“Which way?” asked Sergeant Gantry.
The airlock led into a room with three exits, all sealed by doors, but all with green lights. Again, Vance requested a link to Moseley’s comms unit and again received a busy response.
Recalling Captain Laney’s mention of exium, Vance rifled his memories for any mention of the word. Nothing came up. Everywhere in the research building was clearly signed, but he’d never come across that word before and the place was too large to set out in a random direction.
Swallowing his anger, Vance attempted the comms for a third time. On this occasion, RL Moseley accepted the channel request.
“We’re in the research building,” Vance growled. “Where are we making this pickup? Exium, isn’t it?”
“Area North-12A,” said Moseley at once. The signs of strain were showing in his voice. “If I didn’t make it plain earlier, Lieutenant, this isn’t a pickup in the literal sense where you can drop the exium into a backpack alongside your spare magazines. The exium prototype weighs 120 tons, excluding the gravity drive it’s sitting on.”
“Prototype?” asked Vance. “I thought this was just a lump of some new stuff that we were taking to Basalt for testing.”
“Not exactly, Lieutenant. There’s no time to give you the details and I’m not even sure if you’re allowed to hear them.”
“Who’s attacking?” asked Vance, unwilling to end the conversation before he’d learned something he might later regret not knowing about.
“Captain Laney believes it’s the Kilvar,” said Moseley. “If it isn’t the Kilvar, then it’s a different species of aliens that we haven’t encountered before.”
“It’s the shit we’ve been waiting for,” said Vance. “All of us.”
“Head to North 12-A, Lieutenant. I’ve upgraded your security clearance so the doors should open for you. I’ll be waiting inside.”
Vance plotted the route in his mind. “We’ll be there in five minutes.” He got in one last question. “Is there any sign the enemy are planning a ground assault?”
“Not that I’ve heard, Lieutenant. You’ll know better than I what to expect from a situation like this.”
The channel went dead and Vance dashed for the far exit, urging his soldiers to follow. They didn’t need encouragement and they followed at once. Vance touched the access panel for the door and turned once to gauge how his platoon was handling the increased threat level.
The old guard – the soldiers he’d commanded against the Daklan and the Lavorix after that – gathered nearby with an eagerness he wasn’t surprised to note. They were all in their thirties now and, after a life spent fighting, he knew the years of peace had been unexpectedly difficult for them. Vance understood it well himself. He knew some people were afflicted by nightmares caused by their experiences in war. Not Vance. At night, he often lay awake, thinking about the past and trying to convince himself he didn’t crave the adrenaline highs that only came from the knife-edge engagements in crap-hole environments like here on Tibulon.
Don’t wish for it, James. Whatever you do, don’t wish for it.
The door opened onto a short corridor which ended at another door. That door, in turn, opened into a large, square room with processing cabinets around the walls and other consoles in the centre. He guessed about twenty personnel were inside, most sitting, and all looking as if they’d rather be elsewhere. Breathing in through his helmet filter, Vance detected scents of coffee and replicated fast food.
“You here to save us, Lieutenant?” asked one of the technicians, an older woman Vance had seen a few times before and who’d flirted aggressively with him on each occasion. She had a tray on her lap and a sandwich halfway to her mouth.
“Not this time,” Vance said. He didn’t try to remember her name and aimed for the door in the opposite wall.
“If you won’t, who will?” the woman persisted, her voice rising in quick anger.
“There’s a fleet stationed here, ma’am,” said Private Weiland Steigers, who considered himself something of a smooth-tongued diplomat. He offered the technician a flash of his perfect teeth. “The flyboys will look after you.”
“I once dated warship officer,” the woman spat.
“He must have been a lucky man,” said Steigers, bored already.
Vance didn’t want to hear the rest of the technician’s tale and he opened the exit door with a touch of his fingers on the access panel. The platoon followed him into the next room, this one larger again. Vance offered it a cursory glance and identified more tech he didn’t recognize and more technicians to operate it. A pair of obliterator cores were mounted on a dais in the centre of the room, with a multitude of cables attached.
A tall man – another face Vance half-recognized from his four months on Tibulon - approached. “Lieutenant Vance, I demand you…”
The comms unit in Vance’s helmet flashed with a channel request. Vance accepted and turned away from the approaching man. Sergeant Tagra recognized it was his time to act, and stepped directly in front of the incoming scientist, blocking his path and staring him down.
“RL Moseley, what news?” asked Vance.
“We’re not risking the shuttle,” Moseley sounded like he was ready to snap. “None of our weapons are affecting the enemy spaceship and we’re keeping the exium prototype on the ground for the moment.”
Vance wasn’t about cast judgement on whether it was the right decision in the wider context of getting the exium away from Tibulon. He was only glad he wouldn’t be riding a thin-walled metal coffin up to the Loadout heavy cruiser with an enemy spaceship on the attack.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked, doing a fast count of the soldiers stationed here. Like most facilities, the Tibulon refinery primarily relied on warships for its defence instead of ground troops. The reasoning behind it wasn’t something Vance could argue with – if the air support failed, no amount of soldiers would stand a chance against even a single warship. “There’re fewer than a seventy dedicated troops here.” Plenty of the other personnel could handle a gun, but it wasn’t the same as having a trained and dedicated foot soldier.
“Keep on your way to North-12A, Lieutenant,” said Moseley. “We’re playing this by ear.”
“Tell me something I hadn’t already guessed,” said Vance.
“I’ve read your combat record,” said Moseley. “I thought that’s just how you liked it.”
The observation was pinpoint accurate and Vance felt a grudging smile appear his face.
“That’s right, RL Moseley,” said Vance. “The deeper the shit, the faster I swim.”
He closed the channel, repeated the order for his platoon to move and then headed for the door. Wherever the tall man had gone, Vance didn’t know and he didn’t look. Few people had the balls to stand up to Sergeant Tagra.
Three minutes later, Vance and his soldiers entered yet another square room, with the same alloy walls and the same grey floor tiles. It was empty of technology apart from several viewscreens and a replicator, and several sets of double doors led away to other areas of the research building. Vance’s eyes skimmed over the signs dangling from the ceiling, one of which read East 8C – Carbonizer. Another directed personnel to South 91 - Ingar Fusion. He turned his attention to the sign above the northern door.
North-12A – Exium.
Vance was mid-stride towards the doors when he felt a shockwave running through the floor. A rumbling sound came after, loud above the ever-present alarm and seeming to come from every direction.
The heat was rising on Tibulon and Vance prepared himself to deal with whatever fate might have in store.
Chapter Six
The in-out transition from the short-range lightspeed jump left Captain William Flint feeling like he’d been punched in the guts and kicked in the balls, and with a headache and nausea that reminded him of hangovers from a briefly misspent period of his youth.
“Damn and shit,” he retched. His body coughed violently before he could stop
it happening. He forced his head up and his eyes open. Flint’s vision swum and his eyes watered. “Where are those sensors?”
From the cursing elsewhere on the bridge, Flint gathered his crew weren’t feeling any better about the transition aftereffects than he was.
“Sensors not yet online,” said Lieutenant Garrett.
A lightspeed transit – even a short one – knocked a warship’s sensors offline and reduced its velocity to near-zero, meaning that an arrival was always blind and vulnerable. Flint couldn’t do anything about the sensors, but he could put some distance between his warship and its arrival point. His fingers wrapped around the horizontal control bars and he pushed them hard along their runners.
Rather than producing a cacophonous sound and a sensation of immense acceleration, the Loadout’s engines groaned and a shuddering vibration ran through the bridge walls. Flint shifted the controls back into their central position and the vibration subsided without disappearing. A check of the instrumentation told a variety of unwanted tales.
“Our ternium output is below ten percent,” said Lieutenant Fredericks, before Flint could ask him about it. “We’ll be at zero percent in less than thirty seconds.”
“Insufficient power to the life support modules,” said Flint. Out of stupid habit, he tapped one of the electronic gauges with his fingertip. The gauge didn’t move. “No wonder that in-out transit was so bad - the life support didn’t have enough supply to protect us from it.” He felt an additional sense of alarm. “What about the sensors?”
“They’re taking longer than expected to come online, sir,” said Garrett. “The comms will remain dead until the sensors are operational.”
“I think I can reduce the feed resolution,” said Becerra. “That might give us a…there!”
The bulkhead screen lit up with the feeds, each of which was of darkness and stars. At once, Becerra started adjusting the focus and direction, to build a picture of nearby space. At the same time, Garrett scanned for comms receptors.
“Nothing,” she said. “Either all the local warships are out of power or running comms silent.”
“Would range affect your ability to detect those receptors?” asked Flint. “A maximum duration SRT would have taken those spaceships a long way.”
“Yes, sir, it would have done. I’d still find them.”
“I’m not sure those warships are offline,” said Flint, forcing himself to confront the realities of the situation. “I reckon we lost at least one.”
“I agree, sir,” said Fredericks. “I watched what happened to the Kantilvor and the Ferocious. They took a hell of beating.”
“Can we confirm if they entered lightspeed?” asked Flint.
“No, sir,” said Becerra. “I think we were the first to activate an SRT. However, our sensors don’t see too well through the shock bursts, so there’s a chance we missed something.”
“Such as an enemy kill,” said Flint. He was angry at his failings. The moment the combat reached peak intensity, his brain had been unable to keep up. He’d handled the Loadout well enough – and his crew had come through for him - but a good commanding officer should have known instinctively what was happening elsewhere in the arena.
Garrett swore. “Sir, the real time FTL comms are unavailable.”
“Send a low-speed comm,” ordered Flint. “It might take a few hours to reach its destination, but I’d rather they know we’re alive.”
“I’ve located Tibulon, sir,” said Becerra.
A grey sphere appeared in the centre of the bulkhead screen and a split second was enough for Flint to understand that something was wrong. The feed was far more detailed than it should have been, especially considering the sensors lacked the power to gather full-resolution images.
“We’re less than a quarter of a million klicks from our launch point, sir,” said Becerra. “The planet is 120,000 klicks from our position.”
“What? How?” said Maddox. “Sir, did you…?”
“I set the SRT for two billion klicks, Commander,” said Flint. “I made no mistake when I entered the destination - it was my intention to take us a long way from the engagement.”
“The propulsion is about to die,” said Fredericks. “We’re going to lose the dedicated power supplies for the obliterator cores as well.”
No sooner had he spoken than the propulsion sound faded, though it didn’t entirely disappear. Instead, the usual smoothness was replaced by a weak and distant coarseness that Flint had not encountered on a warship before.
Although he could hear something from the engines, the sensors went offline again and he saw that the readouts on several pieces of critical equipment were at zero.
The Loadout was fitted with conventional non-ternium power supplies which operated as backup for the doors and to keep the bridge consoles operational. In a limited manner they could also power the obliterator cores, the sensors and also allow some of the weapons to fire. Unlike ternium, the batteries would eventually run dry.
“That’s us out of options,” said Lieutenant Garrett.
“Do you think the enemy warship will hunt us down?” asked Lieutenant Bolan nervously.
Flint raised his voice. “I don’t like this talk of defeat – if you have nothing constructive to say, keep your mouths shut. We’re alive and the Loadout is intact. There’s got to be a way out of this and we’re going to find out what it is.”
“What do you want us to do, sir?” asked Lieutenant Becerra.
“First thing - I want to know if Tibulon is between us and the last known position of the enemy warship.”
“I’ll get on that, sir,” said Becerra. “We don’t have any live data, but I can work it out from the sensor recordings.”
“The planet blocks sensor sight,” said Fredericks. “But it won’t prevent detection of a ternium wave. Even an SRT makes a detectable signature on arrival.”
“I know that, Lieutenant,” said Flint. “The enemy were engaged with six targets, plus whatever they were tracking on the ground – there’s a possibility they didn’t detect our emergence from the SRT.”
“Yes, sir, there’s a chance they didn’t,” said Fredericks. He gave gruff laugh. “Depends on the planet’s composition too, I guess. There’re a few dense ores that can hide a ternium wave.”
“I’ve analysed the recorded positional data, sir,” said Becerra. “Tibulon is directly between us and the enemy warship. If they failed to detect our SRT exit, they’ll have no sensor lock on us unless they made a significant change of position.”
Flint did his best to see the positives. “It seems we’re out of immediate danger and that’s a positive. Lieutenant Fredericks, is there a way to restart the ternium drive?”
Fredericks was half-hidden by his console but Flint could see the man shaking his head, more in thought than despair. “When I first noticed the drain, I tried isolating the individual modules from our control system. The fact that the method failed indicates the enemy did something to directly affect the ternium. I also put one of the modules into overstress and pushed it all the way up to a thousand percent. As far as I could tell, it had no effect on the rate of output decay.”
“Does that mean there’s no way to reverse the effect?” asked Flint.
“I believe the structure of the ternium blocks has reverted to its original state, sir.”
“What does that mean, Lieutenant?”
“When we pull ternium out of the ground, it’s little more than a powder missed in with other stuff. It’s taken to one of the refineries and goes through a process to force it into a rigid structure and then to stabilise it. After that, the finished block goes through final testing and if it passes, it’s installed into whichever spaceship it was built for.”
“I know the outline,” said Flint impatiently. “I can still hear our propulsion running – why is that?”
“Give me a few minutes to study the data, sir,” said Fredericks. “I think I might have an idea.”
If there
was anyone in the fleet who knew about ternium propulsions it was Lieutenant Fredericks, but Flint wasn’t in the mood for sitting quietly. He rose from his seat and the blood rushing to his head made it thump painfully.
Flint grimaced and turned so he could see the entirety of the bridge. It wasn’t a generous space, with a claustrophobically low ceiling which tapered further towards the spaceship’s nose. The floorspace was just about large enough to accommodate operator stations for eight personnel – with the peacetime crew being only five. A narrow gap separated the sensor/comms and propulsion stations and it was easier to walk through sideways than it was front ways.
Elsewhere, a two-metre-wide alloy door protected the bridge from hijackers, a replicator was installed in the portside rear bulkhead and a wall-mounted cabinet held weapons, medical supplies and eight spare combat suits. Having once checked the design plans of the spaceship he’d flown during the Daklan wars, Flint’s suspicion that the bridge on the Loadout was much smaller had been proven. In fact, it was almost thirty percent smaller. A warship was not a good place for those with claustrophobia.
“Show me what you’re working on,” said Flint, walking across and standing next to Fredericks. The man was broad-shouldered and with shovel hands - more like a traditional mechanic than a fleet engine officer.
“This, sir,” said Fredericks, pointing at a screen covered in tiny green characters.
“Lots of numbers,” said Flint dryly. “What do you hope to find amongst the data?”
“I’ve already found it,” said Fredericks. He gave a sideways smile. “Now I’m trying to figure out how to make it work for us.”
“Spell it out for me, Lieutenant,” said Flint.
“The structure of our ternium modules has been altered, sir, turning it back into a semi-refined state – a state in which it’s capable of generating power.”
Flint was interested. “Then why are we running on the backups?” he said.
Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1) Page 6