Duggan grinned as well and he felt the weight of a thousand burdens fall away from his shoulders.
“We’ve got nothing nearby, sir,” said Chainer. “In fact, we’ve come out near to where we left the MHL Gargantua. It seems like months ago.”
“Have you sent a comms broadcast? We’re getting out of here as soon as possible and I don’t want to arrive to a warm welcome from our own side.”
“I’ve sent the message, sir. It should get disseminated to our fleet in the coming seconds.”
“Very well. Lieutenant Breeze, set a course for Atlantis. This time, we’re going to have that holiday.”
“Oh crap,” said Chainer. The tone of his voice was filled with angry resignation. “The Excoliar is half a million klicks to our rear.”
“This will damn well not happen again!” said Duggan. “Lieutenant Breeze, give me those fission engines!”
“They’re in preparation, sir. The enemy vessel has jumped towards us.”
“Now two hundred thousand klicks.”
“What I would give to destroy them!” Duggan raged. “Can we fire an overcharged beam at them on their next jump?”
“I’ll give it a try, sir,” said McGlashan.
Duggan saw the anguish in her face. “I won’t let them take you again.”
“It’s not your choice to make, sir.”
The Excoliar disappeared for a second time. When it reappeared, it was only a few hundred kilometres away. McGlashan tried to launch missiles and fire the particle beams, to no avail. The lights on the bridge went out, leaving them in darkness.
“Get your suit helmets on,” said Duggan. He reached for his torch and flicked the switch.
“No need for that, sir,” said Chainer.
The lights came on once more.
“What the hell?”
“Don’t get your hopes up. When they did this to the Crimson, I discovered I could tap into some residual power. There’s not enough to do much useful, but at least we’ll be able to see. It’s how I was able to make that recording and tweak a few bits of the Crimson’s comms systems.”
“Can we fire our weapons?”
“We couldn’t on the Crimson.”
“What can we do, then?”
“Internal comms. I can probably get you a low-resolution feed from one of the sensors.”
“What about a distress signal?”
“I can send one, but it’ll be slow and I don’t know how far it’ll travel.”
Duggan was furious. He could hardly believe after what they’d been through, escape was snatched away just when it seemed as if they’d finished the mission.
“Send a distress signal. They need to know the Excoliar is here.”
“Done.” Chainer leaned back and put his hands behind his head.
“What are you doing?” asked Duggan.
“We’re stuck, sir. We have to wait to see if they destroy us or send over troops to storm the ship.”
“Get me a sensor feed. At least I can look at our enemy while they decide our fate.”
An image appeared on the main screen, grainy and out of focus. There was insufficient power to clean the picture up, but Duggan could see enough. The Excoliar hadn’t changed, nor had he expected it to.
He watched it for a time. A wait of a few seconds was enough to tell him the enemy didn’t plan to destroy them. A minute became five and Duggan ordered his troops to suit up and prepare to repel boarders. The Excoliar took no further offensive action – it simply remained in place, eight hundred kilometres away from the Valpian.
“What are they playing at?” he muttered.
Five minutes became ten and ten minutes became thirty. Duggan couldn’t take his eyes away from the screen. The others sat quietly, like the fight was beaten out of them.
“That’s a shuttle,” said Chainer. “Two shuttles.”
“I see four,” said Breeze. “Big ones.”
“There’s a hull-cutter coming after them.”
Duggan spoke over the comms. “Sergeant Red-Gulos. Take the men towards the hangar bay with as many explosives as you can carry.”
“How many do we face?” asked the Ghast.
The shuttles were big and Duggan tried to guess how many they could carry. “A thousand. Possibly more.”
“This is the end of us.”
“Yes, Sergeant, this is the end.” Duggan picked up his helmet and prepared to leave the bridge. “Let us make it hard for them.”
Red-Gulos laughed in response and left the channel in order to ready the squad.
“Get your guns,” said Duggan to his crew.
“Yes, it’ll feel good to shoot a couple of them,” said Breeze.
“You’ll shoot fifty, Lieutenant. Don’t pretend you can’t aim.”
“I suppose I’ll have a go as well,” said Chainer.
“Don’t leave me behind,” said McGlashan. It was clearly an effort for her to stand and she struggled out of her chair. “I don’t like losing, sir.”
“Nor me,” Duggan said, reaching out for her. She tumbled into his arms and he gave her a hug, noticing how weak and frail she was. “Remember, you’ve only lost when you can’t squeeze the trigger anymore.”
“Yeah. Let’s get them.”
This was the moment Duggan had dreaded all of his life. The moment when every chance at success was taken from him, leaving defeat as the only option. The taste was bitter.
He wasn’t sure what made him turn. A change in the intensity of the light perhaps. The sensor feed became even more blurred, as though the residual power which Lieutenant Chainer described was fading rapidly away. The view was still clear enough for him to see the dwindling fires of plasma on the front sphere of the Excoliar, the light stark against the blackness of its metal hull.
“Look!” he said.
The others turned in time to see more explosions against the Neutraliser’s armour.
“Six! Eight! Twelve!” said Breeze in breathless excitement as he counted them.
“Four more on the central part of the superstructure!” said Chainer.
Duggan rushed across to the central console in order to get a closer look. “They’re going to run!” he said. “They’ve got to run!”
The Excoliar’s captain was reluctant to give up his catch and he kept the vessel where it was. There was no way to see if the Dreamer vessel was firing weapons of its own. Whatever action it took wasn’t enough to prevent another series of detonations against the front sphere.
“Go on!” shouted Breeze. “Piss off!”
The Excoliar fled. One moment it was there, the next it vanished, abandoning those on the shuttles to certain death. Without the tools to keep a track of its whereabouts, Duggan had no way of knowing if it had gone to lightspeed or simply performed a short-range hop to take it away from the missiles raining down upon it.
The lights on the command console came on again.
“Get in your seats!” roared Duggan. “Lieutenant Breeze, get us away! Anywhere!”
“Hold!” said Chainer excitedly. “I’m detecting at least ten allied vessels close by, including three Ghast battleships! And I’ve got an inbound comms message, sir! It’s the ES Maximilian!”
“Patch it through.”
“Captain Duggan?”
“Fleet Admiral Teron.”
“We have driven off the enemy vessel, whatever the hell it was. I see you’ve returned with something of great value.”
“Yes, sir, you could say that.”
“You don’t need to hang around. I’m sending you some coordinates which are in a neutral area of space. We’ll need to strip that warship down for tracking beacons before we let it anywhere close to one of our worlds.”
“The Valpian, sir. It’s called the Valpian. We’ve received the coordinates.”
“Get on your way, Captain Duggan. I look forward to reading your report.”
“It’ll be a good one, sir. I promise.”
“Things have changed since you left. Good and bad. I’l
l fill you in when I can.”
“We’re going to lightspeed in a few seconds. Goodbye, sir.”
“Goodbye, John. And welcome home.”
“It’s good to be back.”
The Valpian’s fission engines unleashed their energy, pouring it out into the void. The warship disappeared from local space, leaving the fleet of allied vessels far behind. Duggan leaned back, his elation tinged with the faintest sorrow. He had no idea what his future held and for this short time, it didn’t matter.
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Guns of the Valpian Page 23
