Anderson was at the head of the team; they all stopped short when he crouched down and held up a

raised fist. He held up two fingers, signaling for O’Reilly. Hunched over, the corporal moved to the head of the line and fell in beside his leader, resting on one knee.

“Any reason those doors should be closed?” the lieutenant asked him in a sharp whisper.

“Seems a little weird,” he admitted. “If someone wanted to wipe out the base, why bother sealing the doors when you leave?”

“Check it out,” Anderson told his tech expert. “Take it slow and careful.”

O’Reilly hit a button on his assault rifle, causing the handle, stock, and barrel to fold in on themselves until the gun was a compact rectangle half its normal length. He slapped the collapsed weapon into the locking holster on his hip. From a pocket on his other leg he pulled out an omnitool and crept forward, using it to scan the area for faint signals that would indicate the presence of any unusual electronics.

“Nice catch, LT,” he muttered after checking the results. “Proximity mine wired to the door.”

The corporal made a few adjustments to the omnitool, emitting a short energy pulse to jam the sensors on the mine so he could creep forward close enough to disarm it. The entire process took less than a minute. Anderson held his breath the whole time, only releasing it when O’Reilly turned and gave him the thumbs-up to indicate that the trap had been rendered harmless.

A nod from Anderson sent the rest of the team rushing forward to breach the door, taking up their preassigned positions. Anderson and Shay moved to either side of the entrance, backs pressed against the exterior wall of the building. Chief Dah crouched low in line with the door, a few meters away. Behind her and slightly off to the side Lee had his assault rifle raised and pointed at the entrance, providing Dah’s cover.

O’Reilly, crouched down beside Anderson, reached up and punched in the access code on the panel. As the doors slid open, Dah tossed a flash-bang grenade from her belt into the foyer beyond, then dove to

the side and rolled for cover. Lee did the same as the grenade detonated with a blinding flash of light and a fog of thin, wispy smoke.

An instant after the blast Anderson and Shay spun in through the door, rifles raised and ready to gun down any enemies inside. It was a classic flash-and-clear maneuver, executed with flawless precision. But the room beyond the door was empty, save for a few splatters of blood on the floor and walls.

“All clear,” Anderson said, and the rest of the team came in to join him. The entry was a plain room with a single hallway leading off the back wall deeper into the base. There was a small table flipped in the corner and several overturned chairs. A monitor on the wall showed an image of the landing port outside.

“Guard post,” Dah said, the evidence confirming for her what Anderson had suspected earlier. “Probably

four of them stationed here to keep an eye on the space port. Must’ve opened the blast doors when the ships landed and went out to help them unload their cargo.”

“I’ve got blood smears heading down this hallway, Lieutenant,” Private Indigo called out. “Looks like the bodies were dragged out of this room and back into the facility.”

Anderson still couldn’t figure out why anyone would drag the bodies away like this, but at least it gave them a clear trail. The ground team slowly made their way deeper into the base, following the smears of blood. The trail took them through to the cafeteria, where they saw more overturned tables and chairs, as well as holes in the walls and ceiling — clear indication that the room had recently been witness to a brief but intense firefight.

Further in they passed two separate dormitory wings. The door to each individual room had been kicked open and the interiors, like the cafeteria, were riddled with bullet holes. A picture formed in Anderson’s mind: the attackers, once inside, systematically going from room to room, massacring everyone in a hail of gunfire… and then dragging the bodies away with them.

By the time they reached the back of the building they had yet to see any sign that enemy troops were still here. They did, however, make a separate discovery that none of them had been expecting. At the very rear of the facility was a single large elevator going straight down into the earth below.

“No wonder this base looks so small,” O’Reilly exclaimed. “All the good stuff is buried underground! “Damn, I wish we knew what they were working on,” he muttered a moment later in a more somber

tone. “God knows what we’re about to walk into.”

Anderson agreed, but he was concerned with a more immediate detail. According to the panel on the side of the wall, the elevator was down at the bottom level. If someone had gone into the lower floors of the base only to flee when they got word the Hastings was coming, the elevator should have been on the top floor.

“Something wrong, LT?” Dah asked.

“Somebody took that elevator down,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the panel. “But they never took it back up.”

“You think they’re still down there?” the gunnery chief asked, her tone making it clear she hoped they were.

The lieutenant nodded, the hint of a grim smile on his lips.

“So what happened to their ships?” Private Shay asked, still not piecing it all together.

“Whoever attacked this base came for something,” Anderson explained. “Whatever they were looking for wasn’t up here. They must have sent a team down to the lower levels to finish up the job. Probably only left a few men up here to keep an eye on things.

“But they weren’t counting on an Alliance patrol ship being close enough to respond to the distress call so quickly. When their scout ship sent word someone was coming through the mass relay they knew they had about twenty minutes to pick up and clear out. I bet they never even bothered to tell their buddies down below.”

“What? Why not? Why wouldn’t they tell them?”

“These elevators might go down two full kilometers,” Corporal O’Reilly chimed in, helping to spell it out for the inexperienced private. “Looks like the com panel to the lower level was destroyed in the gunfire. No chance of getting a radio message to anyone down below through that much rock and ore. And it could take ten minutes for the elevator to make the trip one way.

“If they wanted to alert their friends in the basement, it’d take half an hour: ten minutes to call the elevator up from the lower floor, ten minutes to send someone from the top down to warn them, then ten more minutes back up again,” he continued. “By then it’d be too late. Easier just to bug out and leave the others behind.”

Shay’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “They just abandoned their friends?”

“That’s what separates mercenaries from soldiers,” Anderson told him before turning his focus back to the mission. “This changes things. We’ve got an enemy unit down there, and they have no idea an Alliance squad is up above waiting for them.”

“We can set up an ambush,” Dah said. “As soon as those elevator doors open we start firing and rip those sons-of-bitches to ribbons!” She was speaking quickly, a wicked gleam in her eye. “They won’t stand a chance!”

Anderson thought for a second, then shook his head. “It’s obvious this is a seek-and-destroy mission: they aren’t planning on leaving any survivors. There could still be Alliance personnel alive on the lower levels. If there’s any chance we can still save them we have to try.”

“Could be dangerous, sir,” O’Reilly warned. “We’re assuming they don’t know we’re here. If they somehow do, then we’ll be the ones walking into an ambush.”

“That’s a risk we have to take,” Anderson said, slamming his fist against the wall panel to call the elevator back up to the surface. “We’re going in after them.”