“There were several intact,” said Pointer.
“Come on,” said Blake, urging McKinney to set off. “The Determinant could well be a consolation prize they’ll be very interested in. We need to destroy that lifter.”
McKinney didn’t wait to be asked twice. He set off in the lead, and the others followed. Every minor success, every hurdle jumped led to another and he wondered when it would end.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thirty minutes later, the squad were deep into the underground bunker, several levels down and advancing with a mixture of speed and caution along one of the countless wide corridors. Corporal Evans’ assessment was correct – there were too few Vraxar to provide an adequate defence of the many kilometres of tunnels and the hundreds of rooms and offices.
Blake was near to the front. It was apparent that the injections from his spacesuit were finally overcoming the Vraxar truth drug and his nausea was gone. He was vastly relieved, having begun to fear there’d be permanent, irreparable damage from whatever crap they’d filled him up with.
“Three engagements and no additional casualties so far,” he said. “We’re doing well.”
“The guys have learned fast, sir,” said McKinney.
“You’re probably the last ones alive, so you’ve done something right.”
“How long until we can activate the countermeasures, do you think?”
“Corporal Evans said this passage will eventually take us to the front storage and maintenance area. From there, we should be within shouting distance of the Lucid’s forward boarding ramp and also close enough to pick up Lieutenant Cruz.”
“We’ll be really close by then,” said McKinney. “In the thick of it.”
Blake caught the meaning. “The enemy warships can travel at a speed in excess of eighteen hundred klicks per second, Sergeant. Once they’ve made the decision to launch missiles at this bunker it won’t take them long to get into position. We’re relying on them being slow to make a decision.”
“Lieutenant Cruz reckons things are stirring on the bottom floor,” said Bannerman. He had the field comms pack over one shoulder and the remote earpiece in place.
“We need to get moving,” said Blake.
They reached the final set of steps. McKinney and Blake took them two at a time, keeping their rifles ready. There was a landing at the bottom, which emerged at the mid-point of a long, straight passage. They stopped and checked both ways.
“Clear,” whispered McKinney.
Corporal Evans joined them, doing his best to keep out of sight.
“That big doorway along there goes directly into the storage area. Once we’re inside, we’ll be able to see the Lucid through the main doors to the right. There should be another exit to the left which leads back to the guard station, near to where Lieutenant Cruz is hiding.”
“Something’s coming out of the storage area,” said Blake. “Four Vraxar.”
Evans raised his rifle.
“Wait!” hissed McKinney.
“Sir?”
“Give them a chance to get clear of the doorway.”
Evans held fire. Several of the squad crouched at the landing, doing their best to find a position that would allow a clear line of sight to the approaching enemy soldiers.
“Rifles only,” said McKinney. He released his breath slowly. “Fire.”
Five gauss rifles hummed once, twice and then a third time. The Vraxar soldiers crumpled to the ground.
“Hold.”
“Shit there’s more!” said Garcia.
There was movement in the doorway and two more Vraxar stepped into view, with others behind. The men fired, but not quickly enough. The front two went down, while those coming after realised there’d been an ambush. They vanished from sight, taking refuge in the storage area.
“There goes the element of surprise,” said Blake.
“What now?” asked McKinney.
“We try and stop them. Cover me.”
Blake sprinted out from the stairwell and made for the doorway, with McKinney and Garcia following. He held his rifle at chest height while he ran. It wasn’t the ideal position from which to fire and he hoped no more Vraxar soldiers would come into sight. He vaulted over the dead aliens and reached the doorway a few paces ahead of the others.
“Clear,” he whispered.
McKinney brought his arm around in a wide, exaggerated arc. Move up! the gesture said.
There was a clatter of activity and the rest of the squad detached from the landing and advanced at the run, spreading themselves in a line against the wall. Blake looked into the storage area and then darted through the doorway into the massive space on the other side.
The closest object offering cover was a Lambda IX missile, lying horizontally on a steel rack. Beyond that was a stack of solid Gallenium blocks intended for use in a fission drive. They were piled halfway to the ceiling and likely weighed a few million tonnes.
Keeping low, Blake reached the missile and crouched with only his head and his gauss rifle showing over the top. With his motion sensor, he scanned for the enemy soldiers.
Blake wasn’t familiar with this particular storage and maintenance area. On the other hand, he’d seen plenty of similar ones and this place was only different in the details. There were cargo lifts, cranes and several flatbed lifters. Racks of missiles and various containers were scattered across the floor – all the signs of a maintenance operation interrupted midway through. Two hundred metres away was the huge opening that led into the hangar area.
Sergeant McKinney arrived and crouched next to him. “Sir? This is a live missile we’re hiding behind!”
Blake’s rifle whined twice. “It won’t go off by accident. Got one of them,” he said. “Can’t see the others from that patrol. I think it’s likely they’ve made it into the hangar.”
“Can you see the Vraxar, sir? My HUD is broken so there’s no feed from the movement sensor.”
“Crap – there might be more than a hundred of them. They’re taking cover, so it’s about to get messy.”
“For them or us?”
Blake laughed. “Let’s say for them, shall we? Do you know which way you’re going, Sergeant?”
“To find Lieutenant Cruz? Over that way.”
“You’d better decide who you’re taking and start running. I can’t activate the Lucid’s defences if you’re anywhere in line of sight.”
“There’s a nuke in here, sir. Will it go off?”
It wasn’t news Blake wanted to hear. “No, but the radiation might kill us now that our protective suits are damaged from that plasma rocket. We’ve got no choice other than to see where this road takes us.”
“Squad A, you’re coming with me,” said McKinney. “Squads B and C, follow Captain Blake’s orders.”
Blake reached out a hand towards Bannerman. “Give me that pack before you go.”
“All yours, sir.”
The five men of Squad A headed off across the floor of the storage area. There was plenty of cover for them and they wended their way around the side of a flatbed lifter. In moments, they were lost from sight.
A shot pinged away from the edge of the Lambda IX casing. Blake dropped quickly out of sight and warned the men of Squads B and C to remain in the doorway. He pulled the field comms pack towards him and lifted the flap which covered the main panel. These packs were versatile kit and it was easy enough to send his command codes to the ES Lucid. The warship’s AI responded sluggishly and he guessed the Vraxar’s attempts to burn it out were the cause.
“We’ve got movement from both directions in this passage out here,” said Corporal Li through the doorway.
Blake heard the sound of three or four gauss rifles firing.
“Hold them off.”
It was easier said than done. Blake knew he needed to move fast, else the soldiers risked being caught in a crossfire. His concern was for McKinney and the others in Squad A. They needed to be away before he activated the Lucid’s defences. He squinted
at the stack of Gallenium blocks between him and the warship. They’d be enough, he was sure.
More shots pinged against the Lambda. A figure crawled through the doorway and made its way towards him. It was Lieutenant Pointer and she’d got hold of a gauss rifle from somewhere.
“Thought you might want some company.”
She looked over the tube and fired, before dropping flat to the floor. “There’s quite a lot of Vraxar coming into the storage area, sir.”
“I know! Keep your head down!”
More shots came. They whined through the air and ricocheted from the walls next to the doorway.
“Sir, we can’t stay here much longer!” said Corporal Li.
“Send the men in. Stay low and keep these blocks between yourselves and the Lucid. Leave two to cover the passage.”
The soldiers came in hastily. It was a nasty position for them to be in, with attacks coming from three directions. There was plenty of room behind the Lambda, but the necessity to keep the Gallenium blocks between the men and the hangar bay opening made things cramped.
Something exploded on the other side of the missile, the force of the blast pushing it a few inches along the floor. With the enemy using explosives, there was no more time to delay. Blake made a decision and sent a command to the ES Lucid, activating its automatic defence systems. Maximum response, he told it, an order to keep firing until every target was neutralised.
When the ship’s core sent its acknowledgement, Blake ducked a little lower. Against anything other than the Vraxar he may have felt sympathy for what they were about to endure. When it came to this new enemy, he felt only satisfaction.
The ES Lucid was the newest model in the Galactic class and an evolution of older ships such as the New Beginning. It was equipped with eighty-four Bulwark cannons, distributed more or less evenly across its hull. The warship’s battle systems detected the presence of hostile life forms underneath the ship, as well as five more behind a window three hundred metres from the ground.
Within a tenth of second, twenty-four lower Bulwarks and one upper cannon emerged from their places in the hull and began firing.
The noise was terrifying. Tens of thousands of Gallenium slugs punched out in all directions. Those Vraxar still beneath the Lucid were killed instantly, their bodies crushed to unrecognizable smears of bloody paste, while the Bulwark projectiles smashed countless pits and craters into the hardened floor.
The five Vraxar behind the viewing window had no time to react. A single, short burst from the lone upper cannon crashed through the window and the metal holding it in place, killing the aliens and leaving deep holes in the wall and ceiling behind them. The upper cannon withdrew and an armoured hatch slid across to cover it.
Within the storage area, it was a little different. The Vraxar were spread out through the heavy machinery as they sought to locate the squad. Since the aliens weren’t all in direct sight of its sensors, the Lucid’s AI decided to saturate the entire area with projectiles.
The devastation was incredible. Sitting with his back to the Lambda propulsion section, Charlie Blake watched in awe as a massive flatbed lifter was flipped onto its edge and then punched at tremendous speed for several hundred metres across the floor, the punishment of the Bulwark knocking it into a new, unrecognizable shape.
Pointer said something, the words lost in the storm of noise. Blake tried to smile and wasn’t sure exactly which expression came to his face.
Elsewhere within the storage area a torrent of bullets tore through a row of gravity cranes, ruining them utterly. Gantries crashed down and Blake saw another truck sail through the air, heading towards where he and the men were hiding. Mouths opened in horror – the looks of those who saw unavoidable death coming.
The truck collided with the stack of Gallenium blocks. It was deflected and crashed down upon the live warhead of the Lambda IX. Everything Blake had been taught told him it couldn’t go off, but he didn’t want to be the man to test it. There was no explosion – the weight of the truck caused the end of the missile to lift off the ground. It hung in the air, teetering, whilst those below could only stare as it threatened to crush them. Then, the truck slid away from the crumpled warhead and the propulsion tube thumped down onto its rack.
The cannon fire stopped, taking the shrieking of tortured metal with it. Most of the emergency lighting was out, and much of what remained operational flickered on and off randomly. Blake lifted his head cautiously. Noise returned – the creaking of torn and overstressed metal toppling over or succumbing to its weakened state and tearing along joints not designed to handle such an onslaught.
“Is it done?” asked Corporal Li, eyes wide.
Blake checked the display on the comms pack.
[No Threats Detected. Scanning Mode 18 Active. Awaiting Input.]
“It’s done,” Blake confirmed.
“I think we’ve got more trouble,” said Grover. “My HUD is showing potentially fatal levels of radiation coming from over on that side of the storage bay.”
Twelve pairs of eyes searched. The opposite wall was a long distance away and bathed in darkness. There were shapes, barely distinguishable, their true forms indistinct. At that moment, a section of the emergency lighting came back, giving them a glimpse of a broken missile, bent and propped at an angle against the shattered parts of a gravity crane. Compared to the Lambda IX, this missile was technologically crude, though it carried a much heavier payload. The lights went out once more and darkness hid the nuclear missile within its shroud.
“We’ve got to go,” said Blake.
“What about Sergeant McKinney?” asked Corporal Li.
“We can’t wait around in this crap,” said Pointer.
“She’s right,” said Blake. “We need to secure the ES Lucid while we have the chance.” He saw their faces. “No one gets left behind, but we must get to the spaceship.”
The men believed him and followed Blake onto the floor of the storage area. There was nothing untouched by the Bulwark cannons and there was no way any of the equipment could ever be salvaged. It would have to be broken down and re-forged in a foundry somewhere off-world.
It was a short distance to the main hangar, though there were places the men were required to clamber across jagged, twisted fragments of metal, split from whatever they’d originally been part of. Most of the equipment in the storage area had been thrown against the side and back walls, so there was no significant impediment to progress.
“We’re going to need treatment once we get onboard,” said Grover. “Otherwise, we’re all going to start vomiting up our insides in the near future.”
They crossed into the main hangar, where the floor was even more cracked and broken than it was in the storage area. Objects on the ground caught Blake’s eye - here and there he noticed a limb or piece of bloodied metal. He felt no sorrow over the deaths.
Any vestigial doubts over the operational state of the Lucid were dispelled – the spaceship was definitely running. Its engines hummed and sent a vibration through its landing legs and into the ground. Blake hurried on, excitement building within.
“The forward boarding ramp should descend any moment,” he said.
With a thump, a section of the Lucid’s hull detached a short distance ahead of them. The ramp dropped towards the ground rapidly and with utter smoothness. It touched the ground softly, making no sound.
“This is it,” said Pointer, her gaze fixed on the red-lit airlock above. “We made it.”
“Ready to see what a real warship can do, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
The sound of a raised voice came to them.
“Here’s the sergeant,” said Mills. “Looks like he’s got Lieutenant Cruz with him as well.”
“Bring him onboard,” said Blake. “Have Lieutenant Rivera held in the troops’ quarters. I’ll be on the bridge. We’ll need treatment for this radiation.”
“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Grover. “I might need to grab s
omething from the medical bay first.”
Blake breathed in, filling his lungs with the scents of Gallenium and electricity which wafted out from the ES Lucid’s interior.
“Go on, sir,” whispered Pointer. “The Vraxar might have warships on the way.”
The sudden roar of a Bulwark jarred him into motion. There were still Vraxar in the bunker and it didn’t make sense to hang about here in the open. Realising he was standing at the threshold like a shy child waiting for an invitation to a party, he set foot on the ramp, climbed rapidly and entered the airlock.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The bridge wasn’t far from the forward ramp airlock. Blake sprinted through a series of wide, cold corridors, lit in Space Corps blue-white, with Lieutenant Pointer following him. He reached a thick blast door which opened automatically, allowing him onto the bridge. It wasn’t much different to what he expected – a compact, tapering room with three console sections for the crew and a fourth for the captain to sit at. The dozens of screens glowed soothingly, awaiting input.
Blake leapt into the main seat. “Powering everything up,” he said. “The gravity engines are warm. We’ll have sufficient thrust to lift off shortly.”
He ran through a well-rehearsed series of pre-flight checks. Every system and subsystem were showing green lights, except those relating to the main source of the warship’s power. The output from the Gallenium, of which most of the Lucid was comprised, showed zeroes across the board.
There was an additional screen in the centre of his console, which wasn’t installed on most fleet warships. It was the status display for the Obsidiar core. He studied the readings – the gauges indicated that the single, comparatively tiny core was providing power for everything on the Lucid. Those few thousand tonnes of Obsidiar were able to generate enough raw muscle to replace approximately eighteen billion tonnes of Gallenium and it was the only substance capable of sustaining an energy shield large and powerful enough to block incoming attacks.
It wasn’t perfect, of course. The Obsidiar’s output drained away rapidly when it was put under strain. Expecting to fly at maximum thrust for long periods while under the protection of an energy shield would dry up the core’s reserves quickly and it required twenty minutes to recharge from empty to full.
Negation Force (Obsidiar Fleet Book 1) Page 23