“I anticipate I’ll be required to stick around while the Cadaveron is unloaded. There’ll be a debriefing at some point. A thorough debriefing.”
“Do you think he’ll cause you any problems?” She meant Admiral Slender.
“I hope not. I think his hands will be tied in the circumstances.”
“It’s going to be interesting, at least.”
“I can think of several words, of which interesting is only one,” he replied.
He left the medical bay and tried to constructively fill the remaining few hours, without much success. Eventually, an announcement came through on the internal comms to advise everyone onboard that the MHL Goliath was about to enter local space. There was a minor jolt as it happened, hardly enough to cause nausea or injury. Duggan made his way to the bridge, in order to see what communications might be awaiting them as they approached Pioneer on the gravity drive.
Chapter Eighteen
Duggan was ordered to leave the Goliath as soon as he was able. After saying his farewells, he boarded one of the transport vessels, with nobody else to keep him company on the short journey. The tiny spacecraft brought him in dubious comfort to one of the landing pads at Pioneer’s largest Space Corps base. From above, the internal screens of the transport showed a dimly-lit grid-pattern of dreary brick buildings, their grimness exacerbated by the driving rain and the fading early evening light.
Duggan left the transport behind, pausing only briefly to watch it take off into the darkening sky. The base was a hive of activity – there was a huge research lab here amongst many other facilities. The work within the walls of this lab never stopped and hardly slowed down at night. Duggan scarcely noticed the people scurrying around, or the vehicles which swished silently along the smooth roads. He didn’t have far to go, so he chose to walk, ignoring the rain as it soaked through his clothing.
At the largest of the administration buildings, he took the steps two at a time. Inside, he stopped one of the staff officers. It appeared he was expected – the Space Corps was highly efficient when it came to the little details.
“You’ve been given an office on the second floor, sir,” said the staff officer. “Your lodgings are in building nine-seven-five.” She smiled apologetically. “You might want to take a car to get there.”
“Thanks,” said Duggan. “Any messages for me?”
“Admiral Teron has asked you to contact him as soon as you arrive, sir. Any time of day or night, it says here,” she said, studying her screen. “Must be something important.”
She was just making conversation, rather than fishing for information. Duggan left her and made his way through the building to his room. There was no need to ask for directions – these places were practically identical inside, whichever planet you were on and whichever base. There must be a hundred thousand technical drawings for each warship, yet only a single architectural design for every base, thought Duggan. He couldn’t bring himself to smile at the idea.
There were no surprises waiting for him in his room either. It was a reasonable size, square and painted light blue. There was a desk, two chairs and a couple of pieces of furniture, the types of which Duggan forgot as soon as his eyes looked away.
“Let’s see what Teron wants,” he muttered, powering up his main screen. It didn’t take long for the Admiral to respond, his face shimmering for a few seconds as the comms relays stabilised. From what Duggan could see of the background, he guessed Teron was still on the Juniper. His expression was unreadable.
“Captain Duggan,” Teron said, his lips a fraction of a second out of sync with the image of his face.
“Sir.”
“I’m not sure where to start. Your arrival has caused some consternation. Perhaps not your arrival as much as what it is you’ve brought with you.”
“Sir, I’ve been aboard the Cadaveron. It looks like a wreck from the outside, but I’m confident many of its major systems are still operational. We will be able to learn from it. Copy what we don’t already have. The Shatterer battery we brought still has missiles inside. I’ll bet we can strip them down and have a working prototype of our own in a matter of months.”
“I’m aware of the opportunities you’ve presented us with, Captain Duggan. In fact, I think you’ve done us a great service. We’ve never even tried to capture one of the Ghast vessels before, let alone accomplished it.” Teron steepled his fingers. “But damnit man, why do you have to bring baggage with everything you do? The Goliath’s cargo was irreplaceable – it’ll take months to remake all the bespoke equipment.”
“I’m sorry I had to dispose of it, sir. There really was no other way. Besides, the Ghasts know how to find Everlong now. Given our recent policy of avoidance, I can’t imagine we’ll try to restart mining operations any time in the near future. For every one ship we send, they’ll send two.”
“I’ve no doubt you’re correct,” said Teron. He leaned forwards. “This is something new, Captain Duggan. The first sign of the Ghasts using something, rather than destroying it outright.”
“They might have a shortage of Gallenium, sir. It’s rare enough that we’re only finding traces of it on every planet apart from a handful.”
“We can hope they’re running into supply problems. We don’t know where the Ghasts’ home planets are, but we can be sure they’re a long, long way from Everlong. Once our new warships come into service, we’ll have more than enough spare to intercept the enemy heavy lifters as they try to ferry the metals home.”
“They deployed a Shatterer tube, sir,” said Duggan, reminding Teron of the fact. “Next time there may be ten such emplacements. Or twenty. We don’t even know what their maximum targeting range is – it could be that their lifters can operate in safety under the umbrella of their missile batteries.”
“You’ve seen how the new Lambdas can have their guidance disabled. We can sit a million kilometres out of orbit and launch them in a straight line into the Ghast mining operations. Even a Vincent class has the processing grunt to land a strike in time with the planet’s rotation.”
“A single Cadaveron in orbit could shoot down thousands of Lambdas with their targeting and guidance disabled. We need something better than that.”
“We’ve got people working on it, Captain,” said Teron. “Anyway, we’re getting off topic.”
“What was the topic, sir?”
“I’ve been asked to give with one hand and take with the other,” Teron replied. “I’m to congratulate you on your fine work under trying circumstances. Bringing back an enemy vessel is something the Space Corps appreciates. There are a number of people on the Confederation Council who are speaking about you in positive terms. However, I’ve also been asked to reprimand you for your reckless endangerment of the MHL Goliath and its original cargo. We might be at total war, but that doesn’t mean our funds can be wasted. Others on the Council are asking where their money has gone to. In addition, you had the chance to escape from Everlong much earlier than you did and your delay increased the chances of the Ghasts finding and destroying a Class One Heavy Lifter.”
Duggan knew it was a load of crap, but he was sure Teron was just relaying a message. “What’s going to happen, sir?” he asked.
“Desk duties for the moment, Captain Duggan. While the investigation into your mission is completed.” Teron glanced to one side, as if he wanted to be certain no one was listening. “Don’t worry about it. The Space Corps can’t be seen to lose billions of dollars at the drop of a hat. We have to fight for our reputation, particularly when there are many citizens of the Confederation who are asking why we let Charistos and Angax be annihilated.”
“Could we have done more?” asked Duggan.
“We both know the superiority of the Ghast warfleet. We could have dashed our ships against theirs without stopping them. The fate of those two planets was sealed as soon as the Ghasts learned of their coordinates.”
Duggan couldn’t deny Teron’s words made sense. Even so, it didn’t sit e
asy with him. “It’s a shame we let them get ahead of us. We could have stopped them in the early years.”
“Everything we know about them suggests they respect strength,” said Teron, not answering directly. He opened his mouth to say more and then closed it again.
“Admiral Slender told me about our attempts to negotiate with them, sir.”
Teron snorted. “Surrender, more like, that’s closer to the truth of what we offered. We’ve seen how they respond to weakness.”
“We started out stronger than they were and they didn’t back off,” said Duggan.
“Maybe they like a challenge. Who knows why they’re doing what they’re doing? I wish we’d chased them down when we still could and destroyed each and every one of their ships!”
“Their planets too?” asked Duggan quietly.
“I don’t know, Captain Duggan. If it was the only alternative, that’s what I’d do. In a heartbeat.”
“I tell myself that as well, sir, and then in my head I see an image of a planet disintegrating on the Crimson’s viewscreen.”
“They’ve called it the Planet Breaker – that weapon on the Crimson,” said Teron. “I don’t know who chose it, but the name stuck and that’s what they call it now.”
A thought came to Duggan, which tightened his skin and left him feeling cold with the potential of it. “The Cadaveron must hold the information we need about their ships, their planets. Maybe even their history and their way of life.”
Teron frowned. “I’m sure there’s plenty of information in its data arrays. You do know their AI technology is more advanced than ours? It’s not like we’re going to be able to plug it into one of our data facilities and stream off what we need. We might get something, but I’m sure each and every string will be so heavily encrypted we’ll take years to decode it, assuming we can manage that. We couldn’t even break our own encryption methods by brute force. It’s only because we have the keys that we can access our own repositories. The Juniper’s AI cores are about the fastest we can manage and I doubt they could get anything from that Cadaveron’s arrays before this war has played out one way or another.”
“I’m not suggesting we use our own technology, sir,” said Duggan. “One of my squad – a soldier – was able to make the Dreamer core on the ESS Crimson hack itself. That core is fast and it’s focused. It might be fast enough to give us access to the Cadaveron’s databanks. If a self-taught hacker can do it, I’m sure the thousands of programmers available to the Space Corps could work something out between them.”
Teron stared straight ahead, his eyes piercing and dark. “Captain Duggan, I think you might have just come up with an idea.” He banged the table with his fist and gave a bleak smile. “If you’re right and this works, it could turn the war on its head. Or at least get back some of the advantage we’ve squandered.” His eyes became distant and he talked, more to himself than to Duggan. “We’ve got three available shipyards on Pioneer big enough to take a Cadaveron. It’s leaking antimatter. The dock in the Atican Desert is a thousand miles from anywhere. We can unload it there. The ESS Crimson will fly at Light-V. That makes less than four days travel from New Earth to Pioneer. We’ve got teams there, good teams. Interfacing the two systems will be the hard part. We managed it before, there must be records. If not, there’ll be audit logs on the Crimson.”
Duggan watched, impressed as Teron ran through the details of making it work. He didn’t always betray the qualities which had made him an Admiral, yet he seemed to possess an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the Space Corps organisation.
“Is there anything I can do to help, sir?” asked Duggan, interrupting the flow of words.
“Not for the moment, Captain Duggan. I’m afraid nothing has changed with regards to your desk duty. I must insist you remain on Pioneer. There’ll be plenty of paperwork for you to shuffle until we conclude the investigation into your unauthorized cargo drop.”
“What happens then?” Duggan hadn’t expected any other response from Teron. There were times when even his best wasn’t good enough.
“Another Vincent class, another mission. I thought you’d know that by now.” The last words weren’t said unkindly. “Don’t worry - I’ll get you your crew. They’re grounded as well, not that your commander will be going anywhere outside of a hospital anytime soon.”
Duggan couldn’t bring himself to offer thanks. He reached across to the screen and ended the call, his mood already turning sour.
Chapter Nineteen
Days passed and the days became weeks. Duggan didn’t class himself as a desk officer and he hated being confined for hours on end in the same room, which was ironic given how much he craved to be back on the bridge of a warship. His in-tray remained full, owing to the fact that he did his best to ignore the contents. His rank gave him the ability to deflect much of what was thrown his way and nobody seemed interested in speaking to him about it. This period of enforced quiet was doubly hard for him to bear, coming as it did so soon after the eighteen-day journey from Everlong to Pioneer. On one of his visits to Commander McGlashan in hospital, she spoke to him about it.
“What were you expecting to happen?”
“I’m a realist, Lucy and I genuinely thought they’d give me another ship straight away. This whole thing about having to put me on desk duty over some missing cargo stinks to high heaven.”
She smiled. Her strength had returned and it wouldn’t be long until she was allowed to leave the medical facility. “Admiral Slender’s never going to forget. He’s the head honcho, remember?”
“That he is. I’m sure I’m not foremost in his mind at every hour of every day. He can’t micro-manage everything I do within the Corps.”
“Are you so sure? It wouldn’t take much – a word here, a mention there. I’ll bet he gets a report about you put on his desk every week or every month.”
The thought was depressing. “What a waste of everything!” said Duggan. “A waste of his son’s potential, a waste of his father’s life spent haunting mine. All because of this damned war!”
“Look on the bright side, John. If they manage to crack the Cadaveron’s AI, you might be the main reason humanity comes back fighting. If we can find out where the Ghasts live, it gives us a huge opportunity.”
“To kill billions more? Tens of billions?” He shook his head. “The price of winning goes up every time I hear it mentioned.”
“They’ve pushed us to it,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that. Your anger should be directed at them, not at what action the Confederation may be forced to take.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” He changed the subject. “Two more weeks till you’re out of here?”
“That’s what the doctor said. Ten days if I’m lucky. I’ll be whole again in seven, after that it’s a case of observation to make sure everything’s working properly. There’ll be lots of pills, I’m sure. I feel weak and soft already.” She smiled. “I need to hit the gym, or get back to some proper action, instead of watching the news all day.”
“I think I’d rip the tubes from my arm after a week on that bed.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” Her face became serious. “Have you heard anything? About the Cadaveron or the Crimson?”
“They unloaded the Cadaveron hull into a dock a couple of days after we returned. I know the Crimson arrived five days after that. It’s hard to keep things like that secret – there’s always someone from the press keeping an eye on the dockyards. If not, there are plenty of spacecraft enthusiasts watching to see what’s coming and going. Other than that, it’s all been locked down tightly. I’ve spoken to one or two people and they’re as much in the dark as I am.”
“They must be giving this the top-top-secret treatment.”
“You can see why they’d not want anything to get out. Hope that comes to nothing can produce unpleasant results.”
“Anger and revolt.”
“It’s not what the Confederation
needs right now, nor the Space Corps.”
Another ten days passed and Duggan remained pessimistic that he’d ever adapt to the enforced inactivity. He saw Chainer and Breeze in passing and nothing more. They’d been drafted in to work at the research lab. They weren’t capable of contributing to anything cutting edge, but they were experienced officers and able to provide input at various stages of a project’s development. Duggan envied them for having the chance to throw themselves into something. He would have volunteered to help if it wasn’t for the fact he’d be automatically disqualified because of his seniority. The Space Corps wanted him at a desk, yet they also wanted him to remain available.
Late one evening, a message arrived while Duggan was still in his office. The bleeping on his receiver somehow conveyed an urgency and Duggan read it immediately. You are ordered to the Atican Shipyard. Transporter vessel Nine-Five. Do not pack, do not delay. Teron.
Duggan looked at the words for a moment and then deleted the message. His inbox was always empty – he hated the thought of having the old messages waiting for him every time he checked for something new. It felt like having unfinished business. He left his office, letting the door close itself silently behind him. Something told him he wouldn’t be coming back.
Transporter Nine-Five was a standard model, boxy, stubby and reliable. It waited in the middle of landing pad number three, with lights on and its low-powered gravity engines humming smoothly. The side ramp was extended and more light spilled from the interior, illuminating an area of the concrete. There were three figures on the ramp, no more than animated silhouettes. Duggan hurried across, recognizing the voice of Lieutenant Breeze before his eyes could resolve the man’s details. Chainer was there was well.
“Captain,” said Chainer, offering a salute which Duggan returned. “Do you have any idea what we’re doing here at this time of night? I was just about to turn in.” He waved at the third man, whom Duggan didn’t recognize. “This here’s the pilot. He says he’s been told to wait until the three of us are onboard, then we’re off to a shipyard somewhere I’ve never heard of.”
Bane of Worlds (Survival Wars Book 2) Page 14