The Dauntless: (War of the Ancients Trilogy Book 1)

by Alex Kings

  “It's probably on the ship somewhere,” said Yilva. “Let me check.”

  As she worked, the doors behind them tried to open. They moved half an inch, whined as they got stuck, and then closed again. Next: Voices. And the familiar clomping footsteps of a Blank platoon walking in unison.

  They'd been discovered.

  Hanson took a deep breath. He was sure they could get out of this. He didn't know how, but he could feel it. “Yilva,” he said. “Keep working. Srak, get between her and the door. Take the right workstation if you need to.”

  “Gotcha,” said Srak. He ripped the third workstation out of the floor with a squeal of metal, settled where he was blocking Yilva, and held it in front of him.

  Hanson continued: “Moore, keep an eye on the techs. Move them to the corner near the door, and take cover behind Yilva's workstation. Agatha you're with me, behind the last station.”

  Everyone leapt to their positions. The doors opened a little way again. Someone on the outside tried to fit a gun muzzle through, but failed. More voices from outside.

  “Yilva, any news?”

  “Not yet!”

  “We need a way out of here,” said Hanson. “Any suggestions?”

  A moment of silence.

  “Oh! Yeah,” said Agatha. “I've been waiting to do this for ages.” She raised the Ancient weapon and nodded over to the ragged wall of black rock. “There's some space behind there.”

  She was right – the floor wasn't flush with the wall, was it?

  “Do it,” said Hanson.

  “Yes, sir!” said Agatha, grinning. She aimed the weapon at the corner of the room, where there were a couple of inches space between the floor and wall, and fired.

  A deep, ear-splitting screech. The floor plating tore apart, leaving just enough space to crawl through.

  A moment after, Yilva said. “Here! Got it … this is interesting. I have to download it.”

  And a moment after that came an immense bang from outside. The doors peeled open like foil. Hanson knew immediately what it was: Their opponents had also had the idea of using an Ancient weapon.

  And that meant their cover would be as effective as tissue paper.

  Srak was standing closest to the door. As soon as it had burst open, he hurled the workstation into the corridor. It slammed into the Blank on the far side and crashed into the far wall. Then, still in the same motion, Srak swung round, grabbing Yilva (who yelped) in his front arm, and pulled her towards the hole in the floor. “Move!” he roared.

  “Do it,” shouted Hanson.

  Amongst the commotion, he heard Yilva cry, “My tablet!” Meanwhile, Moore ran at a crouch across the room, firing at the Blank moving into view. Agatha fired too – crushing another Blank who was moving into view.

  Moore pulled Yilva down through the hole. Agatha followed. Srak started to move back to the centre of the room.

  “Srak!” called Hanson.

  Without looking at him, Srak shouted. “Go, Hanson! I'm behind you.”

  No time to wait. Hanson squeezed through the hole. Half a metre in, there was enough room to stand again – a narrow space a couple of feet wide, between the outer metal wall of another room, and the black substance of the Ancient ship. He shuffled along.

  A moment later came a boom, and the sound of Srak crying out. This was the first time, Hanson realised he'd heard the Srak in actual pain.

  Then that meant –

  Before he could finish his though, Srak's reptilian head popped in beside him, grimacing. “No time to wait, Hanson,” he growled. He scrambled forward on his side, barely fitting in the available space.

  Hanson smiled and gave him a friendly (and relieved) thump on the shoulder before progressing.

  As they moved, Hanson could hear the blanks filling the lab they'd left. It wouldn't be long before they followed.

  After a few minutes of hurried shuffling in the narrow crawlspace, the metal wall ended again. Hanson heard a boom as Agatha shot it with her weapon. They scrambled past a crumpled region of metal into a tiny bay with three stealth shuttles lined up. The bay's ceiling was open, and looking up, Hanson could see the black substance again.

  “Moore, Yilva,” he ordered. “Nearest shuttle. Agatha, destroy the other two.”

  “With pleasure!” called Agatha. She fired once at the two shuttles. Their engines crumpled and shattered with a boom.

  Srak came up behind them, trailing blood. He, Agatha, and Hanson all scrambled in through the shuttle's gull-wing door. As the door closed, Agatha ducked down and fired one last shot at the blanks just coming into the bay.

  Then the floor fell away and they were in the air. “I can't find the navcom,” called Moore. “We're going manually.”

  Another Blank crawled through the hole and picked up the Ancient weapon from the shredded remains of its companion. Moore dodged the shot, reversed the shuttle into the Blank before it could fire again, crushing it against the wall, then hurtled forwards through the nearest available tunnel.

  “I don't know exactly where we're going,” she said.

  “Just keep making turns and hope they don't follow us,” Hanson said.

  There was finally enough time to settle – and for Agatha to catch sight of Srak's injury. She raced over to him. “Shit, Srak. Shit. What happened?”

  At last, in open space, Hanson could see how bad the injury was. A bloodied hole on Srak's side, close to a foot across. The pale surface of an exposed rib was visible.

  “Those Ancient weapons,” said Srak. “Damn powerful, aren't they?” He tried to laugh, then shuddered with pain.

  Agatha had her hands on his side. “This is bad. We need to sort this out. Hanson, you have any medical supplies there? I need a plaster.”

  “Here,” said Moore. Without looking round, she reached into the supply pack behind her chair and pulled out a small transparent square. “It's optimised for humans,” she noted, holding it behind her. “But it should work.”

  “Thanks, lass” said Agatha, taking it. She tugged on the edges of the square, expanding it like a tablet until it was large enough to cover Srak's wound, then pressed it against the flesh. Srak growled deep in his throat, but said nothing. When the adhesive was in place, Agatha tapped it. It went from transparent to silver and remained in place.

  With everything in place, Hanson turned to Yilva. “What did you find?”

  Yilva looked down. “I … I downloaded stuff, but I dropped my tablet.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Srak behind them. “I heard. My fault. Here you go.” He took something out of his clenched middle hands and offered it to Yilva. “Make it worthwhile.”

  In his giant scaled hand lay her tablet.

  Chapter 60: The Forge

  They flew for half an hour or so, during which the Ancient ship made another jump. Agatha sat next to Srak, looking pale. Yilva read through what she'd learned.

  Halfway through the journey, Moore said, “Ah. Here it is. I've found the navcom, sir.” Then she added, “Obvious, really. I feel like a bit of a dope for not seeing it earlier. Anyway, we're not going down a mapped tunnel. I don't expect them to find us.”

  “We could get off this shithole now,” murmured Agatha.

  Srak stared at her. “And go back to what?” he said. “Some new galactic empire policed by blanks? I don't think so.”

  “Besides, the shuttle isn't jump-capable,” said Hanson. “If we left now, we'd be stranded in interstellar space.

  Agatha made a little noise of displeasure and kicked the floor with her heel.

  Eventually, Moore set the shuttle down in a medium-sized chamber. No sign anyone was following them.

  Hanson led them out of a shuttle. “Time for a meeting, I think.”

  Soon after, the team sat in a circle by the shuttle. Everyone was looking at Yilva.

  Yilva skimmed through her tablet for a few seconds. “Okay,” she said. “We're actually going to the Tethya system. But first, we're going to make a detour to pick up this.”
She flipped over her tablet and held it out for everyone to see.

  The image showed some elongated object floating in space. It was roughly oval, but had a complex surface. It was hard to make out, but it reminded Hanson of a bundle of feathers tied together.

  “Oh, yeah, one of those. That explains everything,” said Agatha. She sat beside Srak, hand on his shoulder, giving him occasional worried looks.

  “It's called the Forge,” said Yilva.

  “That's one of the terms you told me you overheard when we first met,” Hanson said.

  Yilva nodded. “And it's a big part of their plan. The Forge is a sort of automated ship factory. Once it's activated, you put it into orbit around a star. It extract's the stars material using magnetic fields and uses it to make ships like this.”

  Hanson considered this for a moment. “How long does it take?”

  “According to these calculations, it can produce a ship in just under a day.”

  “Christ,” muttered Moore under her breath.

  She was right to be worried, Hanson thought. A single Ancient ship could kill a Tethyan battleship. After a month of operation, they'd have a fleet of thirty ships. After two months, sixty. The numbers would be unmanageable.

  “You said they have to activate the Forge. Won't that take months, or weeks at least, like it did here?” asked Moore.

  “No,” said Yilva. “When two bits of Ancient technology are close to each other, they automatically sense each other's presence and ... talk to each other. They share position data and lots of other information. Now Mr. Bell has this ship active, he can just send a signal to the Forge and it'll activate and follow us.”

  “So,” said Hanson. “They're going to pick up the Forge, then they take it to Tethya.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “About nine hours. It's a hastily put-together set of systems. They have to use human jump computers, because they can't get the Ancient systems to work.”

  “And why Tethya? They could take this thing to any star and make ships in peace, if they wanted.”

  “I, uh … I'm not sure yet.”

  “Well, put that aside. Any last-ditch ideas we might use?”

  Yilva wavered for a moment. “Maybe. I don't know if it'll work, but …”

  Hanson leaned in towards her. “What is it?” he said gently.

  “The human systems interface with the Ancient systems with a series of cables. If we could find one of the main cables, we might be able to tap into it.”

  “So what's the catch?”

  “Well, we wouldn't be using a computer terminal. The data would be raw. And it's a hodgepodge of human and Ancient formats. I'd have to rewrite a whole set of protocols from memory. It's not as complex as the translation key, but it's a big job.”

  “Give me a timescale.”

  Yilva shrugged. “A couple of days, maybe.”

  “Like you said, we have nine hours.”

  “Captain!” For the first time, Hanson heard an edge of annoyance in her tone. “Nine hours isn't enough! I could do a partial job, and …” She trailed off, and when the she spoke again, the excitement had returned. “I could do a partial job! We wouldn't have access to every system, but we could get into a few of the critical ones.”

  Hanson patter her shoulder. “Good job. Get to it.”

  Yilva scampered over to a corner with her tablet, extended it to a full metre square, and began working.

  “The rest of us,” said Hanson, looking round the group, “need to find one of those cables. Hopefully, one that's defensible long enough to stop the ship. Moore, check the shuttle's navigational computers against our own maps. See if there's anything you can find.”

  “Yessir,” said Moore. She stood and walked over to the shuttle.

  That left Srak and Agatha. “How are you feeling?” Hanson asked Srak.

  Srak grunted. “I can fight,” he said.

  “That's not what I asked,” Hanson said. He checked the adhesive on Srak's side. Normally the adhesive would scan the wound and estimate how bad the damage was. But it was designed for humans, not Varanids. It's silvery surface only displayed the words: Insufficient data.

  “I'm feeling,” Srak said slowly, “ready to fight to stop this thing.”

  Agatha punched him on the shoulder. “Idiot,” she said. She glanced briefly at Hanson, like his presence was inconsequential, then said to Srak, “You've never been hurt this bad.”

  “Not true,” Srak protested. “There was that Varanid from Sweetblade a couple years ago. He had a mini-gun, remember?” He turned to Hanson, grinned, and lifted his head to show some inch-thick scars on his neck. “Got his teeth in pretty deep, too.” He laughed.

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember. And back then we had some decent medical facilities, didn't we? We weren't cowering in some fucking Ancient ship!” Agatha pressed the palm of her hand into her forehead, turned away, paced back and forth several times, and swore in some ways that were creative even by Solar Navy standards. At last she came up to Hanson. “I bloody well blame you for this, you know.”

  Srak watched her, then at last put a hand on her shoulder. “Agatha! Do not worry. I chose this mission.”

  “How can I not bloody worry?” Agatha snapped at him.

  “You are one of the most competent fighters I know,” said Srak. “And I have known many. Worrying will not improve our situation. It will not make me more likely to survive. It will probably make things worse. So do not worry.”

  Agatha was silent for a moment, then put her hand on his. “Alright,” she said in a small voice. She turned to Hanson. “Let's get this job done.”

  “Glad you're on board,” Hanson said. He led them over to the shuttle.

  Moore was sat at the console sifting through the navigational computers. She looked at Hanson as they arrived. “Okay, I've got a better map,” she said. “And a few locations. I figured the CIC would be the best connected, so I've been following the cabling coming out of there. Most of it goes here, along this route” She pointed out some places on the map.

  Hanson leaned in and scanned the terrain. “Where are we?”

  “Here, roughly.”

  “Right. Then this tunnel is our best route in. They'll probably have all approaches guarded as a matter of course, so we can expect resistance while we're still in the air.”

  He took another look at the map. One place stood out: A tunnel, just big enough to fly the shuttle down. At the end, it broadened out. The floor rose up into a sort of embankment. Then – a dead end, almost. The cable passed in and out of the chamber through two tiny pipes that were too small to crawl through.

  “There,” he said. “We can block the tunnel with the shuttle. And once that fails, we can use the embankment as cover.”

  “There's no getting out of there once we're in. We can't escape,” said Moore.

  “We don't need escape. We need somewhere we can defend long enough for Yilva to work. If she succeeds – well, it doesn't matter anymore.” Hanson sat back and sighed. “Plan C, then. Let's hope it works.”

  More looked at him with a faint smile. “I make it Plan D. Plan A was trying to keep the datachip.”

  “Oh, those innocent, happy days,” said Hanson. “Fourth time lucky, then?”

  “I bloody well hope so,” said Moore, going back to work on the navcom.

  Chapter 61: Playing the Villain's Role

  A few chunks of the Tethyan battleship still floated through space, charred and leaking water into the vacuum. Lanik had tried hailing them with all communications channels, but got no reply. No SOS signals. Nothing.

  “Send a shuttle out to one of them,” he ordered. “Check for survivors.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Miller.

  “We're getting a hail,” Dunn said. “It's Operative Serafin.”

  “Put her through,” said Lanik.

  Serafin appeared on the screen above the command console. Her manner was professional, but in her eyes
there was a look of deep tiredness. “Permission to come aboard, commander,” she said softly.

  Any remaining enmity between then had gone the way of the battleship. “Granted,” he said. “Only our port docking tube is operational.”

  “Understood.”

  A few minutes later, Operative Serafin stepped aboard the Dauntless. Her hair was tied back properly again, and her grey uniform looked oddly clean against the battered surroundings. She looked at Lanik, who was there to meet her. “Thank you, commander.” Then she glanced around the corridor. “I'm impressed you've managed to keep the ship running under these conditions.”

  Lanik led her down to the meeting room. “We had a lot of people shooting at us,” he offered mildly.

  “Yes,” said Serafin.

  They walked in silence until they reached the meeting room.

  Serafin continued: “I've been playing the villain's role. I know that. In a career like mine, you often do, but it never becomes comfortable.” She sighed. “But it's not complex. I serve the Solar Union. To do that, I follow orders as they're given. The Circus – central office – knows more than its operatives.”

  “I agree,” said Lanik. “And I've lived my life by that principle. It's an ideal that works perfectly up until someone infiltrates your government.”

  “Or until you cosy up with something like Interstellar Liners. The bastards are everywhere. And they look out for their interests, not ours.” Serafin said this calmly, as though discussing a progress report. “We should have seen it coming. But we didn't. So, enough with the philosophy. We need an action plan.”

  “We go back to Tethya,” said Lanik. “And we tell them everything we know. The Tethyans are the only race who have a chance of catching this ship. If enough Tethyan battleships go up against it, they might be able to destroy it.” He paused, then frowned. “The Captain and his team … I'll be condemning them to death trapped aboard the Ancient ship, if he isn't dead already.”

  For a moment, there was just silence. Serafin said at last, “He's very resourceful, I'll give him that. Perhaps he'll find a way off that ship.”

  More silence. Hanson was resourceful, they both knew, but it seemed wishful thinking to suppose he could get out of this one.