The strip around the front of the shuttle wasn’t a windscreen; rather it was a wraparound display, upon which Duggan was able to view the enemy base as it receded with distance. The lens of the monitoring station stared back as though it were judging him for his actions. He ignored the feeling and concentrated on keeping the shuttle heading where he wanted. By the time they were fifty kilometres up, he felt as if he’d been flying craft like this for a lifetime.
“Let’s see if we can surprise the crew of the Valpian,” he said, feeling light-headed from the adrenaline and the painkillers.
Chapter Nine
The best Duggan was able to judge, it was a fifteen-minute ride up to the enemy warship. He didn’t want to leave his seat to check the status of his troops personally, so he called Lieutenant Ortiz into the cockpit. She was still fully suited, to protect herself from the lack of pressure in the shuttle and Duggan felt momentarily foolish that he hadn’t simply used the comms to speak with her.
“How are we doing?” he asked.
“Link-Tor is going to die,” she said flatly. “Corporal Weiss is working on him, but he’s taken a good few shots. I don’t know how he managed to fool them long enough to get into the cockpit, but he did a good job.”
“We owe him,” said Duggan. “The Ghasts we have with us are everything Subjos Gol-Tur said they would be.”
“That they are. We had to leave Jackson’s body behind.”
Duggan’s anger returned. “What a pointless way to die,” he spat. “Falling down a set of damned stairs.”
“I should have ordered ten of us to wait in the room below,” said Ortiz quietly. “I should have realised we were too bunched up.”
“In that case the blame lies with me as well, Lieutenant.”
“No, sir, it doesn’t. You shouldn’t need to micromanage everything. I’m meant to catch the little things.”
“It happened and we can’t change it. Grown men and women shouldn’t need to be told that a steep staircase is dangerous. Besides, we needed to be out of that door as soon as it opened.”
“Yes, sir.”
She wasn’t convinced. For his part, Duggan was deeply upset at the two deaths, but he knew when it was time to blame himself and when something was no more than a terrible accident.
“Are there any other injuries?” he asked.
“Only yours, sir. Want me to have Camacho flogged?” Duggan was relieved to hear the humour creep back. “There’s a law from about fifteen hundred years ago that states an officer of lieutenant rank can order up to fifty lashes. They never saw fit to rescind that law.”
“Oh?” said Duggan, unaware such a law existed. “How many lashes can a captain order?”
“Up to two thousand, I believe. The law stems from an ancient, barbaric period in the history of humanity.”
Duggan looked at the place he’d been caught by Camacho’s stray shot. There was a shallow graze over the material of his suit and it didn’t take a medic to realise it wasn’t going to be fatal. “Let him know I’ll give the matter some thought. If he excels on the Valpian I might limit his punishment to a mere thousand lashes, administered by Red-Gulos here.” There were times it was inappropriate to joke and others when it was all you had.
Ortiz laughed, the sound unable to completely hide her despair. “I’ll send Corporal Weiss in to take a look.”
“Don’t,” he warned. “Spend the time getting everyone prepared. There’s a good chance we’re going to get blown out of the sky in the next fifteen minutes. If we manage to escape that fate, we’ve got an enemy warship to capture. It’s two-point-five klicks in length.”
“Size matters nothing if they’ve sent all their soldiers to reinforce their base. What happens if, I mean when we seize the Valpian, sir?”
“The honest answer is I don’t know. I’ve been told on more than one occasion I overthink things. This time, I’m sitting back and taking it easy as far as the thinking aspect goes. We’ll storm the bridge and see what happens from there.”
“It sounds easy when you put it that way.” She hesitated. “We’ve come a lot further than I thought we would.”
“We’re a quarter of the way up the ladder. There’s a long way to the top.”
“We’ll make it.”
“I’m trying not to look too far ahead. In case it brings us bad luck.”
“I do the same, sir. I tell myself it’s stupid, but I just can’t help it.”
Ortiz left the cockpit and returned to the personnel bay. Duggan asked Red-Gulos questions about various symbols on the shuttle’s console that his suit computer didn’t recognize. He knew the inevitable request from the Valpian was coming, though he tried not to think too hard about it.
“On a Space Corps vessel there’d have been an attempt at communication immediately after take-off,” he said. “Is the Ghast navy as unconcerned as the Dreamers when it comes to the status of its units?”
“I would not expect to spend much time chatting with a comms man,” the Ghast replied. “It is usually sufficient to speak a single time prior to landing.”
“Is that what will happen here?”
“I think we will hear from them when we are within five thousand kilometres.” Red-Gulos turned and Duggan saw cold, grey eyes through the clear visor. “These Estral have much in common with we who fled, but they have become soft with their power. Their advanced technology has been enough to overcome those who oppose them up until now. I am not certain they will enjoy meeting a foe as determined as humans or Ghasts.”
Duggan thought the words well-spoken, even if he believed them over-confident. The Dreamers had the numbers and the resources to crush the Space Corps and the Ghast navies easily if they wished. The only hope was to play for time in order to prepare.
The two of them sat in silence for another few minutes. Duggan remained in the open comms channel and listened to Ortiz planning and organizing. Once they got onboard the Valpian, they’d need to move efficiently and act with ruthlessness in order to suppress the inevitable resistance. There could still be hundreds of enemy soldiers stationed within its hull, in which case defeat was inevitable.
They reached a point far above Nistrun and Duggan focused the shuttle’s sensors on the Valpian. Operating the console was already second-nature and his hands were able to work without needing his brain to interpret the symbols on the screens. He’d always possessed an aptitude for flight. It wasn’t something he bragged about – there were people who could produce wondrous works of art, whilst others could make music so beautiful it would bring tears to the eyes of the listener. Duggan couldn’t do those things – he knew how to pilot vast machines of death and he could do it as well as anyone.
The image of the Valpian was muddy and wavering. Lieutenant Chainer had once speculated that the Dreamer sensor technology was hardly better than that used by the Space Corps. Certainly the shuttle had a rudimentary sensor array and Duggan needed to peer closely in order to get an idea about the Valpian’s construction.
The enemy vessel was a long, slender cuboid with rounded edges. It was slimmer at the front and wider at the back. Its nose tapered into a wedge. Along the underside of the hull there were struts, holding what appeared to be landing skids, each one over two thousand metres in length. There was a single topside dome near to the front, with another to the rear. The rest of the hull bristled with square missile clusters, which protruded in groups of four. There was something else, which Duggan was unable to believe the first time he saw it - jagged blue lines of raw energy flickered at irregular intervals across the hull, as though the warship’s physical form was incapable of containing the power within.
Had there been any doubts about the nature of the Valpian, they were dispelled as soon as its shape became clear. Duggan had up until now acted in the belief it was a warship, though without any proof he was correct. Here it was, with its sleek lines and brooding air of menace. The Space Corps’ ships had the same threatening appearance, though theirs was that of a le
an streetfighter. The Valpian looked as dangerous as an expert duellist.
“It looks new,” said Red-Gulos.
“Yes. I’ve faced their cruisers before and this one looks like an evolution of the design. A big evolution.”
“They will be surprised when we board them and shoot their captain,” said Red-Gulos.
Duggan caught sight of an unnervingly white-toothed grin through the Ghast’s visor and he couldn’t help smiling himself. “They’re too cocky for their own good. We’ll show them what happens when they bite off more than they can chew.”
The conversation was interrupted by a complex flashing symbol on one of the comms screens. Duggan’s helmet computer dutifully translated: Inbound Message. Priority 5.
“I will need to respond,” said Red-Gulos.
“Are you clear what you will tell them?”
“We rescued the monitoring station crew and we are carrying one of the memory arrays. We suffered a grenade hit in the side and we have several injured personnel who require immediate medical attention.”
“That covers it. Make them believe.”
“There are ways to fool someone without lying,” said Red-Gulos.
A deep blue panel lit up on the middle of the console and an alarm sounded, muted yet unmistakeably a warning.
“They’ve targeted us!” said Duggan.
“We’re taking too long to respond.”
“You’d better see what they want.”
The Ghast activated the comms panel and spoke. Duggan was able to understand many of the words, but the nuances were lost, leading him to believe he was missing the underlying meaning. The Ghasts spoke in hints and suggestions, rather than outright lies. Misdirection is the same as deception, Duggan thought to himself. We are closer to each other than anyone would like to believe.
The conversation between Red-Gulos and the Dreamer on the Valpian continued for a time. The harshness in the two voices remained, as if all speech was conducted from a position of anger.
The Valpian was a thousand kilometres away and still there was no indication they’d been given clearance to land. There was a docking bay towards the rear of the hull, open and clearly-visible. Duggan aimed towards it and kept his speed down, so as not to cause alarm.
At five hundred kilometres, a series of purple lights flashed insistently to the left-hand side of the shuttle’s control stick. Duggan was sure it was the auto-dock function demanding to be activated. Red-Gulos didn’t show any sign of finishing his conversation, so Duggan reached out, meaning to activate the autopilot.
“Don’t!” said the Ghast urgently.
Duggan withdrew his hand and continued piloting the shuttle manually. The lights on the comms panel winked out, suggesting the conversation between transport and warship was concluded. Red-Gulos rolled his metal-clad shoulders as if he needed to release the tension in them.
“If this shuttle is anything like those in the Ghast navy, once you activate the autopilot you hand control to the parent ship, rather than activating a built-in routine on the transport itself. We would have no control over when we accept inbound comms, nor control over the outer doors. Everything would be in the hands of the Valpian, including access to the shuttle’s internal monitoring cameras.”
There wasn’t any point in taking additional risks, so Duggan accepted the words without argument. “Are they happy with us landing manually?”
“I told them we have no choice, owing to the damage we sustained from the grenade blast. Their captain is very interested to hear about the so-called enemy soldiers we faced.”
Duggan laughed. “I intend to meet him at the earliest opportunity.” He brought Lieutenant Ortiz into the channel and told her it was nearly time. “There’s no room for mercy here. We have to kill everything that gets in our way.”
“I understand, sir. The troops are aware.”
“Try not to shoot anything that looks as if we might need it later.”
“You can’t have it both ways, sir,” she said in the perfectly-neutral tones of a junior officer politely telling her superior how unworkable his recent suggestion was.
“Fine. Shoot at will,” he said. “Except on the bridge.”
“Except on the bridge,” she repeated.
The Valpian was flying in a high, tight circle over the installation below. Its course was predictable and so easy to match that Duggan did it without much effort. The landing bay was only a few kilometres ahead, a rectangular opening which spilled blue light into space. There was one additional shuttle inside, clamped in place to the side wall. It was much larger than their existing vessel.
“Room for four,” Red-Gulos observed.
“The hangar is big – they must have plenty of spare power if they can afford to use all this space for shuttles instead of engines. And it’s deserted,” said Duggan. “So much for having the medical staff waiting. Do you know where we go to exit the bay once we’ve landed?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Captain Duggan.”
“I don’t like guessing,” Duggan muttered.
With that, he gave his utmost focus to the task of landing the shuttle into the bay of a fast-moving enemy warship. After a few minutes of careful manoeuvring, he set them down dead-centre and with barely a jolt. Behind, a thick alloy door rolled slowly up from its place between the walls of the warship’s hull. It took a minute or two and once it was fully sealed, the lights in the landing bay vanished without warning, leaving the shuttle in absolute darkness.
“What’s this?” asked Duggan, pointing to a request on the central display of the pilot’s console.
“The Valpian is waiting for a code,” said Red-Gulos.
“Why does it need a code? I don’t have a damned code!” Duggan’s heart sank when he realised he had no way to jump this security hurdle.
“I did not expect this,” said the Ghast. “We may not be able to exit this bay until you provide a suitable authorisation code.”
Duggan clenched his fists in impotent anger, while his brain struggled to think of a way out of the situation.
Chapter Ten
“Inbound comms from the Valpian’s bridge,” said Red-Gulos.
“They’ll be wondering where their codes are. Can you tell them the person who knows them is incapacitated?”
“That is the logical next step. I will attempt to convince them.”
The Ghast spoke only briefly and Duggan didn’t need to understand the exchange in order to know there was a problem.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Red-Gulos switched the comms onto mute. “I earlier convinced the bridge I am the shuttle’s dedicated comms man. Apparently, I am one of the three people they expect to have the necessary codes to complete the landing process. The bay won’t repressurize without them.”
“They must know something is amiss,” said Duggan.
“If they don’t, it won’t take long for them to realise. I believe their comms man is speaking to one of his superior officers.”
“They’ll recall the shuttles from the surface and this place will soon be crawling with their soldiers. We need to act.”
Bonner was the explosives expert and Duggan spoke to her, looking for some guidance on whether or not they’d be able to blow their way through the internal bay doors to get into the other areas of the ship. The answer was not what he wanted.
“If the Dreamers build their warships remotely like ours, there’s not a hope in hell I’ll be able to get through any of the bay walls, sir. Not even if I had five packs of explosives. The two plasma tubes we’re carrying won’t get you any further.”
“Damn,” said Duggan.
He called up an external sensor feed and panned around the bay. The absence of light made the image particularly poor and he found it hard to locate what he was looking for.
“That looks like a door,” he said, indicating a rectangular area on one wall, approximately two metres by three.
“A sturdy door,” agreed Red-Gulos.<
br />
Duggan continued moving the sensor around, pausing when he noticed something at the front of the other shuttle. He jerked upright when he recognized it. “I need to get over there,” he said.
“We have another comms request from the bridge,” said Red-Gulos. “This time it’s a Priority 2 message.”
“Answer it,” said Duggan. “Stall for time. We’re losing our element of surprise and as soon as that happens, they’ll recall the other two shuttles and they’ll organise their internal defences.”
“As you wish,” said the Ghast.
Duggan didn’t wait around to listen. He opened the cockpit door and went through to the passenger bay. The first thing he noticed was the pile of dead Dreamers. They’d been dragged onboard and dumped against the far wall.
“There was nowhere better to put them,” said Barron.
The other members of his squad were mostly on their feet and they milled around nervously. A few lounged in the uncomfortable seats, presumably trying to affect an air of nonchalance.
Lieutenant Ortiz was there. “What’s wrong, sir?” she asked.
Duggan didn’t stop walking and headed towards the uneven grenade hole in the shuttle’s double-skinned hull. “We’re trapped in here. The crew are suspicious.”
The edges of the hole were sharp, though it was easy enough to get through without damaging his spacesuit. It was two metres to the floor and he dropped down, landing more heavily than he wanted. There was movement and he saw Ortiz following, along with Rasmussen, the latter carrying a plasma tube.
“You need someone to cover you,” she stated.
Duggan saw no need to disagree. “We need to get inside that shuttle,” he said. “It’s got a nose-mounted chain gun.”
He broke into a run. The lack of an atmosphere combined with the denseness of the floor meant his footsteps made no sound. Usually the helmet microphone could register the presence of noise, even in a near-vacuum. This time, it picked up nothing.
Guns of the Valpian Page 7