With Griffin fully-engrossed in his task, Conway stepped away to let him get on with it.
The Ragger mothership was a challenge for Griffin to figure out. He was accustomed to smaller warships and this one had many additional functions that were difficult to understand. The situation wasn’t helped by all of the tech modules the Ragger soldiers had plugged in. Griffin was left with the strong impression they didn’t know what the hell they were doing, so attached cables to everything in the hope that it would all work out in the end.
He’d been in touch with the Gradior throughout this mission and was relieved that his comms still linked from the very center of the mothership. Yeringar sounded like he had a better idea of how Ragger spaceships worked than Griffin did, but he wasn’t much help over the voice link.
He was about to cut the channel, when Dominguez told him something she’d just discovered. “You remember that planet the mothership is on a collision course with, sir?”
“Twenty-four hours, you said.”
“Twenty-two hours now. I’ve located something on the surface – signs of an enemy facility.”
The comms link was scratchy and poor, but Griffin detected something unspoken. “What kind of enemy facility?”
“A big one, sir. There’s also a flat area of ground nearby that’s about ten times bigger than the Durham landing field. It’s too far for me to be sure, but the sensor data suggests the Raggers have got things on there.”
“Spaceships?”
“Maybe. If so, we’re in deep crap, sir. There’s enough room for them to park up about a hundred heavies.”
“If this is their forward base, it makes sense they’d have lots of hardware.”
“I’d say this falls into the category of shitloads, rather than simply lots, sir.”
“There’s not much we can do about it at the moment.” He thought for a few moments. “Recommend to Yeringar that he takes the Gradior further away from this mothership. That way you’ve got a fighting chance when the Raggers spot it coming. And they will spot it.”
“Yes, sir. We’ve communicated our findings to the Unity League and Fangrin navies. We won’t know what’s going to happen for a while. Hours.”
“I understand.”
Griffin closed the channel and turned his attention once more to the Ragger console. He was beginning to understand how parts of it worked, if not well enough to formulate a plan on how to take advantage. The sighting of the forward base was a good find, though he would have preferred it if the mothership wasn’t heading directly towards it. He needed time and lots of it.
A winking light caught his eye on the part of the console he believed controlled the spaceship’s comms. He hadn’t given it much attention on the basis that he wasn’t planning on speaking to anyone other than the Gradior in the immediate future.
“What’s this?” he muttered, stepping closer. “Shit.”
Conway must have noticed something was wrong.
“What’s the matter, sir?”
“See this light?”
“It’s not a good light?”
“No – it means we’ve broadcast something recently.”
“What? And who is there to listen?”
“Raggers, Lieutenant. We’re on a collision course with a planet on which they’ve set up their forward base. Presumably it’s a good launching platform for attacks on New Destiny and every one of our other planets they know about.”
“Will the signal reach them?”
“Yes.” Griffin spotted something else – a blue switch in the down position. “We got here too late, Lieutenant. I think the Ragger soldiers managed to get out a signal before we killed them.” He pressed one of the touchscreens several times and an error message cleared to reveal a row of text. With an angry snarl, Griffin pulled free a series of cables which were plugged in nearby and let them fall to the floor.
“Sir?”
Griffin turned and nudged one of the tech boxes with his foot. “The Raggers somehow got one of the cables into the right place and this comms box sent out a handshake request.”
Even Conway knew what that meant. “It’ll reach that base and they’ll respond. Then, when we don’t answer, they’ll come and take a look.”
“Exactly.”
“Can we fix the situation?”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I really don’t know. I’ve got to get on.”
Conway went to join the soldiers, leaving Griffin trying hard to think of how to pull this around.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the course of the next few minutes, Griffin discovered several interesting facts. Firstly, the mothership’s most critical systems were unaffected by the EMP and the radiation. That meant its propulsion systems were online, as were its weapons systems and life support. The crew hadn’t disabled access, so they’d believed right until the end that they going to either reach safety or somehow live through a dose of radiation high enough to kill them a hundred times over.
Griffin couldn’t help himself and he took a look at the available weaponry. The Raggers had kitted out their ship well enough and it was armed with several dozen turrets, railguns concealed within the hull, many missile clusters, countermeasures of a type Griffin didn’t recognize, stealth modules and a few hundred incendiaries.
All of this meant that the mothership was still a viable force, except that it was comms and sensor blind, so none of its weapons could lock or fire. It also seemed that the stealth modules relied on data from the sensor feeds. With no sensors, the stealth was unavailable. It was the most powerful warship Griffin had ever known and it was also completely vulnerable.
The further he looked, the more limitations he found. The most irritating problem was that he could only access the mothership’s live systems. Its stored data – such as records of Ragger spaceship numbers and capabilities, as well as coordinates of their home planets – was unavailable and required an access code every time it was accessed, unlike the rest of the operational systems which remained live for as long as they were needed. It might be possible to unscramble things if they somehow got the warship to base. That would be a monumental victory.
He tried to speak to the Gradior once again, only this time the comms wouldn’t link. The receptor flickered between green and grey but he couldn’t obtain a channel. Using the transport as a relay was a good idea with limitations.
Conway came over to check on progress. The Raggers were either dead or keeping out of sight, though he looked on edge.
“Are you able to fix any of this, sir?”
“Maybe. These modules on the floor carry data for the sensors, so the Ragger soldiers believed the ones already installed were put out of action when the nuke went off. The sensor lenses themselves won’t have been affected, only the backend hardware which translates input data into something usable by the crew and the weapons systems.”
“That’s a lot of wires.”
“Some of them bunch up and should plug into the same interface port. It’s not as bad as it appears.”
“How long until the Ragger fleet shows up?”
“Soon. Minutes. The handshake we broadcast was sublight, so it won’t reach the enemy base straight away. If they realize it’s the mothership, they’ll come at highest speed.”
“Will they realize it’s the mothership, sir?”
“That’s a good question, Lieutenant. I think this comms unit…” he turned and nudged the module with his foot again, “is a generic item, meant to be installed and then set up depending on the spaceship it’s installed into. The Raggers might fit these into their transports for all we know.”
“Does that mean we sent an unidentifiable signal?”
“I think so. It’ll appear unusual, but since it’s come from Ragger equipment, it might not trigger a high-level alert.”
The more Griffin talked, the more he started thinking the situation wasn’t a complete loss. If the Raggers weren’t alarmed, they weren’t going to send out a whole fleet.
He had an idea.
“I need to get on, Lieutenant.”
Griffin crouched next to the comms module and read the labels on the ports. The layout was logical enough and he unplugged some of the wires, and pushed them into different ports. From the looks of it, the Ragger soldiers hadn’t screwed up as much as he first thought and they weren’t far from getting the comms system partly operational.
“Something’s flashing on this panel, sir,” said Conway.
“I don’t want to hear that, Lieutenant.” Griffin got to his feet and stared at the blinking light.
“Are the Raggers here?”
“Either that or they’re on their way. That’s a response to the handshake.”
“Can we do anything that’ll tell them everything’s fine and dandy?”
“No – we can’t directly respond to these automated handshakes. This is two computers saying hello. If we want a more in-depth discussion, we need to get this comms box plugged in.”
Movement caught Griffin’s eye. Both of the bridge doors opened at the same time and Raggers charged onto the bridge. Guns roared from both sides. Griffin had left his Gilner on the floor nearby and he threw himself towards it, while Conway helped out his squad. A grenade detonated in the closest doorway and chunks of burning Ragger flesh flew in every direction.
By the time Griffin had picked up his rifle, Conway was calling the all-clear. The bridge doors shut automatically and the soldiers began cramming bullets into depleted magazines.
“Any casualties?”
“No, sir. That explosion was one of the Ragger grenades – we killed it before it could throw. Things might have been different otherwise.”
Everything was uncertain, with attacks likely from inside and out. Griffin could work under pressure and he tried to put the distractions from his mind. Smoke from the burnt Raggers hung low to the floor and the smell of it was hard to ignore. Somehow it mingled with the scents of dried excrement, vomit and blood to make an odor that was far worse than anything Griffin had experienced before.
“Lieutenant, can you do something with these corpses?”
“Yes, sir.”
Conway ordered Zargol and Lonstril – the two strongest - to open the door and throw as much of the detritus outside as they could manage. They worked quickly and the worst of the smell subsided, though it didn’t go away.
It was enough to help Griffin’s concentration. He plugged wires into what he thought were the correct interfaces. A row of red lights appeared on the console and he tried again with the same outcome. The frustration made him think about Lieutenant Kenyon. Griffin had avoided dwelling on the fates of the officers he’d left behind on Satra. He could have done with Kenyon’s expertise now.
Griffin persevered and on his eighth attempt, the red lights went green. He clenched his fist in triumph and sent a command which told the console hardware to ignore the old, damaged comms units and use the new one instead.
It worked, kind of. The mothership’s comms were far too sophisticated to be completely repaired or replaced by this single module. Even so, several lights on the comms panel turned green. The mothership would be able to send a single outbound comms message and receive a single inbound message, just not both at the same time.
“Nothing inbound,” he said, breathing out in relief. “We might pull something out of the bag.”
Griffin started work on the sensors. The Ragger soldiers had hauled in lots of hardware for this, though none of it was correctly plugged in. Most soldiers knew a thing or two about comms, but not many had a background in sensor technology. Griffin had received training, though it didn’t make him an expert. First he needed Kenyon, now he needed Dominguez.
“I can see another new comms light, sir,” said Conway.
This one wasn’t a handshake – this one was something else. “Here we go, Lieutenant. The Raggers have come to investigate.”
“How many have they sent?”
“I might be able to tell you once I figure out where to plug those wires.”
The seat in front of the comms panel was covered in dried matter expelled from the body of an irradiated Ragger. Griffin couldn’t bring himself to sit on it, so he leaned across and pressed the button to accept the inbound comms. The message was in voice format and Griffin had no intention of talking directly to the ship or ships outside. Luckily, the comms system automatically converted it to text, which the language module in his flight helmet then translated.
ZN116> Explain your situation, warship Prime015.
The Ragger input methods were unfamiliar and Griffin clumsily entered his response, keeping it as simple as possible.
PRIME015> Critical systems failure resulting from proximity nuclear blast.
ZN116> Follow to surface installation.
PRIME015> This warship’s sensors are not operational.
ZN116> Put your navigation system into response mode. We will tie in and take control.
That wasn’t something Griffin wanted at all.
PRIME015> Negative. We are close to restoring some function. Then we will follow.
It wasn’t hard to assume that the original officer in charge of the mothership was a senior one and therefore able to do more or less what he chose. Griffin could only hope that Ragger command structures were similar to those in the ULAF. The response took a few seconds to come.
ZN116> Request voice contact.
The Raggers were either suspicious or just plain confused about the situation. Griffin hoped it was the latter.
PRIME015> Our comms are offline. We have patched in a single unit. It is not configured for outbound voice. We expect additional functionality to be restored in the coming minutes. Our priority is the sensors.
Again, the response didn’t come immediately. While he waited to see if the Raggers would accept his lies, Griffin suddenly remembered the transport embedded in the mothership’s hull. If the enemy ship detected the transport, they would definitely have some difficult questions for him. Prime015 was a massive ship and Griffin kept his fingers crossed that the damaged part of the hull was currently facing away from the enemy.
ZN116> We will wait for you to regain sensor functionality, then you will follow to the surface installation.
PRIME015> Agreed. Maintain an open channel.
Griffin was about to resume his efforts with the sensor module when he had another thought. The comms link was badly configured, but it could do a whole lot more than carry a basic text message. In fact, it was designed to accept any sort of data.
PRIME015> Please upload local battle network data to our comms system.
Another pause.
ZN116> Acknowledged. Your single upload channel is too narrow. The operation will not complete immediately.
PRIME015> Please commence.
The channel was cut from the far end and the data stream began at once. Griffin itched to see how many warships the Raggers had committed to their forward base.
He left the comms system and focused on the sensor module instead. If he was able to restore some functionality, then maybe the mothership wouldn’t be quite so defenseless. Possibilities and ideas bombarded Griffin, some of them risky in the extreme and of unproven viability. He realized his imagination was running away with him. His thirst to avenge Satra was unquenched and it was screwing with his rational thought.
After twenty minutes of frustration, during which Griffin became increasingly convinced the Raggers would decide something was wrong onboard their mothership, he finally hit on the right combination of data cables and interface ports.
He sprang to his feet and glanced at the progress of the battle network update. It was hardly more than twenty percent complete and he cursed that he didn’t have time to configure one of the wide-bore ports on the comms module. He couldn’t manage everything and he focused on the sensors.
“Let’s give this a try,” he said.
Conway sensed this was an important moment and he stood close by. The soldiers had as much
of a stake in this working as Griffin did.
The sensor panel lit up and a utilization gauge appeared to show that the hardware was tapping into the mothership’s central computer.
“Come on, come on.”
Static appeared on one of the screens and Griffin closed his eyes in relief. He leaned towards the image and waited for it to resolve into something useful. The static vanished and was replaced by the blackness of space. “Yes!” he exclaimed.
Conway took a step closer and peered at the image, as if he expected to see a thousand Ragger spaceships lined up outside. “What now, sir?” he asked.
Griffin changed the focus of the lens, hunting for ZN116 and whatever other Ragger ships were out there. His feeling of victory faded, since the enemy weren’t visible on the sensor array he’d activated with this replacement module. It was possible they were a long way off and would require a proper sensor sweep to detect, but it was more likely they were out of the visual arc.
“What happens now is that this mothership’s navigational system will attempt to position itself by reading the local stars. Then it’ll try to use the incomplete battle network data to see where the friendlies are located. The trouble is, we’ve only got one sensor and our comms are at less than one percent of their expected operational levels.”
“Nothing we can’t get around, sir.”
Griffin laughed. “I didn’t have you down as an optimist, Lieutenant.”
“I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist, sir. I’d like to say I’m a realist but my wife wouldn’t agree. In truth, I don’t know what the hell I am.”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re here on the most powerful spaceship the ULAF has ever set foot on, and we’re going to do the same as we always do.”
“Fight until we win.”
A rush of elation filled Griffin and he didn’t know if it came from determination, hope or madness. He didn’t care one way or another. Before he could say anything more, a green dot appeared on a screen a few feet to his left.
Alien Firestorm (Fire and Rust Book 2) Page 18