“It’s two in the morning on New Earth, sir,” said Ensign Callie Sykes.
Talley held back the reprimand. She’s just trying to be helpful, he thought, not convincing himself for a moment. “Go about your business, Ensign.”
“It doesn’t look like he was asleep, sir,” said Mercer, wise enough to get on with it. “And he doesn’t sound like he’s in a good mood.”
“Let me worry about that, Lieutenant.”
Talley hooked his earpiece in place. “Sir. There is good and bad news.”
“In equal measures?”
Movement caught Talley’s eye. “One moment, sir. My engine man requires my attention.”
“There’s a fission signature,” said Lieutenant Johnson.
Talley frowned and made an urgent signal for Mercer to shut off the open comms channel.
“Are there any Corps ships due?” he asked.
“No, sir. There’s nothing on the flight plan for weeks. I’ve checked the list of rebel-held assets and they’re all accounted for.”
If the incoming vessel wasn’t from the Space Corps, the alternative was unlikely to be something they should welcome with open arms. “Battle stations!” shouted Admiral Talley.
He watched the sensor feeds anxiously. He had no idea what was approaching and he hated being in the dark.
“Everything we’ve got is loaded into its chamber,” said Commander Adams. “I recommend a pre-emptive launch of shock drones and activation of our energy shield.”
“Hold the drones, Commander - that might look like a hostile act.” Talley made a snap decision. “Power up the energy shield.”
The shield came online with a hum and a protective sphere surrounded the Devastator, as close as a thousand metres from the vessel’s nose and tail. The shield was near-invisible, though the sensors showed an occasional spark of pure energy crackling across the surface. On Talley’s left-hand screen, a series of gauges climbed several million percent and the ship’s AI cores frantically re-routed to keep the other critical systems fully powered up.
“The energy shield is active,” said Lieutenant Johnson.
“Prepare for evasive manoeuvres.”
“Yes, sir. I’m loading us up for fission jumps across eight of our twenty-four cores. If it’s something we don’t like, we’ll be able to dance around them.”
“The Juniper is aware we have inbound.” Mercer was terrified – the fear evident in her voice.
“Keep it steady, Lieutenant. We’re no sitting duck. What do our friends in escort make of what’s happening?”
Mercer blinked uncertainly. “They don’t seem to be doing very much at all, sir.”
Talley nodded in response. “They already know what’s inbound.”
What emerged from lightspeed was unexpected, though Talley wasn’t excessively surprised. A warship appeared, a quarter of a million kilometres away and closer to Roban’s single red-dust moon than it was to the planet itself.
“The Ghasts?” said Mercer. “What are they doing here?”
Talley had a sinking feeling he exactly knew what the Ghasts were doing so close to a Confederation planet they weren’t meant to know the location of.
“An Oblivion. They sent a whole damned Oblivion,” said Adams.
The Ghast battleship was almost as large as the Devastator – it was an uneven mixture of angles and curves, with missile clusters, Shatterer launch tubes, particle beams and whatever else the aliens managed to squeeze inside its hull.
“They’re shielded, sir,” said Adams. “They must be Obsidiar-equipped.”
“The stupid idiots!” shouted Talley, his temper snapping. “The Robanis have told the damned Ghasts the coordinates of their planet! This is really going to screw things up!”
He took a deep breath. Under the Human-Ghast peace treaty, the Ghasts were only permitted to know the location of eight Confederation worlds. Now the Robanis had thrown caution to the wind and told the aliens how to find them. The only explanation was the unrecognized Frontier League wished to play the Ghasts and the Confederation off against each other in the hope it would allow them to get what they wanted.
“The rebels must have told the Ghasts before they declared independence,” said Adams. “It’s a long journey to get here.”
Talley cast his mind back to the recent meeting he’d had with the councillors. How they’d smiled at him and put on a show. In reality, they were playing him for a fool while they schemed. He put the matter to one side, too worldly-wise to take it personally.
“Do we know the name of the Oblivion?”
“No, sir. It’s not on our databanks.”
“Hail them, Lieutenant Mercer. Ask what they are doing here in Confederation Space, so close to one of our planets.”
“They’ve provided a standard greeting, sir. It’s the Gallatrin-9. Their captain wants to speak to you.”
“I’m sure he does,” said Talley. “What’s his name?”
“Tarjos Rioq-Tor,” said Mercer, struggling with the pronunciation.
“Tarjos is the Ghast title for a senior officer – he’s their captain. Get him on. Open channel.”
The Ghasts had harsh-edged voices, which made them sound perpetually angry even when they were probably not. Language modules installed on all fleet warships did their best to interpret the emotions behind the sounds and add a humanness to them. After decades of fine-tuning it still wasn’t perfect and the Ghast captain sounded vexed when for all Talley knew the alien was in a joyous mood.
“Admiral Henry Talley,” growled the Ghast.
“Tarjos Rioq-Tor. What are you doing here?”
“We have been invited by the council which governs this place. They wish to speak with us.”
“The Confederation does not recognize the Frontier League. The Ghast Subjocracy cannot grant legitimacy by holding talks with the rebels.”
“We do not wish to involve ourselves in the Confederation’s squabbles, Admiral. We are here in friendship.”
“In which case, you will return the Gallatrin-9 to its usual place and provide proof to the Confederation that all records of Roban’s location have been removed from your databanks.”
“This is not something you have the authority to order, Admiral. Our races are at peace and I am here - at a location the details of which were freely provided by an elected representative of your planet Roban. I must stress, we do not recognize the Frontier League. Roban is a Confederation planet and we are here to speak with its council.”
Talley had dealt with the Ghasts before and knew the aliens found it difficult to lie directly – it was either inherent or a part of their society and there were dozens of research teams being paid to argue over the matter. Rioq-Tor, unlike the others of his species, appeared to have the smooth tongue of a lifelong diplomat.
“We will provide you with an escort until I have conferred with my superiors,” said Talley.
“Of course,” replied the Ghast.
“Obtain the details of their trajectory and follow them at a distance of thirty thousand klicks,” said Talley once the connection went dead. “Keep our shields up and remain on full alert. I don’t give a damn whether or not they like it.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Johnson acknowledged.
“Every time I think this situation couldn’t get any worse, I’m proven wrong,” muttered Talley, returning to his seat.
The arrival of the Ghasts was entirely unwelcome, not least of which because an Oblivion battleship would make an exceptionally powerful opponent. He wondered if the Robanis had mentioned the discovery of Obsidiar.
The Gallatrin-9 approached Roban at an unthreatening speed and established an orbit with an altitude of forty thousand kilometres. The ES Devastator followed and behind it came the six rebel-held warships.
Once he was sure things had settled as much as they were likely to, Talley got hold of Duggan on the comms for the second time.
“I take it the scales of good and bad have tilted?” Duggan a
sked at once.
“That they have. There’s an Oblivion here, John, with an Obsidiar core.”
Duggan swore loudly and repeatedly – he didn’t need to have the ramifications spelled out to him. With an effort that was obvious even without a visual link, he got a grip on himself.
“I think I’d like to hear the good news.”
“Obsidiar, sir. These damned rebels tell me they’ve located a major source of it.”
“We both know that’s impossible. What proof have they given?”
“No proof. The thing is, I believe them.”
The channel was silent for a long, drawn-out moment. Then, Duggan sighed. “If they’re telling the truth, everything changes – our relationship with the Ghasts and our relationship with the frontier worlds. I assume they didn’t give away the location of the source?”
“Naturally not.”
“They have us over a barrel and we have no time to tiptoe around in search of a diplomatic solution.”
“What is the plan?”
“I don’t know yet. Is the situation stable?”
“For the moment.”
“Keep it that way. I’ll get back to you soon.”
The channel went dead, leaving Talley with his thoughts.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“THERE’S NOTHING HERE, SIR,” said Lieutenant Caz Pointer.
Such was the inescapable conclusion after three cautious circuits of the planet. Ranver was cold and barren, with high, jagged mountains, deep canyons and plenty of windborne dust – the sort of place the Space Corps would choose for training exercises if it ever wanted to test the morale and resolve of its soldiers.
“Do those canyons check out?” asked Blake.
“I’ve run a scan over every geographical feature which might possibly hide a Vraxar warship greater than two thousand metres in length, sir,” said Pointer with a hint of disapproval at the implied lack of trust.
“Fine. We’ll need to widen the search.”
“I’ve already started,” she replied. “These Hynus sensor arrays have a much wider arc of visibility than the old arrays.”
“We’ll still need to loop around each of these other eleven planets at least once, right? Plus a whole lot of moons?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’d better get on with it,” said Blake. “It strikes me that the Vraxar have moved elsewhere. On the other hand, we’re here and there’s no need to leave until we’ve reached a state of certainty.”
“All the planets are pretty big,” said Quinn. “We could be here for days.”
“Is there anything in the monitoring station’s scan that suggests if we should start further out or closer in?” asked Blake.
“Nothing, sir,” said Pointer. “They didn’t get much more than a shadow.”
“We’ll head inwards towards Cheops-A,” said Blake.
“The fourth planet is Auvial,” said Pointer. “It’s another upper mid-sized one, with a circumference of four hundred thousand klicks.”
“I’m setting a course towards it,” said Blake. “We’ll do it on the gravity engines, rather than chancing a short-range transit.”
With that, he took hold of the Blackbird’s control bars and altered their course towards the new planet. The warship’s AI generated a couple of advisory notices that it could do the piloting more efficiently. Blake ignored the messages. I didn’t spend years in training to let a damned computer do all the work.
With its combination of Obsidiar drive and standard Gallenium gravity engines, the Blackbird was blisteringly quick, even operating under the additional load of the stealth modules. Within thirty minutes, they’d covered half of the distance, giving Pointer enough time to complete a detailed scan of most of the exposed surface.
“Much the same as Ranver, except it’s warmer and a bit smaller,” she concluded.
“I’ll bring us around the planet at a distance of a million klicks – think you can get what you need from there?”
“As long as you don’t go too fast.”
In normal circumstances, the scanning work would have been merely boring. As it was, Blake found himself sweating more than usual. The Space Corps had little to go on when it came to planning how to counter the Vraxar threat and the lack of intel ensured the potential significance of every lead was enormous.
An hour passed until Pointer professed herself satisfied. “The surface was exceptionally uneven on the dark side of Auvial. There was room to hide a dozen smaller warships.”
“It’s definitely clear?”
“There are no small ships and certainly nothing Neutraliser-sized.”
“This feels like it’s turning into a waste of time,” said Blake. “What’s the third planet?”
Pointer called up the details. “This one’s called Saird.”
“Where do they pull this crap from?” he muttered.
“There are only twenty-six letters to name an effectively infinite number of planets…” Quinn began.
Blake was aware of the facts but wasn’t interested in hearing them spelled out to him. He waved for silence. “What about the sun?” he asked. “That would make a pretty good place to park a war fleet, wouldn’t it?”
“Depends on your definition of good,” said Quinn.
“We don’t know how the Vraxar got here,” said Blake. “If they flew directly here, their system of coordinates should still function. If they did what the Estral did before and came through a wormhole we don’t know about, maybe they have no working system of navigation.”
“A sun would make a good point of reference,” said Pointer. “There again, so would a planet – any planet.”
“Are you thinking of taking a closer look at Cheops-A?” asked Hawkins. “I hope you realise precisely how massive it is.”
“A circumference of three hundred million klicks,” said Blake. “Yes, it’s a big old star. Bring it up on the main viewscreen for me.”
The image on the bulkhead changed from a one of image-intensified darkness to a series of sensor-attenuated reds and oranges. Light filled the bridge and the crew were forced to shield their eyes.
“Turn it down a bit,” said Blake.
“Sorry. Here you go.”
Without a side-by-side comparison against a smaller sun, Cheops-A looked like any other red supergiant. Its surface roiled and burned, each millisecond generating an incomprehensible quantity of energy and hurling it out into the unlimited reaches of space.
“Three hundred million klicks around,” repeated Blake.
He shivered at the magnitude of the number. No matter how far any living species advanced, their greatest creations would be nothing compared to this.
“I don’t think we have the capability to scan it,” said Pointer. “There’s too much interference for the sensors to produce a reliable reading.”
“Our prospectors didn’t even bother trying,” said Hawkins. “They recorded the size and a few unusual features and that’s about it.”
“This one will supernova in less than ninety thousand years,” said Quinn. “I don’t have to be reminded we’ll be gone before it happens.”
“The Vraxar shouldn’t need to hide from us, sir. There’s no reason for them to be anywhere other than sitting patiently in deep space or orbiting around a planet somewhere.”
“How do the Vraxar know they don’t need to hide from us?” Blake asked. “They attacked one of our planets and overcame it easily enough. However, we did manage to shoot down three of their warships. They have no idea how many other ES Lucids we have in our fleet. The Confederation could span a hundred thousand worlds and have a fleet of twenty thousand.”
“They probably got the idea that we’re a lot smaller than that,” said Pointer.
“I’m sure, but think about it Lieutenant – the Vraxar must have been fighting for centuries. Maybe even longer. Perhaps they’ve learned to act cautiously in the opening stages. They shut down Atlantis easily enough, that’s true. It was still a lightning r
aid – in and out once they had what they came for.”
Pointer nodded. “As soon as they find out how few we are, they’ll have no need to hide.”
“Could be.”
“That still doesn’t mean they’re here,” said Quinn.
“It suggests we shouldn’t expect the Vraxar to be sitting brazenly out in the open, waiting for us to find them,” said Hawkins. “Maybe the Captain’s right and they’re sitting close to Cheops-A.”
“Let’s hope I’m wrong,” said Blake. “A single circuit will take weeks, even at the Blackbird’s highest speed.”
“Want me to speak to the Juniper and see if they’ll send out a team?” asked Pointer.
“They aren’t going to commit anything on the basis of our guesswork, Lieutenant. The monitoring station saw a ghost and we’re here to check it out. There’ll be no fleet to help us.”
“Does that mean we’re going to Saird?”
“It does. Fleet Admiral Duggan would hang me by the neck from the back of the Maximilian at high lightspeed if he learned I’d chosen to scan an entire red supergiant before finishing up with the smaller stuff around it.”
“It’s really not feasible for one vessel to scan Cheops-A,” said Pointer quietly. “I need to make sure you’re aware of that, sir.”
“Consider me informed, Lieutenant. I’ll take us in towards Saird.”
“This is a hot one. There’s plenty of gas and plenty of radiation. We won’t be able to make the same quick flyover as we did for the other planets,” said Pointer.
“I have every confidence in you, Lieutenant.” I actually mean it, he thought in surprise. He chuckled inwardly. What’s the world coming to?
They didn’t make it as far as planet Saird.
“Sir?” asked Pointer with rather more timidity than usual.
Blake detected something in the question and was instantly alert. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I mentioned the wide scanning arc on these Hynus sensor arrays. With the old kit, you point an array at something you want to examine and then try to interpret the data. These Hynus sensors can take in a lot more. Even with a load of Obsidiar processors to back things up, they take in far more data than we can handle.”
Inferno Sphere (Obsidiar Fleet Book 2) Page 6
