Guns of the Valpian

by Anthony James

  Guns of the Valpian

  Survival Wars Book 6

  Anthony James

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  © 2018 Anthony James

  All rights reserved

  The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Cover Design by Dan Van Oss www.covermint.design

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  Chapter One

  For Captain John Nathan Duggan, his crew and soldiers, it was not a good day.

  The ESS Crimson lay at an angle on the surface of Nistrun. One of its landing legs was gone – torn away by the savagery of its recent landing. Two more of the support legs groaned under the additional weight they were forced to bear. The exterior of the once beautiful spaceship was a ragged mess. Chunks of its armour plating had melted away, which, combined with the intolerable heat the hull had been subjected to, turned the clean lines into a smeared parody of the original. Aft, there were two enormous holes, irregular in shape, but easily identified as the result of plasma missile impacts.

  It was daytime on Nistrun and the sun beat upon the barren surface of the planet, preventing the blisteringly hot metal of the spaceship from cooling down. The thin air shimmered, almost vibrating with the immense heat.

  Inside, the bridge walls creaked and pinged as they responded to the effects of heat and stress. The warship had come down only thirty minutes before and the crew were already getting edgy. This deep into enemy space, there were numerous possibilities to worry about, not least of which was the alien base they’d identified on the way in.

  Duggan had spoken to Lieutenant Ortiz in the troops’ quarters shortly after the landing and was relieved when she reported nothing other than minor injuries. He didn’t desire additional deaths on his conscience, particularly when he had so much else on his plate.

  “Sounds like we’re falling apart,” said Lieutenant Frank Chainer.

  Commander Lucy McGlashan looked up from her console on the other side of the bridge. “The ship is far too solid for that to happen.”

  “Come on!” said Duggan. “There’s no time for small talk. I need you to give me information about the enemy installation. I can’t make a decision without having a better idea of what we detected.” He used the word decision as though he had some influence over their future. At the moment, he wasn’t sure that was entirely the case.

  “Sorry, sir,” said Chainer. “My mouth talks independently of my brain sometimes.”

  “You don’t say?” said Lieutenant Bill Breeze.

  Breeze was in front of his own console, trying to figure out a way to divert power into the Crimson’s engines. At the moment, their output was close to zero and certainly insufficient for lift off.

  “The drives aren’t responding, sir,” he said, providing his seventh or eighth repetition of the same bad news. “Without the main core, there’s no hope of a quick repair.”

  “Is the core completely out of action? Permanently, I mean?” asked Duggan.

  “I might be able to get a few cycles out of it eventually.” Breeze didn’t continue. It was quite obvious that even if the core flickered into life, it was too badly damaged to get them through the Helius Blackstar again. Unless something drastic changed, they were stuck here in Dreamer territory until the enemy located them.

  “We can’t wait,” said Duggan.

  “We have no choice!” Breeze responded loudly, the pressure of the situation getting to him. “I can get the backup mainframe working on the engines, but it’s so slow there could be several years’ worth of realignment to do. Even the Dreamer core might end up taking weeks and that’s assuming we had it working at maximum output.”

  “Weeks isn’t what I hoped to hear.”

  “It’s the best I can offer, sir. We should be dead after what happened.”

  “Well we aren’t, Lieutenant and I’m thankful for it.”

  “Small mercies,” Breeze replied, trying to smile. The smile faded before it fully appeared and Breeze spoke again. “I think the AI is gone for good, sir. Gut instinct tells me I’m not going to get it to power up again.”

  Duggan patted him on the shoulder. “Not what I wanted, but I’m thankful for the honesty.”

  He crossed to the main console and studied it for a while, trying to find a ray of hope amongst the flood of damage reports. “The life support has stabilised at least,” he said.

  “The last jump to lightspeed was rough,” said McGlashan. “I’d rather it showed some improvements instead of merely stabilising.”

  “I think I might have interpreted some of the sensor readings we got from the enemy base, sir,” said Chainer. “It’s nothing like as big as the other installations around the wormhole. I estimate it to be less than a thousand metres squared.”

  “That’s enough room to house a lot of soldiers,” said Duggan. “Can you see any structures which resemble their housing modules?”

  “A few,” Chainer admitted. “And there’s this other thing here in the centre.”

  “I appreciate your technical terminology,” said Duggan. “What thing are you referring to?”

  “This.” Chainer pointed at an area of his screen.

  “An ellipsis?” Duggan frowned in puzzlement. The central building on the enemy base was more or less square, but with something oval-shaped on the roof. “A weapon?”

  “It could be,” said Chainer. “Or it could be entirely benign. We’ve probably not seen even a tiny fraction of their different emplacements.”

  “It uses a lot of power, whatever it is,” said Breeze. “That doesn’t help much, does it?”

  “Not really,” Duggan agreed. “The important question is whether or not they detected us when we came in to land.”

  “I’m not sure it’s so important, sir,” said Chainer. “If they saw us, we’ll soon be dead. If they didn’t see us, we can probably stay here as long as we want. The chance of an enemy warship stumbling upon us is remote.”

  “Not so remote,” said McGlashan. “This area around the wormhole is soon going to be filled with their warships. They can’t afford to stop looking until they’ve found us. We destroyed two major installations, Lieutenant. They will absolutely not sit back and wait!”

  “If the base here on Nistrun didn’t see us, the enemy forces may not know how badly
damaged we are,” said Breeze.

  “Unless that wrecked cruiser which put these two holes in our tail was able to get a message out,” said Chainer.

  “What’s your opinion, Lieutenant?” asked Duggan. “Did the base detect us?”

  Chainer took on a pained expression. He was clearly reluctant to say one way or another, even though he knew how important it was. “It’s almost certainly a military base,” he began, “which makes me think there’s a high chance they saw us. On the other hand, I have no idea what function it’s meant to serve. It could sell ice cream and hot dogs to passing spaceships.”

  “I’d like a conclusion, without the jokes.”

  “They probably know we’re here, sir.”

  Chainer’s inconclusive response was better than no response at all, even if the difference was only marginal.

  Duggan rubbed his chin. “Can we hit it with our Lambdas from here?”

  “Yes,” said McGlashan at once. “It won’t be a precision strike though, since our sensor data is incomplete. If you want them destroyed, we can do it.”

  “It might be like cutting open the goose that lays the golden eggs,” Duggan muttered to himself. “Can I have a moment’s quiet, please? I need to think.” He paced up and down, trying to pull an idea from thin air which would improve their position. The laboured groaning of the warship’s damaged hull was a distraction and he tried his best to ignore it. He breathed in deeply. The pungent tang of hot metal which came in through the vents cleared his nostrils and the sharpness of it brought his mind back on track.

  The Crimson wasn’t going anywhere soon, he was convinced of that. Weeks, Lieutenant Breeze said and it sounded like an absolute best-case scenario. So, they could either sit here and try to get the core online, or they could do something to try and influence their destiny, such as leave the spaceship and see what they could find on the enemy base.

  “Damnit!” he snapped. “My mind is telling me we should leave the ship and go see what’s out there. I need someone to tell me it’s a bad idea.”

  “It is a bad idea, sir,” said McGlashan. “On the other hand, waiting here is also a bad idea.” The message was unspoken, but clear: this was Duggan’s decision to make.

  “If we wait, there’s a decent chance we’ll be able to lift off eventually,” said Breeze. “After that, I don’t know what to suggest. We’re unlikely to reach our maximum lightspeed without major repairs and I don’t fancy trying to get home on the engines – that’s a long way to go without using the Blackstar as a shortcut.”

  “We don’t know the way, either,” said Chainer. “Realistically, there’s only one way home, and that’s through the wormhole.”

  “Whatever happens, there’s absolutely no way our existing core is going to be capable of a double lightspeed jump.”

  There was something in Breeze’s use of the word existing which gave Duggan’s brain the kick it needed.

  “In that case, we need to find ourselves another core,” he said. “Which means going to the enemy base.”

  “I can think of many potential pitfalls in that plan,” said Breeze. “Not least of which is the near-impossibility of us being able to steal one of their cores and for it to fit neatly in the place of our existing one. On the other hand, I accept the need for us to remain optimistic in the circumstances, so I’m obliged to admit if we do nothing, we have a one hundred percent likelihood of dying out here. If there’s a chance, however infinitesimally remote, we have no alternative other than to give it a go.”

  “We’re carrying priceless intel,” said McGlashan. “It could be worth billions of lives. Or it could be worth our entire species and that of the Ghasts.”

  “What is your opinion, Commander?”

  “If we wait here, I believe there’s a good chance we’ll be able to get the Crimson off the ground again. It’ll be way off its peak operational ability, but we’ll still pack a punch.”

  “Do you think we should keep our heads down until we have a better idea of when we can get the Crimson on its way?”

  She chewed her lower lip and then grimaced. “I have a strong feeling they’ll find us before we get airborne. If the base saw us, they’ll have alerted their warships to our presence. I think we wiped out all the ships they had in the vicinity when we destroyed Glisst with the Planet Breaker. If I’m right, it means they’ll have plenty of replacements heading here at their fastest speed.”

  “If what you say is true, we could have hours, days or potentially weeks to act.”

  “Hours or days, sir,” she said. “It’s inconceivable they’ll take weeks to get a warship here.”

  Duggan continued with his pacing, occasionally stopping in his tracks as if he’d reached a conclusion in whatever it was he was thinking. Then, he would start pacing again and with each step he became more aware of the passing time.

  There were no good choices and no easy way to accurately evaluate the risks. His mind kept coming back to the thought that if they couldn’t get through the wormhole, they were doomed. They might eventually get the Crimson flying, but the ship’s offensive capabilities were crippled without the main core. They’d be reduced to looking for easy targets within Dreamer territory until they were eventually, inevitably, found and destroyed. They could do some damage on the way, but it didn’t seem likely it would be extensive.

  On the other hand, were they to escape to Confederation Space with the data they’d stolen, that would give humanity a significant boost in the coming war. He made his mind up.

  “I’d rather die trying to accomplish something of significance than live out my days hiding amongst our enemies,” he said.

  “That’s it decided?” asked McGlashan.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I promised I’d do everything to get us home and there’s only one way that’s going to happen. We’re going to attack the base as soon as we can and see what we find.”

  “Sounds good,” said Chainer.

  “Our backs are to the wall. I can’t see an alternative,” said Breeze. “I’ll repeat my opinion that a successful theft of another Dreamer core isn’t going to work for us, but we may discover other opportunities we are currently unaware of.”

  “We knew this mission was going to be a tough one, sir,” said McGlashan. “I’ll advise you of the options, but I’ll do everything it takes to get home. I don’t want to die here.”

  “Very well,” said Duggan. He used the comms to reach Lieutenant Ortiz. “We’re leaving the ship. I want everyone suited and ready in the cargo bay.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. After a short pause, she continued. “What’s the plan?”

  “I’m working on it, Lieutenant. This one might have to be figured out on the run. That’s no hurdle for the Space Corps’ finest, is it?”

  “Hardly a bump in the road, sir,” she said with traces of humour creeping into her voice. “We’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “You might need to wait for me.”

  “Take your time, sir.”

  The conversation with Ortiz was over and Duggan addressed the others on the bridge. “You three are staying with the Crimson. We can’t leave it unoccupied and it needs a crew to deal with the repairs.”

  The order wasn’t entirely unexpected and no one objected. Duggan saw from the set of McGlashan’s face that she didn’t like it.

  “You’ve got a broken arm, sir,” she said.

  “It’s halfway better already. By the time we get where we’re going, it’ll be good as new.”

  “You might jeopardise the others,” she said, unwilling to let it go.

  “I’m the only one trained for this,” he said.

  “Lieutenant Ortiz is well enough trained.”

  “Not in what technology we need to scavenge for the Crimson,” he said. “And the Ghasts may still not follow her. I’ve made my decision, Commander.”

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. She returned the smile though her eyes remained hard, like she felt he’d betraye
d her in some way. It wasn’t the time to deal with it, so he took a deep breath and pushed everything from his mind apart from the upcoming raid.

  Chapter Two

  “Lieutenant Chainer, I want you to download the sensor data into the spacesuits,” said Duggan.

  “What little we have, sir. It’ll be waiting for you by the time you’re ready to leave the Crimson. Routes, distances and which terrain you should try to avoid.”

  Duggan took a deep breath. “Two thousand klicks there and two thousand to get back. It’s going to take us several days.”

  “I reckon it’ll take between four and six days,” said Chainer. “It’s quite flat out there, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to maintain anything like full speed.”

  “I don’t even know what transport we’ll have,” Duggan replied. “There are errors on three of the cargo bay clamps and they’re designed to lock on failure.”

  “It’s a long run on foot,” said Breeze.

  “I hope it won’t come to that.” Duggan headed towards the bridge exit. “Look after our spaceship.”

  He didn’t wait around for an answer and made his way through the Crimson’s interior, until he reached the cargo bay. Considering the length of the vessel, the bay was cramped inside, with unreflective grey walls that exuded an air of timeless age. The Crimson itself was the oldest active warship in the Space Corps, yet the metals it was made from had been formed billions of years before. The thought of it caught Duggan unawares and his brain swam. He wasn’t usually affected by such feelings and shrugged them off quickly.