“When did you first believe the method was viable?” he asked.
“The new combination process was finalised and tested three days ago.” Lera-Vel didn’t miss a trick and she stared at Recker. “Why?”
“The increase in the normality aberration began at the same time,” he said. “What if the change is caused by this new discovery? What if there’s no threat of an alien attack and the predicted negative outcome is a result of our research?” He swore loudly, in angry frustration.
This time, Lera-Vel was not dismissive. “What will you do, Carl?” she asked softly.
“I don’t know,” said Recker. “Damnit, I really don’t know. Where is the exium now?”
“I requested one of our fleet warships collect it from the Tibulon refinery. If everything is going to plan, the Loadout should be making the collection as we speak.”
“Leave it with me,” said Recker. “I’ve got to go.”
Still unsure what he was planning to do about the situation, but with his internal alarm bells ringing in a way they hadn’t done for many years, he beckoned to Lieutenant Garber and the two of them ran for the gravity car.
Chapter Four
Half a million kilometres from Tibulon, the heavy cruiser Loadout’s sensors gathered a crystal-clear image of the planet’s surface. As Flint had expected, there wasn’t much of interest - only varying hues of grey rock.
The surface facility was an exception and it occupied a far greater area than he’d anticipated. A complex of thirty or forty buildings of differing shapes and sizes, were positioned at the edge of a comparatively flat plain, next to a majestic range of mountains. Flint detected a faint redness to the mountains, which he guessed indicated the presence of ingar and was the reason the mining operation and refinery had been set up here.
Several of the mountains had been levelled - turned to rubble by a combination of high explosives and the enormous 1200-metre rock grinders that tunnelled into the cliffs and escarpments. A pair of purpose-built unarmed Daklan lifters sucked up the pieces, crushed them into dust and deposited it into one of the four hoppers at the edge of the refinery.
“What happens to that dust?” asked Garrett.
“Don’t ask me,” said Maddox. “They didn’t cover refineries during any of my training. All I know is stuff goes in one end and different stuff comes out the other.”
“Let’s focus,” said Flint. “What we’re here for, it’s important. Lieutenant Becerra – I assume they’re going to send up a shuttle rather than ask us to land. Find out.”
“Yes, sir.” Becerra didn’t take long. “We’re expecting a shuttle, but they haven’t loaded the cargo yet.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes, sir. We’re instructed to approach to a hundred klicks.”
“Fine, let’s do it.”
The navigation computer indicated the Loadout only required three minutes – including acceleration and deceleration - to arrive at the ordered position. Flint didn’t waste time and the warship raced towards the planet.
“Right,” he said, slowing the Loadout to a halt at a hundred-kilometre altitude. “Let’s take a look at the Kantilvor.”
“Coming up on the sensors, sir,” said Becerra.
The Daklan annihilators had always been vastly intimidating warships, and far more than the sum of their considerable parts. Since the end of their war, humanity and the Daklan freely shared technology, but there was a divergence in warship design. In theory, the Kantilvor should have been no more capable than an HPA battleship, yet at six thousand metres and seventy billion tons, this one looked like it could chew up and spit out anything stupid enough to engage it in combat.
“It’s carrying lightspeed missiles, six of the latest Terrus-IV cannons, twin million-klick particle beams, and enough hellburners to destroy that ground facility in a couple of salvoes,” said Bolan.
“Plus three mesh deflector charges – one more than we have,” said Maddox. “And the joint-most out of anything in our combined fleets.”
The mesh deflector was another example of technology acquired from the Meklon aliens. When activated – manually or automatically by a warship’s battle computer – the deflector would create a short-lived shield that would block pretty much anything. Once used, a mesh deflector unit required five minutes to recharge before it would activate again.
The technology had been successfully replicated after the defeat of the Lavorix, which meant only a handful of officers – including Fleet Admiral Recker - had combat experience of the deflectors. However, the simulators contained many scenarios to help a warship’s crew get the most out of their defences by combining them with short-range lightspeed jumps and low-altitude circuits of whatever celestial objects were available to break a hostile weapons lock.
On a different occasion, Flint would have studied the local fleet longer than he did. This time, his feeling of agitation was growing and he anxiously scanned the sensor feed of the refinery, trying to predict which of the dozen or so visible shuttles would be used to bring up the cargo. Guessing was no fun and he gave up quickly.
“Anything on the scans?” he asked.
“Now I’m worried,” said Maddox. “That’s the second time you’ve asked.”
“I’m getting the same edginess I remember from back in the Daklan wars,” Flint confessed. “It’s been so long since I got the feeling and now it’s here again.”
“Want me to send a comm to the other warships, sir?” asked Garrett.
Flint’s eye went to the clock. Ten minutes of the twenty had passed.
“Don’t tell them anything – just keep a close eye on what’s out there,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “This cargo pickup is the closest thing to excitement any of us have had in years. That’s probably all it is.”
“Yeah,” said Maddox, stretching out the word to make her doubt clear.
“If it makes any difference, I don’t like it either, sir,” said Fredericks.
“Lieutenant Garrett, speak to the comms team on the Lucerne,” said Flint. “Don’t set off any alarms, but find out if they seem worried.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s nothing on the local battle network,” said Becerra. “And I’ve accessed the data feeds from the satellite ring - they’re all clear.”
“Another peaceful day on the wonderful paradise that is Tibulon,” said Maddox.
“Uh, the feed from one of the outer satellites went offline,” said Becerra. “And there goes a second.”
“Shit!” said Flint. He tightened his grip on the controls, but didn’t yet push the Loadout into motion. “Lieutenant Garrett - find out what’s going on. Lieutenant Becerra, focus the sensors in that area.”
“There’s no sign of a ternium wave, sir,” said Fredericks. “And I’ve been watching all this time.”
A ternium wave was created by a warship approaching through lightspeed. These waves only lasted a few seconds but they stood out like a hog roast at a vegetarian’s birthday party. If Fredericks hadn’t seen one, that meant there was either a technical problem with the satellites, or something had approached at a sub-light velocity and taken them out.
At that moment, an orange dot – representing an unidentified target – appeared on the tactical. The information overlay indicated it was four million kilometres away and travelling at seven thousand kilometres per second towards a third satellite.
“Another feed went down,” said Becerra.
“There goes the response alert,” said Garrett. “The Kantilvor has the lead, the other ships are to follow.”
“What about us?” asked Flint. “We’ve received no synch code from the Kantilvor – if they enter an SRT, we’ll have to follow by manual activation.”
“That’s intentional, sir,” said Garrett, her voice at a higher volume than usual. “We’re to collect the cargo and get the hell out of here – that’s just been confirmed by real time FTL comm from base.”
It surprised Flint how q
uickly his brain slipped a state of combat readiness and he waited to find out which of two options the Kantilvor’s commanding officer would pick. The local fleet would either lightspeed out to meet the apparent attacker, or they’d sit back and let it come.
The orange dot turned red as it was reclassified as hostile. Vanishing briefly from the tactical, it reappeared, stationary, and less than a million kilometres from Tibulon. It didn’t remain stationary for long and with an acceleration that defied belief, it surged from its arrival place.
Green dots representing the Kantilvor, the Scavaron and the Lucerne accelerated towards the unknown craft, while the Langinstol and the Ferocious circled tightly in place. The tactical indicated that every local warship – except the Loadout - was in hellburner lock range and Flint watched for the fireworks to begin.
“Hellburner missiles launched from the local fleet, sir,” said Maddox. “Lightspeed missiles deployed by the Kantilvor.”
Two hundred or more green dots raced across the tactical, while the lightspeed missiles travelled too fast for the hardware to detect. At an estimated eight thousand metres in length and with a hundred-billion-ton mass, the enemy warship was the largest in the field, but it was nothing that obviously outclassed the combined firepower of the alliance warships.
The confidence of the attack was what made Flint worried.
“Get me a sensor lock!” he snapped.
Holding the Loadout stationary wasn’t satisfactory, and he slid the controls along their runners, producing a rising thunder from the propulsion. For a split-second, he detected a stutter, as if the power running through the ternium modules had been interrupted. Then, the stutter was gone and the Loadout’s velocity gauge climbed rapidly.
“No detected weapons launched from the enemy warship,” said Garrett. “The Kantilvor’s commanding officer repeats that we are to collect the cargo.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t join the engagement,” said Flint. “If the local fleet is destroyed, the Loadout alone isn’t going to stand much chance.”
“Damn this is real,” said Maddox, managing to fit a dozen emotions into the statement, like the enormity of the events were finally sinking in. Her expression hardened. “The battle network has registered 215 direct hellburner strikes on the approaching warship, sir.”
“Sensor lock obtained,” said Becerra, her voice surprisingly calmer than Garrett’s.
Whatever kind of warship it was, Flint hadn’t seen the like before. It wasn’t anything similar to a Meklon craft and it didn’t resemble the numerous types constructed by the Lavorix. The coming vessel was so dark in colour it may as well have been black, and its overall shape reminded Flint of a jagged, but irregular spear head, except the serrations here pointed forward instead of back.
Most importantly, although Hellburner missiles detonated in sufficient numbers to wreathe much of the enemy warship’s hull in star-bright plasma, they didn’t appear to be doing any damage and had produced no visible cratering.
“Running a hull scan of the enemy warship,” said Lieutenant Fredericks. “No sign of an energy shield and no output spikes that would suggest they activated a mesh deflector.”
“The Kilvar,” Flint breathed, as if speaking the word too loudly was to confirm it as truth. “It’s got to be.” He raised his voice. “Make sure the news reaches Basalt – tell them we suspect a Kilvar assault on the Tibulon facility.”
No doubt every other warship was sending a variation of the same message, but it was best to be certain.
“I have a particle beam lock and a lightspeed missile lock on the enemy craft, sir,” said Maddox. “Also upper hellburner clusters one to three and portsides one and two. Awaiting your order to fire.”
“Fire the hellburners,” said Flint.
“Hellburners fired.”
The Loadout’s launch clusters were far from the bridge, but the igniting missile propulsions created a penetratingly deep sound which was apparent above the engines. Not only that, Flint was sure he sensed the trauma of it running through warship. Twenty hellburners tore through the vacuum, accelerating to their twelve-thousand-klicks-per-second off-boost maximum.
“Hit them with the particle beam.”
“Particle beam discharged.”
Electronic needles jumped around on Flint’s control panel and the propulsion stuttered again.
“Check that out, Lieutenant Fredericks.”
“No errors on the logs or instrumentation, sir. I’m running an audit.”
“Do it quickly.”
“Enemy warship at half a million klicks from our position,” said Becerra. “It’s closed to within a hundred thousand of the Kantilvor.”
“No visible damage on the enemy warship, sir,” said Maddox. “So far, we’ve hit them with lightspeed missiles, particle beams and hellburners, and the Kantilvor has landed three Terrus-IV strikes. No damage apparent.”
“The Kantilvor and the Lucerne report similar abnormalities in their engines, sir,” said Becerra.
“We’re being sucker-punched,” said Flint. “I don’t know how, but it’s happening.”
“What else can we do?” asked Maddox.
Flint didn’t know. In his mind, it was too much coincidence that the enemy spaceship had turned up at Tibulon shortly after the refinery had produced something he guessed was of major importance to the alliance. How the enemy knew about it was a question for later.
“Lieutenant Fredericks, that incoming warship has done something to our propulsion,” Flint warned. “Find out what it is.”
The engine output was interrupted again, only this time it wasn’t just a stutter. Instead, the propulsion shuddered violently and the controls went briefly dead in Flint’s hands before the power readouts jumped to ninety percent of maximum. The needle began falling, dropping rapidly to eighty-five percent.
“I’ve located the problem, sir,” said Fredericks. “We have areas of decay affecting every one of our ternium modules. It started small, but it’s spreading.”
“We’re going to lose propulsion?”
“Yes, sir. If I can’t think of a way to stop it.”
“How long before it happens?”
“Total failure will occur in less than two minutes.”
“Every other ship in the local fleet reports the same issues, sir,” said Garrett.
Flint didn’t know the other warship captains, but he was sure each one had a career going back to the human-Daklan wars. They flew too well and acted too decisively to be anything other than veterans, and the alliance didn’t assign clean-shaven twenty-somethings to anything larger than a riot class. Yet in spite of the likely experience of the crews, the tools they were using weren’t up to the job.
“What’s the update on the shuttle?” asked Flint, holding the Loadout in a tight circle above the base.
“Word from the surface facility is that it won’t depart until the attack is over.”
“Damnit,” said Flint sourly. “I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad decision.”
“Hellburners reloaded, particle beam available, sir,” said Maddox.
“Fire. Everything we’ve got,” said Flint. “The lightspeed missiles too.”
“Lightspeed missiles launched from our forward tubes,” said Maddox at once. “Particle beam discharged. Hellburner upper clusters one to three and rears one and two fired.”
The alliance’s lightspeed missiles were shockingly expensive and they carried an eye-wateringly large payload. Once they were ejected from the Loadout’s two tubes, they accelerated slowly for a moment, before their lightspeed engines activated and they vanished from the tactical.
As Flint watched, twin, devastatingly large blasts from those lightspeed missiles engulfed the nose section of the coming warship. The vessel’s punishing velocity tore it through the blasts, but plasma clung to its surface while a salvo of hellburners from one of the other local warships crashed into its visible starboard flank.
“Lightspeed missile deton
ations confirmed,” said Maddox. “No discernible damage.”
The bad news kept on coming. A thick beam of crimson energy darted from the enemy ship’s nose. Straight afterwards, a second beam came from one of its portside spines and a third from the starboard side.
“Activation of the Kantilvor’s mesh deflector confirmed,” said Commander Maddox. “Also activations on the Scavaron and Lucerne.”
One of the Loadout’s arrays was still locked on the Kantilvor and Flint glanced across in time to see an ovoid of tightly clustered blue-light slashes appear around the Daklan annihilator.
“Negative activation on our own mesh deflector, sir,” said Maddox. “The enemy are equipped with a high-powered beam weapon. Let’s hope it’s got a long recharge interval.”
No sooner had she said the words than the Kantilvor’s mesh deflector winked out and was immediately activated for a second time by a fourth discharge from the enemy spaceship.
“Shock bursts deployed,” said Maddox.
The deployment of the beam weapon prompted every one of the alliance warships to release their own shock bombs. Bright flashes of blue expanded into massive spheres of energy designed to attenuate any beam weapons passing through them. Red lines stabbed into the spheres, emerging weakened on the far side, yet still possessing the strength to activate the Lucerne’s mesh deflector.
“Missile launch detected from the enemy warship,” said Maddox. “Activating railer countermeasures. Disruptor drones deployed. Holding onto the interceptors.”
Almost three hundred inbound missiles appeared on the tactical, gaining velocity at an incredible rate. Hellburners launched from multiple sources went the other way, some already boosted to their eighteen-thousand-kilometre-per-second maximum as they sought a weakness in the Kilvar defences.
Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1) Page 4
