“That’s what it sounds like.”
McGlashan gave her console a familiar pat. “They’ll have to get past this old bird, first.”
Duggan laughed. “That they will. And once we’ve run out of missiles, we’ll strafe them from close-up with our Bulwarks.”
“If that fails, we’ll ram them, sir. Like we did in the good old days. Or set off all the nukes in the hold and go out in an eight-gigaton blaze of glory.” Something caught her eye and she leaned forward intently over one of her screens and began to make a series of command gestures to the mainframe. “Cancel, damnit, cancel!” she said.
“What’s happening?” asked Duggan, crossing over to look.
“It’s the Archimedes, sir. It’s emptied the first two memory arrays and now it’s deleting them.”
“Can you stop it?”
“No, sir. The flagship’s AI operates at the rank of Admiral. I don’t have anything like the authority to prevent it.”
“Get Monsey here immediately!” Duggan said.
“I’m sending for her now.”
“Admiral Slender warned me against digging through the databanks. Seems like he didn’t think his warning was sufficient.”
“Databanks one and two are now deleted from our memory arrays. Three and four are still intact. It hasn’t finished downloading those yet. There’s not long left until it’s done.”
Monsey arrived, looking tired. “What’s the matter, sir?”
“The Archimedes is deleting our data. Can you stop it?”
“Yes, sir. I can hack in and block their access to the delete commands. They’ll know immediately what I’ve done. Given time, I could write some code to hide my tracks. It’ll take days to make something halfway decent. Even then it won’t fool the AI for long. They’ll find out what’s happened eventually.”
“Can we copy databanks three and four into another area of the mainframe? Or hide it in the backend core?”
“A nice idea, except it won’t work. The Archimedes has the data locked while the transfer takes place. I could run you a copy, but again it’ll set the alarms ringing.”
“Very well, soldier. That will be all.” Duggan knew there was a chance he might be able to talk himself out of a court martial, even with Admiral Slender gunning for his arrest. The Space Corps judiciary was proud of its impartiality. Monsey would be a much easier target.
When Monsey had gone, McGlashan spoke quietly. “Sir, do we have any right to know what’s in the databanks? Shouldn’t we let someone else deal with it?”
Duggan pushed his fingers through his short-cropped hair. “You might be right, Commander. Still, it doesn’t sit well with me that I’m being told to risk my life and the lives of my soldiers and crew without knowing why it’s happening. Information is everything. If I don’t have it, I can’t make the best decisions. Besides, I’m captain of this vessel until I’m told otherwise and it’s incumbent upon me to learn everything I can about its capabilities. Secrecy be damned!”
“You might push it too far, sir.”
“That I might.” He grinned. “However, I have not once received a direct order telling me that I am not allowed to find out the secrets of the ESS Crimson. I have simply been ordered to stop my efforts to hack the databanks.”
“Databanks which will shortly be cleaned out of anything useful.”
“I need to think on the matter,” he said. “At the very least, I’m relieved the Crimson is no longer the only receptacle for that information. They are sending the data to our war labs for analysis.”
“They might think to make copies this time, and use it to make a few new engines and disruptors.”
“I’m sure that’s on the agenda, Commander.” Duggan returned to his own console and checked through a number of status reports. “How far did you get with updating our databases from the repositories on the Archimedes?”
“Uh, it kind of fell off the radar, sir. We’ve got all we need to know about the latest Ghast ships and weaponry. The guys below wanted some TV that wasn’t over fifty years old, so I’ve done my best to help them out. They deserve it.” She shuffled uncomfortably.
“You’ve spent the time getting fifty years of TV?”
“It’s good for morale, sir.”
Duggan shook his head and paged through the updates to the Crimson’s databases. It looked to be in order. At least if they were given a chance to fight again, they’d have the latest information on all of the known Ghast ships. It would be invaluable assistance to know which ones were reported have the latest disruptors, beam weapons and missile systems.
“Let’s have a look at the secure data on the war,” he said to himself. His rank allowed him to access much that would otherwise be censored for wider release. It wasn’t seen as good for morale to give exact numbers of casualties to the public. In addition to that, news about the destruction of a spacecraft would often be buried for a time.
“Does it say what happened on Charistos, sir?” asked McGlashan.
“The Ghasts detonated a series of warheads in the upper atmosphere. It caused the air to ignite all the way to ground level. They’re still analysing the exact weapons used. We’ve never seen them before.”
“Hopefully we’ll never see them again. Have the Confederation got anything similar?”
“Nope. Not unless they’re keeping it secret. We’ve never had to develop anything suitable to wipe out an entire planet before. The nukes we’re carrying would do a pretty good job of knocking out a few cities, just not an entire planet.”
“I don’t know what I’d think if we were told to deploy them onto the surface of a populated planet.”
“Nor I, Commander. But you know what? If it was a choice between blowing the bastards up or losing the war, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d have to come to terms with it later.”
“I wanted to be a captain once. To take charge of my own vessel and go out there to stick it to the Ghasts. Now I don’t think I’d be strong enough.”
“I’m an old bastard, Commander. Old and cynical. One day you’ll be just like me.”
Duggan’s words lightened the mood and McGlashan laughed. “Twenty years until then, sir.”
“Fifteen, Commander. Only fifteen.”
McGlashan leaned closer, her brow furrowed. “You’re still logged in to the Archimedes with the Crimson’s authority instead of your own.”
“It doesn’t really matter. I’m permitted to do it this way if I choose.”
“What do these menu options here mean? The ones with multiple asterisks?”
“I’m not sure. That would generally indicate a secured file with extra encryption.”
“Like the secret stuff?”
“It could be. Or maybe stuff that’s been hidden from normal view so as not to clutter up something more important.”
“Captain-level stuff.”
“No, Commander. I wouldn’t expect to see these files.”
“What’s that?” She pointed at one of the options.
“Pay scales. I already know what you’re paid, Commander.”
“There’s an option for Admiral Teron up there. The file is unlocked.”
Duggan wasn’t really interested in what Teron got paid. He returned to the top-level menu. “There might be a problem with the file security. I should let the Archimedes know.”
“I don’t think there’s a problem with it, sir. The Crimson was something new at the time. Something special. It would make sense for it to have high-level access authority.”
Duggan thought for a moment and then queried the command access level. “You’re right. We’ve got clearance at a level just short of Fleet Admiral. Higher even than Admiral Teron. The Crimson is so old that no one seems to realise that it can act beyond the authority of a full Admiral. Otherwise they’d have revoked it immediately. Or at least as soon as they’d found someone able to do so.”
“That’s enough access to do a lot of things.”
“Yes, Commander. A lot of th
ings.”
Duggan started a query to discover anything that the Archimedes might be holding on the Crimson or the Hynus project.
“Can you include the word Dreamers in the search as well, sir?”
“I’ve added it.” He kept his eyes on the screen. There was no immediate response, which didn’t bode well.
“They’ve finished off databanks three and four,” said McGlashan. “The delete command will be coming soon. Here we go - they didn’t hang around. You can stop it if you want, sir.”
The irony that a warship which had been lost for more than fifty years technically outranked the Space Corps’ flagship wasn’t lost on Duggan. “I’d better not try it,” he said. “It’s not something that would go unnoticed.”
“I think you’re already treading that line, sir.”
“I can cover my tracks when I’m looking for something as simple as a data file. If I countermanded the Archimedes’ AI, that would be pretty easy to spot.”
His query completed and a list flashed up on his screen, each file represented by a serial code that gave away nothing about the contents. There was a lot of information to check and the longer he took looking, the greater the chance that the Archimedes’ AI would notice something was amiss. It was usual for even the moderately secret datafiles to be scanned regularly for locks that would indicate they were being viewed. If the Crimson’s mainframe was found accessing something it shouldn’t be, it wouldn’t take long to put two and two together, at which point Fleet Admiral Slender would be on the comms, asking some pointed questions.
“For a vessel we have so little information about, there’re a hell of a lot of files relating to it. Big ones.”
“Can you pull them across?”
Duggan grimaced. “Not quickly. If I open up a wide data channel, someone onboard the Archimedes will start asking questions. If I open up a narrow channel, we’ll be here all week and that’ll increase the chance that a file lock will be discovered.”
“It’s not worth a court martial, sir.”
He swore. “You’re right, Commander, it’s not. I don’t want to give Admiral Slender the pleasure of seeing me receive a dishonourable discharge.” He exited the menu and disconnected from the Archimedes’ databanks.
“Sir? You’re not going to believe this.”
“What is it?”
“All four databanks have repopulated. Everything is back as it was before the Archimedes deleted it all.”
“That can’t be right,” said Duggan. The lists that had reappeared on his own screen told him that McGlashan wasn’t mistaken. “Are we receiving a transmission from the flagship?”
“Nothing, sir. They couldn’t get the data back to us so quickly even if they wanted to.”
“Some automatic undelete command to restore the data from a hidden cache?”
“Definitely not. There’s no sign of an automatic command running anywhere on the system.”
The answer came to Duggan. “Check the interface between the front and back cores of the Crimson.”
“I think you’ve got it, sir. We’ve had three exabytes of data pushed through one of the links. Shame I can’t see any further into the secondary core. I would love to know what’s going on there.”
“Any sign the Archimedes realises what’s happened?”
“None, sir. The AI probably thinks everything’s hunky-dory.”
Lieutenant Chainer arrived, looking like he could happily sleep for another two days. He had a coffee with him and the smell drifted into the bridge, far more appetising than the taste. “Hello, sir. I hope everything went well.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. The Admiral and I have disengaged for the moment.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Chainer accessed his console and began to run through his rote checks. He jumped up and started coughing, spraying coffee over the floor. “Sir, fission signatures! Five big ones! They’re coming in with no discernible pattern around Dion-983. There’s nothing on the flight plans to say they’re ours.”
“Get Lieutenant Breeze up here at once,” Duggan barked. “Hail the Archimedes. I don’t care if they already know. Commander McGlashan, prepare the weapons systems. What’ve we got Lieutenant Chainer?”
Chainer’s coffee fell to the floor in his haste, spreading a pool of the thick liquid under his feet. “Negative confirmation yet, sir. I’m scanning them up now. Two Cadaverons and one Oblivion.”
“What about the others? Tell me, Lieutenant!”
“Another Oblivion. A third Cadaveron breaking out of lightspeed.”
Duggan looked at the feeds. The fifth vessel arrived in local space. The Crimson’s databanks tried to match up the dimensions against known Ghast warships and produced a list of possibilities.
“One new Oblivion, the other four unrecognized. They’re either building four for every one of ours, or we’re just a minor foe on the edge of an empire.”
“How did they find us?” asked McGlashan.
“I wish I knew, Commander. I wish I knew.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
All across the bridge, screens exploded into life. The comms burst into a frantic cacophony of signals and messages as the Space Corps fleet tried desperately to coordinate a response to the threat. Duggan knew the Archimedes main comms room had over thirty people inside and he pictured them struggling with the tide of information. Lieutenant Breeze arrived, already aware that something was wrong.
“Lieutenant Breeze to your post,” Duggan said loudly. “Lieutenant Chainer. I need you to paint us the picture. Commander McGlashan, you will fire Lambdas when ready upon any Ghast vessel that comes close enough.”
“Sir, I’ve got one Oblivion and one Cadaveron ahead of us and closing. They’re going straight for the Archimedes. There’s one more Cadaveron coming around Dion-983. It’s fast. Four minutes until it can engage our flagship. The Anderlecht Extermination is almost in range of it. The third Cadaveron missed its mark and entered local space behind the planet. They’re out of sensor sight. From the positioning data I’ve got from their fission engines, I estimate between six and eight minutes till it can engage. The second Oblivion is already firing at the Precept. I’m tracking six long range missiles.”
“Commander, prioritise the approaching Oblivion. That’s what the Archimedes will be aiming for as well. We don’t want to divide our firepower.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Keep on it, Lieutenant Chainer. I’ll take over the comms to the Archimedes.”
“Aye, sir.”
Duggan pushed the Crimson’s sub-light engines to one hundred percent, angrily shrugging off the now-familiar dizziness. The Archimedes wasn’t a slow vessel, but it fell quickly behind. Duggan had no idea how the Ghasts had managed to find them so far away from the usual arena of conflict between the two sides. They always seemed to be two steps ahead. They always had something in reserve, or a new weapon to keep the Corps ships on the back foot.
“Flagship Archimedes, this is Captain Duggan. ESS Crimson armed and ready to engage. Please instruct.”
“I’m reading you, ESS Crimson. Protect the Archimedes. Repeat, protect the Archimedes.”
“Understood. We’re moving to intercept the approaching Oblivion.”
“Anderlechts Fixation and Lambast assisting the Precept, sir,” said Chainer. “Delectable out of sensor sight. The Extermination is under fire. Shit, nearly two hundred missiles heading their way. They’ve returned with ninety-six of their own. Impacts in less than thirty seconds.”
Duggan’s mind raced through the possibilities. The two Oblivions and three Cadaverons were outgunned by the Corps ships in the vicinity. The Ghasts didn’t always act in an expected manner, but they hadn’t shown themselves prone to suicide. There was only one conclusion – the enemy believed their new technology was sufficient to overcome the conventional armaments carried by the Corps vessels.
“The Archimedes will soon be within the estimated range of their new missiles,” said Chainer. “The Oblivio
n’s course indicates that’s what they’re intending. The Cadaveron’s keeping close by. I’d guess they’re going to ignore us and go for the big prize.”
“Use the disruptor as soon as we’re in range.”
“That’ll take our fission engines close to zero.”
“We’re not planning on going anywhere, Lieutenant.”
“They’ve launched!” said Chainer. “Four missiles heading for the Archimedes.”
“Disruptors fired.”
“Fission engines at three percent and rising.”
“Positron output from the Oblivion has dropped to almost zero, sir.”
“Let’s get close and say hello,” said Duggan.
“The ES Precept’s taken a hit, sir. It’s hard to tell the damage through the interference from her countermeasures. She’s not close enough to fire Lambdas in response. The Extermination looks in a bad way. All six Bulwarks still firing. They’ve scored some hits. There’s a big leak from the Cadaveron nearest to them.”
The bulkhead viewscreen lit up in a flash of pure, incandescent white. The darkness of space was dispersed as countless launch ports along the Archimedes’ flank opened up to send out a dense cloud of shock drones and pulsing plasma flares.
“Get through that, you bastards!” shouted Chainer.
Duggan wasn’t convinced. These new missiles from the Ghasts had ignored their countermeasures before. It didn’t seem likely they’d start crashing into the shock drones now.
“Our Cadaveron is almost within Lambda range.”
“Hold onto our missiles. I want that Oblivion.”
The bridge lights dimmed and a spray of interference speckled across the screen. “They’ve tried to shut us down with their disruptors,” said Breeze. “They’re out of luck.”
“The Cadaveron’s launching at us. Forty missiles from their front batteries,” said Chainer. The Lieutenant was in danger of becoming swamped by information. There were times when you needed more than one comms man.
“Lieutenant Chainer, leave the weapons reports to Commander McGlashan.”
“Sir.”
“Commander, hold off the shock drones until we’re close. I don’t want us to overtake our own countermeasures. Then give us two fast bursts. Fire at the Oblivion as soon as you’re able.”
Crimson Tempest Page 20