Recker's Chance

by Anthony James

  “There’re a lot more than 120 soldiers on that one,” said Eastwood.

  “Set the internal security systems to deny any docking requests, Corporal,” said Recker.

  “Won’t that alert the enemy?” Montero asked.

  “They’ll be wondering,” Recker said. “But we’ll be ready to act before that becomes an issue.” He turned his gaze once more to the open bay doors. “How many other bays like this would fit inside the Ancidium? Assuming the mothership’s primary purpose was construction.”

  “Plenty more bays,” said Eastwood. “With enough output to destroy the combined HPA and Daklan fleets fifty times over. A hundred times over!”

  “What are we going to do?” said Montero.

  “We sure as hell aren’t going outside and waving the white flag,” said Recker. Confronted by this knowledge of his enemy’s strength, he could have fallen into despair. Not this time. He’d had enough of despair. “The Ancidium is the Lavorix’s weak spot. If we destroy it or disable it before the enemy can rebuild, we’ll finish them once and for all.”

  “We’ve already fired one Extractor shot into them, let’s give them another,” said Montero. “And another after that for good measure.”

  So far, the Lavorix hadn’t realised that the Ixidar was no longer under their control, though Recker didn’t expect their ignorance would last. Firing the Extractor was the most obvious action to take, but given the narrow cone of the weapon’s effects, it would be impossible to kill all the Lavorix from this bay, unless the enemy sat passively by while Recker took shots at them.

  What if the same property of the Ancidium which prevents lightspeed travel and makes it immune to the Ixidar’s cannons also blocks the Extractor?

  The thought was unwelcome, but Recker was obliged to give it consideration. He cursed at the uncertainty.

  “I’m not entirely convinced the Extractor is the answer, folks, as much as I’d like it to be,” he said. “Lieutenant Eastwood, do you have the tools and skills to analyse whatever it is about the Ancidium that prevents it being affected by our weapons?”

  “I have the tools and skills, sir. There’s one part of the trinity I’m missing.”

  “Time,” said Recker. “It always comes down to time.”

  “I’ll get started, sir, though I don’t anticipate we’ll be sitting in this repair trench for too long.”

  “This state of calm won’t last, Lieutenant.”

  Only two or three minutes had passed since they’d recaptured the Ixidar, and it was a lifetime under the circumstances. Recker knew the time to act was approaching and he also knew that somehow, he had to wring more out of this opportunity than simply destroying some of these incomplete warships.

  “Corporal Montero, check through our sensor logs,” he said. “You should find data that tells you which way the Ixidar is oriented in relation to how it was when the override code locked us out. Come what may, we’re firing the Extractor again, but I want to know we’ll have it aimed in the right direction.”

  “I already did that, sir.” Montero pointed over her shoulder towards the still-open linking bay doors. “We should fire that way.”

  Recker nodded, his mind working on an idea. “Lieutenant Eastwood, am I right in thinking that a lightspeed tunnel does not have dimensions in a way that a normal person would understand the meaning of the word?”

  Eastwood kept his response mercifully brief. “Not exactly, sir. A warship at lightspeed is theorised to have no measurable size, and no measurable mass. Only drag and a few other attributes that the scientists argue over.”

  A glance at the command console showed Recker that mode 3 was available. “Does that mean if the Ixidar were at lightspeed, it could fit through any sized hole in the Ancidium’s hull?”

  “We have already seen that the Gorgadar’s shuttle will not fit through gaps at the molecular level, whereas a solid object would not normally prevent a lightspeed transit.” Eastwood grunted. “Clearly the Ancidium is something new in this regard, so I’m not sure exactly what kind of hole would be required for us to pass through.”

  “What about a massive hole? Let’s say, a thousand-metre hole that had been created by the Gorgadar’s particle beam?”

  Eastwood straightened. “What makes you think that’ll affect the Ancidium when no other weapon has done so?”

  “The Gorgadar’s particle beam is the only weapon we know of that will penetrate an energy shield.” Recker offered a tight smile. “If I’m wrong, the only change to my plan comes at the end – the part where we escape from here alive.”

  “You’re asking for certainty I can’t offer, sir.”

  “All I’m asking for is a maybe, Lieutenant.”

  Eastwood returned a smile of his own, equally tight. “In that case, the particle beam might open the Ancidium’s hull and the hole it creates might be enough to allow us a mode 3 transit out of here. Of course if you ask Commander Aston to fire at the Ancidium, you open a whole new can of worms. I doubt the enemy will sit back and let it happen.”

  “The particle beam has enormous range – the Lavorix won’t be able to prevent the first shot and we won’t need a second one. I’ll order Commander Aston to fire and then get as far away as possible.”

  “I don’t think the Lavorix are desperate to force a confrontation with the Gorgadar,” said Eastwood. “Either I’ve misread the situation, or we missed something during our time on that spaceship.”

  “We didn’t miss anything, Lieutenant. The Gorgadar has weapons systems we lacked the time to explore. That warship is carrying a decay pulse and a destabiliser, neither of which we have tested. And then there’s the death sphere, which kills the enemy stone dead. Like you said - the Lavorix fear their own ship and we’ve got to figure out how best to use it against them.”

  “Whatever we’re going to do, we should get on with it, sir,” said Eastwood. “The Lavorix sent us a shutdown code.”

  Recker’s hands jumped to his console and he called up one of the menus. To his relief, it allowed him access.

  “The shutdown code didn’t work.”

  “No, sir. The Gorgadar rescinded it immediately. I wouldn’t get overconfident – the Lavorix built these warships, not us.”

  “I’ve opened a channel to the Gorgadar, sir,” said Montero, showing definite signs that she’d end up a skilled comms officer. “Lieutenant Burner is waiting to speak with you.”

  “Put him on open.”

  “Done.”

  “Lieutenant Burner, I have the makings of a plan. Can you pinpoint the Ixidar from the data in our comms link?”

  “Yes, sir. You’re seven hundred kilometres from the Ancidium’s stern and approximately midway across the beam.”

  “Are you one hundred percent certain that’s our position, rather than the position of an internal comms relay?”

  “I’m certain, sir. No doubts whatsoever.”

  “Good. Here’s what I want you to do.”

  With the cat out of the bag, the Lavorix would try everything to stop the Ixidar, so Recker spoke quickly. In ten seconds, he was done, and his hands were on the controls while an inner voice yelled at him to unleash yet more devastation upon the enemy. When Burner confirmed his understanding of the Gorgadar’s role, Recker cut the channel and readied himself for round two.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Firing the Extractor,” Recker said, targeting the weapon towards the Ancidium’s nose. He pressed a button on the controls. A few electronic needles jumped around and that was the only indication of discharge. The Extractor was surely the perfect weapon if you were a bunch of alien scumbags, bringing as it did the potential for mass murder without so much as ruffling the hairs of the crew.

  “We’ve received another shutdown code,” said Eastwood. “Rescinded again by the Gorgadar. And there’s a third code…and a fourth.”

  Recker had no idea if flooding the Ixidar with shutdown codes would be effective and he didn’t want to find out. He switched the pro
pulsion into overstress and hauled on the control bars. Gravity field generators in the bay below wanted to hold onto the warship, but Recker didn’t let it happen. He increased power in steps and the Ixidar tore itself free, ripping dozens of the huge ternium field generators and half of the bay floor out at the same time.

  Up towards the ceiling the Ixidar raced and Recker was hard-pressed to avoid a collision. He brought the spaceship under control with not much to spare and he fired the first of the charged destroyer cannons at one of the part-finished Laws of Ancidium further along the bay. When he wasn’t on the receiving end, the cannon’s expulsive burst was a satisfying sight and the nine-thousand metre hole it created in the hull of the Galactar-vessel was sweet like the first mouthful of cold beer on a sweltering evening.

  “Any time you like, Lieutenant Burner,” said Recker, piloting the Ixidar towards the open bay doors. He had to find out what lay on the other side of this bulkhead, to learn if his fears were unfounded.

  “Commander Aston acknowledges, sir. We’re on our way and will fire as soon as we arrive.”

  “Make it a good shot, Lieutenant.”

  “It’ll be like a needle in the enemy’s eye, sir.”

  “The shutdown codes are coming thick and fast,” said Eastwood. “If the Lavorix think this method is going to work, then it’s enough to have me worried.”

  “Not much we can do other than hope they’re wrong. I doubt the enemy come across this kind of attack every day – they can’t be prepared for it,” said Recker.

  The Ixidar gathered speed and he waited on the next cannon’s recharge. Slowing as the bay doors approached, Recker watched the sensors for a sight of what horrors the Lavorix were planning in the adjacent space.

  “Damn,” he said.

  Through the opening, Recker spotted yet another bay like this one, and it was filled with hundreds of shuttles, all busily transporting slabs of armour, engine blocks and other components from one place to another. With the viewing angle reduced by the bulkhead walls, Recker still saw two more warships on the scale of the Laws of Ancidium and he had no doubt there’d be others.

  Worse yet, doors on the opposite wall of this adjacent bay were also open and they led to another bay, the doors of which were open too. Space upon space, construction yards and storage. The Ancidium had facilities that would allow it to build entire fleets in weeks rather than months.

  During his voyage through the Meklon spheres, Recker had been struck by how the Lavorix had a large enough fleet to leave a powerful force stationed seemingly everywhere he visited. At the time, he’d convinced himself he’d been unlucky to keep stumbling into their warships, but now, having witnessed the industrial might of his enemy, Recker could see they had plenty to spare.

  “Incoming from one of those far bays,” said Montero.

  “I see them,” said Recker.

  A dozen or more warships rose into view from two hundred kilometres away and they raced into the adjacent bay, firing missiles and gauss slugs. Recker didn’t have a facing gun he could discharge, but the cannon he had aimed at the massive ship in the current bay had a ready light on it.

  “Have this,” he said, activating the weapon.

  The sphere of energy struck the nose of the huge spaceship, creating a ragged hole of corroding alloy and falling debris. At the same moment, missiles from the incoming warships detonated against the Ixidar’s shield and the turbulent storm of roiling plasma illuminated much of the bay.

  Recker felt his battle lust rising again. There was something bestial about the Ixidar - the Lavorix had built a warship of absolute purity; a killing machine that existed for a single purpose and nothing else. Once, Recker had hated it and even now he couldn’t bring himself to love a tool of such absolute carnage, especially knowing what it had accomplished under the control of its former masters. Yet it still gripped him in a way nothing ever had and probably never would again. The Ixidar stripped away his humanity and made him understand what it was to revel in the deaths of others.

  And whatever punishment I inflict on the Lavorix, I’ll feel no guilt.

  When the thought jumped into Recker’s head, it made him wonder if his humanity was already gone. The stakes were too high for him to worry about it and he flew the Ixidar away from the opening. A few incoming missiles crashed into the edge of the connecting tunnel, their guidance systems unable to correct in time.

  “Particle beam incoming, sir,” said Burner, his voice cutting through the rumble of the warship’s propulsion.

  The words came at the same moment as Recker fired the Ixidar’s next charged cannon. He had this second shot aimed near to where the last one had landed and a new hole appeared in the unfinished pride of the Lavorix fleet, putting the construction work back by months.

  No sooner had the destroyer cannon blast vanished, than the Gorgadar’s particle beam sliced into the bay, entering from the wall behind the huge spaceship. Crackling and impure, the beam lanced through every one of the new Laws of Ancidium - including the Ixidar’s copy and the dodecahedral warship - as it travelled from one side of the bay to the other and into the opposite wall.

  The damage was tremendous – the passage of the beam did more than simply create holes in the alloy and ternium it sliced through. Rapid expansion caused by heat fractured the metals, often violently. Everywhere he looked, Recker spotted ruptures and broken seams, while the burning temperatures were likely enough to destroy any installed components which were within a thousand metres of the beam’s transit.

  “Direct hit, Lieutenant, now get the hell away from here!” yelled Recker.

  “Yes, sir!”

  With his order given, Recker experienced a momentary desire to stay here and finish what he’d started. Two of the Ixidar’s destroyer cannons were out of action, but it would still wreak havoc upon the Lavorix ships which were even now emerging into the same bay. The pull of destruction was a powerful force and it took an effort for Recker to disregard it.

  “Readying mode 3,” he said. The tactical had no knowledge of anything beyond the bay, so Recker was obliged to access the third propulsion mode via the control system and set it for a manual launch.

  “So long, suckers,” said Montero, lifting her right forearm to the vertical and extending the middle finger.

  “Let’s hope so,” said Eastwood.

  Recker activated mode 3 and kept the button pressed. A split-second before the sensor feeds went blank, he spotted something emerging into the bay behind the Ixidar. Then, the bulkhead screens went offline and the nausea of lightspeed entry hit his body. Recker was prepared for the transition be a bad one, as if escape from the Ancidium came with an additional price to be paid at the exit gate. The re-entry to local space was just as bad, compounding the queasy feeling of lethargy and adding a thudding headache onto the tally sheet.

  “We made it,” said Montero. “I gave them the lucky middle finger.”

  Recker glanced across and guessed from her face that she hadn’t been so affected by the in-out lightspeed transit. “Get me comms and sensors,” he ordered, giving the Ixidar maximum acceleration away from its arrival place. “And find out what happened to the squad.”

  “Yes, sir,” Montero said, getting straight back to business. “Sensors coming up. Stars, darkness, the usual crap. Hunting for a lock on something useful.”

  “Until about five seconds ago, we were receiving dozens of shutdown codes per second,” said Eastwood. “Now we’re receiving zero shutdown codes per second. Either the enemy haven’t found us yet or they went elsewhere.”

  The Ixidar’s velocity gauge kept on climbing and Recker had no intention of slowing until Montero had drawn him a clear picture of what lay outside.

  “We’re on the far edge of the DEKA-L system,” she said after a few seconds. “We went past the star and kept on going. I estimate we made it thirty billion klicks from our start position.”

  “Contact the Gorgadar,” said Recker. Against all the odds, they’d escaped the
Ancidium’s holding bay, but he wasn’t ready to celebrate yet.

  “Scanning for receptors, sir,” said Montero, the overload of orders making her hesitant.

  Everything she did took a few seconds longer than a trained comms officer would have managed it. Recker’s frustration at each delay was hard for him to ignore, but he knew that Montero was performing admirably – more than admirably - given her lack of experience and formal training. When this was over, he’d recommend her for a dozen medals, a rate rise and a promotion if that’s what she wanted.

  “I have comms contact with the Gorgadar!” said Montero. “Lieutenant Burner coming onto the open channel.”

  “Where are you, Lieutenant?” asked Recker at once.

  “I’ve located the Ixidar, sir,” Burner replied. “We’re nine billion klicks from your position. Commander Aston is preparing to mode 3 in your direction.”

  “What about the Ancidium?”

  “Good news or bad news, I don’t rightly know which it is, sir. The Ancidium is gone. I can’t tell you when exactly that happened, but I doubt it stuck around for long after the Gorgadar’s particle beam went through its defences.”

  Recker wasn’t sure if the Ancidium’s departure was good news or bad news either, but he cursed anyway. “I’ll bring the Ixidar to a standstill – head over to our position like you planned,” he said. “I need an opportunity to think.” As he spoke, Recker slowed the Ixidar and the strain of deceleration made the engines boom so loudly that he could hardly hear Burner’s response.

  “We’re on our way, sir.”

  The channel went dead and, less than a second later, the immense form of the Gorgadar appeared on the sensors, less than fifty thousand kilometres to starboard. Commander Aston delayed only long enough for her warship’s sensors to come back online and then she accelerated in the direction of the still-moving Ixidar.

  “Lieutenant Burner is on the comms again,” said Montero.