“What’s wrong, sir?” asked McGlashan.
“The cylinder isn’t a weapon,” said Duggan with certainty. “It’s a beacon of some sort and it’s just started signalling.”
“You think something’s going to come in response?” asked Chainer.
“Yes, Lieutenant, something very bad. Those three Dreamer ships aren’t going anywhere – they’re simply keeping their distance.”
Chainer’s face went pale as he figured out what Duggan was getting at. “Crap,” he said.
Breeze still didn’t get it. “What’s going to happen?”
“If I’m right, they’re using the beacon as a target and they’re going to destroy this planet in the very near future.”
Breeze’s mouth fell open and he swore loudly.
“We’re in the airlock, sir,” said Ortiz. “I’m bringing the ramp up as we speak.”
“Get to quarters and pray I’m wrong about what I think is about to happen,” said Duggan.
Ortiz wasn’t the type to ask questions and the comms channel went dead at once. Duggan dragged the control bars back along their runners. Engines howled and the warship burst upwards into the sky. On the ground below, the alien beacon sent out a steady stream of pings. When the ES Lightning was a thousand kilometres away, the beacon received a reply.
CHAPTER NINE
“SOMETHING’S JUST ANSWERED,” said Chainer with alarm. “It looked like a standard handshake response.”
“Want me to prepare lightspeed?” asked Breeze.
“There’s no point, Lieutenant. We won’t have time – we’ll need to get far enough away on the gravity drive.”
The ES Lightning felt pitifully slow with its engines emasculated by the power draw of the stealth modules and the distance counter didn’t increase with anything like the speed required to escape the debris of an exploding planet. Making a snap decision, Duggan disengaged the stealth systems. The power gauges of the engines rocketed upwards to indicate the availability of far greater reserves. He tapped into these immediately, utilising everything available. The distance counter became a blur of numbers as the spaceship tore away from Corai. Duggan’s mind and hands worked in harmony, plotting courses and possibilities. His crew spoke suggestions and ideas, letting him know the positions of the enemy warships, in order that he could head on a trajectory as far from them as possible. Then, a beam of pure, total darkness came from the depths of space and struck Corai at the exact location of the beacon.
“Here it comes,” said Chainer, his voice flat and distant.
The planet Corai exploded. The surface fractured, a myriad of tiny lines appearing everywhere. The cracks appeared small on the bulkhead viewscreen, when in reality they were kilometres wide. The cracks separated and huge chunks of the planet broke away. From this distance, the destruction appeared ponderous and lazy, as if it were happening in slow motion. The larger chunks splintered again, each smaller piece continuing to do the same, until the viewscreen was filled with a hundred billion shards, each one travelling at a tremendous speed. At the centre of it, the comparatively small part of Corai’s core which remained hot lit up the vacuum with a series of reds and dull oranges.
“Some of those pieces are travelling quicker than we are,” said Chainer.
Duggan wrenched his eyes away from the spectacle of an ancient planet’s demise. He’d seen it twice before and there was something sad about it, even when it didn’t result in a billion deaths. His tactical display was zoomed out as far as it would go and it was filled with a crowd of objects, varying in size and speed. Some of these objects collided with each other and became smaller objects. Others raced outwards from the centre towards the ES Lightning. The ship’s AI highlighted at least a hundred items on the display which it calculated as threats. Some of them were travelling substantially faster than the warship and Duggan tried to figure out which course would avoid them. If they’d been equipped with Lambdas it would have been a simple matter to destroy these chunks of rock. With the weapons stripped out, the only option was evasion.
“Recommend we go to lightspeed or activate stealth,” said McGlashan.
“There’s little chance of the enemy detecting us amongst this mess,” Duggan replied. “I want to see what they’re up to. They’ve just destroyed a planet and I want to know why.”
The tactical screen showed the first piece of the planet go flying past them at a distance of three hundred kilometres – a tiny margin in the circumstances.
“Look at the size of that!” said Breeze.
“Three trillion tonnes, I make it,” said McGlashan.
“There’s another one at twelve hundred klicks distance,” said Chainer. “Fifty klicks across at its widest point.”
More shards went by and twice Duggan had to change course to ensure the safety of the ship. None would have hit them directly, but one was projected to come within fifty metres. It was best to have a good margin and fifty metres was definitely closer than he wanted, especially when this particular object was thirty kilometres wide and showed signs it was fragmenting. This was the reason he hadn’t activated the stealth modules – he didn’t want a sluggish response from the ship if he needed to take rapid evasive action.
“I don’t like this,” said McGlashan, her face unusually pale in the bridge’s blue-tinged light. None of them did and there was tension in the air. More pieces of the broken planet went past, until, after a few minutes, the tactical screen showed only green. The ship’s AI continued to track over a million individual targets, yet deemed none of them were on an intercept course with the warship.
“Bring the stealth systems online,” said Duggan.
“Done,” said Breeze.
The available power plummeted into the red zone all across an array of instrument panels and gauges. Duggan was conscious that if he slowed down or made a change in their course, he might bring them into the path of additional shards of the planet. He interrogated the AI and had it run through a series of simulated paths which would allow them to avoid the inbound pieces.
“This thing’s quick,” he said, marvelling at the speed with which the AI spat out his options. “The mainframe on a standard Gunner would have frozen for minutes doing what this one’s doing in seconds.”
Cautiously, he swung the ship around, intending to head towards the last-known position of the cube-shaped Dreamer spacecraft. He had no idea what its purpose was, but he was certain it had placed the beacon on the surface and he was very interested in seeing what it would do next.
“I’m still trying to get a fix on it, sir,” said Chainer. “The distances are extreme and those bastards are difficult enough to find when they’re close in. And there’s quite a lot of rock between us and them.”
“Keep trying,” said Duggan. “We’ve relied on stealth up until now and we’ll continue to do so while we investigate what they’re up to.”
“We should let the Juniper know what’s happened,” advised McGlashan.
“Agreed. Lieutenant Chainer, please send a message.”
“Well, our main comms are still operational,” said Chainer. “It doesn’t look as though they’ve spotted us yet.”
With the spacecraft unable to perform sharp turns, Duggan kept things steady. The surrounding area was crowded with Corai’s remains as they dispersed into the infinity of space. After a few minutes of careful flight, something came up on the sensors.
“The debris has cleared enough that I can see what’s happened to the two moons,” said Chainer. “One is completely gone. The other has been broken into three pieces and knocked away from its orbit. The largest piece is five thousand klicks across. It’s moving comparatively slowly and I think it’s going to clip Diopsis on the way past.”
“Crap,” said Breeze.
“Can anyone run me a simulation on what that’ll do?” asked Duggan.
“Might take a while to set up,” said McGlashan.
“Now’s not the time, then. Curiosity got the better of me,” Dugg
an replied.
“It’ll be catastrophic, whatever happens,” said Chainer. “This solar system is already doomed with all this rock floating around. The final effects might not be known for years. The largest pieces are moving the slowest. They could get sucked into the sun or drawn in by another planet.”
“Why the need for such destruction?” asked Breeze, shaking his head. “These are nothing but empty planets and I shouldn’t care about them, but for some reason I do.”
“I know how you feel,” said Duggan.
The fastest pieces of debris were long gone. The vast bulk of the planet had separated away from the centre much more slowly and the tactical display remained a sea of potential hazards. Duggan couldn’t remember a time when he’d had to take such prolonged evasive action and his eyes began to ache from the concentration. After another fraught ten minutes, he succumbed to the inevitable and handed control to the AI. As soon as the control bars became unresponsive to his inputs, he slumped back, feeling the tension in his wrists and shoulders. Ever since he’d recovered the ESS Crimson and been forced to pilot it manually, he’d become reluctant to use the automated systems. He was glad his stubborn insistence on being in control hadn’t stopped him doing what was right.
“I’ve always celebrated technology and the benefits it can bring. I’m damned if I know why I’m reluctant to let it take over.”
“Nobody likes to feel redundant,” said Chainer simply.
Duggan wasn’t sure if there was more to it than that. The time to think about it was when they were at lightspeed heading away from this place.
“Where’s that cube-shaped craft?” he asked.
“We’re coming close to where I think it could be,” said Chainer. “The debris is spread out far enough that I should have detected it a while back, but it could have moved away from where it was. It’s also conceivable that it’s remained hidden behind some of these larger pieces of rubble.”
“If it had continued flying outwards from Corai, we’d have seen it, right?” said Duggan. “From what you’re saying, the enemy vessel either reached a certain distance and then stopped, or it possibly even flew back towards the centre.”
Chainer blinked. “I’ve not been scanning for it towards the middle. I kind of expected it to be where we last saw it.”
“You should expand your search, Lieutenant,” said Duggan.
“Will do, Captain. It’s crowded with rocks, so anything amongst them could be easily missed.”
While Chainer and McGlashan worked on the sensors, Duggan’s eyes drifted onto the bulkhead screen again. A jagged slab of rock drifted by, rotating sedately as it did so. The distance made it look like no more than a pebble, when in fact it was many thousands of times heavier than the ES Lightning. While he watched, he pondered on what the enemy spaceships were doing here. His suggestion that the cube-shaped craft might have flown towards the centre had come from nowhere and he wasn’t sure why he’d thought it. There was no obvious reason why they’d fly into the debris. There again, there was no apparent reason for them to blow the planet up in the first place.
“I want a composition report for these rocks,” he said.
“I can do that, sir,” said Breeze. “It’ll let Commander McGlashan and Lieutenant Chainer continue what they’re doing.”
“Please,” agreed Duggan.
It didn’t take long. “Well I’ll be,” said Breeze. “The crust holds nothing of interest – a Space Corps prospector scanned it ten years ago and found common ores. However, Corai’s an old, old world and its core was well on the way to cooling down. Some of these pieces here are still hot, and guess what? They hold significant reserves of molten Gallenium.”
“That’s what they’re here for?”
“It gets better than that, sir. Or worse, depending on how you want to view the matter. Where the heat of the core is exposed to the cold of space, there’s a reaction taking place between the Gallenium and the rocks which hold it. I’ve detected a thin crusting of the substance we discovered in the Dreamer pyramid.”
“The power core?” asked Duggan, his voice louder than he’d intended.
“My geology is a bit rusty, but I’m fairly certain that’s what it is – the same stuff.”
“Sir, I’ve located the target spaceship,” said Chainer. “You were right – it’s gone inwards instead of outwards.”
“Can you tell me what it’s doing?”
“Dodging rocks, from the looks of it.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s too much of this debris in the way.”
“I think we’ve found out what they’re looking for,” said Duggan. “I’ve got to be sure, though.”
With those words, he instructed the AI to take them towards the enemy spacecraft. The AI chimed a warning to let him know the danger level was too high and denied his request. With a snarl, Duggan switched back to manual and turned the Lightning so that it pointed directly towards the expanding wreckage of Corai.
CHAPTER TEN
THE EXPERIENCE for Duggan was not a pleasurable one. Even if the Lightning had been operating with full gravity engines, it would have been a testing time. With it as sluggish as it was, he had to think far ahead and rely on alerts from the tactical screen to let him know when he’d crossed into the path of something that would hit them. The trouble was, each evasive manoeuvre brought him into the path of additional threats, which in turn brought more. With each passing moment he worried that he’d get it wrong and the spaceship would be struck by an object too big for the hull armour to deflect. On top of this, they’d entered an area which was thick with dust and smaller rocks. They were impossible to avoid and were travelling fast enough that they would eventually scour away the surface of the alloy plates. Deep within the body of the spacecraft, the crew heard and felt nothing of the bombardment against the exterior. The only way they could tell it was happening was the series of warnings that appeared on the status update screens.
“There’s a chance we’ll lose some of our sensor arrays if this keeps up, sir,” said Chainer. He had a sheen of sweat over his face and his cheeks were red from the heat.
“We almost there,” said Duggan. “A little more.”
A cluster of hundred-metre rocks skated past the Lightning and Duggan was only just quick enough to guide the spaceship around a pair of larger pieces. These two shards collided with each other moments after they’d gone by. The contact sent one of them into a fast spin, while the other shattered into a hundred thousand parts. If the collision had happened even ten seconds earlier, the result would have destroyed the ES Lightning.
“The enemy must have evasion routines programmed in for this,” said McGlashan. “They’re ungainly but still managing to dance around without taking any damage.”
“We’d be fine if the AI hadn’t objected,” said Duggan through gritted teeth. “Sometimes I ask myself who’s in charge.”
“It’ll override, won’t it?”
“Yes, after a great deal of pissing about. There wasn’t time.”
“I’m finding more and more of the power source material, sir,” said Breeze. “The metal is fusing into the molten rock or maybe it was already joined by the pressure in the planet’s core.”
“It had them stumped in the lab, last I’d heard,” Duggan replied, hauling at the control bars. A hundred fist-sized rocks cascaded against the spaceship’s nose, punching the thick alloy plates into a mess of deep indentations.
“One of the forward sensor arrays has failed,” said McGlashan, her voice strained.
“Plenty left we can use,” said Chainer.
The bulkhead viewscreen changed to show a pin-sharp image of the alien spacecraft, centred upon the display. It was a dull grey, with flat sides and no deviation from the basic shape. Tiny specks of light flared up across a hundred different places along the two sides of the cube which were visible. Traces of white sped away into space.
“They’ve got an offensive countermeasures shield,
” said Chainer. “Mini-gauss weapons to break up the pieces coming towards them. They also have an energy shield in case something gets through. It’s flickering on and off to let the gauss projectiles out and staying on for the bigger pieces. The synchronisation is something to behold.”
“Looks like they’re waiting for something,” said Breeze.
“They’re going to collect whatever pieces of the Gallenium-fused rock fit their requirements,” said Duggan. “I’m convinced that’s a mining vessel of some type – designed to do exactly this.”
“You mean these Dreamers destroy planets everywhere they go in order to obtain material for their power sources?” asked Chainer.
“I’m sure of it, Lieutenant. They’ve come through the Helius Blackstar in order to conquer and settle. It’s as if the mothership is preparing the way for a massive invasion.” As soon as he spoke, Duggan knew he was right. The alien species had sent through one of their capital ships to pave the way for whatever else they might decide to send to this sector of the universe. There was no way they’d have committed such a powerful warship as a gamble – they’d sent the mothership because they knew they’d conquered the technological hurdles required to traverse the wormhole.
“Why haven’t they sent dozens more ships?” asked Breeze.
“The mothership and its escort are enough,” said McGlashan.
“There was no sign of the additional spacecraft when the Dreamers destroyed the human and Ghast fleets at the Blackstar,” said Duggan. “I wonder if they could only survive the trip if they stayed within the hold of the mothership.”
“If they’re not capable of coming through on a whim, that gives me some hope at least,” said Breeze.
“I’d like a bit more hope than that,” Chainer replied. “Anyway, do we need to stick around for this?”
“The Space Corps isn’t usually willing to accept supposition in the place of proof,” said Duggan. “Otherwise, I’d turn us around and go straight to the Juniper.”
Fires of Oblivion (Survival Wars Book 4) Page 7