Alien Firestorm (Fire and Rust Book 2)

by Anthony James

“If only it was so easy! What it does is analyze the visible emissions of the departing spaceship, which allows us to replicate those conditions using our own tharniol drive. We must depart immediately!”

  “What about our fleets? You said the Ragger ship was more than we could handle.”

  “It is, but what if it reaches its destination and then goes elsewhere? What if it heads for another Unity League world? Who will be there to witness it?”

  “Many troops are stationed on New Destiny. We could land and they could board the Gradior. It will give us another option.”

  Yeringar looked as if he was giving it some consideration. Then he shook his head slowly. “This is the time.”

  The Fangrin looked as if he was determined, so Griffin didn’t argue. However, he had other things to discuss before he was willing to begin.

  “How accurate is this tracking hardware?” he asked “What if we appear right on top of the enemy spaceship?”

  “It has a margin of error. Many zeroes after the decimal point, followed by a one. Over the course of a journey at lightspeed, it can result in a significant divergence.”

  Griffin wasn’t ready to let the enemy get away and anything he could do to make it harder for them was something he was ready to accept.

  “We can send FTL comms when we arrive to make our fleets aware.” He narrowed his eyes. “The Fangrin will come?”

  Yeringar bared his teeth and Griffin was still none-the-wiser if it was a smile or something more threatening. There was probably some nuance he’d learn through exposure. “We will come. A Ragger capital ship is a target we cannot ignore.”

  “How many such ships do they have?”

  “More than one and fewer than twenty. That is our best guess.”

  “Let’s get after them.”

  The Fangrin leaned over and tapped a thick, gloved finger onto a part of one display which Griffin was aware of and hadn’t spent too long thinking about.

  “The Gradior’s tharniol drive does not have much fuel,” said Yeringar.

  “Enough to get us where we’re going?”

  “I don’t know. And every outward journey has a return one.”

  “And a hundred cups of [Translation uncertain] at the end of it,” said Zargol.

  “Two hundred cups at the end of this one,” laughed Yeringar.

  Griffin experienced a feeling that he was being swept along in the tide. The Fangrin were something else and he wondered why the hell the Unity League hadn’t managed to find some way to settle with the aliens long before this. He didn’t ask Yeringar about it, but there was something else he needed to be clear on.

  “Who commands the Gradior?”

  The Fangrin’s laughter died away. “I cannot fly this spaceship alone and you are not enough in tune with it to do so either. We will assist each other until our goals are no longer aligned.”

  “I agree,” said Griffin. He’d been in the ULAF long enough that he’d learned how to work with other branches of the military effectively and without treading on too many toes. The Fangrin was a new challenge, but this was a good time to see if he could work with his former enemies.

  “I will send the results of the lightspeed tracking to the command console,” said Yeringar. “Feed the details into the tharniol drive and we will be gone from New Destiny.”

  Griffin obliged and the Gradior’s drive detonators fired. The sound of them wasn’t anything like as well-suppressed as the last time and he guessed something was going to fail eventually, given how much damage the spaceship had taken. Even external damage could have a knock-on effect that might result in unforeseen consequences later. Without a maintenance crew to investigate, he was left with nothing more than hope that everything would hang together until the coming mission was done.

  Eight minutes later, the Gradior’s enormous tharniol drive cast the spaceship into high lightspeed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It didn’t take long for Griffin to spot a problem.

  “The control computer for the tharniol drive isn’t showing a journey duration.”

  “No.”

  “So we have no idea when we’ll get to wherever it is we’re going?” asked Dominguez. “It sounds as if you Fangrin need to work on the fine-tuning of your tech.”

  “In time,” rumbled Yeringar. “Until then, I would suggest you sleep at your posts.”

  Griffin wasn’t ready for sleep yet, though he was hungry and thirsty. He climbed from his seat and walked to the food station, which consisted of a wall-mounted screen above an opening.

  “Would you like assistance?” asked Zargol.

  “Does this thing serve anything that isn’t lumps of ground meat?”

  “It serves many varieties of food products. Let me show you.”

  The Fangrin pushed some buttons and an empty tray dropped into the opening. A moment later, a pile of something brown landed on the tray. A second after that, a spoon landed in the mush. Griffin sighed, guessing this was the best he was going to get.

  “What about water?”

  “Yes, water is also an option. Would you prefer [Translation unclear]?”

  “Water is fine.”

  Griffin returned to his station with his tray. Dominguez caught his eye and treated him to a dazzling smile.

  “I’ll let you go first, sir.”

  “You’re all heart, Lieutenant.”

  The Fangrin food tasted like beef and it was mixed in with a semiliquid substance which might have been gravy. Griffin wasn’t squeamish and he ate it all with the spoon.

  “What animal did this come from?” It was probably something he should have asked sooner.

  “A [Translation unclear],” said Zargol.

  “Is that any relation to a cow?”

  “I do not know.”

  The water was just water and Griffin drank it in one go. He turned to find Dominguez watching him. She grinned again.

  “I feel fine,” he said, saving her the effort of asking the question. “Great, in fact.”

  “In that case, my turn,” she said.

  Griffin left her to it and sat in thought. This was the perfect opportunity to speak to Yeringar in order to fill in the many gaps in his knowledge about the Raggers. Not only that, he wanted to learn more about the Fangrin, like why they were such warmongering bastards. He wasn’t in the mood for talking – the anger from the destruction of Satra hadn’t left him and he didn’t want to expose himself to anything that would bring it to the fore.

  He wasn’t expecting the time at lightspeed to be short and he wasn’t disappointed. An hour went by and then two. Griffin formed a mental image of the Unity League’s chart of known space and attempted to figure out which planets fell within the ever-expanding circle of the Gradior’s travel. It was a lot of data to think about. He remembered the journey to Zevrol taking eleven days and depleting half of the Star Burner’s tharniol reserves in the process. It was feasible that the far reaches of Fangrin territory could be much further away than that. And he didn’t have any idea whatsoever what the Raggers classed as theirs.

  The Gradior had a star chart in its databanks, but the Fangrin represented their known space in a format which Griffin found difficult to comprehend. It was like the aliens visualized in a way that was completely different to how a human would do it.

  Eventually, he got up from his seat and spoke to Yeringar to see if the Fangrin was willing to talk. The alien was doing something to one of the comms subsystems and he looked up.

  “Maybe you can fill in a few details about the Raggers for us,” said Griffin.

  “If you wish.”

  “I have looked at the Gradior’s star chart and am unable to locate the battlefronts.”

  “When you can fly at many times lightspeed, a battlefront is wherever you make it, Jake Griffin.”

  “I know. Perhaps I should have used the word flashpoints.”

  Yeringar tapped at a keyboard and his display changed to show the chart data which Griffin had struggled
with earlier. The Fangrin typed an extra command and the data was replaced by a graphical representation which Griffin was far more comfortable with.

  “I will not show you individual Fangrin worlds, human. However, this area in green is where many of our planets lie.” He rotated the map and zoomed out. “Our projections suggest this area in red is inhabited by Raggers.”

  “Twice as many systems as the Fangrin,” said Griffin.

  “It is not so simple, as I’m sure you are aware. We are losing, human and the end will come within the decade, unless our scientists are able to advance our technology to a stage where we can challenge our enemies head-on.”

  Griffin couldn’t help asking. “Where’s the Unity League in all this?”

  “Here.” Yeringar rotated the map and zoomed in. “This area in orange.”

  It wasn’t much to look at in comparison to the Fangrin and Ragger territory. Griffin refused to accept it was insignificant since he knew how many billions of people lived there.

  “There is much history here, Jake Griffin. Conflict, death, loss and, sometimes, victory. The Raggers are the worst of the universe. A pestilence upon every species they meet.”

  “And your comms station data brought them right to our front door.”

  “The blame is not ours human.”

  Griffin sighed. “No, I don’t suppose it is. What big plans do the Fangrin have to turn this around? Aside from this new technology you’re working on?”

  “Alliances with our former enemies. This one is working out very well so far, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The Fangrin’s eyes gleamed with what might have been humor. Griffin wasn’t so bitter that he couldn’t accept the hand of friendship. Maybe friendship was the wrong word, but he didn’t feel much anger towards these Fangrin anymore.

  “I never expected to find myself piloting a Fangrin heavy cruiser at any point in my career,” he admitted. “Nor eating a tray covered in Fangrin slops.”

  “Hah!” said Zargol. “He enjoyed it! I knew he would!”

  The moment passed and Griffin asked Yeringar some other questions about the Raggers. What he heard didn’t leave him feeling positive about the future of the Unity League. Nothing the Fangrin had done was enough – the Raggers just kept on coming like they spawned in unlimited numbers from a cosmic vat somewhere out in the void. Yeringar was reluctant to talk at much length about the appetites of his opponents, but Griffin was left with the impression the Raggers had committed many atrocities.

  “This is why you’ve begun deploying nukes?” he asked.

  “It is the first time in over five hundred years that we have used them,” said Yeringar. “The Raggers will not consume irradiated food.”

  The words shocked Griffin and one look at Yeringar’s face told him he shouldn’t ask for any more details. War was harsh, particularly when you were forced into playing by your opponent’s rules.

  At seven hours, the Gradior’s tharniol drive went silent. Griffin was set for an extended journey and the imminent end caught him by surprise. He was already seated and readied himself.

  The entry into local space was more grating than he expected. Griffin breathed steadily to keep on top of the nausea and watched the sensor feeds, waiting for them to resolve a picture of outside. The grey static turned into the blackness of space.

  “Where are we?” Griffin asked. The sublight propulsion fired up and he took the controls.

  “I’ll let you know once the sensors have finished interpreting the star data, sir.”

  It was a tense wait. The Gradior had effectively flown blind to get here and it was going to take time before its navigation computer was able to position the spaceship correctly. Not only that, the comms system required coordinates in order to send a message. Until the sensors finished, there’d be no FTL comms.

  “Seven hours isn’t far,” said Griffin. “This has to be on the maps.”

  He pictured the Fangrin star chart again. It was possible for a seven-hour journey to bring them to the edges of known space if the Raggers had chosen to fly that way. The universe was big enough that the Unity League hadn’t explored extensively in every possible direction and New Destiny was close to the fringes already.

  The navigation computer updated and Dominguez sent an FTL signal to the closest Unity League base, while Yeringar did likewise to the nearest Fangrin receptors.

  “We’re somewhere outside of both Unity League and Fangrin territory,” said Dominguez once she was done. “A solar system without a name. I’m scanning to see what we’ve got.”

  “If the Raggers have extended their operations to this place, they occupy more territory than we imagined,” said Yeringar.

  “Close proximity to all of us,” said Griffin. “A good place from which to launch an attack on New Destiny.”

  “I agree. And also a good place from which to launch an attack on several important Fangrin installations,” said Yeringar.

  “One star,” said Dominguez. “Three visible planets, with a high likelihood of others blindside or just too damn far away for the sensors to pick up in a five-minute sweep.”

  The star wasn’t anything unusual – mid-sized and old. The nearest planet was a million klicks away - dark reds mixed with greys and blacks. The distance was too great for the Gradior’s sensors to build a clear picture. With time they might find something.

  “Did the lightspeed tracker bring us to the right place?” asked Griffin.

  “Yes,” said Yeringar. “This is where our enemy came.”

  “You mentioned a margin of error. Can you nail down a figure on the basis that it took seven hours to get here?” Griffin lifted his hands in frustration at the job ahead. “If we can’t narrow it down, we’ve got a hell of a lot of searching to do.”

  “Time for our navies to reach us,” said Yeringar.

  Griffin wasn’t so sure. “I can’t guarantee the Unity League will commit significant forces to this, not with our planets under attack. I think they’ll station the Invigilator at New Destiny and every spare ship in the fleet will be patrolling the skies of Invarol and Runston.”

  “Those worlds were in the data from our comms station?” asked Yeringar.

  “Yes – I can’t imagine high command will tolerate an attack on either. Invarol is densely-populated.”

  “I understand,” said the Fangrin. “However, my own navy will come. They will understand the prize.”

  “What is the prize?” asked Griffin. “I thought we were hunting a single big spaceship.”

  “Why do you think it returned here, human? Did the Raggers choose at random? No, there is something else.”

  It made sense. “An installation? I assume the Raggers guard their assets well.”

  A glint of sharp, white teeth. “That is expected. However, they are not immune to surprise and we should see this as an opportunity to drive them away from the borders of our territories.”

  The Fangrin was right – Griffin felt sure of it. The Raggers had set up base here and the mothership had run for home. It was imperative to locate whatever was in this solar system and neutralize it. Yeringar was confident his own navy would recognize the fact and Griffin was equally confident that Fleet Admiral Stone would do likewise. Of course, the Unity League’s hands would be tied in what sort of response they could offer – the human navy was much smaller than that of the Fangrin and it had four vulnerable planets to defend.

  “I’ve located a fourth planet, far side of the sun,” said Dominguez.

  “Focus on what’s close, Lieutenant. For now.”

  Yeringar fell silent while Griffin piloted the Gradior along an erratic course. If the Raggers had a presence nearby, he didn’t want the confirmation to come in the form of a railgun shot through the front bulkhead.

  Sometimes the future could be defined by the whims of chance. “The error logs for the lightspeed tracker are empty,” said Yeringar.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we followed the enemy
ship with almost perfect accuracy. I have never seen this happen before.”

  “How close to perfect?”

  “I don’t know. The error tracking system also has a margin for error.”

  “I’ve got something,” said Dominguez. “Huge quantities of gamma radiation. Holy crap. It’s the Ragger ship!”

  The urgency in her voice alarmed Griffin. “Put it on the tactical!” he shouted. “Where is it?”

  A red circle appeared on the tactical and Griffin was hardly able to believe its proximity.

  “Twenty thousand klicks,” he said

  “And heading our way, sir.”

  Griffin’s eyes glanced towards the sensor array which was focused on the position of the enemy capital ship.

  At first, he saw nothing and he assumed the Raggers had their stealth tech running. Then, he noticed a grey speck far off to starboard, which became steadily bigger. He swore – the enemy had found them first and now they were coming. At this distance, there’d be no hiding and no getting away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Yeringar was fast and he launched Tarx missiles from three clusters. The railguns were aimed the wrong way and Griffin turned the Gradior so that the fronts could fire. Every instinct screamed at him to turn tail and run. With the mothership now at twelve thousand klicks, the only option was to give it everything.

  Thirty plasma warheads exploded at the same time, creating a smear of light far away. Dominguez zoomed in the sensors and Griffin got his first look at their opponent. The Ragger spaceship was a disk like the early indications suggested. It was partly hidden amongst plasma fire, but not so much that he couldn’t see the launchers bristling from the top and bottom. Otherwise, it was completely without feature – a huge construction of alloy with enough weapons to knock out an entire fleet.

  “Waiting on Tarx reload,” said Yeringar.

  The railgun capacitors emptied and Griffin felt the thump of their discharge. He was sure the Fangrin’s shots were accurate, but the damage was lost in the light from the first Tarx salvo.

  “Wait!” shouted Dominguez.

  Hesitation was something that killed, but there was a note in her voice that got Griffin’s attention. It got Yeringar’s attention too.