“Corporal Gax, you are cleared to disembark. Bring back our troops.”
A light on Duggan’s console indicated the forward ramp had disengaged. He accessed the underside sensors in order to watch his squad.
“Sir?” said McLeod. “There’s bad news. Four of those missile batteries have started launching again.”
“At us?” asked Duggan, realising how stupid the question was.
The tactical screen showed the furthest four of the batteries had begun firing their missiles high into the air. At a height of fifteen thousand kilometres, the warheads twisted in the air and shot downwards, striking the Valpian’s shields a few seconds later.
“What the hell are they doing?” asked McLeod. “They’ve got just as good a chance of killing themselves as us.”
“It doesn’t look like they care,” said Duggan angrily. “I think we’re too close for the remaining six emplacements to fire.”
“Gax to bridge. We have detected missile fire.”
The soldiers had already disembarked and they were spread out beneath the cruiser’s hull, evidently reluctant to run out into plasma explosions. Duggan saw they had their space suits on, though they had eschewed the helmets in favour of over-ear communicators. The suit helmets were outstanding pieces of kit, but there were times you preferred to rely on your own eyes and ears. It was full daylight and there was no need for the encumbrance.
“Our energy shield extends over most of the building,” said Duggan. “Get in there and get those prisoners! Do it quickly before our shield breaks.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gax.
The squad ran towards the prison entrance, their rifle barrels pointing ahead. Duggan found himself in a most unfamiliar and unwelcome position. He was reduced to a spectator with no way to influence events as they unfolded. While he drummed his fingers, missiles detonated off the Valpian’s energy shield and the status gauge crept slowly towards failure level. He bit his tongue to stop from swearing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FIVE MINUTES PASSED during which the squad entered the building, leaving two standing guard at the door. There was no need to force an entry and the metal double doors simply slid open to let the soldiers pass. It wasn’t likely to be so easy when they got further inside.
Once he was sure there was going to be no quick abort on the rescue mission, Duggan raised the boarding ramp halfway up, in case any of the enemy thought they might take their chances at getting onboard. It was a remote chance, but one which was easy enough to prevent.
Duggan kept track of progress by listening in to the open comms channel. The men and women kept it tight and their talk was at a minimum.
“Twenty-five percent on this shield gauge,” said McLeod. “They’ll need to speed things up.”
To Duggan’s dismay, the prison was far larger than it appeared. His squad cleared the guards from the top floor and then discovered there were more floors below the ground. The building was in a state of lock-down and many of the doors were sealed. Fortunately, a single plasma grenade was sufficient to burn a hole through most of these barriers. As far as Duggan was aware, Bonner was out of what she called subtle explosives. If they came across any heavily reinforced doors, the only choice would be to make a really big bang.
The squad were busy searching the first underground floor when Duggan noticed the front boarding ramp was back in its down position. Then he saw something on the Valpian’s underside sensors. This time he made no effort to hold in his swearing and he unleashed a string of expletives. A figure stumbled away from the boarding ramp, her dark hair and features unmistakeable, a rifle held in one hand.
“Is that Lieutenant Ortiz?” asked McLeod.
“Yes,” said Duggan through gritted teeth. He checked the live comms links in the area. “She’s not carrying a communicator.”
Kidd and Havon kept guard on the prison door. Duggan connected to Kidd’s earpiece and told her to get Ortiz back onboard immediately. Kidd ran across and there was a series of angry gestures between the two.
“She’s lost it, sir,” said Kidd. “She’s seen Havon and she’s calling me a traitor. I think she believes we’re still at war with the Ghasts. I can’t make her listen to me – it’s like she’s forgotten what’s happened and where we are.”
At that moment, Ortiz raised her rifle threateningly. Kidd made a placating gesture and backed off. Duggan closed his eyes.
“Wait there. I’m coming,” he said. “Keep her calm.”
“Sir?” asked Red-Gulos.
“I have to deal with this,” said Duggan. If he couldn’t pacify Ortiz, the alternative was unthinkable.
He ran, fast and hard. The passages of the Valpian went by in a blur. Even so, he was sure he was going to be too late. He got through the airlock and to the top of the boarding ramp. It was hot outside and warm air filled the space, reminding him of childhood holidays on the coast near his home. There was a flash of exploding plasma against the Valpian’s shields, dispelling the memories when they were only half-formed.
Lieutenant Ortiz was on the ground. She looked agitated and kept her rifle aimed towards Kidd’s chest. She was muttering, the words too quiet to make out.
“Lieutenant Ortiz!” barked Duggan. “What do you think you are doing?”
She looked up, her eyes vacant. Something flickered behind them in recognition of either Duggan’s face or his voice. “Sir?” she said.
“I asked what you are doing, Lieutenant.”
“I…I was dealing with…” She was lost and her face twisted in recognition of her own impairment.
“You will stand down and return to the ship.”
Her rifle clattered onto the ground, forgotten. A few metres away, Kidd sighed in visible relief.
Ortiz walked obediently up the ramp and stopped in front of Duggan. “Sir?” she repeated.
“Rest. I’ll get you home, Lieutenant,” he whispered.
Her dark eyes cleared, if only a little. She smiled without speaking.
There was a commotion from the entrance to the building and the first of the soldiers emerged, their faces severe and filled with fury. Duggan’s heart fell at the sight.
Glinter came next through the doors, and he carried something over his shoulder. It was the body of a woman, dead or alive, there was no way to see. Rasmussen came after. He had his right arm around the shoulders of another man and helped him through the door. Corporal Gax followed, helping a third prisoner. Duggan couldn’t take his eyes off the body over Glinter’s shoulder. He tensed the muscles in his jaw to try and keep his face strong.
Lieutenant Ortiz was still by his side. She had a puzzled look on her face as though everything was a mystery to her. Duggan beckoned Kidd across.
“Lieutenant Ortiz, this soldier will help you to your room. Go with her. We’re leaving soon.”
Glinter reached the boarding ramp.
“Is she alive?” Duggan asked, unsure what he would do if the answer was no.
The Ghast nodded once. “She’s hurt. Corporal Weiss has given her a stabiliser.”
“Hello, sir,” said Chainer. He looked terrible, his face a mess of bruises. His hair hung loose over his face and it appeared as if someone had ripped patches of it from his scalp.
“We’re in danger, Frank. I’ll get us out of here.”
Lieutenant Breeze came next, his eyes were swollen shut and his lips were blue. He stumbled past Duggan without giving any sign of recognition.
As the remainder of the soldiers marched onboard, Weiss appeared out of nowhere. “Their captors were in the process of questioning them,” she said. “It wasn’t gentle.” Her face twisted into a look of hatred. “We killed the bastards.”
“Will my crew live?”
“Lieutenants Chainer and Breeze will. I won’t know about the commander until I examine her further.”
Duggan could have wept at the uncertainty. “They’re stubborn bastards. All of them. Did we lose anyone?”
“No. We faced guar
ds, not trained soldiers.”
Outside, another series of missile strikes from the ground battery lit up the already bright day.
“Sir, our shield gauge is at five percent,” said McLeod over the comms.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Duggan snarled. He took a deep breath. “My apologies. It would have made no difference.”
McLeod sounded relieved when he answered. “Okay, sir. Sorry.”
Duggan ran. He elbowed his way through the mass of soldiers in the airlock and dashed along the corridor. Tears formed in his eyes from emotions he couldn’t identify. He wiped them away and raged in his own mind at the fears which might slow his reactions. There was only a single task to accomplish and that was to escape from this place before the cruiser was destroyed.
He threw himself into his seat, his eyes roving across the updates on his console. Only one percent on the gauge.
“Everyone is onboard, sir,” said Red-Gulos. “The forward airlock is clear.”
Duggan’s left hand grabbed the control joystick and he wrenched it back. The gravity engines didn’t howl, rather they emitted a sound which was so deep the vibrations were felt several kilometres away. The Valpian leapt away from the surface at an appallingly rapid speed, producing a series of deafening sonic booms.
At the same time as the warship hurtled into the sky, Duggan’s hand flew across the weapons panel and he fired a wave of fifty missiles into the northern batteries. The emplacements were destroyed and their crews killed with them. The blasts took out a sizeable portion of the prison building. It was likely some of the people – the Estral – inside didn’t deserve to die. Add it to the pile of other things I’m guilty of, Duggan thought.
“Last wave of theirs in the air,” said McLeod.
Duggan stared ahead as he awaited the inevitable. The Valpian was at maximum velocity and several thousand kilometres above the planet. The incoming missiles were faster and they closed the gap.
From the corner of his eye, Duggan saw the shield gauge recover by one single, solitary digit. Two percent. It has to be enough.
The missiles collided with the cruiser’s energy shield. The gauge dropped immediately to zero and it began flashing at the same time as a warbling alarm went off on the bridge.
“Status?” he asked, hardly daring to believe.
“I’m not sure how to find out, sir,” said McLeod.
Duggan looked for himself. “The hull is undamaged. There are no major alerts and we have attained a velocity in excess of two thousand three hundred klicks per second.”
“Does that mean we made it?”
“Looks like it. I’m getting us to lightspeed as soon as possible. It’ll be a random destination, somewhere far from here.”
The fission drives seemed to take an age to reach critical mass, though Duggan was aware it was only his perception of time which was out of kilter. As the timer went below ten seconds, he became convinced something would go wrong – that a Class 1 Neutraliser would appear and shut them down, or the Valpian’s engines would fail at the very last moment.
None of these things happened. The cruiser disappeared from local space and charged in defiance of physics towards the place Duggan had chosen. The last image he saw was a view of Invarol, zoomed in and sharpened by the Valpian’s sensors. In that instant, he thought the planet one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.
There were several places other than the bridge Duggan would have preferred to be now that their escape was complete. However, it was important that he keep his seat for a period of time to ensure everything remained within its usual operating parameters. It was rare for anything to go wrong on a warship, but the transition to lightspeed was known to produce the occasional fault.
He sat uncomfortably, feeling worry, elation and anguish. His frost-burned hand stung and his forearm ached. The combination of emotions, pain and powerful drugs made him feel nauseous and his body craved the sleep he couldn’t partake of for many hours yet.
“You owe me a drink,” he said to Red-Gulos.
“I do not owe you a drink,” countered the Ghast at once, his grey brow furrowed.
“You bet me we’d find the Zansturm at Invarol and we did not.”
“I don’t recall making any such bet.” The Ghast looked absolutely baffled.
“It was a bet in spirit. An implied bet.”
Red-Gulos’ face lightened. “You are lying to me for the purposes of entertainment!”
“He catches on quickly does the sergeant,” said McLeod.
“That he does,” Duggan agreed with a chuckle. Sometimes the only escape was through humour.
The joke, poor as it was, only served to delay the inevitable and Duggan counted himself a coward for putting off what needed to be done. He located Corporal Weiss on the internal comms network.
“How are they?” he asked.
“We’ve only just got here. I’ll need some time.
“How long?”
“Give me an hour.”
She refused to be drawn further and, though he was desperate for even a hint of McGlashan’s condition, Duggan left Weiss to get on with things.
The hour passed with extreme reluctance. After fifty-five minutes, he spoke to Weiss again.
“You’d better get down here, sir,” she said.
Duggan did so, as fast as he was able.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE INJURED WERE in the Valpian’s medical bay and looked after by Corporal Weiss. She wasn’t able to use the Dreamers’ medical kit, but she was well enough trained to make use of the beds. The bay was undersized considering how many troops the cruiser could hold. It was seven metres along each wall, dimly lit and with a tile effect to the floor and ceiling. The centre of the room was dominated by what Duggan could only think of as a contraption. In reality, it was a medical robot – tall, blue, vaguely cylindrical, with bumps and lumps. Spindly arms ending in needles and scalpels protruded from ten separate locations and there were twenty or so monitoring screens to keep track of a patient’s wellbeing. It had a tiny gravity motor to allow for movement. When Duggan arrived, it was still.
The medical bay contained eight beds, each of which was situated in an alcove in the wall. The beds were furnished with meagre, easy-wipe mattresses and there were no sheets to be seen. It was cold in the room and smelled more like a mortuary than a hospital. It was a poor place to die and Duggan suppressed a shiver.
Four of the beds were occupied and Duggan walked from one to the next, starting with the closest. Ortiz was in the first bed. Her eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell slowly.
“She’s sedated,” said Weiss. “I’ll keep her like this for as long as necessary.”
Duggan couldn’t think of anything to say, so he nodded and walked quickly to the next bed. There was a familiar figure on the mattress, with his head propped up by what appeared to be a folded spacesuit.
“You look like you’ve been through the mill twice and then back again, Frank.”
“They were savage bastards, sir. So much for treating your prisoners with respect. They wanted the answers to lots of questions.”
“We’ll talk about it later.”
The next patient was Lieutenant Breeze. His face was a mixture of blacks, blues and reds, with only a few areas where his skin was free of bruising. Much of the swelling had subsided, doubtless as a result of one of Weiss’s quick-fix injections, and he had his eyes open. He wasn’t a young man but had always been strong and indomitable. He looked older now.
“How are you doing, Bill?”
Lieutenant Breeze’s gaze was surprisingly clear and when he spoke, he showed no signs he’d lost his mental faculties.
“I’m doing well. I lost a couple of teeth the Space Corps will need to replace for me. Corporal Weiss says one of my cheekbones was broken too. She’s filled me with all sorts of accelerants and I swear I’m more likely to die from having too many injections in places a man should never have things injected. Stran
gely enough I reckon I could run a two hundred kilometre race and win it. The things they can do with medicine, eh?”
“Get some rest.”
Commander McGlashan occupied the final bed. Duggan wasn’t sure if he’d unconsciously left her until last, or if chance alone had been responsible. Certainly, he was filled with dread and the thought of how she might be.
“Lucy?” he asked quietly.
“She can’t hear you,” said Weiss. “She’s sedated as well.”
McGlashan’s face was unmarked and she was fully dressed. There was no way to see if she’d suffered any physical trauma. She was linked up to a portable medical box by a series of wires and there were four needles in her arm. Her eyes were sunken and ringed with grey.
“What happened?” asked Duggan.
“They injected her with something, sir,” croaked Breeze from his bed. “I’m not sure what it was meant to do, but it knocked her out.”
“Corporal?” asked Duggan.
“I think they gave her something designed to make her speak freely. Perhaps the drug works differently on humans or perhaps they gave her too much. There are traces of a compound in her body. I don’t recognize it, but some of the guys in the Space Corps labs will have a name for it.
“Doesn’t the med-box know?”
“It’s a portable unit, designed to cope with battlefield injuries. It’s not meant to replace an entire medical facility.”
“What’s it doing to her?”
“It’s making a periodic flush of her blood and injecting large doses of synthetic adrenaline.”
“Is that the answer to every damned injury? Ever-greater quantities of adrenaline?”
Weiss had heard the anger before and didn’t take it personally. “Whatever compound they used on her, it’s resistant to the drugs flush. If I had use of some better equipment I could fix this, I’m sure.”
Duggan caught the underlying meaning in the words. “Do you mean she’s dying?”
Most doctors would have hedged their bets. Weiss wasn’t one to shy away from giving her honest assessment. “Yes, I think she’s dying. Her organs are failing. I’ve been able to slow the process but not arrest it entirely.”
Guns of the Valpian (Survival Wars Book 6) Page 19