West, the teams in the construction yard worked flat-out on four additional heavy cruisers, including one advanced model carrying some modified weaponry. The nearly complete hulls loomed higher than any of the towers or warehouses on the base.
“I wonder what would happen if we were to face the Lavorix now,” said Garber.
“They had more warships back then than we have now,” said Recker. “We’ve closed the technological gap, but I wouldn’t like to predict the outcome.”
He left it at that. Mental wargames plagued him, no matter how hard he tried to avoid falling into the what if trap. The Lavorix had possessed an immense fleet and their crews had been well-trained and experienced. They’d been fighting – and losing – a war against a mysterious species known as Kilvar and Recker had a sinking feeling that without the Lavorix to contain them, these unknown aliens had taken advantage of the opportunity to expand their fleet and develop new technologies. They surely had a head start over the human and Daklan alliance, and Recker could only hope this potential enemy had somehow squandered their advantage.
A blinking light on the pilot’s console alerted him to an inbound comm.
“Research Lead Mills,” said Garber, reading the initiator’s name from the display.
“I don’t think I want to hear what he’s about to tell me,” said Recker.
Nevertheless, he accepted the request. Mills didn’t keep him waiting.
“Sir, we’ve re-run the analysis. The normality aberration stands at five percent.”
“Thank you, RL Mills. Let me know the outcome of the next report.”
Cutting the channel, Recker bit down on the stream of curses which threatened to spill from his mouth. The normality aberration was increasing and his lingering hopes that it might decline to its usual levels were fading fast. He’d already advised his opposite number in the Daklan navy about the changing output of the report and soon both sides would be required to act by mobilising the entire combined fleet.
The only trouble was, Recker still didn’t know what was coming or from which direction. Just as bad was the uncertainty of the predictive analysis – for all he knew, the normality aberration might climb to one hundred percent and remain there for weeks, months or years.
If there was one thing Recker found hard to handle, it was uncertainty. And right now, he had that in spades.
Chapter Three
The main Amber research facility occupied almost as much area as the base landing strip. Its hundred-and-fifty-metre-high walls formed an almost perfect square, and the flat roof was the uniform matte grey of warship-grade alloy. Hundreds of turrets and launchers covered the surface, and a total of nine shuttle pads allowed access to the complex by air. A massive square in the centre was completely unadorned and it was through these roof doors that the really large equipment came in or out.
Surrounding the facility were roads capable of handling the heaviest of vehicles, and a constant stream of traffic went in and out through entrances big and small. Viewed from the air, everything was running smoothly, though Recker took no reassurance from the sight.
“We’re setting down on pad RF-5,” he said, piloting the shuttle low across the roof.
His destination was west of centre and two rows of other transports were on the huge landing pad already. Activity here never stopped and many of the personnel worked long hours, Recker’s wife being one of them.
Holding briefly to allow another shuttle to lift off from pad RF-5, Recker dropped his own vessel neatly into the newly created gap.
“Let’s get moving,” he said, climbing from his seat. “We’re not staying long.”
“Do you want me to wait here, sir?” asked Garber. “I guess you’re on the brink of ordering a mobilisation. I could speak to the rest of your team and set a few things in motion without making it official.”
“No, come with me,” said Recker. “You’re right though – I’ll have to give the order. Soon.”
They exited the shuttle onto the landing pad, just as the rain started. Heavy drops of ice-cold water pelted down, striking the roof and producing a roar like a waterfall.
“Should have brought my suit helmet,” said Recker, sprinting across the landing strip towards one of the cylindrical airlifts which protruded through the roof at the bottom of the ramp. He was in a vacuum-proof suit, but without the helmet to form a seal, the rain was sliding down his neck and in moments he’d be soaked.
“I should have brought an umbrella,” said Garber. “Six years here on Basalt and you’d think I’d have learned.”
A squad of bemused-looking human and Daklan soldiers watched the two of them sprint past, but they didn’t say anything. At the airlift, Recker tapped the access screen repeatedly, as if that would somehow bring the car to the roof level quicker than if he’d only tapped once. A group of five personnel coming from one of the other shuttles joined them at the doorway, equally unprepared and cursing the rain, their handheld tablets dripping wet.
Recker kept his head lowered and nobody recognized him, since he didn’t habitually wear anything that made him stand out. The door opened and everyone crowded inside, the scent of rain a joyful reminder of life - now they were sheltered from it.
“Going down,” said one of the new group. He laughed. “Damn this weather.” Then he began talking technical details with the others about the project they were working on.
This part of the facility had only two destinations for the lift – roof and ground. At the bottom of the shaft, the door opened, and Recker and Garber stepped into a busy alloy-clad corridor. The scientists in the lift went left and Recker went right, towards a pair of solid doors flanked by Daklan guards. Each alien carried a gauss rifle and they peered at Recker with their sharp, green eyes, while the barrels of a ceiling-mounted minigun rotated quietly over their heads.
The base security – designed to track Recker’s whereabouts and make the necessary arrangements for his arrival – worked smoothly and one of the soldiers touched the access panel to operate the doors.
“Fleet Admiral,” one of them greeted Recker as he approached. The Daklan was eight feet tall and his voice was so harsh it was borderline unintelligible. This soldier eschewed the use of his language module and spoke the human words without technical assistance. Recker smiled in acknowledgement.
“Thank you, soldier,” he said.
Through the doors was a cavernous space, hundreds of metres in length and width. The dull throbbing of the gravity fields supporting the roof usually gave Recker a headache, but today he was so agitated he barely felt it.
Much of the room was hidden by towering pieces of equipment and machinery. Gantries and cranes towered high, while consoles, mobile processing units and analysis robots were visible everywhere, along with many pieces of one-off equipment built for specific tasks. The sounds were a varied mixture of clanks, scrapes and rumblings, and many of the personnel wore suit helmets to keep themselves shielded from the noise. Recker didn’t intend staying long enough that his ears would be damaged.
“Is Lera-Vel in the subsurface bay?” yelled Lieutenant Garber.
“That’s where we’re heading,” Recker confirmed.
He cut left from the door and followed one of the clearly marked personnel walkways which ran parallel to the wall. Everywhere he looked, teams of human and Daklan scientists and technicians talked in groups, peered intently at readouts, or studied their handheld tablets.
Recker couldn’t fault the work rate or the intelligence of these people, though the results always came much slower than he wished. The expectation was his own failing – years spent at war, where each encounter with the enemy could be compressed into a series of brief events culminating in the death of one side or the other, had left him with an ingrained impatience for any endeavour requiring months or years to complete. At forty-nine years of age, he doubted the impatience would ever leave him.
They arrived at the next lift which was far larger than the one which had brought
them down from the roof. A team of technicians, shepherding a temperature-shielded, gravity-engined obliterator core were already waiting. Beneath the shielding and stripped of its engine, Recker knew the core was precisely one metre cubed and weighed fifty tons. Even with the shielding, a sharp chill emanated from the device and the technicians wore specially insulated suits.
“This is going to be cold, sir,” said the group lead. “You can go first if you want.”
Recker only vaguely recognised the woman, but she evidently knew his face well enough. “It’s fine, RL Avery,” he said, remembering her name just in time.
The lift door slid open and Recker entered, keeping to one side of the car. In came the technicians and the obliterator core, and they stayed at the opposite side, six metres away. Still it was cold and Recker clenched his jaw.
This journey lasted many seconds, since the subterranean level was far below ground. The temperature fell steadily. RL Avery smiled apologetically and one of the other technicians cracked a lame joke.
The lift door opened and Recker exited hastily, rubbing his stubbled cheeks to get the blood flowing.
“Damn, that was cold,” said Garber, her nose red from the low temperature. “What a day to forget our suit helmets.”
“Don’t remind me,” Recker growled.
He turned his attention to the enormous space in which he found himself. The subterranean bay was vast beyond imagining, with a ceiling four thousand metres up and walls six thousand apart. Thick slabs of alloy were fastened to the walls and in combination with the too-bright light which came from thousands of sources, the space gave the impression of being inside the belly of an incomprehensibly huge technological beast. The throbbing of gravity fields was far stronger here than it was in the building above and this time it set Recker’s head pounding enough to make him grimace.
At one time, Recker would have thought the feats of engineering required to construct such a place were impossible, but he’d seen enough in his years of service that now he doubted there was anything which couldn’t be achieved, given sufficient time and resources. In the end, the subsurface bay had taken less than a year to create – with the assistance of endless spaceship-launched plasma warheads and the gravity scoop from the fifteen-thousand-metre Daklan superheavy lifter Nevanis - before work on the topside building was started.
The space needed to be big to accommodate the main project being undertaken here. In the centre of the bay, the hull of a new warship was parked left to right, offering Recker a perfect view of its profile.
At three thousand metres and twelve billion tons, the Firestorm was nothing spectacular in terms of its outright dimensions and mass. It wasn’t meant to be – the spaceship was a test bed for new developments in weapons, propulsion, life support and processor tech. Thinking back, Recker remembered his discussions with Fleet Admiral Telar, in which they’d come up with the simplest of briefs for the project.
Take everything we’ve learned from the Meklon and the Lavorix aliens, build it better and put it into one of our spaceships.
Of course there was a hell of a lot more to it than that, but everything came back to those words. Money was no object and the project lead could call on whatever personnel or resources were required to help meet the objectives.
“Looks mean,” said Garber. “Even with half of its portside armour missing.”
She was exaggerating about the armour – a rectangular section a few hundred metres long had been removed and was currently supported by a pair of lifter shuttles and one of the bay’s four gravity cranes. Through the opening, Recker could see the darkness of ternium engine blocks.
He let his eyes wander over the hull. The Firestorm wasn’t exactly sleek – from its midsection to the stern, it was bulky, both in terms of height and width. This was deliberate – to make it easier to fit new technology inside without having to worry too much about the shape and size of the new units. Still, it had rounded edges and the layered armour had angles which gave the Firestorm an appearance of indomitability. That impression was reinforced by the way the wedge nose joined seamlessly with the rest of the hull, making the overall proportions into something Recker had always thought of as classical.
Like many warships in the fleet, the Firestorm had no landing legs, but its flight computer was able to hold the spaceship in a stationary hover as close to the ground as its underside railer and missile cluster protrusions allowed.
“Let’s take this car,” said Recker, climbing into an open-topped vehicle with room for six.
Garber took the passenger seat and Recker accelerated across the bay floor. It was only a couple of days since he’d last visited the place and significant changes had occurred. Several billion tons of armour plating had appeared and were stacked against the eastern wall, and work had finished on the double-barrelled Terrus-V housing. The gun, with its six-hundred-metre turret and barrels twice as much again, dangled between two other lifter shuttles at the farthest end of the bay.
“Ternium-accelerated pain,” said Garber.
“Let’s hope so.”
Many years ago, Recker had captured a Meklon battleship called Fulcrum, which was designed to fire 424-million-ton ternium-accelerated projectiles at the seemingly impregnable Lavorix capital ship which had been systematically stripping the Meklon worlds of life. Keeping the overstressed ternium stable at the same time as correctly channelling its energy during the discharge and subsequent flight to target, had proven challenging. Most of the obstacles had been overcome and Recker was confident he and his Daklan equivalent – Admiral Ivinstol – would soon be ordering the installation of Terrus-V hardware onto the newest warships in the fleet.
Recker drove fast across the bay floor, avoiding construction vehicles, personnel cabins and crowds of technicians. The Firestorm wasn’t the only project being worked on in the bay, and he passed equipment dedicated to several other fields of research. Many of these projects were – on the surface – lacking in glamour, but Recker was well-aware that to keep the alliance technology moving in the right direction, these peripheral objectives needed to be fully supported as well.
Guiding the vehicle around an ammunition depot containing hellburner missiles, craters of railer slugs and four enormous, cylindrical shock bombs, Recker entered the clear space which surrounded the Firestorm. With his view unimpeded, he saw exactly how much activity was taking place. It was more fevered than he expected and he had a sudden feeling there’d been a breakthrough. Normally, he was the first to know about developments, but the research teams occasionally didn’t tell him until they’d completed viability testing.
Stopping a short distance from the forward boarding ramp, Recker exited the car. Lera-Vel waited for him, dressed in a suit that was a similar red to her skin and with hands on her hips. Her helmet wasn’t in sight and her green, alien eyes bored into him. Recker’s heart thudded like it always did and he strode over.
“Carl,” said Lera-Vel, her voice rasping and melodious at the same time.
“Lera-Vel,” said Recker. He grinned, feeling like he was twenty-one again. “How is project bottomless pit going?”
She grinned back at him, in a way which accentuated the short fangs which curled up from her lower jaw. Lera-Vel was thirty-nine years old, which was about equivalent to the same age in a human. Her skin was unlined and her black hair had a sheen which caused envious stares.
“I had planned to tell you later, but since you are here, I will tell you now. We are on the verge of something, Carl,” she said.
Lera-Vel didn’t normally exaggerate and Recker felt a building excitement. He’d last spoken to her the day before yesterday, when she hadn’t mentioned the expectation of anything significant.
“Tell me,” he said.
“The stabilisation of superstressed ternium,” she said. “We received news from Tibulon - a breakthrough has been made. They have successfully combined ingar with ternium and they are sending the finished product to us here on Basalt for fur
ther testing.”
For several moments, Recker didn’t know what to say and he allowed the possibilities to run through his head. Ternium – the power source for every spaceship and everything else that required an inexhaustible supply of energy - could be forced to operate in an overstressed state that produced a far greater output. Superstressing the ternium was a dangerous step above that and the potential wasn’t yet understood.
Superstressed ternium was also incredibly unstable and when it – inevitably – descended into a critical state, it created stasis fields that the alliance lacked the technology to study. For years, attempts to conquer the instabilities had failed, yet here was a sign that the end might be in sight.
“Why wasn’t I told about this?” Recker asked. “And how stable is the new substance? It can’t come to Basalt if there’s any risk – you know this.”
“There is no risk Carl,” said Lera-Vel. “The Tibulon scientists detected no imperfections.” Her eyes glittered. “We believe that the ingar changed the ternium into something completely different – a new substance that is as stable as unrefined ternium.”
“You believe, or you’re absolutely certain? Which is it?”
Green eyes held Recker’s gaze, unblinking. “The exium is entirely stable, Carl. Atomic analysis indicates its structure has remained in perfect alignment since its creation.”
Sighing inwardly, Recker accepted he was fighting a rear-guard action. “Why wasn’t I told?” he repeated. He loved his wife dearly, but she had the Daklan trait of impetuousness – an eagerness to get things done that could sometimes be infuriating.
Lera-Vel lifted her chin slightly in a way Recker had seen many times before. “A fleet admiral should not be bothered with the minutiae,” she said. “Once the exium arrived at Basalt and the output testing was complete, you would have been presented with a comprehensive report.”
The work to stabilise superstressed ternium was definitely not minutiae. Recker knew it and Lera-Vel knew it. He considered the positives. If Lera-Vel’s assessment was correct, this might well be the most significant development for both humanity and the Daklan for many decades. At that moment, another thought – this one unwelcome - struck Recker like a hammer blow.
Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1) Page 3
