“We’re in range. Seventy-two Lambdas on their way.”
“There’s a positron surge from their engines, sir,” said Breeze. “They’re coming back online. That’s short of a full minute.”
“Bigger ship,” grunted Duggan, pulling the Crimson away out of range. There was no way he wanted to give the Oblivion a chance to unleash a broadside.
“Beam strike across our engines. Coming from the Oblivion” said Breeze. “We’re five percent down.”
“Drones away. No return missile fire from the Oblivion. Their Vule cannons are firing and they’re throwing out plasma flares.” McGlashan almost sounded impressed. “They’re packing a lot of weaponry.”
“The Extermination’s full of holes, sir. She’s going to break up,” said Chainer. “Fixation and Lambast are firing on the first Oblivion. Something’s wrong with the Precept.”
“She’s drifting,” said Breeze. “I can patch into her engine readouts from here. They have zero output.”
“They’ve been hit by a disruptor,” said Duggan.
“Second drone cloud launched, sir. Take us to a horizontal so the front Bulwarks can target.”
Duggan adjusted the Crimson’s heading, in order that they could bring more of the rapid-fire cannons to bear against the incoming missiles. From the corner of his eye, he saw the four missiles from the Oblivion on his tactical readout. They were passing through the Archimedes’ countermeasures.
“The Cadaveron’s sending us another sixty. Our drone cloud has thinned out the first wave.” McGlashan clapped her hands together, the sound loud and crisp. “Yes! Five successful Lambda strikes on the Oblivion! Three in their engines.”
“Come on!” said Chainer to himself. Sweat dripped from his hair and he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve.
Duggan had taken the Crimson far above the Cadaveron. They were much faster than the Ghast vessel and he intended to keep between the Archimedes and the enemy craft. He’d taken them to a position from which the enemy short-range missiles could no longer target them. It wouldn’t protect them from the sixty that were still inbound, but there’d be no more for the moment.
“We’re out of the Oblivion’s missile range. Also outside of the longest reported Ghast beam range,” said Chainer. He could be jumpy sometimes, but in a real pinch he was deadly calm.
The walls of the bridge shook and there was a harsh metal-edged roar. Given their trajectory, they could only get five of the Crimson’s eight Bulwark cannons pointing towards the incoming Ghast missiles. Everyone held their breaths until the firing stopped.
“First wave destroyed,” said McGlashan. Then the bad news. “The Archimedes has been hit. Four successful strikes, I think.”
“I wonder what the payload is of those missiles,” said Breeze. “They must be all engine to travel so far. There might be no room for a big warhead.” He looked up. “Our fission engines at forty percent.” The words came almost as an afterthought.
Duggan was desperate to know how quickly the Ghasts could reload for another try. He’d seen the Ghast long-range missiles a few times, but on each occasion the engagement had been finished before they’d completed a second launch. There were several reasons why the Ghasts might not be able to fire them rapidly. Duggan kept his fingers crossed that it was a technical limitation.
“Shock drones on their way,” said McGlashan. “We’re running low on them, sir.”
“We’re running low on everything, Commander. Launch more.”
“Away they go.”
“The Archimedes is powering up her fission drive, sir. I don’t think they’re going to stick around.”
Duggan opened a channel. “Archimedes, this is Crimson. I’m reading a fission build-up from your engines.”
“We’ve got four big holes in our side. Four real big holes.” The comms man’s voice carried an edge of panic. No one on the Archimedes expected to die in combat.
“What’re our orders?” Duggan spoke sharply, trying to make the man forget his fear.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Find out, then!”
Duggan cut the channel. The vibration started again, an almost imperceptible thrumming that resonated through everything. The Bulwarks were firing at the second wave of Ghast missiles. An idea came to Duggan and he rapidly plugged in some instructions to the Crimson’s mainframe. He was determined that this encounter would not become a disaster from which the Space Corps might never recover.
There was a rumbling sound. Deep and violent, it washed through the spacecraft. A split second later, there was another. A siren started on the bridge and a red light began to cycle from a dark hue to a lighter one and back.
“We’ve taken two hits aft,” said McGlashan. She looked as grim-faced as Duggan felt.
“Damage report!”
“Collating the information,” said Breeze.
“The Oblivion’s launched another wave of long-range missiles. Four on their way.” McGlashan stuttered for the briefest of moments. “We’ve launched two of our nukes. Sir?”
“If nothing else will target their missiles, maybe we need to try something with a bit less finesse.” Duggan gave her a tight smile.
He looked back at his console. The Cadaveron had changed its course to try and intercept them. It was too late and the enemy ship was far behind them. The Lambda strikes on the Oblivion’s engines had evidently done some damage and the battleship was running at less than half of its expected velocity. The Archimedes had changed course and was heading directly away from the conflict, to buy some time for her fission drives to build up.
“Sir, the Precept’s back online. They’re readying their fission drives,” said Breeze.
“Not going to make it,” muttered Chainer.
“Fission engines lighting up everywhere. The whole damn lot of them are preparing to go.”
A voice broke into Duggan’s ear. It was one of the comms men from the Archimedes, belatedly telling him what everyone else seemed to already know. “Sir, you’re ordered to leave the scene of the conflict. Your destination is the New Earth Capital Shipyard. Good luck.”
The line went dead, just in time for Duggan to hear Breeze read out the damage report from the two missile strikes. “We’ve got two big holes in our armour. Only one breach through to the fission engines. Negligible damage and a small antimatter leak.” Breeze puffed loudly, the relief evident. “Our aft plating’s going to look like a lump of cheese and we’d best hope we don’t take another hit anywhere close.”
“Prepare us for a lightspeed jump, Lieutenant,” ordered Duggan.
“Course, sir?”
Duggan spat the words out. “New Earth Capital Shipyard.”
“Dialling in the coordinates.”
Even while he talked and listened, Duggan’s head and hands never stopped moving as he continued to make adjustments to the Crimson’s trajectory. To one side, the two nukes he’d launched showed up as amber points on his tactical display. They described a smooth path along the course he’d set them, painfully slow compared to the much faster Ghast missiles.
“Too slow,” he said to himself. “I took too long.”
It was turning into a disaster for the Corps ships and Duggan found anger building within him, sweeping away the calmness. Without taking his eyes from the nukes, he used the Crimson’s override to force a channel directly to Admiral Slender. “Sir, it’s Captain Duggan.”
Slender showed no surprise at the intrusion. “What is it, Captain?” There was hostility, clear in the curtness of his voice.
“We’re getting the crap beaten out of us here, sir. What are the unlock codes for our weapons systems?”
There was a pause, so slight that Duggan wasn’t sure it had been there. “The Archimedes is badly damaged! Don’t you think I’d have told you them if I’d known? Don’t you think I’d have had someone transmit you those codes?”
“Sir, I really don’t know what you’d have done.”
“Damn you, man! The
re are no codes! We could only get the disruptors working! The final weapons systems on the Crimson have never worked!”
“Thirty seconds till we can go,” said Breeze. “Fission drives at one hundred percent. It’s going to be rough.”
On Duggan’s screen, the two amber dots and the four red dots of the enemy missiles coincided. The rest of the tactical map remained a crowd of missile reports and status updates, but the six dots he’d been watching vanished and didn’t reappear.
“The nukes have detonated. Enemy missiles disabled or destroyed,” said McGlashan almost absently. She was watching Duggan.
“We’ve got someone else coming to the party,” said Chainer. “Whatever it is, it’s a big bastard. There’s nothing on the Corps transit log. It’s definitely not one of ours.”
Breeze had picked it up. “That’s bigger than big. Sir, we need to get out of here. All of us.”
Duggan heard, but didn’t take his focus away from Admiral Slender. He was sure that the man was telling him the truth, which made it all the more galling that there’d been such secrecy.
“Why didn’t Admiral Teron tell me there was no functioning extra weaponry in the first place, sir?”
Slender didn’t answer the question. “Bring the Crimson to the New Earth Capital shipyard for dismantling, Captain Duggan. Those are your orders. If that vessel suffers any more damage, I’ll have you dismissed from the Corps and this time you won’t be able to wriggle out of it.” The channel went silent – Slender had ended the conversation.
“A new Ghast warship has entered the arena, sir.” Chainer sounded shocked. “It’s…huge.”
“Record whatever data you can, Lieutenant. We’re not going to stick around to shake hands.”
“The Archimedes, Fixation and Lambast have gone to lightspeed. They must have synchronised.”
“The Precept tried to go and failed,” said Breeze. “She’s taken too much damage.”
In the last second before the ESS Crimson tore its way violently into lightspeed, Duggan saw two images that would haunt him forever. The first was the sight of the new Ghast spaceship. The unknown vessel was at least ten kilometres long, its hull an ugly mass of lumps, curves and weaponry. The second image was of the Hadron ES Precept, smashed into a million different pieces, each part beginning its own endless journey through space.
The force of the acceleration pushed Duggan hard into his seat. An unseen hand clenched itself around his body and squeezed. He struggled to breathe and his ribcage felt as if it would splinter, sending needle-sharp slivers of bone into his lungs. Unconsciousness came quickly, utterly denying his resistance.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Duggan wasn’t sure how long he was out. When he came to, his head was pounding and his body ached. He coughed and felt a pain across his chest, and the taste of blood was strong in his mouth. He summoned up his strength and sat upright, doing his best to ignore the dizziness. McGlashan was stirring, while Breeze snored loudly at his console.
“Commander?”
“Damn I feel like crap,” she said. “Can’t we do something to the engines to cut their output before we enter lightspeed? I’d rather go at seventy-five percent and accelerate afterwards, than start off at full power.”
Duggan’s brain wasn’t ready for the challenge of the question. “I’ll put your idea to Lieutenant Breeze when he wakes up,” he said.
A few minutes later, Duggan was feeling much better. McGlashan was alert, but hadn’t ventured out of her seat and Breeze was trying to operate his console with trembling hands. Chainer was still unconscious, though his pulse was strong and he showed no sign of injury.
Duggan checked in with Sergeant Ortiz. No one was seriously hurt, though Corporal Blunt had used his battlefield adrenaline syringe on three of the men.
“I’m sure they’re faking it in order to get a jab, sir,” said Ortiz with a degree of humour that Duggan wasn’t feeling himself. “They try that adrenaline once when they’re properly hurt and then they want it every time they break a fingernail.”
“I’m pleased everything is fine,” said Duggan. “Send Corporal Blunt here when he’s finished up with the squad.”
The words had scarcely left his mouth when Lieutenant Chainer began to groan. He coughed a couple of times and then opened his eyes.
“Whose side is this spaceship on?” he asked.
“Sergeant Ortiz?” said Duggan, catching her before she could go. “Belay that order. There’s no need to send Corporal Blunt.”
“Roger that, sir.”
The next few minutes were filled with curses and grunts as the crew of the bridge tried to recover from the trauma their bodies had been subjected to.
“Those holes in our rear haven’t slowed us down,” said Breeze. “We’re just about on Light-V. At this speed, we’ll reach New Earth in just shy of seven days. We’ll be able to fit in a week’s vacation before the Archimedes gets there and she’s not exactly slow.”
“We really took a kicking back there,” said Chainer. “The Archimedes didn’t even get a shot off and now the Precept’s gone. The Ghast disruptor managed to shut down an entire Hadron, sir.”
“The Ghasts are way ahead of us, Lieutenant. We already knew that. This was just a demonstration of the fact.”
“I know, sir. Sometimes you don’t need your face rubbing into the dirt to know that it’ll feel like crap.”
Duggan understood what Chainer was trying to say. “Let’s count this as the beginning of a new war. We’re facing a much more powerful foe and we’re going to do everything we can to beat them. They have the upper hand, but every day that passes we’ll get stronger. And if we can live long enough, one day we’ll show them what happens to the Space Corps’ enemies.”
“They’ve already found out what happens to those who come up against the Crimson!” said Chainer.
“I wonder how long it’ll take them to refit the old girl once we reach the shipyard,” said McGlashan, refusing to get drawn into Chainer’s sudden optimism. “I’d love to be assigned here again once they’ve updated it.”
“I don’t even know if they’ll bother,” said Duggan.
“You said before that they’ll upgrade all the old tech,” said McGlashan. It wasn’t quite an accusation.
“The existing life support system should be good enough if they put in some standard engines,” said Chainer. “No more blacking out for the men and women of the Crimson.”
Duggan sighed. “I said they’d probably upgrade it. That was before I heard what Admiral Teron said about the Confederation going to total war. If there’s no shipyard left to take the hull, they might pull it apart. I’m sure they could re-use some of the plating. There’ll be an assessment by someone who’s never seen the inside of a ship before and who’s more interested in the cost. That person may decide to break the Crimson for scrap.”
“Well, we’ve had some good times,” said McGlashan, brightening. You couldn’t keep her down for long. “We kicked some butt, that’s for sure.”
“That we did,” agreed Duggan.
“Want me to call Monsey up here?” she asked suddenly. “We’ve got a week to try and get some answers from those data arrays.”
Duggan smiled, though he didn’t feel in the mood, He idly called up the top-level access menu for the blocked memory banks. He saw something which made him sit upright and look closely.
“What is it?” asked McGlashan, noticing his interest.
“Have a look at this,” he said. She came over and leaned across.
“Four data arrays, four menu options,” she said.
“Four data arrays, two of which are hidden,” Duggan replied. “We shouldn’t even know they’re there.” He punched up the option for one of the arrays. A series of sub-lists appeared immediately.
“How?” asked McGlashan.
“I don’t know.” He checked a few things on the file security. “You said the secondary core did some kind of data restore. Whatever it did, the file secu
rity has been removed in the process.”
“Assuming the backup files even had the security in the first place,” she replied.
“It doesn’t matter. Let’s have a look at what we’ve found.”
“What about Admiral Slender’s orders, sir?”
“I remember his words quite clearly, Commander. He told me I was not to make any further attempt to breach the databanks. These databanks are already open, so there’s no need to breach anything.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Let’s start on the third array,” said Duggan.
There was a lot of information, but it was easy enough to search through when they used the right keywords. The more Duggan found, the colder he became, until the heat of the bridge wasn’t enough to keep him warm. He looked at McGlashan and saw his own fears reflected in her eyes.
“This is…dynamite,” she said.
“It’s worrying,” said Duggan.
“So, they found all this stuff – this wreckage – just floating around in space somewhere and decided to try and patch it into a spacecraft? Without having the first idea of what it was?”
“It appears that they had a good idea about what most of it was, Commander. They just weren’t able to copy it.”
“And they think they can now?”
“We’ve moved on since they found the pieces. If we can’t copy it, I think we can safely assume that mankind is going to be exterminated by the Ghasts.”
“What’re you talking about?” asked Chainer. He looked across at Breeze. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
Duggan took a deep breath. “The Crimson isn’t entirely a manmade warship,” he said. “A little over a seventy years ago, one of our scout ships found some wreckage near to the Helius Blackstar.”
“Helius Blackstar?”
“It’s a wormhole,” said Breeze. “You fly in one end and you reappear somewhere else without any time elapsing. At least that’s the theory. In reality, you throw something in there and it gets crushed by the gravity. There are five or six wormholes catalogued throughout Confederation space. I think we gave up trying to figure out how to survive a trip through one decades ago.”
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