Fires of Oblivion (Survival Wars Book 4)

by Anthony James

  Duggan’s mind raced. It looked as if Nichols had been a senior man indeed. And now here were his friends, come looking for answers. He didn’t see a need to speak and waited for the man to proceed. He was duly obliged.

  “We would like to ask you some questions, regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of Director Nichols.”

  “I’m not at liberty to speak about matters which occurred during Space Corps business,” said Duggan. “I have filed my report and it is with my superiors. It is they you will need to speak with.”

  “You have nothing to say?” asked the second man, leaning forward intently. “This may well become a criminal matter, Captain Duggan. You would do well to talk to us.”

  Duggan couldn’t help but laugh. “Criminal matter? The Space Corps deals internally with its own affairs. The civil courts hold no sway. If there were a case to answer, my superiors would have told me.” He shook his head in disbelief. “What exactly did you hope to achieve with this? I’m not a man to be bullied, nor frightened by a suggestion of threats! Please, do not waste any more of my time. Lieutenant Nichols lost his life on active duty - he was one of a number to do so. That is the risk every one of the Corps’ soldiers takes when he or she signs up.”

  The three men exchanged looks, though no obvious communication took place between them. The first man spoke again. “Thank you for your time, Captain Duggan. Rest assured this won’t go away. We will follow every available avenue to get the answers we seek.”

  “It sounds to me as if you’re searching for the answers you want, not the truth.”

  “As you will, Captain Duggan.” The man nodded his head slightly and there was the faintest hint of a smile on his face. The screen went blank, leaving Duggan alone in the room.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DUGGAN WASN’T ENTIRELY sure what to make of the events which had just taken place. He was bemused, rather than cowed by his conversation with the directors from Military Asset Management. He wasn’t sure if they’d attempted to strong-arm him or if they’d thought they were being subtle. Since he was left without a clear idea of their intent, he assumed they weren’t very good at making threats. A second inner voice suggested these men were likely to be seriously competent if they’d got to the positions they were in, therefore it might be Duggan himself who lacked the capacity to understand the significance. He gave a mental shrug – he knew he’d done nothing wrong and his report to Admiral Teron contained everything necessary to prove as much.

  He arrived at his office to find the desk communicator buzzing. With a sigh, he answered the call. This time, the familiar voice of Admiral Teron came through.

  “Captain Duggan? Apologies it’s taken so long - you can appreciate I’m busy. Time is short and I have less than an hour for a debriefing. Someone at the Tillos reception desk has squeezed in a booking at Meeting Room 73. I’ll speak to you there in five minutes.”

  “Is it imperative we have a video stream, sir? Can’t we speak now, while I’m in my office?”

  “I can’t stand doing business by voice only. I need to see who it is I’m speaking to.”

  Duggan left his office again, retracing his steps towards the meeting room. He got there in time to find a cluster of junior officers outside the door, milling in confusion.

  “Cancelled, you say?” said one.

  “Some idiot’s overridden the system and booked the room out from under us,” said another.

  “What a waste of our time! I’m going to put in a complaint – I’m sick of this shit happening.”

  Duggan chuckled to himself as he walked through the middle of the pack. They recognized his uniform and fell into a distinctly uncomfortable silence. The incident hadn’t remotely bothered Duggan but it did serve as a reminder of how little he enjoyed working in an office. There were too many petty rivalries and politics for him to put up with. Moments later, he was in the same chair, looking at the same screen. On this occasion, it was Admiral Teron to whom he spoke. The Admiral was in his office on the Juniper, which was clearly his favoured place from which to operate.

  “Let’s get your debriefing out of the way quickly. Afterwards, I have bad news to tell you – exceptionally bad,” said Teron. He cleared his throat. “So, the stealth modules continue to outperform expectations?”

  Duggan didn’t like the sound of what Teron was going to tell him. He didn’t think about it for the moment – the Admiral liked his meetings to be conducted in a controlled, pre-ordered fashion and Duggan wasn’t about to try and disrupt things. “I don’t know what expectations you had personally, sir, however they substantially outperformed mine. The Dreamer mothership is packing enough advanced weaponry to knock out our whole fleet, yet they couldn’t pinpoint our location. How go the plans to install the technology on some of our more potent warships?”

  “We’ll get onto that in due course. I’m pleased at the results of your testing – very pleased, as it happens. I’ve ramped up the funding five-fold. There are still a number of technical hurdles which we can’t buy our way over. Money doesn’t solve everything, but it’s better to have it than not.”

  “From what I’ve witnessed of our enemy’s behaviour, I’ve concluded they are an expeditionary force to gather materials as well as to prepare a number of worlds for their longer-term plans to populate this area of space.”

  “It’s interesting to discover how much destruction is necessary to obtain their obsidian power sources,” said Teron.

  “Perhaps they have less overt methods available to them elsewhere,” said Duggan. “The mothership likely has a series of goals to accomplish and the enemy are completing them in the most practical way available to them.”

  “Very diplomatic,” said Teron wryly. “I don’t care how they do it back home, it’s what they’re doing here that worries me.”

  “And me, sir.”

  “The negative side is that it illustrates how this potential power source is unobtainable to us. We could crack open a few planets, but we lack the dedicated spacecraft to gather the material. Aside from that, we lack the knowledge on which planets are suitable to destroy. Finally, we are currently unable to harness the power source itself. We know its potential, without being capable of putting it to use.”

  “How long until we can overcome these obstacles?”

  “Five years? Ten? I guess it depends on where we focus our efforts. I don’t need to tell you that our efforts are presently directed towards the mess with the Ghasts.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Teron meshed his fingers together and appeared to be gathering himself. “They’ve accused us of destroying Vempor.”

  The news was every bit as bad as promised. Duggan had no immediate and coherent response, though his mouth insisted on speaking. “What?” he asked.

  “They’ve accused us of wiping out their home world,” repeated Teron grimly.

  “We haven’t, have we?”

  “We’ve done nothing of the sort, John.”

  “Has it definitely been destroyed?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to verify. Vempor is a long, long way from Confederation space and it’s proving difficult to corroborate. I have no idea why the hell they’d lie about it. If they wanted war, they just needed to start shooting at us.”

  Duggan had to ask the question. “Could it have happened without you knowing, sir?”

  Teron didn’t take it as an insult. “No, it could not. The Space Corps is surprisingly united, though you might think otherwise if you were to read the news reports. We have no loose cannons with the authority to accomplish this as well as keep it hidden. Besides, I’ve run a thorough audit of all resources which would be required to perform such a feat. The Planet Breaker hasn’t moved from the research lab and the Crimson is…elsewhere.”

  “How did it happen? Could a rogue captain have launched a surprise nuclear attack?”

  “We’ve not had a ship anywhere near Vempor since we sent you in the Ransor-D. I have assured myself
that the alleged destruction of their planet has not come from us. Anyway, they accuse us of shattering the planet. Ten thousand of our largest nuclear warheads wouldn’t accomplish that. Our conventional weapons would leave them with an irradiated wasteland, but they couldn’t break the planet apart.”

  “If we didn’t do it and the Ghasts aren’t lying to us, there’s only one realistic option remaining,” said Duggan.

  Teron pushed a brown folder across his desk, as if Duggan could somehow read the contents through the video screen. “It’s all in there.”

  “It surely didn’t take a statistical analysis of probabilities to conclude the Dreamers are the culprits?” said Duggan.

  “If we accept it as fact, we’re left in a position where we’re at war with the Ghasts because of their suspected alliance with the Dreamers. Only their supposed allies have now allegedly destroyed Vempor.”

  “There are a lot of maybes to contend with.”

  “We need confirmation that Vempor is destroyed. Then we can act decisively without risk of burning our bridges.”

  “How long until we know?”

  “We have Monitoring Station Beta scrutinising that area of space. The distance involved means their mainframe has its work cut out to analyse the data.”

  “Couldn’t we just fly another ship there?”

  “We have one on its way. We anticipate a quicker response from Monitoring Station Beta.”

  Duggan wasn’t a man who always followed his hunches. On this occasion he was sure the Dreamers were responsible for destroying Vempor. “How did the mothership manage to fire from such a range?” he asked. “How did they know where to aim?”

  “Do you know it was the mothership?” asked Teron.

  The question stopped Duggan in his tracks. “It seemed the most logical option. It was close by when Corai was shattered. I’ve gone with the assumption they’re carrying a more advanced version of the Crimson’s Planet Breaker. Maybe they have enough power to use it at a far greater range.”

  “I have another idea,” said Teron. “I’ve got people working on confirmation, but I’m halfway convinced I’m correct.”

  Duggan wasn’t sure what Teron had come up with. When he thought about it, he realised there were so few variables, the only other option was an obvious one. “The pyramids?” he asked.

  “It could be,” said Teron. “We’ve assumed them to be nothing more than glorified oxygen generators. What if they can also function as a weapon?”

  “That doesn’t explain how they knew where to fire, sir.”

  “Perhaps it does. What if these alien artefacts are linked together in such a way that they are capable of detecting the others? What if the Dreamers came through the wormhole to look for their missing pyramid?”

  “Why destroy it, then?”

  “That’s what we don’t know. As it stands, we’re in a position of even greater uncertainty. The Ghasts blame us for the loss of their world, while the Dreamers pursue expansion. I would much rather be facing only one of these foes.”

  “What does the Confederation Council plan?”

  Teron curled his lip. “They plan to bicker and argue until we are ruined!” he said. “It was impossible for them to come up with a suitable plan when we were only fighting the Ghasts. Now we are facing two enemies, it is as though the Council are frozen like statues. Whilst they fight over which filling to have in their sandwiches, a number of different factions are attempting to grab power for themselves!”

  Duggan had never seen Teron so animated, nor display such overt anger. “Is our funding safe?” he asked, bringing the Admiral back onto firmer ground.

  “For the moment. I also find myself with a short window of opportunity in which I can act unmolested. If I can’t unearth the truth of what’s happening, I dread to think what the Council will decide in the absence of proven facts.”

  “Reading between the lines, I take it you are planning to refrain from military action against the Ghasts?” said Duggan.

  “You could always read a situation as well as anyone, Captain Duggan. That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Our spacecraft are on high alert, but I have instructed them to avoid conflict wherever possible. If that means they run from a fight, so be it. I am coming around to the belief that the Ghasts have been completely honest during the peace negotiations.”

  “You are not a man to sit back and wait,” said Duggan.

  Teron laughed gruffly at being found out so easily. “I like to explore many options in parallel,” he said. “I’m sending you on a mission to speak to someone on my behalf.”

  “A Ghast?”

  “Yes – I’ve been dealing with him during the negotiations. I’ve spoken to him directly since the declaration of war and he wishes to meet.”

  “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know. The Ghasts put great store in face-to-face communication – we learned that very quickly. If they feel it’s something important, they won’t accept anything other than everyone being in the same room.”

  “They’ll deal with me? I’m not known for my skills in negotiation.”

  Teron laughed again. “I can’t send anyone else, John. This is strictly off the record. If it goes wrong, there’ll be nothing I can do to help you. Gol-Tur knows I’m not coming – you’ll need to try and impress him. They’re stubborn bastards, the Ghasts.”

  Duggan shrugged. “I’ll do what I can to help fix this mess. Could it be a trap?”

  “There’s a chance. I can’t see what they’d have to gain by it. Either way, I’m not going to commit significant metal to it.”

  “I shouldn’t need guns if I’m there to talk.”

  “I’d prefer to provide you with them nonetheless. Unfortunately, you’ll be going in one of our Anderlechts.”

  “I thought the Ghasts liked to see demonstrations of strength?”

  “Gol-Tur is old and he’s not stupid enough to be impressed by fleets of warships.” Teron smiled. “That’s what he told me.”

  “When am I going?”

  “As soon as you leave the room. There’s an Anderlecht in one of the trenches at Tillos and I’ve acquired it. Everything will be in place before you can find a car to take you there. I’ll send over a detailed set of instructions for you to read in flight.”

  “Understood.”

  “If you get back from this, there might be a surprise waiting for you, Captain Duggan. A surprise you will love and a mission you will hate.”

  “No point in me asking what that means?”

  “None.”

  The meeting had reached its conclusion. Outside, someone knocked impatiently on the door to indicate the next meeting was due to begin. Duggan rose to leave and then stopped. He wasn’t sure what gave him the idea, but as soon as the thought appeared, it latched on and wouldn’t let go.

  “Sir?”

  Teron looked distracted, like he’d already switched over to the next item on his never-ending schedule of business. “What is it?”

  “There’s Gallenium on Atlantis, isn’t there?”

  “I believe so – very little which is easy for us to extract. Why?”

  “The Dreamers must have a way of finding the stuff. A way that isn’t random.”

  Teron gave Duggan his full attention. “You think they might come here for it?”

  “It would explain the anomaly the stats guys uncovered.”

  “I’ll look into it,” said Teron. He looked worried and Duggan was certain the Admiral would put other matters aside until he’d checked out the possibilities.

  Duggan left the room, elbowing his way through the group of attendees waiting outside the meeting room. They tutted and stared but Duggan didn’t even notice.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “IT’S CALLED THE ES PROXIMAL,” said Chainer.

  Duggan steered the hovercar between two slow-moving cranes and pointed them towards their destination. It was early evening and the light was fading. The warship they’d seen in trench three w
hen they’d landed at Tillos was still in the same place. Its hull was scarred and the protective lacquer had long since been scoured away, leaving the alloy armour a dull, unreflective grey. The Proximal was one of many such warships in the Space Corps – an ageing and unmodified workhorse, gradually drifting into obsolescence. It was all relative, of course - the warship packed enough weaponry to destroy a dozen large cities. Thirty years ago, it would have given a Cadaveron a run for its money. As technology had moved on, these older vessels of the fleet had been left behind. The basic design remained sound and eventually it would likely be re-fitted with newer, better weaponry. Until that day came, it had little significance as a frontline warship.

  “I think I preferred the Rampage,” said Breeze.

  “It was definitely a bit more impressive.”

  “If we have to fire the weapons, we’ve failed the mission,” said Duggan.

  “One of those missions, is it?” asked Chainer. “And you’re not going to trust us with the gory details until we’ve hit lightspeed, are you?”

  “Got it in one,” said Duggan, keeping his eyes ahead.

  “Should I update my will before we take off?” asked Chainer.

  “I check mine every time we land,” joked Breeze.

  “If you’ve got anything to leave behind, they’re paying you too much,” said Duggan.

  “Having kids is what eats up the salary,” said Breeze. “I’ve got three of them and they’re always hungry.”

  “I thought you lost custody fifteen years ago?” said Chainer.

  “Yeah. It was my wife I fell out with, not my children. I couldn’t see them going without. When I die, I’ll leave a tiny house and a bank account with a few dollars.”

  “No regrets?” asked McGlashan.

  “I’d be a fool if I said I didn’t. I’ve got no more regrets than any other man. And my children think their old dad is doing something worthwhile.”

  “Maybe I need to find someone and have a few kids,” said Chainer. “It sounds like fun.”