After a couple of seconds, the red warning turned amber and no fire engulfed the squad. Conway breathed a sigh of relief and peered into the airlock. The outer hole was a fraction offset, though not enough to block his sight. There wasn’t much to see – darkness and the greens of the crater’s rough ground.
“We made it,” said Warner.
“Did you ever doubt it, Chucky my boy?” asked Kemp in a comradely fashion.
“My suit ain’t brown if that’s what you’re asking, Elvis.”
“I’m looking out for a fellow soldier, that’s all,” Kemp replied soothingly.
Conway motioned them into silence in order that he could think. His squad were onboard the battleship, but that brought its own problems.
“Corporal Freeman, find someone who’s listening and let them know where we are.”
“Yes, sir. Colonel Thornton’s team are either dead or off comms. I’ve linked directly to the AF1 battle network.” Freeman went quiet for a few seconds. “Hell, I’ve got someone on the Revingol who’s very interested in our news.”
“Tell them we’d appreciate some guidance. This is a big ship and I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
This time, Freeman was silent for longer than thirty seconds and Conway expected to receive precise and specific orders. He was disappointed.
“We’re to find anything that looks like an interface port and suck it dry.”
“With no extractor?”
“I explained that, sir. We’re to improvise. Use our suit data arrays.”
“Great. What about the rest of the ground deployment? Maybe they can come our way and maybe one of them has an extractor.”
“That’ll happen if it can happen, sir. We are not to hang about in order to shake hands with anyone who might make it here alive.”
“I knew we should have stayed on the Ternius,” said Conway.
He ignored the light-hearted jeering at this disclosure and pointed towards the forward section.
“The cock end of the ship,” said Lockhart.
“If there’s anything worth having, that’s where it’ll be,” Conway agreed.
He pushed his way to the front and headed off without turning to make sure everyone was coming after. As far as Conway was aware, they were the first human or Fangrin troops to set foot on a Sekar spaceship. Hell, they might be the first out of any species to do so. He gave a mental shrug. It didn’t look much different to the other spaceships he’d been onboard, reinforcing his view that they were all about the same. Even if this battleship was the creation of an alien species which planned to kill every living organism in the universe, they still evidently built their spaceships from a universal blueprint used by all other space-going species.
Different looks and different methods, but overall, the same as it ever was.
Chapter Six
When reports came through detailing Conway’s successful entry onto the battleship, it gave Griffin a surge of enthusiasm for the mission on Glesia. Not only that, it made him feel like Admiral Yeringar would be far less inclined to order the Broadsword and Gradior’s destruction once he knew the Sekar ship was breached. In fact, Griffin expected a step-up in AF1’s efforts to keep the Raggers from making any kind of deployment in the area.
And so it turned out, though not exactly as Griffin wanted it.
“Admiral Yeringar has ordered a doubling of the flyovers,” reported Kenyon.
“What about us?”
“No change in orders, sir.”
“Dammit. I hate sitting on my hands. How long before those tharniol detonators are set up to accept a remote destruction order?”
“Fifty minutes, sir,” said Kroll. “We only started ten minutes ago.”
“It feels like it was yesterday.”
“That’s always how it happens.”
“Are we excluded from the order to engage with enemy warships?” asked Griffin, trying to convince himself he wasn’t hunting for loopholes.
“No, sir, that order stands. Any ship can engage as long as its commanding officer has a reasonable expectation of success.”
“I haven’t had a ping off anything since we were told to prepare the detonators,” said Dominguez.
“Have you managed to sweet talk anyone on the Revingol, Lieutenant Kenyon? I’d like to know what Admiral Yeringar has in mind for us.”
“I keep asking, sir. In truth, I don’t think the comms team knows any more than we do.”
“Keep at them.”
“Will do.”
“Sir - an enemy ship is flying overhead at an altitude of about thirty klicks,” said Shelton.
A red dot appeared on the command console tactical. It flickered and then vanished.
“Lost it,” said Shelton. “I saw enough to determine its vector. I’ll add you an overlay, sir.”
A line appeared on the screen, which indicated the Ragger warship was heading directly for Refuge 9. The data was automatically uploaded to the battle network, so Kenyon wasn’t obliged to take any action to report it. Griffin’s hands fell onto the control bars and then he withdrew them. He itched to take a greater part in the fight, yet he knew if the allied fleet was in danger of losing, the destruction of the battleship might well become the most important outcome. He didn’t want to make an ass of himself by acting like a gung-ho rookie.
“Someone else can deal with it.”
Although the conflict area was out of sensor sight – hidden by storms and the planet’s curvature – the battle network data painted a reliable picture. Warships from Attack Fleet 1 flew across in groups of four at high speed. As they approached Refuge 9 and the battleship, they slowed significantly in order to run a sensor sweep of the area. The Raggers were using stealth, but a skilled sensor operator could detect the ground indentations made by a heavy warship’s landing feet.
It wasn’t a perfect method and it left the AF1 ships open to missile strikes from elsewhere. Admiral Yeringar didn’t permit any let-up, in order to maintain pressure on the Raggers.
“They’re going to get pissed off soon,” said Shelton.
“You think?” asked Jackson. “I reckon Hass-Tei-112 is there already.”
During the next ten minutes, Griffin watched the tactical and listened to the updates. The Raggers were trying their damnedest to land and AF1 tried equally hard to prevent it happening. Nuclear warheads would provide an easy solution to the problem, though the scattered remnants of Colonel Thornton’s troops meant that option wasn’t yet on the table. Many of them stayed in cover, whilst those close enough to the hull breach made their way towards it.
“Messy. Real messy,” said Kroll in disgust. “What do the Raggers think is going to happen if they somehow make it into Refuge 9 or send their troops into the battleship?”
“I’m sure they anticipate us dropping a considerable quantity of high-yield explosives upon them, Lieutenant. The fact they are persisting with their method suggests they believe a different outcome is possible.”
“They don’t have the firepower to wipe out AF1, which means they’re expecting significant reinforcements in the near future,” said Dominguez.
“That’s what I think,” said Griffin. “If they flood this area with ships, it’ll make it hard for us to destroy Refuge 9 or the battleship. A high-altitude weapons launch from our ships will be vulnerable to enemy interceptors, while a low-altitude flyover runs the risk of devastating losses for us.”
“The Raggers don’t know us any better than we know them, sir,” said Shelton. “When you boil it all down, they’re guessing how we’ll react based on their own assumptions of how other species behave.”
“That’s an excellent comment, Lieutenant. However, whichever way you look at this situation, the Raggers will likely receive reinforcements. Since we have no additional warships inbound, AF1 is the only resource capable of preventing a Ragger victory.”
“To cap it all, Prime011 is somewhere in the vicinity,” said Dominguez. “We don’t really know what i
t’s capable of.”
“I got a couple of railgun shots into it,” said Jackson with a laugh. “That’s a start, right?”
“A small start,” Shelton agreed.
Griffin let them talk and he half-listened. His mind kept returning to Kroll’s comment. Messy. It was the understatement of all understatements. Griffin had been in some situations before, but he couldn’t recall one that had quite the same air of uncertainty about it. Worst of all, the results of failure were proven in advance. From Captain Conway’s verbal report, Refuge 9 was a goldmine of intel – the tech of a new species was there to be unearthed. It made a withdrawal unthinkable.
On top of that, the Sekar battleship would contain other tech. It seemed unlikely that it could be extracted in the circumstances, but right now, the ULAF needed answers about this new enemy. Conway was inside the ship and he needed time. Whatever he pulled out of there could well be the difference between survival and extinction for both humanity and the Fangrin. Thinking about it that way sent a chill through Griffin. It wasn’t like he was even exaggerating the stakes or inflating the significance of the mission. The Sekar battleship represented an opportunity that absolutely could not be spurned.
“The battle network reports another flyover from our spaceships,” said Dominguez.
“They intercepted an enemy craft coming in to land, sir,” added Kenyon. “We fired upon it, but no kill. Seems like the Raggers had other ships within a few klicks of the engagement and we had to get out of there.”
“This is how it’s going to be, Lieutenant.”
“I’ve just heard that our ships detected two other enemy craft about twenty klicks north of the flashpoint,” said Murray. “They were lifting off and heading north-east. The Inrex and Westarion launched missiles and received twenty percent confirmed detonations. Their orders were not to divert and they didn’t pursue.”
“A successful enemy ground deployment,” said Griffin.
“Yes, sir, that’s the assumption. The Brightstar has launched its Vipers – they are going to patrol the area.”
“Shit, that’s going to be hard for those pilots,” said Kroll.
“That’s what the Vipers were built for, Lieutenant,” said Griffin. Nevertheless, he was worried. The Vipers punched hard enough to cripple a much larger spaceship and in low-altitude conditions they were as fast and maneuverable as almost anything, as well as having a much lower profile. The downside was their vulnerability. In most circumstances, a couple of plasma missiles were enough to take out a Viper.
“Let’s hope the Raggers aren’t looking for anything so small,” said Shelton.
“Twenty klicks over Glesia is a long way to run,” said Kenyon. “Those Raggers might be fast, but they can’t ignore the conditions.”
“The next troop drop might be at ten klicks, Lieutenant. Or five. Before we know it, they’ll be coming from every side.”
“We’ve now got four hundred of ours in Refuge 9, sir. And they’ve had time to prepare,” said Kroll. “It’s going to be tough to flush them out.”
“With another 115 troops in and around the battleship,” mused Griffin. “If they make it to the interior, they’ll be a real thorn in the enemy’s side.”
“Not all bad, huh?” said Shelton.
“Whichever way we spin it, this is balanced on a knife edge. If we can whittle down the Ragger fleet in quick time, we might come out of this with something.”
The next flyover resulted in the destruction of one enemy spaceship. A second was lightly damaged and made it away into the storm. Griffin played with the numbers in his head and knew that progress was too slow.
“Anything from Captain Conway?” he asked.
“He’s going through usual channels, sir, and speaking directly with the Revingol. I gather he’s planning to head for the forward sections.”
“The cock end,” said Griffin with a smile. He knew the vernacular.
“What’s that, sir?” asked Jackson.
“Never mind. You’re better off not knowing.”
Five minutes passed and Griffin watched the flyover via the battle network. The AF1 ships flew into the target area at speed. A red dot appeared briefly south, another north-east and two more east. The allied warships had evidently received updated orders and they diverted to engage with the spaceship in the south.
“Another kill,” said Dominguez.
The four ships – led by the Fangrin heavy cruiser Daxinhar - banked and headed on a vector which would take them to the last-known position of the eastern two Ragger vessels.
“Gone,” said Dominguez. “No, wait.”
A single red dot appeared and the four allied ships altered course. In his mind, Griffin pictured the warships flying through the darkness and storms as they did their best to tip the scales. The Ragger ship disappeared from the tactical.
“This is more like it,” said Kroll.
“As we adapt, they’ll adapt with us, Lieutenant.”
The four AF1 ships received orders to depart the area and they visibly accelerated over the tactical. Then, something came. A vastly larger red circle appeared and disappeared from the screen so rapidly that Griffin would have missed it had he blinked.
“Shit. Prime011 has turned up to the party.”
The crew on the Daxinhar knew it too and the cruiser veered south, heading almost directly away from the Ragger mothership. A green dot vanished and Griffin closed his eyes briefly, waiting to see if the others would escape.
Prime011 was a massively powerful warship, but its sensors weren’t any better than those fitted on the other Ragger craft. The remaining three AF1 spaceships made their escape into the storm.
“We lost the Trandol,” said Kenyon.
In theory, it was a good outcome to lose only a single ship, even if Griffin couldn’t bring himself to think of it as a positive. The arrival of Prime011 had been inevitable, though having dealt with Hass-Tei-112 previously, Griffin had convinced himself that the Ragger commander would hold back until it was absolutely necessary for him to commit.
“Did I underestimate him?” he wondered out loud.
Nobody offered an opinion and Griffin didn’t ask again. With the Daxinhar and its companion ships far to the south, Prime011 was no longer visible on the battle network. It didn’t seem at all likely that Hass-Tei-112 had flown it elsewhere, which meant that every attack on the flashpoint was going to be fraught with vastly magnified risk.
“What’s Admiral Yeringar going to do about it?” asked Shelton.
“His hand may well have been forced, Lieutenant. Hass-Tei-112 seems willing to accept a full-blown confrontation between our two sides. This could end up an all-or-nothing engagement.”
“What do the Raggers gain from that?” asked Dominguez. “Unless they don’t have any reinforcements coming.”
“The fog of war, Lieutenant,” said Griffin. “If I underestimated our opponent once, I don’t intend doing so again.”
Words were easy when you were sitting out on the fringes of an engagement and unable to directly influence the outcome. If there was one thing Griffin hated, it was being on the sidelines. He told himself that this was his part to play and tried hard to believe it. Minutes went by and he watched to see what Admiral Yeringar would do next.
Chapter Seven
The Sekar battleship might have been familiar on a certain level, but the longer Conway travelled through its interior, the stranger everything felt. The place lacked any light except that from the combat suit helmet torches and the black walls were somehow far more claustrophobic than those made from standard alloys. The yellow beams danced here and there, heavily suppressed in the way Conway well remembered from Refuge 9, and they cast no reflections. It was cold, still and peculiarly lacking in odor. A full ten minutes into the journey and they’d encountered no hostiles, no doors, no tech and no sign of how a ship this size could possibly operate.
“This is like a dream I once had,” said Corporal Brice. “Dark, empty corridors l
eading nowhere.”
“Yeah. I don’t much like it either,” said Berg.
The passage came to an intersection and Conway paused to inspect what appeared to be a rudimentary frame where the old corridor met the new.
“It’s like there was meant to be a door here,” he said. “Same as those other places we passed.”
Conway turned left towards the center of the battleship. The corridor opened into a low-ceilinged room with two further exits. He stopped and listened.
“It’s quiet,” he said.
“Everything’s dead, sir,” Kemp reminded him. “The death pulse killed the crew.”
“Look around you, Private. Do you see anything that suggests this spaceship needed a crew? Can you see any bodies?”
“No, sir,” Kemp replied with a shrug. “Stands to sense that someone had to fly it.”
“Not much about this makes sense to me,” said Lockhart.
Conway spotted something and he stepped across to it. A rectangular protrusion emerged from the nearby wall at about waist height. He poked it with his finger and it felt the same as everything else.
“What’s this here for?”
“A construction error?” asked Freeman. “Like the Sekar copied this from somewhere else and didn’t get it right.”
“It is like a copy, isn’t it?” said Conway, turning towards the forward exit. “A badly-made copy.”
“You have a theory,” said Lieutenant Rembra.
“Yes I do.”
“You must share it.”
Conway couldn’t think of any reason not to. “In Refuge 9, we got attacked by a bunch of Sekar that looked like Raggers. Not exactly like them – more like a first or second attempt at copying.”
“We’ve seen a few different shapes in the Sekar,” said Barron. “Other species they’ve killed?”
“I think that’s a possibility.”
“How long until we see human shapes?” asked Berg.
“Don’t ask me, Private. I’m guessing the same way we all are. The Sekar and the Ravok must have plenty of history, yet I didn’t see any sign of Ravok-shaped enemies.”
Nullifier (Fire and Rust Book 6) Page 5
