War from a Distant Sun (Savage Stars Book 1)

by Anthony James

  The possibilities whirled around in his head and Recker caught Aston watching him expectantly.

  “Too much to guess, Commander,” he said with a short laugh. “If you fear the fog of war, it’ll kill you every time.”

  “So I’m told, sir.” Aston’s stare didn’t waver.

  “I’ve got a plan.”

  Now she smiled. “What’re the orders?”

  He returned a smile of his own. “We’ve lost control, through no fault of our own. Let’s finish this and get out of here.”

  Aston understood at once what he meant and she nodded. “Death or victory.”

  “No death, only victory,” he corrected her.

  Chapter Four

  Recker’s plan wasn’t elaborate, but he hoped it would be effective. The arrival of the enemy destroyer meant the slow and steady approach was no longer viable and, in such circumstances, the only answer was to go to the opposite extreme.

  “I’m taking a gamble, folks,” Recker said. Time was tight and he talked quickly. “If the captain of that destroyer believes we came to Etrol, he’ll have taken his spaceship straight to the place he doesn’t want us to find.”

  “Giving the game away,” said Aston.

  “And if he doesn’t think we’re here, he’ll have gone to the same place anyway,” said Eastwood.

  “That’s how I look at it,” Recker agreed. “What we’re going to do is fly in low and fast along the edge of the mountain range. Lieutenant Burner reckons the destroyer arrived at a ninety thousand klick altitude, so it’s going to see us if the sensor crew are on their toes. What we’re hoping is that they’re looking upwards, rather than towards the surface. If this works, we’ll fly straight underneath without being spotted, scan their facility and get the hell away.”

  “If it fails, we’re dodging missiles,” said Burner.

  “We’ll handle whatever comes our way, Lieutenant.” Recker called up one of the sensor feeds, which showed the edge of the mountain range directly beneath the spaceship. “If we find something, you’ll need to get the word out to base before we’re turned into a fireball by enemy warheads.”

  “Any chance we’re getting some help at any time?” asked Eastwood.

  “I don’t know,” Recker admitted.

  “Admiral Telar wouldn’t hold back useful intel just to screw with you?” said Aston.

  Recker hesitated. “Not Admiral Telar. Even if it was someone else pulling the strings of this mission, it wouldn’t happen. Not here. Not on a Priority 1.”

  “So why the lack of comms from base?”

  The most likely answer didn’t bear thinking about. “Maybe every warship is committed elsewhere,” said Recker. “Maybe we’ve only got scraps left that can come to Etrol. Warships that take hours to reach with an FTL comm.”

  “Are you aware of any big plans that might leave our fleet with nothing available, sir?” asked Aston.

  Recker had some connections. “I get to hear things once in a while, that’s all. And I didn’t hear anything about this.”

  “In that case it’s not happening,” Aston said firmly. “Which means that backup’s either a long way off or it’s not coming.”

  “It doesn’t matter much either way,” said Recker. “We’re not waiting to find out. Does everyone know what’s expected?”

  When the crew had spoken their agreement, he readied himself. The course overlay was a green line across his navigational screen and he hardly needed to glance at it.

  With steady hands, he slid the control bars to the end of their runners and the Finality entered a steep dive. The forward feed showed nothing but greys which soon resolved into the jagged lines of the central mountain range as the spaceship gathered speed. Seconds passed and Recker didn’t let up. The howling propulsion filled the bridge and a vibration from the controls entered his palms.

  “Atmospheric friction, sir,” Aston reminded him.

  “And mountains,” said Burner.

  “I know. Find that destroyer.”

  “On it, sir.”

  At the last moment, Recker hauled the controls towards him and the Finality levelled out. Etrol’s atmosphere wasn’t dense and only extended to an altitude of eighty kilometres. With the engines grumbling and the hull shaking under deceleration, the spaceship skimmed the upper reaches of the atmosphere and the temperature of the armour plates increased.

  At this height there was little worry about burning up, but Recker reduced altitude further and the altimeter fell to fifty klicks and then thirty. Here, the atmosphere was denser, and the heat accumulated, clinging to the nose section and setting off high level alerts on the instrumentation.

  “Some of those peaks are pretty high,” said Burner. “Average height, seventeen thousand metres.”

  “I’m not planning to hit them, Lieutenant. Where’s that destroyer?”

  “Still looking, sir. It could have moved on.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  “Me either. If it’s there, I’ll find it.”

  At an altitude of twenty-five thousand metres, Recker held the spaceship level. Incredibly, some of the mountaintops were higher still – vast broad-bladed spears of rock - and he was required to bank left and right to avoid them. Still the hull temperature climbed, and the forward sensor feed’s dedicated processor was nailed on a hundred percent as it filtered out the visual distortion from the burning heat.

  Nobody spoke and Recker felt the muscles in his forearms beginning to ache. He was holding too tightly, and it took an effort to lessen his grip on the controls. Information from a dozen or more sources vied for his attention, while the rough terrain raced by in a blur. Another of the colossal peaks came up ahead, this one towering almost thirty thousand metres.

  With fast reflexes, Recker guided the Finality around the peak and found another one directly ahead. He banked again and lifted the nose, reluctant to reduce the spaceship’s velocity by even a fraction. Rock and alloy almost met and Recker gritted his teeth at the margins.

  “Missed that one by an easy two hundred metres,” said Burner.

  “Watch the skies, Lieutenant,” snapped Recker. “I’ll deal with this.”

  “Yes, sir. Eight hundred klicks and then we’re directly under the most likely arrival position of the enemy destroyer.”

  The distance counter flew downwards and Recker wondered what the hell they were going to find here on Etrol. He asked himself if the lenses on DS-Quad1 had picked up a false positive, or maybe there was some dense metal ore which had flagged up as a Daklan base. Errors happened, though not often enough for him to believe this was one of them. The presence of the destroyer was solid evidence that the Daklan were up to something out here.

  “Five hundred klicks.”

  “Where’s that damned destroyer?”

  “Still no sensor lock, sir.”

  Recker didn’t like the unexplained. In theory, it should have been straightforward to locate a spaceship at ninety thousand klicks and Burner didn’t usually make mistakes.

  He swore in realization. “What if it set down behind these mountains?”

  “That would do it,” said Burner, his voice indicating his horror at overlooking the possibility.

  “If that’s the case, we won’t be able to see them, but they’ll sure as hell be able to detect those ternium particles we’re leaving behind,” said Eastwood.

  It was like the enemy had been waiting for light to dawn in Recker’s head before they acted.

  “Oh shit,” said Burner. “Daklan warship at six hundred klicks, rising straight up from behind the mountains.”

  Aston acted with incredible speed. “Ilstroms locked. Firing.”

  The thumping sound of sixteen missiles launching from the forward tubes momentarily overcame everything else. Orange specks of their propulsion appeared on the feed and then vanished over the horizon. Recker wasn’t watching. His brain evaluated the available data and his hands threw the Finality lower into the mountains.

  Sheer
rock faces rose on both sides and the spaceship entered a craggy, boulder-strewn canyon that twisted between the peaks. At the current speed it was hard for Recker to maintain control and he was forced to back off to give his reactions a few extra milliseconds.

  The enemy warship was at such a low altitude that its firing angle was cut out and he hoped he’d been in time to prevent it obtaining a weapons lock.

  No such luck.

  “They got off a salvo,” said Aston. “Twenty coming our way. Disruptors out.”

  Drones ejected from the upper tubes and into Etrol’s dark sky. Recker didn’t see them go, such was his focus on piloting the spaceship. The canyon turned and narrowed, and it took everything to keep from colliding with the sides.

  The Daklan missiles didn’t appear on the tactical, leaving Recker guessing as to their position. Six hundred klicks wasn’t much distance for a Feilar to travel and it seemed like ten of them struck the same place in the canyon wall ahead of the Finality. White hot plasma blossomed starkly against the image intensified darkness of Etrol. Rock erupted from the impact points, jetting outwards like the planet’s lifeblood.

  With neither time nor room to avoid the showering rock, and with the noise of the Railer’s sudden activation drowning out his thoughts, Recker did his best to avoid impacting with the canyon walls. The spaceship crashed through a few thousand tons of stone like it was nothing. He heard the distant thudding against the armour plating and ignored its irrelevance to his fight for survival.

  Ahead, at two thousand metres, the canyon split. The left branch would take the Finality further from the approaching destroyer and an idea slotted itself neatly into Recker’s brain. He acted without thought and banked left.

  “Prepare the aft missile tubes,” he instructed.

  To her credit, Aston didn’t ask questions. “Still got an amber on cluster #2,” was all she said.

  As soon as the Finality was inside the left branch of the canyon, Recker increased altitude. A ternium drive didn’t only provide thrust from the rear and an experienced pilot could make a spaceship perform all kinds of tricks. Without lifting the nose or losing speed, Recker brought the Finality vertically out of the canyon. He heard the quiet beeping of a weapons lock from Aston’s console and at the same time, the destroyer appeared on the rear sensor feed – a speck of grey climbing high and approaching fast.

  “Rear clusters #1 and #2 launched,” said Aston. “Failures on three tubes.”

  The moment he heard the words, Recker dropped the Finality back into the canyon. “Have they launched?” He knew the destroyer’s initial attack had come from its forward launch tubes and he was relying on their reload being incomplete.

  “Negative launch, sir.”

  “Ready forward clusters.”

  As he said the words, Recker twisted the control bars and cut power to one half of the propulsion. With a violent lurch, the Finality flipped front to back and the sensor view spun crazily. The spaceship’s nose came within a hair of the canyon wall and then Recker got it under control. He immediately increased altitude and the bridge walls shook and groaned under the conflicting stresses.

  “Weapons lock on the enemy destroyer,” said Aston. “Forward clusters #1 and #2 launched.”

  Recker’s heart jumped at the sight of the Daklan warship. The Finality’s first missile attack must have taken the enemy crew completely by surprise and the vessel was ablaze, trailing a white smear of plasma light as it continued climbing. It was no longer hunting Recker and his crew. Now, the destroyer was banking hard as it sought an escape.

  The destroyer’s altitude was such that the canyon would no longer cut out its firing angle, so Recker made no effort to take cover again. Instead, he accelerated towards the enemy and watched the orange propulsion trails of sixteen Ilstroms flying to meet the stricken craft.

  Seconds later, the next wave of the Finality’s missiles crashed into the Daklan ship. For a moment, it was completely lost in the flash and Recker narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge if the damage was fatal.

  “Yes!” said Aston. “It’s breaking up!”

  The destroyer’s burning aft section separated from the rest of the ship. Its propulsion module was still operational and three hundred million tons of alloy and ternium accelerated into the sky. Without guidance, it began spinning and soon it was turning so fast that Recker could no longer distinguish the shape of the damaged section.

  Meanwhile, the forward section’s upward momentum ran out and it hung in the sky in apparent defiance of gravity, like a dying sun. Then, physics took over and it started the long tumble towards the ground.

  It wasn’t unheard of for an apparently defeated warship to fire a last, defiant salvo from its weapons clusters. Recker was certain the destroyer had nothing left, but he gave Aston the nod to launch again once the Ilstroms were reloaded.

  “Five seconds until we can launch, sir.”

  Recker didn’t want to hang around even for that long, and he aimed the Finality in the direction of what he hoped would be the Daklan installation. The acceleration pushed him into his seat and the missile reload finished. Aston fired at once, dividing the salvo between the two main sections of the Daklan warship. A series of new detonations added to the still-burning flames and the forward section split again, scattering armour plates and unrecognizable chunks of wreckage in every direction.

  It was an old truism that if you stared too long at the death of your enemy, his replacement would happily take advantage. With that in mind, Recker kept his focus on guiding the Finality towards its destination. He increased altitude to thirty klicks and the mountains once more raced by as the spaceship gathered speed.

  At this altitude, the range of his view ahead was increased, and he saw that the faraway mountains diminished in both height and ferocity.

  “Four hundred klicks to target,” said Burner. “The destroyer’s rear section just left orbit.”

  “Don’t waste time on it, Lieutenant.”

  The destruction of the enemy ship was a great result, but Recker’s agitation didn’t subside. If anything, it grew, and he was starting to wonder if his instinct had gone into overdrive.

  He turned an eye to the forward sensor feed. Far in the distance, the mountain range vanished completely and the surface became an undulating plain of monotonous grey with few variations.

  “Three hundred klicks,” said Burner. “If the Daklan have anything significant out here, we should see it from this altitude.” He went quiet for a second. “There! Oh shit.”

  Recker opened his mouth to ask for details and then he saw it on the feed as well. The Daklan did have a fixed presence on the planet. Not only that, they had a second warship and this one was far more threatening than a ravager class destroyer. The moment Recker realized what they faced, he knew the destruction of his spaceship was unavoidable.

  Chapter Five

  The Daklan had been busy on Etrol. A massive cylinder made from a dark material jutted from the ground. The sensors estimated the cylinder to have a diameter of two thousand metres and a height of eight thousand. Recker didn’t have time to stare and the feed wasn’t clear enough to reveal anything else about the object.

  He had bigger things to worry about.

  Parked on the bare ground a thousand metres beyond the cylinder, a desolator class heavy cruiser promised death to anything smaller than an HPA battleship. The Daklan spaceship’s shape was unmistakeable even when it was partially obscured. The rounded nose, broad midsection and cut-off rear weren’t unusual, but the pair of double-barrelled Terrus cannons on top gave the game away.

  “What the hell is that doing here?” asked Aston in shock.

  “Fire the damn missiles!” shouted Recker, his mind trying to process everything.

  “Target?”

  “The cylinder!”

  “Firing!”

  The missiles burst from their tubes and Recker brought the Finality around in the tightest of turns. At the same time, he aimed for the ground
and the altimeter dropped like a stone. The combined stresses made the hull groan like a deathbed soldier and a pair of new amber lights appeared on Recker’s console.

  He ignored the ambers and concentrated on getting the hell away from the heavy cruiser. Somehow, they’d caught the enemy crew off-guard, which was the only reason he could imagine they were still on the ground and the Finality still in the air. Luck was a wave you could only ride so far before it dumped you headfirst into the crap and Recker clenched his jaw, hoping beyond hope that his ship and his crew would be granted a few seconds to get beyond visual range across the planet’s curvature.

  A flash appeared on the rear sensor feed.

  “Sixteen successful Ilstrom detonations,” said Aston.

  “What’s the assessment of the damage?”

  “The cylinder hasn’t fallen over,” said Burner. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to provide a reliable damage estimation on the enemy structure.”

  “We’ll have the feed recordings for later. Have you transmitted our findings to base?”

  “Yes, sir. Now I’m watching for that heavy cruiser and nothing else.”

  Recker kept his attention on flying. He brought the spaceship as low as two thousand metres and gave it everything. The propulsion gauge showed a reading of 94% and the hull temperature climbed fast. He gave the briefest of glances at the rear feed and saw that the cylinder was no longer visible.

  “They’ve got no line of sight on us,” he said.

  “That might not keep us safe,” said Aston.

  “I know.”

  “What’s the plan, sir?”

  Recker didn’t have one yet. “We’re going to put as much distance as we can between us and them.”