Empires in Ruin

by Anthony James

  “Potentially, sir.” Burner smiled apologetically. “Assuming these comms packets contain the data I think they contain.”

  “I’m checking them now,” said Larson. “Whoa! Coordinates!”

  “Coordinates for where?” asked Recker.

  “I haven’t found out yet, sir. Since we didn’t manage to hack into the Lavorix star charts, the Aeklu is carrying the HPA and Daklan equivalents on one of our own data arrays and these coordinates don’t tie in with anything we have.”

  “So how can you find the Hexidine?”

  Larson grinned and tapped the side of her head. “I recognize the format of the coordinates, sir. The Lavorix are using Meklon data – no doubt stolen – to navigate. We have the same Meklon charts on the Vengeance. I’ll link to its data arrays and find out where the Hexidine was going.”

  “Will it take long?”

  “I realize I made it sound easy, sir. There’s a possibility it won’t be so straightforward – I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  Recker stared at Larson in admiration. “That is some excellent work, Lieutenant. Thank you.”

  “No worries, sir.”

  Nervous energy coursed through Recker, eradicating the vestiges of Extractor pain and reminding him what it felt like to experience normal emotions that weren’t modified or dictated by a permanent drip feed of Frenziol. He jumped to his feet, intending to pace across the bridge. Remembering that it was far too dangerous a situation for him to leave his post, he sat again.

  “Sir, what about the Gorgadar and the Ixidar?” asked Burner.

  “Forget them for the moment, Lieutenant.” Recker halted himself. “If you can learn something about those two ships without delaying your search for the Hexidine, then do it.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Burner.

  “Lieutenant Larson has given us a real boost,” Recker continued, “But if you require assistance from either Commander Aston or from the comms teams on our escort ships, let me know at once.”

  “It won’t harm to send the received data to the other comms teams, sir,” said Burner. “With your permission, I’ll provide the Daklan with a copy of the Vengeance’s star chart data as well.”

  “Do it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Burner glanced at his console and then back at Recker. “The data packets from the Gorgadar are stamped Prime.”

  “Is that important, or does it just mean the Gorgadar created the initial battle network?”

  “I think it means the Gorgadar is the command vessel amongst the Laws of Ancidium, sir. The head honcho.”

  “A bigger threat than the others?” asked Recker.

  “I can’t tell you that, sir.” Burner took in a deep breath. “Particularly since the Ixidar’s response packets are stamped Destroyer. Maybe once time allows, I’ll see if there’re any clues in the comms records to explain the meaning behind the names.”

  “I think we can guess well enough, Lieutenant. Anyway, the time for digging isn’t now,” Recker confirmed. He clenched and unclenched his fists. His fingers were desperate to start punching buttons on the console – to take part in the search through the comms data – but this was something he was better sitting out.

  With his comms team occupied, Recker opened channels to the other three warships in turn. Captain Vazox exuded the type of earned confidence that only came from extensive frontline experience, while Captain Vakh of the desolator Incendus – who sounded like he chewed a mouthful of wood splinters three times a day - seemed no less capable. Having witnessed both in action, Recker was confident he was accompanied by the best.

  The lone HPA warship – the heavy cruiser Pulveriser – was commanded by Captain Lola Bowen. Bowen was softly spoken, yet Recker had seen her combat record and knew she could be relied on. Out of the entire allied fleet at Trinus-XN, these were the survivors and that truth spoke loudest of all.

  “They’re pretty beat up,” said Aston, switching between the sensor feeds. “The Langinstol more than the others and that’s the one carrying the most lightspeed missiles.”

  Aston wasn’t exaggerating. The annihilator was a mess of varying-sized craters and on one flank, its ternium modules were exposed through a splayed-out section of the armour. While not in such a bad way, the Incendus and Pulveriser both required urgent repair yard attention. Such was the price of facing the Laws of Ancidium.

  “Captain Vazox says he’s coming with us and I won’t tell him otherwise, Commander. We need those lightspeed missiles,” said Recker.

  “Next time we should try our main armament, huh?” Aston replied. “The Toll. I wonder why the Lavorix chose that name.”

  “I don’t care what they called it or why, as long as it fires straight,” said Recker. “Next time we meet the Hexidine, I won’t be so timid.”

  “You made the right call holding back on the Toll, sir,” said Aston. “And you know I’ll say it if I think you screwed up.”

  “I know, Commander. We got taught a lesson by the Hexidine, but I learned from it - I learned that missiles won’t be enough. The enemy shield – and ours – recharge too quickly and the mode 3 transits make escape too easy. Those Lavorix know how their ship works and we could empty our magazines at them without bringing their defences down.”

  “Nobody needs a gun that big,” said Aston, recalling her own words from back on Lustre, the first time the Aeklu had shown up at the planet. “Except now we do.”

  “It’s strange how the universe works, Commander.”

  “And I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it, sir. Except for the wars and the mass murder.”

  “When this is over – not the entire war, just this part of it we’re in the middle of – I’ll recommend you for your own command. If that’s what you want.”

  “I want my own ship, sir,” said Aston, her expression peculiarly sad. “Not yet.” She gestured around the bridge. “What we’ve got here…it’s in my head that if we break the team, then everything will come tumbling down.”

  “I didn’t know you were superstitious, Commander.”

  “I’m not, sir. Not normally.” She shrugged. “You feel it too, I can see it. You were scared to offer me the recommendation in case my leaving broke whatever blessing is keeping us alive and keeping the HPA away from extinction.” Again, the sadness. “But you’re too good a man to keep it inside.”

  “I’d hate to lose what we’ve got,” Recker admitted, his chest thumping with an emotion he couldn’t put a name to.

  “The team stays together until the Lavorix are gone, sir.” Aston gave him a surprise wink. “After that, who knows?”

  “Let’s get there first,” said Recker, smiling despite the circumstances.

  The lingering effects of the Extractor were gone, though the cocktail of drugs in his system hadn’t nearly dispersed. Recker’s body still seemed alien to him, but his thoughts were clear and he felt in control of himself. Each time he remembered the pain, he felt anger more than fear and a single word kept jumping into his head.

  Revenge.

  This was the first time Recker could remember craving retribution just for the sake of it and he felt no shame. He’d defeat the Hexidine and after that he’d volunteer to go looking for the Gorgadar and the Ixidar, though he expected to be the first name on Telar’s list regardless.

  “Got it!” said Larson. “Oh shit.”

  “I don’t want to hear oh shit, Lieutenant. I want to know where the Hexidine is going.”

  “Lustre, sir. That’s where they’re going.”

  “And that’s where we’re heading as well,” said Recker.

  “I’ve entered the destination coordinates into the navigational system,” said Eastwood. “I’ve requested the highest available lightspeed multiplier, but the software won’t generate a predicted journey duration.”

  “Any idea why that is?”

  “Because the Aeklu wasn’t ready for combat duty, sir. The HPA control systems haven’t been programmed to interpret the output from the Lavorix har
dware.” Eastwood looked pained. “And I don’t think our software knows how to deal with the capabilities of the Aeklu’s ternium drive either. The easiest way to explain it is that the numbers are too big – they exceed numerous expected thresholds so the software assumes there’s an error.”

  “This won’t stop us entering lightspeed?”

  “No, sir.”

  Recker drummed his fingers. Time was getting on and the Hexidine had a twenty-five-minute head start. “We can’t wait any longer. Do we have a ballpark figure of the journey time for an HPA or Daklan warship?”

  “The comms team on the Langinstol have a predicted travel time of five days to Lustre, sir,” said Burner.

  “Does that figure allow us to make any predictions based on what we learned from our experience with the Galactar?” asked Recker.

  “Ten hours for the Hexidine to reach Lustre, sir,” said Burner. “That’s if they didn’t mode 3 to the far end of the solar system and then open a Gateway.”

  If the enemy had travelled by Gateway, whatever Recker decided would be too late anyway. That left him to work on the assumption the Hexidine was using conventional lightspeed travel. With that in mind, he didn’t ask Burner for confirmation on the accuracy of his ten-hour estimate, since he knew he’d get none. He directed his gaze towards Lieutenant Eastwood. “If we use ten hours as a prediction…”

  “Can I just stop you there, sir?” said Eastwood quickly. “You’re about to ask me to calculate the Hexidine’s potential lightspeed multiplier based on a mass comparison with the Aeklu. Well, there are too many variables, such as degree of propulsion overstress, percentage of mass as ternium and the drag.”

  It had always seemed strange to Recker to consider drag as a variable in lightspeed travel. However, the available lightspeed multiplier wasn’t perfectly related to the output of a ternium drive, so the unknown variable was widely referred to as drag. Experimentation with warship design had yet to find a link between a vessel’s shape and size, and their effect on this drag. Assuming they had any effect at all.

  “I don’t like launch and hope,” said Recker.

  “Maybe it’s all we have, sir.”

  “Find out if we have enough tenixite for a Gateway transit to Lustre.”

  “I checked the moment Lieutenant Burner said the enemy’s destination, sir. We’re short on what we need.”

  “How short?”

  “The readout doesn’t give specifics – just that we don’t have enough. There’re only scraps in the storage bay – less than a million tons. I’d guess we need several times that amount.”

  Recker pursed his lips and checked the clock on his console again. Each second he wasted was a second he couldn’t recover, but this was a time when acting in haste might guarantee a worse outcome later.

  “If we head off in pursuit using the conventional lightspeed drive, we’ll leave these other warships behind,” he said. “I’d prefer to have them with us.”

  “I’ve sent comms messages to base, apprising them of the situation sir,” said Burner. “The Daklan have done likewise.”

  “We don’t have a planet close enough to Lustre that our fleet will be able to send reinforcements in time,” said Recker. “In truth, any ship without lightspeed missiles isn’t going to be anything other than target practice for the Hexidine.” He lowered his head in thought.

  “An update for you, sir,” said Burner. “I’ve checked the last coordinates we received from the Gorgadar and the Ixidar. The former is on the extreme edge of Meklon territory and the latter is showing unrecognized coordinates. Neither of them is anywhere nearby, though distance isn’t such a barrier when you can pick a destination and open a Gateway.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Recker drummed his fingers a few more times and an idea came. “Lieutenant Eastwood, how does the Aeklu’s Gateway generator work?”

  “We send an instruction to the hardware and the generator module targets the storage bay. Once the Gateway receives a launch command, it converts the tenixite into energy and the Gateway appears. Our hardware is tied in and the front-end method isn’t much different to sending the Aeklu into lightspeed.”

  “What if you instructed the generator to target one of our ternium propulsion modules?”

  Eastwood looked like he wanted to object and then thought better of it. “I’ll take a look and see if that’s possible, sir.” He huffed and puffed for a full minute. “The converter can target a limited area outside the storage bay. Only one of the propulsion modules is within range, and it’s tight. If I overrode the fail-safes, the converter could probably shave a small section off that ternium block.”

  “Will it work, Lieutenant? Will it be enough to activate the Gateway?”

  “I can’t predict the outcome, sir. Ternium contains a lot more potential energy than its ore, so maybe the generator would receive more than it needs and something would go wrong.”

  “Or it might work and send us to Lustre ahead of the Hexidine,” said Recker.

  “It might. Or the Aeklu might blow up.”

  “Is it so vital that we arrive first, sir?” said Aston. “I know a few million people were too stubborn to leave and I don’t want to pretend they’re unimportant, but they made the choice. We have other planets to consider first and if we disabled the Aeklu because something critical failed as a result of our actions, the end result for the HPA could be far worse.”

  “I don’t want to pretend those people are unimportant either, Commander, but my primary aim here is to surprise the Hexidine. Every time we encounter the Laws of Ancidium, they make the opening move. This time, I’d prefer to be the one waiting for them. Not only that – the Gateway will allow us to take the Langinstol, the Incendus and the Vengeance to Lustre. With surprise, we might inflict some damage upon our enemy before they realise the danger.”

  “And we get a chance to save those people anyway,” said Aston. She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  “Lieutenant Eastwood, it’s time to put things in motion.”

  “I’ve been looking into it while you were talking to Commander Aston, sir. I reckon it’ll take me thirty minutes to alter some of the configuration settings and override what I need to. Then we can give it a try.”

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  Recker settled himself in for a wait, though he was unable to relax given the possibility the Hexidine might surprise them all by returning to Trinus-XN for another shot at the Aeklu. He used the available time to take remote control of the Vengeance and he flew it onto the top plating near the stern. Meanwhile, Captain Vazox and Captain Vakh flew their warships close by, so they’d also be taken to Lustre when the Gateway opened.

  With reluctance, Captain Bowen agreed to fly the Pulveriser directly to the closest HPA base capable of enacting repairs, that being the planet Basalt, four days travel time from Ivisto. What Bowen refused was the opportunity to leave before the Aeklu and she insisted on staying nearby to scan for the Hexidine’s return.

  The delay was also enough for Corporal Hendrix and her forest of needles to get all the Daklan soldiers back on their feet. None of them looked healthy and even Sergeant Shadar appeared to be struggling with the aftereffects, though he declared himself ready to fight.

  “I’d like to promise bed rest for everyone, but it’s not within my power,” said Recker.

  Everyone knew the reality and he guessed they’d all forgotten what a good night’s sleep felt like. Survival from day to day and hour to hour was what remained, along with a hundred inflamed needle holes in thighs and ass cheeks.

  “I’m nearly done, sir,” said Eastwood eventually. “Another five minutes.”

  “We’ve had nothing from Fleet Admiral Telar, sir,” said Burner. “I wouldn’t expect anything in the next five minutes either. The Ivisto comms hubs could speak to Earth without much delay, but the Aeklu’s comms can’t amplify an FTL transmission to the same degree.” He cleared his
throat. “Well, they probably can, but I haven’t figured out how to do it. I don’t think our consoles can access all the available capabilities of the Lavorix comms systems.”

  “Look into it when you get the chance,” said Recker. With the discovery of each new limitation, he was beginning to learn exactly how far short of combat readiness the Aeklu had been when the Hexidine arrived at Trinus-XN.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Still, some guidance would be nice,” Recker muttered, putting the comms issue to one side. “We’re acting blind to the wider activities of the HPA and Daklan.”

  That guidance didn’t come. Thirty-two minutes after he started reconfiguring the navigational software, Lieutenant Eastwood declared his work complete.

  The platoon didn’t need reminding that Gateway travel was rough and Recker did the courtesy of informing the technicians what they were about to suffer, assuming everything went to plan.

  With that done and the other warships ready, he gave Eastwood the instruction. “Activate the Gateway, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir. It’ll take a few minutes for the Gateway to appear once I’ve entered the command.”

  “Do it.”

  Several minutes later, during which Recker heard no indication the Aeklu’s hardware was building to anything significant, an immense sphere of darkness expanded from an origin point deep inside the hull. The sensors registered zero input for a split second and then the four warships were carried elsewhere.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The expected pain came and went, and Recker scarcely registered its passing, as if his body had become so accustomed to the torture that it had adapted in order to protect his mind from insanity.

  “Status reports!” yelled Recker. He resisted the urge to push the Aeklu into high acceleration and relied on the energy shield to absorb any unexpected attacks.

  “We didn’t break up,” said Eastwood, his voice registering mild surprise. “I’ve got an alert on the propulsion module I targeted with the Gateway hardware. Other than that, we’re in good shape.”

  “Sensors online,” said Larson. “The scan and lock on these arrays is damn fast. There’s the Langinstol and the Incendus!” she said. “And the Vengeance!”