“And that’s what we’re doing. Lieutenant Burner – contact Sergeants Vance and Shadar. Tell them to get ready for a deployment. I’d like to know how long it’ll take them to muster at the forward exit ramp.”
“Fifteen minutes, sir,” came the response.
“Good – tell them the plan.”
“Yes, sir.”
Recker let Burner finish and then he invited questions. The crew had a few things to say, though it was evident they understood the nature of the plan and the necessity to get on with it. A few additional uncertainties lay around the best moment to launch the nuclear missiles. Ideally, Recker wanted to deploy them as near as was safely possible to the Lodor bay to give the Fulcrum some extra cover from any surviving Lavorix warships. However, it would be a disaster if the CX1 module was destroyed because of a misjudgement.
Winging it, came the taunting thought.
The questions dried up and Recker knew it was time.
“Enter the target destination and ready the lightspeed drive,” he said.
“Target destination set.”
The ternium drive warmed up and Recker checked to make sure all three mesh deflector modules were ready to activate. They were.
“This is it,” he said. “If not the culmination, then something that’ll lead us to it.”
They knew the stakes. If they recovered the CX1 module and managed to fit it into the Tri-Cannon, the Shield Breaker might – might – be capable of discharge. After that, they had to lure in the most powerful warship in the known universe, hope the Meklon weapon could neutralise its shield, and then destroy the Galactar with ternium-accelerated projectiles.
Recker was under no illusions about the magnitude of the challenge, but he was ready to face it head-on.
At sixty seconds to lightspeed entry, he gave the command. “Send the launch order to the tertiary stations.”
“Done.”
“Please confirm acknowledgement from those stations.”
“Acknowledgements confirmed.”
Sixty seconds become thirty, then ten, then zero. The Fulcrum’s lightspeed drive activated.
Chapter Eighteen
The seconds it took for the sensors to come online after the lightspeed transit were the longest seconds of Recker’s life. With only a few thousand kilometres between the Fulcrum and the surface of Kavlon, he didn’t want to put the battleship through the usual acrobatics. Instead, he pushed it to a low speed and banked erratically, while keeping his eyes on the sensor feeds.
“Sensors online!” shouted Burner. “I’ll find the Lodor bay. Lieutenant Larson will identify Lavorix targets.”
Several feeds on the bulkhead screen were locked onto the planet below, offering Recker his first clear view of Kavlon. The Oracon-1 base was easy enough to spot and occupied a roughly square area of a hundred kilometres on each side. At each corner was a landing strip and Recker noted the presence of many vessels, large and small.
An immense shipyard took up the central area of the base, with room for a dozen construction trenches, the largest of which measured eight kilometres in length and four in width. Structures of all different shapes and sizes covered the rest of the base, from flat-roofed warehouses to towering buildings and long barracks. Roads of varying widths criss-crossed in a grid and on some, stationary vehicles could be seen.
Around Oracon-1, the landscape was farmland, with trees lining every field. A few kilometres north-east of the base perimeter, a large town was sprawled in a controlled disorder that reminded Recker of any one of a hundred HPA equivalents. He saw other towns and villages east and west. They looked so real and so vibrant that he had to remind himself that everyone who’d once lived in them was dead.
A few kilometres south-west of the base, land turned to azure ocean and the wide strip of near-white sand was so beautiful it might have drawn tourists from across half of the Meklon empire.
All this Recker absorbed in a moment. He quickly turned his attention away, hunting for signs of combat. From its five-thousand-kilometre altitude, the Fulcrum had a view across a wide expanse of Kavlon and he waited impatiently for sensor locks.
In a few seconds, Larson had the Fulcrum’s arrays targeted on several Lavorix spaceships. Recker’s eyes jumped from feed to feed. On one, a trio of enemy heavy cruisers were ablaze directly above a vast city a thousand kilometres north. Each one ejected waves of tiny interceptors and the thinnest streaks of white from their gauss repeaters raked through the sky.
As Recker watched, a hundred or more orange lines converged on the warships from different directions. Many of the incoming missiles were knocked out by gauss guns and interceptors, but others found their targets. Blossoming explosions engulfed two of the heavy cruisers, ripping them to pieces and sending a rain of debris crashing onto the city below.
The third heavy cruiser remained, defiantly firing at an unseen target. On the outskirts of the city, a two-kilometre circle of roads and buildings bulged upwards for a moment, before erupting into the sky in a flameless cloud of twisted alloy and shattered stone. A few kilometres south, a flash of orange – a disk a few hundred metres across - caught Recker’s attention. The incendiary expanded with shocking speed, covering the city with devouring flames.
In that same split second, the final cruiser was struck by another wave of missiles from the Meklon defences. The ferocity of the blasts completely hid the massive spaceship and when the brightness faded, the heavy cruiser was in pieces, falling to join the others.
Everywhere Recker looked, he saw similar tales unfolding. Under attack, the Lavorix spaceships responded with crude and overwhelming force, discharging every weapon at their disposal to wipe out the ground emplacements and anything else in range.
“Lieutenant Burner, find me that bay.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve narrowed the location down to five possibilities.” Burner made a growling sound. “It would be easier if I could interrogate some of the primary and secondary facilities.”
“If the Lavorix are listening, they might realize what we’ve come for,” said Recker.
“I know, sir. I’m just complaining about the reality, that’s all.”
In that few seconds of conversation, Larson obtained several new sensor locks. “Most of the Lavorix warships are down, sir. We have twenty-two confirmed kills so far.”
“Not enough,” said Recker.
He watched the feeds anxiously. Several were of downed enemy warships, which had either landed in pieces or come down whole. Their impacts had formed craters and one spaceship of a similar size to the Fulcrum had crashed on top of a city. The resultant shockwave had levelled every building which hadn’t been flattened by the spaceship’s hull.
Elsewhere, a smaller craft – five or six billion tons’ worth – sped across an ocean to the south, its rear quarter ablaze. The vessel was so low that a fifty-kilometre trail of foam had formed on the ocean’s surface, salt water mingling with the hot smoke of burning alloy to produce a steam cloud that added a hazy edge to the waves, blending them inexpertly like a canvas from the brush of a novice painter.
“That one’s coming our way,” said Larson. “There’s no indication they know we’re hostile.”
“Commander Aston, give its crew something to think about.”
“Portside missiles clusters one through four launched.”
The forty missiles sped from their tubes and into the vacuum. Seconds later, they plunged into Kavlon’s upper atmosphere, their control systems slowing them to prevent burnup. Even so, the missiles produced pencil-thin lines of white and their nose cones were orange pinpricks against the blue.
Too late, the enemy crew became aware of the danger. They ejected interceptors and a ring of dancing energy appeared around the cruiser. It wasn’t enough and twenty or more of the Fulcrum’s missiles punched through the countermeasures. Their detonations broke the spaceship into several pieces, which crashed into the ocean at high speed, producing fountains of water and dense clouds of blistering
steam.
“The Lavorix are getting their act together, sir,” Larson warned. “I’ve spotted three on the north cusp. At least one of them has suffered major damage, but they’re heading our way.”
Recker chose an undamaged target and rotated the Fulcrum’s nose towards it.
“Use the Executor on it, Commander.”
The painful thud of expulsion came and went. Recker couldn’t pretend he was getting accustomed to it, but he appreciated the outcome every time. One of the three Lavorix spaceships – a heavy cruiser – was engulfed in a sphere of expanding darkness. It vanished from the tactical and the remaining two fired missiles.
“Time to go low,” he said. “Prepare for an engagement.”
He aimed the Fulcrum towards the planet and the propulsion grumbled under the strain. The Lavorix were confident and the two enemy spaceships accelerated on an intercept course, ejecting yet more missiles as they went. A pair of huge gauss slugs from the larger of the two opponents struck the Fulcrum simultaneously, causing the mesh deflector to activate.
“Target that one,” snarled Recker.
Aston fired in response and the Fulcrum had plenty to give. Dozens of its own missiles sped away, curving and diverging to fool the enemy countermeasures.
“Interceptor storm launched,” said Aston. “Activating Maglor guns.”
The distant pulsing of the Maglors set Recker’s jaw aching at once and he gritted his teeth against the pain, while banking hard so that Aston could deploy a shock bomb in the space between the enemy ships and the Fulcrum.
“Shock bomb deployed.”
Many of the incoming missiles were pulverised by the interceptor storm and the Maglors. The remaining few were caught in the deep red flash of the shock bomb and their control systems were scrambled. Not one of the warheads exploded and Recker smiled grimly when the target Lavorix spaceship was ripped to pieces by a series of overlapping plasma blasts.
His satisfaction was short lived. Larson shouted a warning and Recker banked instinctively. He was too late to avoid another incoming gauss slug, this time fired by a newly arrived Lavorix spaceship which hurtled across the northern horizon, launching missiles as it went. The second mesh deflector module activated, leaving only one charge available.
“Getting too hot to handle,” said Recker, biting down on a curse.
Aston didn’t let up. “Missiles fired – forward lower three and starboard six,” she said. “Interceptors launched.”
Under Recker’s control, the Fulcrum tore into Kavlon’s upper atmosphere, the Oracon-1 base almost directly below. Two more Lavorix ships appeared on the sensors, heading across the ocean to the south.
The last of the original three enemy craft disappeared in a blinding flash. None of the Fulcrum’s missiles had reached it and Recker guessed one of the ground emplacements had done the job. Right now, he was happy to take anything he was given.
Missiles from the north entered the Fulcrum’s countermeasures and were knocked out by the battleship’s immense quantity of Maglors and interceptors. The enemy ship activated its own interceptor sphere a moment before the Fulcrum’s missiles struck. Recker saw two or three detonations – not enough to destroy the target and maybe not even enough to penetrate its armour.
A moment later, the Fulcrum’s descent took it so low that the three approaching ships vanished from sensor sight. The tactical went blank, except for a few dozen low priority targets the battle computer was tracking. A glance at the mesh deflector cooldown timer informed Recker the first module was still two minutes from recharge.
“Lieutenant Burner, give me something to go on before a dozen Lavorix ships converge on our position. Where’s that damned bay?”
“I’m working on it, sir,” said Burner.
“Work faster. Lieutenant Larson, give me an update.”
“The ground emplacements are aware of nine total targets, sir,” Larson replied at once. “Most of the launchers are gone and that number may well be inaccurate.”
“The Lodor bay is in one of these two places,” said Burner.
The man showed his ability to multitask by adding an overlay onto one of the sensor feeds. Red circles indicated the possibilities and both were in the central area of Oracon-1, where the shipyards were situated.
“Is it definitely one of those, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure there are subsurface construction yards in both locations. I’m not sure I’ll be able to determine which of the two is the Lodor bay.”
It was all Recker needed to hear.
“Commander Aston, are the nuclear missiles ready?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.
“Set detonation targets that will leave that central area of Oracon-1 undamaged.”
“Done.”
Recker’s eyes fell on the towns and villages surrounding Oracon-1 and he felt his resolve assailed at the thought of what he was about to order. He steeled himself – Kavlon was dead and the Meklon were dead. Whatever happened here, the only species to suffer for it would be the Lavorix.
“Commander Aston – fire the missiles.”
With the Fulcrum at an altitude of thirty kilometres, Aston obeyed the order. She displayed no reluctance and stabbed her forefinger onto the confirmation panel on the weapons console.
Ten nuclear warheads, carried on huge, armoured propulsion sections, burst from their launch tubes on top of the Tri-Cannon. They appeared as green dots on the tactical, travelling slowly at first while their guidance systems oriented on target.
The missiles didn’t have far to travel – their detonation points formed a ring, approximately a hundred and twenty kilometres from the perimeter of the base, at an altitude of eighty. Having locked on target, the ten missiles sped away, their boosters providing incredible acceleration.
In the few seconds before detonation, Recker thought back to the brief discussion he’d held with Commander Aston. Two-point-five gigatons was such a high yield that it was impossible to predict how the explosions would interact with Kavlon’s atmosphere. No doubt the HPA had software that could do it, programmed way back when nuclear bombs formed part of the military’s arsenal; a top-secret destruction simulator tucked guiltily away on a forgotten databank.
Lacking the guidance of such a simulation program, Recker and Aston had been reduced to something not far removed from guesswork and Recker could only hope the outcome wouldn’t be so catastrophic to Oracon-1 that the underground bays ended up sealed by debris. He was sure the Meklon had built the facility to withstand attack, though probably nothing of this magnitude.
The crew held their collective breath, all apart from Aston, who counted down.
“Three…”
Two previously unknown Lavorix spaceships appeared on the sensors, coming in low and fast, a few hundred kilometres from Oracon-1.
“Two…”
Another spaceship came into view from the south, flying low over the ocean.
“One…”
The planet’s horizon turned white.
Chapter Nineteen
Recker watched the spectacle with a mixed feeling of awe and horror. The reflected shockwave of each detonation prevented the rapidly expanding fireballs from reaching the planet’s surface. To Recker’s eye, it seemed as if the blasts struck an invisible shield a few kilometres above the ground, forming a thick, dark band along the horizon. Above this band, the fires burned with such intensity they formed a wall of light which made Recker squint and the feed cast harsh, flickering shadows in the dimly illuminated bridge.
The sensors struggled to cope with the light and the electromagnetic pulse, and the feeds became heavily speckled with static. Burner and Larson were ready for it and they made rapid adjustments that cleared the view. Although the Fulcrum was shielded against the EMP, its electronic gauges jumped left and right, refusing to settle, leaving much of Recker’s instrumentation useless. He gritted his teeth and told himself it was temporary.
A peculiarity of the shockwaves cause
d the explosive light to momentarily dim and his eyes convinced him he could see three overlapping waves surge outwards like a vast swell across the land. He blinked, wondering if it was atmospheric distortion picked up by sensors overloaded by input. The waves remained, approaching Oracon-1 from every direction.
They’re going to wreck the base.
The ripples hit the perimeter of Oracon-1 and the buildings crumpled before Recker’s eyes, folding inwards towards the centre from the force of multiple shockwaves. Many of the smaller vessels on the corner landing fields were caught up and swept along, crashing into other structures, tumbling over and over as their impacts magnified the terrible damage. Recker watched anxiously, hoping that he hadn’t screwed up and ruined the chances of recovering the CX1 module.
On rushed the waves, knocking down everything in their path and Recker felt with certainty that he’d overdone it – that he should have ordered the nuclear warheads to detonate a hundred kilometres further out.
The destructive waves reduced in intensity as they advanced across Oracon-1. Here and there, a scattering of buildings stood defiant and, as the shockwaves came towards the shipyard, more and more of the structures remained upright.
When they surged through the shipyard, the shockwaves had lost much of their potency. Several of the buildings flanking the area collapsed and fell, while the majority merely leaned or were left seemingly untouched.
The interval between nuclear detonation and the shockwave destruction of Oracon-1 had occupied only moments and Recker’s brain caught up with the demands of the situation.
“Where are those Lavorix ships?” he shouted. They were gone from the tactical – destroyed, he hoped, but perhaps only lost from sight in the chaos.
“The visible ones were destroyed, sir,” said Larson. “They were right in the centre of the blasts.”
“Bad luck for those bastards,” said Recker.
Although the initial explosions were dramatic, he reminded himself that the aftereffects offered little threat to something as well-shield and massive as the Fulcrum. He piloted the battleship lower, aiming for the centre of Oracon-1 where the two possible locations of the Lodor bay were situated.
Fulcrum Gun (Savage Stars Book 4) Page 15