“Thank you, Lieutenant. The situation isn’t so parlous that I won’t dismiss you from my staff if it becomes necessary.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As I was saying, we’re knee deep in it,” Duggan continued. “We’re comms blind and we don’t have any way to find out what the enemy are up to. However, these are the Vraxar, so we can be sure their aim is to kill us. The more we learn about how they intend to achieve that, the greater our chances of stopping them.”
He paused to let the words sink in. He didn’t need to spell out that a greater chance still meant there was effectively no chance at all. He continued.
“We don’t know what happened to our fleet. There were thirty-two vessels in New Earth’s upper atmosphere, with three Galactics amongst them. I would dearly like to know what the man in charge - Admiral Nathaniel Bunch - is planning. Without comms, I have no way to give instructions.”
“There is an eighty-three percent chance the fleet is destroyed, sir,” said Research Lead Norris, her eyes staring into the distance.
“You modelled that in your head?”
She smiled unhappily. “It just came to me now, sir.”
Every fibre of Duggan’s being wanted the New Earth defence fleet to have beaten the odds. He’d worked with the Projections Team for so long he couldn’t easily discount Norris’s conclusion. He swore and crashed his fists onto the table top with such ferocity, a few of the others jumped.
“Sorry, sir,” said Norris.
The possibility of the defence fleet’s destruction was something Duggan had already considered, yet never allowed himself to think of as a high probability. In his mind, the Space Corps warships were conducting a series of careful hit-and-run sorties against Ix-Gorghal, keeping the Vraxar distracted and buying time for Admiral Morey to organize a large-scale response. The notion all thirty-two warships were gone was more than he could bear and Duggan bowed his head for several minutes.
Eventually, he settled himself and raised his head.
“It’s not something to apologise for, RL Norris,” he said. “What other possibilities have you considered?”
“Nothing yet.” Norris lifted her palms upwards in a gesture of uncertainty. “I don’t have much control. I guess some part of my mind thinks about stuff away from my consciousness. Every so often, I get an answer, sometimes to a question I wasn’t aware I’d asked.”
Duggan was keen to keep the meeting on track, but he couldn’t help pursuing this diversion.
“Don’t you even use a computer? I thought that’s how the Projections Team worked – the computer did the maths and you applied a humanness to the results.”
“Sometimes that’s what happens. A few of us just see the answers and use a computer to record them or to obtain a second opinion on what we already worked out.” She looked scared. “You’re not going to put me in a lab for study, are you?”
“It’s hardly the time, RL Norris. If we get out of this alive, we’ll speak further, but I promise nothing will happen without your agreement.” He put the matter to one side and addressed his staff. “If the fleet is gone, our options are limited to say the least. Now, tell me your ideas.”
“We should attempt to make contact with Retulon, sir,” said Lieutenant Joe Doyle. “I used to work on comms hardware and I’ll bet there are still three or four intact hard links under the sea. The Pilast, Lander and Rion bases should be hard linked as well.”
“What benefits does it bring to reach these other bases?” asked Duggan. “There were two warships docked at Retulon and three more in early-stage construction. I assume the Spinebreaker and Meteor were lost along with the rest of the fleet. The others were little more than empty hulls and weren’t due for completion until early next year.”
“We need intel, sir,” said Paz. “We don’t know what the hell is happening and it would be nice if we weren’t so much in the dark.”
“It still feels as if we’re focusing on the little details,” mused Duggan. “Let’s say we establish comms with Colonel Stinson at Retulon and he tells us some things. We still don’t have a way to respond against the Vraxar.”
“What if they tell us the Vraxar are killing everyone?” asked Jacobs.
The question hung in the air for a time. Eventually Duggan acknowledged it with a grunt.
“You’re right, Lieutenant. We should prepare for the possible use of Benediction. Where is it now?”
“I don’t think anyone knows, sir,” said Lieutenant Jacqui Gallant. “It was in transit when the Vraxar came. There’s a chance the responsible team continued with their orders and finished the operation or are in the process of doing so.”
“Or it could be sitting out there on the landing field somewhere,” said Duggan. He had another thought. “I’m the only one with the codes to detonate it.”
Jacobs guessed what he was leading to. “Except you can’t make the command remotely since the comms aren’t working. You’d need to be at the panel on the bomb itself.”
Lieutenant Doyle wasn’t part of the team who got a full briefing on the details of Last Stand. “Doesn’t this need multiple codes to activate?” he asked.
“No, Lieutenant. I’m the only one with the code for all of the bombs.”
“Isn’t that a bit…?”
“Yes, it is. The Confederation Council still haven’t sorted their crap out. Once they do, I’ll gladly share the burden with whoever they nominate. Until then, there’s only me.”
“My sympathies,” said Doyle.
The words were genuine and Duggan acknowledged them. “I wish it were otherwise.”
“It’s too early to contemplate using Benediction. Isn’t it?” said Paz.
“It’s too early to use it, but definitely not too early to contemplate using it,” said Duggan. “We need to locate the bomb and we require a plan that will allow me to access it at short notice if it becomes necessary.”
“Will it take out Ix-Gorghal?” asked Doyle.
“We had a breakthrough a few hours before I signed off the construction orders for Benediction. Against my better judgement I allowed a series of design alterations to be included. The Obsidiar is unpredictable, however the weapons teams told me the detonation of Benediction will produce a blast sphere large enough to encompass the explosions of every other Obsidiar bomb we’ve ever made.”
Doyle gave a low whistle. “There’ll be no pain when it goes off, then?”
“You won’t feel a thing, Lieutenant. More importantly, you won’t experience a thousand years in the hold of a Vraxar ship with a metal bar in your spine and a collar around your neck.”
“I’d still rather explore other avenues that might lead to my living through this crap,” said Paz.
“Of course, Lieutenant. We’re simply discussing our options.”
“Good, because as far as I was aware, we still have a Hadron battleship and a mobile Obsidiar cannon sitting out there.”
“Neither of which is finished, and both of which are easy targets for an aerial bombardment if the Vraxar choose to do so.” Realising he was being far too negative, Duggan went on. “They’re both close to completion and there’s a chance they might fly.”
“Great, let’s get them warmed up,” said Paz.
Paz was fully aware it wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch and having the two spaceships ready to go.
“The Ulterior-2 is missing one of its main engine modules,” said Duggan. “They were bringing it in on a crawler this afternoon. There’s a chance they got it fitted, but no way they got the plating on top. As for Earth’s Fury, there’re still five weeks remaining on the programme. I don’t know what the hell it’s missing – they don’t even have the life support units tied in. One thing is for definite – it’s got no ammunition, since that’s in the secure Obsidiar Storage Facility.”
“Problem on top of problem,” said Paz. “At least we know what’s ahead of us.”
“We need to find the Obsidiar bomb, figure out a way to put an ex
perimental gun into operation and then fire it at the biggest damn warship humanity has ever faced,” said Duggan. For some reason, laughter seemed the only possible response to the difficulties. He tried and found it came easier than expected.
The whoosh of the meeting room door caused everyone in the room to turn. A man came in - it was one of the technicians from the command and control room who’d been working to identify the cause of the Tucson processing cluster slowdown. Duggan couldn’t recall the man’s name and didn’t know if he’d ever been told. What was abundantly clear was that this technician was about to deliver some bad news.
I should have known better than to laugh, Duggan thought sourly.
“What is it?” he asked with greater anger than intended.
“We’ve managed to get the sensors working better than before, sir. There’s an old mainframe in this bunker – fifty years old it is and it still works – and it seems to be shielded from whatever the Vraxar are doing to the main cluster. We managed to tap into it and…”
The man was babbling and Duggan interrupted him.
“I can see this is important. Please get to the point.”
“Yes, sir. The Vraxar have put satellites in orbit. We don’t know exactly how many - we’re limited by line of sight since the comms links to our own satellites are offline. What we do know is that these alien satellites are doing something to the New Earth atmosphere.”
This was it. Duggan could tell he was about to learn something big about why the Vraxar were here.
“What are they doing?”
“They’re taking out the oxygen – burning it up, turning it into something else – we don’t have specifics. We only just noticed. New Earth’s atmosphere is usually 21.6% oxygen. Now it’s 20.9%.”
“There’s no chance of error?”
“We triple-checked before I came, sir.”
Lieutenant Jacobs recited some figures from her head. “At between 12 and 15% oxygen the human body doesn’t work too well. Once it drops below 10%, that’s when we start dying.”
“How long?” asked Duggan.
The technician looked at his feet. “We don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“Hours. Less than eight and more than four. Don’t expect to do any running two or three hours from now.”
“Thank you…?”
“Hampton, sir. Lead Technician Fred Hampton – Sensor Maintenance.”
“Thank you, Lead Technician Hampton. When you return to your duties, tell the most senior officer you can find that I’m exceptionally displeased that they saw fit to leave it to you to bring me this news.”
Hampton backed out of the room. “Yes, sir.”
And that was it – the door closed leaving Duggan and his staff shifting in their chairs, desperately trying to think of something useful to say. The Vraxar were going to kill everyone in a way which would leave the bodies intact. The command bunker was sealed and self-sustaining, so there was no immediate threat to those inside. It wasn’t much consolation – Duggan had no desire to hide away while billions died.
“Is this why they haven’t attacked the base?” asked Paz.
“Yes, Lieutenant – it looks like they can do exactly what they want without bothering themselves to initiate a ground deployment.”
“We should be pleased they don’t know we have fifty percent of the Confederation’s Obsidiar stashed away on Tucson.”
Duggan requested silence in order that he could think more clearly. It didn’t take long for him to understand the height of the mountain before them. If there was a way out of this, he didn’t have any idea what it was.
Chapter Five
The bridge on the Earth’s Fury was different to that of most other warships. It was fitted with later-model control consoles, four exceptionally comfortable chairs and a replicator which could produce food better than mother ever used to make. The lighting was perfect and the temperature was suitably cool, yet for some reason, it still felt rudimentary. Old, almost.
Perhaps it’s the smell, thought Lieutenant Maria Cruz. There was an oiliness to the air. When she was young, her father had kept a couple of old combustion-engined motorbikes in his garage. He never managed to get them going, but it didn’t stop him trying. The Earth’s Fury had that same smell of oil-stained rags and grease, mixed with something much newer – electricity and perfectly-machined metal.
Coming back to the present, Cruz checked her diagnostic tablet again. It had gone screwy several times over the last few days and it was probably time to get a replacement from the stores.
“Is yours playing up as well?” asked Lead Comms Technician Ashlea Dubose, brandishing her own tablet.
“I don’t know what it’s doing,” said Cruz, tapping the screen hard with a fingertip. “It’s dropped its connection to the comms console again.”
Technology wasn’t renowned for its positive response to force and the tablet restarted itself, treating her to a black screen with a winking cursor. She poked it again.
“I’d say we’re just about ready to request a final sign off, don’t you?” asked Dubose.
Cruz nodded. “Everything’s testing just fine apart from this tablet. Five weeks until this spaceship flies.”
“That’s what they say.”
“You don’t believe?”
Dubose was middle-aged and with an excellent ear for base gossip. “I pick things up here and there. They were late bringing in the life support modules – something went wrong in the factory and yadda yadda. They don’t like to warm up the engines without the life support systems fully tested and online, so we’ve ended up with a delay to the entire project.” Dubose had taken a shine to Cruz and she smiled sympathetically. “I bet you wish you were anywhere but here.”
“They needed someone with flight experience to test the live systems. I was on the ground at the right time and here I am.”
“Well, Lieutenant, I’m going to tell Lady Peterson that the comms systems on the Earth’s Fury are as ready as they’ll ever be.” Her face hardened. “Now we move to the Ulterior-2 and the hard work really starts.”
“We’ve got three days, haven’t we? That’s enough for testing if we put in the hours.”
“We’ve been given less than three days. I got a memo earlier this evening telling me they want final testing complete in thirty hours. I hope you don’t need much sleep, Lieutenant.”
Cruz was happy to step it up. “Thirty hours should be enough.”
“Haven’t you read the briefing?”
“What briefing?”
“Maybe I forgot to copy you in. Never mind, I’ll tell you about it now. The Ulterior-2 isn’t like the Earth’s Fury. This spaceship we’re on here is little more than a…” Dubose waved her arms around, trying to pick the right phrase, “…gun with an engine. The Ulterior-2, now that’s meant to fight for fifty years and be a platform for every new weapon we can come up with during that time.”
Cruz nodded – she knew this already. “The Space Corps makes new stuff all the time.”
“The Ulterior-2 has completely updated comms and sensor arrays.”
“I know.”
“With a totally new interface.”
“That I didn’t know.”
“That’s why thirty hours is going to be tight. I have no idea why they prioritised the Earth’s Fury.”
Cruz checked her watch – it was already two hours past the end of her shift. The shipyard was on a rotating round-the-clock shift pattern, but for whatever reason she found herself doing more than her fair share of hours.
“I can get started now.”
“You should get some sleep instead. Come back in the morning.”
“Then there will be closer to twenty hours to finish the testing.”
Dubose cackled evilly. “You’re a good Space Corps officer, Lieutenant Cruz.”
Cruz wasn’t sure what to make of that particular statement, but luckily she was saved from having to provide a response. Unfortunately, what
saved her was the sounding of the bridge emergency siren. The lighting turned a deep red, ensuring there was no possibility of missing the alarm.
For once, Dubose was lost for words and she began spluttering, while her head jerked left and right. “What’s going on?”
Cruz didn’t answer immediately. The comms console – along with every other console on the bridge – displayed the reason for the alarm.
“The base has been placed on maximum alert. Priority 1.”
“That means we have to get out of here,” said Dubose. “We’re not allowed to remain onboard an unfinished warship unless we’re given specific instructions to do so.”
“I’ll check,” said Cruz. “Nope, there’s nothing asking us to stay. Let’s go.”
She grabbed her tablet and ushered Dubose off the bridge ahead of her. The corridor outside was bathed in the same red light and the siren was painfully loud. The bridge was in the upper central area of the spaceship, close to what was called the nose, though Earth’s Fury didn’t really have a nose as such.
After a two-hundred metre run along a wide corridor, they reached a pair of airlifts. The left one was still in place from when they’d arrived a few hours earlier. Inside, the siren was muted and Cruz found herself able to think more easily.
“I’m out of shape,” gasped Dubose. “This is the first Priority 1 alert in the twenty-eight years I’ve worked here. They picked a fine time for a drill.”
“I don’t think this is a drill.”
Dubose gaped stupidly. “Then what?”
“Vraxar.”
“Don’t say that. You’re scaring me.”
Cruz didn’t want to mollycoddle so she didn’t say anything else. The lift reached the bottom of its shaft and they headed for the rear boarding ramp. There were a few others ahead of them - members of the other teams testing the internal systems.
The exit ramp wasn’t steep and they walked quickly towards the bottom of the trench. From here, Cruz could see there was a crowd gathered around a huge bank of airlifts, waiting their turn to get up to the surface. There was a palpable feeling of panic and it infected Dubose before they were even halfway to the end of the ramp.
Earth's Fury (Obsidiar Fleet Book 4) Page 5
