Duggan felt he should say something, though his mind refused to conjure up anything that seemed respectful enough. Sometimes it’s better to say nothing at all.
McGlashan cleared her throat – a trait she had to indicate when she was uncertain. “Sir? There’s been a Shatterer launch from the Dretisear.”
“What?”
“It’s targeting the incendiary bomb.”
There was no time to form a response – at that moment, the situation changed from madness to complete pandemonium.
“The Dretisear has launched a full broadside at the Kuidenar,” McGlashan continued. “I’m tracking three hundred conventional missiles, two Shatterers and an increase in countermeasures. The Kuidenar has responded in kind.”
“The Archimedes and Maximilian have jumped,” said Breeze.
“Where are they?” asked Duggan.
“They’ve come in real close to the Ghasts, sir. Well within Lambda range.”
“Get me Admiral Franks!”
The connection was made almost instantly. “Captain Duggan? This is not the time.”
“Don’t fire on the Dretisear!”
“Too late, Captain. The order has been given.”
Duggan swore loudly. “Nil-Far is not our enemy!”
“Full Lambda launch from both the Hadron and the Archimedes, sir,” said McGlashan. “That’s just about a thousand missiles.”
Duggan slumped into his seat and put his head in his hands. “What’s the status on the atmosphere bomb?”
“It’s just been intercepted by the Shatterer,” said McGlashan.
Duggan couldn’t raise a smile. The image on the bulkhead screen showed the two battleships as they traded missile fire. Dozens of warheads detonated against their flanks, ripping the armour and twisting it into new forms. In moments, the outlines of the spaceships were lost in the inferno. At one point, the intensity faded briefly to reveal them both, still firing at each other.
“They must have done something to harden the outer armour,” said Breeze in disbelief.
“Nothing can survive that,” said Chainer.
“Get me Nil-Far.”
Chainer looked up. “If he’s alive, sir.”
Nil-Far was alive – when he spoke, his voice displayed no more emotion than usual. “Captain John Duggan. My time is short.”
Duggan could have said many things, about how the Ghast had prevented a war, or how many people he’d saved on both sides. He was sure Nil-Far had come to his decision based on this and more, and didn’t need to hear them served up to him. “Thank you,” was all Duggan said.
“The Kuidenar is breaking up,” said McGlashan. “It’s still firing.”
“How long until the Lambda wave hits?”
“Right about now.”
The previous ferocity of the engagement was dwarfed by what came. The Lambdas plunged through the Ghast countermeasures. Hundreds of them thundered against the battleships, before exploding into pure, cleansing heat. The light burned into Duggan’s eyes and left echoes across his retinas. When it faded, the Kuidenar and the Dretisear were no more. Huge chunks of molten alloy spread across the sky and tumbled onwards to the surface of the planet.
The Archimedes and Maximilian fired again, sending their missiles to pursue the remains and smash them into smaller pieces. The debris was too thick to be so easily dispersed. Many pieces burned up before they crashed into the surface of Atlantis. Others survived – much-reduced in size - and landed in the ocean, while a few others struck the great belt of forest that stretched for thousands of kilometres to the north and south of the planet’s equator. The inhabitants of the planet had been saved from death, but tens of thousands would die from the tidal waves or the seismic shocks resulting from the impacts. They may never learn the truth, thought Duggan.
Everything was silent for a time. There was no chatter on the comms and no one on the ES Lightning’s bridge spoke. Duggan idly noted that the remainder of the Ghast fleet had been destroyed at some point in the last few minutes. The fighting had exacted a great toll on the Space Corps fleet – the majority of the Gunners and Anderlechts had been destroyed and the ES Rampage was badly damaged.
Eventually, Duggan felt he needed to say something. “Come on, let’s get this ship home.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The journey to Atlantis took several days. Without a functioning life support system, Duggan was unable to utilise the ES Lightning’s acceleration to anything like its full potential. At the other end of the journey was a need to slow down. There were a number of calculations involved in order to ensure they were as efficient as possible. Duggan lacked the motivation to work it out for himself, so he handed control of the warship to the AI. While they flew at a pitifully slow speed, the other surviving vessels, including the Archimedes and Maximilian, went to lightspeed. The Tillos base was hopelessly under-equipped to deal with so many repairs at once and the fleet was sent elsewhere. Nevertheless, there was a number of spacecraft which were deemed too have suffered too much damage, and these were directed to the Tillos airfield.
During the flight, no one made contact with the Lightning, except for the usual routine checks. This suited Duggan fine, and he spent his spare moments checking the incoming reports from Atlantis. The information was garbled and incomplete, but a number of coastal towns had suffered from tidal waves. There had been several earthquakes, though these had fortunately occurred far from the planet’s main populated areas. Overall, it wasn’t clear how many had died – certainly it would be much less than what the captain of the Kuidenar had intended. The media reports talked about the results of this natural disaster and Duggan wondered how long they’d be able to keep it under wraps, assuming that was the intention.
After a time, the ES Lightning came close enough to Atlantis for the autopilot to request clearance to land and begin the descent. Those onboard who had lacked suits were still alive, much to Duggan’s relief. The warship had retained enough heat and oxygen for them to live, though it had been a close-run thing.
“Tillos escaped the damage,” said Chainer.
“Looks like,” responded Breeze, not giving the matter any attention.
“They’ve brought the Rampage here,” Chainer continued. “I’m surprised they had space for it.”
“It’s a tight squeeze in the dock,” said McGlashan, looking across with partial interest.
“They’ve got an Anderlecht and two Gunners parked up to one side on the landing field. There are two empty docks – you’d think they’d use them.”
“They’ve given us one of them?” asked Breeze.
“Yeah, dock number three,” said Chainer.
“It shouldn’t be surprising. There probably aren’t a great many stealth modules available across the entire Space Corps. They probably cost more to manufacture than an entire Anderlecht,” said McGlashan. “They’ll want this ship ready for action as soon as possible.”
“It’s going to be a struggle for them to sort us out and the Rampage at the same time. Maybe that’s why they’ve left the second dock empty.”
“And they’ll likely have to send the Rampage elsewhere to complete the repair job,” said Duggan. “That’s a big spaceship.”
“What do you think Admiral Teron is going to say about what’s happened?” asked McGlashan.
“I don’t know,” said Duggan. “He’ll be angry at the loss of life, but will already be making plans for what happens next.”
“When will you speak to him?”
“Soon, I’m sure. There’ll be something else for us to do – there always is.”
The ES Lightning landed gently. The personnel onboard made haste to leave, grateful to get away from the place which had so nearly become their coffin. The air outside was as humid as before, though Duggan breathed it in eagerly.
“Where to?” asked McGlashan. “I’ve received specific orders that I’m not to make myself available to the personnel pool.”
“Me too,” said Chaine
r.
Breeze simply nodded to show he’d been given the same instructions.
“In that case, we’re going to be heading off sooner than I anticipated,” said Duggan. He squinted towards the distant buildings. “We’ll speak to someone in the base headquarters.”
They took the closest vehicle and wended through the inbound repair teams. A few minutes later, a bemused Duggan was heading towards Meeting Room 73. The rest of his crew were left to fend for themselves in the lobby area, where it hadn’t taken Chainer long to find a food replicator. After a further five minutes, Duggan was seated within the overly-familiar walls of the meeting room, staring expectantly at the video screen. The face of Admiral Teron appeared, a little too close to the camera for comfort.
“Sir,” said Duggan in acknowledgement.
“Who the hell is that?” asked Teron with great irritation.
Duggan turned in his seat to find an unfamiliar man walking into the room, carrying a cardboard folder. This man stopped, realising something was amiss. Colour drained from his cheeks when he saw who was on the video screen.
“Sorry,” he said, hurrying out.
“What are these people playing at?” grumbled Teron. “I ought to ban meetings.”
Duggan didn’t wish to involve himself. The Admiral was in a bad mood and Duggan had a suspicion he was soon to find out why. “How do things stand between us and the Ghasts?”
“Do you know something? We’ve made greater strides towards peace in the last few days than we managed in all of the preceding weeks.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Nor me. Where before we lacked motivation, now we’re driven.”
“The peace would have been too uneven prior to the attack by the Kuidenar,” said Duggan. “Now we know they have the location of Atlantis, we need a settlement as much as they do.”
“And who knows what other secrets they might be keeping?”
“Have we formally agreed a truce?”
“Yes, we have. I would expect us to agree upon an early draft document for a permanent peace within the next week or two.”
“That’s quicker than I was expecting.”
“It’ll be the details that take months. I personally trust the Ghasts – when they tell me something, I generally believe them. When they don’t tell me something, that’s an answer in itself.”
“So everything is good?”
“We’re getting there.” Teron still didn’t look pleased. “Tell me, Captain Duggan. How did Admiral Franks perform in the engagement?”
Duggan hadn’t been expecting the question and floundered for an answer. “We won, sir.”
“That’s a stupid answer and you’re not a stupid man.”
“I was buying myself time to add some diplomatic bells and whistles to the answer,” he replied truthfully.
“Forget about that. I want your honest opinion.”
“Some good, some bad. She was in charge of one of the largest ship-to-ship engagements of the entire war and she held everything together when others would certainly have failed. However, the overall impression I got was of timidity. The Ghasts had us on the back foot, that’s for sure, but she allowed them to dictate. We could have done more.”
“She spoke very highly of you. I think the result might have been different if you hadn’t suggested deep fission jumps to the approaching Ghast fleet.”
“It was to Admiral Franks’ credit that she didn’t let pride stop her from acting on my advice.”
“Thank you for your appraisal. The Space Corps did well in trying conditions and we acted as a team to defeat our foes.”
“I agree, sir.”
Teron pushed something around on his desk. It was off-camera, so Duggan couldn’t tell what it was, but he got the feeling he was about to hear the news Teron had been putting off telling him. He was right.
“As soon as I received a reliable report about the result in the skies of Atlantis, I contacted the lead analyst in the Projections Team and asked for a re-run of their report regarding the fate of the planet.”
Duggan felt a constriction in his chest. “And?”
Teron lifted up one of the familiar brown folders and brandished it angrily like it was a photograph of a mass-murderer. “Still nailed-on at ninety-nine percent chance of destruction.”
“The Ghasts?”
“Not this time. Now there’s no mention of the Ghasts in the report. Now they’re predicting the Dreamers to be the sole cause. I asked them to run and re-run the simulation. Each time it comes out the same, with a variance of a tenth of one percent.”
“What’s changed?”
“I recalled you mentioning the presence of Gallenium during one of our previous conversations. I had meant to let the stats team know about it at once, but unfortunately other things intervened and I forgot. If Atlantis was free from traces of Gallenium, the chance of destruction drops to about one percent since our engagement with the Ghasts. As soon as you put Gallenium into the simulator, the chance goes straight to ninety-nine percent.”
“It could still be an anomaly – a fault in the simulation,” said Duggan stubbornly.
“I don’t deny the possibility, but I can see by your face you know what’s coming.”
“What’s the time frame?”
“Three months. A maximum of three months.”
“Do they specify which Dreamer vessels they expect to enact the destruction?”
“I didn’t request that much detail.”
“The mothership,” said Duggan.
“It was there at Corai to gather the resource they’d harvested. When they come, the mothership will be with them.”
“You have a plan.”
“I told you before, there is always a plan. In this instance, it’s closer to desperately clutching at distant straws. If we faced a lesser foe, I’d be ecstatic with what we’ve got. Now?” He shrugged.
“Tell me about it, sir.”
“The Space Corps research labs have been working on something. Tell me, John. Did you notice a warship in trench two when you came in to land?”
“No, sir. There was only the Rampage and that was in the end dock.”
Teron nodded knowingly. “There was something in trench two. It landed less than an hour before you brought the ES Lightning in.”
“Another stealth ship?”
“Yes, another one.”
“The new tech performed outstandingly against the Dreamers, but without weapons we can’t do much other than stare at our opponents. Assuming I’m to be assigned to this second ship, are you asking me to try and crash into our enemies?”
“If that’s an opportunity you can take, then I would expect you to do exactly that.” Teron lifted his hand to cut off Duggan’s next question. “This time we aren’t sending you out so helpless.”
“Have we overcome the limitations imposed by the power draw?”
“Not yet. The issues we’ve talked about remain unresolved. What it boils down to is that our current use of Gallenium isn’t efficient enough. Therefore, once we install the stealth modules on an armed warship, there is insufficient engine mass to propel the ship when the power draw is taken into account. There are other issues as well, which prevent us from establishing a few cloaked warships as static batteries to surprise any aggressors.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“There is one ship in the fleet with enough power to run the stealth modules and retain a full complement of weaponry. Quite a large complement of weaponry, as it happens. There is a mission for you and your crew, John. I hope you’re well-rested, since I need you to depart at once.”
Something clicked in Duggan’s brain and he knew exactly which ship it was that Admiral Teron had prepared for him. “The Crimson,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Duggan elbowed his way through the crowds of people waiting outside Meeting Room 73, his mind in a spin. Teron wanted the mission to begin without delay and he’d promised to
fill in the details once Duggan and his crew were boarded. The Admiral had remained cagey under questioning and Duggan guessed there were a few aspects of the planning which still needed ironing out. He located his crew easily enough – they were lounging in padded seats in the main lobby area. Chainer was lifting a can of hi-stim to his mouth when he saw Duggan approach.
“I’ve only had one,” he protested.
“It doesn’t matter, come on,” said Duggan, marching past in the direction of the exit doors. The others scrambled to their feet, throwing out questions like confetti.
“No rest for the wicked, eh?” said Chainer.
“Nope.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know,” said Duggan.
“Which ship have we been given?”
“The Crimson.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Do I look as if I’m kidding?”
“Where is it?”
“Trench two.”
There were the sounds of feet drawing to a sudden stop. “It’s been there all along and we didn’t see it?”
“Keep up, please. We need to be away.”
“Is it armed?”
“Heavily armed, so I’m told.”
“What are we going to fight?”
“The Dreamers.”
“Shit.”
The stream of enquiries dried up after that. Duggan flagged down a passing car and gently encouraged the lone occupant to vacate it. The four of them climbed inside and sped off towards the seemingly empty trench two. When they came closer, the imperfections of the stealth technology were apparent – there was the hint of an outline above the lip of the dock. When Duggan looked at it straight-on, he saw nothing, but when he turned his head to the side, his peripheral vision could see shapes and lines. These hints were elusive and when he attempted to pin down the outline of the warship, his eyes failed him.
“How are we going to get inside if we can’t see it?” asked Chainer, once they were in the lift.
“I’m sure there’ll be someone waiting for us at the bottom, Lieutenant.”
There was a greeting party – a team of dour-faced scientists of some rank, each carrying a hand-held analysis device. “Captain Duggan, I assume?” said the lead man.
Fires of Oblivion Page 18
