Recker’s mind was turning. “The obliterator core on the Gabriel Solan. It’s designed to take over in the event of a core override.”
“I see you haven’t had a chance to study the full specifications. In fact, the obliterator core is designed to purge the core override by flooding the warship’s onboard systems with so much data that everything else is forced out.”
“Which will shut down the entire ship.”
“For a short time. And then, the obliterator core will force-inject an entire copy of the backup control software that it’s holding on its own data arrays into the purged systems. We believe this is similar to the method employed on the Vengeance. However, we’ve added some refinements.”
“The Vengeance has only one core, not two or three.”
“The Meklon technology isn’t the same as ours, Carl. I’m sure if you wanted details, your engine man will be happy to provide them. I hear he’s been putting his nose into many places where it’s not exactly welcome.”
“I’m sure he has,” said Recker with a short laugh. “So the Gabriel Solan is the only warship in our fleet that might resist a core override. Is this Daklan ship resistant to core overrides?”
“I have received assurances that the Daklan contribution will be suitably equipped and capable.”
“No doubt. When does the mission begin?”
“Let me respond with a question of my own.”
Recker felt a sinking feeling and wasn’t sure why.
“Did Fleet Admiral Solan mention anything about a crew for your warship?” Telar continued.
“No, sir. I assumed that as commanding officer I would choose my own.”
“You will, but with an additional member selected for you.”
“One of his men?”
“Yes.”
Recker’s blood started to boil. “I won’t have it! I will speak to Admiral Solan and tell him I choose my own crew!”
“I have a better idea. Lieutenant Salvatore Alexander is currently touring the Maximus, as part of Fleet Admiral Solan’s party. He is due to return to the Gabriel Solan in approximately two hours.”
Recker was already halfway from his seat when Telar called for him to sit.
“You are not yet assigned as commanding officer.”
“Shit.”
“I can make the arrangements.”
“You’ll get some heat for that, sir.”
“I’ve got plenty already.”
Once again, Recker attempted to leave his seat.
“One more thing,” said Telar.
“Sir?”
“Before it was subject to its recent modifications, the Gabriel Solan was a cruiser by the name of Axiom.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good luck, Captain Recker. The mission documentation will be with you soon.”
With the meeting over and two hours before Lieutenant Alexander was due to return to the Gabriel Solan, Recker knew time was tight. He sprinted from the room.
Chapter Five
Recker didn’t hold back and steered the gravity car along one of the main corridors which ran the full length of the Maximus. Luckily, most of the personnel were elsewhere, and he was able to achieve a speed that stuck up a proud two fingers to every health and safety guideline pertaining to the use of gravity vehicles within an enclosed space.
With him were Commander Aston, along with Lieutenants Eastwood and Burner. Circumstances didn’t allow Recker to provide any more than a brief outline of the situation, which was enough to instil a sense of great urgency in his crew.
“Here’s our target,” said Aston, having called up the file image of Lieutenant Alexander on her pocket communicator.
Recker glanced at the picture and remembered him from Solan’s group.
“Excuse my language, but the man looks like a cock,” said Burner.
“Contemptuous curl of upper lip…check. All-knowing expression…check. Slightly oversized forehead…check,” said Aston.
“He could have the appearance of a heavenly cherub and I wouldn’t want him on my spaceship,” said Recker, guiding the gravity car around a group of surprised technicians.
“I just spoke to the comms team on the bridge and they won’t divulge his location,” said Burner, snapping shut his own communicator.
“If you hadn’t gone missing, we’d have plenty of time,” said Eastwood.
“I didn’t go missing. I went for a coffee.”
“Three thousand metres from the Vengeance,” said Aston. “And not answering your communicator.”
“I didn’t hear it. I was running.”
“All three thousand metres?” said Eastwood doubtfully. “That would pretty much double your previous personal best.”
“I told you I’d get in shape and I meant it.”
“Save it for later,” said Recker. “Like when we’ve got a six-week lightspeed journey to fill.”
“We’ve got a six-week journey?” asked Burner in horror.
“I’ve got no idea where we’re going, Lieutenant. Just be quiet.”
Burner took the unsubtle hint and cut the chat. Not far ahead, Recker spotted the airlift which would take him to a bay where he’d been informed he might find a vacant shuttle. It was just his luck that Solan’s arrival, alongside a shift change, had significantly increased the demand for transport.
Recker brought the gravity car to a halt adjacent to the lift, just as the door opened and a group of personnel exited. Once inside the lift, he checked the time. The diversion to find Lieutenant Burner had cost many minutes and there was no guarantee that Fleet Admiral Solan’s party would depart at the exact two hours mentioned by Admiral Telar.
As a result, Recker was feeling the strain.
“If Lieutenant Alexander gets there first, couldn’t we, you know, knock him out or something?” said Eastwood. “Maybe have the squad onboard arrest him for a crime we made up.”
“The idea is to get the mission started and let Admiral Telar handle the political crap,” said Recker. “I don’t want to be involved.”
“Too late for that,” said Aston. “You’re up to your neck in it.”
“I’d have said the shit-line was somewhere closer to his forehead,” said Eastwood. “Maybe even a little higher.”
“The captain is wondering if he’d be better off with Lieutenant Alexander and a whole different crew onboard,” said Aston. “I can see it in his face – the exact question going through his mind right now is what did I do to deserve this?”
Recker was saved by the opening of the airlift door and he sprinted into a short connecting corridor which led directly to a brightly lit mid-sized rectangular room, with two airlocks leading to separate shuttles clamped behind the bulkhead.
“Shit, there he is,” said Aston quietly.
A group of five were talking next to the closest of the airlock doors. Three members of the group were from Solan’s party, with the other two being technical crew from the Maximus. Lieutenant Alexander wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation and he looked utterly bored with the proceedings.
Keeping his head down and his face directed at the opposite wall, Recker jogged past to the far airlock.
“In a hurry?” asked one of the technicians.
Recker didn’t answer. Impatiently, he activated the access panel and the door opened to reveal a short corridor leading directly to the shuttle.
“Uh-oh, they’re leaving,” said Aston, taking one final look into the main area of the bay.
“Not before we are.”
Once the airlock lights turned green, Recker opened the shuttle door and ran for the cockpit, with Aston taking the second seat.
“Everything’s ready,” she said.
“Let’s disengage the clamps.” Recker punched in the command and swore at the outcome. “Shuttle one in the bay has priority departure,” he said. “I can’t override, so we’ll have to wait for Lieutenant Alexander to leave.”
“Maybe he’s got some things
he needs to collect from Topaz station,” said Burner from the cockpit doorway.
“Like hell, he’s going straight for the Gabriel Solan,” said Eastwood.
“The Axiom,” said Recker. “I’m damned if I’m calling it the Gabriel Solan while I’m flying the damned thing.”
“Two obscenities in one sentence. He’s pissed,” said Burner.
As it happened, Recker wasn’t angry, he simply recognized how much harder the coming mission would be if he was required to look over his shoulder every time he wanted to speak his mind.
“Shuttle one has departed,” said Aston.
“Thirty seconds and we can do likewise.”
It was a long thirty seconds and Recker spent it staring at the rear feed which showed the sealed door leading to the launch tunnel. At last, a status update indicated the shuttle was free to depart. With feeling, Recker stabbed his finger at the launch button. The gravity clamps holding the vessel in place detached and he took manual control.
Since the shuttle had been docked front-first, he was required to pilot it out in reverse, which he did at speed. An alarm chimed softly to let him know he’d breached a launch velocity threshold and then the shuttle emerged from the heavy lifter’s outer skin into the coldness of space.
Recker requested maximum power from the engines and flew the shuttle along the length of the Maximus, in close enough proximity to earn him another advisory chime.
“There’s the Gabriel…I mean the Axiom,” said Aston. “Four hundred klicks dead ahead. Lieutenant Alexander got a good head start on us.”
A small green dot on the tactical – shuttle one – was on a vector that would take it straight to the Axiom, and it was travelling fast. Recker performed some mental calculations and concluded that it would be close as to who arrived first. Shuttle two was at full thrust and he couldn’t do any more than that.
“Bring up the Axiom on the sensor feed,” he said.
“You got it.”
A broad-beamed spaceship appeared on the forward feed. At first glance, it looked exactly what it was – an elongated Teron class cruiser with enormous quantities of additional plating fixed to the hull. When Recker stared for longer, he began to appreciate that rather more thought had gone into the design. Now the warship’s overall appearance put him more in mind of a massive, angular, blunt-ended battering ram than the sleek and low-profile original which lay somewhere underneath.
“A bruiser, not a fencer,” he said. “Looks like it could punch through anything even without weapons.”
“I like it,” said Aston.
“Me too.” Recker pulled his attention back to the task at hand. “And it’s only got one docking bay.”
At fifty kilometres from the Axiom, Recker overtook the other shuttle, so close that it would likely have been visible to the naked eye. He wasn’t watching his opponent and instead had his attention entirely on the Axiom.
“The shuttle dock,” he said, spotting the opening midway up the portside flank.
“We’re getting some attention from the crew on Topaz, the Divergence and the Maximus,” Aston warned. “People asking what the hell we’re playing at. And here’s a comms request from Lieutenant Alexander’s shuttle – wanting to know the same thing.”
“Ignore everything.”
“And now I’ve got Lieutenant Larson from the Axiom, sir.”
A request from the heavy cruiser was something Recker couldn’t ignore, not unless he wanted to risk the crew onboard denying him access to the bay.
“Tell them their new commanding officer is in a hurry.”
“Yes, sir.”
Recker didn’t wait to hear the outcome - the shuttle was travelling fast and the much bigger Axiom filled the sensor feed with grey. In the centre of the screen, the docking bay was a tiny square which grew quickly. Holding his nerve, Recker decreased speed at the last moment and guided the shuttle into a docking tunnel which was far longer than the equivalent on a normal cruiser.
“Fleet Admiral Solan wasn’t exaggerating about the armour,” said Recker, bringing the vessel to a halt. Immediately, the gravity clamps engaged and a green light appeared to indicate the docking was successful.
“Lieutenant Alexander sure is persistent,” said Aston, pointing at a flashing light on the comms panel.
“A good trait to find in an officer. Now let’s move,” said Recker.
He ushered Burner and Eastwood away from the cockpit door and hurried to the exit. The airtight seals were in place, so he wasn’t required to wait for another green light. The door opened when he touched the adjacent panel and Recker dashed into a short tunnel which led to an intersection. He paused at a wall-mounted console and sent a command to close the outer docking bay doors, an action which gave him an entirely explicable feeling of satisfaction.
“The bridge,” he said, stepping away from the console.
At the intersection, he headed left into another short passage and then took the first right. Recker hadn’t visited a fleet cruiser for a few years, but nothing had changed. The corridors were a little wider, such that two personnel could almost pass sideways without making contact. The ceiling was higher, though not so much that it allowed taller people to achieve a flat-out sprint without risk of injury. Otherwise, it was the same old design which placed functionality on a pedestal and left comfort in the gutter.
Not far from the bridge, Recker nearly collided with a figure coming around a corner from the opposite direction.
“Private Drawl.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“In which case you’ve got a whole lot more surprises ahead of you, sir. Sergeant Vance and the rest of the squad are here somewhere.” Drawl shrugged to indicate he wasn’t exactly sure where the other soldiers were hiding themselves. “We got the order to come onboard maybe a couple of hours ago. Maybe less. And here we are.”
“I’ll speak to Sergeant Vance,” said Recker, squeezing past Drawl.
“Say, are we going someplace nice, sir?”
“Always.”
“Admiral Telar’s got a real eye for detail,” said Aston, once the crew were away from Private Drawl.
“I’m just beginning to understand how much so,” said Recker.
He arrived at the steps leading to the bridge, climbed and opened the protective door. Familiar blue-white light spilled into the darker corridor and he narrowed his eyes instinctively. The bridge floorspace was approximately fifty percent greater than that on a riot or destroyer, with seats for a total of seven personnel.
Two officers already present were standing and they saluted Recker as he entered. He took it as a good sign that they’d followed his progress through the warship and were ready for him.
“Lieutenant Jo Larson, sir. Sensors and comms,” said the closest, a blonde woman in her mid-twenties with a confident air and a face that could have launched a thousand warships.
“Lieutenant Larry Fraser, sir. Engines.” In appearance, Fraser was about ten years younger than Eastwood, but with the same broad shoulders and similarly craggy features, like they were a prerequisite of the specialisation.
“Backup comms, backup engines,” said Recker at once, pointing at each in turn. “Where’s the rest of the stand-in crew?”
“They left shortly after Lieutenant Alexander, sir. We received a high-priority message from Topaz station and a shuttle came for the pickup.”
“Who sent the message?”
“Admiral Telar, sir.”
Recker was not taken aback by the disclosure. “Do either of you know Lieutenant Alexander? Was he stationed on the bridge?” He watched closely for their reactions.
“Yes, sir,” said Fraser, with scrupulous neutrality.
Larson’s eyes flashed dangerously and her shoulders drew in defensively, so fractionally that Recker would have missed it were he not already looking. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“What’s his specialisation?”
“I’m not su
re, sir,” said Fraser. “All of them, from listening to him speak.”
“Where did he sit?”
“Over there on weapons, next to Captain Ramirez.”
“So his specialisation was weapons?”
“I don’t know, sir. We were part of the Axiom’s original crew – along with Captain Ramirez - before it got renamed. Lieutenant Alexander came onboard shortly before lift-off and that console is where he mostly sat.”
Both Fraser and Larson had plenty to say about Lieutenant Alexander, that much was clear from their expressions. However, they didn’t know Recker and they weren’t about to badmouth another officer just yet. Doubtless they’d find their tongues at some point and Recker had yet to find anyone who could resist Commander Aston’s efforts at persuasion.
“Everyone to your stations,” Recker ordered, heading for the command console. “This is my usual crew – I’ll leave them to make introductions.”
Recker sat. The Axiom had been heavily modified on the outside and the refit extended to the bridge hardware. The console in front of him was the latest available, though nothing about it was unfamiliar.
“Sir, Lieutenant Alexander is requesting a channel,” said Larson.
“Deny the request and any others you receive from him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Instead of waiting around, Recker took the warship’s controls and accelerated directly away from both Topaz station and the battleship Divergence which was stationary nearby. The effects of the additional propulsion mass were immediately noticeable and under full thrust the engines pushed the life support utilisation gauges far higher than normal. One of the sensor feeds showed the Lapus-1 gas giant sliding steadily by as the warship gained speed.
“Where are those mission documents?” Recker muttered to himself, taking one hand off the controls to check the messaging system. He wanted to get into lightspeed before news about the situation reached Fleet Admiral Solan. If that happened, the crew on the Divergence battleship would take a much closer interest.
Before his eyes, an encrypted document arrived, keyed to his own command codes. He opened the file and scanned the contents.
“Lieutenant Eastwood, I’m sending you some coordinates. That’s where we’re heading.”
Galactar (Savage Stars Book 3) Page 4