Chains of Duty

by Anthony James

  “It must be bad if he’s keeping it to himself,” said Chainer.

  “I don’t think he has the details either, Lieutenant. We’re going to twiddle our thumbs at the Atican shipyard complex until he decides what he’s going to do.”

  “You mean this top-secret mission might never happen?”

  Duggan shrugged. “That was the impression I got.”

  “Maybe we should head back to Kidor and see if we can rescue Lieutenant Ortiz and the others,” said Breeze, his face deadly serious.

  “We can’t,” said Duggan. “The time isn’t right and we’d get ourselves killed for nothing. I promise you our soldiers aren’t forgotten, Lieutenant. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “They’re going to be bored sitting in that cave,” said Chainer.

  “I’d prefer them to be bored, rather than dead,” said Duggan.

  “We’re at Light-M,” announced Breeze, almost sounding surprised himself. The transitions on the heavy cruisers were smoother than any other vessel. “Less than three days till we reach our destination.”

  On this one occasion, the time flew over. It was unfortunate for Duggan, since he wanted the time to think. He had shaken off the lethargy he’d felt in the aftermath of the mission to Kidor. The chains of it were still there, but they no longer held him back. Their presence was a reminder of his duty and he chose to take strength from them, rather than be weighed down. He focused his mind on the future instead of the past and his determination built, filling him with endless energy. Captain Jonas was gone and Lieutenant Ortiz was stranded on a hostile planet. He couldn’t fix the first, but he could try his best to come to terms with it. There was little he could do about the second for the moment - his words to Lieutenant Breeze about the time not being right were true and Duggan did his best to accept that. As long as he eventually got a shot at getting his soldiers away from Kidor, it would be enough.

  Within five minutes of its predicted time, the ES Rampage arrived into a high orbit over the planet Pioneer, forty thousand kilometres above the surface. Chainer scanned the vast shipyard far below.

  “They’ve got a couple of free trenches for us,” he said. “I assume we’re landing in one of them?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant. Get permission from the shipyard mainframe and we’ll set down nice and easy.”

  Chainer got the clearance he needed and Duggan prepared to bring the Rampage closer, in order to engage the automatic landing system. Procedures dictated a slow, steady approach and since Duggan wasn’t in the mood to deal with an angry computer, he kept to the recommended guidelines. Something caught his eye and he brought up an image on the bulkhead viewscreen.

  “They’re making good progress on the new flagship,” he said. “Last I remember, there was hardly anything more than an outline.”

  All eyes were fixed on the growing hull of the new warship. It was nearly ten kilometres long and planned as a replacement for the Archimedes, though the latter would remain in active service.

  “They’re going to call it the Aristotle,” said Massey. “That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.”

  “Someone likes their historical figures, huh?” asked Chainer. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d named it the Admiral Slender.”

  Hearing the name gave Duggan a start. At one time it would have brought unpleasant memories to accompany it. Duggan was pleased to find it did no such thing, as if the dead man had finally relinquished his grip.

  “What about that Hadron next to it?” he asked, pointing a finger at a vessel in the adjacent trench. This one was a lot closer to completion. “Have you heard what that will be called?”

  “I have no idea,” said Massey. “Most of the excitement is around the flagship.”

  “We should take heart from seeing this,” said Duggan. “It’s a profound example of what humanity can achieve when it’s pushed. The Ghasts’ fleet has grown enormously over the last few years, but it’s nothing close to what we’re doing now.” He opened his mouth to say something else and decided against it.

  “What else?” asked McGlashan.

  Duggan sighed. “I didn’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits, because in truth the Confederation has improved so much in the last couple of years. It’s just that our weaponry has yet to catch up. We’re working on so much that’s new, yet I can’t see any of it being ready in time to fit into these new hulls. We’ll have dozens of ships at Galactic class and above, each of them stunted by weaponry that is behind what our opponents can put against us.” He smiled with sudden conviction. “However, each day which passes brings us closer to parity. After parity comes superiority. I’m convinced we’ll pull through this if we’re given the time - even against the Dreamers.”

  The image on the viewscreen panned away from the Hadron and onto the next ship docked here. This one looked different – it had more lumps and curves than the others, like a mixture of shapes thrown together. The front was crumpled and there were indentations along its flanks. Even so, there was no mistaking it for anything other than a fighting spaceship. It was different to the Space Corps’ designs, yet just as threatening.

  “The Cadaveron we brought back,” said Breeze. “No sign of antimatter leaks, so they must have sealed it up tightly.”

  “Given it a coat of paint as well,” said Chainer.

  “Yeah, it looks a lot tidier than when we picked it out of that hole on Everlong,” said McGlashan.

  “There must be thousands of people working on it,” said Chainer, zooming in for a closer look. “They’ve got all the heavy-duty kit around the hull.”

  “Maybe it’s heading for the museum,” said Breeze. “It would make an impressive exhibit.”

  “As long as they keep people off the bridge,” joked Chainer. “I seem to recall the engines were still working.”

  “I imagine quite a lot of it was still working,” said Duggan. “We got lucky in taking out the life support section.”

  “Well, we’ve been asked to land right next to it,” said Chainer. “There’ll be a good view when we disembark.”

  They were close enough to activate the auto-land and Duggan handed control of the ship over to the AI. It brought them in carefully, so as not to create turbulence on the ground.

  “They’ve not stopped work on the Cadaveron for us,” said Breeze. It was usual practise to move workers on adjacent trenches away when a warship as large as the Rampage came in to land.

  “Probably want to get it done and free up that space for something else,” said Chainer.

  “The fifth dry dock is free already,” said McGlashan.

  “Never mind,” said Duggan. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing.”

  A few minutes later, the ES Rampage landed dead-centre in trench four. Each of the dry docks contained an enormously powerful gravity field, which supported much of the docked spaceship’s weight. The power draw on the field generators was immense, and each had what was effectively a warship gravity drive buried underground to provide the necessary power. The crew on the Rampage experienced a barely-perceptible thump as the spaceship’s weight settled on the reinforced alloy surface.

  Duggan was first to his feet. “Let’s go and find out what they want us to do while we await the next mission from Admiral Teron,” he said. “Ensign Perry, send a message to the troops below. They’re dismissed to the barracks until they’re called upon.”

  The crew followed Duggan off the bridge and to the front boarding ramp. It was mid-afternoon and heat from the desert air washed inside the interior bay. There was a woman in uniform waiting at the bottom. She greeted Duggan and handed him a clipboard with a pen. There was a form to sign in order to hand over the warship and Duggan scribbled his name, wondering why this anachronistic procedure still existed.

  They took a lift out of the docking trench and paused briefly to say their farewells. Each had received orders as to where they needed to report once they reached the shipyard. The Space Corps considered all of its officers to form a pool i
nto which it could dip for the personnel it needed. There were a few senior captains like Duggan who could generally get their way and retain the same crew from mission to mission. For now, the people from the ES Rampage would be split.

  The damaged Cadaveron loomed out of the adjacent trench, its hull a non-stop hive of activity. The Ghast vessel was a little smaller than the Rampage and it looked in surprisingly good condition compared to the last time they’d seen it close up. The Space Corps had a lot of funding, yet Duggan didn’t think it likely they were doing the repairs without a specific purpose in mind. He felt a strange attachment to the vessel given what had gone before, and decided he’d try and find out why so much effort was being expended on fixing it up.

  There were ranks of shuttle cars parked in a line near to the dry docks. Duggan wished the others good luck and climbed into the nearest car. He knew where he was going and pushed the vehicle to its maximum permitted speed in the direction of a large building in the distance. His destination was a square, utilitarian slab of greyness, its surface pocked with darkened windows and with a Space Corps flag outside the main entrance. He pulled up in front of it. Usually at a time like this, his morale would ebb away like water through his fingers. Today, he felt energised without knowing exactly what had changed.

  Half an hour later, he’d been assigned a new office and provided with new quarters close by. He breathed in the warm air, happy it wasn’t over-chilled like most of the military’s buildings. At his desk he powered up his computer. It sprang immediately into life, helpfully displaying his inbox. The page was already half-full of notices, warnings and memos about this, that and the other. He read each in turn, finding nothing important. He deleted everything, only to find a new message appeared a few seconds later. He shook his head and deleted this latest one, aware he was trying to hold back the tide with a wall of sand.

  He turned his screen off and sat for a time in quiet contemplation. There were so many questions to which he had no answer. Where once his powerlessness would have angered and frustrated him, now he felt only calm. He remembered the words from Admiral Teron. If you accept what’s happened, you’ll come out stronger for it. Duggan pondered those words and knew that he had accepted his failure, or at least was close to acceptance. The unfinished business of leaving Ortiz behind would gnaw at him until he concluded it one way or another. Whatever happened, he was going to do something.

  Outside, the soothing orange glow of day was fading. Night came quickly in the desert, though work on the warships would continue around the clock under artificial daylight. Duggan heard his stomach growl, reminding him he hadn’t eaten in several hours. He sat for a few minutes longer, before putting a call through to McGlashan and arranging to meet up for some food.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A few days went by, during which Duggan used his contacts to find out whatever information there was to learn. What he discovered was that the details he wanted to know were so well-guarded, no one had anything to tell. The negotiations with the Ghasts were top-top-secret, with the Confederation Council refusing to give out anything whatsoever as regards their progress or lack thereof. This was no surprise, since the subject of peace continued to be a touchy one with the general populace, no matter what positive swing was given to it.

  There were reports of sporadic rioting on a few of the Confederation planets. This news was harder to suppress, if in fact it was suppressed at all. The people were sick of war and they were sick of their money being spent to finance that war. Many had decided peace was a given and therefore it was time to scale back the eye-watering level of expenditure on new spaceships and technologies. Duggan couldn’t blame them. They had a vision of the war which was passed through many filters before it was made available for their consumption. He doubted any of them had even heard of the Dreamers. Still, it drove home the reason why new departments such as Military Asset Management had sprung up to provide oversight on how money was spent. Duggan accepted the principle, if not the implementation.

  Otherwise, there wasn’t much to learn that he wasn’t already aware of. The one remaining mystery was that of the Cadaveron and why the Space Corps was diverting so much effort in restoring it. Duggan had taken himself out to the dry dock on a few occasions and spoken to the technicians working there. Some secrets were hard to keep and generally there’d be rumours flying around, waiting to be plucked from willing mouths. This time there was nothing and he was reduced to guessing - a game he wasn’t especially fond of. When the mystery of the Cadaveron was finally answered, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry.

  “Sir, there’s an inbound call from Admiral Teron,” said an androgynous voice in Duggan’s earpiece. It was the shipyard’s automated comms system, which was designed to act exactly like a human secretary. Duggan was in the middle of a video meeting with a number of senior members of the ballistics research team, who wanted his input on various matters relating to the armaments on the Galactic class warships. He was alone in the meeting room, while the engineers were sat in a research lab on another world, several thousand light years away.

  “Can it wait?” he asked the automated voice, knowing what the answer would be.

  “He wants to speak to you now,” it replied, with just the right degree of sheepish insistence.

  “Very well.”

  The six men and women on the other end of the video link stared quizzically at him. “I take it our meeting is going to be cut short?” asked one of the men churlishly.

  “It is,” said Duggan. “We can reconvene later.” He switched channels without further delay. The wall screen went blank for a second, before the image of Admiral Teron appeared. There was someone else in the room with him, sitting just off camera.

  “Captain Duggan, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” He didn’t look as if he especially cared one way or another.

  “Nothing that can’t wait, sir.”

  “I told you I might have something for you.”

  “Yes, sir.” The words sparked through Duggan’s body, though he tried not to show it.

  “We’ve been held up by a few things. Nothing is straightforward these days. There are times I wonder if it would be easier if we simply declared war on the Ghasts again in order to bring things to a conclusion.”

  “I’m sure there’s a better way.”

  Teron laughed. “Don’t patronise me, Captain Duggan. A man is allowed to let off steam every once in a while.”

  Duggan smiled in response. “What do you need, sir?”

  “The Ghasts want their Cadaveron back.”

  “I see,” said Duggan.

  “The peace negotiations aren’t moving as easily as we’d have liked. It’s hard to offer the hand of friendship whilst the other hand is pointing a gun. The talks are meandering.”

  “From our end, or theirs?”

  “Mostly ours.”

  “Because we can’t trust them.”

  “That’s it exactly. We’re in a situation where we don’t really trust them. There is nothing about their approach that appears anything less than genuine, yet we can’t be certain where we stand. It’s down to what you found on Trasgor.”

  “We’ve been negotiating since before Trasgor,” said Duggan.

  “Of course we have and everything was going well until that point. A few weeks ago, we were determined to achieve peace on our terms. Now we’re stalling in the hope we can find clarity on the matters which worry us. If the Ghasts can’t be trusted – and remember how ruthlessly they conducted the war – we don’t want to let down our guard. Equally, we don’t want to begin hostilities again. The Planet Breaker is the only game-changer we possess. If it was destroyed somehow or malfunctioned, we’d be back to square one.”

  “The Ghasts’ best warships are better than ours.”

  “Yes, they are. I suppose if it came to it, we could bombard their worlds with nuclear warheads and lose much of our fleet in the process. That’s assuming they don’t have ground-based de
fences that can nullify such an attack.”

  “Are we planning to negotiate forever?” asked Duggan. “Or are we close to a breakthrough on some new weapon or other that will significantly increase our odds if we lose the Planet Breaker?”

  Teron rubbed his thick fingertips across his close-shaven scalp. “We have a status quo that suits us. I’m aware we’re kicking the can down the road, and in truth our time is running out. We’ve seen the early signs that the Ghasts are beginning to doubt our sincerity. We don’t want that to happen.”

  “I take it we’ve offered to return their heavy cruiser as a gesture of our continued goodwill?”

  “That’s an excellent summary,” said Teron. The other person in the room with him shifted position, their face still away from the camera. It didn’t look like Admiral Franks and Duggan wondered if there was a reason this person chose to remain anonymous.

  “And I’m the man chosen for the job?”

  “This is something I’m offering you, Captain Duggan. As I’m sure you’re already thinking to yourself, this isn’t going to be a simple handover of their warship. We’re going to send the Ransor-D to them, however we won’t surrender it without getting some use out of it. That warship is going straight to their home world Vempor.”

  “Without their approval?”

  “Yes, without their approval. We want you to keep it in orbit for as long as possible in order to scan the surface for signs of Dreamer activity. You’ll send the details on to us via Monitoring Station Beta.”

  “You’re expecting to see signs of warships?”

  Teron shrugged. “Anything, Captain Duggan. At this point in time, I’d gratefully take whatever you can find that ties the Ghasts to the Dreamers.”

  “What if there’s nothing?”

  “It’ll go some way to alleviating our concerns.”

  “Just to be clear - you want me to fly the Cadaveron to Vempor, do a few circuits to look for signs of a Ghast-Dreamer alliance and then come home?”