“Our gravity engines are warming up, sir. They were still hot from the last time they were powered. Maybe they were doing some last-minute tests.”
“How are our weapons, Commander? Admiral Teron advised me we’ve had a few upgrades.”
“He wasn’t lying, sir. Twenty Lambda clusters with a dozen tubes in each. Range and payload look good. Ten Bulwarks, two of them newer than the others. They’ve all had updated tracking and targeting modules fitted. The originals must have been good enough that they’ve not needed replacing. They’ve been working fast to get this done so quickly.”
“I don’t think the technology of the base gun has changed much – only how they aim,” said Duggan, relieved to hear their defences had been improved.
“We’ve got shock drones as well. Super-Warblers according to the tech specs.”
“Super-Warblers?” asked Chainer. “Sounds like some kind of bird that can peck a whole tree down in one go.”
“We should be happy the Space Corps isn’t standing still, ladies and gentlemen. Anything that can give us an advantage should be celebrated,” said Duggan.
“I’m celebrating, believe me,” said Chainer. “I’ll save my happy face for when these Super-Warblers have intercepted their first missiles.”
McGlashan continued to run through their armaments. “We’ve still got the disruptors fitted, sir. There’s no trace of the other weapon. It’s not locked down like it was before – it’s just plain gone.”
“I know, Commander. Admiral Teron told me as much. They’ve taken the module away. It’s called a Planet Breaker now – I don’t know if that’s how it’ll be listed in the specification manuals.”
“Planet Breaker?” said Breeze. “I can’t think of anything better to call it. By the way, I’m denied access to set a course and destination. It’s only the gravity drives that’ll respond.”
“We’re not permitted to know our destination. It’s been programmed in for us – we’re going to sit back in comfort as we’re steered to where we need to be.”
“Strange,” said Breeze. “Anyway, we can lift off now. The engines are good to go.”
“I’m getting clearance from the shipyard flight control,” added Chainer. “No other craft are permitted to land or leave until we’re gone.” He whistled. “This must be important.”
“It is, Lieutenant. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as we hit lightspeed.” With those words, Duggan took hold of the Crimson’s control bars. He closed his eyes as the coolness of the alloy on his palms exactly matched the memory.
“The shipyard flight computer asks if we’ll kindly engage our autopilot for departure,” said Chainer.
“It really asked kindly?”
“Really, truly, sir.”
Duggan allowed the autopilot to take over, with a pang of disappointment. “I never could refuse a polite request,” he muttered.
The autopilot didn’t delay. It confirmed the permission to depart and then lifted the Crimson directly into the air, taking care not to cause any turbulence that might affect those on the ground. The higher it climbed, the faster it accelerated.
“Two thousand klicks, three thousand,” said Chainer.
“The deep fission drives are going through their build up procedures,” said Breeze.
“Already?” asked Duggan with a frown. “I thought they’d wait until we were much further away.”
“It sounds like this is important enough to ignore procedures,” said Chainer.
“Twenty-nine seconds and we’re out of here,” said Breeze.
“We’re at sixteen thousand klicks now, nothing on the fars. All set for a jump.”
“Power at exactly one hundred percent. Twenty seconds remaining.”
Chainer spoke, his voice suddenly worried. “Are we going straight to maximum speed?”
“Yes we are, Lieutenant,” said Duggan. “As fast as we can go.”
“Doesn’t that mean we’re going to wake up covered in bruises an hour from now.”
“Ten seconds.”
“I’d recommend you hold on to something, Lieutenant Chainer.”
“Crap, I forgot about this.”
“Three, two, one…”
The Crimson jumped. The engines whined as they unleashed their power, hurling the vessel onwards at an unimaginable velocity. It tore through space, pointing directly towards its pre-programmed destination. On the bridge, the crew felt a momentary giddiness which threatened to become outright nausea. There was a sensation of being crushed, as if by a billion cubic metres of water. The feeling passed almost before their brains could register it. Then, everything was as it had been before the jump. Duggan suppressed a smile when he saw how tightly Chainer had been gripping his chair.
“That wasn’t so bad was it, Lieutenant?”
“You knew, didn’t you, sir?”
“Knew what?”
“They’ve given us some additional life support modules.”
“I think Admiral Teron may have said something about it,” said Duggan, pretending to study one of his screens. Chainer huffed and puffed, but he was clearly relieved he wouldn’t have to suffer unconsciousness every time they decided to do a full-power shift to lightspeed.
“We’re just over Light-V and holding steady,” said Breeze. “The Crimson’s lost none of her speed in the time she’s been in dry dock. Our destination is fifteen days away. That’s going to take us way out.”
“Yes, it is, Lieutenant.”
“Can you tell us what’s going on now, sir?” asked McGlashan. In spite of her recent convalescence, there was a glow to her cheeks and her eyes were bright and inquisitive.
Duggan told them. He recounted his most recent conversation with Admiral Teron, to bring his crew up to speed with the situation. They deserved to know exactly what was at stake here, in order that it could shape their actions if they encountered any trouble ahead. Duggan knew the information was top-secret, yet he trusted his crew and preferred them to know what was going on.
When he heard the news, Chainer jumped up and cheered. Even the normally-reserved Breeze had a look of dazed happiness on his face.
“You mean this could all be over, sir? We could actually beat the Ghasts?” Breeze asked.
“Not beat, Lieutenant. Force into a position where they have no choice other than to make peace.”
“Just like that?” asked Chainer, calming down. “They’ve killed billions of our people, sir. Do you think we’ll let them get away with it?”
“What do you suggest? A punitive strike on a few of their planets, Lieutenant? Kill a billion more of theirs than they did of ours?”
Chainer looked ashamed. “That’s not quite what I was saying. It just doesn’t seem right somehow for them to get away with what they’ve done. It’s not as if we asked for this war in the first place.”
“Look at it this way,” said McGlashan. “We were facing annihilation. Our entire species may well have been wiped out a few years from now. With this new weapon, we’ve been given the opportunity to settle on our terms. If we negotiate properly, we could ensure the Ghasts make reparations for what they’ve done.”
“There’s not enough money for that,” said Chainer.
“It doesn’t have to be about money, Lieutenant. The lives of those people are lost. We can’t get them back and we can’t fix what’s happened to them. We need to ensure there are measures to prevent this happening again. There’s a chance to learn and for the Confederation move on from this war. Who is to say it won’t make us harder, such that next time we find ourselves in this position, we act differently?” asked Duggan.
“I don’t have any answers, sir. I can only say what I think and hope the people who make the deals exceed my expectations,” said Chainer. “I want this to end as much as anyone.”
“I know, Lieutenant. We should be pleased at the situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes we can try looking too far into the future and forget to enjoy what’s going on in the present. We have f
ifteen long, boring days ahead of us in which to contemplate what might happen. And don’t forget – we should be proud of what we achieved as a team, not only in returning the ESS Crimson, but in recovering the Cadaveron from Everlong.”
“A shame we had to lose some people along the way,” said Breeze.
“We couldn’t have done it without their sacrifice,” said Duggan, refusing to feel morose.
Talk of the dead brought the conversation to an inevitable end. Each of the four crew sat in quiet thought, watching the unending stream of updates and status reports which rolled from the Crimson’s mainframe and onto their screens. The spaceship continued at an unchanging speed, hauling them towards a rendezvous which could define mankind’s destiny.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Look at this!” exclaimed Chainer, delight plain in his words. “They changed over the food replicators as well! They must have been expecting to show members of the Confederation Council around the place.”
“What’s that you’ve got?” asked Breeze suspiciously.
“Steak and a hi-stim!”
“You sure know how to live,” said McGlashan with a shake of her head.
“He’s a true bastion of fine dining,” joked Breeze.
Chainer ignored the banter and sat down with his plate and his drink. The smell of the meat swept aside the usual scent of oil and ozone. Breeze was the first to crack and he ducked outside to find the replicator, pursued by the sound of Chainer’s laughter. Soon they were all eating plates of food which were acceptable facsimiles of the originals.
“Not bad,” admitted McGlashan, eating a sandwich. “Better than what they served up in hospital.”
Duggan had a cheeseburger that dripped clear, greasy liquid onto his metal plate. He’d promised himself long ago that he’d never have another burger, but on this occasion, he thought there were reasonable grounds for breaking his word.
“The trip may end up long and boring, but at least the food will be worth eating,” said Breeze. “Even if it somehow feels wrong for me to enjoy it.”
“Yeah, you sort of get used to the swill on a Gunner,” said McGlashan. “I feel as if I’m cheating on all the other Vincent crews who have to put up with brown sludge.”
“Some people will never learn how to enjoy themselves,” said Chainer. He finished his can of hi-stim and burped with satisfaction. “Say, Captain? How come we’re not allowed to know the location of this meeting with the Ghasts. Did Admiral Slender think you were going to run to the press and spill the beans about what’s going on?”
Duggan put his empty plate aside. He remembered asking himself why he was being kept in the dark and hadn’t had much time to think about it. “That’s a good question, Lieutenant and one to which I don’t have an answer. If anyone in the Space Corps was worried I’d go to the press, I think they’d be more concerned that I’d know about the Planet Breaker and about the potential for a negotiated settlement. If the newspapers learned peace was in our grasp, there’d be hell to pay if talks broke down and the fighting resumed. This makes me think there’s a different reason for them keeping the location of the rendezvous a secret.”
“Call me cynical if you like, but it seems really strange to hide where we’re going from us,” said Breeze.
“It does,” mused Duggan. He crossed the tiny bridge until he was standing at Breeze’s shoulder. “What information can you see about where we’re going?”
“Nothing whatsoever. We’re flying blind and trusting whoever programmed the mainframe to get us where we want to be in one piece.”
“I don’t think anybody wants us to be destroyed, Lieutenant. There are easier ways to achieve that. Why bother telling me a load of secrets and then killing us for them? That would be completely senseless.”
“There was a lot of secrecy surrounding the design of the Crimson, wasn’t there, sir?” asked McGlashan. “Could the Space Corps want the ship to become lost, to save them having to answer difficult questions?”
“Questions from who?” asked Chainer.
“I don’t know. Are there factions in the Confederation Council who have been kept in the dark about the Dreamer technology? Members of the press? Concerned citizens, wondering why an ancient hull is getting so much attention in a shipyard? It’s not as if they can keep ship watchers from seeing it. There’re plenty of civilians out there who know exactly which ships the Space Corps has in its fleet. I’ll bet they’re very interested in the Crimson. We might find the fission drives never switch off and we keep on going and going until we die of old age. They could make it seem like an accident.”
Duggan wasn’t convinced. “That’s not how it works, Commander. They would have reduced our weaponry if they intended to do something as clumsy as losing us. Why upgrade the Lambdas and add extra Bulwarks?”
“I was just opening my mouth to see what came out, sir,” said an unabashed McGlashan.
Duggan peered at Breeze’s status screens. “We’d normally punch in a destination and the mainframe would take us there. Can you see our trajectory? We should be able to predict where we’re headed if we know which direction we’re going.”
“That’s the first thing I thought about, sir. I’m locked out of both course and destination details.”
“Doesn’t the Crimson have a greater level of authority than an Admiral?” asked McGlashan. “You could use that to override anything they programmed into software.”
Duggan’s interest levels were climbing, especially since he foresaw nothing else to keep him occupied in the coming two weeks. “I’ll have a check of that,” he said, returning to his console. A few tests left him disappointed. “I could see how they’d overlook something as unexpected as a ship having such a high authority. On this occasion, they’ve spotted it and disabled the facility.”
“That would have taken Fleet Admiral Slender’s direct approval?” asked Breeze.
“Or Fleet Admiral Gibson, though she no longer has frontline duties,” said Duggan. “There are several people on the Military Oversight Committee who can override more or less anything.”
“It doesn’t really matter if they’ve hidden the direction of our travel, sir,” said Chainer. “Our databanks hold records of all known stars. I can use the sensors to read which ones we pass and should be able to build up a picture from there. It’ll not be as precise as simply knowing where we’re going.”
“It should be enough,” said Duggan, rubbing his chin in thought. “How long will it take?”
“I could give you a guess ten minutes after starting. It won’t be accurate, thought. The longer I have, the better an answer I can give you.”
“There’s plenty of time, Lieutenant. How about we give it twenty-four hours?”
“That’ll be more than enough to give you something as close to perfect as we can achieve,” said Chainer. “Honestly, I don’t know why they even bothered trying to hide this information from us. Any good comms man could find out.”
Duggan smiled to himself. “Don’t belittle yourself, Lieutenant. If it was that easy, I’m sure they wouldn’t have bothered taking steps to try and cover up our destination.”
“Never underestimate the potential for another man’s incompetence,” said Chainer, a born cynic.
Duggan spent the rest of the day in the gym, which he was relieved to find they’d installed at some point recently. It was as if there’d been two separate teams working on the Crimson at the same time – one team to extract information about the Dreamer technology and a second to ready it for the next crew. It was better to be prepared than found wanting and the Space Corps had all the money and personnel it needed.
He spent a full seven hours in bed at his allotted time and rose feeling refreshed. The rest of the crew were on the bridge, their turn to sleep not yet due.
“What do we have, Lieutenant?” asked Duggan. “Do you have enough to tell me where we’re going?”
“I’m just collating the latest batch of sensor readings, sir. We should
have enough to be pretty accurate.”
“Show me, please.”
“Here we are,” said Chainer, bring up a chart across the bulkhead. The image hung in the air, a carpet of black, speckled with near-invisible motes of white. “I’ve had to zoom right out, since we’re travelling so far. I’ll highlight the extents of Confederation Space and put a red marker at our current position and also where I expect us to be when we come out of lightspeed.”
Two red dots appeared on the screen. Duggan could see them clearly enough, yet he couldn’t stop himself taking a couple of steps closer. “That’s way outside Confederation Space,” he said. “Any idea what’s there?”
“Not a clue, sir,” said Chainer. “Our databanks hold nothing on the place we’re going to.”
“Has the information been hidden or expunged?”
“I don’t think so. We’ve just never explored so far away from our home planets. We’ve got a map of one or two stars close by. Presumably the monitoring stations occasionally detect something new and add it to the catalogue. Otherwise, it’s a blank canvas.”
“What the hell are we going there for?” asked Duggan, his mind whirling.
“Beats me. You said we were going for somewhere neutral to negotiate with the Ghasts. Maybe this is the place.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” said Duggan. “And usually when something doesn’t feel right, I get suspicious.”
“A coverup?” asked Chainer.
“Why would they bother?” said Breeze, returning to the question they’d already found themselves unable to answer.
The questions plagued Duggan and refused to give him peace. He sat thinking for an hour, without being able to figure out why the Crimson had been sent fifteen days towards a place there was scant information about. He stood. “What’s the standard maximum velocity of an Anderlecht cruiser?” he asked.
“Light-H?” said Breeze. “I think they’ve upgraded a few to go faster. It won’t be many tiers higher. Why do you ask?”
“I’m trying to figure out the timelines. Admiral Teron told me they’d sent two Hadrons and a number of Anderlechts to negotiate with the Ghasts, except he didn’t say how much earlier they’d left than us. They’ll be forced to travel at the same speed as their slowest ships. How long would it take an Anderlecht to reach our current destination, if it travelled at Light-J?”
Bane of Worlds (Survival Wars Book 2) Page 16