“They are responding,” said Chainer. “The captain wants to speak to you.”
“Good, put him through to my earpiece,” said Duggan.
A voice, startling in its clarity, came through. Duggan had been informed that the Space Corps had made rapid strides in the language modules in the last two months and it was apparent by the subtleties in inflection, where there had previously been only a monotone.
“Captain John Duggan. I am Nil-Far, and I command the battleship Dretisear.”
CHAPTER SIX
“AT LEAST WE know who we’re dealing with,” said Duggan, when his brief conversation was over. Nil-Far was about as talkative as Duggan.
“You know their captain?” asked Massey.
“We’ve met once or twice,” said Duggan drily. “If the other Ghasts are as trustworthy as Nil-Far, we can be sure they will stick to the letter of our peace treaty.”
“When we sign one,” said Massey.
“Precisely. The Dretisear has been kept in the dark as to our final destination. It seems as if the Space Corps wasn’t ready to trust them with advance information about the SC Lupus’ travels until we were available to provide an escort. Lieutenant Chainer, please send the necessary information to the Ghast ship. We’ll be leaving at once.”
“I’ve sent them the data,” said Chainer.
“Deep fission drives warming up,” said Breeze. “They’re doing likewise.”
“They don’t stick around,” said Reyes.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the Ghasts are efficient,” said Duggan. “Nil-Far is definitely not alone amongst them in having that trait.”
“You sound as if you like them, sir,” said Massey. There was a hint of triumph in her features and Duggan realised she’d been waiting for a chance to accuse him. It was widely-known he’d dealt with the Ghasts and that he’d brought one of their senior officers to the Juniper. Somehow it appeared as if this made him look like a sympathiser – at least in Massey’s eyes.
“What do you mean, Lieutenant?” he asked, his voice neutral.
Massey opened her mouth and then closed it, knowing she’d started along a path without taking precautions against the dangers ahead. Her mouth opened again and she forged on regardless. “It’s just the way you talk about them. Never a bad word to say. It sounds to me as if you like them. Sir.”
Duggan stalked over to her seat. “Stand up!” he said. She stood and looked at him. Massey was a tall woman, but her eyes weren’t level. Even so, she met Duggan’s stare evenly and this time the insolence was clear.
“What do you recall of my address to the troops in the mess room two days ago?” he asked calmly.
“Not much,” she said.
“Not much, sir.”
“I don’t remember very much of what you said, sir.”
“You won’t remember me saying how much I liked them, because I have fought against them for my entire adult life, Lieutenant Massey. I have nothing to prove to you or anyone.”
“They’re bastards, sir. Each and every one of them. You shouldn’t call them trustworthy. They’ve killed billions of people!”
At once, Duggan knew. “Who have you lost?” he asked.
Her face wilted and her eyes glistened. “It feels like everyone, sir.”
“You need to put it to one side, Lieutenant, before it breaks you. The Ghasts are not our friends, but we need them. The Dreamers will kill us all if we stand alone. We have no choice. Take your seat again.”
She nodded and the hostility in her face was gone. Duggan was glad to get this over with so soon, rather than have Massey fester about it until she did something really stupid. The rest of the crew were sitting and watching their screens intently, pretending nothing had happened.
“Are we at lightspeed, yet?” Duggan asked.
“A couple of minutes ago, sir,” said Breeze. “The Oblivion beat us to it by two seconds.”
“Want me to keep a score?” asked Chainer. “One-nil to them in the pissing competition, with everything still to play for.”
“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant,” said Duggan, pleased to feel the air clear with Chainer’s light-hearted remarks. “We’re meant to be a Cadaveron-beater, remember? Not an Oblivion-beater.”
“I don’t believe that for one moment,” said McGlashan. “The Space Corps engineers are dying to see how we compare.”
“Yes, I bet they are,” said Duggan. “One-nil, it is.”
“I’ll settle for a draw,” said Breeze. “That would be effectively a victory, considering how much smaller we are.”
“We can judge it at the end,” said Duggan, his tone making it clear the conversation was over. “Now – what do we know of where we’re going?”
“Glantia-312,” said Breeze. “There’s nothing remarkable about it from what I can see on the charts. There are two or three planets where you might expect to find metal ore and minerals.”
“This was the last scheduled stop for the Lupus, wasn’t it?” asked McGlashan. “The audit reports show they’d visited several solar systems beforehand and they checked in with base each time.”
“So I see,” replied Duggan.
“Why aren’t they sending all the search and rescue vessels to Glantia-312, instead of spreading them thinly?” she asked.
Duggan shrugged. “The mission briefing documents give details of the Projections Team’s findings. There are several places between Glantia-312 and the Lupus’ previous stop-off. It’s not entirely unknown for an experienced prospector captain to make a diversion if they come across data to suggest there’s a greater chance of success elsewhere. Besides, if the Dreamers are responsible for the loss of this ship, having greater numbers might not be to our advantage.”
“More valuable warships to get scrambled, jammed and shot down,” said Chainer helpfully.
“The Terminus is the only vessel to be accompanied by the Ghasts,” said Duggan. “This tells you where the Space Corps believes the largest risks are. If anything goes wrong, both the Confederation and the Ghasts will be equally weakened.”
“I suppose,” said McGlashan. “I can’t help but feel like we’re the stick they’re poking into the viper’s nest.”
“We’re definitely that, Commander. I thought you’d have learned by now – if you lift your head above the parapet in the Space Corps, you’d better be wearing a helmet. The more noticed you are, the more crap you get thrown your way.”
Chainer gave Ensign Perry a gentle elbow in the arm. “You should listen to this. You might learn something about how the world works.” Perry smiled nervously and said nothing.
“We’ve got five more days until we arrive,” said Duggan. “As ever, we will expect the worst. I need the comms team to provide detailed early scans of the vicinity. The last time we encountered a Dreamer vessel it was difficult to get a sensor lock on it. Lieutenant Chainer has learned from this and he’ll bring you up to speed on what to look for. We can’t afford to get it wrong.”
“We’ll exit lightspeed approximately an hour out from the fourth and fifth planets – equidistant between the two,” said Breeze.
“Why did you pick that location?” asked Massey curiously.
“I spent time on a prospector, many years ago. It’s quite interesting what they do and I picked up a few bits and pieces. Generally, you’d choose the centre planets if you’re after quick results. The inner ones are too hot and the outer ones too cold.”
“We can mine at really low temperatures, can’t we?” asked Perry.
“Yes, we can. It’s not always feasible to do so and the furthest planets are usually small and therefore have less potential for holding big deposits. Hence we aim for the middle and see what happens.”
“Oh,” said Perry. He sounded disappointed somehow, as if he thought there should have been a far greater amount of scientific decision making involved in the process.
With a few days to fill, Duggan looked for activities to occupy his ti
me. He wasn’t a big sleeper, since his brain was always more active than was good for him. There was much to learn about the ES Terminus and he threw himself into the task, studying data sheets and specification documents. On the final morning, he took himself off to examine the hardware they carried in the hold. McGlashan came along, also looking for something to do. The cargo area was accessed by a lift or steps. It was big and it needed to be, in order to contain the firepower which had been packed inside.
“You could assault a major city with this lot,” said McGlashan. “Assuming you didn’t decide to destroy your target from orbit instead,” she added.
“The needs of war change constantly,” said Duggan. “I imagine when they made the plans for the Galactic class, they foresaw a need for big guns on the ground. We must have been taking a few hits on our mining outposts at the time.”
“These tanks look a bit more dangerous than the little ones on a Gunner,” she said.
Four of the Space Corps’ heavy tanks sat upon their launch hatches. The vehicles were held in place with gravity clamps powered by the ship’s engines. The tanks were twenty-five metres long, ten wide and six tall. Their fronts were angular to help them deflect incoming rounds. The rear was ugly and squared off. There was a single turret on each, with a wide-bore muzzle that could unleash a projectile the size of a man’s head. They could rip a hole in a mountain, or flatten dozens of buildings in a short space of time. In spite of their size, they were mostly armour and weapons, with little room for troops inside. Deeper in the cargo bay loomed two dark shapes, much bigger and far more intimidating.
“Colossus tanks,” said McGlashan. “I thought they’d stopped making these.”
“They did for a while,” said Duggan. “The money it costs to make each one would shock you. These look pristine – the Corps must have started up production again once they got the funding.”
Each Colossus tank was more than forty metres in length. They were a similar shape to most Corps tanks, but they carried a single, huge, slow-firing turret-mounted gun that was designed to knock out Ghast transporters on the ground – or anything else stupid enough to come into its sights. It also had two guided plasma launchers mounted on its shoulders.
“I once saw one of these get hit by two Ghast missiles launched from orbit and it still kept going,” said Duggan. “It’s almost solid alloy.”
“What happened to that tank?”
“The next six missiles took it out,” said Duggan. “What’s on the ground can never beat what’s in the sky.” It was an old mantra and belief in it was why the Space Corps had subsumed the other branches of the military more than a hundred years ago.
They finished up their exploration of the Terminus’ hold. There was a pair of slow-moving depleted uranium repeaters and two micro-batteries that could launch adapted versions of the Lambda missiles. Micro in this instance was something of a misnomer and the batteries weren’t much smaller than one of the heavy tanks.
On the far wall were lockers which contained over two hundred spacesuits, along with rifles, grenades and a variety of hand-held launchers. All-in-all, there was a devastating array of weaponry, should it ever be needed.
“I’ve seen enough,” said Duggan.
“Impressed?”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less on a top-of-the-line fleet heavy cruiser. They made sure the Terminus was ready for anything.”
Duggan’s earpiece buzzed and Lieutenant Breeze spoke to him briefly.
“We’ll be arriving soon?” asked McGlashan, when the exchange or words was over.
“Thirty minutes. We’d best get back to the bridge and prepare.”
They hurried away, through the wide corridors of the Terminus. As they ran, McGlashan asked something which had been on her mind. “You threatened to throw Lieutenant Nichols in the brig if he interfered. Do we even have a brig?”
“I have no idea, Commander. If we don’t, I’ll just have to proceed with my second threat and launch him into space.” He felt his mood turning sour. “Damn the man, I won’t have him interfering with anything aboard this ship!”
“He’s just doing his job, sir.”
“He likes putting his oar in - I can see it in his face. He’ll cause trouble if he’s given the chance.”
The bridge lay ahead. The blast door slid open and they went inside.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ES TERMINUS emerged into near space. Within five seconds, the Dretisear did likewise, a few thousand klicks off to one side. Given the distances involved, it was remarkably well done. The crew on the Terminus launched into a well-rehearsed drill, scanning the close, medium and far distances.
“Got nothing close, except the Oblivion,” said Perry.
“Continuing with medium-range scan,” said Massey.
“Working the super-fars,” added Chainer, his face a picture of concentration. He’d given himself the most difficult task. “I’ll shout when I’ve got something to tell.”
“Ensign Perry, hail the Dretisear and enquire as to their wellbeing.”
“Hailing them now, sir. Their comms uhm man is responding. They have nothing to report and are scanning the area. He reports them to be on full alert.”
“Good,” said Duggan. He’d spoken to Nil-Far enough to know the Ghasts worked in a surprisingly similar manner to humans. “Report that we are doing likewise. Afterwards, repeat your close-in scans and don’t stop until Lieutenant Chainer or I tell you to do so.”
“Sir.”
Duggan sat down, sinking into the thick padding of his seat. He waved Breeze over and showed him a computer-generated view of the orbiting planets.
“We’ve got three in the middle of the nine. Which one do we check out first?”
Breeze furrowed his brow. “Planet six isn’t a good bet. I reckon the Lupus would have been interested in four and five.”
“One small, one larger,” said Duggan. “It feels like picking a bottle of wine by the label and hoping it’s a good one.”
Breeze chuckled. “I don’t see much to distinguish them. Two cold, grey balls of rock which may or may not be riddled with veins of precious metal. Choose whichever one you wish, sir.”
Duggan stared at his screen, with the two planets side-by-side, as if he could somehow get a clue about which alternative the captain of the Lupus would have chosen. “Anything on the fars?” he asked.
“Medium range scan almost done, sir. No sign of anything untoward.”
“Short range still clear,” said Perry.
“We’re going for the larger planet,” said Duggan at last. “Please communicate our movements to the Dretisear. What’s the planet called, anyway?”
“It doesn’t have a name yet,” said Breeze. “I can make the ship assign one automatically and have it pinged back to base for the records. Want me to do it?”
“May as well,” said Duggan.
“According to this, we’re going to Trasgor,” Breeze said. “And the fifth planet has been named Virtus, should we need to search that one as well.”
“Send a message to the Juniper and let them know we’re safe and well,” said Duggan, aware that the Terminus’ AI would likely have already done so. “We’re going to perform a slow orbit of Trasgor until the comms team are certain the missing ship isn’t here.”
“I’ve finished the first far scan, sir,” said Chainer. He looked perplexed.
“I don’t like it when you get that expression, Lieutenant.”
“Something doesn’t feel right. I’ve run a quick pass over the area of the planet’s surface we can see and everything looks fine, except that the oxygen levels look abnormally high. It’s not something I’d normally notice.”
“What do you mean abnormally high?” asked Duggan. “One or two percent?”
“Closer to ten percent and it’s not evenly distributed – the quantity increases towards the dark side to the west.”
“I’ve got metal, sir,” said Massey, urgency in her voice. “A couple o
f hundred thousand klicks away.”
“Is it the Lupus?” asked Duggan, crossing for a look. “Keep the Dretisear informed,” he told Ensign Perry.
“They’re telling me about it,” said Perry. “They must have seen it at the same time as we did.”
“I can’t confirm the origins, sir,” said Massey. “I’m sure it’s wreckage of some type.”
“It’s not going to be anything other than the Lupus, is it?” said Duggan, not really looking for a response.
“There’s more metal on the surface,” said Chainer. “On object of some sort.”
“Parts of the wreckage?” asked Duggan.
“I don’t think so, sir. This is big and it’s not moving. I need more time or we need to be nearer.”
Duggan didn’t like what he was hearing. “I want you all looking out for an enemy vessel. Ignore the wreckage for the moment. I’m going to bring us closer.”
He took manual control of the Terminus and it surged forward on its gravity drive. It was testament to the design improvements that there was no sensation of movement. The only way Duggan knew they were at fourteen hundred klicks per second was the reading on his display.
“Be prepared,” he said to McGlashan.
“As ever.”
“I’ve got something, sir,” said Chainer, his voice louder than usual. “It’s emerging from the planet’s shadow and coming towards us. Half of our sensors are skating off it, like it doesn’t want to be seen. It’s making two thousand klicks per second – whatever it is, it’s a lot faster than we are.”
“Message the Dretisear. We’re assuming the approaching vessel is hostile and we’ll take appropriate action.”
“I’m getting the same message from them,” said Perry.
“Don’t sound so surprised, Ensign. The Ghasts know how to deal with threats.”
“The Ghasts have launched six Shatterers, sir,” said McGlashan. Her expression was one of utter shock. “We’re a million and a half klicks away.”
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