In the distance, Whaites was trying to catch his eye.
“Captain? We’re ready.”
“Very well, Mr Whaites. Fire when ready.”
A ripple of excitement went through the bridge as the eight crew over-seeing the individual batteries bent to their task.
Faulkner and Schwartz shared a look.
They were in the arena now. They’d given it their best shot. The only question remaining was, would it be enough?
Almost immediately Loki began taking hits.
They watched as a single battery of lasers blasted through her starboard nascelle, sending a long trail of propellant venting out into space.
Someone standing behind Faulkner let out a whoop of joy. Schwartz turned in order to silence them with a stare, although, on this occasion, Faulkner thought they might have had a point. After days of their opponent seeming to thwart them at every turn, it came as a huge relief to finally get in some hits of their own.
For a second, all the main deck lights went out to be replaced by an amber flashing light.
No one moved.
“Brace! Brace! Brace!” someone shouted as the whole ship lurched like a wounded animal.
Schwartz lost her footing and Faulkner, without thinking, reached out to grab her. He managed to catch a hold of her tunic but he was already off-balance himself and the two of them went down in a heap.
This first impact was followed by two more dark booming explosions which were followed a microsecond later by two enormous shock waves, one after the other.
Faulkner was knocked onto his back and he lay there in the dark listening to the sound of someone screaming.
It was several long seconds before the auxiliary lighting came on.
As he lay there, trying to catch his breath, Faulkner looked up to see that a large part of the ceiling was missing.
He pushed himself upright to look at a scene of utter devastation.
Where the ceiling had come down, it had pinned several crew members to the floor.
Someone was being pulled from the rubble while Whaites was overseeing a group working to lever up a fallen support strut.
Faulkner managed to get onto one knee and then, using both hands, managed to push himself to his feet.
“Mr Whaites,” he said in a direct tone. “Please return to your station, immediately.”
Whaites stared at him as though he were mad but then appeared to gather himself.
“Aye, sir.”
He turned back to his section, identified one of the consoles which still appeared to be functioning and went over to it. He had to take a moment to wipe the screen clear of dust but then he was straight back to work.
“Captain, can you give me a hand?”
Schwartz was looking up at him.
“Perhaps you ought to stay down there,” Faulkner said. “Till we get this sorted.”
“I’m fine.”
And, so saying, she grabbed hold of his wrist.
She might have pulled him over if Faulkner hadn’t braced himself. He helped to drag her up onto her feet. Up close, he was surprised to see how pronounced her bump had become and for the first time he was struck by how discordant it seemed, having such a heavily pregnant woman on the bridge.
But that all went out of his head when he saw the main screen. A dozen lasers lashed the Loki’s aft section, the majority impacting on a heavily fortified section on the port side. Some were deflected away while others struck deeper. Loki’s hull appeared to absorb a lot of the energy but there was only so much it could effectively dissipate. And, when the first onslaught ceased, it was possible to make out a fine jagged crack running along its port side. It might have been a trick of the light but Faulkner could swear that he saw something akin to bright lava bubbling up through the wound.
After all the disappointments they’d faced utilising traditional ordnance, it seemed almost inconceivable that they could get around their adversary’s defences in this way. And yet, that was exactly what they were doing.
Fresh warnings blared all around but Faulkner was far too distracted to notice. Under Whaites’ supervision, a new batch of laser fire was targeting the smaller central circle, hitting it with wave after wave of laser fire.
All the while, the Loki’s defensive lasers remained silent. It was hardly surprising though, he reflected. The ship’s targeting software would have safety over-rides attached and would invariably assume that any ship operating so close to their own ship’s hull, had to be, by simple definition, friendly.
The irony was that the software in place to ensure that such a potentially friendly fire incident could not take place would now have to be over-ridden before the Loki would be in a position to defend.
“Captain Faulkner,” McNeill’s voice cut through the hubbub. “We are on a collision course with Loki. Permission to set new course coordinates?”
A proximity alert then.
Faulkner looked at Whaites before returning his gaze to the screen. Whaites pretended not to notice but there was something there.
Was he one of the people who was worried that Faulkner was going to ram the thing? Schwartz had told him that there’d been a rumor circulating which had him as the main player in some Kamikaze death dive.
Well, if that was what people wanted to think he wasn’t going to disabuse him of such thoughts. He liked the idea that some people still thought him capable of such recklessness.
And, if it helped to keep them on their toes that could only be a good thing.
Keeping them on their toes.
That was it!
“Mr Whaites,” he said. “Do we have any missiles loaded by any chance?”
Whaites looked at him blankly. “Missiles? But their point defence systems …”
“Are completely off-line. Don’t you see - this is our chance. Whatever you’ve got, I want it ready and in the air in the next few minutes.”
Whaites bent over his console, wiping through the various screens.
“Sir, I have a number of firing solutions for you to review.”
Faulkner batted his objections away. “No time. We need to act now.”
Whaites stared at him blankly.
“Just launch ‘em,” Faulkner spat. “Everything you’ve got. Right now.”
“Er, yes, sir.”
Whaites looked at his screen and, after a brief pause, pressed ‘Launch.’
Then he went to the next screen and did it again.
And again.
Faulkner was distracted by the sound of someone clearing their throat.
He turned to see McNeill standing on his chair, knees wedged against the back brace. If he was trying to catch Faulkner’s attention, then he’d succeeded.
“Alright, Mr McNeill,” Faulkner said. “I get it. Once Mr Whaites’ birds are all under way you may start your deceleration, though not one second sooner. Is that understood?”
“Aye, sir.”
CHAPTER 14
By the time Webster arrived at the dining room to meet Dalbiri, their dinner had already been served.
The food looked enticing enough - chicken pie with heaps of mashed potato and corn - but when he took his first bite it was hard not show his disappointment. The food had a not unpleasant chemical taste to it but he imagined that if he closed his eyes he wouldn’t be able to say that it was chicken that he was eating. Its texture had more in common with some beef substitutes he’d experienced.
None of this seemed to have occurred to Dalbiri who was happily tucking into his food.
“You enjoying that?” Webster said after a while.
“Yeah. Hot and filling,” Dalbiri said. “Just the way I like it.”
Webster continued to eat for a while but, without the sensory feedback of the different flavors, he quickly lost interest and gave up.
“I’m surprised to see you’re still here,” he said. “Thought you might be off somewhere with Maria.”
Dalbiri grimaced at the mere mention of her name. “Yeah
, I was meaning to say something about that.”
“Go on,” Webster prompted, sensing a change in Dalbiri’s demeanour. “What’s wrong?”
Dalbiri put his cutlery down. “It’s a bit embarrassing to say it but I think I might have been mistaken. About Maria and everything.”
“That’s interesting. What’s prompted all this?”
“I don’t know. At the time, it all seemed so real. She’d aged and everything. But now I’m not so sure.”
“I get it,” Webster said, though secretly he was delighted that the other man had come to his senses. “We’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Only natural that our brain copes with it in different ways.”
The sense of relief that he was no longer having to deal with this situation on his own was acute and he immediately decided to tell Dalbiri everything he’d learned so far about the relationship between the Anjharan Da’al and the Drasin.
“Sort of figures, I guess,” Dalbiri said once he’d finished. “They’d be keen for any opportunity to overthrow their old masters.”
“Only now that the Da’al have finally tracked them down, it seems that the Drasin have somehow managed to regain their technological edge. And now they’re on their way to hunt down another Da’al ship. Seems that this feud could go on and on.”
And here they were, caught in the middle of things.
Webster waited until Dalbiri had finished eating before speaking again. He wanted to get Dalbiri’s take on the conversation he’d overheard between The Pilot and the other unidentified sub-mind.
“Don’t you think that’s odd?”
Dalbiri pushed his empty plate to one side.
“Actually, I do,” he said, his eyes sharp and bright. “I think I know who this other guy might be. The one with the ponytail. I met him briefly. Said his name was The Engineer.”
“Yeah, that figures.”
“So, that’s three sub-minds accounted for,” Dalbiri was starting to sound more like himself again. It was like someone emerging from a fog. “Which kinda begs the question: what’s happened to the other three. I certainly haven’t seen them.”
“And, if we did get to meet them, would they just be different facets of the same person?”
“Which is the part I don’t understand,” Dalbiri said. “I mean, I ‘ve heard of them using these so-called synthetic brains before on deep space probes but the whole point there is that you ideally want to model them on people with as wide a range of scientific backgrounds as possible.”
“Physics and chemistry,” Webster pointed to Dalbiri. “Horticulture.”
“That’s right but, more importantly, you want different schools of thought, different ideologies, experiences. You want minds that’ll come at a problem from a whole range of directions. No point doing it if they all agree with one another.”
“Different aspects of the same individual.”
“Yeah, who just so happens to be the same old white guy!” Dalbiri laughed. “Who knew?”
“Same reason every ship needs a First Officer,” Webster said. “Because every once in a while, you’re going to need someone to contradict what the captain’s thinking. Unchallenged, they’re going to get complacent. Start to miss things. Become predictable.”
And yet, even as he was saying that Webster was struck by how different the personalities of The Librarian and The Pilot had seemed to him.
For all that The Librarian had gone out of his way to keep things from him, he couldn’t remember one example where the sub-mind had actually lied to him. He wondered whether they had that ability to deceive programmed out of them. It was certainly an interesting idea.
If the sub-minds were capable of deceit, how could he rely on anything that they’d told him? Perhaps this was all part of some well-rehearsed narrative they wanted him to believe.
Webster felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, as if someone had just opened a door.
Then when he looked round, he saw The Librarian standing behind him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you while you were eating.”
“It’s fine,” Webster raised his hands. “I’m finished. Dalbiri? What about you?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Excellent. I was hoping that I might be able to show you something. Mr Dalbiri, I think you of all people might be particularly interested.”
Webster looked to Dalbiri who grabbed his jacket before standing up.
“I’m in.”
The Librarian said, “If you’d both follow me.”
He led them out into a long corridor before stopping, seemingly at random, in front of one of the doors. The door opened and they stepped inside a large room filled with a combination of medical equipment and sample jars. There were a number of animal specimens suspended in preserving jars. Most appeared to be small mammals but there were some amphibian creatures as well. Dalbiri didn’t need an invitation to go over and look at them. Webster had no idea what most of the medical equipment might be used for though he could make some informed guesses. At the far end of the room was an over-sized specimen container, big enough that Webster could have climbed inside, though this one was empty.
The glass or, whatever it was, was spotlessly clean. In fact, the thing could have been brand new. To have it just standing there like that Webster found to be quite unsettling.
“This is where we analyse the various life-forms we come across,” The Librarian said.
Dalbiri was in his element examining life-forms no human had ever seen before.
“Okay,” Webster said as he continued to look around the place. “Why have you brought us here?”
“The Pilot tells me you’ve had various encounters with the Da’al.”
“As you’d know if you’d spoken with him, most of my ‘encounters’ have been with those termite soldiers they’re so fond of.”
“The Kurran?”
“That’s them.”
“So, you’ve fought against them. What’s your take on them?”
Webster pulled a face. “Haven’t really given it much thought. They seem well disciplined, reasonably well organised, though not the most imaginative of species.”
He remembered how disconcerted they’d been when he’d approached their camp from the rear.
The Librarian frowned. “And the Da’al? What’s your attitude to them?”
“The Da’al are where the real threat lies. They’re the real instigators behind all this. They’re the ones we have to take out.”
“I’m sorry. ‘Take out’?”
The Librarian’s confusion seemed genuine.
“I don’t know. Kill, destroy, annihilate.”
“Ah!” The Librarian’s eyes crinkled at this outburst. “You feel that strongly?”
Webster considered this before replying. “Yes, I do. They attacked a peaceful system with no warning. Then they tried to ‘take out’ Blackthorn station in its entirety. Largely innocent civilians who had nothing to do with this conflict.”
“And is that why you feel so strongly about defeating them?”
“Sort of,” but then he caught himself. “Actually, no. That’s not completely true. I have my own reasons. Personal reasons.”
“That’s very interesting,” The Librarian said. “May I ask what they might be?”
If he’d been smart, Webster would have kept his thoughts to himself but at the same time he welcomed the chance of getting his ideas out into the open.
“When we first arrived at Tigris, before we’d even made planetfall, the Da’al attacked us.”
“That was The Dardelion, right?” Dalbiri offered from behind.
“That’s right. They attacked us without provocation. I was lucky to get out of there alive, but we weren’t all so fortunate. There was another officer on-board. A woman …”
He wanted to say more but found that he couldn’t.
“Was that Lieutenant Silva?” Dalbiri said, picking up one of the specimen tanks. �
�I heard about that. I’m sorry. Must have been bad.”
No one spoke while Webster attempted to recover his composure.
“And is that the reason you’re so keen to see them defeated,” The Librarian said. “Annihilated, even?”
Webster moved over to the large specimen container. “Well, it’s not quite as simple as that. I’m still a Confederation officer. I’ve got a role to play in all this. I can’t just allow my own feelings to get the better of me. It doesn’t work like that.”
“But why not,” The Librarian said. “From what I understand of your military hierarchy, you’re quite a senior officer. Is that not correct?”
Webster turned to look at him.
Where was he going with this?
“I might be a senior officer on my ship but there’s a whole chain of command above me. People who are far more senior. And it’s my job to follow their commands.”
“And yet, after the captain, you more or less decide what happens on your ship. Is that not right?”
“We do have the authority to make unilateral decisions but only in very special circumstances. I can see it’s difficult for an outsider to understand but that’s how it works.”
“That’s a very reasoned response, commander. And was that how you felt when the Da’al attacked the Dardelion?”
For a brief moment he was there again, standing in that corridor as the Da’al ship opened fire realising that they’d been seriously out-maneuvered. That they’d walked straight into a trap.
Now, having seen what the Da’al actually looked like, he found that his hatred for them had solidified even further. He pictured himself grabbing one of them around the throat while he punched it repeatedly in the face, the thought of it making him strangely aware of all the bones in his hand.
Dalbiri had come back to stand alongside Webster. “I’m not sure that this is such a good idea. Going over this stuff.”
But the Librarian stilled him with one hand before turning back to Webster. “Indulge me, commander. It’s a simple question. If you’d had the chance to return fire, I take it that you would have done so.”
“Honestly? If I’d have had the opportunity, I wouldn’t have hesitated. I’d have destroyed them completely. But then that would have been permissible. They’d fired first, you see.”
Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series Page 22