“I’ve visited ten thousand planets and fought battles in every environment you can think of,” he said. “I think this is the strangest sight of them all.”
“If you don’t experience the worst of life, you can’t appreciate the best of it.”
Recker caught a note in her voice. “You really believe that?”
“I try my hardest. Sometimes it isn’t easy.”
Hendrix had lost family in the destruction of Fortune – more than most others – and Recker felt guilty he’d reminded her of the past.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Get us home, Carl. All of us.”
Hearing her say his name felt good. “I will.”
Closing the channel, Recker gave his full attention to the shuttle. He guided it higher into the shaft and the slow current pulled in dozens of nearby Lavorix bodies. One hit the plating next to Recker and he put out an arm to push it away. The corpse drifted over the top of his chest and its limbs brushed him lightly. Recker grimaced with revulsion at the touch.
At what he thought was the vertical halfway point, he halted the shuttle and checked the strength of his comms link to the CX1 module. It had improved significantly but was still grey with the occasional switch to green.
“What is wrong, Captain Recker?” asked Sergeant Shadar.
“The link isn’t as strong as I’d like,” said Recker. “If I make a high-level control request over a bad connection, I might trigger a security block.”
“Water doesn’t interfere that much with a comms signal, sir,” said Vance. “Rock, yes. Alloy walls, yes. We’ve got a straight line into the air.”
“Something’s blocking the shaft,” said Recker, guessing the answer to Vance’s unspoken question.
“Like we don’t have enough to deal with,” said Montero.
“Let’s take a look, Corporal.”
Recker guided the shuttle higher into the shaft. A few hundred metres farther, the bay lights ended, marking the position of the surface doors. Some of the lights were blocked and Recker stared at a featureless dark which might have either been the Kavlon sky, or a crapload of debris from the base, dragged in when the bay doors opened.
Somewhere above it all, he was certain the Galactar waited, while its crew investigated the Fulcrum. Recker attempted contact with the battleship again.
“Fulcrum this is Recker. Please acknowledge.”
The words were met with silence. He wasn’t yet ready to deal with the loss of his crew and he closed the channel.
As the shuttle rose, Recker gazed into the darkness, his eyes hunting for shapes or features which would tell him what was blocking the opening. He couldn’t imagine the entire shaft was covered, but on this day, nothing would have surprised him
He soon got his answer. Not far from surface level, the shuttle came to the angled underside of a huge sheet of alloy which had become wedged partway into the shaft. The metal wasn’t thick, which explained how the water had been strong enough to carry it here, and Recker suspected it had once been the wall of a building. Unfortunately, the sheet formed a trap for other, smaller debris, which had piled on top, wedging everything in place and effectively sealing off most, if not all, of the opening.
“I’d say we got lucky that none of this landed on us,” said Steigers. He gave a cynical grunt. “Somehow I don’t feel like a winner.”
“The signal still isn’t as strong as I’d like,” said Recker. “I’ll look for a gap that leads into clear air.”
He climbed to his feet and craned his neck. Standing beneath so much wreckage made him feel like an insect waiting to be crushed and he shifted his gaze along the sloping underside of the huge alloy sheet. The visibility was still poor and the shaft lights didn’t make things much better, but logic suggested to Recker that he follow the slope upwards.
He got the shuttle moving again and the soundwave from its engines brought a deep and ominous creaking from the debris. Resisting the urge to swear, Recker held his nerve and guided the vessel towards the far side of the shaft. The creaking became a series of groans, but the sheet held.
“I see an opening,” said Shadar.
Recker saw it too and he kept the shuttle on course. He found what he was looking for – the wreckage had left a hundred-metre triangular opening in one corner of the shaft which Recker guided the spaceship towards. He didn’t bother fine-tuning the position and halted the shuttle the moment he could see beyond the blockage.
Peering upwards, Recker guessed the shuttle was still forty or fifty metres below the surface of the water, but the gloom wasn’t enough to completely hide the ocean of grey alloy which hung in the air directly over the Oracon-1 base.
“The Galactar,” he said. “I can see it.”
Every member of the squad wanted to see it too and they swam across, gathering around Recker and staring into the sky.
“I can hear something,” said Montero suddenly. “Quiet!”
Recker listened and the sound of a second engine reached his ears. The water made it impossible for him to pinpoint the direction, no matter how much he turned his head.
“A Lavorix shuttle,” he said. “From the Galactar.”
“Why would they need to come here?” said Steigers. “They already hit us with their extractor.”
A shape drifted into sight directly above and Recker closed his eyes for a moment when he saw it. “Maybe their sensor team picked up the vibration of our engines on the surface water,” he said. “They could have sent a shuttle to investigate.”
The Lavorix spaceship moved on, though with a lazy speed which suggested its crew were planning to stick around in this area of Oracon-1.
Time was precious and Recker knew what he had to do. The CX1 comms receptor was solid green and he linked to it. Once done, he issued a command via the Tri-Cannon to the Fulcrum’s battle computer. His fists clenched and he stared at his HUD.
> Captain Carl Recker. Remote authorisation granted.
“I’m in,” he said.
None of the soldiers spoke, though every pair of eyes fixed on Recker, like the Lavorix shuttle outside was of no interest.
Now that Recker had been recognized by the Fulcrum, his comms link was automatically diverted to one of the battleship’s main receivers. The connection strength jumped to 99% and held stable. Immediately, Recker issued a command to have the sensor feeds routed into his suit computer. The suit comms weren’t designed to accept full-resolution data streams, but the feeds were of good enough quality for Recker’s needs.
The battle computer had auto-locked the sensors on every detectable target, of which there were only three – the Galactar, one low altitude shuttle and another, much larger shuttle which was stationary adjacent to the Fulcrum. Recker couldn’t see any signs of boarding, but it wouldn’t be long.
Interrogation of the battle computer allowed Recker to build a rudimental picture in his head. The Fulcrum was at a three thousand metre altitude and the Galactar was directly overhead at ten thousand metres. Even the wide-angle lenses on the battleship’s topside arrays struggled to capture the Lavorix spaceship’s nose and stern, such was the vastness of the construction. For the shortest of moments, he felt wonder and admiration at what his enemy had accomplished.
“Sir, the shuttle is coming back,” said Vance, urgency in his voice.
Recker nodded, his attention still on the streaming data. Having identified his opponents, he called up the Fulcrum’s status logs. The CX1 module was tied in and all lights were amber. Recker would have preferred to see greens, but the caution alerts were likely generated because the hardware hadn’t been tested. His brain treacherously reminded him that the Tri-Cannon lights were green when it first linked with the Fulcrum.
“Screw it,” he said, telling himself to ignore the ambers.
He sized up the task – the Tri-Cannon barrels were aimed flat across the Fulcrum’s upper plating. In order to target them at the Galactar, they’d need to be higher, but they weren’t built for e
xtensive adjustment and would only raise and lower within a thirty-degree arc - which meant Recker would have to change the Fulcrum’s orientation in order to get the Tri-Cannon on target.
A violent frothing in the water above drew his gaze.
“The enemy are firing their nose gun,” said Shadar. “Luckily for us their bullets are not designed to travel in water.”
“After bullets comes a missile,” said Vance.
“Or another death ray. Or a surface expedition to capture us and find out how we resisted the first one so that they can build a better version,” said Steigers. “Damn I hate those bastards.”
Recker wasn’t listening. He tuned out everything around him and got on with business.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
If a plain old lifter shuttle wasn’t designed to be controlled efficiently by suit comms, a battleship was a challenge on a completely different level. Recker spoke his commands, the computer in his suit converted them to text and sent them across the link. A spaceship could handle thousands of simultaneous requests, but Recker could only speak them one at a time. If he wasn’t fast enough, the Lavorix would identify the potential danger and he was sure they’d just blow the Fulcrum to pieces.
“Stern angle adjust. Velocity: maximum. Sixty degrees, lateral axis.”
He watched it unfold on the streamed feed. The Fulcrum’s nose rose higher and the Galactar dropped out of sight on the array Recker was streaming from.
“Switch: Topside 10.”
The stream changed to the feed from the topside array. Now all Recker could see was Galactar.
“Underside Maglors, Target 2: hold 10, terminate. Portside Maglors, Target 3: hold 10, terminate.”
The command set the Maglors to fire after ten seconds. Recker thought there was a chance he and his platoon would be killed when the battleship’s gauss turrets opened fire and he didn’t want that to happen before he’d had a shot at the Galactar.
“Link: Tri-Cannon module. Shield Breaker: fire.”
He had no idea if the main armament required a charge time. If it did, this effort was going to fail.
A thick line of blue jumped from a point behind the Topside 10 array and it lanced into the Galactar. Immediately, the Lavorix ship’s energy shield activated, creating a jagged circle of dirtier blue around the place of impact.
> Fulcrum mesh deflector: activated.
The HUD screens could only go so bright and Recker didn’t need to squint when the intensity of the Shield Breaker beam increased tenfold, then a hundredfold. The Galactar’s energy shield expanded in a way Recker had seen before and in the blinking of an eye, it encompassed the entire ship, its brightness growing to match that of the Shield Breaker.
> Fulcrum mesh deflector: activated.
Such was the ferocity of the energy that it filled the sky, spilling into the shaft and illuminating the soldiers in an unearthly blue. Recker couldn’t look – he focused everything on the Shield Breaker, willing it to shatter the Galactar’s energy shield. Still the crackling field of blue surrounded the enemy ship and Recker feared it was too strong for the Meklon weapon.
> Fulcrum mesh deflector: activated.
The Galactar shield flickered once, so rapidly that it could have been an interruption in the feed. Recker didn’t dare hope. It flickered again. The Fulcrum was out of mesh deflector charges and he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Tri-Cannon: Side Gun 1: fire. Side Gun 2: fire.” He half-smiled at a fleeting thought and acted upon it. “Topside launcher 16: fire.”
Win or lose, the time is now.
A cavernous hole appeared in the Galactar’s underside and then another so close that the two merged into one oval-shaped opening. The sensor angle was such that Recker saw all the way through the enemy warship. The warship’s insides were mangled and he hoped the exit wounds would be enormous.
Even so, it wasn’t going to be enough. The Tri-Cannon’s ternium-accelerated slugs required a far greater distance to achieve maximum velocity and Recker didn’t believe the damage was terminal. A speck of fast-moving orange offered one final hope.
Without any warning sign, the Galactar vanished into lightspeed. Where the nuclear missile had gone, Recker had no idea. He was about to check the audit log when the Fulcrum’s battle computer informed him the Maglors were firing.
Instinctively, Recker looked up to see white hot streaks drumming into the dark shape of the Lavorix shuttle. The enemy vessel couldn’t withstand the attack for longer than a second and it was punched out of shape.
“Coming down,” said Vance, his voice resigned to the inevitable.
The shuttle crashed on top of the wedged debris, producing a rumble, followed by another loud groan. Then came a dull scraping which the water converted into something which made Recker think of an enormous beast’s death cry.
“Move,” shouted Vance, urging the soldiers further towards the shuttle’s nose.
Not one of the squad was beneath the debris, though they swam quickly to increase their distance. Recker was still interfaced with the Fulcrum and he didn’t want to drop the link. Therefore when the scrap metal shifted, all he could do was watch. It slid, dropping a metre, while the main supporting sheet of alloy bent beneath the additional weight of the shuttle. Then, it all dropped and one edge struck the rear thirty metres of the lifter shuttle.
From the size of the lifter, Recker guessed it could haul a billion tons without effort. Even so, the weight of debris caused the tail to drop significantly. The floor rose beneath Recker’s feet and he threw himself onto his front. His soles lost grip and he began sliding towards the tail, where the debris had already slipped away and dropped out of sight. A hand reached out – Corporal Hendrix again - and Recker grabbed for it, realising she was in just as much trouble as he was. The two of them tumbled over, hands clasped, and other shapes came with them.
The shuttle’s propulsion grumbled and the autopilot compensated by raising the tail and levelling out. Recker felt himself slowing and he tried desperately to get purchase with his feet. Hendrix went over the edge and he held on, his high-grip soles keeping him in place. His shoulder muscles tensed with the effort and he pulled her back onto the shuttle.
With no time for words, Recker turned frantically, taking stock of the situation. The shuttle had stabilised and he saw figures climbing to their feet.
“Report!” he yelled. “Who went over?”
Every member of the platoon was still on top of the shuttle and Recker breathed a sigh of relief. The fall wouldn’t have killed them, but they might have ended up amongst the unstable debris below and ended up trapped or hurt.
“What is our situation, Captain Recker?” asked Shadar.
With the shuttle now parallel to the bay floor, Recker switched his attention once more to the comms link. The Galactar was gone into lightspeed and he had no idea if the enemy ship was operational. If it was, he worried it might come back and destroy the Fulcrum from extreme range.
The battleship was in the air, exactly where he’d left it. One of the sensor arrays was locked onto a pile of glowing alloy in the far corner of Oracon-1 and the battle computer identified it as the larger of the two Lavorix shuttles.
Two down, one unknown.
Recker accessed the audit logs for the nuclear missile and found no confirmation of detonation. The missile was no longer reporting, which gave him hope it had been carried into lightspeed by the Galactar’s transition.
“Fulcrum, this is Recker. Please acknowledge.”
The request was met with the same response as all the others and he closed out of the channel.
“What next, sir?” asked Vance.
“I’ll call in the Fulcrum.”
“Did we beat the Galactar?”
“I don’t know, Sergeant.”
Recker sent the order to the Fulcrum and the battleship descended. At the same time, he flew the shuttle out of the shaft with the platoon still on the top plating. The vessel emerged from the water and everyo
ne stared in wonder. The Oracon-1 base was underwater to a depth of three or four metres. Recker could tell the ocean was receding by the movement of the surface. It flowed rapidly south-west, making a roaring noise as it went.
“How’re we getting onto the battleship?” asked Drawl. “I’m a champion swimmer, but I don’t know if I can beat that current.”
“Drawl, you’re a champion bullshitter,” said Gantry.
“I’ll order the Fulcrum to land north of the flood,” said Recker, switching his link from the shuttle. He gazed in that direction. The nuclear smoke was thinning, though he doubted this area of Kavlon would return to normal any time soon.
“There it is!” said Carrington. “The Fulcrum at one thousand metres. Oh shit.”
Recker stared up just in time to see the battleship’s mesh deflector activate. He cursed, remembering that the Lavorix had other warships stationed at Kavlon. His link to the battleship was active and he accessed the sensor arrays. A distant shape sped across the horizon, shrouded in smoke.
“Executor: fire. Maglors: auto-track and fire. Interceptors: launch.”
The Lavorix spaceship detonated in a dark explosion and Recker would later place its destruction within his top five easiest kills. Over his head, two hundred and more orange propulsion traces raced from the Fulcrum and the Maglors pounded a dull beat, creating streaks of their own as they speared the grimy smoke.
Most of the inbound enemy missiles were destroyed by the interceptor storm and the Maglors. Three last warheads detonated against the battleship’s portside flank. Recker shielded his eyes and when the light faded, he raised his head towards the Fulcrum’s new scars. The warship had faced everything the Lavorix could throw at it and Recker knew that three new craters weren’t going to be the Fulcrum’s end. Not by a long shot.
He felt a surge of pride and then remembered his crew. The pride remained but he couldn’t enjoy the moment - the mission wasn’t over. He issued a command to the Fulcrum that would send it north.
Fulcrum Gun (Savage Stars Book 4) Page 22
