by Alex Kings
Hanson's thought were interrupted by a call from Moore over the comms: “We've got contact!”
His attention snapped to the far side of the chamber, where a platoon of blanks – holding rifles – were filtering in. He threw himself behind the extrusion as bullets ricocheted silently off the wall behind him.
“Everyone safe?” he checked over the comms.
His team checked in. Nobody had been hit. Hanson leaned out from the cover of the extrusion and fired at one of the blanks.
So the team was alive. Now he just had to figure out a way to stop the ship, with no bomb, no way of getting off, no plan B, and under fire.
Chapter 56: They Know We're Here
Lanik stood silently over the Dauntless's command console. He had kept an eye on the displays for the past two hours. The Dauntless had a few remote sensor drones hiding near the edges of the asteroid where they could watch the ship. What had he seen?
Nothing.
No response from the Hanson. No signal from the Ancient ship, or any of the IL structures surrounding it. The Captain was aboard the Ancient ship. And the IL luxury liner had departed some time ago. What else was there to do but wait, and keep a constant eye out for any way he could help?
He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath.
One of the displays chimed.
“Sir,” said Dunn. “We've got a reading. One of the cruisers is on the move.”
A faint wave of tension ran through Lanik's body. “Give me the heading,” he said. The details appeared above the command console.
The cruiser wasn't heading straight for them. It was heading to the local north, out of the dust ring, and it was accelerating quickly.
They know we're here, he realised. They're looking for us. That left two choices. Shut down the reactor entirely, cut all power, and hope for the best. Or remain on standby. If they did shut the reactor down, and the cruiser found them anyway, there'd be no way they could escape or defend themselves.
“Remain on standby,” he told Dunn. And to Fermi: “Make sure we're ready to jump at a moment's notice.” It was, though he hated to admit it, the best choice. Trying to engage the cruiser would do nothing to help Hanson.
The cruiser roared up out of the dust belt, heading further and further north. The Dauntless would pass into its line of sight in five seconds.
Two seconds.
One.
The moment the cruiser saw them, it swung around and began to change course.
Lanik's jaw tightened. “Take us out of here,” he said.
“Sir,” said Dunn. “We've just got a jump-in. Correction. Multiple jump-ins, all around us.”
*
Hanson leaned out from cover to fire. He was just in time to see the Agatha's Ancient weapon crush the chest of one of the blanks. The Blank collapsed without exploding. Made sense that its explosives would be disabled in here. Hanson took his shot and ducked back behind the extrusion.
On the other side of the extrusion, Agatha and Srak leaned out to fire again. Yilva was crouched in the middle. She was on the verge of hyperventilation by the look of it.
“Yilva,” said Hanson.
“We've lost,” she murmured over the comms.
Hanson grimaced. “They're trying to outflank us. Concentrate on the two to the left,” he ordered the rest of the team. Then: “Yilva! Listen. You said something about the connection point between the human systems and Ancient ship.”
Yilva looked over at him, eyes wide through her helmet. “The main spinal connection?”
“Yes, that. You said we'd need to go there to have any effect.” Hanson leaned out to fire again, saw another Blank go down, then ducked back again.
“Yes, but –”
“Can we do it? Can we get there in time?”
“Maybe! If … if we weren't being fired at.”
Srak's guttural voice came over the comms. “I'll see what we can do about that.”
There were two blanks left, but they had given up their attack plan and were now taking cover. They just had to prolong the battle long enough for reinforcements to arrive, Hanson knew. If that happened, if there was any more delay …
“I'm going out there,” said Srak.
“Good man,” said Agatha, slapping him on the shoulder. “You draw 'em out, we'll take 'em down.”
Srak glanced over at Hanson, “If I have your permission, that is, Captain?”
Hanson nodded at him. Normally, he wouldn't condone such a tactic, but they were pressed for time, and he'd seen how tough Srak was. “Do it,” he said.
A moment later, Srak was bounding out across the floor. In the low gravity, he was oddly graceful, his powerful muscles carrying him several metres at incredible speed with each bound.
Gunfire. Hanson leaned out to see the blanks coming out from their cover, concentrating their fire on Srak. He took careful aim and fired. The Blank on the right went down, its helmet shattering. The other Blank turned to aim at him, but stumbled a fraction of a second later from a dozen bullets through its chest. A blow from the Ancient weapon crushed its armour like foil.
“Good job, Miss Military,” said Agatha, grinning at Moore.
Moore clapped her on the shoulder. “Same to you.”
“Srak? You still in one piece?” Agatha asked.
“Hah! They barely broke the skin,” said Srak.
But there wasn't time to celebrate. “Come on, let's go,” said Hanson. “Yilva, do you recognise where we are?”
“No … not yet.”
“Then we head deeper into the structure. And you tell me as soon as you do. Move out!”
*
Four jump-ins, spread around the Ancient ship. First, a Tethyan battleship: An ocean-blue ovoid, six miles long and two miles wide. It dwarfed everything but the Ancient ship itself. Accompanying it were two Albascene battleships – totally different to the smooth Tethyan ship, they were angular dodecahedrons, gunmetal grey and studded with weapons and shield generators.
And finally, looking like a speck of dust beside them, the Black Cat.
“We're getting a hail,” said Dunn.
“Put it though,” said Lanik.
Operative Serafin appeared on one of the command console's screens. Her hair looked slightly untidier than last time, and she had a small but genuine smile. “Your battleships,” she said. “As requested.”
The Tethyan ship sent him a short message too, delivered by a deep synthesised voice with a clipped accent. On the video feed a lone Tethyan floated, exoskeleton glimmering in the water. “Human vessel Dauntless, hold position until the situation is under control.”
As it delivered the message, the battleship was already moving into position. The IL cruiser released a full spread of missiles and kinetics. Before they were halfway to the battleship, they all exploded simultaneously, a lightshow of shooting stars.
A narrow, barely visible beam, like a ghostly thread, lanced from the battleship to the cruiser, and through to the other side. A moment later, giant gouts of molten metal erupted from both sides of the cruiser. A single shot was enough: It foundered, helpless, streaming glowing vapour from both sides.
Lanik had never seen a Tethyan battleship in action before. Few people had, and fewer had lived to tell the tale. But he'd heard about this weapon: A monopole cannon. Something far beyond anything the other races could manage. Monopoles could penetrate through miles of solid rock, and anything they touched erupted into nuclear plasma.
“Looks like you were right,” Serafin said over the comms. “Where's Hanson?”
“He's aboard the Ancient ship, trying to shut it down.”
Serafin raised an eyebrow. “Of course he is. Hold on. I'll ask our friends to try not to kill him.”
She cut the signal. In the background, the Tethyan battleship fired again: Silvery beams shredded the weapons platform around the station. The two Albascene battleships flanked it, closing in on the Ancient ship.
Chapter 57: Startup Sequence
Yilva pulled out her tablet and connected it to the panel, tapping furiously.
“I thought they revoked your access codes?” Moore said.
“Uh huh,” said Yilva, fingers almost a blur. A second later the airlock hissed and opened. As Hanson led them into the middle chamber, Yilva explained, “They did! But they're also running my translation key, remember! Including all the back doors I put into it.”
The door behind them closed. The airlock re-pressurised, and then they were into a tunnel. Here, the gravity was stronger. The floor had been plated, and lights were connected to the tunnel walls.
“Keep your suits on,” Hanson ordered. There was no knowing if they had to go back to a pressurised area.
The tunnel shuddered around them, and deep, far-off sound came through the walls. Hanson didn't need Yilva to tell him time was short.
“Yes!” said Yilva. “I recognise this! This way!” She led them running down the tunnel, where it connected to the side of a corridor. An entire corridor, with no sign of the rocklike black material of the Ancient ship – being inside it was like being in a normal Solar Alliance facility. This whole area must have been built inside one of the interior cavities.
Yilva dragged them to the left, down to the end of the corridor, where they encountered a pair of techs, working hastily on some computer terminal. On either side, open sliding doors led to what looked like storage rooms.
“Don't fire,” Hanson told his team over the private channel.
The techs, seeing a heavily-armed group of soldiers, stepped back from the console and put their hands up.
“Sir,” said Moore. “We can't let them sound the alarm. And if we're on the clock, we can't afford to babysit these people.”
“I know,” said Hanson. “Yilva, can you lock these people in that storage room?”
“I, uh …” began Yilva.
“I can,” said Srak.
Hanson turned on his suit's speakers and said to the techs, “In there. Now!”
The techs obeyed, and closed the door behind them.
“Srak?” said Hanson.
Srak settled himself in front of the doors, put his palm against them, and pushed. With a faint whine, the doors crumpled inwards a few inches. Enough so that they wouldn't be able to slide open again.
“There,” said Srak. “Locked.”
“Good job,” said Hanson. “Yilva, keep going.”
They headed down through what seemed like a maze of corridors. A group of four blanks stomped through the facility. Hanson's team pulled back until they'd passed, then continued onwards.
At last, Yilva led them into a large lab.
Three techs looked up from their work. Hanson raised his rifle. “Don't move.”
Here, the Ancient ship was visible again. The entire right wall was composed of irregular black rock. The floor and the walls weren't perfectly flush with it. A few feet off the ground, a hole had been burrowed into it, and a tangle of cables and pipes emerged to connect with some of the workstations and terminals around the lab.
“This is the place!” said Yilva, bounding over to one of the workstations.
“Agatha, Moore, look after the techs,” Hanson ordered. “Srak, the door, please.”
“Yes, captain,” said Srak. He pushed the doors outwards with a slight squeal.
The ships shuddered around them, longer and louder than any of thee previous times. Hanson walked over to Yilva. “How are we doing?”
“Working, working,” said Yilva. A second later, without her fingers slowing down: “Oh, hey, I've got a visual feed. Look at this!”
The workstation had three screens. While Yilva was working on the leftmost, the other two lit up to show two views of the dust ring. As Hanson watched, an immense ocean-blue ovoid sailed into view. It fired a silvery thread, which cut through one of the weapons platforms. An Albascene ship visible on the second screen took down a second platform.
“Cavalry's here,” said Moore, glancing over from where she held the techs in a corner.
“Never thought I'd be glad to see the Tethyans,” murmured Srak.
Hanson smiled to himself.
The chamber began to rumble around them again, and this time it didn't stop. “The startup sequence is running,” said Yilva. “But I'm nearly there. I just have kill one more process, and …” She thumped a finger down on keyboard display with a triumphant finality. “There!”
A moment later her ears, visible through her helmet, went flat against her head. “Oh,” she said softly. “Crumbs.”
“What is it?” asked Hanson.
“Too late,”
Around them the rumble grew to a roar.
Chapter 58: Is it Our Turn?
The CIC of the Ancient ship was an ugly thing, thought Mr. Bell. The consoles had been set up hurriedly, without much idea of symmetry. The floor was just a grid of grey carbon plating. Cables streamed from screens put up in various places, hastily tucked into bundles where they wouldn't get in the way too much. It looked more like the basement lab of some absent-minded tech.
Not really the place to command the first strike of the new galactic empire.
And to make it worse, an Alliance captain was hiding on his ship, and a Tethyan battleship had just turned up before they were ready. Even from where he was, the thought of going up against the Tethyans left a chill in his veins. Come on, come on. Hurry up.
“Nearly there, sir.” A pause, while the Tethyans shot down a weapons platform. Hurry up!
The lights dimmed around them, then came back to full power. “We're ready, sir!” said the crewmember (Bell didn't care to learn their names). “We have full control.”
And just like that, all tension was gone from Mr. Bell's mind. He felt a broad smile growing. “Take us forward,” he said. “Ready the main gun, and engage the Tethyans.”
*
Lanik studied the displays of the command console. The Tethyan battleship and its two Albascene supports had chewed through all base's defences, leaving them crippled or destroyed. With their work done, they flew up towards the Ancient ship itself.
Lighting danced across the thorns covering the Ancient ship, getting denser and denser.
“Dunn?” he asked.
“We've got increased energy readings across all frequencies,” Dunn reported.
The lightning vanished, leaving the Ancient ship bathed in the red glow of the star. “Energy readings have stopped,” said Dunn.
For a second, everything seemed to go silent.
Then the Ancient ship moved. The acceleration of its motion shredded the tiny base built on its side, leaving a trail of debris. It hurtled forward and came to an immediate halt in front of the Tethyan battleship.
It was impossible to tell which direction was its front and which was its back. The thorns covering its surface gave no hint of symmetry.
Immediately the Tethyan ship and its allies took formation and began firing. A slew of kinetics and missiles from the Albascene weren't interrupted – they just hit the outer hull and exploded. As far as Lanik could see, there was no damage.
The Tethyan ship had more luck. Where its silvery monopole cannon hit the Ancient ship, its surface erupted into tiny plasma flames. Some of the outer thorns broke away. But the flames were tiny against the size of the hull.
The Ancient ship fired: It looked like a sort of distortion that hurtled through space. When it hit the Tethyan ship, the smooth blue hull seemed to crumple, then shattered. Water poured put into space, boiling into steam as it went. It was left with a chunk taken out, nearly half a mile wide.
At that moment, it was clear the Tethyans were going to lose. The notion was almost unthinkable, and yet …
They kept firing. More monopole cannons digging into the Ancient ship. But when it returned fore t
hirty seconds later, the next shot split the of the Tethyans even more. It fired again after another pause, crushing the Albascene battleships in one shot each. Then it turned its attention back to the Tethyans.
At last, the Tethyan battleship, covered in giant scars and split segments of hull, spilling steam into space from multiple fissures, exploded with a blinding light.
Now, thought Lanik. Is it our turn?
The Ancient ship swung about, then finally jumped away.
Chapter 59: Make it Worthwhile
Hanson had never felt so helpless. On the workstation screens he could only watch as the Tethyan battleship exploded. Then came the familiar feeling of compression as they jumped. The screens showed nothing but empty space. He ran through the possibilities in his head, but nothing seemed to work:
“Yilva, can you deactivate the ship from here? Break the connection?”
Yilva shook her head.
“Make anything blow up?” suggested Agatha.
“No,” said Yilva softly. She tapped at the screen a little more. “I could knock over the startup sequence, but now the ships's active, the only way to control it is from the CIC.”
“And since they know we're aboard, the CIC is going to be heavily guarded,” added Hanson.
“Shit,” whispered Agatha.
Hanson sighed. “We're still getting a visual feed, so I suppose we're not completely locked out. Can you tell us where we're going, at least?”
“Oh, yeah!” said Yilva. Her defeated body language perked right up. She tapped at the screen. “Here. A star called HV-7562. About seventy lightyears away.”
“Oh, yes, that was helpful,” said Srak in the distance. He gave a brief snort of mirthless laughter.
“Yes. Yes it is! Said Yilva. “I recognise that. It was on the map. Ancient technology sites!” She pulled her tablet out, extended it, and checked. “Yes, that's the one.”
“So what's at HV-7562?” asked Hanson.