“We do not. A single one of their craft was a fearsome opponent. Its beam weapon had only a fraction the power of those from the mothership.”
“It was an opportunity to learn. We have data to carry home to our superiors. Will your ship fly?”
“Eventually it will be able to reach home. In six months. A year perhaps.”
“That is a long time.”
“I would prefer it to be sooner. These Dreamers are here for war and we Ghasts do not have the ability to defeat them. We will never stop trying, as the Dreamers will soon discover.”
“We need peace between our two races,” said Duggan.
“Your negotiators wished us to become vassals of the Confederation. Under threat of extinction.”
“I am not a negotiator, Nil-Far. Our chances of success will be greatly increased if we fight together.”
“We must agree terms quickly.”
With that, Duggan took his leave and returned to the Crimson. For the next three weeks, the ship’s mainframe and the Dreamer core worked at rerouting the scrambled engines. It was frustratingly gradual progress and the crew felt trapped in slow-motion. The Dreamers didn’t return and Duggan asked himself if their main ship had moved away to a different area of space and was therefore unable to send any other fighters to Prot-7.
Eventually, the engines were sufficiently repaired that Duggan felt it was the right time to depart. The Crimson flew directly upwards and out of the canyon, leaving the Oblivion behind. They launched into lightspeed, managing to exceed Light-K by a small margin. This was quick for most warships, but for the Crimson it was little more than a crawl. At Duggan’s instruction, they set a course for the Juniper.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“The Juniper is dead ahead, sir,” said Chainer.
“I’ll bring us in slow and steady,” Duggan replied.
“I still think they’re going to shoot us down,” muttered Chainer.
“You told us the Maximilian will be able to detect our comms failure!” said McGlashan.
“Yeah, maybe they will.”
“I’m going to initiate the automatic landing systems,” said Duggan. “If they don’t open the doors, we’ll have to crash into them.”
In the end, the Juniper did open the door to Hangar Bay One. Catastrophic failures of a warship’s comms systems were exceptionally rare outside of a simulation, but it had happened before, albeit only once. The Crimson docked smoothly and perfectly under the direction of its mainframe. Before a contingent of the Juniper’s security forces could quarantine the ship, two figures disembarked, one of them being Duggan in a full spacesuit. He used the helmet to patch into the Juniper and reported the damage to the Crimson’s comms. He also obtained details of the highest-ranking officer currently in residence, as well as clearance to meet with this officer immediately.
Duggan and his companion made rapid progress to their destination, drawing a number of curious and some outright hostile stares. A group of eight security men and women followed closely; they held their gauss rifles tightly. At Admiral Teron’s office, Duggan waited until the door slid aside. He entered without hesitation, finding the room exactly as it was on his last visit.
“Captain Duggan,” said Teron from his seat. He kept a commendably straight face when he saw who was with Duggan. “We have much to talk about.”
“Much more than you can possibly imagine, sir.”
“Take a seat, please. Who is this you have brought with you?”
“Sir, this is Nil-Far, Captain of the Ghast Oblivion Ghotesh-Q. We’ve got a fight on our hands, and this time it’s not the Ghasts who are our enemies.”
“Captain Duggan, tell me what you’ve learned.”
And Duggan told him.
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Bane of Worlds (Survival Wars Book 2) Page 23