Hassik Triyl gave them a menacing smile as he strolled down out of the tree line and joined the small group in the clearing by the mine entrance.
‘Nice planet this, isn’t it?’ he said, gazing out over the distant city. ‘Very pretty, very warm.’
‘How come you’re not dead?’ said Ed.
‘I don’t answer to you,’ Triyl snapped. ‘But if you must know – I had three surgically prepared doubles and it was one of those you saw murdered. He was a hero, played his part right to the end.’
‘How the hell did you get here?’ asked Andy. ‘That galactic gateway is the most heavily guarded region in space.’
Triyl touched the side of his nose.
‘Same way as you did,’ he said. ‘Hitched a ride. It’s a shame you don’t have your ship with you this time, I would have liked to have that, but no matter, it will come in time.’
A sudden deep booming roar from above had them all craning their necks upwards. A huge vessel appeared from behind the mountains, its massive antigravs thrumming bass line causing ground resonance around them. Everything shook and small avalanches of rocks rattled through the trees above them.
‘That’s a Mogul attack ship,’ Andy whispered in Ed’s ear. ‘Must be one of the few that escaped.’
‘Don’t activate your DOVI,’ Ed whispered in reply, as the soldiers removed their rifles and backpacks and searched them thoroughly. He noticed Haitham was curling his upper lip, watching Filenbaugh as he turned to make his way back to the shuttle.
Before the soldiers had a chance to search him, Haitham launched himself at Filenbaugh, pulling a hidden curved blade from his jacket. One of the soldiers fired at him, catching him a glancing blow on his left arm that spun him to the right. His momentum was still enough to send him barrelling into his target, and the vicious knife arced and found its mark in Filenbaugh’s throat.
‘Fucking traitor,’ shouted Haitham, as they both crashed to the ground.
A second soldier had by this time swung his rifle around, and killed Haitham with a well-targeted head shot. It was too late for Filenbaugh though. His mouth opened in a silent scream as his life blood pulsed through the deep, fatal neck wound.
‘Bloody outrageous,’ whispered Ed, standing very still, not daring to move.
‘Outrageous indeed, Mr Virr,’ said Triyl, overhearing and turning to gaze at Abubaker. ‘It seems you will now assume regional control of the BDF, Mr Abubaker, and you will report to me daily.’
‘I would rather die,’ he mumbled, with a sneer on his face.
‘Fine by me,’ said Triyl. ‘But it would also entail me visiting Ro’an and availing myself of the pleasures of your two rather attractive sisters. Be a shame to slaughter two such promising breeders.’
Abubaker’s eyes widened. He staggered back, tripped and ended up on his backside in the dust. He sobbed quietly, causing Ed to feel quite sorry for him.
Triyl then turned his attention to Ed and Andy. Their hands had been cuffed in front of them and he strolled around them like a predator preparing for the kill.
‘You may be wondering why you’re still alive, gentlemen,’ he said, stopping in front of them and scowling. ‘As you probably realise, you’ve caused my race considerable deprivation and it is my intention to repay the courtesy. I’m told Planet Earth in the Sol system is your place of birth. So, I intend to christen my newly acquired attack ship with our latest long-range jump drive and cloaking technology, by visiting Earth and testing what I think you know as Genok weapons. Just to see your faces as the planet’s atmosphere is turned to fire. Takes hours, I’m told, causes your internal organs to explode.’
‘Such a glowing ambassador for your race,’ said Ed.
‘Did your mother drop you on your head when you were a kid?’ said Andy.
Triyl continued his pacing around them with a dispassionate expression, then suddenly stopped and viciously punched Andy in his left kidney. Andy squawked in pain and collapsed.
‘Got any more amusing anecdotes, Mr Faux?’ he said, continuing his walk over towards the Quads cowering near the mine entrance. ‘Put these four on the shuttle too,’ he continued. ‘Engineer Quads fetch a handsome price at auction.’
The soldiers roughly shoved everyone aboard Filenbaugh’s shuttle and sat them side by side on the floor. Ed caught Pol’s eye and winked. She looked absolutely terrified and he followed it up with a nod and a smile, hoping this would calm her fears a little.
Andy was still swearing under his breath and rubbing his side and the three Callametan engineers just stared into space, seemingly desperate not to make eye contact with anyone.
Ed got a final glimpse of Abubaker as the cabin door powered closed. He was still sitting in the dirt staring at the two corpses and looked like a defeated man.
The shuttle lifted and made its way straight up, quickly becoming enveloped by the hulking magnitude of the attack ship. They landed in a busy hangar and as they were being ushered out onto the deck, Ed noticed at least a dozen other vessels of all descriptions lined up along the far wall, crawling with engineers.
‘Now they’ve got the cloaking tech, they’re not wasting any time fitting it to everything,’ mumbled Andy.
‘You feeling better?’ asked Ed, in a whisper.
‘Twat caught me by surprise. Don’t kill him until I’ve returned the favour.’
Ed noticed a lot of the hangar staff turned to stare at them as they were shoved along towards a large bulkhead door in the corner of the room. He heard the scream of the antigravs dramatically increase and, glancing left, saw clouds rushing by from top to bottom out of the main hangar door.
‘We’re on the way up,’ said Andy, looking in the same direction.
Once out of the hangar they were marched along a never-ending corridor. Ed remembered Linda saying the Mogul ships had no transport of any kind and you had to walk everywhere. He studied the layout as he went, remembering where bulkheads were, lifeboat stations and anything that might come in handy during an escape attempt.
After a ten-minute commute they turned right, straight into a security office with a row of individual cells lined along the back wall. There weren’t enough of them to get one each, so Ed and Andy got one and the four Quads got split into two and kicked quite unceremoniously into two others.
‘They treat the Quads like animals, don’t they?’ said Andy. ‘No wonder they tried so hard to get away from them.’
Ed nodded slowly.
‘I’m going to have a tentative poke around with my DOVI,’ he whispered, turning and staring at Andy intently. ‘Stay out for the time being, we don’t know with all this new shit they have whether they’ve covered that loophole since Linda did them so much damage with hers in Andromeda.’
‘Okay, boss,’ said Andy. ‘I’ll pop down the pub for a beer.’
‘Yeah, you do that,’ Ed replied, grinning as he lay back on the small bunk and closed his eyes.