Dark of the Void (Forged Alliance Book 1)

by Anthony James

  Halfway to the Firestorm’s boarding ramp, he was painfully aware that his body hadn’t recovered from the earlier run and he breathed deeply. Another burst from the tank’s chain guns was joined by a second explosion on the bay doors overhead. Flint looked again, expecting to see red heat forming, but so far, the twin slabs of alloy were the usual dull grey of metal.

  “Move,” Flint panted, as he ascended the steps leading to the Firestorm’s airlock. Here, beneath the warship, the propulsion note was even more oppressive than that of the Lost Boy on the streets above, and his head ached with it.

  Again the tank’s guns fired and Flint twisted with one hand on the rail. From this height, he could see straight over the top of the Gundik to distant shapes in the cargo shaft. The chain guns unleashed another torrent and the Kilvar were mown down like chaff. If the enemy hoped to achieve something by throwing bodies at a tank, Flint couldn’t imagine what it might be.

  “What the hell are they playing at?” gasped Maddox. “That Gundik could chew through thousands of those bastards before it runs out of ammo.”

  Flint didn’t bother guessing. He entered the airlock space and spared one last glance through the opening to check on the progress of the exium prototype. It was floating past the boarding ramp in the direction of the Firestorm’s midsection, though where it would be installed, Flint had no idea.

  The inner airlock door was held in an open position by the onboard security system, allowing Flint and his crew to dash through into the passages beyond. These passages were a little more lavishly proportioned than he was accustomed to, and with far more diagnostic stations. A high number of technical personnel were also in evidence and they pressed themselves into the walls to allow Flint and his crew to pass.

  Fleet warship design didn’t vary much when it came to interiors and Flint didn’t require directions to the bridge. He located it easily enough atop a short flight of steps and with a three-metre-thick blast door – currently open – offering protection from attempts to storm the warship’s command and control centre.

  Slowing as he entered, Flint looked around. The Firestorm’s bridge was much like every other bridge, being overly compact, with a low ceiling that sloped towards the nose. Each console was the latest model and teams of technical staff bustled around, comparing readouts on their diagnostic tablets. The only significant addition to the bridge was the obliterator core in one corner. Its gravity drive was powered up and thick data cables connected the device to an interface port in the floor.

  “I’m Captain Flint – anyone who doesn’t need to be here, please leave,” said Flint loudly. He advanced towards the command console at the front of the bridge. The obliterator core made the air freezing, but he couldn’t feel it through his suit insulation.

  “RL Ivon, sir,” one man introduced himself. He was about forty years old, wearing a combat suit, and looked as exhausted as Lera-Vel and everyone else. “The Firestorm is as operational as we can make it in the circumstances. We’re severing the last diagnostic links and the vessel will be in active mode in the next two minutes. After that, we’re just waiting for the exium unit to tie in.”

  Without turning, Flint indicated his crew should enter their seats while he finished talking with RL Ivon. “How long until the exium tie ins are finished?” he asked. “And what the hell is the prototype meant to do, anyway?” Flint knew that exium was meant to act as a stabiliser, but what the precise effects would be on a warship, he didn’t know.

  Ivon took a deep breath. “Well, Captain Flint, you’re aware that we can achieve a high degree of overstress on a standard module of refined ternium, but when we increase the overstress beyond a certain level, the substance becomes unstable and unpredictable.”

  “Yes, I know this,” said Flint. Rightly predicting he was about to be given the long answer instead of the short one, he stepped past RL Ivon and sat at the command chair. The console was powered up and all he needed to do was sign in with his security details.

  RL Ivon leaned against the console and continued his exposition. “We know the Lavorix experimented with superstressing ternium, which – despite what you may think – is not the same as a greater degree of overstress. We also know they were practising a method whereby several highly overstressed ternium modules would hold a smaller quantity of superstressed ternium modules stable.” Ivon attempted a smile. “Kind of stable.”

  “Not at all stable,” said Flint. “Tell me about the exium before the Kilvar warship kills everyone.”

  “The exium will align the ternium atoms in the Firestorm’s engines and allow them to produce a far greater output than any of the alliance’s overstressed propulsion systems produced to date.”

  Flint had an eye for detail and he caught the doubt in Ivon’s voice. “You don’t know what’s going to happen, do you?”

  “No.” RL Ivon pushed himself defiantly away from the console and stared at Flint. “This is what we were planning to test – we weren’t expecting a Kilvar warship to drop into orbit and begin firing missiles and energy beams.”

  “Sir, I’m bringing up the sensors,” called Lieutenant Garrett from her station, offset and behind.

  “Put the feeds on the screen,” said Flint. He turned once more to RL Ivon. “We’re running out of time. All I need to know is will the Firestorm fly out of this subsurface bay, will its mesh deflector activate and will its weapons fire?”

  “Yes to all three, Captain. Assuming the exium unit ties in like it’s meant to.” Ivon checked over his shoulder. “That’s Lieutenant Stan Fredericks, isn’t it?”

  Flint nodded. “That’s him all right.”

  “I read about what he did on the Pulveriser at Ivisto. For all our sakes, we need him to be that good.”

  “He is.”

  Backing away, Ivon began calling for the other technicians to exit the bridge. Flint didn’t watch, since his attention was taken by the sensor feeds which had appeared on the bulkhead.

  “Visible damage on the surface doors,” said Lieutenant Garrett.

  The two immense plates of alloy were white hot in the centre, changing to orange and then red further out. Such was the intensity that Flint couldn’t be sure if the metal was bowing. The gravity generators would support them for a time, but they couldn’t do anything against a rupture in the metal, and if Flint was any judge, it wouldn’t be long before the Kilvar weapons tore an opening.

  He shifted his gaze to the feeds of the bay. The exium prototype wasn’t visible anywhere, though a bunch of technicians were running for the mid-section boarding ramp. Meanwhile, dozens of personnel were on their way up the forward ramp and others were on their way.

  “The Gundik is still firing, sir,” said Becerra. “Here’s a zoom of the cargo shaft.”

  On the zoomed feed, Flint spotted three Kilvar drop into sight. They landed on the canted lift platform and rolled down, while the Gundik’s chain guns raked them with slugs. At the bottom of the slope, they joined the other dead aliens already chewed up by high-calibre gunfire.

  “Commander Maddox, what’s the status of our weapons and countermeasures?”

  “We’re carrying hellburners, railers, interceptors, shock bombs and drones,” she said. “There’s an entry for something called a Fracture and it’s offline. There’s also an entry for the destroyer cannon, again offline. Looks like they’re planning to install a Terrus-V gun and something called a decay pulse at some point, but they haven’t fitted the hardware.” She swore softly. “In fact, there’s a shit-ton of options on the weapons panel, most of it currently unavailable.”

  Having read the files, Flint knew what most of those weapons could do if they were fitted and operational, and it gave him a shiver to think that many of the ideas and underlying tech originated from a species which had done its best to make humanity and the Daklan extinct. The Lavorix were gone, but their one-time opponents were here at Basalt and it was going to require something special to take out their warship.

  “Aim one of our
railers at the cargo shaft,” said Flint, putting thoughts of alien tech from his mind. “Lieutenant Becerra, pass on the order to those soldiers. I want them onboard the Firestorm as quickly as possible.”

  Flint had signed into his console almost without thinking and he checked the propulsion readouts. “Twenty-seven percent of maximum,” he said loudly.

  “Yes, sir,” said Lieutenant Fredericks. “There’re no new tie-ins, so the exium unit isn’t in place.”

  “I can’t see it on the external sensors,” said Flint. “It’s gone somewhere.”

  “There’s likely an underside hatch leading through the armour to the prototype’s intended position, sir. I guess it’s on its way.”

  “Did you hear what RL Ivon said?”

  “Most of it, sir. When the exium is patched in, I expect everything on my console will go crazy and I’ll have to figure it out in double-quick time.” Fredericks grunted with dry humour. “I hope I’m the miracle worker he says I am.”

  “Do you require a comms link to RL Moseley?” asked Flint. “Or should I ask Lera-Vel to come to the bridge?”

  “I’d prefer it if they stay away, sir. The thing about designers, scientists, researchers and technicians is that they’re shit hot when it comes to figuring out how things fit together, or how to make things work once that fitting together is finished. But if you put them in front of a station when the missiles are coming in left, right and centre, that’s when those brains of theirs don’t know how to handle things.”

  “I understand,” said Flint. Privately, he thought Moseley and Lera-Vel had far more steel than Fredericks believed and he was equally sure the latter would be on her way to the bridge, with or without an invitation.

  “The status monitors are reporting a new tie in!” said Fredericks.

  “Is it the exium?”

  “Yes, sir, it’s the exium and the tie in is complete.”

  Before Flint had met RL Moseley, he’d have expected something slow and steady, requiring infinite patience before an Integration Testing Stage 1 out of 50: Complete green light appeared on his console, thirty minutes after the Firestorm had been wrecked by incoming missiles. Now that he’d been granted an insight into the somewhat more eccentric – gung-ho, perhaps – methods of the man and his cohorts, Flint was prepared for fireworks.

  He watched and waited, hoping the exium prototype would be worth the effort involved getting it here – for the sake of Private Arnold and everyone else who’d perished since the Kilvar climbed out of their stinking celestial cesspit and decided it was time to attack the alliance.

  In this, Flint’s hopes were high.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ten seconds after the exium tie in was complete, the Firestorm’s engine note settled and its output gauge rose to forty-five percent. Ten seconds after that, the output gauge was at eighty-three percent, and the propulsion sounded almost normal.

  “Output still climbing,” said Fredericks. “The exium stabilisation is sweeping through our ternium blocks way faster than I’d imagined it would.”

  “It’s a good thing it’s happening quickly,” said Lieutenant Garrett. “The bay doors took another hit and I can see the night sky through the hole.”

  “Damnit, we can’t go yet,” said Flint. It wasn’t just about the engines. The bay personnel weren’t onboard and the destroyer cannon - the weapon Fleet Admiral Recker believed would bypass the Kilvar defences – was offline.

  Unfortunately, like seemingly everything else fitted to the Firestorm, the cannon was a prototype and only anticipated to create an 800-metre sphere of negative energy. After that, its components required an extended cooldown before the weapon would fire again. Given the size of the opposing warship, a single discharge every five minutes wasn’t going to cut it.

  “Everything’s either missing, or limited by something,” said Maddox. Since coming onboard, she’d hardly looked up from the weapons panel and it didn’t seem like she’d unearthed any game-changers.

  “As long as the destroyer cannon fires, we’re going to put a hole in that enemy warship and draw it away from the base. That’s the intention, anyway,” said Flint.

  “What do you mean intention, sir?” asked Maddox.

  Flint let the others in on the bad news. “Fleet Admiral Recker thinks we may need to be in superstress before the weapon will be effective. We’re facing a lot of unknowns.”

  Maddox’s worried face broke into an unexpected, broad grin. “Screw the issues and screw the unknowns. We’re going to give those Kilvar assholes something to think about.”

  “Hell yeah!” said Lieutenant Bolan. The man had been so quiet that Flint had almost forgotten he was here.

  “Glad you’re still with us, Lieutenant.”

  “I was always told if I’ve got nothing to say, to keep my mouth shut, sir.”

  “Maybe you should start following that advice,” said Fredericks dryly.

  During the short exchange, the Firestorm’s engine output had climbed to a level indicating a two-hundred-percent level of overstress, and the readouts continued heading the right way. Not only that, but the engine note had developed a hard edge that was different to that of any normal ternium drive.

  Maybe it’s a good sign, Flint thought. If it isn’t, I’ll soon find out.

  “Mesh deflector online,” said Maddox.

  The words had hardly left her mouth when the red Kilvar energy beam sliced through the upper doors at an angle and struck the exit shaft wall a few hundred metres above the Firestorm. It wasn’t close enough to trigger the mesh deflector, but it turned the alloy and rock wall into a deep, molten orange.

  “The Firestorm has a two-module deflector, sir,” said Maddox. “Two hits and we’re out of answers until the hardware recharges.”

  “The last few people are coming onboard,” said Becerra. Figures were running hard from the Gundik towards the boarding ramp. “That one’s Lieutenant Vance.”

  “Time’s a-pushing, Lieutenant,” Flint heard Garrett say on the comms.

  Flint shook his head in frustration. His warship was under attack, but he couldn’t leave those soldiers behind. Perhaps the Kilvar would ignore the bay once the Firestorm was in the sky, but he doubted it. They’d send a dozen missiles through the opening on the off chance the alliance was holding several other pieces of juicy new technology in the same place as the warship.

  More people will die if I lose the Firestorm while it’s on the ground.

  For the second time since he first arrived at Tibulon, Flint was confronted by the knowledge of what it was like to hold so many lives in his hand. He’d always known he might someday be forced to choose between two bad ways and now those choices were knocking on his door before he was ready to deal with them.

  “We hold!” he said, anger coming out in his voice.

  The centre area of the upper bay doors was melted into a sludge by the energy beam strike and rivers of it dripped groundward, hardening into dull red pillars which hung from the edges of the massive hole above.

  “Three hundred percent output and climbing!” said Fredericks.

  “Why aren’t we on the Amber battle network?” asked Flint. “Obtain access and do it now, even if you need to force open a channel to Fleet Admiral Recker.”

  “Uh, the Fleet Admiral is on the comms, sir,” said Garrett, her voice betraying early indications of stress. “He wants to know what the hell is holding us back.”

  “We’ve got troops on the ground. The Fleet Admiral will understand,” said Flint, fighting to keep the tension from his voice. “Ask him to add us to the battle network.”

  “He’s gone, sir.”

  “Well get him back!”

  “Sir, Captain Montero has added us to the battle network,” said Becerra. “Tactical populating. We have thirty-two operational warships in the arena.”

  The quantity of green dots on the tactical was heartening, since it indicated that many members of the local fleet had recovered from the surprise attack. A
glance was enough for Flint to understand their tactics – the Amber warships were staying low beneath the planet’s curvature to interfere with the Kilvar vessel’s line-of-sight missile lock.

  Every few seconds, the alliance ships would appear, launch missiles and countermeasures and then drop out of sight again. Against this invulnerable opponent it was a delaying tactic and nothing more. There again, Flint thought, the entire fleet was waiting to discover if the Firestorm would turn the tide.

  “Commander Maddox, what’s keeping that destroyer cannon?”

  “I don’t know, sir. There’s technical documentation that I haven’t had time to read through. I’m sure it’s not a hardware issue, which means it requires more power than the engines are providing.”

  Flint opened his mouth to respond, when his intended reply was drowned out by a step change increase in propulsion volume. For two or three seconds, the metallic howl of overstressed ternium become something different – hollow and rattling, which made Flint think of a dying man’s last breath. His eyes went to the status panel and the electronic needles and numerical readouts had gone completely crazy, spiking way beyond anything Flint had seen on a warship before.

  As quickly as it came, the hollow sound of propulsion vanished, to be replaced once more by the same howling as before. Except this time the howl contained hints of pure, unrestrained savagery. The needles dropped back to a six hundred percent overstress and started rising again.

  “Tell me what’s happening, Lieutenant Fredericks,” said Flint tightly.

  “I think we went briefly into superstress, sir,” said Fredericks. He sounded both excited and utterly terrified. “I don’t know what caused us to switch back. Hell, I don’t know half of what’s happening here.”

  “You might not have long to find out, Lieutenant.” Flint’s flesh had become deathly cold at the thought of what could happen if the exium prototype’s programming pushed the Firestorm’s engines too far. The potential for catastrophe was real, yet if Fleet Admiral Recker was correct, the weapons might not be effective without embracing that risk.