Empires in Ruin

by Anthony James

  “Anyone else think the Gorgadar is going to sit out on the fringes of Meklon space before coming to RETI-11 by Gateway just when we don’t want it to happen?” asked Eastwood.

  “I was trying not to,” said Larson. “But you just made me do it.”

  “Sorry,” shrugged Eastwood. “I like to consider everything.”

  Recker listened, fully expecting Burner to stick his oar in. Instead, the man remained quiet as if he were lost in thought.

  “Shut off the underside feeds until we get out of here,” said Recker. “We don’t need to see what happens on Lustre.”

  Two of the bulkhead screens went blank. Nobody spoke and then the ternium drive fired, sending the Vengeance into lightspeed, its destination a place where the HPA and the Daklan had a chance to knock out the final two Laws of Ancidium.

  If the mission was successful, Recker had no idea what it would mean for the Lavorix. Perhaps they’d never be seen again. Or perhaps the remains of their forces would retreat and the enemy would rebuild, in preparation for another attack decades – or centuries – from now.

  Of one thing Recker was certain – victory at Tronstal was vital and even if that was accomplished, the HPA and Daklan fleets would still have the Gorgadar to deal with, assuming the primary Law of Ancidium didn’t show up for the fight.

  Despite everything, the future had never seemed so uncertain to Recker as it did now.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Thirty-seven hours was, in terms of HPA military averages, neither a long trip nor a short one and Recker would have normally used the time to ensure his crew had caught up on enough sleep to be battle-ready at the end. Having filled his veins with so many drugs, he worried that his body might not require sleep until arrival was too close to allow it.

  Lieutenant Burner apparently had no such concerns and, not five minutes after the post-lightspeed status checks were completed, he vended himself a large cup of super-strength moffee from the bridge replicator.

  “Ah, that’s the good stuff,” he declared, breathing in the rising steam.

  “It tastes like shit,” said Eastwood. “Just like everything from the Meklon replicators.”

  “You become accustomed to the taste. Now, I’m a connoisseur.”

  “I can think of a hundred more appropriate descriptions for what you are,” said Eastwood. “Want to hear a few?”

  Burner raised a hand and aimed his palm in Eastwood’s direction. “Do not disturb me while I’m enjoying this fine cup of moffee.”

  A verbal exchange ensued, which lasted for several minutes. As usual, there was no rancour and Recker let them get on with it, noting how every time things were on the verge of dying down, Lieutenant Larson would say something that started it going again.

  After a time, Recker climbed from his seat. “Watch the bridge, Commander.”

  Aston peered at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s nothing wrong. We need some medical advice.”

  “Want me to go?”

  He smiled. “No need.”

  Exiting the bridge, Recker took an extended route through the Vengeance’s interior. The Frenziol-13 urged him to run, but he was content just to stretch his muscles. Another headache was developing and he wondered if it was an early sign of fatigue.

  The Vengeance’s medical bay wasn’t much to look at, though it had been fitted out with an HPA medical bot several months ago on Ivisto. Corporal Hendrix was here, as Recker knew she would be. When he arrived, she was sitting on one of the pristine white beds, staring at the walls like she was remembering her family lost when planet Fortune was taken out by one of the tenixite converters.

  “I need advice, Corporal,” said Recker.

  For a moment, Hendrix didn’t respond. Then, she sighed and slid off the bed. “Ask away, sir.”

  “We’re heading for a showdown with another enemy warship. When we break lightspeed in not much over thirty hours, I want to be ready for a fight, not nodding off in my seat.”

  Hendrix didn’t answer directly. Instead, she thumbed in the robot’s direction. It was a spindly device, two metres tall, all arms and screens on top of a compact gravity drive. “This bot can sew up a wound so you’d never knew it existed. It can reattach limbs and repair damaged nerves and blood vessels. Whatever injuries you would normally expect to suffer on a battlefield, this thing can fix them.”

  “But it can’t do a body flush,” said Recker, guessing what Hendrix was leading to.

  “Nope, it can’t do a body flush, sir. For that it would require extra reservoirs for the fluids, increasing its volume by fifty percent. And then it wouldn’t fit in the medical bay of a riot class.” She gestured vaguely at the nearest wall. “Or this medical bay here on the Vengeance.”

  “So what’s the answer?”

  “It’s impossible to accurately predict how quickly the human body will perform its own flush of the drugs, sir. And if we’re going to face another Extractor, it might be best if we’re all running on the edge.” Hendrix met his gaze. “And we should avoid cold turkey until we’re guaranteed more than thirty hours downtime.”

  Recker gritted his teeth. “We’ll keep topping up,” he said at last. “Do we have enough supplies of Frenziol?”

  Hendrix approached one of the wall cabinets and opened the metal door guarding the contents. Inside, Recker saw neat rows of Frenziol injectors, along with various other drugs whose labels he couldn’t read from this distance.

  “This is fifteen rows deep,” said Hendrix, pointing at one of the shelves. “We’ve got enough.”

  The door behind opened.

  “Hey babe, I…”

  “Private Enfield,” said Recker.

  “Uh, sorry, sir,” said Enfield backing out of the room. “I need to be somewhere else.”

  The door closed.

  “It was never going to happen with us, Carl,” said Hendrix softly.

  “No, I guess not,” said Recker, realizing it no longer mattered to him. “Stay safe, Corporal Hendrix.”

  “You too, sir.” Hendrix smiled and she looked almost happy. “Besides, you’ve already got what you need, except you’re too dumb to see it. Sir.”

  “What?” asked Recker, mystified.

  “If you need me to spell it out, then you’ll never get what you want.”

  Recker held her gaze and judged she wouldn’t say anything more. He withdrew from the medical bay and returned to the bridge.

  “What’s the recommended treatment?” said Aston, once Recker was back at the controls.

  “More Frenziol. We’re going to ride the wave until the Lavorix are all dead.”

  “Are you shitting us, sir?” said Eastwood.

  “I’m afraid not, Lieutenant. We’ll keep injecting and if we ever return to a surface medical facility with some time on our hands, and with no risk of an Extractor attack, maybe we’ll be given a body flush.”

  “Great,” said Eastwood, his voice dripping. “I’ll look forward to the day.”

  “I thought your wife would appreciate you coming home boosted, Ken,” said Burner with a knowing nod. “It might help with that problem you have down below.”

  Larson made a choking noise and Aston’s mouth fell open. Meanwhile, Eastwood delivered a verbal tirade, aimed squarely at Burner’s parentage.

  “I think we need to call time on this, gentlemen,” said Recker. “Save it for later.”

  The two officers shut up at once and Recker wondered what had got into them. No doubt the constantly building pressure was to blame and eventually one of them would say the wrong thing and then the joking would turn into something serious. What everyone needed was time away from the military – a month spent with family and friends on an HPA world, where they could pretend none of this crap existed.

  “Lieutenant Eastwood, Lieutenant Larson, Commander Aston. You’ve got eight hours off duty. Find something to do that isn’t here on the bridge.”

  The three officers didn’t wait to be asked twice and they
exited the bridge, leaving Burner and Recker alone.

  “Anything I need to look at, sir?” asked Burner.

  “I’ll let you know if I think of something.”

  “We’ve been on plenty of missions where we don’t know what to expect. This beats most of them.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you, but how come?”

  “One, possibly two Laws of Ancidium. A big fleet of HPA and Daklan warships heading out to face them. Stir everything together and the only prediction I can make is that people are going to die. Beyond that, I can’t imagine how it’ll work out for us.”

  “You think this mission is destined for failure?”

  “The odds don’t look good to me, sir. That’s my honest opinion.”

  “Screw the odds,” said Recker with feeling. “We’re going to beat them this one last time.”

  “It’s never the last time. There’s always something on the horizon, gathering speed and loading its guns.”

  “There’s none of us can change the future, Lieutenant.”

  “I never thought otherwise, sir. That doesn’t mean I can’t flip it the bird.” With that, Burner lifted a hand so that it was visible over the top of his console screens. He elevated the middle finger and waved it in the general direction of nowhere and everywhere.

  “Feel better for that?”

  “Not really.”

  The conversation – such as it was – ended and the bridge went quiet again. Sensing that Burner’s strange mood would make the next eight hours drag, Recker opened a comms channel.

  “Corporal Montero, if you aren’t otherwise occupied, get your ass to the bridge.”

  “On my way, sir. What’s up?”

  “Nothing’s up. Maybe you can cheer up my comms man and in return, he can teach you a few things you missed during your flight with Commander Aston.”

  Montero arrived soon after and dropped into the seat next to Lieutenant Burner, where she spent several hours keeping him occupied, which in turn allowed Recker time to work through a few scenarios in his head. Combat involving multiple warships always involved a degree of chaos, no matter how much effort went into controlling it. This time, Recker expected it to be worse than ever and he wasn’t keen to find out what would happen when the Extractor attacks started.

  When the eight hours were finished, the other members of the crew returned, allowing Recker and Burner some time away, while Corporal Montero returned to the squad.

  Not in the mood for small talk in the mess area, Recker spent his time lying in his compact room with his eyes closed and music playing softly in the background. His body wanted sleep, that much was apparent, but the Frenziol wasn’t going to let it happen. Still, the relaxation helped him clear his mind and he thought about his family on Earth. He tried to picture his parents’ faces, yet the images were indistinct, like he was starting to forget. Rather than bringing anger, the realisation brought only determination that he’d be back to see them one day.

  One day soon.

  Recker’s eight hours ended and he returned to the bridge, bringing a tray of edible Meklon pastes with him. He knew the replicators could create a wide variety of products, but whatever shape and form those products took, none of them were like the good, honest, HPA military swill he’d become accustomed to.

  “Sludge?” said Aston when she saw what he was carrying. She arched an eyebrow in his direction.

  “I like this sludge. It tastes good.”

  “It’s green. With lumps.”

  Though Recker hadn’t eaten in the past few hours, his mouth was dry and he didn’t feel much in the way of hunger – another expected outcome from the Frenziol. He set the tray down on the floor and pushed it farther away with the side of his foot.

  “When do we have to boost again?” said Aston. She pulled an injector from her leg pocket and studied it with distaste.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Corporal Hendrix later.”

  Recker turned his attention to his console. All the lights were green and nothing required his attention.

  “We’re only halfway to our destination,” he said.

  Aston offered him a sympathetic smile. “Feels like it’s a long trip, huh?”

  “Usually we’ve got something to talk about. Even when the Galactar was in pursuit, we could speculate on its capabilities and discuss ways to escape. Now we’re flying to Tronstal and we’ll arrive, fight the Lavorix and, if we’re alive at the end of it, we’ll return home.”

  “I don’t know what else you want from it, sir,” said Aston.

  “I don’t want anything else, Commander, other than to be at our destination instead of spending another sixteen hours watching the clock.”

  Recker had long ago learned that time’s passage was inevitable and so it was. Each hour went by as if it were ten, though their numbers fell one by one. He gave his crew more time away from the bridge and took some himself. Nobody slept.

  At the time recommended by Corporal Hendrix, Recker pulled out one of his injectors. The cylinder gleamed and he wanted more than anything to drop it to the floor and grind it flat with the sole of his boot. Instead, he pressed it to his thigh and held it there while the Frenziol he didn’t want was squirted into his muscle tissue.

  A few minutes later, once the drugs had taken effect, Recker felt slightly less terrible than he had before. The tiredness was held at bay, though his headache was too stubbornly entrenched to let go. The thumping pain was manageable and he convinced himself it was a welcome reminder that he wasn’t dead.

  After what had turned into one of the longest – perception wise at least – and least pleasant lightspeed journeys in Recker’s memory, Lieutenant Eastwood shouted his ten-minute warning.

  “Next stop: RETI-11 system!”

  “Commander Aston, give us a run down, for the benefit of those who weren’t listening on the previous occasions,” said Recker.

  “Yes, sir. The RETI-11 system comprises one star and six planets. RETI-11 itself is about thirty times more massive than Earth’s sun, not that we’ll be getting anywhere too close. Tronstal is planet number five and it’s your usual grey lump of rock. I don’t know why Fleet Admiral Telar decided this was a good place to test an experimental weapon – Tronstal has zero moons, which means there’s nothing to interfere with the shield breaker’s line of sight, but a planet without moons isn’t exactly unheard of. Other than that, RETI-11 is home to a gas giant and not much else of interest.”

  “Thank you, Commander. We’ll be exiting lightspeed a short distance beyond the sixth planet, Kolaes, the description of which closely matches that of Tronstal, with the exception that Kolaes has two moons. According to the star charts, our rendezvous point is approximately one billion kilometres from Tronstal.”

  “Close enough for us to strike quickly, but far enough away to avoid easy detection,” said Burner.

  “That’s right. I’m assuming the gathered warships will be instructed to fly to Tronstal once it’s clear the Ixidar isn’t waiting in ambush. This could all go wrong if the Lavorix arrive early and shoot down the Maximus.”

  “There’s plenty that could go wrong, sir,” said Eastwood. “We’ll deal with whatever comes our way, the same as we always do.”

  “That we will, Lieutenant.” Standing, Recker smiled at his crew. “The time comes.” He’d planned to say more, but for some reason the well was dry. He sat.

  “Short speech,” said Burner.

  “Short and sweet, Lieutenant.”

  The final few minutes passed quicker than those which had preceded them and, at the exact moment predicted by the navigational computer, the Vengeance’s ternium drive cut out and the warship was deposited into local space.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Get me those scan results!” shouted Recker.

  “Sensors coming online, sir.”

  “Commencing the local area sweep,” said Larson.

  “No hardware problems to report, sir,” called Eastwood. “Greens on everyth
ing, just how I like it.”

  The sensors powered up and their undirected feeds appeared on the bulkhead displays. Burner and Larson acted quickly and they scanned the area.

  “I’ve located Kolaes,” said Burner. “No, sorry, that’s one of its moons. There’s the planet.”

  “Not much to look at,” said Recker, hardly glancing at the rocky sphere on his feed. He had a bigger concern. “Where’s the local battle network?”

  “I’m searching for the receptor, sir,” said Larson.

  “We should have joined the network automatically.”

  “Yes, sir, assuming the battle network was correctly set up.”

  “Any mistake like that would have been spotted immediately.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “So why is there no battle network? We should have arrived before the latecomers, but I’d expect forty or more warships to be here already.”

  Recker didn’t like it one bit and his stomach clenched. He grabbed the controls and the Vengeance accelerated steadily from its arrival place, aiming for Kolaes which was currently a quarter of a million kilometres away, with only one of its moons visible from the approach trajectory.

  Holding the Vengeance in a straight line was easy and Recker watched the changing sensor feeds as his two comms officers built a picture of what lay in this part of the solar system. Although the RETI-11 star was enormous, distance turned it into a gleaming pinpoint, beyond the planet’s edge.

  “Tell me what is going on!” Recker shouted, his pent-up frustration spilling out.

  “There’s no battle network, sir,” said Burner. “I sent a transmission to base, but we’re too far out to receive an instant response. All I can think of is that our fleets received updated orders after we entered lightspeed, and they’ve rendezvoused elsewhere. I checked the coordinates Fleet Admiral Telar provided and we’re definitely in RETI-11 and Tronstal is definitely in this solar system.”

  “I don’t believe there’s a different rendezvous point,” said Recker. “Some of our fleet would have already been at lightspeed when the Vengeance set off this way. Those warships would have also missed the updated orders.”