Empires in Ruin

by Anthony James

  “How many confirmed kills of enemy ships?”

  “Unknown, sir – more than zero is the only estimate doing the rounds. We’ve lost more than seven of the defence fleet.”

  “They took us by surprise,” said Recker. “The Lavorix would have got off the first salvoes.”

  “It seems as if the Lavorix were surprised by the ferocity of our response,” said Burner. “The bulk of their fleet is staying out of range, while our own warships have been ordered to stay close to the planet.”

  Recker nodded. “It’s going to turn messy.”

  “I wonder if the Lavorix knew about the Aeklu and Verumol being here,” said Burner.

  “The more I think about it, the more I believe they located Ivisto without knowing their captured ships were here,” said Recker. “Shit luck for us and we’re going to have a real job turning this around. Where’s the capital ship?”

  “They’re currently in an erratic, high-speed orbit of Trinus-XN, sir, and accompanied by four of the larger attacking vessels.”

  “That last Extractor shot was bad,” said Recker. “Worse than the ones before it.”

  “You’re not the only one to notice,” said Burner.

  “The Lavorix have had plenty of chances to tune the Extractor before now,” said Aston. “And they still can’t get it right.”

  “Alterations to the weapon might not be straightforward, Commander.”

  “That last one hurt a lot,” said Larson. “I don’t know how many more alterations I can handle.”

  “Should we take another shot of boosters?” asked Burner. “I already feel like I could throw up after the last injection.”

  “You can’t vomit when you’re on the Frenziol,” said Aston. “You might feel like you’re about to spill your insides, but it won’t happen. Take too many shots and your heart will give out.”

  “I think everyone knows all there is to know about Frenziol since high command ordered us to inject the stuff a half dozen times a day,” said Burner.

  “Hold the injections until we hear otherwise,” said Recker. He’d been told unofficially that most fit and healthy humans within a certain age range could safely take four booster shots in rapid succession before the risk of heart failure became unacceptably high – whatever unacceptably high meant. For the Daklan, the safe dose was only three shots, which wasn’t so good for the aliens given that they were also more vulnerable to the Extractors.

  “The cruiser just impacted,” said Aston. “Our instrumentation picked up a primary and secondary shockwave.”

  “Not enough to cause any major surface destruction,” said Burner. “Makes a change.”

  From this low altitude position, Recker saw nothing, though he was sure a few buildings would have crumpled nearer to the crash site. The turning south came and he aimed the shuttle along a multi-lane road. Here, the flanking structures were more various in shapes and sizes, including low domes, high domes, towers and sloping-roofed storage facilities.

  Again, the normal base transport vehicles had been abandoned. More bodies – dead or unconscious – lay everywhere and the Daklan had parked dozens of mobile gauss repeaters along the middle lanes. In the distance, a long row of tanks sped across an intersection.

  “Cock-guns,” said Aston, pointing at the multi-barrelled mini-Gralers.

  “Not when they’re on our side,” said Recker. “When they’re on our side, we call them Churners.”

  “Does this mean the Daklan are recovering?” asked Burner.

  “Churners can operate without a crew, Lieutenant. They can be remote activated, given a destination and sent on their way. Those ones are probably being coordinated by the ground control mainframe,” said Recker.

  “Can they take out a warship-launched plasma missile?” asked Burner doubtfully.

  “I don’t know, Lieutenant. I’m sure we’ll find out before this is over.”

  Recker didn’t know how to describe his relationship with luck or even if luck existed such that he could have any sort of relationship with it. Certainly, he was acutely aware that some events appeared more than coincidental and, at that moment, he received further reinforcement of his view.

  Suddenly, the Churners turned their guns towards the sky. A row of red lights appeared on Recker’s console and an alarm chimed. The meaning was clear – the targeting computers of several different Churners wanted him to get the hell out of the way. Then, a warning message from the ground controller appeared on his central screen, giving him five seconds to clear the airspace.

  “Shit,” said Recker.

  Giving the engines extra power, he banked the transport and increased altitude. Having faced these shuttles in combat before, Recker wasn’t shocked by the craft’s agility and it raced over the top of one of the storage buildings. Even before he was clear of the road, the Churners further south had begun shooting and their slug tracers ripped through the air.

  Gripped by a feeling that all hell was about to break loose, Recker didn’t reduce velocity and he kept the shuttle skimming low above the building’s roof. A glance at the bulkhead screen was enough to make him curse again.

  Three huge Lavorix warships came across the horizon at tremendous velocity, their heat trails leaving orange smears across the feed. With physics-defying deceleration, they came to a halt directly above Ivisto’s landing strip, no more than a thousand metres above the tops of the Aeklu and Verumol. Each had taken missile strikes from the ground batteries and those missiles continued crashing into their armour, creating angry flashes of sun-bright plasma.

  “Battleships,” said Aston. “Big enough to take a beating.”

  Each of the three enemy craft was larger than the Langinstol - which was the closest allied spaceship. The captain of the annihilator reacted with incredible speed and he rammed his spaceship into one of the Lavorix craft. At the same time, missiles ejected from the Daklan ship’s launch clusters and they detonated against the second of the enemy craft. The enemy fired missiles too, though the sudden acceleration of the annihilator and the close range combined to ensure that many flew past their target.

  “Looks like a crapstorm is heading our way,” said Burner. “Someone put up an umbrella.”

  From the east, the second annihilator, Ildinir, fired dozens of its own missiles before it, too, accelerated towards the shipyard. An incomprehensibly vast explosion tore a six-hundred metre hole in the first of the Lavorix battleships and then a swarm of orbit-launched missiles from the allied fleet rained down on its topside plating.

  “I bet those Lavorix bastards thought they were going to surprise the Daklan,” said Burner in admiration.

  The Daklan were savage opponents and they didn’t hold back. The fast-approaching Ildinir executed a last-moment rotation that caused its flank to smash into the nose of one of the enemy craft. At the same time, the colossal thrust from the Langinstol’s engines pushed the first Lavorix ship south-west, away from the landing strip.

  “We’re in the path,” said Burner.

  Recker didn’t want to be caught beneath two raging battleships, but their approach trajectory meant he’d either have to do a complete reversal of course or he’d have to fly as quickly as possible in his current direction and hope for the best. He chose the latter and the shuttle gathered speed.

  “They’re launching dropships,” said Aston.

  “I see them,” said Recker.

  Despite the punishment they were suffering, each of the three Lavorix battleships was ejecting smaller vessels from their underside chutes. Lieutenant Burner didn’t need his duty spelling out and he got on the comms to make sure the base commanders were aware of the danger.

  By this moment, the two low-altitude heavy cruisers – the HPA ship Pulveriser and the Daklan desolator Incendus – were giving the enemy battleships the full treatment. The desolator’s Terrus cannons sent hardened alloy projectiles thundering into the plating of the Lavorix craft, while a series of monumental blasts on the nose section of the first battles
hip indicated it had been struck by multiple Hellburner missiles.

  Although Recker had seen more than his fair share of combat, the hairs on his neck and forearms rose in awe at the technological onslaught taking place above Ivisto. The locked annihilator and Lavorix battleship fought their way towards the shuttle, like bulls with their horns locked. Smaller missiles, fired from the ground, punched into the descending transports and the Churners directed a continuous stream of projectiles at the launch clusters of the enemy warships to knock out the warheads as they emerged.

  Missiles from all directions poured into the attacking spaceships. The Lavorix fought back with their own gauss guns and warheads. With his eyes on the Langinstol, Recker almost missed the Incendus coming down fast in front of the shuttle. The Daklan heavy was hardly damaged, so he guessed it had been hit by a core override and he banked right to avoid it.

  “Come on, get it purged,” Recker muttered angrily.

  The purge wasn’t something the crew could speed up – a combination of Obliterator cores and fast data transfer were the only way to clear the override and it took anything from ten seconds to a minute.

  Down came the Incendus, passing within two hundred metres of the shuttle. The desolator crunched underside first into the tops of a tall building ahead and then its rounded nose crumpled one of the huge dome buildings. The warship had plenty of momentum and it ripped a 1500-metre-wide channel across Ivisto. Luckily – if luck played any part in it – the desolator’s trajectory took it into the edge of the shipyard, rather than deeper into the inhabited areas of the base. Regardless, the casualties were going to be enormous.

  Before the Incendus came to a halt, the Langinstol and the Lavorix battleship passed by overhead, the resonance from their competing ternium drives threatening to knock the shuttle to the ground. With an iron grip on the control sticks, Recker held his craft aloft while his mouth cursed as if his life depended on it.

  The Lavorix battleship broke free of the Langinstol and began to accelerate south-east, with its hull wreathed in plasma. Another wave of missiles from the ground batteries crashed into its visible flank with devastating effect and massive slabs of its armour were ripped tumbling away to the base beneath.

  “It’s coming down,” said Recker.

  The Lavorix battleship wasn’t completely done. Although most of its flank and topside armaments were out of action, the underside launchers were intact. Missiles burst from their clusters, flying in every direction and exploding against buildings and vehicles below. One detonated on the roof of the structure beneath the shuttle and the vessel was caught in the blast’s periphery. Again, Recker struggled with the controls, while thanking the Daklan for building their transports so damned tough.

  Emerging with little more than hull scarring, the shuttle flew on.

  “Barracks 12, dead ahead,” said Aston.

  Such had been Recker’s concentration that he hadn’t realised how close he was to the pickup location. His gaze swept across the buildings in front and he found his destination. Barracks 12 was one of four rectangular structures surrounding a central square and all of them were full of missile holes. Flames and dark smoke were everywhere, and one structure had sagged in the heat.

  As he looked at the scene, Recker couldn’t imagine that anyone was left alive inside the ruins.

  Chapter Six

  The central square was cluttered with overturned gravity cars, though some of the larger armoured transports were unmoved by the blast waves. Lieutenant Burner had already spoken to Sergeant Vance on the approach, so Recker knew the platoon was safe in the passenger bay of one such vehicle. What level of instinct had prompted Shadar or Vance to order the soldiers out of the building, Recker didn’t know. One thing was certain – he was glad they hadn’t perished in the blaze.

  Recker set the shuttle down in one of the few clear spaces. He gave the comms signal and the soldiers emerged from a low-profile transport about sixty metres away. They sprinted for the shuttle and Recker watched Corporal Hendrix, the heavy medical box on her back identifying her amongst the others. His mind was filled with regrets and he cursed the war anew for driving a wedge between them.

  “Anyone else with you, Sergeant Vance?” he asked on the comms.

  “Just us, sir. Barracks 9 through 12 got an evacuation order the moment the Lavorix arrived, so those other buildings should be empty.”

  They escaped one death and surely found another.

  A new comms link formed and this time it was Lieutenant Larson. She informed Recker that Lieutenant Eastwood had taken cover in one of the construction yard’s underground monitoring stations, a few hundred metres from the Aeklu’s docking trench.

  “Can he make it to the Aeklu?” asked Recker.

  “Not without risk, sir. He asks if you’re ordering him to make a run for it.”

  “Not yet. Tell him to stay safe.”

  Larson dropped the channel and Recker continued watching the feeds. The buildings around the square cut the visibility arc, concealing much of the fighting which raged over the base. Flashes lit the sky continuously, and shapes sped by in the darkness. Lieutenant Burner didn’t let up in his efforts to obtain details on the situation, though he found little more than snippets and even those morsels described events which Recker had already witnessed. It was frustrating and his temper was fraying.

  “If we’re to reach Aeklu in one piece, I’m going to need more than table scraps,” he said angrily.

  “The base commanders are still joining the dots and I don’t think anybody has the full picture, sir,” said Burner.

  “Is the Aeklu still our best bet?” said Aston. “We could Fracture the support warships. That’ll slow them down.”

  “Believe me, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to fly the Vengeance again, Commander,” said Recker. “However, my primary concern is the Aeklu. We can’t risk the enemy stealing it back and they only need to get a few hundred soldiers and crew inside to make it impossible for us to recapture it before they lift off.”

  “The Lavorix won’t know how to operate the tech we installed. They won’t even have access to the consoles,” Aston protested.

  “I know, but they’ll have hardware that’ll give them access. Sooner or later, they’ll figure out a way to get off the ground.”

  “We don’t know what’s happening on the landing field, sir,” said Burner. “It may be we’re in control.”

  Recker valued the input of his crew and he acknowledged their suggestions. “We’ll do what’s right when we get there,” he said.

  “Is that our cue to shut up talking?” asked Burner.

  Smiling thinly, Recker didn’t answer. He watched the last member of his platoon clamber into the shuttle. He didn’t wait any longer and pushed the button on his console to close the hull door.

  “Hold on tight, folks,” he said on the open channel. “We’re getting out of here.”

  Recker felt a sudden unease. Having learned to trust his inner alarms, he requested full power from the engines and the shuttle leapt off the ground with everything shaking and rattling.

  As it climbed above the sides of the ruined barracks, Recker looked to find out what had got his intuition stirred up. Of the three Lavorix battleships, the one which the Langinstol had rammed was in pieces on the southern edge of landing field.

  “I can see the Vengeance,” said Burner at once. “Nothing landed on it, but it was close.”

  The second and third enemy warships were under heavy bombardment and it was a miracle they were holding together given the extensive cratering which left hardly any part of their hulls untouched.

  “We’re giving them hell,” said Aston.

  “The Langinstol and the Ildinir have taken a beating as well,” said Recker, pushing the control sticks forward. The shuttle accelerated for the construction yard, while the clamouring alarm bells in his mind chimed louder.

  A pattern of much larger explosions appeared on the flank of the closest Lavorix b
attleship and Recker was sure they were caused by Hellburners launched from the Pulveriser or one of the other HPA cruisers in high orbit. The damage was too much for the enemy spaceship and its engines shut down while it was travelling at a low velocity. Mentally, Recker predicted its downward trajectory.

  “It’s going to hit the southern edge of the base.”

  “There’s going to be nothing left, even if we win,” said Aston.

  “There’s talk on the command and control channels of Lavorix on the ground,” said Burner. “Multiple reports and multiple locations, east and west of the construction yard.”

  “Was there ever a doubt?” asked Recker bitterly.

  “On the plus side, the Lavorix aren’t likely to fire the Extractor again,” said Burner. “Not unless they can focus it into a narrow area.”

  “Which means an incendiary attack on the southern area of Ivisto,” said Recker, realising what his brain had been worrying about. “Shit.”

  “Our warships will shoot down the cannisters, right?” said Burner.

  “Not if one of these two battleships deploy them, Lieutenant. They’re too low for us to stop them.”

  Burner jerked bolt upright in his seat, and Recker knew he’d been right.

  “Two cannisters just landed near the southern perimeter,” said Burner.

  Recker didn’t care which of the two Lavorix battleships had deployed the weapons and he cursed them both equally. He turned the shuttle directly north and it sped across the rooftops. Missiles and Churner fire still raked the sky and he stayed clear of the streets in which the ground vehicles were positioned.

  The last of the Lavorix warships broke up in a violent expulsion of heat and ternium particles. Debris rained down on the central areas of the base and Recker was relieved to find that none of the pieces were heading his way.

  “Here come the flames,” said Aston.

  On the rear feed, twin circles of red, orange and blue fires swept outwards from the incendiary detonation points. The burning wall came with incredible speed and Recker had no way to judge how far it would reach. He assumed the Lavorix wouldn’t want to incinerate their own ground forces, but in the past they’d shown little consideration for their own side.