The Ghast soldiers paused for a time and Duggan took advantage of the opportunity to look around in order to see if there was any way he could get them out of this. The military base stretched away in all directions, as far as the eye could see – kilometre upon kilometre of smooth metal landing fields and dome-shaped buildings. There were Ghast warships parked here and there. He saw two Cadaverons in the distance, their outlines fuzzy from the smog. Closer, there were a few light cruisers. Further away, there was a looming, indistinct shape that might have been an Oblivion battleship, or simply a large building. There was nothing flying, though visibility was too poor for him to be certain. They were ushered towards a boxy transport vehicle, which looked like a child’s first attempt to build a truck from blocks.
“Inside,” said one of the Ghasts. It wasn’t clear if it was the same soldier who’d spoken last time.
The four of them climbed up high steps and into the rear of the metal transport. There were hard seats against the side walls and it could have been the same vehicle that brought them here when they’d first been captured for all Duggan knew. Ten of their escort came with them, the remaining two presumably sitting up front to drive. They set off immediately, the transport’s engine humming smoothly as it carried them across the base. Duggan looked out through the opening at the rear, watching the building which had been his prison as it receded into the haze. Other buildings came into view, ugly in spite of their curved forms and lines. The base was enormous – at least as big as any on the Confederation planets.
They’d been moving at a steady speed for ten minutes when Duggan thought he saw something in the sky. There was a blurred sense of movement, as if something had disturbed the thick fog. For a tiny moment, his eyes picked out a familiar outline, before his brain dismissed the idea as fanciful. He blinked and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. This time, there was nothing to be seen. He looked around at the others – none of the Ghasts looked alarmed and the soldiers continued to stare ahead, their expressions alert, but disinterested. Then, Duggan caught McGlashan’s eye and there was something in her face that told him she’d seen something too. With no idea what had happened, he looked out of the transport again, trying his best to be nonchalant. This time, there was no disturbance – everything was exactly as it should be.
Another five minutes passed. It seemed as if the smog had thickened, reducing visibility to little more than a kilometre. There were shapes and forms away to one side – one of them a Cadaveron and the other something Duggan couldn’t quite make out. The transport continued onwards. Either the driver was in no hurry or the vehicle’s top speed was pitifully low. Then, without warning, the hum of the gravity drive stopped. Duggan was attuned to such things and was therefore able to brace himself when the transport dropped twelve inches to the ground with a heavy thump. Several of the soldiers were caught unawares and were pitched sideways into each other. There was a whining sound and something whipped by Duggan’s ear – one of the Ghasts had accidentally discharged his rifle. The transport’s momentum carried it along the ground for a short way until it came to a stop.
Four of the soldiers recovered and went towards the rear opening. They jumped the short distance onto the metal landing field and vanished from view around to one side. Duggan couldn’t read Ghast expressions well enough to know if the ones who remained to watch over them were alarmed or simply annoyed. A few of them spoke in their own tongue – rasping voices raised louder than usual. There was shouting from outside and four more Ghasts made their way to the back of the transport and climbed onto the metal ground. The two which remained were on the opposite wall to Duggan and the others. These Ghasts raised their rifles and kept them pointed at their prisoners from a distance of eight or nine feet.
Outside, there was more shouting. The two remaining Ghasts glanced towards the rear of the vehicle – none of the other soldiers were visible. If they’d been human, Duggan knew these two would be feeling uncertainty at the moment.
“What’s happening?” asked Duggan.
“Shut up,” one of the Ghasts responded.
Something ricocheted off the outside of the transport with a metallic ping. The Ghast closest to the exit got to his feet and walked warily towards the steps, his rifle still pointed straight at the prisoners. There was another sound of impact on the exterior and a second later, one of the soldiers who had earlier exited the transport fell into view, collapsing heavily onto the ground. Duggan caught a glimpse of a bullet wound as the Ghast toppled and there was a blossom of deep, red blood on his uniform.
The movement was enough to distract the Ghast soldier who was closest. He turned his head away from the prisoners for a split second. Duggan knew when it was time to act and he launched himself across the interior, wrapping his arms around the soldier’s midriff. The Ghast was as heavy as a sack full of sand and Duggan grunted when he made contact. There was movement to his right and he heard the sound of a rifle being discharged close by. The Ghast was much the heavier of the two, but Duggan was a strong man. With his teeth clenched at the effort, he swung his opponent sideways, forcing him to collide with the second soldier.
The next few seconds felt like an eternity. Duggan wrestled with the soldier, trying to twist the rifle away. McGlashan was there and she punched the Ghast in the neck with a lightning-fast jab. The soldier stumbled, yet didn’t let go. There was another rifle discharge and Chainer gasped in pain, stumbling away before dropping to his knees.
Close by, Duggan saw Lieutenant Breeze thunder a piledriving blow into the second Ghast’s stomach. He was too close for the Ghast to bring his rifle to bear. Instead, the soldier smashed the butt of his gun into Breeze’s face, knocking him away. Duggan was unable to assist, since his own opponent was tough and strong. McGlashan struck out with two more blows which would have completely debilitated a human. They clearly hurt the Ghast, but didn’t knock him out. With a violent shove, the soldier sent Duggan stumbling a few feet away. It didn’t hesitate and swung its rifle towards him. We’re going to lose this one, thought Duggan with regret. At least we gave it a go.
There was movement on the ground outside, which Duggan was only faintly aware of. A voice, unmistakeably human, shouted a command. “Get down!”
There was no chance to react. The familiar hissing fizz of gauss rifles reached Duggan’s ears, followed by the clanking sound of slugs on alloy. The two Ghast soldiers were pitched to the floor, blood quickly covering huge patches of their uniforms. The noise stopped and Duggan’s brain caught up. There were two human soldiers standing outside, their rifles still raised. Two more joined them, one with a Lieutenant’s insignia on his chest.
“Captain Duggan?” said the man. He was broad-chested and grizzled, with the hardened face of a real professional. “I’m Lieutenant Johns. Your guards are dead. Come at once.”
Duggan didn’t waste time on questions. “My lieutenant here has been injured,” he said. “Help me with him.”
Two of the human soldiers climbed inside at once. Chainer was on his knees, doubled over and clutching his chest. There was blood – a lot of it – though no sign of where exactly the Ghast bullet had entered his body. The two soldiers slung their rifles and approached Chainer. They hooked their arms under his shoulders.
“Sorry sir,” said one. “There’s no time to get you a stretcher.”
With that, they hauled Chainer to his feet. His face was pale and his eyes unfocused. The patch of blood was high up on his chest, showing as a vivid red against his blue uniform. He grimaced in pain and his jaw tightened. Duggan waved McGlashan and Breeze off the transport and waited for the two soldiers to half-drag Chainer after them. Then, he followed onto the metal ground, the smell of sulphur becoming stronger at once. He looked around and saw bodies, most of them Ghasts, but not all. There were at least a dozen human soldiers dragging the bodies – both the human and the Ghast dead. One woman ran from place to place, spraying a clear fluid from a bottle onto the patches of blood. Duggan recogniz
ed this as a make-do clean-up operation.
At first, it wasn’t clear where they were taking the bodies – the combat had taken place a long way from anywhere. Then, Duggan’s eyes made out a shape. It was almost invisible, as though it somehow warped the light in order that it appear entirely transparent. The effect was imperfect and the longer he stared, the more Duggan’s eyes could trace the outline of a spaceship.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“It’s the ES Lightning, sir,” said Lieutenant Johns. “We need to get onboard at once. I doubt we’ll have long before the Ghasts realise what’s happened.”
Johns set off at a run and Duggan followed, with McGlashan and Breeze close behind. They passed the two men carrying Chainer. Duggan paused to see if they needed a hand, but they shook their heads and pressed on, their faces red and beaded in sweat. The closer he came to the ES Lightning, the easier it was to make out a few details. He couldn’t see how large it was – only enough to know it was there. The boarding ramp was down and whatever cloaking system encompassed the exterior, it didn’t extend to the interior. The ramp and airlock were clearly visible when viewed from straight on and Duggan climbed inside. Several Ghast bodies had been dumped here in a careless heap and their blood pooled onto the floor.
He stopped and turned, waiting for the rest of the rescue party to come up the ramp. It wouldn’t have seemed right to make his way straight towards the bridge without waiting for the others. It didn’t take long. Soon, the last of the Space Corps soldiers were in the airlock, their eyes bright with nervous excitement from the confrontation.
“Shit, we lost Givens,” said one of the woman.
“Yeah, Hoster as well,” said another.
“Damn.”
The boarding ramp came up smoothly and quickly. It slotted home with the comforting sound of heavy-duty solidity and the mechanical clamps thumped into place deep within the hull.
“We need to clear the airlock,” said Johns, his voice close to a shout. “Take our dead and leave these bastards here,” he said pointing at the Ghast bodies. He turned, his eyes seeking out Duggan. “Captain Julius is on the bridge, sir. You’re invited to go and see her. Your crew are bunking with us.”
Duggan nodded. “Get the medic to check out Lieutenant Chainer and get me an update as soon as possible.”
“Yes sir,” said Johns, snapping his arm upwards in a salute.
Duggan moved away from the airlock and into the corridors beyond. The sights and smells told him at once what sort of vessel this was – he was on a Vincent class or something similar. The engines were running, with the tell-tale signs they were under an enormous amount of stress. He wasn’t halfway to the bridge when he detected the subtle changes that indicated they’d taken off.
The bridge confirmed his suspicion that he was on a Gunner. Whatever new technology they’d squeezed into the hull to make the ship invisible to the Ghasts, it hadn’t affected the appearance of the control room. There was a woman there, slim and attractive, with jet-black hair and ears pierced in contravention of Space Corps regulations. She saw him and walked across at once, her hand extended. He took the hand and shook it warmly, looking into her eyes as he did so. He thought she was somewhere in her thirties – it was difficult to be sure when it came to guessing someone’s age.
“Captain Duggan,” she said. “I’m Captain Julius. Fleet Admiral Teron sends his regards.”
Chapter Three
Light from the planet’s sun glinted and sparkled where it speared through the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the distant planet. Beams of yellow streaked out through space, their raw beauty lost forever amongst the infinity. A spaceship flew amongst the rays, its silvery hull illuminated in an ever-changing patchwork of light and dark. The vessel was considered small by its crew – little more than seven hundred metres in length, with a peculiar shape. The sleek design of the nose and mid-section made an attractive counterpart to the rear third, which was little more than a cube of metal, appearing to have been added as an afterthought. There was a crew of four. They sat or stood on the tiny bridge, breathing heavily from the stifling heat and the pressure of what they were about to attempt.
“They weren’t wrong when they said the ES Lightning was fast,” said Duggan, raising an eyebrow. “We could almost outrun the ESS Crimson - on gravity drives, at least.”
“Two hours till we reach Kidor,” said Chainer.
“Will they have detected our arrival?” asked Duggan. They’d gone through this before their exit from lightspeed and he was seeking reassurance by asking again. He was nervous and wasn’t stupid enough to deny the fact.
“There’s a chance, sir,” said Breeze. “Coming back here was always going to be a risk.”
“We should be far enough away that our fission signature wasn’t easy to read,” said McGlashan. “As ever, it comes down to luck.”
“We’re going to need plenty of that today,” said Duggan. “I’m not leaving until I’ve got what I came for.”
“Nothing on the fars,” said Chainer. “I’ll let you know as soon as anything changes.”
“Can you detect the signal from the emergency beacon?”
“No – it’s a very tight beam. I might not pick it up until we’re much closer. If it’s still broadcasting, of course.”
Duggan got out of his seat, trying to hide the outward signs of his agitation. It had been a little over four months since they’d left Kidor in order to escape the Dreamer battleship, and now he’d been given this chance to put things right for the men and women he’d left behind. He no longer felt burdened by guilt and had come to terms with what he’d done. Sometimes there was no right answer and only the strongest could make the hardest choices without being broken by their decisions. Even so, he didn’t dare ask himself what would happen if there was no one left alive on Kidor.
“The spacesuits will usually last longer than four months,” said McGlashan, reading his mind.
“Unless there’s a fault or they’re damaged,” said Duggan, immediately regretting the words.
“We can’t think like that, sir. We’ll get Lieutenant Ortiz and the rest away from here. That’s what we’ve come for.”
“You’re right, Commander. I’ll make no more mention of failure.”
He returned to his seat and took manual control of the warship. He looked at his update screens one at a time, to ensure everything was as expected. They were approaching Kidor on the opposite side to the position of the Dreamer pyramid they’d failed to recover on a previous mission. That mission had ended in catastrophe and this was a belated attempt to clean up afterwards. Duggan was gambling that the alien battleship would maintain a stationary orbit over the pyramid, rather than continually circle the planet. If he was right, there was a good chance the Lightning would be able to approach undetected. Unfortunately, the troops he was here to rescue were in a valley near to the perimeter of the pyramid’s energy shield, so one way or another, they were likely to face significant danger.
“Do you think this stealth stuff is going to work?” asked Chainer.
“It got us away from Vempor,” said Duggan.
“I wasn’t in any fit state to have a look around,” said Chainer. “Something still doesn’t feel right in my lungs. Anyway, I know what happened on Vempor, I’m asking if it’ll work against the Dreamers. The Ghasts’ sensor tech isn’t as good as ours. These new alien bastards will be a much harder test.”
“We’re the guinea pigs,” said Duggan. “The data we bring back from this mission will let the research guys know what’s working and what isn’t. This is a dangerous task that I’m happy to take on.”
“And what’s this about Fleet Admiral Teron, huh?” continued Chainer. “I suppose there were worse officers to promote.”
“He came through for us this time,” said McGlashan. “He risked starting the war again.”
“Well I figure he owes us at least one,” said Chainer. “Do you know if anything kicked off after they rescued us, s
ir?”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. Admiral Teron was tight-lipped when I saw him on the Juniper. We were docked for less than four hours before he sent us here, so it’s not like I had much time to speak with him.”
“And here we are,” said Breeze. “Facing an overwhelmingly powerful enemy warship without a single weapon to shoot back with. Softly, softly for this one.”
The ES Lightning was based on a heavily-modified Vincent class platform. Its weapons had been stripped out to make room for the stealth modules, and the shipyard had added another two hundred metres of engines at the back. They’d also fitted a top-of-the-line AI core to control it all. The result was a vessel that could fly exceptionally fast on its gravity engines, as well as appear invisible to enemy sensors. There was a downside, of course – when it was active, the stealth facility took up nearly the entire output of the sub-light engine. This reduced the spaceship to a low velocity and made it cumbersome to control. The slower it went, the greater the chance an enemy would identify the slight anomalies in their sensor readings. If it was spotted, the ES Lightning would be a sitting duck, having only shock drones for defence. Regardless of the limitations, Duggan was glad he’d been given the opportunity to make amends for abandoning his troops.
“When do you want me to activate the stealth modules?” asked Breeze. “If we do it after we’ve been detected, they’re not going to be anything like as effective.”
Duggan thought about it. They were still quite a distance away from their destination and he didn’t necessarily want to give the new technology an extended stress test if he could avoid it. Given the choice, he wanted to use it as little as possible.
“How long can we maintain stealth?” he asked.
“As long as we can provide enough power for the modules, they should keep running. I’ve read the guidelines which suggest a maximum running time of no more than twenty-four hours, but as far as I can tell that’s just for certainty. The equipment itself should remain stable in extended operation.”
Fires of Oblivion Page 2
