“I believe it will – once you’re close enough to the space station. Other than that, you must have command codes you can try. If all else fails, I guess your core override protection systems allow for a purge of the control systems. At which point, you’ll have your ship back.”
Jir-Lazan made a growling noise which left no room to misunderstand his opinion of the situation. “If you complete your biometric re-scanning, will you have access to the station’s data repositories?”
“I’ll have access to the files which the captain of a primary warship would be expected to access.”
“That should be enough,” said Jir-Lazan. “I am worried, human. This Galactar sounds like an opponent we should avoid.”
“The Axiom has in-built systems to purge the navigational computer,” said Recker. “And the shipyard has given my crew access to the physical tie-ins, which can be severed if needed. The enemy will gain nothing from this spaceship.”
“The HPA has been as cautious as the Daklan,” rumbled Jir-Lazan. “The Aktrivisar’s star charts can also be disabled. However, my concern is for the fleet which preceded us.”
“I believe they had almost defeated the Lavorix and were destroyed by the Fracture before they could finish the job. There will be nothing left of them. Scans of the wreckage on the planet indicate the possibility something could be salvaged from the destroyed Daklan warships.”
“It is possible, but from our own scans I do not think it likely,” said Jir-Lazan. “It pains me to say it, but this is a time when the deaths of my fellows and the destruction of their warships is the most favourable outcome.”
“Will you allow the flight controller to fly the Aktrivisar?” asked Recker.
“Yes, though with one condition. I will send a shuttle with my soldiers onto the Axiom. When you dock, they will assist with overcoming any Lavorix resistance. Once the re-scanning is complete, they will extract a second copy of the data from the space station’s memory arrays.”
It was a condition that Recker didn’t much want to comply with. Under the circumstances, he understood that the Daklan wanted reassurances they were getting a fair share of the spoils and in the interests of the mission, he couldn’t deny them.
“I agree,” said Recker. “Fifteen of your soldiers and no more. And I expect absolute discipline while they are onboard my warship. Once we are inside Excon-1, my lead officer Sergeant Vance will command.”
“My soldiers will not follow orders from a human.”
“I can’t accept two forces operating independently once we’re inside the station.”
“This may present a problem for us, Captain Recker.” Jir-Lazan made another of his rumbling sounds, which Recker guessed indicated the Daklan was thinking. “I can compel them to accept orders from a senior officer. You will be required to disembark for re-scanning and your authorisation will be needed to access the Excon-1 data arrays. Captain Recker, you will command them.”
“I accept,” said Recker.
“We are working together, human! I will send a shuttle across within the next few minutes. Then, we will find out what the Meklon station offers.”
“And escape before the Galactar shows up.”
“That is imperative.”
“Once we arrive at the station and the Axiom is in the bay, you should bombard the surface debris with missiles. Just to be sure.”
“You are convinced this will not produce a hostile response from the space station?”
“Excon-1 can’t fire its weapons, so yes I’m certain.”
“Very well.”
Recker cut the channel and exhaled loudly, while mentally reassuring himself he was doing the right thing. Time would tell.
He opened an internal comms channel to Sergeant Vance and let him in on the news.
Chapter Twelve
Thirty minutes later, the Daklan soldiers arrived and used one of the Axiom’s emergency docking hatches to enter the warship. Recker was there to greet them, along with Sergeant Vance and the rest of the Axiom’s soldiers – or at least those who could fit in the airlock-sized room at the end of the access passage. The others had fortified the nearby stairwell in case the Daklan proved untrustworthy, and Private Titus Enfield had rigged up a few remote-activated explosive surprises. Meanwhile, the bridge crew watched through the internal monitors, ready to switch on the anti-hijack miniguns dotted around the warship.
The first of the Daklan emerged from the access passage and straightened to a height well in excess of seven feet. Like most of his kind he was a broad-shouldered, muscular brute, and dressed in a bulky grey combat suit. This Daklan had thick, dark grey hair and piercing green eyes that almost seemed to glow with an inner light. His skin was red-brown and, like all Daklan, he had two small, upturned fangs which protruded between his lips and gave him the appearance of a demon, though perhaps without the savage cruelty. In one thick-fingered hand, he carried an angular helmet and in the other, a gauss cannon that Recker knew could put a hole through a thin sheet of warship-grade alloy, but which became much less effective over longer ranges.
“I’m Captain Recker,” said Recker, striding forward confidently. He stopped in front of the Daklan and met the alien’s gaze.
The Daklan stared back. This was the closest Recker had come to a living Daklan without gauss slugs skimming past his head, and it felt strange.
We need each other. Whatever happens later doesn’t change the present.
“I am Sergeant Shadar. I am to obey your orders.”
Shadar’s voice was as rasping as Jir-Lazan’s and when he spoke, a language module converted the words and sent the translation through the chin speaker in the helmet he carried at his side.
“There will be no trouble,” said Recker. He glanced past Sergeant Shadar and saw the other Daklan waiting in the access tunnel.
“No trouble,” Shadar confirmed. “On this mission, we act as one.”
Recker introduced Sergeant Vance and Corporal Hendrix. Shadar nodded at each in turn and then beckoned out the first of his own squad.
“Itrol,” he said.
The next came.
“Lumis.”
The lack of space made these first minutes awkward, and Recker waved the nearest of his own soldiers away in order to make room. Any hope of controlled combat was gone, but this was a time for trust, not gunfire.
Shadar reeled off the names as the Daklan filed inside and the aliens headed deeper into the Axiom. Mostly they were armed with gauss rifles, but one carried a shoulder launcher, another a compact data-extractor and a third was laden with a brutal-looking repeater.
“Unvak, Litos, Ipanvir, Zivor, Reklin,” said Shadar, pointing at each in turn.
The Daklan didn’t return the greeting, only nodded in acknowledgement as their names were spoken.
“They have no other names?” asked Recker.
“None that you will hear, human.”
The words weren’t spoken insultingly – or Recker got no impression they were - and he didn’t question the statement. If the Daklan preferred to keep part of their names secret, so be it.
“I have a warship to fly. Sergeant Vance will take you to the mess room. I don’t anticipate you’ll be onboard long enough that you’ll require quarters.” He didn’t drop his gaze. “I will not tolerate any action which might break the peace. Is that understood?”
“That is understood,” Shadar confirmed.
“I trust you’ve been briefed. I’ll see you on Excon-1.”
With that, Recker exited the airlock room and returned to the bridge. He felt no tension from his first meeting with the Daklan. In fact, he’d recognized the competence of the alien soldiers and that had allowed him to fall back into his old mantle of ground commander.
“Well?” said Aston when he took his seat.
“They’re on our side for the moment.”
Recker didn’t need to say anything more. He got on the comms and arranged the next moves with Captain Jir-Lazan.
; “It’ll require more than two hours on the sub-light engines to reach the thirty-million klick range of the Excon-1 flight controller,” he said. “I’ve contacted the station and advised that we will execute a lightspeed jump to one million kilometres.”
“That is acceptable,” said Jir-Lazan. “My officers have scanned the location of the space station and have been unable to learn anything. We believe it is equipped with sensor deflection technology.”
“That’s the conclusion reached by my own team,” said Recker. “The Lavorix Interrogator was similarly protected.”
“We are going in blind and I do not like it, any more than I like relinquishing the control of my warship.”
“We’re aiming for the prize, Captain Jir-Lazan. Both the Lavorix and the Meklon possess weapons technology we lack. Should their war come to us, I would prefer to fight as an equal.”
“It seems we agree on many things, human. The desire to fight and survive is a trait of all sentient creatures.”
With nothing further to say, Recker cut the channel and ordered Lieutenant Eastwood to create a lightspeed synch code for the two warships. Shortly after, the Axiom’s ternium drive started warming up and Recker drummed his fingers on the edge of his console. He glanced over at Aston – she looked cool and calm on the surface. A quick smile reassured him that she was ready for whatever was coming.
The timer counted down to zero and the two warships launched into the shortest of lightspeed journeys. Shaking off the resulting nausea, Recker threw the controls forward in case he’d somehow been tricked into arriving amongst previously undetected hostile warships. The controls didn’t respond, though the propulsion grumbled and he could feel the acceleration.
“The flight controller has hold of us,” he said.
“Captain Jir-Lazan’s comms team confirm likewise,” said Burner. “I’m still waiting on the sensor feeds.”
The Axiom’s arrays came back all at once and Recker waited impatiently for Burner and Larson to finish their local area scans so that they could focus their efforts on the Meklon station.
“The Aktrivisar is ten klicks to port,” said Larson. “It’s mirroring our course and velocity.”
“There’s Qul,” said Burner. “Still searching for Excon-1.”
The facing side of the planet was a mess and the damage inflicted by impacting warship wreckage extended for thousands of kilometres. For so much debris to have landed, the engagement must have been close to the planet and Recker wished he’d been there to witness it, if only to learn something about the Lavorix spaceships and how they fought.
“No sign of Excon-1, sir,” said Larson. “We’re still receiving location data, so we know where it is and we know it’s massive.”
“We just can’t see it,” said Recker.
“I’m trying some different lens filters, sir,” said Burner. “I might be on to something.”
“You haven’t got long,” said Recker, checking the velocity readout. “Ten minutes and we’ll have arrived.”
Three minutes later, Burner worked his magic on the sensors and he obtained a feed of Excon-1 which made the space station appear semi-transparent like it was an imprinted memory of something which had been here long before.
For a time, Recker stared at his destination. Excon-1 was a complex structure; four fifty-kilometre cylinders were connected to a central cylinder of equal length and diameter. Other modules were attached to these outer cylinders, all of them rectangular. Recker saw vast antennae arrays, and dozens of smaller modules which he suspected had been added over the years. The overall impression he got was that the Meklon had constructed a vast, impressive technological masterpiece and probably one which had played a central part in their war against the Lavorix.
However, the space station wasn’t undamaged. Its outer surface had suffered colossal damage, from a variety of missile and energy weapon strikes. Parts of it had been melted in heat and then solidified into shapeless masses of alloy. Two of the main cylinders looked as if they might snap free at any moment and drift away into the infinite depths of space. On one of the outer rectangular structures, heat still glowed with a burning fury and Recker peered closely at the feed.
“That’s where the lightspeed missiles hit,” he said. “The first one pierced the armour and the second flew right through the hole.”
It made Recker feel a peculiar sadness to stare at the reduction of this massive structure to a shadow of what it must have been. He doubted the Meklon would have been friends of the HPA, yet he couldn’t help but feel empathy for the species capable of such wondrous feats as the construction of Excon-1 and the Vengeance. And it hadn’t been enough to save them from defeat.
“Where are we expected to dock?” said Eastwood.
“This section,” said Recker, pointing at an area two thirds up. Here, the central cylinder and the four surrounding ones were cased in additional housing which made that part of Excon-1 appear more like a square.
The flight controller banked the Axiom, clearly intending to bring the warship around to an opening that was currently out of view. On the portside feed, the Aktrivisar did likewise, while maintaining a constant distance of ten kilometres from the Axiom.
“You might want to check this out, sir,” said Burner. “I’m magnifying part of the feed.”
One of the arrays which was aimed at the midsection of Excon-1 zoomed to an irregular, darker patch on the shroud which encompassed the central cylinders. The angle wasn’t perfect and at first Recker couldn’t understand what he was looking at.
“A hole?” he asked.
“Yes and no, sir. I’ll try an outline and enhance.”
The feed cleared and then Recker knew. There was a hole in the side of Excon-1 – a massive hole. Not only that, the stern of the spaceship which had created it was still protruding a few hundred metres into the vacuum.
“An annihilator,” he said.
“Yes, sir. What we’re looking at is consistent with the shape and size of a Daklan battleship.”
“Get me a channel to the Aktrivisar.”
“Captain Jir-Lazan is already waiting.”
Recker spoke first. “One of your annihilators crashed into Excon-1.”
“By its markings, I know it to be the Raxinal,” said Jir-Lazan. “It’s not responding to comms requests.”
“What’s it doing there?” Recker guessed the answer to his own question. “Core override at the wrong time.”
“The fleet which came here would have no defence against that weapon, Captain Recker.”
“Does this change anything?” asked Recker. He knew the answer already and dropped to his seat, with his eyes on the sensor feed. The flight controller was slowing the Axiom and bringing it in a wider arc towards an out-of-sight docking place. Recker typed.
Axiom> Is there anything you can do to remove the core override from the battleship which is embedded in your structure?
Excon-1> Negative. The warship’s internal systems were completely purged. I could inject the Meklon equivalent control systems, but the results would not be positive.
Axiom> Is the core override still active within the annihilator?
Excon-1> The core override is gone.
Axiom> Did it breach the warship’s encrypted data arrays?
Excon-1> Impossible to determine.
It was a question which Recker desperately wanted answering, but since the Meklon station didn’t know, he wasn’t going to spend time thinking about it. If the core override was gone from the annihilator, that meant the Lavorix had either plundered the battleship’s navigational system or they hadn’t, with no way to alter the outcome. He typed again.
Axiom> Did the warship’s crew escape?
Excon-1> Negative. The core override shut down the life support system and subjected the occupants to a sustained burst of acceleration.
Axiom> And then crashed the battleship into the Excon-1 station.
Excon-1> The Meklon war against the Lavorix is almost conc
luded. The enemies of my species have little further use for the Excon-1 facility.
Axiom> They’ll destroy Excon-1?
Excon-1> Eventually.
Recker was drawn from the conversation by Lieutenant Burner.
“There’s the bay, sir. About five thousand metres above the annihilator.”
A pair of immense, rectangular doors came into sight and they were sliding open slowly and laboriously. Both doors had suffered numerous missile strikes and the walls all around were similarly cratered. Nevertheless, the doors drew apart, revealing an internal space large enough to accommodate several warships of the Axiom’s size. The bay was unlit like the exterior, but the Axiom’s sensors were capable enough to determine that it was empty.
“The doors have stopped,” said Burner. “They must have jammed or lost power.”
“Plenty of room to get through,” said Aston. “Eleven hundred meters.”
“The Aktrivisar is now stationary,” said Larson. “I’m speaking to their comms team.”
Recker drummed his fingers again and watched the forward sensor feed as the flight controller flew the warship towards the Excon-1 main bay. The inner walls were partially hidden by the doors and he wasn’t sure where the Axiom would end up.
“Captain Jir-Lazan reports he has regained control of the Aktrivisar,” said Larson, relief evident in her voice. “He has received no communication from Excon-1 and will commence bombardment of the surface as soon as we are docked.”
“What’s the plan, sir?” said Aston.
“I’ll lead both squads off the Axiom,” he said.
“What about the biometric re-scanning?”
“Excon-1 said it would bring us into the bay so the process could be completed.” Recker suddenly wondered if he should have given the matter more thought. “I assumed it would happen once I disembarked. If the process happens twenty klicks below us, we’re screwed unless this station is fitted with a long airlift.”
“You could wait here and see what happens. The station might offer guidance once we’re docked.”
Galactar (Savage Stars Book 3) Page 10