That was when Recker understood – Telar was raging, but it wasn’t at him, or at the outcome of the mission. The target of the anger was Admiral Fraser and for Telar to outright accuse another senior officer of lying made Recker think that high command was teetering on the brink of a major upheaval. Which way that would end, he didn’t want to guess.
Telar picked a folder from his desk and lifted it so the words were visible. Recker, Carl. Final Report: Pinvos.
“I see you composed a comprehensive report during your ten-day return flight. I have skimmed the contents and will give it my full attention once this meeting is over.”
“Do you wish to discuss it now, sir?”
Telar raised an eyebrow. “Is there something missing which I should know about?”
“No, sir. The report is a thorough and honest account of the mission.”
“I’m sure it is.” Telar leaned back and his chair creaked. “The Vengeance,” he said, leaving the words hanging.
“I saw it on the way in, sir. You had the barriers removed.”
“Our investigation of the warship has come to an end, Captain.”
Recker hid his disappointment. “Did you find anything while I was at Pinvos?”
A hint of a smile played on the corner of Telar’s mouth. “As it happens, we now have more questions than we did when you first landed the warship here on Adamantine.”
“You’re hiding something, sir.”
“I’d say I’m drawing out the disclosure.” This time a trace of humour was evident in Telar’s eyes. “We did find something.” For a second time, he gestured towards the two chairs. “Sit.”
Recker sat.
Chapter Seventeen
Telar got on with it.
“You’re aware the Vengeance has tied itself to your biometrics, Carl.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re also aware that you were unable to access the weapons systems, indicating that the warship’s systems are subject to tiered security.”
“It’s not just the weapons, sir. On our way back from Oldis, Lieutenant Eastwood became certain the propulsion was underperforming.”
“We have tried everything to uncover the secrets of this alien warship.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No.”
Recker’s expression showed his confusion. “You told me the technicians found something.”
“They did. Not weapons, not something new and destructive that we can copy and use against the Daklan.”
This time Recker’s disappointment was far greater and he wondered why Telar was stringing him along. “Then what?”
“A comms ping.”
The disappointment faded and was replaced by the beginnings of excitement. The only reason he was hearing this was because Telar had plans.
“What data did the ping contain?”
“An identification code – the warship equivalent of name and rank.”
“Did you find where the ping is aimed?”
“We’ll get to that.”
Telar let the silence hang for a moment. Then, he leaned sideways to pick something from the floor. When Telar straightened, he was holding a cup of coffee, rather than a folder containing a mission briefing.
“No room on my desk for the simple pleasures,” he said, taking a measured sip. Then, he leaned again and set down the cup with the utmost care. “You look like you wish to strangle something, Captain.”
“Not something, sir. Someone.”
Telar proceeded like he hadn’t heard. “There’s something inside the Vengeance, Carl. Alien technology that we cannot access.”
“I thought you found nothing except the ping, sir.”
“Call this a hunch. I know that an admiral isn’t meant to be influenced by anything other than cold, hard logic, but there it is. I have a hunch that the Vengeance contains technology we might benefit from.”
“Then why not dismantle it in the shipyard, sir? Pull it to pieces and find out what’s inside.”
“Have you heard about the golden goose, Carl?”
“Of course I have, sir, but we’re talking about a spaceship here.”
“What would happen if the Daklan salvaged one of our warships and took it apart?”
Recker understood at once and immediately felt foolish. “If they didn’t know exactly what they were doing, they’d sever the security tie-ins between the different modules and once that happened, they’d never get any of it working again.”
“And that’s why I haven’t taken the Vengeance to pieces, Carl. If we did so and there was technology to be found, I’m certain we’d disable it, however carefully we approach the task.”
“So this ping, sir?”
“It was aimed at a solar system a long way from here. Because of the distances involved, Deep Space Quad1 has been unable to narrow the destination to a single planet. At least not in the time I was able to utilise its resources without drawing undue attention.”
There it was – another suggestion of division in high command. Recker didn’t press for details.
“You want me to investigate,” he said.
“That’s right, Captain. I can’t allow a hunch to draw valuable resources from the war effort, so this mission will involve only the Vengeance. Since the warship is seemingly useless to us, I can justify treating it with reckless abandon.”
“I found some data relating to the Vengeance on the Interrogator’s core override menu, sir,” said Recker. “I have a feeling the warship is well-known to its enemies.”
“It may be that you extracted something useful about the Vengeance, but I won’t allow that to alter the plans I have drawn up.”
“What do you hope to achieve, sir?”
“I believe – it is an idea I cannot get out of my head - that this ping is aimed at the spaceship’s home base, or a similar facility. It may be that if the Vengeance returns to this facility, any additional hardware will be automatically unlocked.”
“That’s how it happens with our warships,” nodded Recker. “If one of our security systems detects or suspects interference, it will disable much of the hardware functionality until the vessel returns to base.”
“There are parallels,” Telar agreed. “And I’m hoping that is how this unknown alien species configured the warships in its fleet.”
“I am keen to begin, sir,” said Recker, understating the reality.
“You had sufficient rest during your long return journey from Pinvos?”
“Yes, sir.”
Telar laid his hands palm down on the desk. “This mission accomplishes two of my goals, and I would like it to commence at once.”
The first goal was already discussed and it didn’t take a great leap of Recker’s imagination for him to guess at the second. “You want me out of the way.”
“Well spotted, Carl. Yes, it would be convenient if you were elsewhere until the fallout from Pinvos settles.”
“Will I be returning to a court martial, sir?”
“I don’t know. I will do everything I can to prevent injustice.”
“Perhaps this is a battle I should fight at home, sir. Not just for me, but for the other officers at Pinvos. Those who died do not have a voice and if I returned to news that the truth had been altered in order that a coward might be treated as a hero, I don’t know what action I would feel obliged to take, sir.”
“I will be their voice, Captain. Until this is resolved, your presence will do nothing more than inflame the situation. As it stands, Admiral Fraser’s friends are reluctant to become involved - they are well-aware that his star is falling. However, I am not certain they would stand idle while you speak your own version of events.”
“I can keep my mouth shut, sir.”
“No you can’t, Carl. If there’s a truth, you will speak it, however uncomfortable it might be for the listeners to hear. I need you elsewhere – out of sight and out of mind.”
“I don’t like it, sir.”
“You
want the mission.”
“I do.”
“Then accept what I’ve told you. The Vengeance is ready to fly, and I want you gone from Adamantine today.”
Recker understood that Telar had done him a great favour. “I’ll recall my crew and soldiers. I’m sure they’ll appreciate the news.”
“I’ve arranged to have something taken onboard, to show the military’s appreciation for recent performances at Pinvos.”
“I’m sure everyone will be happy when they find out what it is, sir,” said Recker. The meeting was drawing to a close and he prepared to be dismissed.
“Go,” said Telar. “Find a way to unlock the potential of the Vengeance. Failing that, bring back something we can use against the Daklan.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
With that, Admiral Telar turned his attention to the paperwork on his desk. Recker took the hint and exited the office without another word.
Outside in the corridor, his pocket communicator had already been recharged to full by some magic of wireless technology which kept every battery-powered object on the base topped up. He made several calls while striding through the groups of personnel who now occupied this area of the base. Recker’s expression sent people scattering out his way and when he snapped the communicator shut, he wasn’t far from the Outer Admin 7 exit.
The gravity car which had brought him here hadn’t yet been claimed and Recker climbed inside. He gave it an order and it pulled out into traffic. Evening approached, but the base never slept – not anymore – and a column of tanks slowed the car’s progress.
All the while, the vehicle’s computer talked. It no longer regaled Recker with details of randomly selected rules and regulations. This time, it wanted to be his analyst and asked him numerous questions about his feelings and emotions. Recker’s answers left the computer in absolutely no doubt about his state of mind and his opinion of its efforts to take him back to his childhood in order to discover the root of his adult fears.
When the car stopped, Recker climbed out into the warm air. The sky was darkening to the west, but the artificial lights of the base segued in to ensure personnel could work comfortably. To Recker’s eyes, those lights illuminated the Vengeance in a way which made him think of an object in a museum, rather than a fighting ship.
He cast his gaze along the hull, with its projectile scarring and speckling of high-speed particle impacts. The Vengeance wasn’t by any stretch the largest spaceship in the HPA fleet, but it had an air of calm certainty – like it had no fear of anything. Recker shook away the thought, aware that he was still applying human emotions to the tools he was given. He guessed he’d never stop doing so.
Two Puncher medium tanks – broad-shouldered and angular vehicles with enormous-calibre gauss guns protruding from their turrets – hovered one to each side of the Vengeance’s forward boarding ramp, their propulsions drowned out by the oppressive bass which beat down from the warship looming overhead.
A soldier approached, bringing two others from the squad of fifteen nearest the ramp.
“Sergeant Tracker,” Recker said. “Seems like you’re on permanent assignment to guard my warships.”
The man gave a salute. “Captain Recker. The Vengeance is clear of personnel and the technicians’ report is all green lights.”
“Thank you. Have you heard from my crew or Sergeant Vance?”
“On their way, sir. You got here first.”
Recker approached the boarding ramp and Sergeant Tracker fell in step, though he didn’t say anything until he was a few paces from his squad.
“Good luck, sir.”
Tracker gave another salute and returned to his soldiers, while Recker climbed the steps on the boarding ramp. It seemed like an age since he’d been on the Vengeance and he braced himself for the attack on his senses.
Inside the compact airlock, he paused in the cold blue light and breathed in the scent of metal – it was an odour similar to that on every other HPA fleet warship, yet magnified here on the Vengeance, like the warship had been constructed from materials a billion years older.
Once through the inner door, Recker followed the corridors leading to the bridge. The closeness of the walls, the bass pressure from the engines and the feeling of enormous weight pushing in from every side made him feel like he was deep underground or inside an ancient submarine. He reached out and tapped his knuckles against the side wall – an act which was in danger of becoming superstition – and the action produced no sound at all.
Feels like I’m home.
The bridge hadn’t changed much – it was the same confined space with its five stations and blue lights. The maintenance team had bolted a storage locker to the rear bulkhead and fitted a small food replicator nearby. A couple of diagnostic tablets left on the edge of the command console suggested that the technicians had moved out in a hurry.
Next to the tablets, a stoppered glass bottle of golden liquid invited further investigation. Recker picked it up and, though he didn’t recognize the vintage, he was sure Admiral Telar wouldn’t have bothered sending a bottle he’d picked up from an off-base convenience store with the original intention of serving it to his mother-in-law.
Recker put the bottle aside and picked up the tablets. In a shocking breach of security protocols, the last technician to use one of the two had left himself logged in, though the device was ten seconds from automatically shutting down. Recker didn’t generally pry but his eyes automatically read some of the text and he pursed his lips.
The tablet logged itself out and Recker opened the locker, where he found gauss rifles, ammo, a medical box and four replacement spacesuits. He placed the tablets inside and closed the door.
He took his seat at the central console and began pre-flight checks. The technicians had left everything powered up and the Vengeance was ready to fly immediately. Since his crew hadn’t arrived, Recker used the time to dig deeper into the alien control software, finding its use came naturally to him. Five minutes was all it took for him to be sure the HPA technicians hadn’t installed or removed anything he wasn’t expecting.
Once he’d finished checking the hardware status, Recker’s attention was drawn to a mission briefing file which arrived via the comms system. The document was notable only for its brevity and he scanned the contents quickly.
Behind him, the bridge door opened with a quiet rumble.
“Sir.”
Recker turned. “Commander Aston.”
The next person through the doorway was Lieutenant Burner. “I promised myself a real burger when the Pinvos mission was over. I didn’t get the chance.”
“Life sucks,” said Lieutenant Eastwood, coming last. “And then you die in the fiery agony of a corrosive plasma explosion.”
“Seats, please,” said Recker.
“Let me guess – we’re in a hurry,” said Aston.
“Admiral Telar is always in a hurry, Commander. I thought you’d have learned that by now.”
Aston took her seat and stared at the console. “I take it you’re keeping the mission details to yourself, sir?”
“Not this time. We’re taking the Vengeance to an alien facility in the hope of activating its weapons and any other tech it might be carrying. Weapons and tech that might not, in fact, exist beyond the missiles and countermeasures we already know about.”
“We’re going alone?”
“Yes. Save the questions for later, folks.”
“Sergeant Vance just came onboard, sir,” said Burner. “We’ve got twenty minutes left on our departure window.”
“Speak to Sergeant Tracker. Tell him to move away.”
“Done.”
Two minutes later, the ground outside was clear and Recker declared he was ready to depart. With a deep breath and adrenaline gnawing at his belly, he took hold of the controls.
Chapter Eighteen
The Vengeance had not flown since the time Recker and his crew had brought it back from Tanril, with military politics ensu
ring the warship remained firmly on the ground until this moment.
“Here we go,” said Recker.
He drew the controls towards him, compensating for the extra resistance as they slid along their guide slots. The propulsion note increased in volume and, though it sounded almost indistinguishable from an HPA ternium drive, Recker detected underlying nuances that made it seem like an entirely different animal.
As he fed in more power, the differences increased and it was this which made him certain the Vengeance had plenty to give, but that he was unable to access the warship’s reserves because it was running in some kind of safe mode after its recovery from the core override which caused it to crash into Tanril.
Without drama, the spaceship rose from the ground and its landing legs groaned as the immense strain was relieved. Recker’s eyes darted across the instrumentation, hunting for signs of failure. He found none and so he gave his attention to the sensor feeds, where his eyes lingered on the part-built hulls in the construction trenches.
Limitations on his permitted velocity ensured that many seconds passed before the whole of Adamantine became visible on a single array and the rapidly approaching night made the facility appear like a gaudily lit patch on an area of gathering dusk.
“Approaching the upper atmosphere,” said Burner. “Twenty seconds until the first limit on acceleration expires.”
The Vengeance passed the distance threshold and Recker fed in more power and then again once the final acceleration distance limit was behind them. The alien warship hit 1450 kilometres per second and went no higher, though the propulsion took on a strange lumpiness as if it were cutting out and then resuming.
“Nothing’s changed,” he said. “It still feels like something’s holding it back.”
“Maybe we’ll find out what,” said Aston.
The moment he was outside the lightspeed exclusion zone around Lustre, Recker brought the Vengeance to a halt.
Fractured Horizons (Savage Stars Book 2) Page 15