“Damn.”
“Yup. It’s no wonder the Dreamers have thrown their efforts at getting through the wormhole, instead of trying to fly everywhere using only their engines.”
Duggan returned to his seat to mull things over. The Crimson and its passengers had survived. Against the odds, the ancient hull of the warship had succeeded in accomplishing the near-impossible on the first try. It had carried them deep into uncharted, hostile enemy territory on a mission with few goals and no boundaries. As long as they remained here, they had a chance to give the enemy a bloody nose – or they might encounter an overwhelming force that would destroy them. He stood again.
“We made it, folks. We really made it.”
McGlashan was the first to smile. “That we did. Now all we have to do is show these bastards that we won’t lay down while they try to murder us.”
“We’ve jumped the biggest hurdle,” said Chainer. “We’ve got to make it count.”
“With the greatest risks come the greatest rewards,” added Breeze.
“I didn’t know if we’d succeed,” admitted Duggan. “Since we did, it’s our duty to get the best out of this opportunity.”
“Starting with what’s on that planet ahead,” said McGlashan.
“Exactly. Let’s get to it.”
The excitement returned, filling Duggan’s muscles with strength. Around him, the others felt it too, eyes glittering with the acceptance of danger and a determination to win, no matter what came.
Chapter Thirteen
They reached the fourth planet without encountering anything hostile. Duggan was cautious and kept the Crimson at a distance, also keeping low to the horizon in case they were detected and had to escape quickly. Chainer gave out new details as he uncovered them.
“The planet has a diameter of fifteen thousand kilometres, so it’s similar in size to Pioneer. There’s lots of ice – mostly made up from water with traces of methanol. You can see the streaks of white even from this distance. Other than the cold it’s quite hospitable with no sign of storms. If you’re interested, our logging software has given it the name Frades-2.”
“That’s pronounced fray-dees, Frank,” said Breeze. “Presumably the software decided to name it after the physicist Exa Frades.”
“Whatever,” said Chainer. “The installation is right on the equator and is about sixteen square klicks in size – a near-perfect square. There are lots of shapes which I imagine to be buildings the enemy have left planted on the ice.”
Duggan looked at the grainy, wavering image Chainer had summoned. There was no doubt in his mind that installation was the correct word for it – the enemy had committed a lot of resources to its construction.
“These cuboids at each corner are big,” Chainer continued. “Half a klick at the base and a couple of thousand metres tall.”
“They look like towers,” Duggan mused.
“This pyramid in the middle is bigger than the others we’ve seen – it’s two klicks long at the base and proportionally taller. If it’s a power source, it could hold a whole load more of that obsidian than the smaller ones the Dreamers left around Confederation space.”
“What about these other features I can see on the ground?” asked Duggan.
Chainer held out his hands in a who knows? gesture. “Some of them could be air defences, sir. There’re too many different shapes and sizes for them to be all defence emplacements.”
“Any sign of life?”
“There’s no way to tell from here. I’ll need you to fly overhead at thirty or forty thousand klicks to be sure. The angle is no good from where we are.”
“What about power readings? Is there anything we can learn from them, Lieutenant Breeze?”
Breeze raised his head, with an expression that suggested he’d been waiting for the question. “The base is running on idle at the moment, sir, which makes it difficult to guess at what they can do.”
“But you’ve prepared a guess for me anyway, haven’t you?”
Breeze grinned. “Yes, sir. If we compare the at-idle output levels from the other pyramids we’ve come across to the at-idle output from this one and assume they scale up in the same way, we’re looking at something a lot more powerful on the ground here. Several orders of magnitude greater, if you want me to continue the guessing game.”
“Just from the central pyramid?”
“No, sir. Those towers have their own signature, so they’re generating too.”
“Is there an active energy shield?”
“Negative. I’d say they’re probably not expecting an attack, but if those really are air defences, then they’ve clearly considered the risks.”
Duggan rubbed his chin in thought. “The proximity to the wormhole has me wondering,” he said.
“It’s exactly the sort of thing we’ve come to investigate, sir,” said McGlashan.
“Or destroy,” added Breeze.
“What’re the options?” asked Duggan, looking for input.
“We should hold off using the Planet Breaker,” said Breeze. “Those towers will easily have enough juice to absorb such an attack, plus it’ll alert them to our presence.”
“What about a high-altitude attack?” asked Chainer.
Duggan couldn’t deny he was tempted. “I need more information on what we’re facing. They may be able to shoot down our missiles – nukes or conventional.”
“This place is important to them, sir,” said Breeze. “That suggests to me we should destroy it.”
“That brings us back to square one,” said McGlashan. “We’ll be in Dreamer space, with no way to find our way onto the next target.”
“If we blow up one of their bases, they’ll definitely come,” said Breeze.
“I’m not certain I want the attention.”
Duggan waved them to silence while he considered it further. The scope of the mission called for a combination of intel-gathering and surprise assaults where circumstances demanded. If they destroyed the base, it would bring other warships to the area. Duggan had no intention of hanging around to slug it out with a flotilla of battleships. He made his decision.
“We’ll destroy this place and move on.”
Chainer promptly unmade the decision.
“Sir, I’m detecting a tight-beam transmission going either to or from the installation. The receptor is one of the buildings external to the central pyramid.”
“Can you read what it says?”
“Not a hope, sir. I got lucky even noticing it was there. I don’t know if they are receiving, sending or if it’s two-way traffic.”
“Where’s the other end of the signal?”
“I can’t tell you that either, sir.”
“I thought you could do anything with comms, Lieutenant?”
“That’s a highly-focused beam, sir. If you get us to a position directly overhead, I’ll be able to tell you approximately where it’s going to or coming from. If the destination is close by, we might be able to pinpoint the location, but the further away we are from the other end, the less the chance I’ll have a meaningful shot at finding it.”
“This alters my recommendation, sir,” said Breeze. “We should do everything we can to find the sender or receiver.”
Duggan agreed – this was an opportunity to get deeper into enemy territory. They might find nothing more than a comms station - or it could be vastly more significant. “It could be one of their home planets or something else we need to see,” he said, finishing his thought out loud.
“I can’t realistically say I’ll be able to give you a precise destination, even if you fly close to the signal, sir. Our databanks have no information about this area of space in order to assist with the prediction. That means I’d be left checking the super-fars to see if I can spot a likely-looking planet somewhere out there.”
“I thought we could do this stuff easily?” asked Duggan in irritation.
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
“How do we find out where
the signal is going, then?”
“You’ll have to send someone down there. If we could set up one of our emergency beacons within a few feet of the transmitter or receiver, it could send out a parallel transmission that traces the exact path of the enemy signal. I’d be able to follow that, since our own beacon will happily tell us where it terminates. As long as it doesn’t go too far.”
Duggan furrowed his brow. “You’ve done things like this before, Lieutenant, without us having to commit to a surface venture.”
“It’s different when the ship’s AI has an extensive map and coordinate list of the space around, sir,” Chainer insisted. “It makes it easy to tally a signal with its destination. Out here, we don’t even have coordinates. I’ll have to set the wormhole as a zero coordinate and use it to build a map of everything we see. That’ll give the emergency beacon something to tie into and then…”
“Fine, Lieutenant,” said Duggan, not wanting to hear the full explanation. “Can you reassure me that the enemy won’t detect the signal from our beacon at the same time as they detect their own?”
“There should be enough divergence that they don’t see our signal. It’s not guaranteed.”
“It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” said Duggan.
“Speaking of risks, it could be swarming with enemy troops on the ground,” said McGlashan. “We should attempt a reconnaissance run overhead. The stealth modules have proven reliable up until now.”
An apparently straightforward choice had suddenly become more complex than Duggan wanted. It would be easiest to simply attempt the installation’s destruction by firing missiles at it from a high orbit. There might be an extensive shield of countermeasures, in which case they’d need to rethink, but at least it was fairly low-risk. Now he was contemplating the deployment of his troops, with little in the way of advance knowledge about what they might expect. This is what we’re here for, he told himself.
“Take your seats,” he said. “We’re going for a closer look. Lieutenant Chainer, I want to get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“Come across them at thirty thousand klicks, not too fast and I’ll get what you need, sir.”
“Please do, Lieutenant. If they see us, there’s little chance we’ll be able to surprise them on the ground.”
Five minutes later and it was done. With the scan complete, Duggan flew the Crimson a quarter of the planet’s circumference away from the base and kept it hovering a few kilometres above the surface.
“Those are not ground-to-air missile batteries, sir,” said Chainer, pointing at the recorded image. From above, they looked like featureless, grey-metal squares, hardly visible against the ice-covered surface. “There are thirty-two of them across the site and I have no idea what they are – maybe they’re additional backup generators or something.”
“They’re really not short of power,” said Breeze. “Whatever those are, they aren’t generators.”
“Should we be worried about them?” asked Duggan.
“Only because we don’t know what they are, sir.”
“Could these other buildings hold surface-to-air launchers?” he asked, indicating a number of similar buildings towards the centre.”
“I don’t know, sir. I’d say not, but they may be disguised.”
The lack of clarity wasn’t reassuring. “Was there any other movement?”
“I didn’t find any,” said Chainer. “There are quite a number of smaller buildings and I can’t help but feel they’re about the right size for people – aliens – to live in or do whatever it is that Dreamers do in places like this. Frades-2 isn’t the sort of place you’d willingly go outside for a breath of fresh air, so I’m not surprised there’s a lack of obvious activity.”
“It’s not very well-defended, given the size of it,” said McGlashan. “Assuming they have nothing hidden.”
“Which tells me that our enemy are confident of their strength in this area of space, Commander.”
“They’re cocky bastards, in other words,” said Chainer.
Duggan ignored the interruption. “I think we’re deep inside their territory, where they don’t expect to be attacked.”
“They’ve been throwing ships at that wormhole for decades,” said Breeze. “They must consider themselves so superior that they can’t envisage another race coming through from the other side.”
“If they can’t do it, then no one else can,” said McGlashan. “It’s things like this which give you a measure of your opponent. Not that there’s much useful we can do with the information.”
Duggan made a decision. “I’m going to send the troops to take a look.”
Chainer raised his hand, something he didn’t normally bother to do when he had something to say. “I think I’ll have to go with them, sir.”
“We have comms experts in the squad, Lieutenant.”
“There are known comms and then there are unknown comms. I’d like to see what kit our enemy have got. In addition, the emergency beacon might need a bit of tweaking to ensure it’s set up right.”
“I understand. Very well, I’ll send you along with the others.” He opened a channel to Lieutenant Ortiz. “I need you to prepare for a full deployment,” he said. “We’re going on foot and leaving the armour behind.”
Ortiz sounded as ready to go as ever. “I’ll have them ready in fifteen minutes, sir. You’ll have to land if we’re leaving the tanks behind.”
“Your keenness is admirable, Lieutenant, but we’ll need a briefing in the mess room first – get there at once. You’ll be deployed soon after.”
“Are you taking control of this mission, sir?”
“For once, I’m going to sit it out, Lieutenant. I need to stay with the ship.”
“Right you are, sir,” she said, her voice betraying nothing of her feelings on the subject.
With that, Duggan ended the connection.
“Commander McGlashan, Lieutenant Breeze. You stay here in case something shows up. Lieutenant Chainer, you’re coming with me for the briefing.”
The two of them made haste to the mess room, with Duggan little aware that one part of his plan would soon be thrown into disarray.
Chapter Fourteen
“What do you mean you won’t obey Lieutenant Ortiz?” shouted Duggan, filled with anger.
Red-Gulos didn’t flinch. The Ghast was seven and a half feet tall and powerfully built. He had thick black hair and the look of a brawler, though his eyes and speech marked him out as highly intelligent. “We were told to follow Captain John Duggan’s orders,” he rasped through his interpreter. “There was no ambiguity.”
“I am ordering you to obey Lieutenant Ortiz!” Duggan roared.
“Subjos Gol-Tur will need to amend our orders,” said the Ghast. “This is how our command is structured.”
Duggan had come across a similar example of Ghast intransigence before, when Nil-Far had been told to follow the orders of another warship captain during the attack on Atlantis. He hadn’t thought he’d encounter it here and it could easily jeopardise what he wanted to accomplish.
“Only Gol-Tur can change your orders?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We can’t get a message to your command until we return through the wormhole and I am not about to try it. We’re here and we’re staying.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “This does not show you in a good light, Red-Gulos. It’s a very poor beginning to our alliance.”
“I cannot change the instructions I received, Captain Duggan.”
Duggan paced back and forth. The briefing had gone well up until this point. The twenty human soldiers were steely and filled with fire – their experience and competence shone like a light. The Ghasts stood apart from the humans, though there was no obvious tension between the two parties. The aliens appeared the equal of their human counterparts in terms of willingness and competence. The whole room had sat attentively while Duggan talked and pointed out the best approaches to their target on one of the
large display screens. There’d been a few questions, incisive and helpful. Then this had happened.
“You’ll remain on the ship,” said Duggan at last.
A few of the Ghasts stirred at the words. “We are here to fight,” said Red-Gulos. “We will be shamed if you send these others and leave us behind.”
“It is usual to split a fighting force,” said Duggan, watching the Ghast closely.
“You are correct. However, we have been told we represent our people against an adversary we’d hoped was forever lost. It will shame us if humans fight our battle without us.”
Duggan began to understand Red-Gulos’ depth of feeling on the subject and knew he had to handle things carefully. The obvious solution would be to send the Ghasts as a separate force, but that would bring problems of its own if there was no overall commander on the ground. If the Crimson was out of comms sight for whatever reason, the two ground squads could end up in a disagreement about how to deal with something unexpected.
Thirty-one pairs of eyes stared at Duggan, waiting for him to agree to the only way around the problem. He found his mouth speaking the words, even before his mind could fully explore if there was a better option.
“I’ll lead the force,” he said. “We’ll land in one hour. Get suited up and be ready in the forward airlock.”
There was a chorus of acknowledgements and Duggan left the troops in order to break the news to those he’d left on the bridge.
“That’ll leave only two of us to look after the ship,” said McGlashan, the accusing look in her eyes a result of more than just the additional responsibility.
“It’s not what I wanted,” Duggan replied. Even just few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been able to make such a statement without lying to himself and McGlashan.
She met his gaze for a long moment and then nodded slightly. “Come back safely, sir.”
“What about me?” asked Chainer.
“You too, Frank.”
Duggan spent a few minutes conferring with McGlashan on what he wanted. “Stay at a distance – the longer you remain overhead, the greater the chance they’ll realise there’s a spaceship close by. It’ll alert them and we also don’t want them taking shots at the Crimson. If we need to abort, get anyone alive away from the surface and then do whatever you have to in order to destroy this place,” he said. “If we run into enemy forces on the ground and are defeated, there is no one in the Space Corps who will criticise your decision to return through the wormhole.”
Terminus Gate (Survival Wars Book 5) Page 9