by an internal gravity field. It was carved from red stone and it was badly weathered. From what Grisham could tell, it represented a squat creature of some kind, with a snarling face, thin arms, and long legs curved up beneath it. The proportions looked completely unnatural, so it was clearly stylised and Grisham had no idea if it was even meant to be a real creature or not.

  “Ugly thing,” said Maxwell.

  “I wouldn’t want it in my living room,” Grisham admitted.

  “What’s it doing here?” asked Maxwell. He looked suddenly agitated. “I’m interested, but we can’t—”

  “One more,” said Grisham, not knowing why he felt so compelled to look. He lifted the lid of the adjacent crate and stared at what he found.

  “Well, shit,” said Maxwell, also staring.

  This crate contained another statue from the same kind of red stone, but this one represented a different creature – a creature with long arms and long legs, and its head pulled in between two raised shoulder blades. Its face was rounded but with no features.

  “Is that what you saw on Xaros?” asked Grisham. The suit recordings gathered by the soldiers during the mission hadn’t captured the alien, as if it simply didn’t exist, but he’d asked Maxwell to describe the creature.

  “It looks similar enough to make me wonder, sir,” said Maxwell. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “On the flight here, we saw signs of an alien civilisation, Sergeant,” said Grisham. “It was only a few pillars, but that’s proof enough. The Kijol must have located these artifacts and stored them here.” He was fascinated and wanted to search through the other crates, but he knew it wasn’t an option. “Let’s go.”

  Maxwell nodded and exited the room. The next two doorways were about a hundred metres further along and he stopped there also. He glanced into the left-hand room and gave a shrug of disinterest. When Maxwell looked right, his expression changed immediately. Grisham caught the scent of decay moments before he saw the bodies.

  “More Kijol,” he said.

  Grisham estimated this room contained two hundred or more dead Kijol and they’d been massacred with the same bloody efficiency as those he’d seen beneath the comms tower. This room held more of the crates, and the bodies had been tossed carelessly inside, many coming to rest on top of the containers.

  “Not much blood,” said Maxwell, his voice tight. “They were brought here from elsewhere.”

  “Another ammo dump,” said Diaz, pushing her head into the room. “Are you going to burn them, Sergeant?”

  “I have feeling we could use every explosive we’re carrying and not come close to having enough,” said Maxwell. “How many personnel might be stationed on a base like this, Captain Grisham?”

  “Choose any number you like, starting at a quarter of a million,” said Grisham.

  “What happened here was a big deal, wasn’t it?”

  “I reckon so, Sergeant.”

  On his way out, Grisham stopped at the door access panel. The light on it was green and the door would open and close freely, even though it shouldn’t have responded to him. The override code was still in effect and he had no idea if the commanding officer on the Achirus had the authority to reactivate the base security. Grisham hoped not – if every door was closed and locked, the mission would come to a rapid and unsuccessful conclusion.

  Soon, the mission personnel came to the end of the passage, and emerged into a room about fifteen metres square. Corridors led east and west, and when Grisham stared along those ways, his heart fell. The passages went on for more than two kilometres. It was possible that other corridors intersected, but the light wasn’t good enough for him to be sure.

  That left one other exit. An opening in the north wall led to switchback steel steps going down. Grisham descended a short distance – enough for him to see that the treads of the steps lacked risers. He peered through the space, but could only see as far as the flight of steps beneath this one.

  “I don’t know how far down these go,” Grisham said. “But I’d say this is the most likely way to the northern end of the base.”

  “Down it is,” said Maxwell.

  The steps switched back many times and, when he reached the bottom, Grisham estimated he’d descended four or five hundred metres. His legs hadn’t appreciated the effort and they’d need a few minutes to recover.

  A short passage led north and then opened into a vast space. The lighting here was no better than elsewhere and it took Grisham a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing.

  “An underground maintenance bay,” he said. “Just like you thought, Lieutenant Adler.”

  “Just like I guessed, sir,” said Adler.

  The Kijol had gone deep into the surface of Ovintus in making this bay. Grisham’s earlier guess of the depth wasn’t far wrong and a ping from his helmet sensor told him the bay ceiling was 520 metres overhead. The surface doors were enormous constructions of alloy and, from the deep, droning vibration which pervaded the air, they required the assistance of gravity fields to aid their defiance of normal physics.

  Grisham peered north, where the farthest wall was more than three thousand metres away. The eastern and western walls were both about a thousand metres from the stairwell entrance.