Crimson Tempest

by Anthony James

  Duggan thumped his console with a clenched fist. “Damnit!” He took a deep breath. “I’m taking us away around the planet. Hold the disruptor fire until we’re out of sight of that Oblivion. I don’t want them getting a second salvo off when there’s nothing we can do about it. How long till impact?”

  “At least one hundred and thirty seconds, sir. It depends on how much speed you hold around the planet.”

  “Are we out of sensor sight yet?”

  “No, sir. Nearly,” said Chainer.

  The next few seconds were tense and everyone on the bridge apart from Monsey kept their eyes glued on the tactical display.

  “We’re out of sensor sight now, sir,” said Chainer after what seemed like hours instead of seconds. “Given what we know about their position, we should hopefully be able to avoid that Oblivion for at least one more orbit.”

  “It’s the missiles I’m worried about, Lieutenant. We can’t use the disruptors on all six.”

  With his mind racing, Duggan pushed the Crimson as fast as he dared, away from the incoming missiles. The hull temperature soared as it tore through the thin atmosphere.

  “Sir? We’ll need to activate the fission engines,” said McGlashan quietly. “Else there’ll be nothing left of us to take to New Earth.”

  Duggan looked up. He’d set his mind on the destruction of the enemy vessel, completely at odds with his ability to make it happen. He’d been about to risk everything without having a plan as to how he’d get them out of it alive. This one was lost, he’d just been too stubborn to see it.

  “Thank you, Commander,” he said. He opened his mouth to give the instruction for Lieutenant Breeze to load up the engines. The order didn’t come.

  “Hell yes!” shouted Monsey. “Got you now!”

  “Give me some good news, soldier,” said Duggan.

  “Damn right there’s some good news, sir! Cracked it open like a nut! I’m assigning command rights to your consoles now.”

  Duggan checked his access screen. A new tier of options had appeared for him to view. He opened up the menu for the weapons systems - there was a single additional option available to him. It had a description, but the text was a mixture of unfamiliar characters. Feeling excitement and determination build up inside him, he brought the weapon online.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “It’s warming up! It’s going to be ready in less than thirty seconds,” said McGlashan. She’d picked up on Duggan’s excitement at once.

  “Sir? The fission engines?” asked Breeze.

  “Hold for one moment, Lieutenant. Until we see what we’ve got here.”

  “Still got seventy seconds until missile impact,” said McGlashan. “Longer if you go higher and faster, sir.”

  Duggan changed course and dragged the nose of the Crimson into the vacuum of space.

  “Sir, according to my readouts you’re heading directly towards the most likely location of the Ghast battleship,” said Chainer. He looked worried, like he thought Duggan was losing it.

  “I know, Lieutenant.”

  “And at the rate you’re climbing, we may well be in range of their disruptors, beam weapons and normal missiles when we reach them.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” As the ship climbed away from the planet, the hull temperature dropped and Duggan was able to increase their speed.

  “Fifty seconds to missile impact,” said McGlashan. “Their rate of approach has diminished now that we’ve left the bounds of the atmosphere.”

  “Is the weapon online, Commander?”

  “A few seconds left. Here we go. It’s lit up and ready to fire!”

  “Sir, the enemy battleship is coming into view over the edge of the planet. She’s heading directly towards us at full sub-light. Two-hundred and thirty thousand klicks away.”

  “They’re launching. Another four super-missiles. Impact in thirty-eight seconds.”

  “Lieutenant Breeze, fission engines please. Point us away from Confederation space.”

  “I thought you’d never ask. We’ll be out of here in just shy of thirty seconds.”

  “Missiles behind, missiles in front. I should’ve written my will when I had the chance,” said Chainer, his voice much calmer than his words.

  “Commander, please target and fire our new weapon as soon as you’re able.”

  McGlashan frowned and when Duggan glanced over, he saw her press the same area of her console several times. “The targeting must be out. Or screwed. Or both. It won’t target the enemy ship.”

  “We’ve got no problems with the sensors, Commander,” said Chainer. “All thirty are showing green.”

  “Sort it out soon, Commander, or we’ll miss our chance.”

  “It might be broken.”

  “Ten seconds till we’re gone.”

  “Target, damnit!” shouted McGlashan.

  “Just fire them, Commander! Press the button!”

  “There’s no target!”

  “Five seconds.”

  “Do it!”

  “Firing!”

  There was a shriek, coming from somewhere in the depths of the ship’s hull. It rose to a crescendo almost at once, a sound which brought with it waves of punishing vibration through the entire structure of the Crimson. The walls and floors shook, as if something had exploded deep within. It seemed to Duggan as if the Hynus engineers had made a mistake by fitting this unknown technology into a spaceship. They couldn’t have known the stresses the weapon would subject it to when fired. Before Duggan could even begin to worry that the Crimson was about to be ripped into pieces, something else took his full attention.

  The tenth planet was still visible away to one side of the bulkhead screen. It appeared much smaller now that they’d flown so high above it. Without apparent sound, the planet shattered. Vast, gaping chasms spread across its surface in a tenth of a second. The pieces separated, each part cracking and splitting into ever smaller fragments of the whole. In the blinking of an eye, they exploded thousands of kilometres away from each other as they expanded at a speed almost beyond comprehension. None of the crew had time to say a word before the Crimson catapulted them into high lightspeed. Unconsciousness, when it came, was a welcome relief.

  When Duggan came to, he had the usual uncertainty about how much time had elapsed. He supposed it didn’t really matter. We just destroyed an entire planet were the first words that came into his mind. Gone, just like that.

  McGlashan was already awake and she looked at him, her eyes dark and her expression giving nothing away about her thoughts. He stared back, sharing the bleakness of the moment with her.

  “I suppose we should be happy,” she croaked. “We found something that can even the odds.”

  “I don’t think I could ever be happy knowing what we’ve got,” he said, surprised at the strength in his voice.

  Chainer woke next, driven from the sanctuary of sleep by what he’d seen. “We just blew up a whole planet,” he said dumbly.

  Duggan shook off his lethargy and ignored the pain of his body. “Rouse yourself Lieutenant and fix it so that our sensors stop transmitting. I want to get this spacecraft to New Earth. I don’t want the responsibility for it anymore.”

  “Aye sir, I’ll be on it when the pounding in my head calms down enough.”

  McGlashan came across, holding herself steady against Duggan’s chair. “The Ghasts haven’t shown us any quarter, sir,” she said quietly. “In a terrible war, it’s the side which blinks first that loses. Remember what they did to Charistos.”

  “I know, Commander. They’re more ruthless than we are. They want to fight, while the Confederation has never been given the choice.”

  Something caught Duggan’s eye. A message had arrived – he guessed it must have slipped in a moment before they went to lightspeed. He read the message and then deleted it.

  “Sir?” asked McGlashan.

  “They found Angax. Did the same to it as they did to Charistos. Almost two billion people, incinerated b
y those bastards.” He looked at her, anger spilling across his face. “They think they’ve got us, Commander. They think they’re going to find our planets one by one and destroy our people. We’ve got a new weapon now and I hope to hell I live to see the day we can fire it at their home world.”

  As McGlashan looked away, tears visible in her eyes, the ESS Crimson cut a path onwards through space, carrying with it the most terrible kind of hope imaginable.

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