Fulcrum Gun (Savage Stars Book 4)

by Anthony James

  “If we halt at five million klicks, there’s hardly any chance we’ll miss the arrival of the Galactar,” said Eastwood. “It’ll only happen if it lands on a spot that’s exactly in the arc behind the planet’s core.”

  “Every time we talk about worst case scenarios, they seem to happen,” said Recker.

  “When you’re in the crap, everything ends up smelling of it, sir,” said Burner. “Even the good stuff.”

  Recker understood what Burner was saying. “We’ll go to five million klicks,” he said. “That’s another twelve minutes at our current velocity.”

  Even as he said the words, he asked himself if this was the wisest course of action. Recker well remembered how easily the Galactar had sped from place to place around Excon-1, with a seemingly complete knowledge of everything that had happened in the Lanak system. Admittedly there it had lightspeed traces to follow, while out here there were none bar the signs of the Fulcrum’s arrival.

  He had a thought.

  “I wonder if we can escape the Galactar by staying out of lightspeed. It seems geared up for lightspeed pursuit and we’ve got no reason to think that its standard sensors are any better than those on the Fulcrum. We’ve fought Lavorix before and saw nothing that suggests otherwise.”

  “The Galactar could be packing a zillion sensor arrays, backed with enough processing power to detect a pin on the surface of planet on the far side of this solar system,” said Burner. “That’s with existing technology. As an example, our deep space monitoring stations are little more than dedicated lens housings and high-speed cores. The Galactar could fit all of our monitoring stations inside its hull and have room for a dozen more.”

  “None of this is convincing me that I should stop at five million klicks from our arrival point.”

  “I never recommended we should, sir,” said Burner.

  “Gentlemen, we have a disagreement,” said Recker, turning so he could look at Burner and Eastwood. “In the circumstances, I’m inclined to go with the safer option and keep to maximum speed. If the Galactar comes, at least we know where it might appear. The enemy don’t know which way we headed, so they have a much greater sphere in which to hunt for us, and with each additional kilometre we travel that sphere expands, making their job harder.”

  “As you wish, sir,” said Eastwood. “We don’t have to take big risks until we’re ready to do so.”

  At four-point-three million kilometres from the start point, Recker got the news he’d been dreading.

  “Inbound ternium wave detected close to the gas giant, sir,” said Eastwood. “It’s the Galactar.”

  “Twenty minutes behind,” said Aston.

  “Less than I’d hoped,” said Recker. “Much less.”

  The speed with which the enemy had detected and compensated for the Fulcrum’s lightspeed exit was bad enough, but was compounded by the knowledge that the Galactar must have been right on top of the battleship during the transit.

  “Lieutenant Eastwood, ready the ternium drive. We’re going for an in-motion warmup.”

  “Yes, sir. Our current velocity will guarantee a significant deviation from the waypoint.”

  “I don’t trust our luck to keep us safe from that enemy ship, Lieutenant. I’d prefer to escape and get back on track later.”

  “Warming up the drive,” said Eastwood.

  Recker took no comfort from the increasing propulsion note. Usually the sound of the ternium drive presaged the beginning of a lull – a period of comparative calm and welcome tedium as a warship travelled from one place to another. On this occasion, it seemed more akin to a technological death knell and it took the greatest of efforts to keep his jaw from clenching.

  “The Galactar has now entered local space,” said Burner. “Here it is on maximum zoom.”

  Recker’s eyes darted to the screen. His nemesis shimmered slightly from the distance, a dark grey behemoth of alloy. There was nothing elegant or streamlined about the Galactar – its design was overcomplicated by massive round-edged cuboids of different dimensions, attached together asymmetrically in such a way that Recker couldn’t decide where the nerve centre of the enemy ship was situated. He saw what might have been a nose section, or it might have been something entirely different. A weapons housing, perhaps.

  The first time he’d seen the Galactar – fleetingly from Excon-1 – he’d thought it resembled a space station, repurposed for lightspeed flight. Now, he saw it was nothing of the sort. The Galactar was a purpose-built killer, designed to win wars, even if that meant wiping out entire solar systems in the process.

  “It’s accelerating, sir,” said Burner. “Not exactly in our direction, but only thirty degrees off.”

  “Searching for us.”

  “Yes, sir. I don’t know how they narrowed down the search field so quickly.”

  “This is what the Lavorix built it to do, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “Step change technology. That’s what the Excon-1 flight controller told us.”

  “We don’t have a weapon capable of targeting from here,” said Aston.

  “The data files say it’s got a shield of some kind. Much as I’d like to give it a bloody nose, I don’t think our missiles will be enough.”

  “Three minutes on the ternium drive,” said Eastwood. “The energy output from the Galactar’s hull just spiked.”

  “Preparing to fire?”

  “I think it’s their propulsion, sir.”

  “It’s accelerating again,” said Burner, confirming Eastwood’s assessment. “It’s travelling at dead on five thousand klicks per second.”

  “I’m unable to confirm if they have any more in the tank,” said Eastwood. “The wise money says yes.”

  “A 1200 klick per second differential,” said Aston. “Not that sub light velocity matters much when they can go to lightspeed whenever they choose.”

  “They’re changing course, sir,” said Burner. “Their new heading is a fifteen-degree divergence from our current position.”

  “Closing in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Recker’s hands were resting on the controls, but he couldn’t tap into the battleship’s engines to change course without compromising the ternium drive warmup. He thought hard for a way to improve the odds, hating that the overwhelming superiority of his enemy had turned him into little more than a spectator – not exactly passive, but unable to offer a greater threat than shaking his fist and swearing.

  “Looks like we’re going to test that luck after all,” said Burner. “Damn, it’s gone from the feed.”

  “They performed a lightspeed jump,” said Larson.

  “Where are they?” growled Recker, sweeping his eyes over the bulkhead feeds. He expected to see the Galactar somewhere nearby, readying an instant-kill weapon.

  “Got them!” said Burner. “One million klicks, ten degrees from the straight ahead. They overshot!”

  At this closer range, the details on the Galactar were clearer – sharply-etched without quite being real.

  “They’re slowing and adjusting their heading,” Burner continued. “The course projection indicates they’ll stop right in our path.”

  “What are they planning?” said Recker. He checked the lightspeed timer again. Less than a minute remained, though he had no idea if it would be enough. “Will they be able to detect our ternium drive warmup? Or will they assume that because we’re travelling at such a high velocity we’re intending to stay on the sub lights?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Eastwood. “If they’re looking closely enough, I’d guess they’ll have a good idea we’re planning to get out of here.” He swore. “Energy spike from one of those outer housings. A weapon.”

  Recker spotted a flickering distortion on one of the sensor feeds and then the Fulcrum’s mesh deflector activated.

  “They hit us with a beam weapon,” said Aston. “One charge left on the mesh deflector.”

  “The Galactar is accelerating again,” said Burner. “Heading straight for us
.”

  “Thirty seconds on the ternium drive.”

  “What are they doing?” said Larson.

  “They’re trying to get into range to fire a different weapon,” said Recker. “With our combined velocities they’ll be 750,000 klicks away when we enter lightspeed.”

  “We’ve got no idea what the range is on any of their weaponry,” said Aston. “Except we know that particle beam can hit us.”

  At fifteen seconds left on the timer, the beam weapon came again, activating the Fulcrum’s mesh deflector for a second time and leaving the battleship without any defence except its armour. Recker felt sure the plating wouldn’t hold out for long if the Galactar decided to unleash everything in its arsenal.

  “They know we’re not Meklon,” said Recker. “They know we’re different and they want to find out who we are and where we came from.”

  “Which suggests they’ll attempt to disable the Fulcrum and then board us.”

  “I’ll make Sergeants Vance and Shadar aware, sir,” said Larson at once.

  The timer went down. Three. Two. One.

  Recker anticipated death. What he got was a transition into lightspeed.

  Chapter Six

  Nobody on the bridge spoke for several seconds, though the air was thick with tension.

  Recker broke the silence. “If I’m right and the Lavorix know we aren’t Meklon, they’re not going to give up,” he said, spelling the reality out for the others. “They’re following us now and they’re going to keep on following us until we either force them to destroy the Fulcrum or they disable our ship and capture us.”

  “After which, we’ll be introduced to truth drugs or just plain old torture,” said Burner. “Until we’ve told them everything we know about the HPA and helped them find our planets.”

  “Except we don’t know how to get home,” said Fraser.

  “The Galactar followed us from the Excon-1 Gateway,” said Recker. “That means they can get back that way as well, bringing us along for the ride. From Lanak, we’d be able to navigate home if the enemy forced us to do so.”

  “Do you think the Galactar is fitted with the Gateway hardware as well?” asked Eastwood. “Maybe that’s how they followed us.”

  “Uh, it’s a long way from Lanak to Kemis-5,” said Burner. “I checked out the required lightspeed multiplier like you asked, sir, and it must have slipped my mind to tell you the results.”

  “From the tone of your voice, the Galactar is either capable of an absurdly high lightspeed multiple, or they got here by a different method. A Gateway.”

  “Yes, sir. I reckon it would take us six months to fly back to Lanak. Anyway, don’t forget we didn’t actually see the destruction of Excon-1 – it’s possible the Lavorix who were left onboard accessed the space station’s navigational system, discovered we’d gone to Kemis-5 and then opened a new Gateway for the Galactar.”

  “Yet more questions without answers,” said Recker angrily. “This enemy is so advanced, it’s becoming easy to assume they can perform miracles.”

  “This is the hand we’ve been dealt,” said Aston.

  “I know it, Commander.” Recker took a deep breath. “How long before we’re at the waypoint?”

  “Eighteen hours, sir. This lightspeed transit is calculated at thirty-six hours and we’re scheduled to break out at the halfway point like you asked.”

  “What sort of divergence from the waypoint can we expect?”

  “We have no equivalent data with which to make a reliable prediction, sir,” said Eastwood. “We know that divergence increases at an irregular exponential as velocity goes upwards. The trouble is, none of the HPA spaceships will hit anything near 3800 klicks per second.”

  “A ballpark idea will suffice.”

  “It’ll require an additional short lightspeed transit to get to the waypoint, sir,” said Eastwood, clearly struggling to keep the irritation from his voice. “That’s the best I can give you without spending a lot of time coding a dedicated piece of software.”

  “The waypoints are only arbitrarily chosen locations,” said Burner. “We don’t really need to pass through them – as long as we keep heading for the end point.”

  “I know that, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “I wanted to be sure the divergence wasn’t likely to require hours to correct.”

  “No, definitely nothing significant in lightspeed terms,” said Eastwood.

  “That’s good enough, Lieutenant. Thank you.” Recker smiled. “Onto the next question - we picked up some concrete data on the Galactar’s position that time, Lieutenant Eastwood. What does the simulator tell you about the outcomes?”

  “I’m in the process of double-checking, sir.”

  “What was wrong with the first set of results?”

  “They were inconsistent with expectations.”

  Recker left his chair and stood next to Eastwood’s console. “In what way?”

  “They were more favourable than the last set of predicted outcomes.”

  “We entered lightspeed while travelling at 3800 klicks per second, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir. If the simulator generates the same favourable outcomes on the second try, then we’ve influenced the results by completing the lightspeed transition while travelling at speed.”

  Recker tried not to show his impatience while Eastwood typed in the values again.

  “Looks like we bought ourselves some time, sir.”

  “The Galactar has a predicted compensation time of two hours if we break lightspeed at the eighteen-hour mark,” said Recker, reading the results from the screen.

  “Let’s try one more thing,” said Eastwood, deleting some of the old fields and entering new data. After a few seconds, he sat back, clearly not happy. “The simulator still won’t generate a zero value for the Galactar’s pursuit, whatever data I feed in. Eight percent is the lowest it’ll go.”

  “Damnit!” said Recker. He’d hoped that he could jump from waypoint to waypoint by entering lightspeed at maximum velocity on each occasion. If the Galactar’s compensation time increased with each jump, the enemy would eventually lose the trail.

  It was not to be. Not if the simulator output was accurate.

  “There’s got to be a point where the Galactar can no longer follow a lightspeed trail!” said Larson hotly. “Otherwise the Lavorix could track a space flight from two hundred years ago and I don’t need a simulator to tell me that isn’t happening.”

  “I’m sure you’re correct, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “Like we discussed earlier, it’s probable the Meklon didn’t know, so they built in this eight percent floor. Where they got that figure from, I don’t know and I don’t much care. The point is, we don’t know when that eight percent becomes irrelevant. We’ll have to guess and there’s a lot riding on us getting it right.”

  “Maybe we’ll learn something from the Meklon,” said Eastwood. “I’m confident we’ve bought ourselves some breathing room with our high-velocity lightspeed transit trick.”

  “How much breathing room will we have once we come to the place where we expect to find the return transmission?” said Aston.

  “I’ll have a better idea once we’re on route to the second waypoint,” said Eastwood. “I’ve learned enough about this simulator to know that I can’t extrapolate directly from one set of results.”

  “Go on – take a guess,” said Aston, giving Eastwood the smile.

  Eastwood succumbed. “Six hours or more for the compensation. As low as four, as high as ten. If we’re really lucky, we’ll have completely shaken off the Galactar.”

  “There’s that word again,” Larson admonished him. She mouthed the word as if reluctant to say it out loud. Lucky.

  “I’m not about to start dancing around my words, Lieutenant Larson,” said Eastwood. “If cosmic forces – luck – exist, then I’ve made it this far in life without watching my tongue.”

  Recker heard no anger in the exchange and he let them talk while he pondered the situation. T
he new output from the simulator was enormously positive and for the first time since the Galactar appeared at Kemis-5, he felt the glimmerings of real hope that escape was a possibility.

  Of course, all it meant was that the Fulcrum stood a far greater chance of reaching the place where he hoped to pick up a return transmission from the Meklon. With no guarantees this species of aliens was friendly, Recker had no way of anticipating what they might say. Following that was the matter of returning home and that was an undertaking he wouldn’t commence without absolute certainty that the Galactar was no longer in pursuit.

  The problems and the lack of solutions whirled around in his head. Recker forced a smile and reminded himself he could only try his hardest. Death was the worst that could happen and as long as he didn’t bring it to the rest of the HPA, that would be enough.

  Nor enough. Not nearly enough.

  “Commander Aston, I’d like to you investigate ways in which the Fulcrum can be destroyed from within,” he said.

  “In case the Lavorix have a way to capture us?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think we can stop them if they hit us with a core override. Not in time, anyway. We might be able to rig up one of the magazines to detonate manually, but I’m sure there’ll be layers of security to stop that happening.”

  Recker tried not to swear. He failed. “You think it’s a no-go idea?”

  “Yes.” Aston wrinkled her nose. “I’ve got time – I’ll check it out.”

  “Thanks.”

  With many hours of flight ahead, Recker organised sleep time for his crew. Once that was done, he used the internal comms to speak with both Vance and Shadar. Having provided an outline of the situation, Recker advised them to prepare for a potential boarding.

  “At what point will we have to start shooting each other?” asked Shadar, his voice making the earpiece vibrate uncomfortably.

  “Not yet,” said Recker firmly. He briefly thought about paying Corporal Hendrix a visit and asking her opinion on the best and most painless way to commit suicide using the available drugs. Instead, he delegated the task to Vance.