“Oh it’s certainly feasible, sir. Of course, it’s the details where the problems usually arise. On the plus side, an interception at source will probably allow us to circumvent their encryption. A signal is usually encrypted right as it leaves the transmitter. If we’re lucky, we could find ourselves with lots of raw intel, ready to be combed through.”
That made Duggan’s mind up. “The potential benefits outweigh the undoubted risks,” he said. “We’ll try a small-scale assault on the furthest transmitter from the main installation. In, out and away.”
“Sounds easy,” said McGlashan drily.
“We should ban the e-word from the bridge,” said Chainer. “Something’s up on the base. That heavy cruiser looks as if it’s preparing to lift off.”
“Warships come and go,” said Duggan. “Could it be routine?”
“I don’t think so,” said Breeze. “Those missile batteries are powering up as well. It’s happening across the entire installation.”
“Yep and I can see a significant increase in ground activity,” added Chainer. “I think they’ve finally learned about our arrival.”
Duggan cursed loudly. He’d mentally decided that the opportunity to steal the enemy’s comms data was too significant to pass up. It was a dangerous plan with the enemy on low alert. Now it had become much harder to succeed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“The heavy cruiser’s up in the air, though it remains stationary,” said Chainer.
“What are the chances of them detecting us from here?” asked Duggan.
“Low. I wouldn’t want to sit waiting forever, especially if they’re actively scanning for us. They know we have stealth capabilities.”
“I’m going to put Astorn between us and the enemy warship,” said Duggan.
“Once the cruiser is out of sight, we’ll have no idea where it is,” Chainer reminded him.
“We’re in no rush, are we?” asked McGlashan. “If we took ourselves away for a couple of weeks, they might stand down.”
“We don’t know if they’ll remain on high alert until they’ve found us,” said Duggan. “Furthermore, they could send dozens of their warships through the Blackstar while we’re waiting for them to settle. There are plenty of reasons for us to act with best speed.”
“I’m obliged to point out that we still have the option to abort, sir,” she said.
“I understand your obligations, Commander, and I haven’t yet dismissed the possibility of a withdrawal. Firstly, we’re going to have a closer look at one of these secondary transmitters. The time we spend here may also give us an idea of whether the enemy are on a general alert or if they have specific reason to think we’re in the vicinity.”
It took thirty minutes to come around the planet in a wide arc. During that time, Duggan advised Lieutenant Ortiz that she should prepare the troops for a possible deployment.
“Some of them were expecting a breather, sir,” she joked.
“I thought these soldiers were so good they no longer require oxygen to function.”
“Only some of them, sir. They aim better with air in their lungs.”
“This will be a quick visit, Lieutenant. If it happens I’ll need to come along. We’ll be bringing the ship’s core with us and it’s not something I want to let out of my sight.”
“We’ll be ready to go in fifteen minutes, sir.”
“Prepare and then hold for further instructions.”
“Roger that.”
When Ortiz was gone, Duggan became aware of Chainer clearing his throat loudly. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“I’ll need to come along as well, sir. You may require my expertise if the enemy hardware is unfamiliar.”
“He’s getting the taste for it,” joked Breeze.
“Next thing we know, he’ll be screaming like a madman and charging the enemy with his bare hands,” said McGlashan.
“You guys kill me,” Chainer replied, trying unsuccessfully to look hurt.
“You’re coming, Lieutenant,” said Duggan. “Don’t get suited up until I’ve decided what we’re doing.”
He brought the Crimson to a standstill, high above the furthest secondary transmitter from the main base. The sensor feed showed the target to be a squat, flat building, a few metres tall and eighty metres to each side. There was an intricate array of antennae on the roof and they beamed out a non-stop flow of data.
Duggan rubbed his chin while he studied it. “How much of it’s likely to be underground?” he asked.
“Some, possibly. I don’t know,” Chainer replied.
Duggan checked out the surrounding terrain. There was little other than yellow-tinged stone for a hundred kilometres in every direction. It was flat and cold, with hardly any atmosphere. Chainer told him these conditions were what made Astorn a favourable planet to set up a major comms hub.
“Only one door into each building,” Duggan said. “And a series of small transport vessels in constant low orbit to shuttle passengers between the transmitters. We land, blow the door, kill anyone inside who resists, steal the data and then leave.”
“Sir, if you’re so undecided, we should hold off,” said McGlashan. “I’m sure Lieutenant Chainer will have no problem following one of these non-military broadcasts to their destination.”
“No problem at all,” confirmed Chainer.
Duggan stopped his pacing. “The trouble I have is when I ask myself what will lie at the end of a non-military broadcast.”
“It could be anything,” said McGlashan. She paused. “You don’t want to find one of their populated worlds, do you?”
He met her gaze. “You’re aware of our orders. We’ve been told to use the Planet Breaker without hesitation. I’m a military man – we’re each of us part of the Space Corps. If you give me the choice between destroying a civilian target or a military one, you know which I’m going to choose. So, to answer your question, I am very much hoping we don’t find a planet with twenty billion enemy civilians living on it. While there are military targets, I’m going to concentrate our efforts on them.”
“In that case, what are we waiting for?” she asked.
Her words spurred him into action. He returned to his console and issued a series of commands to eject the central AI core. There were several layers of security which took so long to clear he asked himself if it would be possible to extract the ship’s core in any situation that approached an emergency.
“It may be a little late to ask, but will the stealth hold when the core is gone?” asked Chainer.
“It’ll hold,” said Breeze. “Anything which requires a huge amount of grunt will struggle, by which I mean targeting, tracking, countermeasures, long-range sensors and lightspeed. Most things on the Crimson rely on the Dreamer core’s computational output. In addition to that, the disruptors and the Planet Breaker won’t work either. In other words, we count on it for our operational capabilities.”
“Here we are,” said Duggan, looking downwards at the floor.
A concealed hatch at his feet slid aside. There was a space beneath in which he could see two metal handles. He gripped them – they were uncomfortably warm - and pulled hard. The core was heavy and he had to put his back into it. With a hiss it slid clear, allowing Duggan a view down the green-lit shaft which had, until moments ago, housed the ship’s AI.
“That’s it?” asked Chainer, looking at the featureless, pale-blue cube. “That can’t be more than twenty centimetres to a side.”
“I assure you it’s exceptionally heavy,” grunted Duggan. He lowered it onto his chair. “I reckon it weighs a hundred and fifty pounds.”
“I’ve seen one of our cores before and it was plenty bigger than that,” said Chainer. “I know we’re lagging when it comes to speed, but I didn’t think the Dreamers could miniaturise it so much better than we can.”
“That’s not the whole thing,” said Breeze. “That’s the bit that does the thinking. It’ll also hold a few critical memory arrays and a power cell. The main data a
rrays are far larger and so is the main power supply. It’s a shame they’re locked inside the ship, else we could probably use a separate memory module rather than risk the core itself.”
“You’re going to have a job carrying it to the forward ramp, sir,” said Chainer.
Duggan shook his head. “We are going to have a job. Think yourself lucky I haven’t ordered you to carry it by yourself.”
“Are you going at once?” asked McGlashan.
“There’s no reason to wait,” Duggan replied. “Once we’re ready in the forward airlock, you’re going to take us down for a fast landing. You’ll wait for us to return unless you judge it critical that you take off. We won’t have long until they come.”
McGlashan didn’t need much guidance and she was ready to take command at once. Duggan and Chainer picked up the ship’s core between them, taking one handle each. It was so small that their knuckles were pressed tightly together. They left the bridge slowly and Duggan soon found himself wishing the passages through the spaceship were significantly wider than they were.
As they walked, Duggan did his best to brief Ortiz over the internal comms.
“We’ve got a target,” he said. “Lieutenant Breeze should have sent details through to your suit computers. There’s not much to study.”
“It looks outwardly straightforward, sir. One door into a compact building. There’s little chance of significant resistance if we do our job properly.”
“That’s right. Once inside, we need to locate the main comms feed so that we can make a copy of it for the Space Corps to analyse later.”
Ortiz was a consummate professional and she rarely asked unnecessary questions while on duty. However, in this instance, it came to Duggan’s attention that she was becoming increasingly intrigued as the informal briefing progressed. Eventually, she cracked.
“Sir, what’s that noise I can hear?”
“That is the sound of a disgruntled man complaining. The ship’s core is extremely heavy and Lieutenant Chainer is doing his level best to grumble about the weight every single step of the way. Are you laughing, Lieutenant Ortiz?”
“Absolutely not, sir,” she said. “Will you be long?”
“That depends on whether or not I decide to stop and strangle Lieutenant Chainer.”
There was more laughter and Duggan found it uplifting to discover that Ortiz still had a sense of humour beneath her hardened exterior.
“I’m sure you’ll do the right thing, sir,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, the ship’s entire contingent of troops was gathered in the forward airlock. Braler had the ship’s core in a pack which he carried on his shoulders. The Ghast appeared unaffected by the additional weight and showed no sign of the injury he’d sustained on Frades-2.
Ortiz had organized squads and created an open channel for them, so it only remained for Duggan to go over the last remaining details.
“It’s absolutely vital we succeed here,” he said. “Our previous mission on Frades-2 is what has given us this opportunity. This is our first real shot at getting proper intel and it could be something which gives us an edge on our enemy for years to come. They’re more advanced than we are and their warships are better than ours. Everything we’ve seen tells us they are considerably more numerous than Ghasts and humans combined. They hold all the high cards except one – they don’t know the location of our home worlds. Today, we have a chance to draw the best card from the pack and add it to our own hand.”
A few of the soldiers gave an enthusiastic response to that and Duggan continued. “Time is of the essence if we are to succeed. Once the enemy know we’re here, they’re going to send their heavy cruiser to find us. We’re relying on our ability to finish quickly before they learn what we’re up to. Do your best.”
The talking was over. Duggan let McGlashan know they were ready to proceed as planned.
“I’ll set us down fast, sir. The ramp will disengage in twenty seconds. The weather outside is clear and the air is a comfortable minus two hundred and forty degrees.”
Duggan smiled and gave a shake of his head. He wondered if everyone on the ship had suddenly been afflicted by the madness of good humour, or if the disease was limited to Ortiz and McGlashan.
The Crimson came down hard. The life support system cushioned the blow, though Duggan could tell from the groaning of the landing gear that McGlashan had dropped them onto the ground at speed. Then, the airlock warning light flashed red and the ramp fell away to the ground.
“Move!” shouted Duggan.
In a rush, the troops spilled out of the spaceship and onto the ground outside.
Chapter Twenty-Four
McGlashan had done a good job of bringing them close to the transmitter. When Duggan reached the bottom of the ramp, he saw the target building ahead of him, not much more than two hundred metres away. He ran with the others, past the front two landing legs which were deeply embedded into the soft rock, until he emerged from beneath the cloaked spaceship. Above him, the sun was a tiny light in the sky, illuminating the flat ground faintly and providing no warmth whatsoever. The target building was four metres tall, though the bristling antenna reached for many metres more. They threw a series of bizarre, ever-changing shadows onto the ground before the structure.
There were no windows, but the doorway was easy enough to locate, surrounded as it was by an extruded frame. Bonner was the primary explosives expert following the death of Reilly and she was first to the door.
“Stand to the sides,” she commanded, fixing a series of pale blue objects around the frame. “The door will fall inwards.”
The troops complied, spreading themselves along the wall to the left and right. The speed with which Bonner acted made Duggan wonder if the fist banging was entirely for show. Certainly, she didn’t waste time on this occasion.
Bonner gave them a short countdown. “Three, two, one…”
The plasma charges crackled and sparked angrily, casting cold blue light onto the ground. A dull explosion followed and plasma splattered onto the rock, where it danced and frothed.
“That’s it, we’re done,” Bonner said. “I misjudged it a fraction - someone give the door a kick.”
Duggan was one of the closest and also the quickest to react. He took five paces and spun to face the door. The metal glowed brightly at the edges and there were holes clean through in several places. To Duggan’s eyes, it still looked more than adequately fixed in place. Nevertheless, he raised one leg and kicked the door firmly with the sole of his foot, as close to the frame as he dared. The door sagged inwardly under the force of his blow, the softened alloy tearing softly.
A figure joined him – it was Red-Gulos. The Ghast thundered a second kick at the door, knocking it back further and creating a wide opening.
“One more,” grunted Duggan, striking out with his foot for a second time.
The door was ripped untidily from its frame, only remaining attached at the lower corner. There was plenty of room to get over the top easily enough and Duggan went inside first, jumping past the door and into the airlock. His suit bleeped to warn about the heat from the metal, but he was able to get far enough inside that it wouldn’t cause problems.
The airlock was four metres to a side and lit in blue. Duggan saw the activation panel for the inner door and stepped towards it. He stood next to it, making sure he wouldn’t be visible when the second door opened. Without pausing, he swiped his fingers across, mimicking the gesture the Ghasts had shown him. This was the crucial moment – if they needed to blow the inner door, they’d lose at least a minute’s worth of their surprise. To Duggan’s relief, the door slid open and the pressurised atmosphere inside began to escape. It made a droning whistle as it swept through the airlock.
At the outer door, two of the troops looked carefully around the corner and into the building itself. They fired several rounds from their rifles and then stopped. “Hostiles! Take care!” shouted Ortiz.
Duggan put his own h
ead around and saw a large, open area within. There was a long console in front of the side wall, its surface alight with glowing buttons and with chairs set before it. On the wall in front of the console, there was a screen that might have been as long as fifteen metres and nearly three high. There were several figures slumped in the chairs and there were signs of blood.
Movement caught Duggan’s eye and he saw one of the enemy thrashing in the corner. It wore only a grey uniform, which gave no protection against the near-vacuum and it clutched at its face, gurgling quietly. Duggan closed his eyes for the briefest of moments and then he shot the creature with a single round from his weapon. It stopped moving and lay still.
“Clear!” he shouted. “Squad One move inside.”
Squad One comprised Duggan, Chainer and six others. They came inside, guns pointing ahead, eyes watchful for movement. There were four dead aliens in total – they looked exactly like the Ghasts, even down to their uniforms which were an identical shade of grey. They were clearly dead, caught unawares by the speed of the attack. There were a couple of hand-held devices on the floor, which looked suspiciously like gauss pistols and Duggan knew he’d been right to order his troops to shoot on sight.
“Lieutenant Chainer, is this what we’re looking for?” he asked.
“No, sir. We need the main transmission array panel. These are the secondary interfaces.”
“Fine, fine,” said Duggan, looking about. “Where will it be?”
There was a single exit door in the opposite wall and a raised square in the floor which looked like a hatch, though it had no access panel.
Chainer stammered for a moment as he did he best to figure out the most likely place to search. “These stations are probably linked by underground cables. There are times you can’t beat a physical connection.”
“You think it’s beneath us?”
“It’s the first place I’d look.”
“Braler, can you get this hatch open?” asked Duggan. While he waited for the Ghast to come across, Duggan told Ortiz to get Squad Two inside and check out the closed door in the far wall.
Terminus Gate (Survival Wars Book 5) Page 16