“We have a lot more than missiles, Lieutenant. Plus, the Ghasts are sending two of their newest vessels. I’m sure they have something up their sleeves.”
“The Sciontrar is pushing six thousand metres long,” said Lieutenant Jake Quinn. “It has an estimated displacement of thirty billion tonnes and could wipe out a dozen less advanced civilisations before lunch and without breaking a sweat. Since we don’t know the precise dimensions of Ix-Gorghal, we can’t estimate its displacement, but we can be sure the Ghasts’ latest battleship is a minnow in comparison.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant, now can we have less of the pessimism from everyone? We’re going to find out what we can and then we’re going to escape. Fleet Admiral Duggan believes there may be a Neutraliser at our destination, along with one or two smaller ships. My personal vision of outstanding success for this mission sees us locating Ix-Gorghal and destroying some of the accompanying vessels. I do not, I repeat not, want us to throw ourselves against what is certainly a vastly superior foe.”
“It might not even be there,” said Ensign Charlotte Bailey.
“Good luck believing that,” said Pointer.
Blake had given them plenty of latitude to air their feelings and it was time to put an end to it. “Enough talk, it’s time to get down to business. We’ve got a job to do and I don’t want everyone to think the mission has failed before we begin.”
The crew didn’t push it.
“We’ll rendezvous with the Ghasts in twenty minutes,” said Quinn. “We’ll tie up our navigational systems and be on our way. I assume you have a plan, sir?”
“We’re going to play it more or less by the book. The Dranmir system has only four planets and six moons. We’re going to enter local space sixteen million klicks from the most distant planet.”
“Raxion.”
“Yes, Raxion. From there, we’re going to take it slow and steady, moving inwards until we’ve swept up to Dranmir itself.”
“The Ghasts don’t have stealth technology yet, sir,” said Quinn. “At sixteen million klicks they should be safe from detection, but as we move in, they’ll become increasingly vulnerable to a short-range transition attack from the Vraxar.”
“In which case they’ll have to SRT out of there. The three of us have the firepower to knock out a single Neutraliser as well as support ships. If this Ix-Gorghal decides to show its face, we only need to escape with the knowledge.”
“I could set up a stream of our sensor data to the New Earth Central Command Station, sir?” said Cruz.
“Don’t bother. The Vraxar will knock out our primary comms immediately they detect us and the backups are too slow and lack the bandwidth to do a stream.”
“I didn’t mean a full-resolution stream.”
“Do what you think will work for us, Lieutenant Cruz.”
“Who has command of this mission?” asked Hawkins.
It was an excellent question, though the answer was not quite so sparkling. “I command the Abyss, whilst Tarjos Nil-Tras of the battleship Sciontrar commands the Ghasts.”
“Split command. Super.”
“We have an alliance. The Ghasts aren’t a vassal race and the trust will come in time.” Blake thought for a moment, asking himself if he should say something else. “I’ve read a redacted version of Admiral Talley’s report concerning his experiences with the Oblivion Gallatrin-9. He was exceptionally complimentary about the Ghasts’ bravery and skill. He did, however, raise minor concerns about their headstrong approach to combat.”
“It’s what makes them such good allies, sir, and why they were so hard to beat in the Human-Ghast war,” said Pointer.
“What makes you say that?”
“It’s an opinion I’ve formed through my own research on the subject,” she replied airily.
There was more to Caz Pointer than met the eye and Blake was starting to think he’d got her wrong from the outset. Perhaps it was his own failings which had made him think of her as an untrustworthy ladder-climber. Sometimes a reputation was unfairly won. Bah! he thought, without knowing why he did so.
A short while later, the ES Abyss entered local space in a part of the Hyptron Sector which was nowhere close to anything significant. Bad luck saw a couple of slow-moving rocks clatter off their hull before Quinn could activate the energy shield. The operational damage was insignificant, though it would take a few billion dollars’ worth of spit and polish to get the hull looking pristine again.
Blake wasn’t overly concerned about this tiny slice of bad luck. “Are our friends here, yet? They didn’t have so far to travel.”
Pointer and Cruz worked hard on the sensors. “We’ve got two vessels within half a million klicks of our current location, sir,” said Pointer. “I’m bringing them up on the main screen.”
The Sciontrar was every bit as impressive as Blake was expecting. It looked even longer than six thousand metres and its shape was far more hulking than sleek. In addition to its dozen particle beam domes, there was something else which Blake didn’t recognize – there was a four-hundred-metre wide narrow oval slot at the front of the battleship with a maximum height of about fifty metres. It reminded him of a very early exhaust system, yet it was clearly nothing of the sort.
“We’re being hailed,” said Cruz. “I have Tarjos Nil-Tras of the Sciontrar waiting to speak with you.”
Blake’s eyes lingered on the screen for a moment longer. The Cadaveron heavy cruiser Kalon-T7 looked like a smaller version of the battleship – advanced, mean and afraid of nothing.
“Bring him through.”
The Ghast captain’s voice was particularly harsh and the translation modules worked overtime to add a human touch to his words. Blake had no idea if cigars were commonly smoked by the Ghasts. Certainly, Nil-Tras sounded like he had a twenty-a-day habit.
“Captain Charles Blake.”
Blake winced. “Tarjos Nil-Tras. The Sciontrar is an impressive warship.”
The Ghast roared with laughter. “It will be a [translation uncertainty: bastard] for our enemies.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I assume you have been fully briefed on what we might find?”
“If it’s a Neutraliser, we are going to destroy it and then I am going to take a shuttle to the wreckage so that I might piss on the pieces!”
“And if it’s Ix-Gorghal?”
The Ghast’s voice changed at once, betraying the intelligence required to command such an important warship. “If it’s Ix-Gorghal, we will probe it for weaknesses and then we will leave it for our fleet to counter.”
“We can work with that. Once the navigational tie-in is complete we will head to Dranmir. I propose sixteen million klicks from the furthest planet.”
“Agreed.”
There was little more to discuss and Blake shut off the channel. A few minutes later, the three warships entered high lightspeed.
“We aren’t running at 100% on the deep fission drives,” said Quinn. “We’re either a shade faster than them or they don’t wish to show their available output. It’ll be nine hours until we exit lightspeed.”
“We might be faster than the Kalon-T7. I’m not so sure about the battleship,” Blake replied.
“I got a couple of quick scans of their engine mass and efficiency,” Quinn replied. “You’re almost certainly correct.”
“If we go by appearances alone, the Ghasts haven’t been standing still when it comes to their spaceships, have they? Both of those make the ES Abyss look old and we’re not long out of the yard.”
“You can be sure our next generation is underway, sir,” said Hawkins. “I hear we have almost a hundred spaceships in production.”
“It’s one hundred and twelve,” Blake said. “And they’re all bigger than destroyers and we have Obsidiar cores for each one.”
“There you have it. I wager we’ll be trialling a few new weapons systems amongst that lot.”
“We are.” Blake shrugged to show he wasn’t able to divulge specifics. “They
aren’t up in the skies yet, whilst those two Ghast vessels are battle ready.”
“It’s a good thing they’re our allies,” said Cruz. “That Nil-Tras sounded like he was up for a fight.”
“Any idea what that slot on the front of the Sciontrar is meant to deliver?” asked Blake.
“We have no record of it,” said Pointer. “Do you remember those plasma incendiaries the Ghasts used against the Vraxar battleship at Cheops-A? I suspect the Sciontrar is equipped with an advanced version of the same weapon.”
Blake nodded. “Could be. Perhaps we’ll get to see what it can do.”
The journey was only nine hours long, though the time didn’t pass with sympathetic speed. The crew were allocated short sleep breaks, to ensure they were fully alert when they arrived into what was likely to be a hostile situation. Blake had never adapted to the little and often method of sleep and he napped fitfully. When he awoke, his tongue was dry and his mouth felt parched. He stumbled towards the mess hall in search of sustenance and company.
The main mess hall was fairly busy with groups of soldiers, laughing and joking amongst themselves in the carefree manner of those content to live for the day. Blake stood at one of the replicators and watched a man who was as broad as an ox lift a tray loaded with fried chicken and a single tomato.
“Replicator broke when you asked for a full salad?”
“Anything that comes from the ground goes straight through me, sir, but the doctor said I should keep trying to see if my body gets used to it.”
Blake got himself an orange juice, a coffee and a grilled chicken sandwich. I might be dead in a few hours, he thought. What the hell am I playing at? Allowing this rebellious idea to control his fingers, he ordered three cheeseburgers and a piece of cake.
He looked around for someone to talk to and saw Caz Pointer, laughing and joking with a couple of the men. He felt a surge of something in his chest, the existence of which he unsuccessfully tried to deny. Jealousy. It’s jealousy, you idiot.
He didn’t know anyone else well enough to make conversation with and he had no intention of eating alone, so he made his way across.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked
“You don’t need to ask,” said Caz Pointer, nursing a coffee.
“Catch you around, Lieutenant,” said one of the men. The pair of them rose.
“Stay,” said Blake.
“Our time’s up, sir.”
The two left the room and Pointer twisted her head to follow their progress. Blake felt the twinge again.
“Six hours until we exit lightspeed,” he said.
“Come on, sir, this is break time.”
He blinked. “You’re quite right. Work talk for the bridge only. Who are those guys?”
“You mean you don’t know them all by name yet?”
She was teasing.
“I haven’t had the chance,” he replied.
“You don’t really mix with the soldiers.” This was closer to an accusation.
“There’s no need to tread on the toes of their COs.”
“I doubt they’d mind.”
“You think it’s a problem? My not mixing?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
“Since you’ve pretty much told me it’s a problem, you can’t deliver the message and then run away.”
She laughed. “Fleet Admiral Duggan got the best out of his soldiers because they knew him. They fought for each other and they kept on winning.”
“I didn’t know you were such a history buff.”
“What do you know about me, sir?”
“I…”
“I know what people say – spoilt girl, ambitious.”
“I’ve heard those things.”
“And?”
“I believed them. Not anymore.”
“What do you believe now?”
“I couldn’t want a better comms officer.”
“That’s it?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
She finished her coffee. “My break is over. Got to get back to the bridge before the scheduling computer puts a demerit against my timekeeping.”
“We should meet up sometime.”
“Like a date, you mean?”
“Yes. Like date, once we’re back on land.”
“I’m not sure that would be appropriate, sir,” she said. “And furthermore, cheeseburgers aren’t good for you.”
With that, she was gone, leaving Blake puzzled and faintly embarrassed. Relationships between Space Corps personnel were discouraged, but not forbidden, so it wasn’t as if he’d broken the rules. It wasn’t the first time he’d misjudged Caz Pointer and he guessed it wouldn’t be the last.
He killed an hour by eating his food slowly and making sure he left not a single crumb from his cheeseburgers. Afterwards, he returned to the bridge feeling slightly lethargic from the quantity of food he’d consumed. He was relieved to find the only coldness on the bridge was from the air conditioning, rather than from his comms lieutenant. He dropped into his seat.
“Anything to report?”
“No, sir,” said Hawkins. “There have been no alerts while you were away.”
“Good.”
With nothing better to do, Blake found himself poking around in the history archives. He knew the basics – it was taught in every school and expanded upon during officer training. When it came to some of the details, his knowledge was lacking and soon he found himself engrossed. It therefore came as a surprise when Lieutenant Quinn announced there were ten minutes until arrival in the Dranmir system.
Chapter Seventeen
“Tell me what we’ve got,” said Blake, the second he felt the shuddering transition from lightspeed.
“The Sciontrar and Kalon-T7 arrived at the precise moment we did, sir,” said Pointer.
“I’ve activated our energy shield and stealth modules,” said Quinn.
A series of gauges on Blake’s console swung around crazily before the Obsidiar core stabilised and everything settled.
“There are no hostile forces in the immediate vicinity,” said Cruz. “Commencing far scan.”
“I’m bringing planet Raxion onto the main screen,” said Pointer. “Not that there’s anything to see.”
She was right – Raxion was the same kind of medium-sized ice-clad ball that appeared in practically every single solar system Blake had ever visited. It had a lone, equally cold, moon which travelled an exceptionally slow orbit of its parent.
“The two Ghast vessels have activated their energy shields as well, sir. I’d say they’re packing a lot of Obsidiar from the power readings. And the Sciontrar has just this moment activated its own stealth modules.”
“What?” asked Blake in shock.
“It was inevitable they’d crack it eventually.”
“This is really important, Lieutenant. It was humanity’s biggest advantage.”
“Not anymore.”
“Lieutenant Cruz, let command and control know the good news.”
“It is good news,” said Pointer hotly. “We should be sharing this technology with our allies anyway! The only important thing is that the Vraxar don’t have stealth modules.”
“In principle I agree. Now is not the time to talk about it.”
With the three warships prepared for combat, they spread out into a line with ten thousand kilometres between each vessel. The journey to Raxion would take two hours if they remained on gravity engines only. It was time Blake was willing to invest to ensure they didn’t encounter any nasty surprises.
“Load up cores #7 and #8 for short range transits,” he said. “Inform me at once if they look like burning out.”
“Done.”
The far scans came back clear on both human and Ghast spaceships. It wasn’t unexpected.
“The super-fars are going to take longer than usual with cores seven and eight loaded,” said Pointer.
“I’m sure that Oblivion has a hundred cores working on it,” said Quinn.
/> There was a lot of area to cover – Blake wasn’t specifically interested in Raxion and he wanted as much of the solar system checked as possible, all the way to Dranmir and the two planets currently on the far side of the sun. The sensors took snapshots and the ship’s cores pulled apart the data, searching for anything which wasn’t vacuum. It was time consuming and a good comms officer could speed up the task significantly by directing the processing cores to focus on certain areas before others.
The Sciontrar reported first.
“The Ghasts have completed their first super-far scan,” said Cruz. “They have not detected anything.”
Blake drummed his fingers. “Tondar is completely out of sight around the sun and we’re blind when it comes to what’s behind Raxion, Mavlon and Pels. What about our own scan?”
“Just finishing now, sir,” said Pointer. “We’ve got the same result as the Ghasts.”
“The Kalon-T7’s comms team concur,” added Cruz.
“Let’s commence the search,” said Blake. “Lieutenant Cruz, please calculate an efficient course which will allow us to fill in the blanks. When you’ve finished your workings, send the details to the Ghasts.”
Cruz was fast. “That’s finished and the Ghasts have accepted our recommendation.”
The three ships travelled onwards. From a distance, their journey appeared serene and effortless. In reality, it took huge gravity engines to keep them going at speeds in excess of two thousand kilometres per second.
“The Sciontrar is holding back,” said Quinn. “I’m sure of it.”
“What do you think they’ve got?”
“Two-and-a-half thousand klicks per second. Possibly more.”
“We can’t be envious, Lieutenant.”
“I’m not – I’m speaking as an interested observer.”
The three warships came ever closer to Raxion and remained in formation. Sticking together was going to slow the hunt, but it was infinitely better than being picked off one-by-one.
Is it a hunt? wondered Blake. Or are we deer in the tall grass walking into the rifle’s sights?
It only required two orbits of Raxion and its moon until a consensus was reached – the Vraxar were elsewhere.
God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3) Page 15