Crimson Tempest

by Anthony James

  “We could be damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” said Duggan. “We’ll either get lucky or we won’t.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in luck, sir?” asked McGlashan.

  Duggan snorted. “I don’t, Commander. However, as captain of this vessel, I’m required to give due consideration to everything.”

  McGlashan laughed. “Whatever you say, sir.”

  Over the course of the next six hours, Duggan sat almost unmoving as he directed the Crimson in an unpredictable orbit around the planet. Most of the time he kept the vessel low to the surface in the hope that the curvature would act as an additional barrier against detection. Although the atmosphere was thin, it was sufficient to keep the hull of the spacecraft constantly at the upper end of its design tolerances. As time progressed, Duggan became increasingly aware that he was pushing himself to his own physical limits. He’d not slept since the Detriment had been destroyed and even then, he’d only been able to snatch an hour or two of fitful rest. The crew suffered as well and all of their heads had begun to droop. Monsey had taken herself back to her quarters for some shuteye.

  “Here you go, sir. Another cup of the finest in-flight coffee you’re ever likely to taste.” It was Lieutenant Breeze. The man leaned down to put a cup of the dark, steaming liquid next to Duggan, balancing the cup precariously next to a touch panel. A half-eaten plate of brown mush was left forgotten nearby.

  Duggan neither knew nor cared if the panel was waterproof and he took a sip of the coffee. His mouth was so bored with the taste that he could no longer decide if it was good or bad – only the memory of his first few mouthfuls hours ago told him that it was criminally poor.

  “Drink much more of that and you’ll not be able to sleep no matter how badly your body wants to,” said McGlashan.

  “It feels like I’m immune to the caffeine,” he replied. He turned his head towards Breeze. The lieutenant had just about made himself comfortable in his seat. “How are the fission drives coming along?” Duggan asked.

  “Three hours and I reckon we might be ready to pull off another great escape.”

  “They’ll call me Lucky John Duggan if we last that long.”

  “That’s got a ring to it,” McGlashan said. “Lucky Captain Duggan.”

  “Don’t push it, Commander,” he replied.

  “What’s going to happen to us when we get back?” she asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  Duggan shrugged. “All I can go on is what I was told. There’s information somewhere buried in the ship’s core that we need access to. Whether it’s useful or not, I don’t know.”

  “Think Monsey can crack it? She doesn’t seem to have made much progress.”

  “Don’t be fooled by her appearance. I’ve checked her files – she’s had an interesting past to say the least. She’s got form when it comes to cracking military hardware. And don’t forget – this is a Space Corps warship. There won’t be easy backdoors into the core that any kid with a keyboard could play guessing games to get through.”

  McGlashan raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like our soldier has an intriguing background.”

  “She’s as well-qualified as anyone to do what I’ve asked her to do,” said Duggan.

  “It seems a bit hush-hush to me. The Crimson, I mean,” said Breeze. “We all feel it. Are you sure what you’re looking for isn’t better off staying hidden, sir?”

  “I’d rather be punished for knowing too much than for knowing too little.”

  “What will happen to the ship once they’ve interrogated it?” asked McGlashan. “I’ve already grown fond of her.”

  “If they’ve got a spare shipyard they’ll probably re-fit the Lambdas and the Bulwarks, then send it out to join the rest of the fleet.”

  “With a new captain and crew?”

  “Yes, Commander. With a new captain and crew. Even without my current unpopularity amongst certain factions within the Space Corps, they couldn’t justify having us sitting on our behinds while they refit the Crimson. We’ll be put onto whatever Gunner they have going spare and told to go kill some Ghasts in the Axion sector.”

  “At least that’ll be an improvement over what we’ve been doing up till recently. You were wasted when they had the Detriment searching through the fringes of Confederation space.”

  “I don’t think anything will be good from now on, folks. Charistos is gone. They Ghasts have opened the gates. It’s only a matter of time until they find Angax. Even if they don’t, their advances in AI cores means it’ll be two or three years until they can follow us through low lightspeed. Humanity is pretty much screwed unless something changes and soon.”

  “Is it really so bad, sir?” asked McGlashan.

  “I don’t know, Commander. Probably. Maybe. I’m tired. I’ve never met a man or woman who could look on the bright side when they’ve been deprived of sleep.”

  “Yeah,” she said, unconvinced.

  “I wish we had some long-range comms to pick up what’s happening,” said Chainer. “It seems like the repair bot’s been given a long priority list and the main comms are somewhere in the middle. I don’t know which shit-for-brains thought that the comms for a stranded ship were a medium priority, but I’d like to punch him in the face. The autopilot’s right at the bottom of the list.”

  “It’ll take longer to sort out the bot than it will be to let it get on with what it’s doing,” said Duggan. “And we can’t spare anyone to re-programme it. The Crimson’s core doesn’t recognize all of the repair routines and technologies on the bot either, so we can’t get the ship to do our dirty work.”

  “I understand that, sir. It’s just frustrating, you know? I don’t like being blind. It feels like we’re facing half the Ghast fleet with both arms tied behind our backs.”

  “One way or the other it won’t be too much longer now, Lieutenant. Keep focused and we’ll get out of here in one piece.”

  Chainer nodded vigorously, like a man desperate to convince himself that something was true. “You can count on me, sir.”

  “This the moment when our sensors pick up the Oblivion,” said McGlashan, her eyes glittering with mischief.

  “Ha ha. Not this time, Commander,” said Chainer. “We’re clear all across the board.”

  “Have you ever come up against an Oblivion, sir?” asked Breeze. “I’ve heard about them and read up on the files. Sometimes you just need to see one in the flesh to know what you’re up against.”

  “I saw one of their first prototypes. Maybe eighteen years ago, when the Ghasts started to build bigger to try and match us. That one wasn’t much larger than a modern Cadaveron. The Hadron Devastator destroyed it way out in a place nobody’s heard of. It was one-sided, but the Oblivion soaked up a hell of a lot of missile fire before it broke apart. I think it would be a close-run thing between the Devastator and one of the newer Oblivions. The latest two Ghast battleships the Corps is aware of were calculated to be similar in volume to the Hadrons.”

  “How many Oblivions are there?”

  “Last I heard, we know of twelve. Three of them are more than ten years old, the other nine are newer and larger. We have to assume they’re carrying the latest weaponry.”

  “With seven Hadrons and the Archimedes left to face them,” said Breeze. “And a few dozen Anderlechts.”

  “They’re building faster than we are, Lieutenant. We had our chance to go after them more aggressively years ago. We might have blown the opportunity to finish the war on the winning side.”

  Monsey returned to the bridge. She offered a smart salute and sat cross-legged on the floor with her keyboard. She looked hardly more refreshed than when she’d left five hours ago.

  “Not get much sleep, soldier?” asked Duggan.

  “Not really, sir. It always happens when I’ve got a hard nut to crack. The numbers and possibilities spin around in my head and won’t give me peace.” She grinned. “Makes it a bastard to get any sleep.”

  “I’ll leave you to it
,” said Duggan. “I’d recommend a few cups of this fine coffee to overcome any fatigue.”

  Monsey grunted in response, clearly not buying it. Moments later, she was lost to the world once more, her keyboard clattering as she continued her game of cat and mouse with the mainframe’s anti-ingress codes.

  Duggan concentrated once more on keeping the Crimson’s course as erratic as possible. Two hours passed and he found that tiredness was lulling him into a state of relaxation. The danger of the situation hadn’t gone away, but he knew he was close to falling asleep.

  “Getting a ping,” said Chainer. “High and wide – something much bigger than us.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to hear, Lieutenant,” snapped Duggan, reading the coordinates that Chainer sent through to him.

  “Just telling it like it is, sir.”

  “I know, Lieutenant. I’m just tired is all.”

  “No worries, sir. It’s definitely the Oblivion. It knows we’re here and it’s coming around.”

  “Can you get a scan of it?” asked Duggan, changing course to point the Crimson directly away.

  “Size and approximate mass only. Over four thousand metres long. Nearly a billion and a half cubic metres. I wouldn’t like to drop it on my foot, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Breeze, give me some good news.”

  “Wish I had some, sir. Fission engines at seventy-eight percent. Another fifty minutes till we’re able to do anything other than crawl away.”

  “We don’t have fifty minutes,” said Chainer. “We’ve got another fast one. The Ghasts are closing on us.”

  “Not enough data on their vessel to determine when they’ll be able to fire,” said McGlashan.

  “I wonder how we’d fare with full sub-lights,” mused Duggan aloud.

  “We’d piss all over them, I reckon,” said Breeze.

  Duggan had a thought, one he realised he should have had several hours ago. “Lieutenant Breeze, what are you basing your calculations on for when we’ll be able to reach sufficient velocity to escape?”

  “Standard metrics, sir. We’ll be able to hit high Light-A. Low Light-B in five minutes. Even a Cadaveron would have a good shot at reading our trail at that speed. I would hate to guess what the Oblivion could manage. We don’t want to lead it to the Juniper.”

  “Indeed not, Lieutenant. On the other hand, there’s nothing that’s particularly usual about this spacecraft, is there?”

  “I suppose not,” said Breeze. “It’s old military tech though. The parameters are easy enough to predict.”

  “Military tech,” repeated Duggan, without elaborating.

  Without warning, the lights on the bridge dimmed, their intensity dropping until the crew were almost in complete darkness. Before any of them could say a word, the lights strengthened and were at their normal brightness less than a second later.

  “They’ve tried to shut us down, sir. We’re not even in missile range yet.”

  “They must have the same weapons systems that the Kraven light cruiser we destroyed a few weeks ago used against the Detriment,” said Duggan. He cursed loudly.

  “With a much better range on it as well,” said McGlashan.

  “They’ll have at least one particle beam to add to the fun,” said Duggan. “They’ll rip us apart if they get close enough to use it.” Without turning from his own screens, he spoke to Lieutenant Breeze. “Point us at an offset somewhere between here and the Juniper and power up the fission drive.”

  “Aye, sir. Bringing them up.”

  “Estimated time?”

  “Calculating it now. Only thirty seconds. Colour me impressed.”

  Duggan activated a channel to the infantry quarters. “Alert. We’re going to attempt lightspeed in less than thirty seconds.” There was no time to fill them in on the details. They’d be scrambling for something solid to hold onto – most of them had served long enough to remember a bumpy ride from fission drive activation.

  Monsey spoke up, catching Duggan by surprise. “There’s some proper grunt to this backend core, sir. Whatever it is, it’s not fifty years old. It’s modern and real fast. I mean like nothing I’ve seen before fast. Its utilisation went up to nearly one hundred percent just as the Ghasts tried to cut our power.”

  “Questions with no answers,” muttered Duggan.

  “They’re lighting up their fission drives as well, sir,” said Breeze. “I wonder if they’re going to try and follow us.”

  “Another power surge,” said McGlashan. “Coming now.”

  Once again, the lights dimmed. This time they didn’t go nearly as low and came back almost at once.

  “Another utilisation spike,” said Monsey.

  “They’ve launched something, sir,” said McGlashan. “A single warhead from the looks of it.”

  “Anything to add, Lieutenant Chainer?” asked Duggan.

  “I see it, sir. It must have a greater range than their usual missiles. Assuming it reaches us.”

  “I think we can safely assume that it’s going to blow the crap out of us if it gets here in time. Another piece of something new.”

  “It’s coming at us incredibly fast. Fifteen seconds to impact.”

  Breeze laughed, the sound without any humour. “Fifteen seconds till we can go.”

  “The Bulwarks aren’t targeting the missile. They’re not even registering it as an incoming object,” said McGlashan. She breathed out. “Life can be interesting around here.”

  “Ten, nine…” said Breeze.

  “Come on,” said Duggan.

  “Dropping countermeasures,” said McGlashan. “Something makes me think they’re not going to work.”

  “Seven, six…”

  “More countermeasures away.”

  “Five, four…”

  “It’s already through the first drone cloud.”

  “Three, two…”

  “Damn them to hell!”

  “One, impact…”

  The impact didn’t come. There was a howling sound and the spacecraft shuddered. Duggan felt something clutch at his innards and twist them hard. His chest tightened and he struggled against the violent urge to throw up whatever was in his stomach. He was faintly aware of someone retching and he saw McGlashan with her head bowed and her hands to her face. The physical stresses on his body built and Duggan thought he might pass out. Moments before he lost consciousness, the sensation receded, though not as quickly as he wanted.

  “Are we hit?” asked Chainer, his voice thick as if he’d bitten his tongue.

  “Hull integrity at near maximum,” said Breeze a few seconds later. “Fission drives down to thirty percent and climbing.”

  “We made it,” said McGlashan. “Just barely. I can’t believe the Bulwarks couldn’t see that missile. They’re definitely all online and operational.”

  The Crimson’s life support systems caught up and Duggan shook his head to clear away the fog. Something caught his eye. “Lieutenant Breeze, can you confirm my velocity readout?”

  “This can’t be right. I’m getting us at Light-P. With a quarter of the drive awaiting re-routing.”

  “Lieutenant Chainer, do you have enough sensors to get an accurate reading from the surrounding stars?”

  “Not accurate, sir, but I should be able to get something close enough. Let’s see what we have.” Chainer’s voice was stronger and he looked alert as he worked out an approximation of their speed. “Light-P it is. Give or take.”

  Breeze whistled with the appreciation of a man who lived and breathed engines. “We’ll be at the Juniper in ten days at this rate. Except I’ve programmed us to drop back onto the gravity drive three days from here, in case we were followed.”

  “Great, we’ll have to go through that dislocation again,” said Chainer. “Remind me not to eat anything beforehand.”

  “That Oblivion won’t be following us at this speed,” said Duggan. “Re-route and point us straight at the Juniper.”

  “On it now, sir.”

 
“Ten weeks out and here was I thinking it would take us six months to get back,” said Duggan. “Instead it’s only ten days. I would kill for some answers.”

  “Working on it, sir,” volunteered Monsey. She’d recovered quickly from the burst into lightspeed and had resumed typing as if nothing had happened.

  Duggan opened a comms channel to the soldiers’ quarters. “Sergeant Ortiz, please report.”

  There was a pause for a few moments. “This is Sergeant Ortiz. We got a bit shook up. The pride of a couple of the guys got hurt. Otherwise, no injuries.” Another pause. “A bit of a rough ride, that one, sir.”

  “My apologies, Sergeant. I’ll try and give you more notice next time. No guarantees – you know how it is. Let your squad know we’re on our way back to the Juniper. Ten days.”

  “Aye, sir. Ten days sounds good to me.”

  Duggan cut the channel and looked over at the people on the bridge. “I’m going for some sleep. Don’t break anything while I’m away.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Six hours later, the alarm bleeped a discordant sound that was perfectly engineered to ensure it was impossible to sleep through.

  “Off!” Duggan commanded and the alarm fell silent. He lay still for a few minutes to give his head time to clear. His body needed more than the six hours he’d allowed it, but there’d be time to catch up later. As long as he could function without making any stupid errors, it would be sufficient.

  The Captain’s Quarters on the Crimson were just about what he’d expected them to be – cramped and barely comfortable. Duggan was used to it and didn’t need anything more, though it would sometimes be nice to stay in a place a little bit more luxurious.

  “When I get some vacation,” he grunted, rolling off the narrow bed.

  A few minutes later, he reached the bridge. McGlashan and Chainer were nowhere to be seen.

  “They left a few minutes after you,” said Breeze. He looked utterly exhausted. “My turn when they get back.”

  “Go on now, Lieutenant. Get some rest – you deserve it. There’s no risk of interception at the speed we’re going.”

  Breeze pushed himself to his feet. “I won’t argue with you.” He mumbled. With a yawn, he half-stumbled away from the bridge to his bed, leaving Duggan and Monsey on the bridge.