The Councillors muttered some more. Several of those gathered looked doubtful, whilst others nodded tentatively. In the end, the usual happened and the minority fell into line with the majority.
“Nevertheless, in forty-eight hours we will have reached a decision,” said Kemp. “We expect to see evidence of firm action from the Space Corps during that time. There will be no sitting on your hands as you wait to hear.”
Listening to those words made Duggan think he could cheerfully throttle Kemp. His strength was gradually fading as he got older, but he reckoned he could still overpower the Councillor if he wanted. Why stop at one? whispered the voice in Duggan’s mind.
“You have been fully briefed on the formation of Response Fleet Alpha, Councillor Kemp. There are brave men and women on those warships who, in all likelihood, will die in the coming hours. You will show them some respect.”
“They are doing their duty, Admiral.”
The meeting ended and the screen went blank, leaving Duggan alone in the room. At his feet, the med-box bleeped soothingly. He was not a man who could stomach inaction and it didn’t take long for him to make a decision.
“Recall the Maximilian – fastest speed to New Earth Central Command station.”
“Acknowledged,” said Cerys.
Having gone this far, there was no going back. “How long until the Admiral Teron can fly?”
“At what state of readiness, Admiral?”
“Countermeasures and missiles.”
“Forty hours according to the shipyard records, with an additional twenty hours for the installation and activation of the new particle beam turrets.”
“I want it off the ground as soon as the missiles and countermeasures are ready.”
“I will relay the order, Admiral.”
“How many other warships are there within a four-day radius of New Earth?”
“There is one Imposition-class cruiser, two Resolve-class light cruisers and six Crimson-class Destroyers, Admiral.”
“Recall them all.”
“I will see to it immediately.”
Duggan felt the weight of uncertainty lift from his shoulders. The relief was short-lived and his next order was going to be a painful one – the type of order he hated giving and which he knew would make him feel like a coward no matter how much his wife told him only the bravest of men had the strength to issue them.
“Order Response Fleet Alpha to attack the enemy as soon as they are able.”
“The fleet is at lightspeed. I will add the order to Captain Kang’s queue.”
“Thank you.”
With a sigh, as though he were succumbing to a weakness he detested, Duggan reached for the med-box. It was going to be a long time until he could sleep.
Chapter Six
“Why hasn’t anyone come looking for us?” asked Debbie Nelson. “How long has it been now?”
“Four hours,” Akachi replied. He’d given up trying to feed power into the doors and looked morosely at the floor.
“Closer to five,” said Keller. “At least the toilets don’t need Gallenium to flush.” He grinned.
“Ewww,” said Nelson.
“It’s been quiet for a while,” said Reynolds. “Maybe whatever was happening has happened.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cruz. “We’d have been rescued in that case.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot more to go until this is over.”
“Why would the Ghasts do this?” asked Ramprakash.
“Because they’re war-mongering bastards who have never forgiven us for defeating them in the last war,” snorted Reynolds.
“They weren’t particularly subtle back then,” said Ramprakash. “You mentioned Angax and Charistos yourself, Lieutenant. They just killed everyone. That’s how the Ghasts wage war.”
“Yeah, why would they act any different now?” asked Keller.
“Who the hell else is it going to be?” asked Reynolds. “It’s the Ghasts, I tell you.”
Cruz was only half-listening to the conversation. “It doesn’t matter who it is. We need to ask ourselves what benefit there is in attacking a military base.”
“I’d have thought that self-evident,” scoffed Reynolds. “To destroy our warships and kill our personnel.”
“We can build new warships, Lieutenant,” she replied, ignoring his mocking tones. “New warships are something we can do really well. What about intel? What they wanted to find out as much about us as possible?”
“Like what?” asked Akachi. “If it is the Ghasts, they know where to find eight of our planets already.”
“Only eight, Francis. Most of our strength is on the other eighteen – the Origin Sector and the remainder of Hyptron. If we lost those eight planets, we’d be hurt but we wouldn’t be out for the count.”
“Whoever or whatever it is, they might know everything about us anyway,” said Reynolds, arguing for the sake of it.
“Yeah, but what if they don’t?” said Nelson. “They’d need to find that information. Steal it from us, in other words.”
“If I was an invading force, the information I’d find most useful would be the location of the people I was invading. If I knew where they lived, then I’d feel pretty sure I was on top,” said Nelson.
“I’d be happy to have you on top,” said Reynolds, hunting for laughs.
“Just shut the hell up, Tez,” Akachi replied. “Everyone already thinks you’re a creep.”
“One more comment like that and I’ll have no hesitation in requesting your demotion, Lieutenant,” said Cruz. “That’ll look great on your record, won’t it?”
“Fine, fine, it was just a joke, that’s all. Chill everyone. I’m sorry, okay? I’m a bad guy, what else can I say?”
Cruz wasn’t fooled by the glib display of contrition. It wasn’t the time to force a confrontation, so she continued where she’d left off. “Where would an invading force obtain the coordinates of other planets within the Confederation?”
“A comms hub like this one,” said Nelson.
“Yeah, a comms hub,” said Ramprakash. “If they got into our data arrays they’d be able to find all manner of top-secret stuff the military sends out as well.”
“Wait a second, how would they know we’re here?” asked Reynolds. “Last I checked, we were a hundred metres underground.”
“There’s a big antennae array above us, Lieutenant. You’d have to be blind or stupid to miss it.”
“You can’t just plug into our kit and suck out what you need,” said Reynolds. “This stuff is highly encrypted. It would take weeks to hack into it.”
Cruz had a sudden, unwelcome thought. “Oh crap,” she said. “What was it you said about the encryption algorithm, Larry?”
“It’s running well below its intended maximum. That shouldn’t be a problem though – we’re still talking about high-end, multi-layer twist encryption with nothing stupid like a back door that can be opened by entering the name of the base commander’s pet dog.”
“Our data is locked up tight,” Nelson agreed.
“It would take weeks to break the codes, if not months.”
“What happens when the residual power dries up?” Cruz asked.
“That Obsidiar processor just keeps on ticking, Lieutenant. It generates its own power.”
“What if someone pulled it from the array so there was nothing left creating that encryption algorithm? Wouldn’t the data from our arrays be ready to download and make off with?”
“Not a chance. Any hostile attempts to gain entry into the data arrays would need to synchronise a breach attempt by matching the code from at least one of our processors at the precise time it generates the code. If you don’t have that key, you don’t get into the data.”
“Once there’s no processor creating those codes, the data falls into what we call a static state. For all intents and purposes, that means its irrecoverable,” added Ramprakash.
“Unless you extract the physical data modules and analyse the
m at a molecular level,” said Nelson. “That might take years.”
“What if you tried to hack this Obsidiar processor using another Obsidiar processor?” asked Cruz. “What if you had a whole bank of such cores trying to hack in?”
The tech guys exchanged glances. A couple of them shifted, refusing to meet her eyes. None offered an answer.
“I thought as much,” said Cruz.
Just then, there was a heavy thumping sound from somewhere outside the room. It sounded like a very heavy object impacting with another heavy object. The sound was repeated and then again.
“What’s that?” asked Ramps.
“I don’t think I want to know,” said Cruz, wishing more than anything that she was out with her friends, enjoying those birthday drinks she’d been so looking forward to.
Sergeant Eric McKinney had never been into the underground facility before. Now he was here, he was wholly unsurprised by what he found. There were wide corridors, stairs and rooms, with everything laid out in a logical way. Signs hung from the ceiling and most of the doors were numbered or labelled to indicate the function of what lay beyond. In the Space Corps fashion, there was hardly any decoration – no paint, no motivational posters and definitely no place to take a mid-day nap. The walls were clad in smooth alloy plates, either for reinforcement or simply because the Corps liked grey.
McKinney asked himself if he would have guessed this was underground if he’d woken up in here, having been somehow transported unknowingly into the bunker. By the appearance, it could have been within any Space Corps facility on any of the Confederation worlds.
“To think I was secretly jealous of the people who worked in here,” said Garcia. He reached out for the panel adjacent to the door he was walking past. Like the others, it was powered off and the door refused to open.
“You’d think there’d be a few personnel down here,” said Webb.
“The bunker has been kept on daytime shift for as long as I’ve been stationed at Tillos,” said McKinney. “I’ll bet it would be busy if we were at war.”
“We are at war,” said Webb. “We just don’t know who with.”
“I’m sure the base commander’s doing his best to get a night shift organized as we speak,” said Garcia sarcastically. “Before you know it, this place will be full of people.”
“Piss off, Garcia.”
“They’ve got a spaceship in here, haven’t they?” asked Li.
“Yeah, a big one,” said McKinney. “One of those Galactics. We’ll be able to see it if we can get into one of the viewing rooms.”
“A Galactic? Aren’t they huge?” asked Webb. “How did they manage to fit it inside?”
“The stuff you can do with computers,” said Li. “They must have landed it on autopilot.”
McKinney could fly most transport shuttles, so had a general idea of how these things worked. “The Corporal’s right. They probably don’t need more than a few inches of clearance to park up.”
“A few inches?” asked Webb incredulously.
“That’s what I said.”
“What’s it in for?” asked Garcia.
“The ES Lucid,” said McKinney, remembering the name.
“Yeah, the ES Lucid. What are they doing with it? And why haven’t the enemy blown open the bunker doors to get down here? The Impetuous didn’t last long.”
“I’ve no idea what it’s in for,” said McKinney, pondering why the bunker hadn’t been cracked open by an orbital strike.
“This whole place is meant to stay hidden,” said Li. “Did you see the main overhead doors the last time you went over the base in a shuttle?”
“No,” said Webb.
“Exactly. The Corps does stuff down here it doesn’t want everyone to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some type of shielding around this whole bunker to stop anyone who’s outside from looking inside.”
“That’s got to be it,” said McKinney.
“Maybe we should hole up in here for a while,” said Garcia hopefully. “I reckon everyone’s dead.”
“We ain’t hiding from nobody,” said Webb.
“That’s right, soldier,” said McKinney, giving him a clap on the back. “As soon as we get properly tooled up and find out if there’s anyone still down here, we’re going back up top. This is our chance to do what we signed up for.”
“Where will we find the weapons?” asked Garcia. “What if they’re locked up tight in a cabinet we can’t access because there’s no power?”
McKinney shrugged. “We’ll deal with that problem when it arises.”
“Did you hear that?” asked Garcia, cocking his head to one side.
The others shook their heads.
“I’m sure I heard…”
The sound came again.
“There,” said Garcia, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“What the hell was that?” asked Webb.
“There it is again.”
Something boomed in the distance, like a sledgehammer hitting a hollow metal surface with enormous force.
“What’s that Sergeant?”
“Explosives,” McKinney replied grimly. “Maybe the enemy has done a sweep and found the main entrance to the bunker.”
“Shit,” said Li. “We’d better find those weapons.”
McKinney picked up the pace. He guessed they were maybe three or four hundred metres beneath the surface. He was working on the assumption there would be a security station somewhere on the hangar floor – if he was in charge that would be where he’d put one. After all, the Corps didn’t want just anyone running onto fleet warships whenever they fancied. In truth, he was also hoping they’d pass a weapons station long before they reached the bottom. He felt distinctly under-equipped with just his gauss rifle.
The squad went down a long flight of steps, which led into an open area. There were more consoles here, as dead as the others they’d passed. The sounds of distant explosives came again.
“I can’t believe this whole place is deserted,” said Garcia. “If anyone got in here, they could burgle whatever they wanted.”
“What if there are people in here?” asked Webb. “What if they got stuck behind some of these doors? I’ve not seen a single door with a window in it. There could be some poor bastards inside, waiting to be let out.”
“This a complete screw-up,” muttered McKinney angrily.
There were two exits from the room – a passage and another set of steps. McKinney led the way down the steps, taking them two at a time. The sound of the explosions left him worried that some unknown foe was pursuing them into the bunker. He’d never fought a Ghast before and he pictured one in his mind – a seven-foot tall grey-skinned muscular brute carrying a crude repeater that could shred flesh and metal alike. He put a hand on the railing and vaulted the last half-dozen steps, finding himself in a long, narrow room, with one entire wall made up from a floor-to-ceiling window. There was a row of metal benches in front of the window.
“A viewing room,” he said, jogging across to look out.
The main hangar of the underground facility was an incomprehensibly vast space, thousands of metres long and fifteen hundred wide. The emergency lighting wasn’t sufficient to illuminate everything, but it was enough to give the men an idea of what lay within.
“They’re big bastards when you see them close up,” said Garcia in wonder.
They stared at the spaceship. They weren’t to know it, but the ES Lucid was one of the Space Corps’ newest Galactic class heavy cruisers. At three-thousand nine hundred metres long and fourteen hundred across the beam, there was hardly any clearance in the bay and McKinney felt like he might be able to reach out through the glass window and touch the cool surface of the vessel. As he stood, transfixed by the world-destroying menace of its silhouette, a feeling he hadn’t known for years came to him – the pure, wide-eyed wonder of a boy who first sets eyes upon the majesty of space and knew for definite that his destiny lay somewhere out there.
&n
bsp; “It makes you feel…tiny,” said Garcia.
“Shhh!” said McKinney, listening carefully. There were no more explosions, which was in itself worrying enough. However, there was something else – a low, humming vibration. McKinney pressed his hand against the glass window and felt it through the skin of his palm. “It’s running,” he said. “Everything else is out of power, but the ES Lucid is still running.”
The men exchanged looks.
“Maybe it’s why the base was attacked,” said Webb, who wasn’t nearly as stupid as he pretended. “Maybe there’s something special about the Lucid that makes it so valuable that someone will attack us in order to get hold of it.”
“We need to tell the base commander,” said Li.
McKinney nodded. “This way.”
The squad set off at a run, heading for the far exit from the viewing room. McKinney was convinced there was something of enormous significance happening here. In his head, the Ghasts were responsible and he was determined to throw a heavy spanner into the workings of their plans.
Chapter Seven
“How long until we reach Response Fleet Alpha?” asked Captain Charlie Blake.
“One hour,” said Lieutenant Rivera without hesitation.
“Has everyone read through the details from Admiral Murray?” The files were classified, but in the circumstances, Blake preferred his crew to have as much information as was available. It could make the difference between death and failure or success and victory.
“I’ve just finished them,” said Rivera. “Let me get this straight – we’re facing some sort of Neutraliser which can shut down anything running off Gallenium?”
“That’s what the report says. There’s confirmed history of it happening before. The Estral sent two Class 1 Neutralisers into Confederation Space. One of them shut down Atlantis. This is the second time the planet has found itself without power and comms. Our intel suggests the Vraxar run a fleet of these things and now they’ve sent them our way.”
“That’s impossible,” said Rivera. “No one’s shutting down my engines.”
“Those are the facts, Lieutenant. The existence of these Neutralisers is proven fact, whatever you choose to believe.”
Negation Force (Obsidiar Fleet Book 1) Page 5