Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1)

by Anthony James

  “So we could fit our own hardware in its place, Private.”

  Moseley was a lot more patient than most scientists Vance had encountered. Those he’d met before usually huffed and puffed like they couldn’t tolerate speaking to anyone who wasn’t another scientist. Fleet Admiral Recker’s wife – Lera-Vel – had been an exception, and RL Moseley was proving to be another.

  “Let’s hope we don’t come to regret it,” said Vance, already feeling that regret.

  “Sir, look!” said Private Faye Raven. She patted Vance’s shoulder at the same time to get his attention and then pointed at the ceiling.

  Tipping his head back, Vance could no longer see the planet’s sky through the roof breach. Instead, he was treated to the sight of a warship’s near-black underside at such a low altitude that he could clearly make out a series of straight-line markings etched into the plating. He had no idea what, if anything, they represented and he didn’t stop to think about it.

  When he was nearly across the open area around the Ixoler, Vance got a sense of danger. He whirled and his eyes jumped between the visible exits. They were all closed apart from the one he was heading for.

  “Shit, look out! Above us!” yelled Private Carrington.

  A shape dropped through the roof breach and plummeted to the ground. Vance’s brain just about had time to register the presence of two muscular arms crossed over a broad chest, legs together and bent at the knee, and, atop the barrel torso, a head with a visage that made Vance wonder what the universe had thrown at him this time.

  With a solid thud, audible in the last vestiges of the room’s air, the creature struck the ground near to the Ixoler about sixty metres from Vance and the soldiers of Squad A. The impact was such that its bones must surely have been crushed and its organs ruptured.

  No spacesuit, thought Vance, identifying at once that something wasn’t right.

  Whatever the creature was, it had landed on its feet and was curled up tightly like a champion sprinter ready to burst out of the blocks. It was huge and intimidating. Vance guessed its arms and legs were twice the circumference of the strongest Daklan’s, and its flesh was the drab grey of death.

  Filthy cloth of a darker hue, with many ragged tears, and patches of what looked like brown dust covered much of the alien’s body. On its feet were boots, also grey, but made from leather, metal, or polymer - Vance had no idea which.

  He saw something else - where the alien’s boots touched the alloy floor, twin pools of corrosion slowly expanded, like the metal was ageing a billion years for every second it was in contact with the creature.

  Instinctively, Vance lifted his gauss rifle and put three rapid-fire slugs into the top of the alien’s bald head. He was an excellent shot and didn’t miss, but the impacts didn’t produce the extensive trauma he’d anticipated. Instead, it was like shooting into a water-logged tree trunk – holes appeared, but bones didn’t shatter and there was no sign the bullets were exiting the far side of its skull.

  The alien’s head snapped up and Vance looked into round, empty eye sockets filled with endless darkness. The creature’s nose was gone, leaving elongated holes, and its mouth was disproportionately wide. Suddenly, that mouth opened wide in a soundless scream of longing and Vance stared in disgust at twin rows of humanlike teeth decayed into sickly brown, and at the pallid tongue which clung to the back of its throat.

  Not knowing why he was so sure, Vance had a certainty this alien was ancient, like it had persisted for a thousand years or longer. He could sense its hatred of life and he hated it in return. Vance felt no fear. Calmly, he shot it again, putting slug after slug into its grinning face.

  “Sergeant Tagra, Sergeant Gantry, we’re under attack,” he said on the comms, in case they hadn’t yet realised. “At my location.”

  His shots knocked out the Kilvar’s teeth, but it didn’t go down. Instead, the creature rose so effortlessly, it was like its body was operated by hydraulics instead of flesh and bone.

  “Must be nine feet tall,” said Drawl, firing his gauss rifle into the enemy’s chest. The shots created uneven holes, without seeming to penetrate any more than a few inches. “Damn, it’s like I’m using a peashooter.”

  “Let’s try this,” said Corporal Charnos, levelling his Rodan sweeper and pulling the trigger. The weapon ejected a cluster of slugs which hit the enemy high in its chest.

  Standing nearby, Vance had a good angle to see the twelve-inch entry hole appear and the subsequent explosion of flesh which erupted from the Kilvar’s back.

  “And again,” said Charnos with a note of battle lust in his voice which Vance hadn’t heard from a Daklan in a long time.

  The Rodan thudded with recoil and a second hole appeared in the enemy’s torso. The terrible wounds didn’t seem to trouble the Kilvar and it swept its empty gaze slowly left and right, before settling on the exium prototype near Vance. Meanwhile, the circles of corrosion at its feet continued growing.

  All at once, the alien was subjected to a fusillade of shots coming from multiple directions. From his periphery, Vance spotted two soldiers from Squad C squad sprint out from behind an oversized console beyond the Ixoler. One was Sergeant Gantry and he kicked out the stand on his MG-12 repeater before dropping to the ground in preparation for unleashing hell.

  With a burst of movement, the alien broke into a run. It came directly for the exium prototype, unstoppable like a train. Gantry opened up with the MG-12 and a torrent of high-velocity bullets punched into the Kilvar’s flank, producing a shower of dried flesh. Another two Rodan shots blew off the top of its head, smashing one eye socket and a cheekbone at the same time.

  “Private Stanar!” bellowed Vance, taking steady paces away from the incoming enemy.

  The Daklan wasn’t far and his rocket tube was already on his shoulder. The sound of the weapon’s charging coils was reduced to the same droning note as everything else.

  “Rocket out.”

  The projectile spat from the tube and an orange trail of propellant streaked across the room. Stanar’s aim was good and the rocket detonated at the feet of the incoming Kilvar. Fire blossomed and the nearest soldiers threw themselves flat, since the range was too close for comfort.

  A temperature warning appeared on Vance’s HUD. It wasn’t high enough to worry him and he ignored it. Rolling to his feet, adjacent to the exium prototype, Vance’s eyes searched the fading blast for signs of the enemy. A blackened figure lay dead on the ground, smoke pouring in a stinking cloud from its ruined flesh.

  Swearing profusely, Vance emptied a half-dozen slugs into the alien’s corpse, just to be sure, and his soldiers fired with equal enthusiasm. The Kilvar didn’t get up.

  “Move!” shouted Vance, already on his way to the exit. Anxiously, he glanced at the ceiling, but no more of the huge aliens were in sight.

  RL Moseley was alongside, having remained admirably calm when the Kilvar dropped from the ceiling. “So that’s what we’re facing,” he said.

  “Looks like,” said Vance.

  “It was tough.”

  “And now it’s dead.”

  The engagement had allowed the few trailing soldiers – those watching the furthest doors – to join with Vance, and together they made it to the corner where the last of the technicians were on their way through the exit.

  A body lay slumped over a console a short distance away. It was one of the technicians and he wore no helmet. The platoon medic – Corporal Suzy Hendrix – stepped away, having assured herself he was beyond saving.

  “Sucks for this one,” she said grimly.

  “Come on,” said Vance, giving her a thin smile and gesturing towards the exit.

  “He was a good man,” said Moseley sadly. “A brilliant mind.”

  Privately, Vance expected there’d be many more casualties before this was over. Most likely one hundred percent casualties. Not that he was planning to give up.

  With the exium prototype following like a faithful hound, Vance arrived at the thr
eshold to the exit corridor. The personnel weren’t so tightly packed that he couldn’t see the end room and the airlifts which were carrying them to the subterranean levels of the facility.

  “Sir, there’s another one of those things,” said Private Kari Banks. “It’s not far from the reactor.”

  “I see it,” said Vance grimly. “It’s coming fast.”

  “Two more approach us along the eastern wall,” said Sergeant Tagra, clenching and unclenching his fists around the barrel of his Rodan.

  “Another three from the north,” said Drawl. “They must have cracked the base security already and got the doors open.”

  “Should I lay some charges, sir?” asked Private Enfield, unslinging his pack in anticipation of the order.

  Vance considered it, but only briefly. “Not now, Private. It isn’t wise to set charges under pressure.”

  “I don’t feel the pressure, sir,” Enfield boasted, shrugging himself back into the shoulder straps.

  “Sure you don’t,” said Drawl.

  “No more talk,” said Vance. It wasn’t a good time to lay explosives, but it was an excellent time for rockets. He beckoned to Private Stanar and Private Raimi who were both loitering five metres into the passage. “One shot each and then we run for those airlocks. Try not to break anything valuable.”

  “No guarantees, sir,” said Raimi, walking sideways into the room. The moment he had space, he swung the tube onto his shoulder, letting the coils warm up at the same time. A rocket sped away, landing five metres in front of the nearest Kilvar approaching along the eastern wall. Vance squinted instinctively, half-convinced the creature would come hurtling out of the flames.

  It didn’t and a hulking corpse was left on the floor, knocked on its back by the force of the explosion.

  “My turn,” said Stanar.

  The enemy weren’t exactly clustered, so a double hit was out of the question. Stanar’s rocket tube produced a droning of coils.

  “Don’t hit the reactor!” shouted RL Moseley, realising too late what the Daklan was aiming at.

  The warning came too late and the rocket sped across the room, detonating against the end of the reactor cylinder. White-hot plasma engulfed the Kilvar and part of the reactor. When the blast receded, the enemy was gone from sight behind one of the consoles.

  “We’re not dead,” said Drawl philosophically.

  “Not yet,” Vance agreed. “RL Moseley, didn’t I hear you say the reactor was safe?”

  “You distinctly did not hear me say that, Lieutenant. What I said was the enemy could take it if they wanted it. The reactor contains a large quantity of ingar and some variable-state ternium, neither of which are entirely stable.”

  “Then why isn’t it in the vault?” asked Vance, urging the soldiers into the corridor. The other Kilvar hadn’t slowed down, but now that he’d had a chance to gauge things better, he saw they weren’t any faster than a soldier in a combat suit.

  “Cutting edge research requires the occasional risk compromise, Lieutenant,” said Moseley, in what sounded like a well-rehearsed justification, prepared for use in case the facility was ever blown sky-high by an unforeseen accident as a result of those risk compromises.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said Vance. He didn’t much care what the scientists got up to, as long as they didn’t kill him or his soldiers at the same time.

  Another explosion shook the walls and at the same moment, Vance spotted what he believed was a transport shuttle landing directly over the ceiling breach. Now the enemy had confirmed the location of the exium prototype, they were stepping up their efforts to recover it. Vance closed the passage doors behind him and then sprinted after the others.

  The group entered the room at the end of the corridor. It was almost empty, except for Sergeant Tagra and the rest of Squad B. The lift doors were open and the soldiers were holding them to ensure the cars stayed in place.

  “Two airlifts with a total capacity of one hundred personnel,” said Tagra.

  “Let’s not stick around,” said Vance, entering the furthest car and standing at the control panel. It had one upper destination and one lower.

  “This lower level isn’t inside the vault,” he said. “How do we get there?”

  “There’s another shaft,” said RL Moseley. “We have to exit this lift and enter another. Or use the stairs.”

  “Stairs, huh?” sniffed Drawl. “In case the lift breaks down?”

  “Or in case an alternative method of escape is required should an incident occur,” said Moseley.

  The lift doors closed and the car began its descent. During the time it took to arrive at its subterranean destination, Vance reflected upon what lay beneath the metaphorical surface of the Tibulon facility. The more he spoke to RL Moseley, the more he became convinced that the research happening here was, in fact, operating completely outside the normal rules of safety. Whether that was something being covered up by the local personnel, or a fact known and accepted by high command, Vance couldn’t guess.

  A brief period of deceleration indicated the lift was close to its destination. The internal speaker produced a ding, audible over the ongoing alarm, and then the doors opened. Vance and the soldiers exited into the hidden world beneath the Tibulon facility.

  Chapter Nine

  Hiding on the blind side of Tibulon, Captain William Flint felt as low as he could remember. The Kilvar had either destroyed or disabled approximately half of the planet’s satellites, but the operational monitors granted an excellent view of the debris which tumbled through space approximately three-quarters of a million kilometres above the surface. Much of the wreckage was white and orange with the heat and it wouldn’t cool down any time soon.

  For several minutes, Becerra and Garrett had attempted to confirm which of the local fleet had been destroyed. The Kantilvor was confirmed lost, as was the Lucerne. However, the calculated mass of debris was greater than the two warships combined, which meant at least one other vessel had suffered the same fate. Putting the pieces together was a jigsaw nobody enjoyed and Flint eventually called off the attempted reconstruction.

  “We have to assume we’re alone,” he said.

  “Are we heading back to base, sir?” asked Maddox.

  “We couldn’t even if we wanted, Commander,” said Fredericks. “The Loadout doesn’t have the power to open a lightspeed tunnel. I could fix something up, but it won’t be quick.”

  “We’re not leaving,” said Flint. “We might not be able to hurt the enemy, but we can watch and gather intel.”

  The satellite feed of the surface facility showed just how busy the Kilvar had been.

  “So far, they’ve blown up the barracks, the comms hub, and some of these peripheral buildings,” said Flint, his eyes on the glowing wreckage of the buildings. He took a deep breath and an anger he hadn’t experienced during the years of peace clenched at his innards. It felt better than despair.

  The enemy ship was stationary over the eastern side of the base, but the multiple viewpoints from the satellites ensured little was hidden. A series of explosions ripped apart one of the storage buildings and shortly after that, one of the smaller research facilities went the same way.

  “Do we know where the exium was located, sir?” asked Commander Maddox.

  “Only the shuttle pad it was being flown from,” said Flint. “Lieutenant Garrett, put up a topographical map of the facility and highlight that landing area.”

  “Here you go, sir.”

  The base map appeared and Garrett traced a thick red outline around the shuttle launch area. Several transports were visible on the ground.

  “Now highlight the individual research buildings,” said Flint.

  “I’ll call those locations up from the databanks, sir. Might the exium have been stored elsewhere?”

  “They call them research buildings, Lieutenant, but they usually do the initial manufacturing of the test samples in those places. Once the testing is done, they recreate all the be
spoke tech, scale it up and then build specialised plants,” said Fredericks.

  “Here they are on the map,” said Garrett. “Two of them already got blown to pieces.”

  “Leaving two others,” said Flint. “And the largest research facility is right next to the confirmed shuttle launch area.”

  “Then that’s the place,” said Maddox.

  “Lieutenant Fredericks, do you have any theories as to how the enemy may have detected the presence of exium?”

  “I don’t have anything to work on, sir, since I’ve never seen a piece of exium in my life, nor even heard of it before this mission.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Flint testily. “That’s why I asked for theories.”

  “It’s possible the substance emits particles, but the behaviour of that Kilvar warship indicates they don’t know precisely where on the facility the exium is located.”

  “If the exium is shielded, would that limit the enemy’s ability to detect its location?”

  “It’s possible, sir.”

  “I appreciate you lack solid data, Lieutenant, but I’m pushing you for a reason. If the Kilvar don’t have a means to detect the presence of exium, then they’ve found out about this facility some other way.”

  “Like hacking into one of our comms systems or data stores,” said Fredericks. “I understand that, sir, but I can’t give you the clarity you’re looking for.”

  “Damnit,” said Flint. He hated the feeling of helplessness. An enemy species was plundering one of the alliance’s primary research facilities and he couldn’t do a thing to stop it happening.

  “A few hours and the reinforcements should arrive,” said Maddox.

  “What are they going to do?” asked Flint. “The Kilvar ship is impervious to our weapons, so even a hundred vessels won’t be enough.”

  “I’m nearly done analysing the hull readings from our first encounter, sir,” said Fredericks. “At first, I hunted for energy emissions that might indicate an invisible energy shield that clings to their armour. There was nothing – at least nothing our sensors have identified.”