Recker's Chance

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by Anthony James


  It would have to be enough.

  “Lieutenant Burner, request the coordinates of Tokladan if you haven’t already, and feed them into the navigational computer. Once that’s done, Lieutenant Eastwood you will ready the Gateway, targeting a place one billion klicks from the planet.”

  “Yes, sir. The previous warm up was eight minutes.”

  “Just enough time for the Captain to inform us of the plan,” said Burner.

  “You know what the plan is, Lieutenant,” said Recker.

  “We’re going to cross our fingers and hope for the best?”

  “There’s still time for us to Gateway to Earth and pick up replacements for insubordinate members of the crew, Lieutenant.”

  “I don’t know who you mean, sir,” said Burner.

  “The Gateway hardware has accepted the destination coordinates,” said Eastwood loudly. “We’ve got plenty of tenixite in our storage bay for another few dozen jumps after this one.”

  Recker didn’t bother listening for signs the hardware was preparing to fire. He’d tried back in the RETI-11 system and concluded that the Gateway module was somewhere far from the bridge, where it couldn’t be heard.

  “Listen up folks,” he said. “When we arrive in DEKA-L, we’ll scan for the Ixidar and act according to circumstance. It may be that the enemy detects us first – hell, it’s something they’re good at – so there’s a chance we’ll be forced into an engagement before we’re ready. I’m relying on you to make sure we come through the fight in one piece.”

  “What if the Ixidar runs for the hills instead of fighting?” said Eastwood.

  The question caught Recker by surprise and he berated himself for not considering the possibility sooner. He’d been operating under the belief that the enemy would welcome the engagement, but upon reflection, the Lavorix likely wouldn’t see the benefit in risking their warship.

  “If they escape, it’s bad news for everyone in the alliance,” said Recker. “On the other hand, if the Ixidar runs from our warship, at least we’ll know the Gorgadar is something special.”

  “Two minutes on the Gateway,” said Eastwood.

  “I’ve sent a transmission to Earth and also advised Sergeant Vance and Sergeant Shadar of our intentions,” said Larson.

  Recker briefly wondered what his platoon sergeants were doing. He’d ordered them to clean up the bridge, scout the area and to report anything unusual. So far, the only find they’d considered worth telling him about was the nearest replicator and the corrupted swill it disgorged.

  In their position I wouldn’t go far. I’d sweep the area and then hunker down as near to the bridge as possible.

  He put the thoughts from his mind and glanced at the timer on his console which Eastwood had set up. The Lavorix units of time didn’t quite align with HPA seconds, leaving Recker to estimate exactly how long was left.

  “More than enough time to inject again,” he muttered sourly. “Get your needles out, folks.”

  Reaching into his leg pocket, Recker pulled forth another injector. He hated the sight of them and his thigh burned constantly from the accumulated Frenziol in his flesh. This wasn’t something any of the crew could avoid and Recker gave himself a full shot, before hurling the injector angrily against the side wall of the bridge.

  “Everyone topped up?” he asked.

  The responses lacked enthusiasm, which came as no surprise, and Recker wondered how he would cope when the Frenziol was no longer a necessity. They could flush his body clean, but he worried that his mind wouldn’t be the same again.

  “Three…two…one…” said Eastwood, startling Recker from his thoughts.

  The Gateway activation hit Recker and he clamped his jaw shut against the pain. For a short time, the feeds went blank and then the bulkhead screen began to flicker. Moments later, the Gorgadar’s sensor arrays began gathering data based on the direction and focus settings from before the Gateway.

  “Let’s have those scans,” said Recker, gripping the controls tightly. An inner voice railed against him for holding the warship stationary and he ignored it. If the Ixidar had detected their arrival, the energy shield would have to suffice for those first few moments of the engagement.

  “I’ve located the Vengeance,” said Larson. “It’s on our roof in the same place as we left it. I’m creating a synch code.”

  “The code is active,” said Aston. “I have remote control over the Vengeance’s weapons.”

  “Near scans complete,” said Burner. “Nothing to report. The fars are underway.”

  “I’ve located the closest planet,” said Larson. “According to the data we received from Sapphire station, four others are blind side of DEKA-L, while Tokladan should be visible and offset from the star.”

  The nearest planet was visually more interesting than most, clad as it was in a layer of translucent ice, though with an atmosphere that would quickly be fatal to anyone outside of a spacesuit.

  “There’s Tokladan. Checking for Daklan comms receptors,” said Burner. “Found one. Should I attempt contact?”

  Recker was keen to access the local sensor satellites, which would give him positional data for the Ixidar. Gaining that access would require time and approval from the ground, and it was possible the enemy had infiltrated the Daklan comms.

  “Maintain comms silence,” said Recker. “Lieutenant Burner, scan for the enemy ship – it shouldn’t be too hard to find. Lieutenant Larson, continue the near scans – if anything arrives on our doorstep, I want to know about it.”

  “Already on it, sir.”

  From this distance, Tokladan was a dot of indeterminate colour against the background of space. Peering closely, Recker saw no details, but he knew the sensors could gather all kinds of data that his eye could not. It just took time.

  “There’s no sign of the enemy ship on the planet’s visible side,” said Burner. “According to the data we received, the Ixidar is not staying long in any single place.”

  “They’re wary,” said Recker. “It must have come as a shock to find the Daklan lightspeed missiles crashing into their plating.”

  He drummed his fingers and tried to ignore the Frenziol chill working its way through his muscles. In a few minutes, Recker knew, the nausea would build. He’d want to vomit and the boosters would stop it, leaving his body in a state of conflict he would never become accustomed to. It was better than extraction pain he kept reminding himself, though he’d have enjoyed a period free from booster drugs and indiscriminately murderous alien weaponry.

  “Perhaps we should approach using the standard lightspeed drive,” said Aston.

  Recker glanced across. “You think we should force a confrontation?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aston, her expression conflicted. “I just keep thinking of those people suffering down there.”

  “Thank you for the reminder,” said Recker, and he meant it. “Let’s wait another few minutes to see if the Ixidar emerges from the blind side.”

  “And then we mode 3 in and see what they think of the death sphere,” said Burner.

  “It’s got to be worth a shot,” said Recker.

  “I’ve detected a surface reading on the planet’s south-eastern curve,” said Eastwood. “Readings consistent with an Extractor discharge.”

  “Shit,” said Recker. “Is there any way we can pinpoint the location of the Ixidar from those readings?”

  “Not with any degree of accuracy, sir. We know the Extractor can cover a large area and I don’t have enough data to identify the centre point of the discharge.”

  Recker hated being a spectator and he felt it even more knowing what the Daklan on the surface were suffering. He desperately wanted to charge headlong into combat and have it done with. Holding him back was the understanding that screwing up here would likely condemn the entire HPA and Daklan species to Extractor deaths.

  I always went with instinct and it never let me down.

  Right now, his instinct was telling him that in ano
ther couple of minutes, the Ixidar would emerge into sensor sight and he’d have a clear mode 3 path to within eighty kilometres of its hull. All he had to do was hold on.

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “Sir, I’ve got…!” Larson began.

  The warning came too late. A bolt of corrosive energy struck the Gorgadar’s shield in front of the warship’s nose. Dark blue light surrounded the warship, the shield reserve gauge dropped significantly and the readouts from a dozen different instruments jumped crazily as the shield generator module tapped into the propulsion.

  “There’s an object travelling fast across the planet’s surface!” said Larson. “Mass estimates indicate it’s the Ixidar!”

  Recker hardly had time to wonder how the hell the enemy ship had located the Gorgadar from a billion kilometres and – even more appallingly – how the Lavorix had built a weapon that could target and fire across the same distance.

  Any thoughts of a measured approach were gone. Recker pushed the control bars all the way along their guide slots, and his thumb squeezed the overstress button. The propulsion switched over and the beating note of their output pounded in his head like a sledgehammer. A glance at the velocity gauge told him the Gorgadar was already travelling at three thousand kilometres per second. Compared to anything in the HPA and Daklan fleet, this warship was a technological miracle – not a step change, more like three whole flights ahead of everything else.

  The Vengeance couldn’t keep up either - it slid off the Gorgadar’s upper plating and fell rapidly behind.

  A second energy bolt hit the shield and the gauge dropped again. Larson had put an overlay on the tactical, showing a red dot speeding across the much larger circle representing Tokladan. Much of the data was estimated owing to the distance, though it was clear the enemy warship was at a low altitude.

  The time for watching was over and Recker felt a secret relief that he’d been pushed into action. For a split second, he watched the enemy ship and then touched his fingertip on the tactical screen an eighth turn of Tokladan ahead and at a two-hundred-kilometre altitude. The mode 3 button on the controls lit up.

  “Let’s get those bastards,” he said.

  A surge of suppressed acceleration accompanied the mode 3 activation and the Gorgadar vanished into lightspeed. The Vengeance was synched but Recker had no idea if it would also enter lightspeed. He had other things to worry about and didn’t spare it much thought.

  Ignoring the thudding pain of the stacked transitions, Recker immediately increased the Gorgadar’s forward velocity before the sensors had come back online, relying on the energy shield to protect the hull from an unwanted impact with Tokladan’s surface.

  “Sensors coming up!” yelled Burner.

  All at once, the feeds appeared on the bulkhead screen and Recker swept his gaze across them, wondering what he’d find.

  “Where’s that damned warship?” he snarled.

  “Searching,” said Larson.

  The Ixidar was not on the feeds. All they showed was a mixture of outer space, along with the reds and yellows of Tokladan’s rocky surface. Far to the north and on the horizon, Recker spotted the domes and towers of the nearest Daklan facility.

  “They must have taken a mode 3 jump as well, sir,” said Eastwood.

  “Lieutenant Burner, contact the local ground commanders and request positional data on the Ixidar,” said Recker, struggling to keep his voice even. “And demand access to their satellite network.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m running sensor sweeps,” said Larson. “No sign of the enemy ship and no sign of the Vengeance.”

  Recker didn’t hang around waiting for the outcome of Burner’s conversation. In the few seconds since its arrival at the planet, the Gorgadar had gathered plenty of speed and the blue of its energy shield was deepening from the atmospheric friction.

  “I need to know if the Ixidar is still at Tokladan,” said Recker. “Or if the enemy is making a run for it.”

  “I don’t know how to scan for lightspeed tunnels yet, sir,” said Eastwood. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you a heads-up on the direction of their travel.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant. We’re all playing catch up,” said Recker.

  Two hundred kilometres below, the planet sped by, the variations in its surface colour starting to merge into a single colour that was red like the skin of a Daklan. Another two surface facilities became visible and then Recker spotted a huge crater far to the north-west. He recognized it at once as the result of cannon shot from the Ixidar and he wondered if the Lavorix had decided to make a punitive strike on the Daklan just because the Gorgadar had showed up.

  “We’re linked with the local sensor network and I’m adding their data stream onto to the tactical!” yelled Burner. “The Ixidar is on the opposite side of the planet and the satellites are reading a power spike on the enemy hull!”

  The link hadn’t come a moment too soon. Whatever the Ixidar’s crew were planning, it wouldn’t result in a positive outcome for anyone – maybe not even the Lavorix, though that had never stopped the aliens in the past. As quickly as he could, Recker touched the tactical screen next to the newly appeared Ixidar.

  “Mode 3,” he said, pressing the button on the controls.

  For a second time, the Gorgadar entered the shortest of lightspeed journeys, leaving it with two mode 3 transits available before the ten-minute cooldown period on the hardware kicked in. The sensors came online almost at once and one of the starboard arrays was aimed directly at the Ixidar. No more than thirty kilometres from the edge of the Gorgadar’s shield, the enemy warship hung in the air, with the barrels of its two closest guns pointing off target.

  “They’re in range of the death sphere!” yelled Eastwood.

  The moment stretched out and, even as he requested maximum power from the Gorgadar’s engines, Recker watched to see if the Lavorix crew had been killed in what would be the easiest victory in a long time, or if the Ixidar was still battle ready.

  Chapter Four

  The result was not as Recker had hoped.

  He had little time to feel disappointment when the Ixidar accelerated from a standstill, rotating at the same time, and bringing one of the huge guns to bear. The Gorgadar’s velocity was increasing but it couldn’t avoid a third shot from the enemy guns. Several of the sensor feeds turned dark from the blast and then they cleared.

  The shield gauge hadn’t nearly recovered from the earlier attacks and it fell again, dropping below fifty percent. A grinding from the propulsion indicated how much the shield module was sucking from the overstressed ternium blocks to sustain itself.

  “Damn they’re packing a punch,” said Eastwood.

  “It doesn’t look as if they’re scared to face us,” said Recker, hauling on the controls to bring the Gorgadar onto the same heading as the enemy warship.

  “Starboard clusters one through thirty: fired,” said Aston.

  Hundreds of missiles burst from their launch tubes and raced after the Ixidar. Such was the acceleration of the weapons that they burned orange from the friction heat within a couple of seconds and then they detonated against the Lavorix shield with the brightness of a star.

  Recker wasn’t expecting it to be enough and he was right. The Ixidar sped across Tokladan and its rotation was turning into a tumble, which he knew meant the enemy were planning to bring their maximum firepower to bear.

  “Discharge,” said Eastwood, who had the tools to read the energy spikes from the gun housings.

  Anticipating the attack, Recker threw the Gorgadar violently to the portside. With only a hundred kilometres separating the two vessels, and with effectively zero travel time on the enemy guns, he had no chance. Another disintegration shot hit the Gorgadar’s shield, sending the reserve gauge plummeting.

  “Ready on the particle beam, Commander?” asked Recker.

  “Yes, sir,” Aston replied. “Will it make a difference?”

  “Let�
�s find out.”

  Particle beams in the HPA and Daklan fleets could be effective in certain, limited circumstances. Generally, they tended to superheat a few million tons of enemy armour plating and lacked the penetration to inflict serious harm. The weapons were fitted to a few active service vessels, but most commanding officers relied on good old missiles and gauss slugs to do the heavy lifting.

  Ahead, the Ixidar banked left and right, before sweeping in a wide arc towards the south. Recker kept on its tail and Aston sent another 360 missiles after it. The Ixidar made no effort to knock out the inbound warheads and Recker wondered if it was fitted with any countermeasures or if it simply relied on destroying its opponents so quickly that its energy shield was never threatened.

  Now would be a good time to check out some of the Gorgadar’s experimental weaponry, Recker thought.

  There again, maybe it wasn’t, even had the decay pulse and destabiliser been available. He’d experienced the worst excesses of the Lavorix hardware and he wasn’t sure what effect those weapons would have on the population of Tokladan. With most of what he assumed was the good stuff offline he was saved from the temptation.

  Anticipating the Ixidar’s next jerky movement off course, Recker brought the Gorgadar’s particle beam directly into line.

  “Fire!” he shouted.

  Aston reacted as quickly as always. “Particle beam discharged.”

  A dull bass, the like of which Recker had never felt before, swept through the ship in a pressurized wave that made him feel like his ear drums would rupture. At the same moment, a thick beam of greasy blue jumped between the Gorgadar and the Ixidar. This beam penetrated the enemy shield and punched a thousand-metre hole into its armour. The beam vanished in a split second, leaving Recker with a view clean through the Ixidar.

  “Holy crap!” said Burner. “We just made a hole right the way through their hull!”

  Recker was as surprised as any of his crew and he tried not to let it affect him. Although the damage was significant, the enemy ship was not out of action and it continued its erratic flight across Tokladan.

 

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