Crimson Tempest

by Anthony James

  “Doing it now, sir,” said Breeze. “I reckon we’ll be able to break into a low lightspeed in under three hours.”

  “Low enough that they’ll be able to follow us?” Duggan asked.

  “I’d have to go with ‘yes’ on that one. Everything about this Ghast ship suggests that they’re carrying the latest and greatest.”

  “At least they didn’t shut us down like the light cruiser did to the Detriment.”

  “Maybe we didn’t get close enough for them to try,” said Duggan. “We have to stay ahead.”

  “Our chance drops with every circuit,” said Chainer. If there was a pessimist amongst the crew, it was Chainer.

  “Someone once told me that a computer can never truly produce randomness,” said Duggan. “Even the most powerful of AIs rely on an algorithm to generate something that looks random, but when you boil it down, it’s only part of an infinitely long string of numbers. Let’s see how the Cadaveron’s AI works against the randomness of a Corps captain’s brain.” With that, he swung the Crimson about and pushed the nose downwards towards the surface.

  For the next hour, Duggan changed course and speed at regular intervals, hoping that his approach would somehow allow them to elude the pursuing Cadaveron long enough for the Crimson’s fission drives to become available. The heat on the bridge was stifling and Duggan felt the sweat beading across his forehead. When he looked at Chainer, he saw the lieutenant was feeling it worse than he was, and the man had to wipe his face regularly with the sleeve of his uniform. He’d found himself a coffee from somewhere and steam rose from the tarlike surface of the liquid.

  As the minutes wore on, Duggan found himself more and more impressed with the Crimson. There were spacecraft which were difficult to control manually – generally the larger they were, the more cumbersome they became. Even a Vincent class was sluggish to respond to commands from the control console, though Duggan vaguely remembered that their hulls had initially been designed for civilian craft. It was only later they’d been adopted by the military for use in their smallest and most numerous warships. The Crimson was different – it was as if it had been designed from the ground up to be a pure-blooded hunter-killer. McGlashan had picked up on it too.

  “If we had twenty more of these we’d kick them out of the Axion sector,” she said. “Even without refitting the Lambdas.”

  “It’s something all right,” said Duggan. “Set three of these on a Cadaveron and the Ghasts would soon find out what a real challenge is.”

  In reality, the Space Corps databanks held records of at least thirty-five known Cadaverons which had been detected but not destroyed. The intel guys had tried to extrapolate the total numbers of Ghast heavy cruisers from the known quantity. The number they’d come up with was exactly fifty-eight. It had stuck in Duggan’s head for some reason. Fifty-eight. There’s someone being paid a lot of money to be so precise. I hope they’ve over-estimated. The Ghasts had bigger ships than the Cadaverons – some of them almost as large as the five-kilometre Hadron supercruisers, of which the Corps had only seven with the destruction of the ES Ulterior. So far, there’d been no direct engagement between a Hadron and a Ghast Oblivion, at least not that Duggan was aware of. He had no idea what happened around Charistos before the planet’s population was wiped out.

  “The repair bot’s brought two more sensor arrays back to functionality,” said Chainer.

  “Eleven out of thirty?” asked Duggan.

  “Aye, sir.” Chainer went quiet for a moment. It usually meant he was concentrating hard. “None-too-soon, it looks. Got a ghost of something at four thousand klicks above us, twenty degrees offset, coming on a near-intercept path.”

  Chainer fed the projected path of the Cadaveron through to Duggan’s tertiary display. Duggan hauled the Crimson’s nose around and pointed it upwards. He increased their speed to maximum and the almost impossibly heavy spacecraft accelerated hard out of the planet’s atmosphere, her nose already beginning to glow.

  “No sign of a launch yet, sir,” said McGlashan.

  “What’s our range?”

  “Borderline missile range, I’d guess. If they’ve not fired yet, I’d say we’ve made it.”

  “We’ve just had something sweep through our aft quarter engines,” said Breeze. “Efficiency down eleven percent. Looks like they got their particle beam working again.”

  It wasn’t news that Duggan wanted to hear. He checked the Crimson’s speed and did a quick calculation. With the reduced efficiency, they were still going much faster than the Detriment’s maximum velocity. That meant they should be able to outrun the Cadaveron, assuming the Ghasts weren’t able to fire the particle beam again.

  “Programme set: particle beam recharge twenty-five seconds. Begin,” he instructed the Crimson’s mainframe. Instantly, a timer began on his display, mirrored across onto McGlashan’s. The spaceship’s core was intelligent enough to account for the delay between the weapon strike and Duggan’s instruction, so when he looked at it, the countdown was already at eighteen seconds. From their earlier encounter with the Cadaveron, they’d learned that its particle beam had a much longer range than they’d expected. The problem was, he didn’t know exactly how far that range was. It would make all the difference. His brain raced through the possibilities. Although the Crimson was pulling away, he had to assume that it wouldn’t be enough and they’d take another beam hit.

  Duggan had one of those minds that could instantly evaluate the possibilities of a battlefield. As a foot soldier, he’d been able to imagine the players in combat as the pieces on a gameboard. When he’d finally pushed himself to a promotion and joined the crew of a spaceship, he’d carried the skill with him. We should be able to ride a second hit before our speed drops too low. Can we hide behind the planet’s curvature? was his first thought. He pictured the distances between the two vessels. Even if he dropped to within five klicks of the surface, he didn’t think it’d be enough. The Cadaveron was too high to be caught out by such a move.

  “Got something new coming, sir. A fission signature. Big. Very big.”

  “They’ve sent a Hadron to look for us?” asked McGlashan.

  The words had hardly left Chainer’s mouth when the Crimson’s damage displays showed a number of spikes to indicate a second particle beam hit in the same place as the first.

  “That one’s only cost us six percent,” announced Breeze.

  “Sorry to piss on your good news, but it’s not a Hadron. We’ve just had an Oblivion battleship drop into far orbit.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Have we got every damned Ghast warship in this sector looking for us?” said Duggan, his voice loud with anger. “Things must be worse than we’ve been told if they can spare a battleship way out here!”

  “Double the fun,” said Chainer to himself.

  “I think we’re beyond the range of their particle beam now,” said McGlashan.

  “Two Ghast warships hunting us in orbit cuts our chances right down,” said Duggan. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “How fast are the Oblivions?” asked Chainer. “I’ve never seen one outside of a holoscreen before.”

  “They’re plenty fast,” said Breeze. “One of our scouts pinged one at Light-N a few years ago. There were no complaints about funding cuts in the fission drive engineering division after that. Money can’t buy you time, though. Never could and it’s come far too late for us to catch up anytime soon.”

  “Yeah, the story of mankind’s destruction,” said Chainer with a snort.

  “I want no more talk of that, Lieutenant!” barked Duggan. “We can’t allow ourselves to give in to fear. We’ll beat these bastards, no matter what it takes!”

  “Aye, sir,” said Chainer quietly.

  Duggan continued to stare at his HUD. “We need to do something about that Cadaveron,” he said. “It’s the weakest of the two enemy warships.”

  “They’ll be out of sensor range in a few seconds, sir,” said Chainer.
r />   “Can you read what the enemy vessel did when it reached the cloud of shock drones?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir. They did what they normally do and crashed right through the middle of them. They’ll have picked up a few dents, but they’ll have saved a few seconds by not changing course.”

  “And they know they’re shock drones and not hull mines because the drones actively transmit, while the mines do not.”

  “Yes, and the mines fly at a known speed. They’re not sophisticated enough to fool the Ghasts’ sensors.”

  “Indeed,” said Duggan. He called up his weapon’s panel. “Twelve nukes onboard. Big ones, like you said.”

  “Long range and slow.”

  “With big old, programmable boosters,” Duggan added. He activated two of the missiles and created a speed and trajectory for them. “We need to keep that Cadaveron on our heels,” he said.

  “They’re still following,” said Chainer. “They’ll break off once we get too far ahead.”

  Duggan pulled back on the control stick, reducing the Crimson’s speed gradually until it was travelling fractionally slower than the Cadaveron. “Let’s keep them interested,” he said.

  “What’s the plan? You’re up to something,” said McGlashan. “I know when you’re up to something.”

  Duggan didn’t respond at once. His mind worked feverishly as he calculated a course that would keep the Cadaveron in a straight line behind them. He made a subtle change to their trajectory that would let the enemy close the distance between them. “On my word, I want you to release the drones,” he said.

  “Understood,” said McGlashan, staring at him with wide eyes. She’d guessed what was coming.

  “Release,” said Duggan. A moment later, he confirmed with the Crimson’s mainframe that he really did want it to fire two additional weapons from the ship’s arsenal.

  “They’re gone. Two nuclear missiles right behind.” McGlashan looked up in admiration. “Keeping a perfect pace with the drones.”

  “I don’t know if it’s possible to catch an AI napping. Pray that it is,” he said.

  “Those drones might confuse their scanners long enough,” McGlashan replied. “As long as they don’t spend too long wondering why we scattered our countermeasures without any inbound missiles.”

  Duggan found his grip tightening on the control levers, until his knuckles showed white through his skin. “Not long,” he said.

  “They didn’t go through the drone cloud, sir,” said Chainer. “They missed it by a whisker.”

  “Did they take evasive measures?”

  “Can’t tell you for definite.”

  “We’re back in particle beam range,” said McGlashan. The words hardly left her mouth before the Crimson took another hit to the rear.

  “Another four percent gone, sir,” said Breeze. “We’re pretty resistant to whatever they’re firing. The Detriment would have been floating adrift after a third hit.”

  “They’ll burn us out eventually,” said Duggan. “How long till our speed is cut to below theirs?”

  “We’re almost there, I’d say.”

  “Fire drones on my command,” Duggan said calmly.

  “Sir,” acknowledged McGlashan. “We’ll be within missile range in less than one minute. I don’t think they’ll hold back this time.”

  “Still waiting,” said Duggan, his eyes darting across a dozen readouts in front of him.

  “Their particle beam will be ready in ten seconds.”

  “Release,” he said.

  “Drones away. Nukes with them.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed, ladies and gentlemen. This is our last chance to surprise them before we have to slug it out with missiles.”

  “Their particle beam got us again,” Breeze said.

  Duggan checked over his console. The Crimson’s speed had dropped below the Cadaveron’s maximum sub-light velocity. They’d soon be a sitting duck. The tension built. None of the four said anything as they waited for fate to roll its dice.

  “Not long till they can launch missiles,” said McGlashan. “They’re approaching the cloud.”

  Duggan clenched his jaw. “Come on you bastards,” he said.

  “I’m detecting gamma rays at the extremes of our sensor range, sir,” said Chainer. “Lots of gamma rays.”

  “The Cadaveron?”

  “Can’t see. No, wait, it’s changed course and speed. It’s heading away at an oblique and slowing down.”

  Duggan jumped up and punched the air. “How’d you alien murderers like that?” he bellowed. “Two gigatons of the Space Corps’ finest.” He recovered his composure and dropped back into his seat. “Bringing us around. I want every Lambda cluster ready to go!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  With a twist of the control stick, Duggan brought the Crimson’s nose about, bringing the vessel in a tight curve, a few hundred klicks above the barren planet. The giddiness from the life-support delay hit him and he shook it off. The spaceship had taken significant damage to its gravity drive but it was still fast. Soon, they’d closed in enough for Chainer to determine more details about the Ghast ship and he brought up a zoomed image on the bulkhead screen. The Cadaveron was travelling at reduced speed, and it rotated slowly as it hurtled through the atmosphere. The dull silver of its exterior was blackened and rippled near to the cone-shaped nose.

  “I was expecting more damage,” said Chainer, hints of disappointment in his voice.

  “There’s not enough oxygen for it to have taken much blast damage,” said Duggan. “I’ll bet it’s shielded to hell against gamma rays as well.” He smiled. “Just not enough to block out two gigatons detonating off its armour.” In truth, Duggan didn’t know if the nuclear blasts had knocked out all of the Cadaveron’s weapons systems. Its engines were clearly offline, but other than that, he could only guess at the extent of the damage. He turned to McGlashan. “Fire.”

  The Crimson could bring twelve of its eighteen Lambda batteries to bear. “Full broadside on its way,” she said, her voice tight. The missile tracker became a sea of red dots, which rocketed away through space. One hundred and forty-four Lambda missiles cut through the vacuum at an awe-inspiring velocity. The missiles had been built decades before and the engines failed on three, leaving the warheads to drift slowly behind the others. The remainder of the weapons functioned as intended, their guidance systems sending them on an intentionally uneven path to their goal. Around the Ghast ship, star-bright bursts of white appeared and blue tracers appeared from the ten port-side Vule cannons.

  “They’re not completely helpless,” said McGlashan.

  “Fire,” said Duggan, his voice crisp and clear.

  The Crimson sprayed out its second broadside and this time all of the Lambdas activated. The first wave met the withering storm of Vule fire and the concussive bursts of the Cadaveron’s plasma flares. Dozens of the missiles were shredded, but four of them penetrated the enemy countermeasures, setting off a row of thumping white explosions along the spaceship’s flank.

  “We’re locked and loaded, sir,” said McGlashan.

  Duggan didn’t look away from the viewscreen. “Fire.”

  Another six missiles impacted with the Cadaveron. The heavy cruiser had a vast array of countermeasures, but it would normally have been accompanied by a number of much smaller Hunter spacecraft to act as a buffer between itself and incoming fire. Out here in the depths of uncontested space, it had no such outriders. When the light faded from the detonations of the second wave, the huge rip in its hull was clear to see. Still its Vule cannons continued to fire and the plasma flares scattered all around without cease.

  “Fire,” said Duggan, his face set with determination.

  The third wave crashed into the stricken Ghast vessel, two of the Lambdas plunging into the tear in its hull. This time the blasts almost ripped the spacecraft in two and Duggan realised that he should have conserved his ammunition. He watched the fourth wave of missiles land all across the three-kilom
etre length of the heavy cruiser. As white faded to black, the Crimson’s sensors showed a scene of twisted hunks of alloy drifting without purpose across the star-strewn sky. The crew stared at the image for a while. Even in a war as ruthless as this one, it was sobering to imagine the death they’d just wrought amongst the enemy.

  “I’ve been told the Ghasts have fifty-eight such vessels,” said Duggan. “And now they have only fifty-seven.” He reached down and ran his fingers along the edge of his console. “It’s my wish that we get the chance to destroy each and every one of them.”

  “Amen to that,” said Chainer.

  “We’ve still got an Oblivion battleship somewhere in orbit looking for us, sir,” said McGlashan.

  “We have, Commander. At least we’ve given ourselves a chance to evade it for long enough until our fission engines are ready to go.”

  “To hell with that, sir!” she replied with a grin. “I say we go hunting for them!”

  Duggan grinned in return and sat in his seat. He took the control sticks and chose a course and speed at random. He looked at Monsey. She’d put her keyboard to one side and her eyes were still on the image of the disintegrating Ghast ship. “What do you think, soldier?”

  “Let’s get them, sir.”

  Chainer breathed out noisily, the sound of a hundred tensions being released at once. “One kill and everybody goes crazy.” He shook his head and hunkered down over his screen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  For all his words, Duggan had no intention of looking for the Oblivion battleship. They’d just pulled off a good win, but he wasn’t stupid or foolhardy enough to throw his ship and his crew against one of the prides of the Ghast fleet. Instead, he crossed his fingers and hoped that the Crimson’s mainframe could repair the fission drives before they caught sight of the battleship.

  “Think we should divert our repairs back to the gravity drive, sir?” asked Breeze. “It’ll give us extra flexibility if the Oblivion finds us.”