He cut the channel, unable to speak longer. The Neutraliser continued firing its particle beams and one-by-one the Abyss’s remaining sensor arrays shut down.
“We’ll be blind before we’re dead,” said Pointer.
“We’ve got heat penetration just beyond the starboard bridge wall,” said Quinn. “I’m not sure I want to die this way.”
Blake had no words to offer. He’d failed and it was a hard thing for him to face up to. He kept his eyes fixed on Ir-Klion-6 and felt his futile hatred seething within. The feeling was so strong it squeezed his chest and throat, making it hard for him to swallow.
“One more chance,” he said. “One more chance to kill these bastards.”
The image feed had fallen to an extremely low resolution. However, it wasn’t quite so grainy that it hid the beam of thick blue light which struck the Ir-Klion-6, nor did it disguise the magnificence of the plasma flames which roared wildly from the point of impact, until they surrounded the Neutraliser and hid it within their deadly grasp.
Blake found himself standing, his eyes wide. His mouth struggled to form the words his brain was trying to feed it with. In the end he could only lift one arm and point at the screen. The others had seen it too and their expressions told a story encompassing every single emotion across the entire spectrum of emotions.
The flames hadn’t even started to recede when large-yield plasma explosions appeared amongst them, bursting with violent energy. Blake lost count of how many blasts detonated off the Neutraliser’s shields. He recognized the type and the word jumped from his mouth.
“Shatterers.”
All at once, the Ir-Klion-6 was engulfed in an explosion of such monumental proportions, the entire vessel was lost amongst a white-hot sea which dwarfed even the mighty Vraxar Neutraliser.
A corner of Blake’s mind shouted at him to get moving – it ordered him to break the shackles which kept him frozen in front of the unfolding spectacle. The rest of his mind responded, bringing action to his limbs and his voice.
“Move!” he bellowed. “Take a visor and get to the shuttle bay!” He sprang across the bridge, dragging Hawkins and Ensign Park to their feet. He waved his arms forward, urging the others to follow.
The loudness of his words and the suddenness of his actions spurred them on. With hardly a pause in his stride, Blake stooped to gather up a visor for his spacesuit and dropped it over his head. He turned to make sure the others were with him and then he raced towards the bridge exit. The heavy door shuddered slowly upwards, as though it was drawing on the last vestiges of power available within the ES Abyss. Blake didn’t wait and he ducked beneath it, half-rolling through the gap and coming to his feet already running.
His visor established an interface with the internal comms and he patched through to Lieutenant Holloway.
“Lieutenant Holloway, get your troops to the rear shuttle bay. We’re leaving on Shuttle One.”
“I thought we were dead, sir?”
“No one’s dying, Lieutenant. Did you get bored watching the sensor feed?”
“It lost power a couple of minutes ago. What did we miss?”
“The Sciontrar has come – it’s kicking the crap out of the Neutraliser.”
“Does that mean the shuttle’s engines will fire up?”
“They have to.”
“I’ve always liked the Ghasts, sir.”
Holloway spoke in such a deadpan fashion that Blake felt laughter rise up inside. There was an edge of madness to it and he refused to succumb, especially since death still held them all within its cold embrace.
“You might get a chance to thank them later. Get moving.”
It was a long enough journey to the rear shuttle bay when you were simply disembarking for shore leave. When the entire ship was in danger of breaking up and the metal walls smoked from the heat of particle beam strikes it felt much longer. Blake sprinted at the head of the group, occasionally slowing to allow the stragglers to catch up. His visor HUD informed him the temperature inside this section of the spaceship was well in excess of three hundred degrees, which was close to exceeding the suit’s insulating capabilities. He increased his pace, not wanting to suffer the agonising death of burning.
Just when Blake truly began to believe that a miraculous escape was within reach, he discovered it wasn’t to be so easy. The crew were within two hundred metres of the rear shuttle bay entry area and running along a wide, straight corridor, when a blast door rumbled jerkily shut ahead of them. Blake didn’t slow and ran straight up to its access panel and planted his open hand onto the surface. The door didn’t open.
“My suit is picking up a draught,” said Cruz.
Everyone understood immediately.
“There’s been a breach through the hull,” said Pointer. “We need to get this door open.”
“It’s locked precisely because there’s a breach,” said Blake angrily. He slammed his palm onto the access panel for a second time. “It won’t open.”
“You’ll need to override it, sir. If the vacuum doesn’t pull us out, we’ll burn alive.”
The corridor was hot and getting hotter by the moment. The walls heated the air and created shimmering patterns which were drawn away towards the source of the hull breach. The crew began hopping from foot to foot, trying to delay the inevitable blistering of their spacesuits.
Blake looked back the way they’d come. There was another route to the shuttle bay, but it was an additional two hundred metres, with no real possibility the other blast doors were open.
“Lieutenant Holloway, where are you?” Blake spoke quickly, eager to get this conversation finished.
“We’re entering the shuttle boarding zone, sir.”
“All of you?”
“Yes, sir.”
The troops were quartered a lot closer to the shuttle bay than the bridge and they’d acted quickly enough to avoid falling victim to the internal vacuum seals.
“We’re stuck behind a door here.”
“I can send Clifton that way if you want, sir? He might be able to make an opening for you.”
It wasn’t really an option – the internal blast doors were thick and strong. It would take a huge quantity of explosives to break through, which would leave the surrounding walls so hot it would prevent passage.
“Don’t send Clifton. Get on the shuttle – if you need to leave, get out of here at once. No heroics.”
“I’ll tell the others to board, no guarantees on the heroics.”
It wasn’t something Blake wished to argue over. He dropped out of the comms channel and used his suit to connect to the ES Abyss’s internal security systems. These security systems were a set of control modules which were closely tied to the warship’s life support. Since the life support was disabled, everything attached ran at a crawl. After a few seconds, he tied in successfully and sent a command code for the blast door to open.
>OVERRIDE CODE ERROR: NOT RECOGNIZED
He swore inside his visor. The escaping air plucked at his legs and he worried it would become strong enough to drag the crew outside. He had no intention of sticking around and he tried his codes again.
“What’s up?” asked Hawkins.
“Something must be scrambled. It’s not taking my codes.”
Hawkins kicked at the door in an unexpected display of frustration. “Damnit!”
The crew searched for something to hold onto. Once the air was sucked clear, they’d be able to survive the vacuum in their suits. Unfortunately, the corridors of a fleet warship were kept clear of intrusion. Even the wall-mounted maintenance consoles were flush to the metal.
“Dragged into space or burned alive. That’s not how I planned to go,” said Pointer.
“I think I’ve found what’s wrong,” muttered Blake. “The command codes aren’t reaching their destination.”
“Can I help?” asked Hawkins.
“Wait - I’m trying something.”
He tried again and his heart jumped.
>OVERRIDE CODE: BLAKE. CONFIRMED.
The door clunked once, rose a few inches from the floor and then stopped. Lights on the access panel dimmed and failed.
Quinn shuffled from foot to foot. “That’s the residual power gone.”
The internal doors had no other method of opening and they were too heavy to be cranked open by a mechanical jack. In desperation, Blake dropped to his knees and looked through the gap – it was much too small for a child, let alone an adult. Hot air whistled through the opening, washing over his face.
It wasn’t the captain’s place to say what everyone was thinking. We’re screwed. He didn’t speak the words but couldn’t bring himself to give a motivational speech. An undulating movement on his forearm caught his eye and he watched with fascination as the surface of his spacesuit started to blister. The temperature had risen beyond four hundred degrees in the few seconds he’d been checking beneath the door and it was more than the suits could withstand.
Something else caught Blake’s eye. The lights on the access panel reappeared and the green light for open glowed strongly. The blast door made a groaning scrape and then it rose smoothly into its recess in the ceiling.
“Go!”
The crew didn’t need to hear the words in order to act. As a group, they piled through the opening, with Blake coming last. The access panel on the far side of the door also glowed green and he pressed it with his fingers. The door descended at once, closing off the passageway behind them.
“Move!” shouted Blake.
They moved. The shuttle access area wasn’t far ahead and they sprinted towards it, their eagerness to live giving strength to their legs.
“What the…?” asked Cruz.
“The Ghasts must have finished off the Ir-Klion-6,” panted Blake. “Our engines have started generating power again. Enough to get that door open, anyway.”
“Let’s hope the troops haven’t left us.”
“They won’t have had time. The shuttle’s engines will have only just come online.”
“Still…”
Blake got the message and he connected to Lieutenant Holloway. “Where are you?”
“In the docking bay. The shuttle is warming up.”
“Don’t go without us. We’ll be there in a few seconds.”
“And we’ll be waiting.”
They reached the shuttle access room. The airlock door was sealed but opened readily enough to Blake’s command. The crew dashed into the airlock tunnel, closing the first door behind. The second iris twisted open, allowing them access to Shuttle One. There was standing room only in the passenger bay but in the circumstances, it was unimportant.
“Close the door and let’s get the hell out of here!”
Blake pushed his way through the groups of soldiers until he reached the cockpit door. He opened it and found all the seats inside were taken.
Lieutenant Holloway greeted him warmly. “Captain Blake - you’re just in time. Want a seat?”
“No – as you are. I’ll stand.”
With its engines straining, Shuttle One sped over the ES Abyss’s hangar bay floor. The heavy cruiser was burning hot and the shuttle started smoking at once. Lieutenant Holloway kept a tight hand on the controls and piloted the tiny vessel out into space. Once clear, she accelerated hard in order to put as much distance as possible between the two.
“Show me the Abyss,” said Blake.
One of the co-pilots – a man whose name Blake didn’t recognize – focused the rear sensors on the dwindling shape of the heavy cruiser. The Abyss was gone, of that there was no doubt. Its front section glowed white like a star and there was a huge split across the mid-section. The gap widened and before Blake’s eyes, the heavy cruiser broke into separate pieces. He hunkered down on the floor, bereft.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Blake wasn’t permitted time for misery or reflection. Only seconds after Shuttle One’s escape from the wreckage of the ES Abyss, a comms request came through.
“You’ll need to take this one, sir. It’s someone calling himself Tarjos Nil-Tras from that there Ghast battleship.”
Blake clambered to his feet. “Patch it into my visor.”
“Yes, sir.”
The familiar voice of the Ghast thundered into Blake’s earpiece. The translation modules on the spacesuits were less sophisticated than those fitted to a fleet warship and the alien sounded like he was chewing on a mouthful of gravel.
“Captain Charlie Blake,” he said. “We arrived in time.”
There was no pride in Nil-Tras’s voice – the words were a simple observation of events.
Blake felt humbled. “Thank you, Tarjos.”
“I am bringing the Sciontrar closer to your shuttle. We have a central bay you can use. It will be easier if you hand over control of your vessel to us.”
“Agreed.” Blake muted the comms channel and spoke briefly to Lieutenant Holloway, advising her to accept the incoming pairing request from the Sciontrar.
“There is no time for manual docking – you need to get onboard quickly,” Nil-Tras explained. “We cannot afford to divert from combat for long.”
“The Gate Maker?”
“Is that what you call it? It is dismissive of our missile bombardments.”
“You need to destroy it. The Vraxar are attempting to open the Helius Blackstar and we believe they have the bulk of their fleet waiting on the other side.”
“You are better informed than we are,” rumbled the Ghast. He laughed in sudden good humour. “We simply saw an enemy ship and thought we’d better destroy it. Now we know the reasons.”
In the front seat, Lieutenant Holloway lifted a clenched fist in Blake’s direction and raised the thumb. Pairing complete the gesture said. Blake noticed a sudden lateral force which told him the shuttle was banking sharply to the left.
“Have you used your anti-shield weapon on the Gate Maker?” asked Blake.
“We used it on the Neutraliser. The weapon takes some minutes to prepare for another discharge. Every new weapon our labs produce comes with this limitation or that. I complain, though in truth I am grateful.” He laughed again.
The words reminded Blake of the many stories he’d heard about the humanness of the Ghasts. Nil-Tras talked an old hand from the Space Corps.
“We think Ix-Gorghal is coming,” Blake said.
“We were unable to determine if it followed us or followed you and we didn’t wish to test it by waiting in one place.”
“My engine man produced an estimate of its anticipated time of arrival at the Helius Blackstar. I’m afraid I have completely lost track of time.”
“We know it is coming and we can only act as fast as we are able. We will either destroy this Gate Maker and escape, or we will not. What use is it forever checking the seconds which pass?”
“I like your outlook, though I don’t think I’ll be able to change.”
“We are initiating the docking routine. My technicians advise there will be no problem with the coupling in our bay.”
“I’ll speak to you shortly, Tarjos.”
“Come directly to the bridge and you may be in time to witness the destruction of the Vraxar vessel.”
The Ghast had an unshakeable confidence in his own ability and the strength of his battleship. Blake was beginning to understand why they made such formidable opponents – they just never gave up.
“There’s the Sciontrar,” said Holloway. “It looks neat.”
Neat wasn’t exactly the word Blake would have chosen to describe a vessel with such a titanic amount of firepower. It was fixed on the centre of the shuttle’s viewscreen, only the background movement of stars indicating how rapidly the battleship was travelling. The Sciontrar looked relatively undamaged – there was a pattern of heat damage which covered a circular area a few hundred metres in diameter. Other than that, it looked like it was ready for anything. I
t may have to be, thought Blake.
It took less than two minutes to complete the docking routine. Either the Ghasts lacked the Space Corps’ concern with safety, or they’d initiated an emergency procedure designed to bring home damaged shuttles as quickly as possible. Blake didn’t care which – he was simply glad there was no delay.
The shuttle’s viewscreen filled up with the slab-sided flank of the Ghast battleship. The hangar bay doors slid aside at the last possible moment and even then, they only opened partway.
“Still on full throttle,” gulped Lieutenant Holloway, pressing back into her seat. They rocketed through the doors, with the Sciontrar’s docking computers applying the brakes at precisely the right moment to bring them to a timely stop. “Whoa shit!”
“I thought you’d always liked the Ghasts, Lieutenant?”
“I have, sir. It’s their docking computers that piss me off.”
Blake smiled, feeling part of his burden fall away. The shuttle came to a standstill, hitting the airlock with a solid thump. Blake stumbled, righted himself and then dashed for the exit. He pushed his way through the passenger bay until he reached the shuttle’s external door. The light on the panel was red and he stared, daring it to remain so. He was on the verge of punching it when the red light changed to green and a cheery alert went ding!
“Lieutenant Hawkins, look after everyone. I’m off to the bridge.”
“I can’t even look after myself, sir.”
He ignored the response – Hawkins knew her stuff and she’d do what was required. The outer door opened, revealing a Ghast-sized passage, lit in cold blue. There was a secondary airlock door twenty metres along, which was already open, providing reinforcement to the notion that safety was a secondary concern to the Ghasts.
The airlock passage led directly into the central section of the Sciontrar. Blake paused at the end, looking left and right. He’d seen file pictures of the Cadaveron class Ransor-D which the Space Corps had captured many years ago. The Sciontrar appeared similar, yet newer. In the past, the Ghasts were known to fill their ships with personnel to oversee many of the tasks which were automated on a Space Corps warship. Blake saw no sign of technicians, though there was a huge bank of screens embedded in the wall to his left. Further along, he could see a room which was filled with shapes he couldn’t make out.
God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3) Page 23