“And Lustre, sir,” said Burner. “On the screen and at a hundred thousand klicks. I’m continuing my search for the Hexidine.”
“We arrived dead on the nose,” said Aston.
The planet appeared on one of the bulkhead screens and the level of detail obtained by the sensors was incredible – it was as if the Lavorix hardware could ignore both distance and atmospheric conditions and the feed appeared almost too real.
“We’re on the Adamantine side,” said Recker, peering at the grey rectangle of the base.
“It’s no wonder we had such a job escaping from the Galactar,” said Larson. “This sensor hardware is amazing.”
“I’m more concerned about the Hexidine, Lieutenant,” Recker reminded her.
“I’m looking, sir. I’m also scanning the surface broadcasts.”
“There should be no military transmissions,” said Recker.
“I’ve located one, sir. It’s a transport ship called Summit and it’s currently in low orbit not far from Adamantine.”
“Fleet Admiral Telar must have left it there in case anyone changed their minds about staying. Does the Summit’s crew know we’re here?”
“No, sir.”
“Make them aware.”
“On it.”
“I haven’t located any sign of the Hexidine,” said Burner. “They could be blind side of the planet, or, if they’re being cagey, they might be hiding behind the moon or one of the nearby planets.”
“They’re not being cagey, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “If they were here, they’d have already fired their Extractor at something and more than likely destroyed the Summit at the same time.”
“The surface broadcasts indicate no alarm, sir,” said Larson.
The calm was enough to give Recker a degree of reassurance. “Keep watching and listening. I’ll fly us around the planet so we can scan the blind side and obtain a better viewing angle of the moon.”
“I’ve sent a transmission to Earth - am I letting anyone on Lustre know we’re here?” asked Burner.
“Only the Summit’s crew. Also alert them to the anticipated arrival of the Hexidine and suggest they request permission from base to hightail it out of here. They’ll make an easy target and I’m sure the enemy won’t care that it’s only a transport.”
“Lieutenant Bert Howell is in charge of the vessel, sir,” said Burner. “He is not pleased to hear from us.”
“I didn’t think he would be,” said Recker. He’d done his part and forgot about the transport. “Put a trajectory line on the tactical for me,” he ordered.
“What about our escort ships, sir?” asked Larson.
“I’ve sent a synch code to the Vengeance,” said Recker. “It’ll match our vector and maintain a constant fifty-klick distance.” He hesitated. So far, the Daklan had allowed him to take the lead, but he couldn’t keep making that assumption.
“Get me a channel to Captain Vazox and Captain Vakh,” he ordered. “Bridge speakers.” Recker looked towards the ceiling. “If we have any.”
“We do have bridge speakers, sir,” Burner confirmed. “And a lot of guests on the bridge.”
“I’m not about to convey any military secrets, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir. I have both Daklan officers in the open channel.”
“Gentlemen,” said Recker, relying on the translation module to choose a suitable equivalent in the Daklan tongue. “We are working towards a single purpose and so far, we have escaped death.”
“I know what you will ask, Captain Recker, and I agree,” said Captain Vazox. “You command the Aeklu and I will follow your lead.”
“As will I,” said Captain Vakh. “Until I receive contrary instructions from my superiors.”
And that was that. The Daklan went even further up in Recker’s estimation and he thanked both for their determination to maximise the chance of this mission’s success.
“Is there a plan, Captain Recker?” asked Vazox.
“First, we complete a blind side scan of Lustre.”
“And after that?” asked Vakh.
“If we locate the Hexidine, we’ll shoot it with the Aeklu’s main armament. I’ll also look for a way to bring it to a standstill so you can hit it with lightspeed missiles.”
One or both Daklan – Recker couldn’t be sure which – broke into raucous laughter which lasted for several seconds.
“The plan is lacking in detail, Captain Recker!” said Vazox.
Recker detected no mockery in the words and he laughed as well. “The best ones always are.”
The Daklan didn’t stick around to chat and they exited the channel. During the short conversation, Burner had put a red line on the tactical, which indicated the most efficient course that would allow a scan of the moon and Lustre’s blind side.
“I’ve got Fleet Admiral Telar holding on the comms, sir,” said Larson. “He’s routing through the Adamantine comms hub, so there isn’t much travel time delay.”
“Holding? How long has he been waiting?”
“I told him you were engaged in a vital tactical discussion with our Daklan allies.”
“That I was,” Recker said. “Bring him in. Open channel again.”
“Captain Recker?” said Telar.
“Yes, sir.” Seeing no reason to delay the mission while he talked, Recker unleashed the power of the engines and the Aeklu accelerated with the same bestial noise as before.
Aston waved to get his attention. “The escort, sir,” she mouthed, thumbing over her shoulder.
Recker nodded and held the Aeklu at sixteen hundred kilometres per second, which was the usual maximum velocity of a desolator. All three ships kept pace.
“I have reports of what happened at Ivisto,” Telar continued. “They do not fill me with joy.”
“With good reason, sir,” said Recker. He provided Telar with an outline of what had occurred and then described the current situation.
Telar was a good listener when he wasn’t being fed evasive crap by underperforming officers, and he sat quietly while Recker talked.
“Can you defeat the Hexidine?” he asked when Recker was done.
“There’re a whole lot of ifs and maybes, sir. It depends on whether the Toll – the Aeklu’s main armament – fires and it also depends on the Daklan lightspeed missiles.”
“Once, I cursed the existence of those missiles,” said Telar. “Now, I wish our allies had more of them in their arsenal.”
“The Langinstol and the Incendus are carrying a total of seven between them, sir. Are we able to call on a few more annihilators and desolators? The Hexidine is already damaged and if its shield is negated, I’m sure we can bring the enemy ship down or drive it away.”
“Assuming it arrives at Lustre as you expect, we want it to stay there, Captain Recker. If it departs, its next destination could be Ravel or Bronze. Or Earth. You say you can follow the Hexidine, but what if the Lavorix evade your pursuit? Better to finish them at Lustre.” Telar paused for a half second. “Or die trying.”
“What about those reinforcements, sir?”
“In forty-eight hours I could have one annihilator and three desolators at Lustre. In ninety-six hours you could add another six annihilators and nine desolators to the total.”
“That’s too long,” said Recker. The glimmering of an idea appeared, though he needed to ask a few more questions first.
“Where is the shield breaker, sir? And is it ready for operational use?”
“The shield breaker underwent testing and I personally signed it off for deployment.”
Recker detected the unspoken words. “Is it ready, sir?”
“The test routines were accelerated. The gun will fire,” said Telar. “As for where it is, the weapon is currently in the hold of the heavy lifter Maximus and in transit to a planet called Tronstal in the RETI-11 system.”
“When will it arrive?”
“The Maximus and its escort are due to re-enter local space in thirty-six hours, and the d
eployment is estimated to take a further six hours.”
“Is the Maximus due a mid-point re-entry to local space in case of updated orders?” asked Recker. A warship at lightspeed couldn’t send or receive comms.
“No, Carl. The Maximus will not enter local space before it arrives at its destination.”
Recker gritted his teeth at the news. “I could have used that gun,” he said.
“Even if the Maximus broke lightspeed, it wouldn’t reach Lustre in nine hours and it certainly couldn’t finish the deployment.”
“I need access to the tenixite processing facility here on Lustre, sir,” said Recker. “If I can fill the Aeklu’s tanks, I’ll be able to Gateway out to wherever those annihilators and desolators are stationed and then Gateway back to Lustre.”
“And you’d hoped to do the same with the shield breaker,” said Telar in understanding.
“Yes, sir.”
“We took the ore with us when we evacuated the planet, Captain Recker. It was too valuable to leave behind.” Telar sighed. “We had three lightspeed missiles in one of the Adamantine bunkers as well, along with a dedicated shuttle the Daklan use to load the warheads. Those are now on Earth.”
Recker felt like putting his head in his hands. “In that case, I’ll wait for the Hexidine to come and I’ll do what I can, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Carl. If I think of anything, I’ll get back to you. Should I request the Daklan send their warships?”
“No, sir. How close are they to Tronstal?”
“I can’t give you the specifics off the top of my head, but most are closer to Tronstal than they are to Lustre.”
Recker didn’t know what suggest and he needed more time to think. “Don’t make any requests of those ships, sir. Not yet.”
“If the Aeklu is destroyed, I will have to recall the shield breaker anyway, Carl. We have a second nearing the end of its production, but it will be many months before we have enough to install them on each of our planets. Even then, the Lavorix will be able to approach from our blind side and fire their Extractors without fear of a response. Blanket coverage of our worlds will take years.”
“The shield breakers only perform a single function, sir. Once the shield is down, the warship behind it still needs to be destroyed and that’s much easier said than done.”
“You haven’t forgotten our discussion from when you were on Ivisto, Captain Recker? If we prove too big a mouthful, the Lavorix may simply back off and hunt for softer prey. Withdrawal and consolidation do not work if you continue suffering losses.”
Recker didn’t want to be drawn into the speculation. Usually, it was something he enjoyed, but now he felt sure the Lavorix would never give up. They had no more Meklon to hunt and they needed the life energies of humanity and the Daklan.
“I don’t think the Lavorix have anywhere else to go, sir,” he said. “I think we’re all they have.”
“You may be right, Carl,” said Telar. “Part of me thinks it’s better to fight now than have it hanging over us forever. Who is to say that in ten years the Lavorix won’t come back, only this time with six new Laws of Ancidium?”
Thinking about it was depressing and Recker thought it time to end the conversation. “Sir, I must attend to my ship.”
“Of course. Go. We’ll speak soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
The channel went dead and Recker saw from the tactical that he’d travelled far enough for the blind side scan to commence. He slowed the Aeklu to a crawl and within two minutes, Burner was able to declare himself confident that the Hexidine was not in this part of the QS-9 system.
“Now, we wait,” said Eastwood. “Nine hours.”
“And no chance of a break,” said Burner glumly.
“I can personally guarantee that you won’t be sleeping any time this week, Lieutenant,” said Corporal Hendrix. “Not with those drugs.”
“He doesn’t usually sleep anyway,” said Larson. “Lieutenant Burner is nine parts caffeine, one part cheeseburger.”
“It doesn’t look like they installed a replicator on the Aeklu yet anyway,” said Burner, not at all offended. “No coffee for me. And I bet the sleeping quarters are ten klicks from here.”
“There’s a Lavorix replicator down the steps and along the corridor outside,” said LT Roy. “You don’t want to know what comes out of it. The HPA replicators were due to be brought onboard and fitted tomorrow.”
“Another reason to hate the Lavorix,” said Burner. “They arrived at Ivisto a day too soon.”
“We didn’t clean the sleeping quarters either,” Roy continued. “I’d recommend you stay away.”
Burner’s face indicated his curiosity and he looked as if he were about to ask for details. He thought better of it and kept his mouth closed.
Expecting the hands of the clock to drag interminably, Recker tried to bring himself into a state of calm, or at least into a state where he didn’t feel the need to punch the nearest inanimate object. Forcing himself to breathe deeply, he concentrated his mind.
We’ve got the tools to come out on top, so why am I feeling pessimistic about the outcome?
It was a question he was determined to answer and he closed his eyes to see if it would help him think.
“We’ve got the lightspeed missiles, but the Toll is the only game changer,” he said after a minute. Recker opened his eyes and found Aston was looking at him with her eyes narrowed. “Going into battle with an untested weapon is never a good idea,” he finished.
“If it doesn’t work as expected, it’s better to know about it now,” Aston nodded.
“And since we’re not going to break the Hexidine’s shield without the Toll, it doesn’t matter so much if the test ends up wrecking the Aeklu,” Recker said. “Without that gun, we’ll lose.”
“Planet twelve in the QS-9 system: Ebos,” said Aston. “Or we could just fire out into space and see what happens.”
“I prefer a solid target, Commander,” said Recker, feeling the need to take out his anger on something that wouldn’t fire back.
The promise of action – even if it was just test firing an enormous gun – filled Recker with a sense of purpose. “Here’s the plan, folks,” he said. “We’re taking a mode 3 flight to Ebos and we’re going to put a big hole in its surface.”
Reaching for the controls, Recker felt a childlike excitement and not for a moment did he allow himself to consider what might go wrong.
Chapter Sixteen
Having informed the escort ships about his intention, Recker didn’t delay. He cancelled the synch code keeping the Vengeance and Aeklu locked together. Then, he entered the mode 3 destination by tapping on the zoomed-out tactical display and finished by pressing the activation button on the control bar. Nausea came and went, but Recker hardly noticed. In moments, the sensor feeds appeared and the local area scans were finished.
“Ebos,” he said, watching the feed. “I can see why there’re no tourists.” The planet was rocky and barren, with grey mountain peaks forming a ring around most of its circumference.
“Another ball of rock, like a million we’ve seen before,” said Larson. “Diameter: three thousand klicks. Current distance from QS-9 is four billion klicks.”
“And we are one million klicks from its surface,” said Burner.
“That’s a good combat range,” said Aston.
Recker cast his mind back to his encounter with the Aeklu when it had been under Lavorix control - how the massive projectiles from the Toll had wrought havoc upon everything they struck and how a direct hit had drained two mesh deflector charges from the Indarox’s shield. And that had still not been enough to stop the projectile.
“Target the planet and fire the Toll, Commander,” said Recker.
“Can’t miss from a million klicks,” laughed Eastwood.
“Let’s hope the calibration didn’t get screwed up when the Dark Bomb exploded,” said Aston.
She leaned closer to her console in the way she always
did when concentrating. It was a sign of both nerves and readiness which Recker had come to recognize.
“Target set. Firing the Toll.”
Recker’s eyes went to the topside sensor feeds and he saw the two-thousand-metre barrel jump so far back into the turret that it vanished completely before emerging again.
The sound of the discharge was peculiar, like a fog-muffled, doleful bell. The turret was several thousand metres above the bridge, but somehow it felt as if the source of the noise was just beyond the walls and its effects upon Recker were more than just physical, as if it somehow reverberated within his soul, dragging out unwanted emotions and making him feel like he was at the mass funeral of everyone he’d ever known.
Four seconds later, a crater, hundreds of kilometres in diameter, appeared on the surface of Ebos and a shockwave rippled outwards at tremendous speed, making it seem as if the rocks had been turned to liquid. Before the shockwaves had completed their first circuit of the planet, the Aeklu’s sensors picked out countless ejected boulders thrown up by the impact and escaping into orbit.
“Extensive seismic trauma detected,” said Larson. A grumbling and thumping of reload motors started and she had to raise her voice to be heard, but the cracking in her voice indicated she’d been affected by same feelings as Recker. “The surface plates surrounding the impact crater are breaking up. The sensors calculate the impact velocity at 289,000 klicks per second.”
“Damn, that made me feel like I was dying,” said Eastwood. “That’s why they called it the Toll.”
Recker blinked rapidly and took another deep breath. “I’m more interested in how the turret and barrel came through the discharge, Lieutenant.”
“Sorry, sir – I’d have said right away if there’d been a problem. There are no changes to the status on the turret, the barrel or the loading mechanisms.”
Recker didn’t take his eyes from the feed. “How was the accuracy, Commander Aston?”
“Impact was sixty kilometres from target, sir.” Her face was ashen, like she’d seen a vision of her own death.
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