“And we’ll be blown to pieces the moment we disengage the stealth,” said Breeze. “At least the modules are robust. They could have easily been knocked out by those near-misses.”
“Missile launch. Six hundred!” said McGlashan.
Duggan saw them on his screen just as McGlashan spoke. Wave upon wave of missiles, flooded through space in their direction. The distance between the two ships was such that the barrage had skated past the ES Lightning almost before they’d detected the launch.
“They’ve not got much chance of scoring a hit like that,” said Chainer, the worry clearly etched on his features.
“We’d better hope they can’t alter their missiles to detect heat,” said McGlashan.
“Yeah,” said Chainer. “Thanks for the thought.”
The planet receded into the distance and still the pursuing warship kept after them. It was as though the enemy could detect the Lightning to within a few hundred kilometres of its location, without knowing exactly where it was. It made their beam weapons and missiles almost useless and Duggan felt a harsh satisfaction – too often he’d found himself in a position where the Space Corps weaponry had been rendered powerless by enemy technology.
The battleship followed them for more than an hour, during which it launched more than three thousand missiles at the ES Lightning. Several came close, though none scored a hit. The enemy vessel came near and then circled around, as though it was attempting to triangulate their exact position. Duggan did his best to foil their efforts by changing course and speed at regular intervals. The tactics worked, though he was aware his luck would inevitably run out and he cursed the captain of the other vessel for not ending the chase.
“Whoever they are, they’re as stubborn as you, sir,” said Breeze.
The comment cut through the tension and Duggan laughed, feeling his death grip on the control bars loosen and relax. “I’ll bet they’re really pissed off that they can’t target us. They’ll be desperate to salvage our wreckage and see what equipment we’re carrying.” With that, he settled in for a long pursuit, content to keep heading away until the enemy either gave up or destroyed the smaller ES Lightning.
Eventually, the battleship broke off. One minute it was thirty thousand kilometres to starboard, the next it was on its way back towards Kidor.
“Over two thousand klicks per second,” said Chainer. “I don’t think we could have outrun it. There’s something else, too. Our primary comms are functioning properly. Whatever they use to jam our equipment must need a direct fix our location.”
“That is interesting,” said Duggan.
“Want me to prepare for the jump to lightspeed, sir?” asked Breeze.
“Not yet, Lieutenant. I’m wary of tricks.”
With that, Duggan altered their course and kept them pointing directly away from Kidor. He maintained the new course for more than four hours. When it seemed certain the enemy weren’t going to reappear on their sensors, he ordered them to decloak and get ready to depart. A short while later, the damaged and scarred ES Lightning rocketed away into the darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
“HOW DID SHE FARE?” asked Fleet Admiral Teron. He’d been filled in on the details from Duggan’s advance report, but was clearly eager to learn more.
“I’m impressed, sir,” said Duggan. “Whatever the guys in the tech labs did, they’ve earned my gratitude. The stealth modules fooled a Dreamer battleship long enough for us to rescue our troops from right under their nose.”
Teron clapped his hands together in delight. It was the most overt display of excitement Duggan could recall seeing from the man. “I told you we were on the brink of some new discoveries and this was the one I had pinned fewest hopes on. I’m happy to be wrong – our scientists have overcome some enormous hurdles in mere weeks. Just a shame it’s not ready to install on every ship in the fleet, eh?” Teron said.
They’d gone over this briefly prior to Duggan’s departure on the rescue mission. “How long till they can control the power draw sufficiently?”
Teron shrugged. “Not long – a few months or a couple of years. Whether that’ll be soon enough, I don’t know. They’re going to patch the modules into a couple more warships, but as yet we aren’t able to cloak anything much bigger than a Vincent class. They’ll be able to get up close to the enemy, without packing enough of a punch to do much harm – especially to a Dreamer energy shield.”
“And there’s no way around the limitations?”
“If you’re asking whether or not we’ve found a way to maintain the cloaking on a spaceship that’s packed with weapons, then no we haven’t. Not yet, anyway. Once we’ve cracked the problem with the energy draw, that’s when we’ll be able to run rings around the Dreamers.” He lowered his brows. “And the Ghasts too, if needed.”
“A shame we can’t copy the Shatterers, even with the missiles and launch tubes in our possession.”
“We’ll get there. The problem we’re facing is the targeting systems are completely different to the way we’ve been doing it up until now, rather than being an extension of existing technology. We’re having to take several steps backwards in order to walk forwards. I’ve been told they’re quite crude, which made me ask the gentlemen who told me this fact why they’re taking so long to copy them.”
“Have things started to settle down?” asked Duggan, referring to the diplomatic fallout from his recent mission to Vempor and the subsequent rescue.
Admiral Teron sighed and slumped into his seat. He seemed diminished by the question and didn’t have an immediate response. His chair creaked as he shifted his weight and then he threw his hands up in exasperation. “Damnit, why can’t anything be easy when it comes to you, Captain Duggan? Why couldn’t you have simply located a Dreamer warship sitting happily on one of their landing pads? At least that way we’d have answers, albeit unpalatable ones. And I wouldn’t have to spend eighteen hours of every day trying to answer difficult questions about your disappearance from the Ghast military base.”
It was a familiar line. Teron wasn’t blaming Duggan as such, it was simply that Duggan invariably raised more questions than he brought answers.
“Are we returning to war, sir?”
“It might yet be the result. Believe me when I say I don’t want it to happen. We’re not ready to take on their battleships or heavy cruisers, so our only response would be to destroy their planets, one-by-one. I would order it in a heartbeat if I had to, but I hope I’m not pushed to it.”
“What do the stats teams say about the possible outcomes?”
“The same as they always say. A percentage chance of this, that and the other with no way to corroborate any of it.” Teron realised he was letting the uncertainties get the better of him. “I’ve dealt personally with a few of the Ghasts and while I don’t exactly like them, they seem a lot more trustworthy than most humans I have to deal with.”
“That’s what I’ve noticed. The truth is important to them, rather than something to be manipulated. I’ve never caught Nil-Far lying. If there’s something he doesn’t want to tell you, he comes right out and says that it’s none of your business.”
“Exactly!” said Teron. “Their chief negotiators are the same. I can’t believe it’s nothing more than an act.”
“The evidence is there, sir. I found what looked like a Ghast on Trasgor. Lieutenant Ortiz lost four of her soldiers to what she believed were Ghasts in the cave system on Kidor.”
“Did Lieutenant Ortiz give a reason why these Ghasts were in the caves beneath Kidor?”
“She only had guesses, sir. Lieutenant Ortiz is one of the best, so I’d give credence even where she’s speculating. There were extensive caves and they led under the energy shield. They encountered the enemy in a cavern only a few hundred metres from the cave entrance. She believes five of the enemy were killed, except she didn’t want to go looking – she judged the risks too great. They spent the rest of the time hiding, though it eventually became obvious t
here were no search parties out looking for these dead Ghasts.”
“You didn’t find much evidence of large-scale personnel deployment in the first pyramid on Trasgor, did you?” said Teron. “Once more, it’s a great shame you were unable to obtain samples of the dead. However, there’s nothing we can do to change that now, so we’ll move on from it. From what we know, the facts suggest these artefacts do not need a large crew – only a small number for monitoring purposes.”
“In that case I wonder why the battleship didn’t send down a contingent of troops to investigate further,” said Duggan.
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” asked Teron. “Nevertheless, they chose not to do so and we should be grateful for what seems to be incompetence. Maybe they assumed their missing crew got lost and perished somewhere. Who knows?”
Duggan nodded. He’d seen the Dreamers make a few tactical errors so far. Behind their technology, there was little sign of skilled military minds. There was ruthlessness certainly, but little more. “We can beat these bastards. As soon as we learn how to reliably counter their shields, we’ll chase them out of Confederation space.”
“Brave words and ones I agree with,” said Teron. “For now, we must wait for our technology to catch up with our aspirations. It gives us a chance to find answers. The Dreamers are our enemies – this we know without a shadow of doubt. We need to find out more about the Ghasts. The pyramid you found on Vempor was definitely created by the makers of the other two – the sensor data is clear on that. It’s a few hundred years older but otherwise identical.”
Duggan felt continued relief that the sensor streams from Vempor had reached Monitoring Station Beta. The raw information was undeniable proof. If the Space Corps had been asked to rely on Duggan’s word alone, there was a chance a few important people would choose not to believe him. “Perhaps the Ghasts are early settlers from their race. It’s only recently the Dreamers have managed to come through the Helius Blackstar, so they may have previously sent their spaceships vast distances to find new planets. The Ghasts might have lost touch with the others of their species.”
“It would go some way to explaining why they were so irrational when they saw this new pyramid on Trasgor,” said Teron. “Anyway, we believe the Ghasts are unaware we’ve unearthed their secret. They were most displeased by your appearance as you’re aware, but I don’t think you were specifically singled out for brutal treatment. Their laws appear to be strict and implemented without prejudice.”
“The Confederation Council didn’t think it wise that we simply ask what the pyramid is doing on Vempor?” asked Duggan mildly. He had a good idea of the answer already.
“You’ll never make Admiral if you’re truly so naïve,” said Teron without irritation. “We’re looking after many billions of people and we shouldn’t give up our secrets so easily. There’s an opportunity for us to find out what the hell is happening – on our own terms. And if that fails, we can still ask the Ghasts outright.”
Duggan chuckled. “I assume there are plans afoot?”
“There are always plans. You’d be surprised at how many plans we’re juggling at any one time. Ninety percent of them never go beyond discussion. It just happens you manage to get involved more regularly than most of our senior officers.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“My first thought was to send you back to Vempor or Kidor on the ES Lightning, in order to do some more investigation on the pyramids.”
“To bring back a dead alien?”
“More or less. I would dearly like to examine the genetic makeup of this new alien species and compare it to the samples we’ve taken from the Ghasts over the course of the war. While this is important, I’ve recently been handed a report that has changed our priorities.”
Duggan saw from the change in Teron’s face that the news wasn’t good. “What is it, sir?”
Teron nudged a brown folder across the desk and nodded to indicate Duggan should take a look. “I know it sounds as if I hold the Projections Team in less than high regard. In truth, I study everything they send me with the utmost care. They are the ones who assign solid numbers to the ephemeral and that appeals to me. They are also the people who will – every so often - pluck a completely unforeseen possibility from nowhere and let me know if it’s significant or not. There’s more than one occasion where I’ve been able to forestall our enemy by giving credence to what’s in these little brown folders.”
Duggan skimmed over the text on the pages. It was classified as top secret and contained a number of scenarios distilled from the unknown, each provided with a likelihood of the scenario coming to pass. Much of it was easily guessed, but one item had been highlighted in red pen. There was something in the words which would have jumped out at Duggan regardless.
“Destruction of Atlantis within the coming twelve months – forty-eight percent?”
“Makes for unpleasant reading, doesn’t it? The previous report was only a week ago and at the time, the stats guys judged the likelihood at somewhat less than one percent.”
“Why the change?” asked Duggan. He read the highlighted text once more and felt a shiver run through his body.
“We don’t know. They have some exceptionally intelligent people in that department and their simulators are designed to second-guess chaos, if you will.”
“Have there been any more reports of the Dreamer mothership?” asked Duggan. “Our last discussion put Atlantis at the greatest risk of discovery, which is presumably where this figure of forty-eight percent was derived from.”
“Quite right and at the time, that risk of Atlantis being found was judged to be less than one percent. The Garon sector is huge and almost empty. There should be close to a zero chance of our enemies accidentally stumbling across our only habited planet in the zone. Now that’s changed. The worst part of it is, the Projections Team judge there to be a nineteen percent chance of the Ghasts being party to the annihilation.”
“Damn,” said Duggan.
“There are other sections of the report, which I have withheld from you owing to the nature of their contents. However, I can tell you that the planets Overtide and Freedom have now been given chances of six and four percent to suffer the same destruction as Atlantis. If we believe these figures, the situation for humanity is as bad as it ever was at the height of the Ghast war.”
“What is the new priority?”
“We need to find our enemy. Your encounters with these lesser Dreamer warships have given us invaluable information about their strengths and weaknesses. However, we know little about their mothership, aside from its ability to devastate many of our own spacecraft with its plasma beams.”
“We don’t know where it is, do we?” asked Duggan.
“The only thing we have to go on is this report predicting the likely destruction of Atlantis,” said Teron, lifting the brown folder and pointing it at Duggan. “If we believe the details, that allows us to predict the likely course of our enemy.”
Duggan’s head swum when he heard these words. He respected Admiral Teron, but there was something which sounded entirely wrong about the idea of anchoring a plan on the foundations of a statistical projection that could be no more than an anomaly. Duggan wasn’t a man to keep his opinions to himself. “Something about this doesn’t sit comfortably with me, sir.”
“It doesn’t have to sit comfortably – I’m making this decision for you. The ES Lightning will take eight days to patch up here on the Juniper. We don’t have the facilities of a proper shipyard, so it won’t look pretty. The stealth units will still function and that’s all you’re going to need. Your destination is a solar system mid-way between Kidor and Atlantis. One of our Anderlechts on routine patrol detected three, fast-moving vessels travelling in formation between two of the planets.”
“Three?” asked Duggan sharply.
“That’s correct. It’s the first time we’ve seen this many of their warships in a single location. We think it might in
dicate the presence of something more significant. The captain of the ES Viking followed orders and got out of there immediately, to ensure the safety of his vessel and crew.”
“Is there any way they could have been Ghasts?”
“If they were, they were travelling faster than any known Ghast vessel.”
“You’re sure these were Dreamer spaceships and you think they indicate the presence of the mothership?”
“That’s what we hope. At the very least, this is something worth checking out. Your visit to Kidor has shown me that the stealth modules are viable and this time you’ll be testing them against several foes.”
“Assuming they’ve not moved elsewhere.”
“There’s always a chance there won’t be any sign of the enemy,” admitted Teron. “Which is why we’ll provide you with a series of additional destinations to explore if you don’t find anything.”
Duggan grunted. “Keep looking till we find something that starts shooting at us,” he said.
“I thought you liked it that way, Captain.”
There were several responses Duggan could have made. He knew it wasn’t wise to speak any of them, since he didn’t know what he felt anymore. “What about the Ghasts and the power sources for the pyramids?” he asked.
“You’re like me,” said Teron. “You need to be everywhere at once, doing everything for everybody. The Space Corps is a vast, sprawling organisation, John. We’ll try our best to explore every avenue using other personnel. For the moment, you’ve got your mission and it’s an extremely high priority. There’s only a single ship in the whole fleet like the ES Lightning and you’re the one in charge of it.”
“I wasn’t looking for motivation, sir.”
“Indeed not – that doesn’t mean I can’t offer it.”
Duggan got to his feet in preparation to leave, when a sudden thought came to him. “Have you asked the stats team to plug details of our new stealth technology into their simulators? Might that have a significant effect on these projections?”
Fires of Oblivion (Survival Wars Book 4) Page 4
