“Maybe,” said Recker. “Or maybe they hit their own mode 3 button and disappear into the sunset.”
Burner wasn’t done yet. “Our sensors will be offline after the transit, sir – we’ll be blind for several seconds. We may not even get an Executor shot unless we fire it without help from the sensors.”
“That’s why we’re aiming for the bottom of the construction trench beneath the Aeklu. There’s plenty of room and we’ll be out of the enemy sensor view.”
“The gravity fields holding up the Aeklu will attempt to hold the Vengeance as well, sir,” said Larson.
“Our propulsion has plenty of grunt – we’ll pull clear.”
“Slowly.”
“It won’t be so slow with the engines in overstress,” said Aston.
Larson didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue further. “As long as we get our chance.”
“We’ll get that chance, Lieutenant,” Recker assured her.
Burner had thought of another problem. “Lieutenant Eastwood’s comms receptor is grey, sir. I think he’s somewhere inside that energy shield.”
“We’re all facing the same crap here, Lieutenant,” said Recker.
“I know, sir. This is bigger than one man.” Burner’s voice was flat.
“It is bigger than one man, damnit!” snapped Recker. “Do you think I want to kill my officers? This is what we have to do, Lieutenant!”
“Ken wouldn’t want it any other way,” said Aston softly.
Burner’s shoulders slumped. “I know.” He raised his head, though his eyes were looking into empty space. “This crap never seems to end.”
“It will end,” said Recker. “And when it’s over, we’ll be able to look in the mirror knowing we faced the worst of the universe and didn’t back down.”
“Yes, sir,” said Burner. “I don’t know where the anger came from.”
“I’m feeling it myself,” admitted Recker.
“When the war’s over, I’ll recommend you for the Valorous Ingestion of Caffeine award, Lieutenant Burner,” said Larson.
Burner blinked in surprise. “Is she allowed to take the piss, sir?”
“I’ll leave that for you to decide, Lieutenant.” Recker gave a thin smile. “No more talk unless it’s about our situation.” He glanced at the instrumentation and all the readouts were in their expected ranges. “We’re ready to lift off and once we hit mode 3, we’ll be committed.”
“What are you aiming to knock out with the Executor, sir?” said Aston. “I assume we’re going to target our single shot carefully, but we don’t know where the Lavorix have installed their individual hardware modules.”
“I know,” said Recker. “The Aeklu and the Verumol had their Extractors in different locations, but they both had their shield generator modules on the lower midsection.”
“The Aeklu and Verumol are completely different warships, sir. They weren’t designed the same and they don’t even look the same,” said Aston. “The Aeklu’s shield generator was ten klicks back from the nose and seven deep from the underside plating. The Verumol’s was twelve from the nose and four deep. The Executor only has a two-klick blast diameter, plus another thousand metres rupturing effect from the shockwave, give or take. We’re guessing and even if we guess right, the Executor may not have the penetration.”
“I know,” Recker repeated.
Aston shrugged and gave another grin. “What choice do we have, huh?”
“Exactly.”
“Can I have my medal now, sir?” asked Burner, all traces of his anger gone. “I’d like to pin it to my chest before I die.”
“You’re not going to die, Lieutenant.”
“Damn right you’re not,” said Aston.
The time had come. “Let’s focus,” said Recker. “Ivisto isn’t coming back from this, so let’s make sure the enemy pay a heavy price for what they’ve done.”
He accessed the engine control software. Normally, Lieutenant Eastwood handled this and Recker took a little longer to locate the correct options. Engine mode 3 could be activated by a simple press of a button on the control bars, or it could be manually programmed to run for a set amount of time or distance. Using the data from the Vengeance’s sensors, Recker tapped in the details.
“Done,” he said. “When I activate mode 3, it’ll fly us straight into the middle of that energy shield, directly below the Aeklu.”
“This is going to work, isn’t it?” said Burner.
“We’ll soon find out. Make sure the other members of our fleet are aware of what we’re attempting.”
“None of the Daklan or HPA warships are in a position to help us, sir. They’re too close to the planet to perform an in-out transition, and they’ve got their hands full with the enemy support craft.”
“We’re not waiting,” said Recker. “If it works, we’ll have proven the method and the rest of our fleet – not just the warships here at Trinus-XN – will benefit from it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Recker’s eyes were locked on the sensor feeds. The Lavorix capital ship was still ejecting vast quantities of missiles, while spraying gauss countermeasures in hundreds of directions. It wasn’t enough to negate the allied attack and the enemy craft was under such heavy bombardment that the entire visible shield was hidden by continuous bursts of plasma.
Recker didn’t know how long the enemy power source could hold up under such punishment and maybe the Lavorix would knock out the HPA and Daklan fleet before it happened. Either way, he felt sure the enemy would be deploying troops as rapidly as possible. The best hope was that their access to the Aeklu and Verumol would be slowed by the newly installed HPA and Daklan security hardware.
“Here we go,” said Recker.
The control bars glided along their runners and the Vengeance’s propulsion grumbled like it always did outside of its overstressed state. A booming note of displaced air rolled across the landing strip as the warship climbed vertically into the air.
“The details I programmed in assume a launch altitude of one klick,” he said.
In moments, the warship’s altimeter showed exactly one thousand metres and Recker held it there, with the nose pointing downwards and directly at the star-bright ovoid of plasma and energy. He switched the propulsion into mode 2 and the grumbling was replaced by a low howl of metallic perfection. Recker moved his thumb onto the mode 3 activation button.
Taking a deep breath, he sent the Vengeance into lightspeed.
Chapter Nine
So short was the journey that Recker’s brain didn’t even register it happening, and the Frenziol coursing through his veins suppressed the usual compounded nausea that came from a rapid in-out transition. The sensors feeds were blank and Recker waited to find out if they’d come online before the Lavorix detected the Vengeance and blew it to pieces. A quick check of his status panel told him the warship’s velocity was at zero and its engine had switched back to mode 1.
The seconds dragged out and Recker scraped his teeth together. “Where are those sensors?” he asked.
“Coming online!” yelled Larson.
All at once, the arrays came up. They required adjustment and Recker struggled to make sense of the Vengeance’s surroundings. Below, everything was dark, the same as it was above. Portside, he saw varying hues of grey, while the starboard sensors registered dark blues and lighter greys.
Burner and Larson made rapid alterations to the focus and direction of the lenses and suddenly everything snapped into place.
“We’re beneath the Aeklu,” said Recker. “It worked.”
The trench holding the massive spaceship was several kilometres deep and the Vengeance was right in the middle of it and facing north. Overhead, the adjusted sensor feeds allowed Recker an excellent view of a twenty-missile launch cluster on the Aeklu’s underside, along with the two eight-barrel gauss repeaters flanking it. One day, maybe he’d turn those weapons against their makers.
Recker shifted his attention to the o
ther feeds. On the alloy-clad ground below, he saw hundreds of the immense gravity field generators that were supporting the Aeklu’s weight, and their presence explained the dullest of vibrations he could sense running through the Vengeance.
About four thousand metres above, on both port and starboard sides, the long gaps between the Aeklu’s flanks and the edges of the trench appeared too small for the Vengeance to fit through. Recker was going to give it a try whatever happened.
Once the Vengeance was detected, he expected it to be subjected to an intense and sustained attack, so Recker knew it was vital to get the Executor shot off quickly and in the right place. Therefore, he spent a moment peering through the starboard gap, hunting for visible clues on the hull of the active Lavorix warship. The angle wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for him to discern the massive gauss repeaters on the huge craft’s underside, along with the swarms of much smaller vessels flying through the intervening space.
“A mixture of our shuttles and their shuttles,” he said. “Plenty of both.”
From what Recker could see, the Lavorix were potentially deploying tens of thousands of troops. It made sense, given they only had this one chance to take back the Laws of Ancidium.
“I can’t identify a definite target area on the enemy ship from here,” he said. “It’s time to act.”
Recker rotated the Vengeance so that it was facing east towards the Verumol. Then, he slid the control bars away from him and watched the propulsion output gauge climb, while the velocity gauge remained stuck on zero. Clenching his jaw tightly, he increased the power further. The grumbling note of the engines became a roar of chained fury and still the Vengeance didn’t move.
“That’s a tight gap between the Aeklu and the trench, sir,” said Aston.
Recker knew what she was getting at. To escape the gravity chains, he’d need to switch the Vengeance’s propulsion into overstress, at which point it might suddenly rip free and accelerate into the side walls of the construction trench. The warship would survive the impact, but Recker didn’t want to risk an unforeseen hardware failure.
For a split-second, he considered launching missiles at the closest gravity field generators. Recker dismissed the idea - the generators shared their load and he might be required to destroy twenty or more before the hold on the Vengeance lessened, and that would destroy any hope of surprising the Lavorix.
“Mode 2 it is,” he said.
The moment he switched over the propulsion, he felt the warship straining eagerly, even with the output at less than twenty percent of its new maximum. Recker lifted the nose and, metre-by-metre, the Vengeance’s overstressed ternium propulsion overcame the insistent force of the gravity field. It was a challenge for Recker – the field generators pulled constantly at the warship, attempting to bring it back to its original position.
Gradually, the warship crept towards the gap and the sight of Lavorix transports flying unmolested towards the ground taunted Recker.
“Enough!” he said. “We’re getting out of here.”
The field generators didn’t slacken their grip and it seemed to Recker as if they were wilfully combating his efforts. In anger, he increased thrust another ten percent towards maximum and the Vengeance gathered speed. A further five percent was enough for the warship to break the shackles and it accelerated rapidly towards the opening – an opening which seemed to shrink as it came closer, rather than widen.
“Going to be tight,” said Burner.
With barely twenty metres to spare top and bottom, the Vengeance sped through the opening. The moment it broke from the gravity field, the warship surged to a terrifying velocity that brought the solid flank of the Verumol closer in the blinking of an eye. Reacting fast, Recker banked the Vengeance as hard as he could. It wasn’t enough and the warship’s starboard plating struck one of the Verumol’s gauss cannons.
The impact was enough to knock the Vengeance off course and Recker grappled with the controls. He railed at himself for screwing up – he was wasting time correcting his error, instead of blowing the crap out of his enemies.
Coming around in a tight arc, the Vengeance’s nose ended up facing north and Recker’s brain absorbed the details all around. West lay the Aeklu, with its slab sides and the protruding four-thousand-metre-high cuboid that ran the full length of its hull. East, the Verumol’s sloping sides were studded with gauss turrets in different shapes and sizes, those guns now idle.
It wasn’t the captured warships which Recker was most interested in. Overhead, the thirty-five-thousand-metre Lavorix capital ship formed what seemed almost like a roof, confining the Vengeance to a limited space within a combat arena of the enemy’s making. Two angled plates – with no seams showing anywhere – formed the massive spaceship’s underside and Recker spotted dozens upon dozens of missile clusters, along with ten-barrel gauss repeaters and several huge domes which he thought might house particle beam generators.
North and south, the energy shield formed the last walls of Recker’s prison. Seen from within, the barrier was translucent in a way which reminded him of frosted glass or the frozen surface of a pure lake.
Against the might of this opponent, the Vengeance was no more than an insignificant speck and Recker fought against the cold dread seeping into his bones at the firepower on show. This unknown Law of Ancidium was packing more conventional weapons than either the Aeklu or the Verumol, as if it had been purpose-designed to wipe out entire fleets.
Recker couldn’t allow himself to think what would happen when those underside armaments locked onto the Vengeance and started firing.
We’ve been through worse situations and lived.
The thought gave him some resolve. His eyes scanned for a place to fire the Executor, without knowing exactly what he was looking for. Deep down, Recker accepted he was relying on luck and intuition rather than skill and experience. It was a truth he didn’t like and the taste of it was bitter.
Unbowed by the thoughts, Recker piloted the Vengeance beneath the enemy ship. All around, Lavorix transports were ejected from square launch hatches in the mothership’s armour and they fell towards the construction yard like a stinking rain of alien crap. Recker ignored them – their time would come if his plan worked out – and he kept his narrowed his eyes on the forward feed.
“Multiple ground launchers have locked onto us, sir,” said Aston. “We’ve got one mesh deflector charge.”
“Hold onto it,” said Recker.
“Setting mesh deflector to manual activation.”
About six thousand metres starboard, Recker spotted an ugly puncturing of the capital ship’s armour. He looked closer at what turned out to be a still-smoking armour breach a few hundred metres across.
“Lightspeed missile strike,” he said. The Daklan warheads packed a tremendous punch, and he could imagine why the Lavorix wouldn’t want to risk their hull becoming riddled with such craters. Recker turned his gaze forward again and something caught his attention. “I think I’ve found something…” he said.
Five thousand metres ahead, a rectangular area of the enemy warship’s underside plating was surrounded by missile clusters and turrets. No armaments were fitted on the rectangle, as if the Lavorix had installed an enormous hardware module through a now sealed opening in the plating.
“That’s the place,” Recker said under his breath. “Commander Aston, target the area I’ve highlighted on the feed.”
“Got it, sir,” she said. “And those ground launchers just let rip.”
“They’re designed for use against tanks and armoured vehicles, not warships,” said Larson. “They’re too small to hurt us.”
“Given enough time, they’ll do some damage, Lieutenant.”
“Maglors set to track and destroy,” said Aston.
The Vengeance’s countermeasures fired at once, their pulsing beat coming up through the floor. At the same moment, Recker spotted the nearby underside gauss repeaters on the enemy capital ship rotate with incredible spee
d. Within a moment, dozens were pointing directly at the Vengeance and their barrels started turning.
“Commander Aston, fire the Executor.”
“Executor discharged.”
The dark explosion of the weapon tore into the Lavorix mothership, creating a two-thousand-metre ragged opening that went deep into the interior. At the same time, the force of the energy ruptured the surrounding alloys, forming rough waves of buckled metal, along with thousands of stress fractures which snaked away from the opening. Debris tumbled out, like guts from the slit belly of a slaughtered beast.
The thumping expulsion of Executor backlash swept through the bridge and, though Recker was braced for it, he knew it would hurt. Once again, the Frenziol came to his aid and the edges of the kick-in-the-balls pain and nausea were blunted enough that he could manage them without losing his focus on the outside world.
“The energy shield is still operational, sir,” said Aston. “And the enemy ship hasn’t moved.”
It was a bad outcome and Recker fought to contain his fury. So much was happening that he couldn’t allow his emotions to rule and he held down his anger. The enemy ship was damaged and there was still a chance it would take to the skies. Meanwhile, the Vengeance was trapped within the shield, at least until the mode 3 five-minute cooldown expired.
A couple of ground-launched missiles evaded the Maglors and crashed into the Vengeance, their explosions stark on the underside feeds. At the same time, dozens of gauss repeaters from the capital ship sent an unimaginable cascade of projectiles into the warship’s armour. The distant drone of the impacts wormed its way straight into Recker’s head and he tried to shut out the noise.
“Take them down, Commander,” he said, accelerating towards the Executor opening.
Aston didn’t need to have it spelled out. Fast as lightning, she selected targets and sent missiles at them. Two Lavorix transports – each a hundred metres in length and with a payload of six-limbed alien scumbags – were turned into molten scrap by missile impacts. Farther below, several ground launchers were given the same treatment and white plasma flashes marked the places of their destruction.
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