Empires in Ruin

by Anthony James

  “Which leaves only one possibility,” said Aston.

  Larson spoke before Recker could respond.

  “Oh crap,” she said. “Tronstal isn’t here. At first, I thought maybe I’d misread its expected orbital track position, but I didn’t. I’ve located a cloud of expanding particles right where it should be. We’re a billion klicks away, but what I’m looking at is the same thing that happened to Trinus-XN.”

  “And Fortune,” said Recker. He cursed bitterly. “The Ixidar got here first. It destroyed the planet and probably our fleet and the shield breaker at the same time.”

  “We’re not dead,” said Aston. “Not yet.”

  Her words were a cold reminder that the enemy ship might still be in the vicinity, watching for latecomers and destroying them as they emerged from lightspeed. So far, the Vengeance had seemingly escaped detection and the only reason Recker could imagine for that was because it had emerged from lightspeed behind Kolaes. The planet wasn’t dense enough to completely mask the ternium wave, but it would certainly make it harder to detect.

  “Let’s get away from here.” Recker switched the engines into overstress and the planet grew rapidly larger on the forward feed. Kolaes wasn’t going to offer much cover if the enemy came this way, but it was better than no cover at all.

  “Lieutenant Burner, send a query to the Aeklu’s battle network data. I know we won’t receive an instant response, but I would prefer to know if we’re facing one or both Laws of Ancidium.”

  “Yes, sir, that request is sent. The moment the response comes, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m reading a ternium wave half a million klicks off our ass,” said Eastwood. “From the size of it, we’ve got several warships inbound and the wave formation indicates they’re Daklan.”

  “Add a marker on the tactical to show me their expected arrival place,” said Recker.

  “The marker is added, sir.”

  Zooming the tactical out to maximum, Recker calculated the position of the inbound warships in relation to Kolaes and Tronstal. He grimaced – the Daklan ternium wave would be visible to any warships in the vicinity of the destroyed planet.

  “Get on the comms!” said Recker urgently. “Tell them of the danger!”

  “Yes, sir,” said Larson. “Their receivers will stay offline for a few seconds after re-entry to local space.”

  “Let’s hope the warning doesn’t come too late for them,” said Recker. His mind was beginning to grasp the likely extent of this disaster and he was petrified about what it would mean for the HPA.

  “One Daklan annihilator and two desolators have entered the RETI-11 system,” said Larson. “I am attempting communication.”

  Recker shifted his gaze briefly to the rear feeds, on which three grey shapes had appeared, too far away for him to discern specifics. One was noticeably larger than the others, which made it the battleship. All three were accelerating.

  “They’re broadcasting their names as the Reisilon, the Kildis and the Verdinak,” said Larson. “The Reisilon has opened a comms receptor. I’ve requested a channel.”

  “We’ve got a second inbound ternium wave about a million klicks from the last one,” said Eastwood. “Multiple ships, HPA in origin.”

  This was my idea. Their deaths will be on my hands.

  Recker tried to ignore the thought and told himself nothing was yet confirmed. He brought the Vengeance low to the surface of Kolaes and reduced velocity in order to keep in sight of the arriving warships. The underside feed was a picture of ruggedness, of mountains and fissures.

  “I’ve spoken to the Daklan, sir,” said Larson. “And warned them of our fears. They’re coming to join us behind Kolaes while we figure out what’s going on.”

  The three Daklan warships sped towards the planet. They hadn’t covered a quarter of the distance when six HPA warships emerged from their lightspeed transits. A glance at the feed was enough for Recker to identify them as a battleship, two cruisers and three riots. What the hell those riots were meant to accomplish against the Ixidar, he couldn’t imagine.

  “Oh shit, there it is!” said Burner. “The Ixidar!”

  Exiting from its short range lightspeed jump, the enemy ship hung motionless in space, a million kilometres from the Vengeance. Burner focused the sensors, allowing the crew a clear view of their opponent.

  Recker’s first thought was that the Ixidar resembled the Interrogator satellite he’d encountered in orbit around Pinvos. However, with edges measuring eighteen thousand metres, this enemy ship was of a vastly greater volume and mass.

  On each of its six faces of near-black alloy, Recker spotted enormous hexagonal housings and from these housings, single gun barrels protruded. He could only stare at the sensor overlay figures in disbelief – each of the barrels measured four thousand metres in length and the bores were almost eight hundred.

  The Destroyer.

  The enemy spaceship was not undamaged and Recker counted numerous heat-rimmed craters in its armour. Not only that, he thought maybe the gun barrel on one of the hidden faces was out of alignment, as if its housing had been struck by the same lightspeed missiles which had detonated elsewhere. He couldn’t be sure and even if it were missing one gun, that left five others presumably operational.

  Recker drew an imaginary line from the Vengeance to the Ixidar. On one side of the line, the Daklan were seven hundred thousand kilometres from the enemy, while the newly arrived HPA spaceships were on the other side of the line and within half a million kilometres.

  “I don’t think those are gauss guns, sir,” said Eastwood. “The readings from the housings aren’t the same. I don’t know what they hell they fire.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t find out,” growled Recker, knowing he was never going to get his wish.

  “The Daklan warships plan to hold back and launch lightspeed missiles, sir,” said Larson. “I don’t think the sensors on the HPA ships are back online yet.”

  “Should I recommend a withdrawal, sir?” asked Burner.

  “It’s too late for that, Lieutenant. Maybe too late for all of us.” Recker bared his teeth. “And I’m damned if we’ll be spectators.”

  He fed power into the engines and switched them into overstress. The Vengeance sliced through the planet’s thin atmosphere, scarcely accumulating heat before it was once more in space.

  “The HPA ships are fully back online, sir,” said Larson. “I have advised them what to expect if they engage and what to expect if they don’t.”

  Nobody said the word, but they were all thinking it. Death.

  Having evidently reached the conclusion that it was better to die fighting, the HPA warships banked towards the Ixidar. Their weapons were out of lock range and would remain so for several minutes.

  “Damn our ships are slow,” said Eastwood.

  Recker grunted in acknowledgement, remembering a time when he commanded a warship that topped out at eleven hundred kilometres per second. The Vengeance had already exceeded four thousand per second and was approaching its 4500 kilometre per second maximum.

  Still the Ixidar hadn’t moved from its arrival position and Recker wondered if the Lavorix had suffered a hardware problem or if they were simply scanning for nearby warships. He soon got his answer. A split second after two lightspeed missiles detonated against one face of the Ixidar, it began accelerating straight for the Daklan. The rate of velocity gain was incredible and, in a moment, the Lavorix ship had surpassed two thousand kilometres per second.

  “It’s rotating,” said Larson.

  Sure enough, the Ixidar had begun rotating steadily clockwise about its vertical axis. The gun which Recker had thought was damaged came into sight and he saw that had been nearly ripped out of its housing, leaving it useless.

  “I’m reading power spikes on each of those gun housings, sir,” said Eastwood. “They’re readying a discharge.”

  The Vengeance achieved maximum velocity and Recker held it there, breathing in the cold, clean air fro
m the bridge vents.

  “We’re going to hit it with the Fracture,” he said. “Warn the other ships and advise them not to come too close.”

  “The Fracture won’t work, sir,” said Aston.

  “We’ve only assumed the Fracture won’t work, Commander. Now we’ll perform a field test.”

  “It’s got a half-million klick lock and discharge range, sir,” said Aston.

  Recker had one eye on the tactical. The Ixidar’s trajectory cut directly across that of the Vengeance and he adjusted course to meet it. It was clear the Lavorix intended to neutralise the Daklan ships quickly, and Recker wasn’t surprised, given the massive payloads of the lightspeed missiles. This was probably the first time the Ixidar had suffered damage and the Lavorix were doubtless pissed about it happening.

  Unfortunately, the alien bastards had learned from the experience and, rather than flying in a straight line towards the Daklan, they shifted left, right, up and down erratically, varying their approach velocity by a fraction at the same time. Given how the lightspeed missiles functioned, Recker guessed these evasive manoeuvres were going to make it significantly harder to land a hit on the Ixidar.

  “One of those guns fired,” said Eastwood. “The power readings on the housing dropped to zero and now they’re climbing again.”

  Recker saw the outcome on the sensors. The closest desolator – the Kildis – was hit by the discharge. A flash of dark energy, much larger than the heavy cruiser, appeared briefly and then vanished just as quickly. In that split-second, the desolator’s armour had been completely stripped away, as if the entire ship had been left for a week in the most corrosive substance imaginable. With its plating gone, the ternium modules underneath were exposed and even those were crumbling.

  “Another discharge,” said Eastwood.

  A second flash of dark energy hid the remains of the desolator and this time, the Daklan ship was reduced to an irregular lump of metal, a quarter of its original mass, and completely unrecognizable from what it had once been.

  “Gone,” said Burner.

  “There’s a third discharge,” said Eastwood.

  This time it was the Verdinak which was hit by the Lavorix energy cannon and the results were no less devastating. The Daklan crew retained a semblance of control and they banked from their original course. It wasn’t going to save them.

  Recker’s eyes shifted to the sensor feed of the Ixidar and suddenly he understood why it was rotating. The enemy ship’s main guns were fixed in position, with little or no available adjustment and the only way it could aim was by turning the entire hull. Since the energy shots from the guns had no discernible travel time, the method was far less clumsy that it first appeared and he was sure the enforced firing interval gave each weapon time to recharge.

  “Fourth discharge,” said Eastwood.

  The shot produced no visible effect from the gun – no recoil and nothing from the muzzle - but the Verdinak went the same way as the Kildis, its corroded hull fragmenting and breaking into pieces.

  And still the Ixidar rotated, bringing its next gun to bear on the single remaining Daklan ship – the annihilator Reisilon. Two more lightspeed missiles detonated against the Lavorix hull, missing the facing gun by a few thousand metres. From what he’d learned at Ivisto, Recker guessed the reprogramming of the missile guidance systems didn’t allow perfect targeting. As if the Ixidar needed any more advantages.

  The Lavorix ship discharged its facing energy cannon and the Reisilon’s plating crumbled into dust, which trailed like a glittering streamer in the battleship’s wake. Out of options, the Daklan could do nothing other than wait for death.

  It came, moments later. Unable to withstand a second shot from the enemy cannon, the Reisilon fell apart, its destruction taking away the last available launch platform for the lightspeed missiles.

  “Six hundred thousand klicks to target,” said Aston. “We’ll have the Fracture ready soon.”

  The Ixidar surprised the crew. Instead of coming for the Vengeance, it executed an impossibly tight 180-degree turn that took it on a direct course for the HPA warships.

  Recker could only stare in frustration as the Ixidar’s punishing velocity carried it rapidly away from the Vengeance and he wondered what the hell he could do about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Ixidar’s energy cannon had a tremendous range and one of the HPA cruisers was reduced to a decaying cloud of flaking alloy. The ease with which the Lavorix warship finished its opponents left Recker feeling numb and he fought against a sense of helplessness. At one time, he’d thought the Vengeance offered enough tools to deal with anything war threw his way. The Ixidar was giving him an in-the-face demonstration of exactly how wrong he was.

  “Distance to target increasing,” said Aston. “We won’t get a Fracture shot on it before those HPA ships are destroyed.”

  Watching events unfold, Recker’s helplessness turned to despair. In his heart, he knew the Fracture wasn’t going to collapse the Ixidar’s energy shield – the Meklon had built several terminator class warships like the Vengeance and they hadn’t succeeded in damaging the Laws of Ancidium, let alone destroying them.

  Which left two options – attempt a mode 3 transit into the Ixidar’s energy shield or turn tail and run.

  Given the erratic course alterations of the enemy ship, Recker couldn’t imagine how a mode 3 jump could work. Perhaps, given time, Eastwood could generate a predictive algorithm to increase the chance of a transit landing within the shield. Time, of course, wasn’t an available luxury.

  One of the riot class spaceships vanished when it was hit by the energy cannon, leaving the remaining HPA ships to scatter in the hope they’d survive long enough to fire their missiles – missiles which had no hope of bringing down the Lavorix energy shield.

  “The enemy have introduced a complication to their rotation, sir,” said Larson. “They’ve started tumbling.”

  “I see it,” said Recker. The Ixidar was no longer turning about its vertical axis and its new pattern was about all three axes. “Full attack mode,” he guessed. “They can fire each gun the moment it recharges.”

  “And hit targets that aren’t right in front of them,” said Aston.

  As she finished the words, a warning light flashed up on Recker’s console and the Vengeance’s bright mesh deflector shield appeared, forming a protective barrier around the warship.

  “We took a hit,” said Aston. “There goes our single mesh deflector charge. Five minutes and we’ll have it available again.”

  “Our battleship – it’s the Sledgehammer – has also been hit by the Ixidar’s cannon, sir,” said Burner. “And they don’t have a shield.”

  “I recommend we retreat, sir,” said Aston. “We can’t affect what’s about to happen.”

  Recker knew it was true, but that didn’t make it easier. With its mesh deflector on recharge, the Vengeance would be destroyed by the next shot. On the sensor feed, he saw the extensive damage the Sledgehammer had suffered and there was no chance in hell it would hold together when the next energy burst came.

  The stubborn part of Recker – the part that couldn’t give up – calculated the charge intervals on the Ixidar’s guns at the same time as searching for a flaw in the enemy ship’s rotation that would allow an opponent to stay ahead of the loaded weapons. It was useless and he ground his teeth together in fury.

  A second shot engulfed the Sledgehammer and the battleship broke up like a log of rotten wood.

  “We’re next,” said Larson.

  “I’ve entered coordinates for Kolaes, sir,” said Eastwood. “You want to go anywhere else and it’ll take me some extra time.”

  This battle is lost. My duty now is to protect my crew.

  Recker activated mode 3. The sensors went blank and the nausea was so fleeting he hardly noticed it. Acting at once, he fed power into the engines and the Vengeance accelerated.

  “I’d recommend you hold steady, sir,” said Eastwood
.

  The reason for the warning became apparent when the Vengeance crunched into a solid object. Recker backed off the controls and held the warship in place.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “As close to the far side of Kolaes as I dared, sir. The planet’s got a ternium-rich crust and I’m hoping that’s going to make it harder for the enemy to pick up our location.”

  “Sensors coming online,” said Burner.

  When the feeds stabilised a moment later, Recker was presented with a view of high peaks all around the Vengeance. The sheer cliff face directly ahead was in a state of partial collapse as a result of the warship’s recent impact, and a heap of stones lay at the bottom of a canyon which ran between this mountain and the next.

  “What now?” said Aston. She exhaled noisily and swore. “Damn this has all gone to shit.”

  “I know, Commander,” said Recker.

  Aston detected the note in his voice and she speared him with her gaze. “Not your fault, sir. You offered advice and Fleet Admiral Telar acted upon it. We did the right thing, but the enemy outguessed us.”

  Recker could have said plenty but knew it wouldn’t do any good. This wasn’t the time to wallow in guilt and that duty to protect his crew hadn’t diminished.

  “We can’t face the Ixidar,” he said. “The fleet before us failed and now the Lavorix have figured out a way to minimise the threat of the Daklan lightspeed missiles.”

  “What about the Fracture?” said Aston.

  “You were right, Commander. It won’t be enough, but it’s all we have. If we must, I’ll mode 3 into range of the Ixidar and try it out anyway.”

  “We can’t mode 3 for a few minutes, sir,” Eastwood reminded him. “And it’ll be another couple of minutes for the mesh deflector to recharge.”

  “If we aren’t going to attack the Ixidar again, does that mean we’re heading back to an HPA planet?” asked Burner.

  “I don’t know, Lieutenant. Certainly, we can’t head straight for home, in case the Lavorix follow us.”