“Good work, Lieutenant – you’ve earned us some breathing room.”
Room to do what, Recker still didn’t know, though he was thinking hard.
“I’ve obtained estimates of the bay’s dimensions, sir,” said Montero. “The far wall is three hundred klicks from here.” She swore. “Three hundred klicks! The ceiling is seventy klicks overhead and the other two walls are a hundred apart!”
“How many enemy warships do you count, Corporal?”
“The Ixidar’s sensors are tracking eighty-one separate targets, sir. The largest is nine thousand klicks and with an estimated mass of 115 billion tons. A minnow compared to what we’re flying.”
“Biggest damn minnow I ever saw,” said Eastwood.
Recker considered their position. The holding bay was completely unlit and lined with alloy, its walls studded with blocky gravity clamps, most of which were holding the Lavorix warships in place. A few warships – these ones larger than a Daklan annihilator and bulky, with twin-barrelled gauss cannons and multiple launch clusters – drifted slowly through the bay like unconcerned fish.
“You could fit the entire Ivisto facility in here three times over,” said Eastwood.
“I’ve located some other doors,” said Montero. “A door going up, a door going down, and a door in the left-hand wall.”
Recker narrowed his eyes at the feeds. The left-hand door was indented, with six battleship-sized warships clamped to the wall nearby, while the upper and lower doors were at the far end of the bay.
“Each door thirty klicks by thirty,” said Montero.
“Same as the outers - more than enough room to fly the Laws of Ancidium through,” said Recker. “The Lavorix must have construction facilities in one of the other bays.”
Slowly, the immensity of the Ancidium was sinking in. It was one thing to get a sense of it from outside and another to see just this single internal bay. How the Lavorix had constructed their home base, Recker didn’t want to imagine. From what he knew of the enemy, they’d have plundered, murdered, and enslaved other species and set them to work for centuries – millennia, perhaps.
Thinking about it made Recker sure that if he were stupid enough to climb topside, he’d smell the same stale odours of ancient decay as he’d found on the Laws of Ancidium. The Lavorix had been around for a long time and the scale of their foulness was surely beyond comprehension. At last, they’d found a match in the Kilvar and Recker hated the thought that the extraction of his own species would play any part in the enemy’s recovery.
Now the Ixidar was completely in the holding bay, the entrance door closed, sealing it inside. The Ancidium didn’t relinquish control and it guided the warship towards the far end of the bay. The smaller spacecraft got out of the way and the Ixidar flew without deviation in its course.
“Are they taking us straight to the repair yard?” asked Montero.
“I don’t know, Corporal,” said Recker. “There’s no reason they wouldn’t.”
Two hundred kilometres into the bay, the Ixidar was brought to a halt, midway between the floor and the ceiling.
“That lower door is opening,” said Montero.
“That’s where we’re heading,” said Recker confidently.
He was wrong. The door opened, but the Ixidar wasn’t guided any closer. Instead, a two-thousand-metre cube, with its every surface covered in spiky antennae, rose into sight, and then the door closed.
“Another interrogator?” said Eastwood.
“Looks like,” said Recker. He didn’t like it when he couldn’t predict his enemy’s intentions and he drummed his fingers as the interrogator floated directly towards the Ixidar. The first time he’d seen one of these spaceships was at a planet called Pinvos, and back then a thirty-billion-ton mass had seemed like an impossibly vast construction. Now he knew different.
“Lieutenant Eastwood, why might the enemy have sent that interrogator?”
“The clue is probably in the name, sir. I guess it can scour our onboard systems and run a diagnostic.”
“At which point the Lavorix would realise that the Ixidar is online and recovering from a hardware failure.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And they might begin to wonder how the switchover to the secondary controller happened, given that the diagnostic module is no longer operational.”
“Yes, sir.”
“At which point, the Lavorix may begin asking themselves serious questions about why they aren’t getting answers from the comms.”
“Yes, sir. And they’ve probably already worked out that the only weapon capable of inflicting so much damage to the Ixidar is fitted to the Gorgadar.”
“So we could be even deeper in the shit than I imagined,” said Recker.
“That’s beginning to look like the picture, sir.”
Recker opened his mouth to curse and then stopped himself. “What is the status of the Ixidar’s online systems, Lieutenant Eastwood?”
“I think they’re beginning to stabilise, sir. What happened was the re-routing produced a conflict between the secondary and tertiary control modules, stemming from a simultaneous request on the…”
“Enough,” said Recker. He accessed the weapons and discovered that five of the disintegration cannons were charged to fifty percent and the gauge wasn’t climbing any higher. The Lavorix called the weapons destroyers, which no doubt explained where the Ixidar got its own secondary name from. “Our main armaments are ready to enter combat mode,” he said. “Once I give the firing instruction, the first gun should tap into the propulsion, bringing its energy store to one hundred percent.”
“Yes, sir,” said Eastwood. “Are you asking me a question?”
“Is there anything that will prevent a discharge?”
“I don’t think so, sir. There’s plenty still happening because of the switch to the secondary controller, but those cannons have priority over the other systems. Many of the other systems aren’t ready.”
“Like what?”
“The propulsion will go into overstress – though I wouldn’t recommend it unless you want to give the game away to the Ancidium – but there’s no mode 3 availability.”
“Do we have an Extractor, sir?” asked Montero. “I’m sure the Lavorix here on the Ancidium would appreciate a little taste.”
“We do have an Extractor, Corporal,” said Recker.
“Let me guess, it’s offline or damaged?”
“Not this time.” Recker’s eyes were on the feed, where the interrogator had slowed to a halt, less than two thousand metres from the Ixidar.
“You mean we could target the Extractor and kill every one of these Lavorix and the war would be over?”
“It isn’t available yet,” said Eastwood. “Once the propulsion output climbs high enough, the Extractor will be ready to fire.”
“And I don’t think it’ll be as easy as you say, Corporal,” said Recker, calling up the weapons menu and checking again. “The Lavorix built in a simulator that shows them the results when they adjust the focus point of the weapon. Upshot is, at maximum spread the arc is still narrow.”
“So if we fire it, the arc won’t be wide enough to kill all the Lavorix on the Ancidium unless they’re clustered in the place we happen to fire?”
“That’s correct. We’re at the approximate mid-point of the enemy spacecraft, so if we aimed forward or back, I’m sure we’d nail a good few million of its occupants.”
Montero was full of questions. “When will the mode 3 become available?”
“I have no estimate on that,” said Eastwood. “If we’re planning to mode 3 out of here and then attack the Ancidium with an Extractor, I’d say our best bet is to keep our heads down and hope nobody notices we’re here.”
“Have you found a way to block the Ancidium’s access to our systems yet, Lieutenant?” asked Recker.
“My mouth’s talking, but my brain never stops working, sir. I’ve discovered how to prevent remote access to our navigational system,
which means I can give you control over the Ixidar and I can make it difficult for the enemy to regain that control. Unfortunately, there’s another problem to which I haven’t yet figured out the answer.”
“What problem?”
“A shutdown code, sir. If the Ancidium decides to, it can send the Ixidar offline.”
“Is there a way to prevent it happening?”
“What would the point be in having the codes if a rogue agent could stop them working, sir?” asked Eastwood. He lifted a hand to cut off Recker’s next remark. “However, I can make things difficult. I’d expect a shutdown code to bypass the normal comms antennae and have its own dedicated receiver that links to a hidden security unit buried somewhere in the ship.”
Recker opened his mouth.
“I’m going somewhere with this, sir,” said Eastwood quickly. “While I don’t have access to that security unit, I have a good idea that it’ll route its codes into the main controller. Since that controller is offline, I might be able to fool the security unit into thinking the codes have successfully reached their destinations.”
“What happens when the Ancidium realises their codes didn’t work?”
“There’ll be some head scratching I reckon and probably some cursing. Then, one of the Lavorix who knows how this stuff works, will figure out that the security unit should be directed to send its codes to the secondary and tertiary controllers. At that point, we’ll be screwed – I have no way of blocking a shutdown code that hits the active controller.”
“Uh, I’ve got another inbound comms request from the Ancidium, sir,” said Montero.
“Don’t touch that panel,” Recker warned.
“I’ve detected an intrusion into the diagnostic systems, sir,” said Eastwood. “A full audit has been initiated.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Easily enough if you order it, sir. All that’ll happen is the interrogator will start again and at the same time, the command I used to stop the audit will be added to a visible log. The Lavorix will know the code was entered from the bridge. It won’t take them long to add two and two.”
Recker was being pushed into a corner and he didn’t like it. The idea of laying low until engine mode 3 became available had appealed to him greatly, as did the thought of killing the Lavorix with their own Extractor. With the arrival of the interrogator, that chance was slipping away.
“It’s never easy,” he said. Recker called up the weapons menu. “We’ve got no missile clusters and no countermeasures. They built the Ixidar simple.”
“Readings from the energy shield gauge indicate they built it tough as well, sir,” said Eastwood. “The Ixidar has a few hundred billion tons of overstressed ternium dedicated to shield maintenance and replenishment, along with the flexibility to divert the output from the other modules to keep it sustained.”
“When I saw what the Ixidar did to our fleets at RETI-11, I asked myself if the Lavorix had it purpose-built to wipe out fleets,” said Recker. “Now, I’m certain they did.”
Imagining this eighteen-thousand metre cube with its six guns bringing carnage to opposition fleets made Recker’s head swim with a desire he didn’t much like finding in himself. The Ixidar surely had a few thousand kills to its name. It was no wonder its control entity had an attitude.
And still it wasn’t enough to defeat the Kilvar. Variations of this same thought kept jumping into Recker’s head.
“The audit is complete, sir,” said Eastwood. “I’d expect to find that shutdown code heading our way sometime soon. Do you have a plan?”
“A simple ship calls for a simple plan,” said Recker. He raised an arm, pointed at one of the feeds and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Do you see those warships out there, Corporal Montero?”
“Yes, sir. Are we going to blow the crap out of them?”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do, Corporal. And if the Extractor comes online, we’re going to give them a big helping of that as well.”
Montero smiled. “If we’re about to die, I’d like to know it happened giving the Lavorix the biggest damn headache.”
“The Ixidar received a shutdown code, sir,” said Eastwood. “We’re still operational, so my trick with the security unit fooled them.
“The enemy know we’re here,” said Recker. He scanned the many sensor feeds, mentally selecting targets. The Ixidar’s shield gauge was full, the destroyer cannons were available and the Extractor soon would be, even if its spread was too narrow to be much use in the confines of the bay. Having seen the Ixidar in action, Recker had a feeling the cannons would be enough.
It was time to find out.
Chapter Twelve
Three hundred kilometres end to end wasn’t a lot to play with, but Recker didn’t care. He rammed the Ixidar’s controls along their runners and hard into their metal stops. A thunder of engines threatened to swamp his senses and the warship accelerated with savage ease, straight for the near end of the bay.
The interrogator was within the perimeter of the Ixidar’s shield and it was struck by the upper corner of the oncoming spaceship. Thirty billion tons was nothing compared to the almost immeasurable mass of the Ixidar and the interrogator was batted aside like an insect. It crashed into one of the anchored warships, breaking antennae and sending pieces of debris raining to the floor.
Although Recker lacked extensive experience piloting Lavorix hardware, his brain had an unsurpassed knowledge of space combat and it evaluated targets, possibilities and priorities, unimpeded by the limitations of his physical movements. One of the larger Lavorix warships, 150 kilometres towards the opposite end of the bay, came into the sights of the first charged destroyed cannon and Recker didn’t hesitate. He fired and the discharge produced a rumbling from the Ixidar’s ternium modules, overlaid upon the propulsion’s reverberant voice.
A sphere of darkness almost ten thousand metres in diameter engulfed the enemy battleship and the blast’s edges tickled the flank of a second. In an instant, the sphere was gone and the first target was reduced to a corroded mess of particles, fragmenting armour, and failing engines, while the second banked towards the nearest wall, ejecting missiles and two massive slugs from its topside gauss turrets.
With such a short distance to travel, the detonations happened almost at once, lighting up the Ixidar’s shield. Glancing at the reserve gauge, Recker saw that it had hardly dropped and the knowledge of it made him think of the fury he was about to visit upon the Ancidium’s bay.
The Ixidar had come within touching distance of the bay’s end and Recker brought it to a rapid halt. None of the destroyer cannons had begun recharging, leaving him to figure out at the worst of moments how the Lavorix weapons system was designed to function.
It turned out the method was straightforward and he understood the principles in a few seconds. Once a hull rotation was manually introduced, the battle computer controlled the cannon recharge based on the direction of the turn. If an out-of-sequence shot were required, a different gun could be selected from the control bar buttons and then it would begin charging. The knock-on effect of that would be to interrupt the original charging sequence, necessitating a rethink of the attack pattern.
This wasn’t the best time for practice, but Recker was up for the challenge and he sent the Ixidar accelerating towards the bay’s entrance.
As the warship gathered speed, he set it into a clockwise rotation. The speed of the turn was adjusted by using a small touchpad on the thumb side of the left control bar. From here he could also set the Ixidar into a tumble. Twenty seconds into the combat, Recker was left astounded at the skills the original pilot and weapons officer had possessed. Here in the bay, he intended to bring carnage where it was impossible to miss. Shooting a target a billion kilometres away was something else entirely.
Halfway along the bay, the Ixidar’s shield smashed into another of the battleships. The enemy ship was thrown into the ceiling by the impact, and it glanced off before accelerating in the oppo
site direction to the Ixidar, launching missiles as it went. The range was so close that the warheads didn’t have time to arm and they shattered harmlessly against the energy shield.
“Our early surprise is going to end any moment, sir,” said Eastwood.
“I’ve learned what I needed to learn, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “Keep those sensors aimed in the right direction, Corporal Montero. Without them, I’m firing blind.”
“Yes, sir.”
Once the Ixidar was nearly at the entrance end of the bay, Recker slowed the spaceship. The rotation brought one of the destroyer cannons to bear on the first set of outer doors and he activated the discharge. The blast came and went, leaving no mark whatsoever.
“What the hell?” said Recker.
“Doesn’t look as if we’ll be escaping any time soon,” said Montero.
Recker was shocked at the cannon’s ineffectiveness and he struggled to remain focused. He began accelerating once more in the opposite direction, hoping his brain would serve up a few bright ideas. Montero had focused the sensors well, allowing him an excellent view of the bay. A dozen warships were in the air, and others were detaching from their gravity clamps. The signs were there, clear as day, that all hell was about to break loose.
“Firing destroyer cannon,” said Recker.
The charged gun was aimed at the side wall where a stack of six heavy cruisers were still clamped. Recker caught two of them with one shot, leaving both crumbling and the bay wall untouched. Far ahead, he watched a half-dozen other enemy ships detach from their berths. Five hundred missiles or more, launched from multiple sources, appeared on the Ixidar’s tactical, travelling with such velocity that they remained for less than a second.
“Impact,” said Montero at the same time as the Ixidar’s part of the bay was illuminated in the harshest of whites.
“Destroyer cannon charged,” said Recker.
He was struggling to coordinate between aiming and rotation, and the gun was aimed way off the place he’d intended. Nevertheless, he fired and a single cruiser was turned into a mixture of powder and decaying alloy. Recker didn’t slow and the Ixidar’s progress was so rapid that the warships ahead couldn’t get out of its path fast enough. Three huge battleships were swatted away by the energy shield, the impact spoiling the aim of their gauss turrets.
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