Empires in Ruin

by Anthony James

  “Going up,” said Recker.

  The shuttle was already under full acceleration and it wouldn’t go any faster. It suddenly felt sluggish and gained altitude steadily, rather than with the urgency Recker demanded.

  “Come on, come on,” said Burner.

  Recker’s eyes darted to the base map. The shuttle was only two kilometres from the southern end of the construction yard and the Lavorix were north-east and north-west. That meant the enemy could potentially be forty or fifty kilometres away, putting them a long way from the incendiaries.

  The shuttle sped across the southern edge of the construction yard at a ten-kilometre altitude. From this height, the sensors offered a much better vantage of the base, though it made Recker feel like he was going to be taken out by an enemy missile at any moment.

  Ahead, the Aeklu and Verumol were immense shapes on the forward feed, while behind, the expansion of the incendiaries slowed suddenly as their fuel became exhausted.

  “Five klicks short of the construction yard,” judged Aston. She shook her head as the likely extent of the casualties sunk in. “We could have lost a million or more personnel.”

  “We’ve lost more than just personnel, sir,” said Burner. “The command and control buildings were hit by the incendiaries and about seventy percent of the high-level comms receptors have turned from green to grey.”

  “Those buildings are prefab, but the subterranean levels beneath them aren’t,” said Recker. “Daxtil-Tilok and his team are five hundred metres below ground.”

  “Right. I’ll check out what’s happening.”

  While Burner hunched himself over the comms console, Recker turned his gaze to the feeds. The southern half of the base – including the most heavily-populated areas – was like a sea of flames that lit up the horizon. Incendiaries didn’t burn for long, but they burned hot, and Recker had no doubt that few people would have survived.

  In a war filled with atrocities, this was another to add to the total and he blanked it from his mind. The Lavorix were here to recapture the Laws of Ancidium and Recker wasn’t in the mood to let them get away with it.

  “Let’s check what’s down there,” he said, sending the shuttle nose first towards the construction yard.

  A sudden clattering of gauss slugs against the hull made Recker bank instinctively. His eyes found the source of the attack - tracer lines of white came from a place on the western edge of the yard. Burner focused one of the sensor arrays on it and enhanced the image.

  “Mobile repeater, sir,” he yelled over the metallic hail beating against the hull. “Between two of those warehouses.”

  “It’s outside our nose gun’s current firing arc,” shouted Aston.

  “I’m not intending to trade blows with it,” said Recker. “We’re getting out of here.”

  The shuttle was at altitude and the ground repeater was in a good position, which meant the incoming fire persisted far longer than Recker wanted. He focused on one of the storage buildings on the southern edge of the base and flew straight for it, all the while reminding himself the Daklan bolted their tech together properly.

  “Shit! Missiles!” said Aston.

  Recker glanced at the two fast-moving red dots which had appeared on the rudimental tactical display. Then, he saw the missiles on the bulkhead screen - twin orange streaks hurtled across the sky, coming from the east, several kilometres beyond the Verumol. The shuttle wasn’t manoeuvrable enough to avoid them and Recker didn’t want to test out its armour. It didn’t look as if he had much choice, since the cover offered by the building was too far away to reach in time.

  From one of the southern streets about two thousand metres east, more projectile tracers appeared, sweeping west as they tracked a target. The red dots vanished from the tactical and Recker flew the shuttle behind the storage building and brought it to a halt fifty metres above the ground in a normal-looking street with a few parked gravity vehicles and no sign of dead bodies.

  He turned to look at Aston.

  “All praise the Churners,” she said.

  Recker nodded his agreement, but didn’t want to dwell on their escape. “It doesn’t seem like the direct approach to the Aeklu’s going to work,” he said.

  “I’m checking over the sensor recordings,” said Burner. “Let’s see if I can find any evidence of Lavorix foot soldiers.”

  “Commander Aston, you do that instead,” said Recker. “Lieutenant Burner, what happened to those comms?”

  “It’s not good news, sir. The Daklan fitted Ivisto with physical cabling in case something happened to the comms hubs. The command and control section is set to use them automatically in case of a failure in the main hubs. Unfortunately, they didn’t bury all those cables underground, so a bunch of them were burned out by the incendiaries. They’re busy rerouting, but a suit comms unit won’t penetrate five hundred metres of rock. For the moment, there’s no one at the top giving orders.”

  Recker met the other man’s eyes. “We’re in the shit here, Lieutenant Burner. I need you to unearth whatever intel is available on the Lavorix in and around the construction yard. Most importantly, find out if we have any troops coming this way.”

  “I’ll get hold of a senior officer, sir, just don’t expect a direct channel to Daxtil-Tilok.”

  “Don’t even try – the Daklan have competent officers at every level of their hierarchy. You might even find a few amongst the HPA. Find someone and squeeze until you get answers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There’re signs of troop activity on the landing strip, sir,” said Aston, tapping her fingertip on the recorded feed.

  Recker looked over at the screen and spotted out-of-focus movement a few hundred metres in from the western edge of the yard. The sensor array hadn’t been aimed directly that way, so it was difficult to be sure if the movement was a tightly clustered group of soldiers or a vehicle.

  “Can’t even see if those are Lavorix,” he said.

  “No, sir. There’s other movement here,” said Aston. “These grey lines might be repeater fire caught on the sensor lens periphery. And look here…”

  This time, she’d spotted an object dropping from the sky and disappearing behind one of the western buildings.

  “Another transport,” said Recker.

  “Maybe.”

  The lack of reliable information was starting to anger Recker and he struck the pilot’s console with his fist.

  “There’s an alley between these two buildings ahead of us, sir,” Aston pointed out. “If you fly us into it, we could take another look at the construction yard without being visible to the missile launcher.”

  “Good idea, Commander.”

  The street above which the shuttle hovered continued for a few kilometres, but a left-hand turn a little way along led back to the construction yard. Recker accelerated towards it and warily guided the shuttle into this new road. It was hardly an alley like Aston had described it, being wide enough for the largest of gravity crawlers.

  “Let’s see what’s out there,” said Aston.

  “Time is passing, Commander,” said Recker. He was become edgy – how much was down to the Frenziol he didn’t know, but he didn’t want it to dictate his actions.

  His eyes went to the sensor feed. This street just about lined up with Aeklu’s portside flank and the colossal warship was oriented south to north, blocking the view of anything happening in the gap between the two Laws of Ancidium, and also preventing sight of anything on the eastern side of the construction yard.

  “Repeater fire over there,” said Recker.

  The darting lances of hot slugs were hard to miss and they came from the west towards one of the clusters of personnel huts positioned near the Aeklu’s midsection. Several other repeaters attacked the same buildings from different locations in the west.

  “No sign of return fire,” said Aston. She cursed beneath her breath when she spotted something else on the feed. “I think this used to be a tank, sir,” she
said, focusing the sensors on a smoking alloy wreck several kilometres away and not far from the yard’s western edge.

  “How many tanks are assigned to guard the construction yard?” wondered Recker, trying to pull the figure from his mind. Neither the Daklan nor the HPA had anticipated a ground assault, so most of the defences were patrolling the skies. He thought maybe twelve or fifteen tanks were on permanent guard duty in the yard. Where they were, he didn’t know.

  “Sir, I’ve got Lieutenant Bridget Hale on the comms for you,” said Burner.

  “Who?” asked Recker, trying to remember if he’d heard the name before.

  “She’s the officer in charge of the western construction yard security, sir.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant Burner. Bring me into the channel.”

  “Captain Recker?” said Lieutenant Hale at once. She sounded calm and competent and Recker felt immediately reassured. What was less reassuring was the sound of repeater fire in the background.

  “Lieutenant Hale, reliable information is a commodity in short supply. What can you tell me?”

  “We’ve lost contact with our CO, sir. He was located in the main command and control section south of here.”

  “That area was hit by an incendiary, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “They might restore their comms links soon or they might not. Tell me your situation.”

  “We’re in trouble, sir. Our spotter shuttle counted fifteen transports landing within two thousand metres of the construction yard perimeter. That’s on top of the four which landed right next to the Aeklu. Our tanks took care of those ones.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “We’re in the personnel huts west of the Aeklu, sir. The enemy are keeping us pinned down with mobile repeaters.”

  “I can see it from here, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “Where are the tanks? They should be enough to tear the crap out of any ground forces and whatever mobile repeaters they brought with them.”

  “They were needed on the eastern edge of the yard, sir. Lieutenant Ixivar’s over there and he’s neck deep.”

  “Can you hold out?”

  “Not against explosives. Where’s our air cover, sir?”

  “I’ll get you some, Lieutenant. One way or another, I’ll get you that support.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Recker closed the channel and resisted the urge to punch his console for a second time. The allied fleet still had four warships guarding the air, which suggested that widespread comms failure was the only reason the Lavorix were able to act so brazenly.

  Just to piss him off even more, a Lavorix repeater kilometres away to the west found an angle to fire at the shuttle. The clatter of impacts started up, so loud it was hard for Recker to think.

  “Kill the bastards!” he roared.

  Aston didn’t need to be asked twice and she aimed the nose gun along the path of the incoming fire. An extended burst from the shuttle’s high calibre repeater added to the harsh din in the cabin. Five seconds later, everything went quiet again.

  “Done,” said Aston.

  “I will not be a spectator any longer,” said Recker. He flew the shuttle backwards along the alley towards the east-west road. “Lieutenant Burner, this time I want you to speak to the comms team on one of those warships and make them aware of the situation down here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s our plan, sir?” said Aston. The look in her eye suggested she had a good idea what was coming.

  Recker turned the shuttle into the road, facing east. He pushed the controls forward and the vessel accelerated, low above the gravity cars and transport trucks.

  “If our troops need air support, that’s what they’ll get. We’re heading for the Vengeance.”

  Just saying the warship’s name gave Recker comfort and he watched the road below speed by as the shuttle flew towards its new destination.

  Chapter Seven

  The shuttle wasn’t halfway to the landing strip when the Langinstol and the Ildinir passed directly overhead, side-by-side and at a five-kilometre altitude, trailing flames and smaller pieces of debris. All the while, they ejected missiles and countermeasures into the planet’s orbit and Recker wondered how long the two battleships would be able to maintain their continuous fire.

  “I got through to the Langinstol and they’re on their way to support our ground forces, sir,” said Burner.

  “Good work, Lieutenant.”

  “We should take a look,” said Aston, only half-seriously.

  Unable to resist, Recker brought the shuttle a little higher, so that the portside and rear feeds had visibility over the Lavorix positions.

  “Give them hell, boys,” said Aston wistfully.

  The warships did exactly that. While they couldn’t fire indiscriminately for risk of killing HPA or Daklan troops, the two annihilators halted directly over the western fringe of the yard. Burner focused the sensors on that area, giving the shuttle’s crew a clear view of the Graler fire being directed into the streets below. The gauss fire continued for many seconds and then one of the huge warehouses erupted into a cloud of roiling fire when half a dozen plasma missiles punched through its flat roof and exploded within. Eight or ten additional blasts followed and Recker was reminded how bad it was for ground troops in the age of all-powerful warships.

  Not that he gave a shit when it came to the Lavorix.

  With the western Lavorix forces either wiped out or their numbers heavily diminished, the annihilators broke formation. The Langinstol gained altitude so quickly that in the blinking of an eye, it became no more than an orange speck. Meanwhile, the Ildinir’s pilot didn’t waste time rotating the warship and he accelerated eastwards over the tops of the Aeklu and Verumol.

  “They’re heading east to help Lieutenant Ixivar,” said Burner.

  “Did you hear anything from the Langinstol’s comms team about the overall situation?” asked Recker.

  “It’s a stalemate, sir,” said Burner, his head cocked to indicate he was listening to one of the comms officers on the battleship. “Our fleet has destroyed three-quarters of the Lavorix support vessels, but are unable to break the shield protecting the enemy capital ship using conventional missiles.” Burner jerked suddenly upright.

  “What is it?” asked Recker.

  “The Daklan lightspeed missiles are able to bypass the shield, sir!”

  “Are you sure?” Recker asked sharply. “Each one of those annihilators is carrying enough lightspeed missiles to put a ten-klick hole in the side of the enemy ship. Why haven’t they?”

  Burner talked with the Daklan comms officer for another few seconds. “The lightspeed missiles are designed to re-enter local space a fraction of a second before impact, otherwise they’d fail to detonate. Re-entry is designed to happen at the last possible moment, but since they’re travelling at 299,000 kilometres per second when it happens, their guidance systems err on the side of caution in case the missiles overshoot.”

  “So they’re exiting lightspeed outside the enemy shield and then blowing up against it?”

  “Yes, sir. Given the speeds and distances – the Daklan comms officer promises me a longer explanation when this is all over – there’s a degree of inaccuracy in the missile re-entry, and a couple emerged from lightspeed within the enemy shield.”

  “I bet the Lavorix shit their four-legged pants when that happened,” said Aston.

  “When the missiles exploded, the enemy capital ship entered a short-range lightspeed transit,” said Burner. “And then it came back. The Lavorix are acting cagey now, but they show no sign of retreating.”

  “Do we have enough missiles?” asked Recker. His mind was on the conversation while his hands piloted the shuttle. The long street ended at an intersection ahead. After that was a quick left-right onto the landing strip.

  “No, sir - the Daklan fired most of them shortly after the initial success. Now they’re trying to figure out a way to reprogram their guidance systems so they’ll re-enter lo
cal space a fraction of a second later. Unfortunately, with the comms having gone to shit and likely most of the weapons engineers being incinerated, the reprogramming might not happen soon.”

  Recker grunted humourlessly. “So the Lavorix mothership is wary because of the lightspeed missiles, but we’re unable to reconfigure those missiles mid-engagement.”

  “The Daklan don’t like a stalemate and the Lavorix don’t like a stalemate,” said Aston.

  “We all know it, Commander,” said Recker. “Something’s going to give.”

  He tried desperately to guess the next moves in this conflict. Recker’s previous encounters with the Laws of Ancidium had taught him that the Lavorix couldn’t tolerate their capital ships suffering any kind of damage. As soon as that shiny armour suffered a nick, a scrape, or an impact from a 424-million-ton ternium-accelerated projectile, they’d back off rather than sticking around to see what other tricks their opponent might have ready.

  Recker had also learned that the Lavorix weren’t cowards. Their capital ships might withdraw quickly enough, but they wouldn’t retreat – once they’d evaluated the situation, they’d come back for a second try. And a third and a fourth after that.

  “The Aeklu and the Verumol are too important to the Lavorix,” said Recker. “This attack force isn’t leaving anytime soon.”

  “What if they’re waiting for some other Laws of Ancidium to show up?” asked Burner.

  Recker guessed at the answer. “If that were the case, the Lavorix wouldn’t be pushing so hard here at Ivisto. Either they don’t have reinforcements coming anytime soon or they’re fearful of what we might do with the Aeklu and Verumol if they give us the opportunity.”

  “The Extractors failed on both of those captured ships, didn’t they?” said Burner. It was common knowledge

  “That’s not something the Lavorix will know,” said Aston. She chewed her bottom lip. “Though it’s possible they could pull the information from our comms system if they’ve infiltrated the data arrays in any of the main hubs.”