Morton’s mind was reeling. Had she come this far to have Faulkner snatched away from her at the last moment? It didn’t seem fair. She could feel her face burning with the injustice of it all.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m afraid so. They sent in the sanitation team this morning. I heard they were told to get rid of everything. They didn’t want anything left.”

  This was Mahbarat’s doing, then. She was certain of it. Whether his interest in re-animating Faulkner had been genuine or not, it was over now. The ruse had served its purpose in flushing out Sunderam and his people and now he wanted it all just to go away.

  He needed deniability.

  But what did that mean for her?

  Having been as closely involved as she had been, she imagined that it wouldn’t be long before a decision had to be made about her also.

  She pressed her forehead against the shutter in the vain hope of seeing something significant but all she could see was the bare wall opposite.

  It was only then that she realised that she had no choice in the matter. She had to get down to the medical facility, if only to see what had been left behind. She spent a furious few minutes examining the door, looking for weaknesses but finding none.

  Then she had an idea.

  She went and stood in the centre of her cell and stuck two fingers down the back of her throat. After a few attempts she managed to make herself sick, her vomit splattering all over the floor.

  Next, she took a shoe off and hobbled over to the door. She struck the grille as hard as she could, adding in a few shouts for good measure.

  Only when she heard the guards approaching did she put her shoe back on and go back to her bunk, lying with her back to the door. When the guard arrived, he shouted at her through the shutter but she refused to acknowledge him. She didn’t move even when he entered her cell.

  He barked at her a couple of times to get up, clearly determined not to get too close but, when she refused to stir, he came forward in a low crouch. As he leaned over her, Morton reached up and grabbed him by the collar. The guard tried to pull away but he was off balance and, with Morton hanging on, he was in danger of pitching over. Morton reached up to grab hold of his hair only to discover that the man was bald. Instead, she reached up and grabbed the back of his jacket.

  She was starting to panic now, her plan had been to try and take his weapon from him but if he was carrying a weapon, he was keeping it well hidden.

  As he attempted to retreat, this only made things worse as he ended up pulling Morton bodily from her bed. The more he struggled to free himself, the further his jacket was pulled up over his shoulders until eventually, it shrouded his head completely.

  Backing into the middle of the room, he quickly strayed into the pool of vomit. The man’s legs went from under him then and he crashed heavily to the ground.

  He lay there, his eyes half open, clearly dazed, while Morton went through his pockets. Still no weapon but she did come away with some sort of electronic key. The door to her cell stood open and, when she pulled it closed, it shut with a solid click.

  The cell to her immediate right was empty. Bayas was sitting in the next one down.

  She took out the electronic key only to realise that she had no idea how to work it.

  Bayas pressed his nose through the shutter.

  “Swipe it,” he said. “Over here.”

  Morton swiped it through the air a few times but nothing happened. It was only when she approached the door’s central section and did it again that she heard a familiar ‘click.’

  She pushed the door open. Bayas was standing in the middle of the cell watching her, young and slim with jet black hair and hazel eyes. He viewed her with a mixture of alarm and curiosity, not that she felt she could entirely trust him either. Despite, his broad smile, he still had the requisite implant – although his was mostly hidden under his hairline.

  She motioned for him to step outside and he did so, if a little reticently. This was a new situation for both of them.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  “We have to go down here,” he pointed to their left. “It’s the only way out. There’s supposedly a guard at the end of this corridor so we’ll have to go quietly.”

  But there was no guard. They were obviously in some kind of administration sector and could hear voices coming from the offices on either side. Bayas cocked his head as though listening. Then, when he waved her on, they skipped down the corridor.

  The door at the end was locked but Bayas was unfazed. He took the electronic key from her and made some kind of obscure gesture which had the door open within seconds.

  Once they were sure they weren’t being followed, she pushed him ahead, telling him to take her to the medical centre.

  It took them less than twenty minutes to get there although they were stopped twice on the way. The surprising thing was that it was Bayas who was the main focus of their scrutiny, they pretty much left her alone. Both times they were stopped, they wanted to check out his uniform. At one point, they even made him open his jacket so that they could check what he had on underneath.

  Bayas took it all in his stride, allowing himself to be pulled around in all different directions.

  “What was all that about?” Morton asked.

  “Security,” he shrugged. “They like to check things.”

  “They didn’t seem very pleased to see you.”

  “No, but there’s a lot going on right now. Everyone’s watching their backs.”

  Morton’s heart dropped when they arrived at the medical centre – the facility was shrouded in darkness. Luckily, her security clearance hadn’t been altered and they managed to get inside easily enough but Morton couldn’t relax. There was enough light coming in from outside for them to see that the place had been completely gutted. Everything had been cleared away and all of the make-shift suspension pods they’d managed to put together had been trashed.

  She might have mistaken it for a different space entirely if it hadn’t been for all the labels littering the floor. One of them was in her own handwriting, though she had no recollection of writing it.

  She searched around in the hope of finding something more substantial but there was nothing.

  “What have they done with them all? Faulkner and the others. They’re not here.”

  Bayas slowly turned around, taking the whole space in. “They have to be around here somewhere. We just have to think where.”

  “Might they have taken them somewhere? Some kind of storage facility?”

  Bayas considered this. “There’s the mortuary but that’s about it.”

  He set off immediately, indicating for her to follow. He led her out into a side room and along a white tiled corridor, the lights blinking on as they entered. At the end of the corridor there were four rooms, two on either side. He took the one on the left while she explored the one on the right. Inside, there were shelves stacked with medical supplies but little else.

  The next room was locked and she needed Bayas’ help to get it open. The reason for it being locked quickly became obvious: this was the morgue proper. There were twelve refrigerated storage units on the wall facing them but only four of them were occupied. Two contained the bodies of Yakutian naval personnel, the other two were occupied by Lieutenant Yamada and Lieutenant Commander Bertran.

  She let out a small sob upon seeing them again and pressed her hands against their containers.

  “Where’s Faulkner?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, I can’t see him anywhere.”

  The next room contained the mortuary table, suspended above which was an operating robot, set up for an autopsy.

  There were a number of large storage cupboards over on the side and they moved to explore these.

  “How come you speak such good English?” she asked as they searched.

  “I try to keep quiet about it. Very few of the medical staff speak any English at all so it’s hardly encouraged.”

  “They don’t hold the Confederation in very high regard I take it?”

  “Not particularly. They resented the whole resuscitation process. Thought it was a massive waste of time and resources. Your Captain Faulkner was not well liked. They used to talk all the time about dumping him out of the airlock,” he regretted it as soon as he’d said it, and was quick to correct himself. “Of course, that was just a joke. Gallows humour, I believe you call it.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question. Where did you learn to speak English?”

  “Alright then,” he began. “My father served aboard the Halvitar during the war. He was one of the few lucky enough to get out once she’d been hit. He was picked up by one of your ships, having suffered some pretty horrendous leg injuries. Still, to this day, he’s never really talked about that, though, of course, I’ve seen the evidence. Anyway, he was taken to a Confederation hospital and he was there for three months. And that’s where he met my mother.”

  Morton was impressed. “And she went back home with him after the war?”

  “My family … my father’s family is from Tibilt – one of the home planets – and that’s where they set up home.”

  “That must have been tough: for your mother.”

  “Tough lady, my mother,” Bayas stopped what he was doing. “Wait up, I think I may have found something.”

  She rushed over to join him. At the rear of the room was the entrance to a small sluice room. There was something wrong with the lighting. Only a few of them came on when they entered. Inside, someone had crammed in three of the big, high-sided trucks designed for carrying medical waste. Morton searched inside the first one, it was half filled with packing materials and long loops of plastic.

  Bayas pulled the first truck out of the way so that they could get access to the other two. Both of these were empty but, hidden behind a series of flaps, they found a fourth truck.

  Morton felt a flutter of excitement upon seeing it. She walked over as slowly as she could, trying to keep a check on her emotions. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if there was nothing there.

  The truck was piled high with discarded medical gowns. She pulled one out to get a better look at it. She recognised the name of one of the surgeons she’d worked with earlier. She pulled out another but in doing so, she revealed something which made her catch her breath.

  Sticking out, amongst all the gowns, was a hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Any luck with the radio?” LaCruz asked.

  “Nothing so far,” Walker said.

  “Okay, but we need to keep trying.”

  She switched to the drone feed. Barnes had launched the drone as soon as it turned dark and the thermal imaging software was already paying big dividends.

  She could make out seven blobs of heat, moving towards them from the north in single file. When she switched over to the electo-magnetic scan it got even more interesting. Two of the blobs were giving off a peculiar energy reading, the like of which she hadn’t come across before. She couldn’t tell whether that suggested a defensive or an offensive set-up but, either way, it was hardly likely to be a good thing.

  “What do you think?” Barnes asked. “Think they’ve seen us?”

  “Too soon to say but would you approach an enemy in single file like that?”

  “Suppose not. So, how do you want to play this?

  “If it wasn’t for the time factor, I’d be keen to set up an ambush.”

  “Yeah, particularly if they stick to that trail like that.”

  Barnes was right, of course. If they set the trap properly, the enemy would likely walk straight into it.

  “Okay,” she said, stepping boldly forwards. “Let’s do this.”

  LaCruz brought up a map of the whole area, choosing a point northwest of the main camp for the ambush. That way, she figured, there’d be enough wreckage strewn around to distract the enemy from what it was that they were trying to do.

  Once she was clear of the trees, she pinged her battle plan over to Walker and Barnes, complete with marker icons. It couldn’t have been simpler: it was your basic triangle with her occupying the ground to the east, with Barnes to the south and Walker to the west.

  The plan was to wait until the enemy strayed into the kill zone before springing the trap. But for that to be successful, they had to be able to assume their various positions without being spotted. This was where the armoured suits provided them with a substantial advantage, as they were designed to keep heat and electronic emissions to a minimum while coming equipped with chameleon camouflage software as standard.

  Ten minutes later, LaCruz was in position on the bank of the frozen river. On the map, her position looked ideal but in reality she was too far down the bank for her liking and would be firing uphill when the time came. If she’d thought about it, she should have placed Walker there as he was the one with the mortars so poor line of sight wouldn’t have affected him unduly.

  As it was, Walker had to go south of her position before making a wide loop round to the uppermost point of the triangle and he was fast running out of time. Barnes, on the other hand, had managed to scurry across the trail without being seen and was in the process of establishing himself behind one of the few glacial boulders that were scattered about the place.

  LaCruz tried to ignore the hammering in her chest but it was difficult inside a suit where everything was amplified. Having no line of sight to the enemy troops she found herself in the unenviable position of having to rely entirely on the drone feed for updates and while she could make out the oncoming heat blobs clear as day, her personal camouflage meant that she was virtually invisible as far as the drone itself was concerned. It was a small point but an annoying one. She had to keep skipping between the various read-outs in order to try and work out where she was in relation to the enemy.

  Currently, she was concerned about Walker’s whereabouts. According to her intel he didn’t appear to have moved in the last few minutes. Initially, she hadn’t been too concerned – the systems had all sorts of glitches built into them - but she would have thought they’d have resolved themselves by now. The only other explanation was that he’d come across some natural hazard such as a fallen tree or landslide which he was having difficulty negotiating his way around.

  The easiest thing would be to simply speak with him over the tactical net but, didn’t want to risk radio contact until after they’d engaged the enemy. Anything which was likely to give them an early warning was probably best avoided.

  Instead, she kept her eye on the enemy’s movements. They had been heading for a clearing about two hundred metres directly ahead of her but something had changed. Instead of the single file approach they’d adopted earlier they seemed to be moving in two distinct groups. They were preparing to approach the camp obliquely, from two sides rather than walking straight into an area which might very possibly be booby trapped.

  Her respect for the Da’al went up a notch or two after that. So, these weren’t the mindless drones she’d been expecting. Seems like they did have some strategic awareness after all. Exactly how much was still to be decided but it left her now with a major problem. The ambush they had planned was quickly falling apart.

  There was still a chance that they could make it work but in order for that to happen they’d have to go now. Problem was, Walker was still some distance short of his position.

  Did they proceed, or did she give the order to stand down?

  “Walker, what’s your current status, over?”

  His voice came back almost immediately.

  “Currently unable to proceed to my agreed position, over.”

  “What’s wrong? You hurt?”

  “Nothing serious,” he said but the strain in his voice was clear. “My unit is struggling to regain telemetry.”

  “He’s fallen over, hasn’t he?” Barnes growled.

  “Is that right?” she asked.

  Walker was growling to himself.

  “Guess so. I’ve been trying to get myself stabilised for the last few minutes but I keep sliding back. Seem to be in some sort of gully.”

  “Give me strength!” Barnes said.

  LaCruz’ mind was whirling. Everything was falling apart. She needed to take charge of this situation, and fast.

  “What about your mortars. Can you launch those currently?”

  “Er, no. That’s a negative. I just need a minute to get sorted.”

  “We don’t have a minute.”

  Alerts flashed up on LaCruz’ screen indicating that Barnes had just activated a number of systems.

  “Barnes! What are you doing? Do not engage the enemy at this time. Repeat. Do not engage the enemy.”

  “I’m improvising, is all. And that’s what you should do. Come on, corporal, let’s saddle up.”

  LaCruz didn’t have enough tech savvy to clear the data currently saturating her HUD but she didn’t need to. She didn’t need a clear screen to see the missile powering skywards from Barnes’ position.

  A tankbuster missile, designed to rise to a height of two thousand meters before its targeting systems came fully on-line.

  She didn’t see it fall back to earth but the sound of the explosion was loud enough to be heard twenty klicks away.

  “What an asshole!”

  The resulting concussion wave rocked her suit back on its heels but she’d been expecting it and so had braced herself. As soon as she was able, she started up the shallow incline. Her thermal imaging capability had been swamped by the ferocity of the explosion and it looked as though Barnes had managed to take down their drone along with everything else. She was going to have to rely on normal vision backed up by her motion trackers.

  It wasn’t much but it was all she currently had to work with.

  The first two Da’al soldiers appeared over the brow of the hill. One of them appeared to be on fire. That didn’t stop her from opening up, though, the reverberation from her two light machine guns vibrating throughout her suit.