Breeze shook his head in mock disbelief. “You keep telling yourself that, Frank. Besides, I hear that too much hi-stim affects a man’s ability to father children.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Breeze was a master at keeping a straight face and he didn’t flinch under Chainer’s stare. “I have no idea if I believe you or not.”
“As you wish.”
Duggan was happy to tolerate conversation amongst his crew, though he rarely took part in the small talk. As the hovercar travelled silently over the Tillos airfield, he wondered if it was time he opened up a bit more. The crew knew when it was time to behave and he didn’t often need to step in and remind them. He asked himself what would happen when the war was over – would he see them again, or would he let them drift away until all that remained were memories? Am I stupid enough to let it happen? It was becoming increasingly apparent that he was being tested for promotion, hence Admiral Teron giving him a lot of personal attention. Can a man have friends and family while he remains committed to his duty? I should speak to Lucy.
They arrived and Duggan left the car parked up near to one of the lifts which served trench three. The upper half of the Proximal towered over them, extending for a kilometre to both left and right. The four of them descended in the lift and then climbed the central boarding ramp to enter the vessel. McGlashan did a quick check on one of the wall consoles.
“Empty apart from us. Were you expecting troops?”
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Duggan. “I was pretty much told to go and get us on our way.”
“I can’t believe they couldn’t find a few soldiers at such short notice,” she said. The Space Corps respected its soldiers, but would happily send them out on even the highest-risk missions – that’s what they were for. It was unusual to find the warship empty. Then, there were footsteps behind – many footsteps.
“Lieutenant Ortiz reporting for duty, sir.”
Duggan turned to find her standing in front of a contingent of armed men and women. They were grim-faced and Duggan recognized a few of their faces.
“Glad to see you, Lieutenant. Is this everyone?”
“This is who I was instructed to bring, sir. Forty-three of us in total.”
“Less than a full complement,” said McGlashan.
“Every one of us fights like four, sir,” said Ortiz, producing a salute so crisp it would have made her old drill instructor weep tears of happiness.
“Welcome aboard,” said Duggan in a loud voice. “Get to your quarters at once. We’re leaving in less than fifteen minutes.”
“Move it!” shouted Ortiz. “Captain Duggan does not like to hang around!”
There were two exits from the airlock. Ortiz took her troops through one, while Duggan and the crew left through the other. The interior of an Anderlecht was rather more spacious than that of a Vincent class, which wasn’t to say it was spacious as such. The corridors were as wide as one-and-a-half persons, making it easy to pass, but impossible to walk shoulder to shoulder. The bridge was appreciably larger and this one had seating for eight. Automation advances combined with an experienced crew meant that four was sufficient to operate an Anderlecht at more or less peak efficiency. If Lieutenants Massey or Reyes had been available, Duggan would have brought them along. In their absence, he felt that a new face would have resulted in more disruption to outweigh the benefits they’d have brought. This wasn’t cynicism on Duggan’s part and there was neither pride, nor stubbornness involved in the decision.
The Proximal’s engines were powered up and ready to go. The crew spent several minutes running through a number of top-level checks to test for anything obvious the maintenance teams had overlooked. As usual, they’d done a thorough job and everything was in order.
“Admiral Teron promised clearance. Do we have it?” asked Duggan.
“Yes, sir. They’ve emptied the area around the trench and we can go whenever we’re ready.”
“No time like the present,” said Duggan. He tapped in a command to start up the autopilot. Seconds later, the Anderlecht rose clear of its dock, producing minimal turbulence. As it climbed, the autopilot increased the power and the warship accelerated at an ever-increasing pace.
“Have you got the coordinates?” asked Duggan.
“Yes sir. This is going to be a long trip.”
“I expected as much,” said Duggan. “How long?”
“Ten days. It’s outside Confederation space – sort of mid-way between the Helius Blackstar and the closest of the Ghast worlds.”
“We can’t get halfway in ten days!” said Chainer. “Not in this old thing.”
“I tried to boil it down to a few words that would let you grasp the general direction we’re heading,” said Breeze.
“Initiate lightspeed when you’ve finished your conversation,” said Duggan.
“Aye, sir!” said Breeze at once.
A minute later and they were away. The Proximal winked off the Tillos sensors and vanished into the depths of space.
“Dead on Light-H,” said Breeze. “Nothing unexpected and no secret modifications to the engines to give us some extra speed.”
“I’m disappointed,” said McGlashan. “I was getting used to Admiral Teron springing new tech on us.”
“Give me a run-down of our armaments,” said Duggan. He was forced to concede that he was also disappointed. The thrill of the new never left him.
“Ten Lambda batteries, six Bulwarks,” she replied. “Bang on normal. Our shock drones are two generations out of date and we’re carrying no nukes.”
“We’ll get the shit kicked out of us if we fly into any trouble,” said Chainer.
“It would be nice to be assigned a ship and be able to stick with it,” said Breeze. “Preferably something better than the Proximal.”
“Just two years ago we were happy with the Detriment,” said Duggan.
“We only thought we were happy,” said Chainer. “My eye is easily turned. I want the Crimson back.”
“It’ll be stuck in a dock somewhere with its weapons and core stripped out and a swarm of technicians shoving their diagnostics equipment where it’s not welcome,” said McGlashan.
“Do you think it’ll fly again, sir?” asked Breeze.
Duggan recalled Teron’s passing comment about the Crimson being elsewhere. There’d been no chance to think about it since, but there was something in how the Admiral had spoken which made Duggan think there were no plans to dismantle that particular spacecraft.
“It’ll fly,” he said.
“He knows something,” said McGlashan.
“Not so,” said Duggan. “Call it an educated guess.”
“I can see this line of questioning isn’t going anywhere. Can you tell us where we’re heading instead?” asked McGlashan.
“I’ve been asked to negotiate with the Ghasts,” said Duggan. “If any of you laughs at the notion, I’ll have you tied to a Lambda and fired into space.”
“I wouldn’t dream of laughing, sir,” said Chainer with an admirably neutral expression. “Why are we negotiating, instead of fighting? Not that I mind, you understand.”
“There’s a good chance this is a misunderstanding. The Ghasts have lost Vempor.”
“Lost? As in destroyed?”
“Yes. They’ve quite naturally blamed us, since we’ve done it to them before.”
“After they provoked us!” said Chainer.
“That’s not quite the point. We haven’t attacked Vempor and the only possibility remaining is an attack by the Dreamers.”
“The mothership was weeks away from Vempor when we saw it!” said Chainer.
“We think it’s something to do with the pyramids the Dreamers have been leaving behind. They could be using them as weapons.”
“Do we have any idea how many of those things there are?” asked McGlashan.
“None whatsoever. The mothership could conceivably hold a good number, as wel
l as those warships that keep appearing where we don’t want them.”
Duggan filled them in on the details. They had many questions and he had few answers to offer in return. The conversation eventually ran dry and the crew returned to their duties, whilst Chainer took himself off for some sleep. The thrumming of the air conditioning and the scent of electricity made Duggan feel like he was home once more. After a time, it threatened to lull him into somnolence, so he headed away from the bridge, with no particular goal in mind other than to kill some time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TEN DAYS LATER, they arrived. The ES Proximal shuddered slightly under the deceleration as its mainframe switched across to the gravity engines. The life support systems shielded the crew from the effects and they hardly registered any physical symptoms from what had occurred.
“Anything out there?”
“I’ll tell you shortly,” said Chainer. “There’s definitely nothing close by.”
“Are we early?” muttered Duggan to himself, knowing there hadn’t been a specified time for the meeting to take place – only an agreement for it to happen here as soon as possible. He had a quick check through the sensor feeds. They were in the middle of nowhere, many days sub-light travel from the closest solar system.
“Void, void and more void,” said Chainer.
“The perfect place for a secret rendezvous,” said McGlashan.
“Am I allowed to let the Juniper know we’re here?” asked Chainer.
“Hold off for the moment, please,” said Duggan.
“I hope it won’t be long,” said McGlashan. “I’ve had enough of waiting.”
Duggan couldn’t recall McGlashan ever showing much in the way of impatience, so assumed the trip had really dragged for her. “We don’t know where Gol-Tur is coming from, nor what sort of ship he’s in.”
“It’ll be bigger than this one,” said Chainer. “We’re always outgunned.”
Duggan opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by an urgent exclamation from Breeze.
“Fission signature! Right on top of us!”
Duggan swore. “How close?”
He was provided with an answer before he could give any thought to evasive action. Without further warning, forty billion tonnes of Ghast battleship appeared next to the Proximal, heading on a collision course. Duggan tried frantically to pull the Anderlecht away. He would have been much too slow, except that whoever was piloting the Oblivion realised the danger and brought the warship to a halt, a scant eight kilometres distant. The shock of what had happened didn’t shut Chainer up for long.
“In all my years in the Space Corps, I can say with absolute certainty I have never had that happen to me.”
Duggan’s heart was pounding, not so much at the threat of an unexpected death narrowly avoided, but at the idea that fate could have finished this mission so easily. If the Proximal had been destroyed, Admiral Teron could only draw one realistic conclusion about what had happened. He looked at the starboard sensor feed – the display with filled with kilometres of cold, deadly battleship. It utterly dwarfed the Proximal and outgunned it dozens of times over.
“Hail them,” he said.
“Too late, they’re hailing us. It’s Subjos Gol-Tur from the Oblivion class Trivanor.”
“Subjos?” mused Duggan. “How senior is someone with that title?”
“Could be a limitation of the translation module,” said Chainer. “It should have provided a best-guess approximation.”
“I’ve run a check,” said McGlashan. “Whoever Gol-Tur is, he’s very high up in the Ghast command.”
“Good. Someone who can make decisions.”
“They’re waiting, sir,” said Chainer. “Would you like me to bring him through?”
“Yes please. On the bridge speakers.”
When the Ghast spoke, there was a rough edge to his voice. He sounded different to Nil-Far and the age was unmistakeable.
“Captain John Nathan Duggan,” he stated. “I have heard your name, destroyer of Lioxi.” It was unclear if there was judgement in the words – the Ghasts were not the same as humans and it was difficult to be sure how they viewed events around them.
“Fleet Admiral Teron has sent me to speak with you.”
“Yes. I see your spaceship has a shuttle. I will send you the codes for our aft docking bay and will speak to you as soon as you arrive.”
“Agreed,” said Duggan.
“He’s left the channel,” said Chainer.
“They don’t piss around much, these Ghasts,” said Breeze.
“Just how I like it,” growled Duggan. “Commander McGlashan, you have control of the Proximal. I’m leaving immediately.”
“Sir,” she said in acknowledgement.
“This is what we’ve come for. Wish me luck,” said Duggan, heading out through the bridge doorway. If there was a response, he didn’t hear it.
Not all Anderlechts were equipped with a shuttle. The Proximal was once such craft, which was presumably why Teron had decided it was suitable for this mission. The transport was a cramped, archaic model with a stale smell to the interior. One of the lights in the cockpit flickered incessantly and there was an unknown, sticky green substance on one of the control bars. Duggan didn’t like to think what it was and wiped it away with a cloth someone had left on the floor. Everything about the Proximal pointed to slow decline, in sharp contrast to the activities taking place elsewhere across the Space Corps.
In minutes, the shuttle had broken away from its docking clamps. Duggan let the autopilot do the work for him on this occasion. He wasn’t in the mood to fly the thing himself. The Trivanor’s pilots had set the battleship on a parallel course to the Proximal and at a very low speed. There was no way the shuttle would be able to pass safely between the two if they were travelling quickly. The cockpit was fitted with a large display which had been designed to look like a windscreen. Duggan stared out gloomily – the Trivanor looked even newer than the Dretisear. Any hope the Ghasts had slowed the pace of their shipbuilding was clearly misguided.
“Everything okay, sir?” asked McGlashan. Her voice sounded tinny through the wall speaker.
“It’s good so far. The Trivanor is impressive.”
“Better than anything we’ve got, so try not to piss them off too much.”
Duggan laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
“What are you expecting to get from this?”
“Admiral Teron didn’t know and I’m sure I don’t know either. Both sides are talking and that’s a good enough start.”
The tiny computer on the shuttle followed its pre-programmed course down to the millimetre. A blue-illuminated docking bay came into view, a tiny square on the vast flank of the Trivanor. There was more than enough space for the transport to set down easily and it landed on the solid floor in the bay. The outer door slid shut. Duggan sat for a moment, wondering how he would know when it was safe to disembark. The light didn’t change and there were no display screens along the bay walls. The shuttle sensors informed him of a change in pressure outside, but it wasn’t safe enough for him to leave yet. He was just about to open a comms channel to the Trivanor’s bridge, when a Ghast voice pre-empted him.
“Captain Duggan, you may leave your vessel.”
He didn’t speak in response. The shuttle sensors confirmed there was a breathable atmosphere outside, so he left the tiny cockpit and triggered the release for the exit door. The door opened outwards with a faint hiss. At the bottom and to one side, two Ghasts waited, dressed in grey. They weren’t carrying any weapons – presumably Gol-Tur wasn’t concerned at the idea of having a lone human running loose around the battleship if Duggan was stupid enough to attempt sabotage.
“Come,” said the first, indicating a direction with a sweep of his hand – it was one of many human-like gestures the Ghasts possessed.
The interior of the Trivanor was hardly any different from Duggan’s memory of the Ghotesh-Q, which he’d been aboard briefly a few months
previously. He was taken along a wide, well-lit corridor, with consoles attached to the walls at regular intervals. There were other Ghasts present – they attended the consoles or they walked purposefully towards whatever destination they’d been given. Duggan’s escort didn’t greet their fellow crew, nor did they speak to each other. They knew exactly where they were headed and they turned left and right along a series of corridors. Duggan wasn’t fooled by the changes of direction – it was easy to tell that the battleship’s interior was compact. Older Ghast warships had a lot of wasted space. The Trivanor had nothing spare, freeing up room for engines and weapons.
Without there being an extensive change in his surroundings, Duggan became aware they’d entered a new area of the warship. The walls and floors were still unadorned, but the doors were a different colour – blue instead of grey. It was also quieter and there were fewer signs of the crew. Duggan’s escort stopped outside one of the doors. There was a series of symbols painted on the surface in black, the meaning of which was unclear. Neither of the two Ghasts did anything so crude as knock. In fact, they made no attempt whatsoever at communication with the occupant. Nevertheless, the door slid aside without a murmur.
“Inside,” said one of the Ghasts, motioning with his hand.
Duggan stepped between them and crossed the threshold without fear. His overriding emotions were excitement and anticipation. The door closed behind and he looked around the room. The lighting was as blue as the rest of the warship, but here there were signs of a humanlike desire to make a home away from home. The room was square, with walls twenty feet long and a covering of hard, blue tiles on the floor. Screens covered two walls, displaying status readouts for the ship. To Duggan’s surprise, there was a plant in one corner of an unfamiliar type. It was tall, blue-tinged and spindly. The plant looked unmistakeably well cared-for. His shock was doubled when he noted the presence of wood – the first he’d seen amongst the Ghasts. There was a dark wood desk, large and square, with two unoccupied chairs on the nearest side. The chairs didn’t look any more comfortable than the other Ghast furniture.
Fires of Oblivion (Survival Wars Book 4) Page 12