“The planetary impact Commander Aston mentioned?”
“It’s possible. It’s these craters I’m more interested in.”
“Spell it out for me.”
“The data isn’t precise, but I believe this clustered area of craters is unnaturally circular.” Burner left his seat and approached the bulkhead screen. He stretched out and traced his finger around the red oval. “You see how the oval distorts as it approaches the planet’s cusp? That’s to take into account the curvature as we see it from way out here. In reality, it’s a perfect circle on top of this representation of Oldis.”
Recker was interested. The area of craters was blotchy on the image, owing to the quality of the raw data. Even so, he could see how the indentations were all within the red oval.
“What’s your feeling, Lieutenant Burner?”
“I’d prefer a closer look.” He turned towards Commander Aston. “And a second opinion never hurt anyone.”
“Well?” asked Recker.
Aston hadn’t shifted her gaze from the image since Burner first put it up on the screen. She nodded slowly. “I hadn’t made as much progress as Lieutenant Burner,” she said. “Looking at this, I think we’ve got something to go on.”
“But what is it?” asked Eastwood in puzzlement. “Are you saying the Daklan use this planet for target practice?”
“I’m not saying anything,” said Burner. “Other than to point out that regular patterns don’t often show up in an irregular universe.”
That was enough for Recker to decide that Oldis required further investigation. “I promised you an hour to find something and you did it in half that. Will another thirty minutes allow you to refine your conclusion?”
“I don’t think we should rush in, sir. On the other hand, we can see less than two-thirds of the target area from our current position. If we were positioned right overhead, that would make things easier for me and Commander Aston.”
“What about the rest of the visible surface? Have you seen enough of that?”
“I’ve seen what I can given that we’re sitting at forty million klicks. There could be a dozen Daklan installations down there that our sensors can’t pick up from here. Of course we might jump to ten million klicks and find all we’re looking at is a bunch of naturally formed craters from closer up,” said Burner.
“But from that range you’ll be able to rule out any possibility of an error in what you’ve concluded from forty million klicks?”
“Yes, sir. There is a chance those craters are entirely natural and the pattern might not even fit so neatly inside the circle as it appears from here. At ten million it’ll take me about two minutes to tell you with certainty.”
“The monitoring stations look for patterns, amongst other things,” said Recker. “What we’ve found on Oldis must be what triggered that thirty-four-percent evaluation.”
“Are we going in, sir?” asked Aston. “Speed or safety?”
“You’ve got another thirty minutes,” said Recker. “It’s not like we’ve got a mission timer running.”
During those thirty additional minutes, Lieutenant Burner discovered the possibility of something else.
“The chance of a meteorite storm landing within a perfect circle is close to zero,” he said, when half of the time was used up. “So I decided to focus on the exact centre of the area.”
“You found something?” said Recker, feeling his stomach tightening.
“Maybe. The penetrative scans can’t puncture the surface from here, but I think they’ve picked up something on the top of it, which the raw data suggests has a 28% chance of being metal.”
“Could it be subsurface ores revealed by whatever made those craters?”
“Absolutely it could be, sir.”
“We’ll go check it out. Lieutenant Eastwood, warm up the ternium drive. We’re aiming for ten million klicks directly above the centre of Lieutenant Burner’s circle.”
“Yes, sir. Coordinates entered. Fifteen minutes to warm up.”
“A suggestion, sir,” said Aston. “Lieutenant Burner and I could use that time to gather some data from Resa. If Oldis turns out to be a dead-end, then we’ll have made a head start on the second planet.”
“That’s a good idea, please proceed.”
Recker was happy with the progress of the mission so far and he was keen to see what Oldis had in store. If the Daklan had a presence there, ten million klicks would make it difficult for them to detect the arrival of the Punisher. However, something didn’t quite add up and Recker asked himself why the aliens would have installed anything in the centre of their own target area. It was one of many unknowns.
“Have you found anything interesting on Resa?” he asked, five minutes into the warmup time for the lightspeed jump.
“No patterns yet,” said Burner. “It’s a bit more mountainous than average, but other than that, nothing unusual. Of course, this isn’t anything like a comprehensive scan and won’t detect a Daklan ground base – even a large one.”
“That’s fine, Lieutenant. You’ve got ten minutes.”
“Shit,” said Burner suddenly, snapping his head up. “Particle cloud at three million klicks.”
“Let me check that,” said Eastwood. “Crap, something’s inbound.”
Recker closed his eyes and opened them, feeling like the relative calm of the mission so far was about to be shattered. “What is it?”
“You’re not going to believe it, sir,” said Burner. “The size and movement pattern of the ternium wave indicates it’s a Daklan annihilator.”
“Good spot, Lieutenant. Though it’s the worst possible development.”
“Their particle wave is a big one and I was looking that way already, sir. They’re between us and Resa.”
“Three million klicks,” said Recker, his brain adding up the numbers. “Assuming the worst-case scenario and they detect us immediately, it’ll take them twenty-four sub-light minutes to get into Odan launch range. Plus travel time for the missiles. We’ll be gone in ten and they won’t have a damn clue which way we’re headed.” The inconvenient truth was that an annihilator required much less than fifteen minutes to enter lightspeed and Recker felt obliged to remind everyone. “Unless they fire up their lightspeed drive and land on our doorstep.”
“It is definitely an annihilator, sir,” said Burner a second later. “They just entered local space and I’ve sent an FTL comm to base. There’ll be no text response for hours.”
Recker knew it. He also knew that if the military decided to send out a few warships to take on the battleship, that backup wouldn’t be here for days. In truth, he feared that high command had been so badly stung by the recent loss of so many ships that they would be reluctant to take on the annihilator.
He remembered Admiral Telar conceding that the military had become too risk averse and Recker was sure that Telar didn’t include himself in the cabal of senior officers who favoured a softly-softly approach.
“This is the time for risks, folks. If there’s something on Oldis, we’ve got to find out what it is.”
“In which case we’d better hope that enemy warship doesn’t spot us quickly,” said Eastwood.
“The arrival of a Daklan battleship vastly increases the likelihood of there already being an enemy presence in this solar system,” said Aston.
“I know it, Commander.”
“They might be heading to the same place as we are.”
The annihilator was bigger, better and faster at everything. If the enemy crew were heading to the Oldis, they could exit lightspeed from their initial journey and still beat the Punisher into a second jump.
On the other hand, the battleship could easily have aimed for a destination point much closer to the Daklan base, assuming such a base existed in the first place.
A thought came to Recker. “What if that cylinder on Etrol wasn’t made by the Daklan?” he said. “What if their own monitoring stations found it by accident and they sent warships to Vi
rar-12 to investigate, thinking it was an HPA resource world?”
“And we arrived just in time to watch their escorted heavy lifter come to pick the cylinder up,” said Aston.
“That’s a lot of speculation,” said Eastwood.
“Lieutenant Burner, what’re the chances they’ll spot us in the minutes between now and our departure?” asked Recker.
“I don’t know, sir,” said Burner, clearly reluctant to give an answer. “The Daklan tech seems to be improving all the time and they put the newest kit on the annihilators.”
“Best guess?”
“There’s a low, but not negligible, chance they’ll detect us.”
“Eight minutes and the calcs are done,” said Eastwood.
“What’s the annihilator doing?” asked Recker.
“Nothing,” said Burner. “They came out of lightspeed and they haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Which suggests they aren’t expecting trouble,” said Recker, not sure if he believed it himself.
“Now they’re accelerating, sir,” said Burner.
“Coming our way?”
“Negative. Heading elsewhere. They’re at twenty-two klicks per second and holding steady.”
“Not in any hurry.”
The seconds counted down and the crew watched the annihilator on the sensor feed. At this range and with the sensors on maximum zoom, the Daklan warship was little more than a grey patch on the backdrop of space.
“One minute until ternium drive activation.”
“They’re holding relative position with Resa,” said Aston, clicking her fingers in realization.
Recker knew at once that she was right and suddenly a whole bunch of new questions jumped into his head. With the jump so close, he couldn’t let his mind follow the threads and gave his full attention to the controls.
“Ten seconds.”
“I think I detected…” said Burner, his voice laden with uncertainty.
A note in the man’s voice was enough to fill Recker with alarm. He snapped around towards the calculation timer, in time to see it fall from one to zero.
The Punisher jumped into lightspeed, just as the Daklan missile exploded against its rear plating.
Chapter Fifteen
At the precise moment the Punisher entered lightspeed, Recker heard a thunderous detonation and everything shook, like the spaceship had been struck by a sledgehammer-wielding god. A split second later, the Punisher re-entered local space and the double impact of nausea from the in-out transition made Recker groan.
The noise didn’t lessen and it was joined by the shrill note of the bridge alarm. The lighting went a deep red and Recker’s warning panel seemed to turn a shade of crimson. He stared, his vision not yet recovered, and tried to grasp the extent of the multiple failures.
Recker’s instinct was to pilot his warship away from the arrival point. A check of the life support told him the primary hardware had failed, while the backup was active and amber. He threw the control bars forward and snarled when the propulsion whined and the output gauge stayed on two percent.
“Lieutenant Eastwood! The propulsion won’t come out of idle!” he shouted.
“I know, sir!”
“I need a status report!”
“Major damage to our external plating and our propulsion system,” “Hull temps off the scale!”
“Sensors recalibrating,” yelled Burner. “I don’t know if they’re going to come online. The comms hardware’s stuck in a boot loop and the FTL transmitter’s out of action.”
“The interior’s breached, sir!” said Eastwood.
“What about the internal lockdown systems?”
“I’m not sure...checking. They’re active! Some of the aft doors are showing red – they must have lost power or been too badly damaged!”
“Lieutenant Burner, tell those soldiers to grab their suit helmets. This warship is no longer a safe place for them or any of us.”
The shrieking alarm was already pissing Recker off. He thumped his hand angrily on the override button and the high-pitched wail stopped at once.
The ending of the alarm didn’t bring silence. Although the shuddering vibration of the missile impact was fading, the creaking of distressed alloy came from every direction. Deep below the bridge floor, something boomed hollowly, while Recker’s own console emitted a squealing that he’d never heard it make before.
“I need sensors!” he shouted.
“Working on it, sir!”
“The aft propulsion module is gone,” said Eastwood.
“Get it back online!”
“No, sir. I mean it’s gone. Whatever the Daklan hit us with it had a massive payload. It took out the rear third of the Punisher. I think our entry into lightspeed is what stopped the entire hull melting – it must have quenched the plasma.”
It was beginning to sink in. The unthinkable had happened and now it was all about dealing with the result. Recker swore and continued his rapid audit of the onboard systems. It seemed like everything was in a state of failure.
“Aft sensors offline and not responding. Topside and underside likewise,” Burner intoned, like he was reading someone else’s shopping list. “Yes!” he exclaimed with new excitement. “One of the forward lenses just came online!”
Recker felt a tap on his shoulder and he looked up to find Aston offering a helmet to go with his suit. She carried a second in her other hand.
“This is only going one way, sir.”
The words forced Recker to confront the inevitable and his heart fell. He took the helmet and dropped it into place, hardly noticing the tightening of the seals. The sense of loneliness came at once, trying to fool him into believing he was remote from everything that was happening.
“I’ve got something on the forward engine module, sir,” said Burner. “Thirty percent output. I’m not sure what’ll happen if you tap into it.”
Recker pushed buttons on the navigational system, trying to bring it to life. The single active sensor lens hadn’t yet figured out where the spaceship was located.
“Lieutenant Eastwood, did the lightspeed jump execute correctly?”
“Yes, sir. I believe so.”
“That means we’re somewhere above Oldis.”
“Ten million klicks.”
“With that annihilator out there somewhere.”
A wrenching groan came from deep inside the Punisher and it created a droning vibration that made Recker feel like his eyeballs were bouncing around in his skull. He knew what the sound presaged.
“We’re breaking up,” he said, rising from his seat. “Send the order. Everyone to the deployment vessel.”
“Yes, sir,” said Burner, his voice sounding distant through his helmet’s chin speaker.
“Let’s move!” said Recker. He felt cold from the many different emotions, the predominant one being fury.
Eastwood was closest to the bridge door panel and he pressed his hand firmly against it twice. The door moved reluctantly and Recker thought it might stop halfway, which would mean the power source for the internal security had failed.
To his relief, the door opened fully, and the crew hurried down the steps outside. The interior alarm was going and everything was bathed in red. A light appeared on Recker’s helmet HUD, letting him know the air temperature – at a couple of hundred degrees Centigrade - was hot enough to cook an unprotected human in only a few seconds.
“This way,” he said, heading left. Either direction would reach the deployment bay with the same efficiency, but he didn’t want the crew to split up.
“There’s a squad channel,” said Burner, a few paces behind. “I’m putting us into it.”
Additional lights – representing the soldiers already in the channel - appeared on the comms section of Recker’s HUD and he felt a thundering wave of renewed anger when he counted only ten. He opened a channel.
“Sergeant Vance, please report.”
“Five dead, sir. They were in the mess room when the
heat wave came.”
Recker’s stomach clenched like it was being squeezed by a viciously strong hand. He couldn’t allow himself to falter - the mourning would have to come later.
“What’s your progress towards the deployment vehicle?” he asked.
“We’ve reached the bay, sir. Feels like the ship’s going to break in half.”
“That’s exactly what it’s doing, Sergeant.”
“Damn. We’d better not stick around.”
Recker turned right and then left, leading his crew past the mess room. He didn’t want to see, but he couldn’t stop himself – not out of a ghoulish interest in the dead, rather because he felt that those soldiers deserved more respect than him looking away.
The angle along the passage didn’t grant a view of the entire room, but it was enough. One body was slumped across a table, facing the passage, skin blackened and smouldering.
Two others lay face-down on the floor where they’d fallen. Men or women, Recker couldn’t tell. They’d brought their gauss rifles to the mess room but left their helmets elsewhere. The air temperature must have spiked at four or five hundred degrees to have killed the soldiers so quickly. Maybe they’d have died even if their helmets had been on the table in front of them. The thought was no consolation.
And then Recker was past, the brief sights converted to a vivid memory which he filed away with all the others, to be confronted when the time was right, if such a time ever came.
The door leading to the bay was already open and Recker dashed down the ramp. In the red light, he saw three figures standing near to where the deployment vehicle’s primary access hatch was hidden by the floor channel.
One of the figures – Sergeant Vance by the size – straightened and motioned the crew to hurry. Recker stopped in front of the soldier and directed the others towards the open hatch.
“Is everyone inside, Sergeant?”
Vance’s expression was impassive through his visor – the calm expression of a man who’d experienced everything and refused to let fear dictate his actions.
“Them that made it, sir.”
Commander Aston paused at the top of the access ladder. “Sir, we don’t have long.”
War from a Distant Sun (Savage Stars Book 1) Page 13