Galactar (Savage Stars Book 3)

by Anthony James

  Recker didn’t look behind as he ran and, for some reason, he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. The mission wasn’t nearly over – in fact, the worst may yet be to come - but the incredible carnage had made him feel more alive than he could remember, like some of Jir-Lazan’s battle lust had rubbed off on him.

  Or maybe I’m part-Daklan.

  He laughed, wondering if he was on the verge of insanity or if Hendrix’s painkillers possessed mood-enhancing side-effects. The bay wasn’t far and he continued his sprint.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Axiom’s underside bay was full of soldiers and the air temperature was in excess of a hundred degrees and climbing. Three members of Vance’s squad milled near the open hatch leading to the portside tank – the one with the green light – while several others, including Sergeant Vance, investigated the starboard tank. Elsewhere, Corporal Givens was halfway into the access hatch leading to the deployment vessel and the Daklan stood to one side, keeping out of the way.

  “Sergeant Vance, can we free any of this hardware?” said Recker, striding to meet him.

  Vance straightened. “I don’t know, sir. We’ve already blown three of the starboard clamps, but the others aren’t responding. If we had the time, I’d cut out the floor and try to access the clamps directly.”

  The bay floor was thick and even with an industrial laser cutter from the ship’s stores it would take an age to cut through. “We don’t have time, Sergeant.”

  “That’s what I thought, sir.”

  “What about the deployment vessel?”

  “We’ve blown half of those clamps. Private Raimi’s inside with a portable laser cutter. I’ve ordered him to cut holes in the hull so we can access the clamp control modules.”

  Recker opened his mouth to speak but the words were drowned out by an abrasive scraping noise coming from beneath the floor. Everything lurched and he struggled for balance. The scraping ended and Recker steadied himself.

  “No life support.”

  A figure appeared at his side. “Sir, you’re the only one who can access the Meklon battleships,” said Commander Aston. “I recommend you leave the Axiom immediately using the available tank. From there, you’ll have an outside view of how these soldiers can escape.”

  Recker didn’t like it and his expression showed his feelings.

  “This is one of those times when the right decision is the hardest to make, sir,” said Aston.

  Wise beyond her years.

  “Commander Aston is right, sir,” said Vance. “You should take the Axiom’s crew and leave at once.”

  “That’s six of us,” said Recker. “Sergeant Shadar,” he said, waving the Daklan closer.

  “You must leave,” said the Daklan, without being asked.

  “I’ve got six places already filled, Sergeant Shadar. This is a joint mission and I’ve got enough leftover space for six Daklan in the hull of that tank.”

  “Negative, Captain Recker. My squad stays with the others. I have used your warship’s comms network to speak to Captain Jir-Lazan. He will not think you have betrayed us.” Shadar wasn’t finished. “This is war, human. Sacrifices are required.”

  “We’re about to attempt capture of a Meklon battleship,” said Recker. “On a base that was previously occupied by the Lavorix. If we encounter resistance, I would prefer to have as many soldiers with me as possible.”

  Shadar looked as if he wanted to object and Recker guessed that pride or some other Daklan trait was making it difficult for him.

  “I want Zivor and Ipanvir,” said Recker, picking the Daklan soldiers with the heaviest weaponry. “Sergeant Vance, who knows the Punchers best from your squad?”

  Vance avoided mentioning himself. “Private Montero.” He took a deep breath and looked somehow defeated. “I’ll order Hendrix, Gantry and Private Raimi to go with you as well, sir.”

  “And Private Haley. I’d rather have the data cube with me in the tank.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Recker nodded once, turned and indicated to his crew that they should enter the tank. He followed them, still feeling shitty that he was abandoning his own warship and leaving these others behind.

  Climbing down the shaft, he entered the tank’s low-lit, cramped passenger bay, which had a five-foot ceiling, four opposing hard-polymer seats and twin, three-feet-square exit tunnels leading to the left and right flank exits. A flush cabinet on one wall would usually hold guns, magazines and some medical supplies.

  Five officers had preceded him and already the interior was crowded.

  “The cockpit’s mine,” Recker growled.

  He kept his tank training updated as a habit from his old days and he pushed through the narrow door leading to a tiny room into which the designers had somehow squeezed two bucket seats, a two-operator console and several screens. Everything was powered up and Recker climbed into the right-hand seat. Green light from the screens added a deathly pallor to the material of his suit and he began a series of checks on the hardware.

  Montero arrived shortly after and was required to stand on Recker’s thigh to access her seat.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t worry about it, soldier. The comms are online – your job is to stay in touch with Captain Jir-Lazan and the soldiers we’re leaving in the bay.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The nominated soldiers were soon inside, with Raimi being last man owing to his longer trip out from the deployment vessel. Recker twisted uncomfortably to ensure everything was in order behind him. As expected, the passenger bay had little spare room and Private Raimi was already grumbling about his face being too close to Ipanvir’s armpit.

  “Be thankful you are not closer to my anus, human,” said the Daklan. “The food from your replicators does not agree with my stomach.”

  “Small mercies, huh?”

  Recker tuned it out. The entry hatch was sealed and everything was ready to go. He gripped the two stubby joysticks which protruded from the front edge of the console in front of him.

  “If these clamps don’t blow or the underside of the hatch is blocked, this might be the shortest tank mission ever, Private.”

  “Only one way to find out, sir.”

  A push of the clamp release button produced a grating thump in the Puncher tank’s hull. The sound was different to normal and Recker checked for a failure light. He saw green on the panel and then felt the sensation of movement as the tank was ejected down its launch chute.

  The short ride was bumpier than usual and everything shook. With an echoing bang, the tank emerged into a semidarkness filled with shapes and lines, none of which seemed connected. Here and there, alloy glowed red and orange from the heat of recent combat without offering nearly enough illumination to dispel the darkness.

  The tank’s gravity engine roared in high-stress state as it slowed the vehicle’s descent. A Puncher couldn’t fly, but it could drift and Recker was reduced to guessing at the best place to aim it.

  “Working on a sensor enhancement, sir,” said Montero.

  Recker had seen her in action before and she didn’t require guidance. The engines howled in a crescendo and then he felt the vehicle settle onto a solid surface, which the instrumentation told him was canted at a sharp angle. The tank drifted sideways and he corrected it with instinctive movements of the joysticks. The correction caused the barrel of the main armament to strike another solid object and the tank juddered.

  “Hot outside,” he said. “The plating beneath us is six hundred degrees.”

  “Sensor enhancement complete,” said Montero.

  At first, Recker struggled to comprehend the feeds on the viewscreens, such was the quantity of information. Quickly his brain assembled it into a picture. The Axiom had landed on top of a Lavorix warship – this much he knew – and then slid partway onto the landing strip. In the collision, many of the landing legs had buckled and others snapped, and it was one of these which the tank’s gauss barrel had collided with.


  To the left, through a hundred million tons of scrap, sullen light glowed from the retained heat of plasma detonations, and right, the story was similar, though the illumination was fainter. Recker guided the tank away from the broken landing leg and turned it, intending to obtain a better view of the landing strip. While he steered, Montero did what she could to aim the sensors where they were most needed.

  “Here’s what the underside of the Axiom looks like, sir. Two hundred metres straight overhead.”

  The quantity of mangled alloy had turned the familiar into something not recognizable, and Recker understood what a miracle it had been that the tank ejection hatch wasn’t blocked. Elsewhere, the heavy cruiser’s armour was crushed and torn, leaving huge openings through which heat and fading ternium particles escaped. The warship originally had two layers of armour and Recker guessed he was looking at the inner plating, with the outer being completely gone.

  “The Sergeant’s going to need some ropes,” said Montero. Her voice betrayed the truth – if Vance and Shadar couldn’t free the second tank or the deployment vessel, they were stuck in the Axiom.

  “We can’t think about it now,” snapped Recker, more angrily than he intended. “Check in with Captain Jir-Lazan – we’re heading for the ground.”

  He pushed the joysticks forward and the tank surged along the slope of uneven alloy. The edge loomed and Recker didn’t hesitate – he drove the tank straight over the side, allowing its auto-stabilisation to keep it level as it began a three-hundred-metre controlled descent towards an angled slab of detached plating, which was orange with heat and badly buckled.

  The Axiom lay at a diagonal overhead and occasional pieces of debris snapped free, falling heavily to the ground.

  “Best hope none of that lands on us,” said Montero. “I don’t think they built the Punchers to carry a million tons.”

  The tank landed on the angled plate and temperature alerts went off. Recker wasn’t too concerned since he wasn’t planning to stick around and he pushed the engines to maximum. The vehicle accelerated and Recker concentrated on figuring out a route that would take the tank and its occupants somewhere safer than this.

  “Over there, sir,” said Montero. “To the right.”

  Recker saw the place – where the Axiom had landed crossways on top of the Lavorix cruiser, a large, triangular opening was created. Further debris – a mere billion tons or so – had crashed down nearby, creating a huge indentation in the alloy landing strip and partially blocking the way out. A gap remained and Recker steered for it.

  “Captain Jir-Lazan has almost completed his evacuation, sir,” said Montero. “He sounds impatient.”

  “It’s been a whole five minutes since he blew something up, Private.”

  The tank raced off the edge of the immense armour plate and dropped the final fifty metres to the ground. As the Puncher descended, Recker noted how the multiple surface impacts had turned this part of the landing field into a cavernous, irregular bowl. Not that the tank was affected – it hit ground level with a roar of engine compensation and accelerated once more, unaffected by the heat and the sloped surface.

  “Reports of hostiles,” Montero continued. “Numbers and capabilities unknown.”

  The presence of Lavorix was unwelcome but not surprising, and Recker hoped the quantity of opposition had been badly depleted by the recent devastation.

  “If they’ve reinforced the interior of those battleships, we’ve got an uphill task in front of us, Private.”

  “I know it, sir.”

  Debris continued to fall and Recker realised the engine reverberation was likely dislodging some of the most precariously attached pieces. He slowed – fractionally – and guided the tank towards the opening, now about three hundred metres away. The topside sensor feed was of endless broken alloy, providing another reminder Recker didn’t need of how insignificant humanity was in the face of its own creations.

  One of the Axiom’s landing legs snapped with a screech and fell towards the tank. On the sensor, it seemed like darkness moving through darkness and Recker steered the tank left. With a mighty crash, the huge piece of alloy landed end-first, twenty metres from the Puncher, and started toppling.

  With his teeth bared in angry defiance against the universe and the vagaries of luck, Recker changed course again. With a tremendous, crunching thud, the landing leg came down parallel to the tank, crushing several pieces of smaller debris, but hardly making a mark on the heavily reinforced landing strip.

  “Screw you!” said Montero with feeling, offering her middle finger to several million tons of uncaring metal.

  Still travelling at near-maximum velocity, the tank approached the triangular opening which Recker felt sure would lead to comparative safety. He heard another scraping sound, this time so powerful that he felt the vibration through his seat and the joysticks. A glance at the right-hand sensor feed showed Recker what happened to those who didn’t give luck its proper respect.

  Slowly and with increasing pace, the wrecked Axiom slid across the hull of the Lavorix warship. More debris came down and the sound which accompanied the movement of the heavy cruiser almost triggered the primeval flight instinct in Recker. He held it together and focused on the opening.

  For a few seconds, the scraping, grinding of the sliding warship became everything, and Recker wondered if he’d lost his mind – perhaps the injury to his arm had made him delirious and this was all part of his imagination.

  He knew the idea was false and refused to accept the distraction. Steering the tank around the final obstacle – an unidentifiable, three-metre cube of grey – Recker guided the tank through the opening.

  Suddenly, the upper sensor feed was of swirling sand and grit. An enormous, billion-ton mass of debris glowed dark orange ahead, creating a halo in the storm. Recker steered left in front of it and kept one eye on the rear feed, knowing he wasn’t yet in the clear. The Axiom’s sideways motion was briefly halted by a stack of broken plating piled up against the Lavorix ship. Hardly had the slide been arrested when the enormous weight of the heavy cruiser crushed the resistance and it started again.

  The tank sped on and ten seconds later it was out of the danger area, leaving the Axiom perched at a peculiar angle, half supported by wreckage and half held in place by the hull of the Lavorix cruiser.

  Unwilling to stop, Recker kept the Puncher going for a few seconds longer and then he reduced speed to half in order that he could take stock. The exhilaration from earlier was gone, reducing his appreciation of the chaos and leaving him with a feeling that this mission wasn’t nearly over.

  He was right.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sandstorm blew and receded, blew and receded, sometimes offering a clear view of the landing strip before sweeping in and reducing everything to dim shapes. One thing was certain - the Meklon base was effectively no more.

  In the approximate centre of the landing strip lay a total of six ultra-powerful warships in varying states of destruction. The Axiom was on top of a Lavorix cruiser, while half – maybe more, maybe less – of something else lay on top of that. On the far side of the heap, a nose and midsection of another enemy ship jutted high into the air, pointing at a diagonal that made Recker wonder if that, too, would soon come crashing down.

  To the right, a thousand metres of desolator was visible on the far side of the wreckage and it seemed to Recker as if Captain Jir-Lazan hadn’t been able to land it quite as straight as he’d wanted, since the hull was leaning sideways. Elsewhere, a three-thousand-metre section of the largest enemy warship had come down about three kilometres away, landing directly between Recker and the Meklon battleships.

  Much of the debris glowed from heat and though most of the fires had dwindled and died, a few remained here and there. The light wasn’t much, and Recker was glad Montero displayed so much expertise with the sensors.

  Recker mentally added up the tally. “A hundred billion tons of scrap,” he said bitterly. “And then so
me.”

  “At least we climbed out of it,” said Montero.

  Her response made Recker forget his anger. “Damn right we did, soldier. We live to fight another day and that’s something to celebrate.”

  “Here’s where you tell me those celebrations will have to wait until we’ve captured an alien battleship and flown it home, sir.”

  Recker laughed. “High command would call that a display of morale-sapping cynicism, Private Montero.”

  “And what do you call it, sir?” Montero’s eyes gleamed with humour and it made Recker glad to see.

  “I always used to call it frontline realism, soldier. Truth learned the hard way by the men and women holding the guns.”

  When she heard the words, Montero stared at Recker. Really stared at him, like she was just beginning to understand something. Then, she offered him a smile like a sunrise on a summer’s day.

  “Now that the Axiom is shot to pieces, do I have permission to call it the Gabriel Solan, sir?” she asked, her expression full of mischief.

  “Hell, no, Corporal. The Axiom’s a hero fallen in battle – you’ll treat it like one.”

  An inbound comm broke the moment and Montero turned away with one hand pressed to her earpiece.

  “Captain Jir-Lazan has completed his evacuation, sir. Only two of the Aktrivisar’s shuttles would launch, and they managed to deploy a single armoured ground vehicle. He reports potentially organized resistance.” Montero put an overlay on the tank’s tactical screen and reinforced it by pointing towards the desolator. “The Daklan are that way.”

  “Let’s join up with them,” said Recker. “Ask Jir-Lazan how many troops he commands.”

  “Forty-eight, sir.”

  Under Recker’s control, the tank accelerated to its maximum speed and raced across the landing strip. Smaller pieces of debris lay everywhere and he guided the vehicle around them. Even these fragments of armour, engines and broken technology were larger than the Puncher, and some had made their own small indentations in the landing strip when they crashed down.