“Admiral Morey on Prime is dealing with fleet orders, sir.”
“Can you reach her?”
“She’s busy.”
It was understandable and Blake didn’t want to put his foot in the door just to ask how things were going when it was clear everything had gone to shit. Instead, he applied himself to figuring out how he could put the ES Lucid to best use in order that he could bring his recommendations to Admiral Morey when it was his turn to speak.
“We’re at the vanguard, folks,” he said. “The next warship after us is due in six hours.”
“Six hours?” asked Hawkins. “Why so long?”
“The fleet is spread out, Lieutenant, with most of our ships assigned to a specific world. It leaves fewer floaters to call upon. We’ve prepared as well as possible, but anticipating where the Vraxar would strike was always going to be a struggle.”
“What about the Ghasts?”
“Checking…the next ship is actually a Ghast vessel.” Blake laughed with disbelief. “Well I’ll be - it’s the Sciontrar. Tarjos Nil-Tras will be positively ecstatic to have another go at the Vraxar.”
“And I’ll be positively ecstatic to have a Ghast Oblivion flying with us,” said Hawkins.
“I’d trade it in for another ten,” said Quinn.
“We can’t sit here for six hours,” said Blake. “We’ve got stealth modules and they fitted fission suppression units when they fixed the Lucid up after our first encounter on Atlantis.”
“The stealth units didn’t help us much last time,” said Hawkins. “Sixteen of the fleet at New Earth had them too.”
“We don’t know what happened to the fleet. If they were required to fight, they’d have revealed themselves to the enemy. We need to act.”
It had been hard work in the past for Blake to persuade his crew that he wasn’t an over-confident glory-seeker. He felt he’d finally got them on side and earned their trust. He tried to gauge their reactions and was pleased to find there were no signs of doubt at his determination to act.
“Well someone’s got to do something,” said Hawkins.
“We’ve got to the front of Admiral Morey’s comms queue, sir. It doesn’t sound like she’s in the mood for small talk.”
Blake waved his hand in acknowledgement and Pointer brought Morey through. The comms channel carried the background noise of many people in a state of near-panic as the personnel on Prime tried to bring some measure of control to the situation.
“Admiral Morey, we are unable to see the New Earth defence fleet on our network and I have read the early, worrying reports.”
Morey had the clipped tones of a person who was naturally short of patience. She spoke brusquely. “Those warships are gone, Captain Blake. Destroyed to the last, as far as we know.”
The confirmation drove home the enormity of the loss.
“How?”
“The enemy vessel initiated hostile action, directed at New Earth. We could not allow them to proceed without responding. Our hand was forced.”
“What about New Earth? What kind of hostile action?”
“We don’t know exactly. Ix-Gorghal began deploying a series of craft into New Earth’s upper atmosphere.”
Blake breathed out. “They didn’t destroy it.”
“Not yet, Captain Blake. I think we can safely assume they haven’t come to party.”
“Did we achieve anything with the attack on Ix-Gorghal?”
“We don’t have a lot of intel. We’re working on the assumption the enemy is fully operational. I have ordered Monitoring Station Sigma to turn its lenses towards New Earth. The recalibration will take several hours to complete and then we will have a way to track the Vraxar activity.”
“What weapons did Ix-Gorghal use against our warships? Did we learn anything about its capabilities?”
Morey gave a short, barking laugh. “Overwhelming firepower and a shield that can absorb a hundred thousand conventional missiles.”
“Did the nukes work?”
“No. The enemy shield generators are either unaffected by gamma radiation or the radius of the shield is such that our warheads can’t detonate close enough to shut it down. Either way, we’re screwed.”
“Admiral Morey, I would like to bring the ES Lucid out of lightspeed a suitable distance from New Earth in order to act as a remote observer of the Vraxar.”
“That’s a negative - we can’t afford to throw our fleet piecemeal at the enemy. I am in the process of pulling together a new fleet from those stationed elsewhere. We will join with the Ghasts and act according to circumstances.”
“How long will that take? And what do you mean according to circumstances?”
“The travel time to New Earth from Truth, Prime and Old Earth is several days. The Maximilian and Devastator are preparing to leave for a new rendezvous point, along with eleven Galactics and twenty Impositions, plus destroyers. We can’t risk stripping away any more from the defence of these other worlds.”
Blake shook his head angrily. “Several days? There’ll be nobody left to save when they get here!”
Morey adopted the knowing tones of someone talking with a wayward child. “And what exactly do you propose, Captain Blake? Should we throw more ships after those we’ve lost? Or should we take stock and provide a measured response on our own terms?”
“The enemy is here and now, Admiral!” Blake felt realisation thunder into him like a right hook from a champion boxer. “You’ve given up on New Earth.”
There wasn’t a hint of shame in Morey’s voice when she responded. “Our intel suggests New Earth is a lost cause. This battle is already over, Captain. There will be another.”
“The new fleet isn’t coming?”
“It will remain in the Origin Sector to defend our home worlds. One of my team is sending coordinates to your navigational system. You will leave your current location and travel at maximum lightspeed to join with Defence Fleet Epsilon.”
Blake was shocked to his core. “You don’t have the authority to abandon New Earth, Admiral.”
“Fleet Admiral Duggan is not available to command. It falls to me to make these difficult decisions.”
“Does the Confederation Council know?”
“Enough! The decision is made, Captain Blake. You will bring the ES Lucid to the rendezvous point. That’s an order! Do I need to make it any clearer?”
“No Admiral, I hear you well enough.”
“Good. You will receive further orders once you reach your destination.”
The comms channel went dead and the sudden absence of background chatter from Admiral Morey’s office made the Lucid’s bridge as quiet as a morgue.
“She can’t do this!” Blake roared, breaking the silence like a hammer blow against a glass pane. “Of all the stupid, cowardly, idiotic things!” He stood and kicked at the unyielding metal side plating on his console.
“We can’t give up on New Earth,” said Hawkins, shaking her head in shock.
“I know that!” shouted Blake in fury. He closed his eyes and took a series of slow, deep breaths, while the crew watched. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I should not have directed my own anger towards you.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir.”
“We’ve received the coordinates for Defence Fleet Epsilon, sir,” said Pointer. “It’s kind of at an intersection between Old Earth, Truth, Charing and Prime.”
Blake sat for a time, resting his chin in the palm of one hand.
“Sir?” asked Quinn. “Would you like me to warm up the fission engines?”
“Who wants to join the defence fleet?” asked Blake.
“We’ve been ordered, sir,” said Quinn.
“I know it was an order. Who wants to join the defence fleet?”
“I’d feel like a coward,” said Pointer.
“Me too,” said Hawkins.
Quinn wavered. “If we go to New Earth is there anything we can do, given that an entire fleet got shot down?”
“We
won’t know if we don’t take a look,” said Hawkins.
“I suppose there’s a lot more at stake than our careers,” Quinn replied with a nervous smile.
“Any objections to us seeing what we can do to help the people of New Earth?” asked Blake.
“I guess not,” said Pointer.
“I always liked the rain,” added Hawkins.
Blake nodded at his crew in turn. Ensigns Toby Park and Charlotte Bailey kept their heads down. In a way, Blake felt sorry for them – he’d put them in a really bad position. The reality was, they’d signed up to a job which would put their lives at risk and this was what it came to.
“Take us to New Earth, Lieutenant Quinn. Make sure the fission suppression system is working when we arrive and don’t bring us in too close.”
“Yes, sir. I’m preparing the jump.”
It was a comparatively short journey and the ES Lucid’s processing cores made quick work of the computations. The heavy cruiser re-entered lightspeed, heading towards New Earth. With his course set, Blake didn’t waste energy asking himself if he was doing the right thing. There was an excellent chance he’d be court-martialled for this, even if the Confederation Council adjudged Admiral Morey to have exceeded her authority. There were some things more important than a career and a gold-plated watch at the end of it.
The ES Lucid flew on into the unknown.
Chapter Four
Fleet Admiral Duggan was blessed with eyesight which showed no signs of degeneration. This perfection of his physical vision meant it was all the more difficult to cope with the blindness he was experiencing in the bunker beneath the Tucson military base. It made a change for the power to be running freely during a Vraxar attack and the thousands of high-tech control consoles in the facility gave every appearance they were fully-functional. Looks were deceiving and everything was running at a crawl. In addition, the Vraxar had completely locked down the comms – there were no messages in and no messages out.
Duggan felt caged and he strode about the main command and control room, occasionally stopping next to one of the operators to ask for an update. His personal team waited anxiously and offered ideas and suggestions where they thought it appropriate.
“Is there anyone here with good news?” he asked in exasperation.
He cast his eyes around the room. There were upwards of one hundred people inside – many of them technicians trying to get things running smoothly again - and not one of them dared meet his gaze.
“I do not want silence!” he shouted. “Someone tell me what we’re doing to fix this! You!” he said, pointing at a random officer.
The bald-headed man swallowed. “Well, sir, we’ve successfully completed our emergency response procedure. Every one of the two thousand expected personnel are now in this bunker. We are attempting to find out if the rest of the base personnel are in the other bunkers. The lack of comms is making it difficult.”
“You!” said Duggan, pointing at an older man in the far corner.
“We’re trying to figure out what’s eating the base mainframe processing cycles, Fleet Admiral. It’s slowing everything down and there’s a chance it may be part of what’s holding up the comms.”
“That’s more like it!” said Duggan approvingly. “What are you doing to fix it?”
“I’m working with the comms hardware technicians to find out how to get a signal out. If there’s a problem with the hardware, we might be able to switch in replacements from the stores. If it’s software, we need to squirt in some new code to bring it back to normal. If it’s something else entirely – something unknown…” he shrugged to show he didn’t have any idea what this potential something else might be.
“Keep at it. You!” said Duggan. This time his finger aimed unerringly at a huddle of red-uniformed officers.
It was a grey-haired woman who answered. “We are collating data to build a picture of what’s going on. This bunker is ancient and they never removed the hard links to the surface, so we can speak to certain other areas on the Tucson base. As you’ve been informed, there is still no sign of a Vraxar ground incursion.”
The news only added to Duggan’s sense that he was huddling away like a coward. He was wise enough to know the reality was rather more nuanced. Gone were the days when he was required to throw himself directly into the fray.
The officer he was speaking with appeared to know her stuff, so he pressed on.
“Where do these hard links go? Can we communicate with Retulon base, or connect with a piece of ancient hardware somewhere which isn’t affected by the jamming? Maybe get a signal off world or to our defence fleet?”
“I don’t know, sir. We’ve had about a thousand system upgrades since the last hard links were installed and now it’s almost impossible to manually route a comms message. The comms hub does all the hard work.”
“No manual routing? Who the hell was responsible for that decision?”
“It likely seemed a reasonable idea at the time, sir.”
“Does this hard link reach the main comms hub on Tucson?”
“Yes, sir. I assume you want to find out what’s coming through the sensors.”
“That would be nice.”
A man from the same huddle spoke up. “We’ve been getting a feed ever since we came down here, sir. The trouble is, the lack of spare processing resource from the base mainframe means we aren’t receiving anything useful.”
“Keep working on it and tell me as soon as anything changes.” Duggan raised his voice. “The most important things I want to know are these. One: what are the Vraxar doing? Two: what happened to the New Earth defence fleet?”
Once again there was silence.
“Find out and tell me!” he roared.
The activity in the room increased markedly at this demonstration of fury. In the centre of it, Duggan seethed. It felt like a game of chess where the opponent had already declared checkmate in three. He beckoned over a few members of his team and also Research Lead Marion Norris who had accompanied him into the bunker. Without further word, he took one of the passages leading from the command and control room, with the others following.
“At least the damn doors work,” he said.
Parts of the Tucson bunker were more than two hundred years old. The Space Corps had kept it up-to-date when it came to technology, but the place still reeked of age. After years of service on fleet warships, with their tight corridors and claustrophobic rooms, Duggan felt at home and the dull thump of his footsteps on the metal-tiled floor gave him solace. His anger slipped away, leaving the cold, calculating part of his mind spinning, seeking the traction which would generate a plan of some kind.
The destination wasn’t far. He glanced once over his shoulder and saw the nervous expressions on the faces of several of his team as if they feared being so far beneath the surface. Are we getting soft? came the unbidden question in his mind.
Duggan knew it was unfair to judge – the Confederation had been at peace for a long time and gradually the Space Corps began attracting people who expected a comfortable life, safe in their offices, with a food replicator at the end of the corridor and the certainty of a warm bed at the end of it. Duggan had tried to keep them tough with regular off-world training exercises, but he was fighting the inevitable. The three Fleet Admirals proceeding him had been little more than mouthpieces for the Confederation Council, only too willing to accept cutbacks and to introduce new lines of research with no benefit to the war fleet.
Part of Duggan longed for the old days – longed for them more than anything. His brain reminded him how conflicted he’d been back then and how much he’d craved the quiet life at the same time as he brought death to his enemies. A smile tugged the reluctant corner of his mouth upwards. I’ve always been too old to fool myself.
“Is my wife settled?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” answered Lieutenant Charissa Paz.
“Did she give you a hard time?”
“She was reluctant to acc
ept assistance, sir. She’s probably clocked more flight hours than I’ve lived. I can understand it.”
Paz was easy company, competent, and with a dry sense of humour which never overstepped the mark.
“I’ll speak to her later,” he said with a chuckle.
“If she doesn’t hunt you down first, sir.”
They located a meeting room and Duggan’s head swum when he saw the number on the door.
“Is there any meeting room throughout this entire organisation that isn’t numbered 73?”
“I am not aware of any specific directive which insists upon conformity, sir,” said Paz.
“My whole life seems to be spent in meeting rooms with the same damned number on the door.”
“Confirmation bias, sir.”
Duggan pressed the access panel and the door opened, allowing him across the threshold. “Is that what it is?”
The meeting room was a fairly standard affair, with a wood-veneer square table and mismatched chairs, suggesting they’d been borrowed in the past and the wrong ones returned. There were one or two pictures on the wall, mercifully devoid of motivational exclamations. There was a large viewscreen in the far wall and several desktop communicators. Duggan had seen images of such rooms from eight hundred years ago and the basic layout hadn’t changed. He felt a passing shame that he’d been Fleet Admiral for so long yet had failed to instigate a programme of improvements. It was way down the priorities list.
His chosen seat scraped roughly across the floor when he pulled it out. His staff followed his lead and Duggan found himself facing their expectant faces. He was sitting opposite some of the brightest human minds in the universe, but in this conflict, they were lost children.
Duggan got the ball rolling.
“Well folks, we’re in the shit.”
“I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking it,” said Lieutenant Allison Jacobs.
“I’m going to run through the main problems and after that, I’ll be grateful to hear anything you might have to say and I don’t care if you think it’s foolish or if it subsequently turns out to be foolish.”
“Blue sky thinking,” said Paz with a twinkle in her eye, knowing Duggan passionately hated buzzwords.
Earth's Fury (Obsidiar Fleet Book 4) Page 4
