Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1)

by Anthony James

  “Where’s that damage report?” he asked. The red lights on his status panel were numerous and the heavy cruiser’s external sensors showed him a view of splayed armour, along with heat and smoke from the missile and beam weapon impacts.

  “We’re holding together, sir,” said Fredericks. “Our armour is layered and channels heat. We’re strong against energy weapons.”

  “Comms message from the Langinstol, sir,” said Garrett. “They detected the enemy ship’s exit point and they’ve hit the wreckage with four lightspeed missiles.”

  “It’s over,” said Maddox, puffing up her cheeks and blowing out. She looked at Flint. “It’s over,” she repeated.

  Flint nodded as the news sunk in. The first engagement with the Kilvar was done, though it was hard to claim it a convincing win.

  As the adrenaline ebbed away, Flint felt drained. If every confrontation with this new enemy was going to be as brutal and tough as this one, it was would take everything from both humanity and the Daklan to emerge from the coming war victorious.

  Deep down, Flint’s conviction in the technological prowess of his own side was already shaken.

  Chapter Twelve

  Fleet Admiral Carl Recker stood on the edge of the Amber landing strip, his gaze aimed at the sky. It was raining a fine mist which left a sheen on his combat suit, and soaked his hair and exposed skin. Nearby, his shuttle idled in a quiet hum. Overhead, the throbbing notes of lifters and the deeper, faraway sounds of the landed fleet warships, created pressure in the air. Recker breathed in steadily until his lungs were full. This late afternoon on Basalt was dreary, but there was a crispness of autumnal chill that he loved.

  “The Loadout is due to exit lightspeed in five minutes, sir,” said Lieutenant Christy Garber. Following Recker’s lead, she also wore full combat gear which surprisingly didn’t look out of place on her. “Like you ordered, it has priority clearance to land.” She levelled a finger at the empty space ahead – a space into which a heavy cruiser would neatly fit. Beyond that, three other heavies were landed for routine maintenance. “It’s going right there.”

  “This rain can go away,” said Lieutenant Thad Vogel.

  Recker sighed inwardly when he saw the other man making a useless effort to wipe rain from his combat suit and reminded himself that Vogel was employed because he was a damned good liaison officer, not for his ability to put a gauss slug through an alien skull at fifty thousand metres in vacuum conditions.

  “Captain Osteen, have there been any reports of a Kilvar appearance at the scatter points on the Loadout’s return journey?” asked Recker.

  Captain Bobby Osteen was broad-shouldered, short-haired and curt with people he didn’t like – a curtness which was the main obstacle between him and promotion, since it tended to rub other vital personnel the wrong way. He was also one of the diminishing number of officers with extensive combat experience from the Daklan wars, and often came up with a different take on a situation, which was an ability Recker appreciated.

  “No reports of enemy activity at either scatter point, sir.”

  Recker was uneasy, but he’d done what he could to protect Basalt. During the Lavorix wars, he’d once been pursued by a vast enemy warship which could detect and follow lightspeed tunnels, and the extended engagement had been one of the most stressful times of his life.

  Subsequent to the war’s conclusion, he’d created numerous scatter points between alliance planets. These scatter points were clusters of shuttles, transports and old-model warships stationed together in remote locations. The idea was for a threatened warship to stop at a scatter point midway to its destination and for every gathered spaceship to then enter lightspeed at the same time, creating dozens of lightspeed tunnels heading to different places. Of course, only one of those tunnels would lead to a populated planet, but any pursuers wouldn’t know which it was.

  Given the appearance of a previously unencountered alien species – likely Kilvar - Recker had ordered the Loadout to return via two of the scatter points, introducing an exponentially larger delay to the enemy if they gave chase by exhaustively following each lightspeed tunnel.

  “I think we should have left the Loadout and the exium out in deep space for a couple of months, sir,” said Osteen gruffly. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “I understand your concerns, Captain. I extended the return journey to two weeks – it’s the most I was willing to consider.”

  “Plus the stasis field took three days to collapse,” said Lieutenant Garber. “That’s seventeen days with no sign of the Kilvar.”

  “Kilvar,” said Osteen, spitting a thick glob of phlegm onto the ground. “Another bunch of shit-eating alien scumbags for us to deal with.”

  The final member of Recker’s party, was Lieutenant Jodie Farrow and she raised an eyebrow disapprovingly at Osteen’s bad manners. Farrow was an expert in comms, sensors and weapons tech. She was also as likeable as Garber, which opened far more doors amongst the researchers and scientists than Osteen’s bluntness.

  “We need that exium sample,” she said. “The Firestorm is ready for testing.”

  “One sample and one ship,” said Osteen. “Our main refinery is gone.”

  “We have ingar in stores, plus four other reactors like they had in the vault,” said Recker. “The Daklan have ingar and they also have reactors.”

  In spite of his confident words, Recker wasn’t happy with the situation. The Tibulon research facility was the first place to create a permanently stable version of superstressed ternium – assuming the claims had not been subject to scientific exaggeration – and while data from the process had been issued to other facilities, it was somewhat lacking in clarity and entirely unreviewed.

  Accepting that rapid technological advancement required a risk or two, Recker had allowed the scientific teams working on Tibulon to descend into what he jokingly thought of as a semi-feral state, in which certain rules and regulations were stretched, bent or completely ignored. The upshot and downside was that RL Moseley and various senior members of his team were the only ones capable of replicating the conditions of the original reaction which created the exium sample. And they were due to land on Basalt in the next few minutes.

  “How long are final tests due to take?” asked Vogel. “A few of Admiral Ivinstol’s officers are pushing for answers. They want to start creating their own exium as soon as possible.”

  “The tests will take as long as they take,” said Recker. “The exium needs to be held in different states while we scan for abnormalities. We can put the prototype into a test vessel, but if we start installing exium modules in frontline warships, there’s a real risk we’ll discover a flaw or an instability in the substance just when we don’t need it.”

  “The reports of invulnerable enemy warships have me worried, Fleet Admiral,” said Osteen. “We don’t even know if it was the stasis field which allowed our weapons to damage them, or something else caused by the reaction on Tibulon. Our efforts should be equally focused on answering that question.”

  “RL Moseley apparently has some ideas,” said Lieutenant Farrow. “He just lacks the means to test them while he’s stuck on the Loadout.”

  “I thought we put Moseley and his egghe-” Osteen stopped himself and then continued. “…Moseley and his team on Tibulon so they wouldn’t accidentally create death spheres anywhere near a populated planet like Basalt, or put us all into stasis for an eternity. And they’re coming here, probably itching to fire up those reactors and see what happens when they combine fifty Lavorix ass cheeks with superstressed ternium and the manure from a…”

  “Please, Captain,” said Recker, lifting a hand in warning. “Enough.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Loadout has exited lightspeed, sir,” said Garber. “They’ve just this moment confirmed their arrival with the Amber ground controller and they’re heading in for a landing.”

  “Distance?”

  “A quarter of a million klicks as per emergency
procedures, sir.”

  “Six minutes travel time with their reduced output,” said Recker, shifting impatiently.

  “Everyone onboard has been instructed to exit by the forward boarding ramp immediately, sir,” said Garber. “The pickup crews are ready for them and the recovery teams will pilot the Loadout into the vacant dock once they’ve run some initial diagnostics. Estimates based on damage audit files are eighty days for a complete back-to-new repair, including a swap out of its existing ternium modules.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” The rain trickled down Recker’s neck and he suppressed a shiver. His suit helmet was resting in the shuttle doorway a few paces away and he considered putting it on. Instead, he left it where it was and admitted what he really wanted was a coffee.

  Recker left the urge for caffeine unanswered and waited for the Loadout to descend through the rainclouds. He didn’t particularly need to be here to witness the heavy cruiser’s landing, but he felt obliged for reasons he couldn’t explain. It didn’t seem likely the Kilvar would settle for just one attack on an alliance facility. That meant war was coming, and Recker wanted to see first-hand what this engagement had done to a fleet heavy cruiser.

  “Latest report from Ravel, sir,” said Lieutenant Vogel, reading text off a palm-sized portable comms unit. “Admiral Tovar remains fully mobilised. Monitor satellites have detected nothing unusual.”

  “Thank you,” said Recker absently.

  Vogel had the comms unit halfway to his pocket when it alerted him to another message. “The hourly reports from Deep Space Quad 1, 2, 3 and 4 have arrived.” Vogel furrowed his brow as he skimmed the details. “Nothing untoward.” The device buzzed again. “Admiral Ivinstol confirms dispatch of ninety-six lightspeed missiles from Terrani. ETA at Bronze: two days.”

  “Hold the updates for the time being, Lieutenant,” said Recker, not wishing to be bogged down in the minutiae. “Except the urgent ones.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vogel nodded, attempting to slip the comms unit into his leg pocket. It was too quick for him and buzzed again. He smiled thinly and read the message, but kept the contents to himself.

  “It’s here,” said Recker.

  He cocked his head and listened intently. A rough, bass-heavy sound came from all around, adding to the thickness of the ternium-laden air. Then, the Loadout broke through the low cloud cover, descending rapidly. The heavy cruiser had suffered badly in the engagement, and its cratered hull was ragged with torn armour plating.

  Elsewhere, ugly patches had formed where the alloys had been heated so much that rivers of metal had flowed and hardened again. Based on sight alone, Recker believed an eighty-day turnaround time for repairs was about right and, since the Loadout was based on a standard design, the shipyard would have suitable propulsion modules ready to drop in.

  “Looks nasty,” said Osteen. He raised an arm and pointed a finger. “The size of that crater makes me think the Kilvar missiles carry maybe a fifty percent larger payload than our hellburners.”

  “I agree,” said Recker. “And maybe half the payload of a lightspeed missile.”

  “A third to a half,” said Osteen. “And the Kilvar beam weapon tech is way ahead of ours if the extent of that melt patch is anything to go by.”

  “They had multiple beam generators on the larger of their two ships as well,” said Recker, his eyes narrowed as he followed the path of the Loadout towards the ground. “With an individual firing interval much too short for comfort.”

  “I don’t think any of us expected the Kilvar to be flying rust buckets fitted with wing-mounted launchers,” said Farrow. “We’ve been preparing for this and we can take plenty away from the engagement at Tibulon – not all of it bad.”

  “Missiles and beam weapons are something we know,” said Osteen. “Sooner those than disintegration cannons and shit like that.”

  As the Loadout approached the ground, its pilot applied the brakes and the engines rumbled like a dozen sonic booms. Recker screwed up his face at the pain in his ears and also because the harshness of the sound made him angry. If every Kilvar warship had the capability to disable a ternium power source, the alliance needed to find a counter as soon as possible.

  There was a lot to deal with and all the preparation which had come before didn’t seem to count for much.

  “Setting down,” said Garber.

  The heavy cruiser landed gently and the forward boarding ramp swung open. As soon as that ramp touched the alloy-reinforced concrete, the first figures emerged from the airlock. While this was happening, a huge, armoured transport sped in low from where it had been parked, and several ground vehicles carrying troops and technicians raced from the middle of the landing strip.

  A second, smaller shuttle hovered in the air a few hundred metres from the Loadout’s nose. The majority of the Tibulon personnel were going onto this second transport, while RL Moseley and his most senior reports were heading straight for the research facility, along with the exium prototype.

  “Seen enough, sir?” asked Garber.

  “No, I don’t think I have,” said Recker, crossing to his personal shuttle and picking up his suit helmet. “There’s been a change of plan, folks. I’d like to meet Captain Flint personally.”

  “You’ve read his combat report, sir,” said Vogel, clearly anxious to get on.

  “I’ve read Captain Flint’s personnel file as well,” said Recker. “He’s seen battle before. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “He’s due to board the heavy transport, sir, along with the escort team,” said Garber.

  “I’m going to join them,” said Recker. “I’ve got a few old friends over there and they’ve come through for me again. I’d like to express my gratitude.”

  “I’ll contact the pilot on the armoured transport and order a hold until we’re onboard,” said Garber, knowing at once that Recker’s mind was made up.

  “Don’t order a hold, Lieutenant.” Recker turned. The area around his personal shuttle was clear of vehicles and obstacles. “They can come and pick me up right here.” He pointed at the others. “You all have plenty to deal with, so it’ll be just me and Lieutenant Garber. Take the shuttle and return to your duties.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Farrow. She gave Recker a smile. “It would have been nice to see what kind of people are on that transport.”

  “Interesting people,” said Recker, smiling in return. He gestured towards the shuttle again. “Go – I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  Recker’s team didn’t argue and they disappeared into the shuttle. Those few seconds were enough for Garber to pass on the order to the armoured shuttle.

  “Once the loading is done, they’ll head our way.” She fixed Recker with a hard stare, indicating a difficult question was incoming. “This unscheduled trip is definitely all about what you said it was about, and nothing to do with seeing your wife, isn’t it?”

  Nobody ever got angry with Garber, and Recker was no exception. He laughed. “It’s been eight days now,” he said. “Lera-Vel and her entire team have been working sixteen hour shifts and when they’re not working, they’re sleeping wherever in that research facility they can find to lay their heads.”

  “The Firestorm is important,” said Garber.

  “In more ways than one,” said Recker.

  Garber turned her gaze towards the transport. “According to the comms, they’re ready to depart.”

  Recker looked as well. The doors were facing away, which had prevented him from watching the loading. Now it was done, the transport climbed fifty metres vertically and then flew steadily across the landing strip towards Recker. Before it arrived, his personal shuttle departed and at a velocity which indicated Captain Osteen was probably at the controls.

  The armoured transport was two hundred metres in length and fitted with armour plating that could withstand pretty much anything this side of a warship-launched missile. It settled, producing groans from its multiple landing legs, and Recker gazed up at the sl
ab side of the vessel. Having experienced enough shuttle combat to last a lifetime, he was proud for the alliance’s ground forces to have a deployment vehicle which could adequately protect them.

  One of the passenger doors sank into the armour and then slid into a recess, while extendable stairs emerged from a hatch. Climbing rapidly, Recker entered the airlock, which the pilot was remotely holding in an open position.

  A passage through the armour led to one of the personnel bays, a place which was fitted with rows of bucket seats and which smelled of burned rubber and sweat. Viewscreens were installed on the forward and aft bulkheads, both showing a feed of the landing strip. A replicator in one corner churned and gurgled like it was caught in a cleaning loop.

  Milling around like they had too much energy to sit, the members of Lieutenant Vance’s platoon turned Recker’s way.

  “Hey, sir,” said Private Eric Drawl. “Can I put in an official complaint about the replicator?”

  Recker laughed and his eyes searched for Lieutenant Vance. He was there, as indomitable as ever.

  “Good to see you, sir,” said Vance.

  The transport’s engines rose in volume with the same metallic trait as those found in a fully-fledged warship and Recker raised his voice to be heard.

  “Well met, Lieutenant. Once again, the alliance owes you thanks.”

  Vance cracked a smile. He looked older than last time they’d met, but there again, Recker knew he did too.

  “This one was nice and simple, sir. Only a couple of aliens to shoot and then we hid underground.”

  Recker knew Vance well enough to understand that he was holding something back. The soldier had seen something on Tibulon he didn’t like.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” Recker asked softly.

  “A feeling of age, sir. The Kilvar have been around forever and the ones we shot weren’t alive in the same way as we recognize it. They’re nothing like the Lavorix.”

  For a man who’d seen everything and put gauss slugs into most of it, Vance looked worried. And that had Recker worried too.