The journey was more physically demanding than most Recker could remember from his long career. Exploration of the hardware revealed no surprises and the vessel wasn’t equipped with an FTL comms unit. Recker found nothing to counter his first impression that this spaceship’s single intended purpose was lugging around huge weights during the initial construction of the tenixite converter.
It was hard to sleep in the two flat-backed seats, while the floorspace was hard and impossible to get comfortable on. Recker held off the booster drugs as long as he could, but by the end of day four he was so tired that he gave himself a shot. It felt like an admission of weakness, though it was preferable to the alternative of making an error that resulted in everyone onboard being killed.
“What do you think will happen at Tanril, sir?” said Aston.
“We’ll find that crashed spaceship.” Recker shrugged.
“And fly it back home.”
“It’s something the Daklan don’t know about, Commander. We’ve got a chance to salvage useful tech.”
“Hey, I’m still happy to be alive,” said Burner. “Anything on top of that is going to be a bonus.”
The elation of escape had long since faded and now all that Recker could think about was what lay ahead on Tanril. He knew he shouldn’t make his life so hard, but it was impossible for him to stop pushing.
The final two days dragged more than he could have thought possible and he felt the creeping tiredness that the drugs failed to mask. Subsequent uses of the booster drugs became less effective - they could keep a soldier awake for a couple of weeks if necessary, though at the cost of debilitating exhaustion once they were stopped.
Tanril itself was nothing remarkable - a cold sphere orbiting a sun. Aston and Burner did what they could to extract some extra performance out of the shuttle’s sensors. Unfortunately, the tech wasn’t playing ball and they weren’t able to gather anything better than scant details. Burner had downloaded the coordinates of the crashed spaceship from the tenixite converter’s databanks, so although the destination was known, it would have been useful to see what they were approaching.
At last, the shuttle came within half a million kilometres of Tanril and the sensor feed became useful. Much of the planet was crusted in ice and its atmosphere was both thin and toxic. Other than that, Recker gave the plains of stone, the chasms and the mountain ranges little attention. He accepted the possibility that the Daklan might arrive, so he didn’t accept a reduction in vigilance, however, he felt with utmost certainty that a prize awaited – a prize of far-reaching significance and consequence.
“The planet’s rotation means our target is currently blindside,” said Burner, standing between the two seats and leaning eagerly forwards.
Having slowed the shuttle to a safe approach velocity, Recker guided it along a new trajectory at an altitude of a hundred kilometres, which would circle the planet and eventually take them to the waiting spaceship.
These final few minutes at the end of such a long flight seemed to last forever. Recker tried not to imagine that the culmination of this journey might be no more than a billion tons of scrap, destroyed by the tenixite converter, or a vessel so badly damaged by its impact with the surface that it would offer the HPA nothing worth the effort of recovery.
“It should be coming into view any time now,” said Aston.
The first sign was a deep, thirty-kilometre-long furrow, created by a heavy object striking the surface at an oblique.
“The furrow continues beyond this mountain range, sir,” said Aston.
The peaks followed a north-south path across Tanril. They were low and unremarkable, and the impacting spaceship had skipped over the entire range without a collision. From there, the furrow resumed and this time it was sixty kilometres in length, followed by another gap and then a third furrow, this one much shallower than the others.
At last, the target came into sight and when Recker saw it, his heart jumped with an excitement like he hadn’t experienced for many years.
A spaceship had come to a halt right-side up, allowing Recker a good view of it. At 1200 metres in length, it was nothing remarkable in size. The vessel’s overall shape was that of a V, with a squared-off stern and a blunt nose. At its widest point, the sensors estimated the spaceship was 800 metres, narrowing to 400, and Recker guessed its mass at two billion tons or maybe more, depending on the materials of its construction.
It looked every inch a warship, with angled plates of scarred dark grey and surface imperfections that could be nothing other than concealed weapons launchers.
“That’s not Daklan,” said Burner.
“No shit?”
Aston enhanced the feed and the damage to the spaceship’s plating became more apparent. It had been subject to concentrated fire from multiple sources of high-calibre rapid-fire weaponry, of the kind which had no hope of bringing down the warship but left it with the appearance of a veteran of many conflicts. Elsewhere, the plating was darkened in irregular patches as a result of intense heat.
“Sergeant Vance, come and take a look at this,” said Recker, figuring that the man deserved to see what his hard work killing Daklan had earned.
“Sir?” asked Vance, appearing in the doorway, his expression a mixture of drug-wired interest and exhaustion.
“There’s our prize, Sergeant. Everyone’s prize. We’ve earned this.”
“An alien warship,” said Vance slowly. “Where did it come from?”
“Elsewhere. From a distant sun,” said Recker, the words coming out of nowhere. He shivered.
Vance stared for long moments. “Looks like a mean son-of-a-bitch, sir.”
“That it does.”
“And ancient.”
“That too.”
“Will it take us home?”
“We’re going to find out, Sergeant.”
With that, Recker piloted the shuttle towards the crashed vessel.
End
The underside hatches for the spaceship were inaccessible, which forced Recker to land on the upper plating. The larger craft was at an angle and getting the stolen shuttle into a stable place required a few minutes of careful positioning.
Exiting the shuttle was a relief and for a few seconds, Recker stood, stretching out the knots in his muscles while the sub-zero planetary winds buffeted him.
He located the entry hatch and noted that the access panel was unlit, suggesting the warship was offline. A recessed lever moved smoothly when he pulled it outwards and the hatch slid open with hardly a sound.
The interior was cold, cramped and unlit. Recker, his crew and the soldiers hurried through the tight, cold passages, the beams of their flashlights dancing across featureless walls. They encountered no signs of life and the internal defences were all offline.
They arrived at a square door, larger than the others and at the top of some steps. This - the bridge door - could also be operated mechanically, again by means of a single lever. Feeling many different emotions, Recker hauled on the lever and the door rumbled to one side.
The bridge was V-shaped like the hull, and no more than five metres front to back. Two consoles were fitted to the forward bulkhead, with a row of three others directly behind. Recker paused on the threshold, directing the beam of his helmet light into every corner.
Then, he entered, made his way directly to the front and chose the left-hand console. The curved seat was designed for a species about the same size as a human and, when Recker sat, he found it far more comfortable than the equivalent on the shuttle.
With the other members of his crew gathered around, Recker stared at the console. It was different enough to the hardware on the cylinder for him to believe its history was not the same. The faintest of humming sounds indicated that the console was powered up, though only one of its many screens displayed any data. His language module recognized the words, though with a delay in processing.
Core override. Backup restore complete. Partial failure 242X-1302G.
&
nbsp; Retry?
Recker entered a response.
>Ignore. Set online status to 1.
Every console on the bridge suddenly illuminated, and orbs in the ceiling glowed with a cold blue light. Recker watched and waited, giving the hardware time to come online. The bridge was in hush and even the squad comms was quiet.
A new prompt appeared.
Security restore failure. Commence biometric re-scan?
Hardly daring to breathe, Recker typed in his answer.
>Yes.
The process completed without Recker having to touch a fingerprint scanner or take any other action.
Biometric re-scan complete. Primary systems accessible.
Recker typed again.
>Set active status to 1.
The engines fired up immediately, with an abrasive growl that made Recker think of countless wild animals, desperate to be freed from captivity. For ten or fifteen seconds, the sound continued and then settled to a volume which made speech possible.
New text appeared.
Vengeance: Active status 1.
When he saw the warship’s name, Recker felt a fleeting giddiness at what it implied – forgotten wars and extinction. It was something for later. He directed his crew to their seats and then turned his attention to the console in front of him.
Thirty minutes later, the alien warship Vengeance, climbed away from the surface of Tanril and ten minutes after that, it entered lightspeed, carrying the occupants towards a faraway HPA world.
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War from a Distant Sun (Savage Stars Book 1) Page 23