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  “The Gorgadar is the greatest of the Laws,” said Recker. “In the right hands, it can defeat the Ixidar. Against the Ancidium, I don’t know.”

  Telar didn’t ask Recker to confirm if the warship was in the right hands. “Very well. Learn what you can about the Gorgadar and then go to Tokladan. I will send you the details we have about the enemy’s orbital position. Do what you must.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The channel went dead.

  “What did he mean by do what you must?” asked Lieutenant Eastwood.

  “We can’t allow the Ixidar to complete its adjustment of the Extractor,” said Recker.

  “That doesn’t answer my question, sir.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Recker. He turned and saw understanding dawn on Eastwood’s face.

  “Oh shit. He can’t ask us to…”

  “He can and he did,” snapped Recker. “It won’t come to that, because we’re going to defeat those Lavorix bastards.”

  “Destroy the Destroyer,” said Larson.

  “We have the Gorgadar. The Prime,” said Recker. “We are going to study its hardware and then we will finish the Laws of Ancidium. After that, we’ll deal with the Ancidium itself. I’ve had enough of this war and I’m damned if I’m going to fail after coming so far.”

  “Hell, no!” said Burner.

  “What are you all waiting for?” asked Recker “Get on with it!”

  His crew turned to their consoles and Recker did likewise. The respite he’d hoped for wasn’t on offer and the pressure hadn’t lessened one little bit. With time against him, Recker joined his crew in their efforts.

  Chapter Two

  “The big question is whether our shield will hold up against the Ixidar’s disintegration cannons,” said Eastwood, ten minutes after the comm with Telar had ended.

  “That’s one of the big questions,” said Recker. “Do you have any theories?”

  “Only guesses, sir,” said Eastwood. He shrugged like the difference wasn’t significant. “If our shield doesn’t block the enemy attacks, we’re going to lose. Otherwise, we stand a chance.”

  “I assumed we were just going to mode 3 on top of the Ixidar and see if the death sphere kills everyone,” said Burner.

  “That’s the hope, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “Unfortunately, we don’t know if the aura surrounding the Gorgadar is still effective. We lost Unvak, but it’s possible he died from too much Frenziol and without taking his body to proper medical facilities we can’t be sure one way or the other.”

  “Plus it’s not easy to choose a precise mode 3 destination simply by tapping on the tactical screen,” said Aston. “We know we can program in an exact arrival point, but that takes additional time – and by that point the enemy ship may be elsewhere. Particularly if they’re jumpy because of the lightspeed missile hits they’ve taken so far.”

  Recker nodded his agreement. “To conclude – we’re not about to rely on something which is so uncertain.” He smiled thinly. “But don’t for a moment think I’d be upset if we could mode 3 right up to them and have their entire crew die as easily as that.”

  Now that Burner had brought it up, Recker’s mind turned over the idea again. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the Ixidar’s crew would be fooled by a mode 3 attack. Doubtless they were aware of what had befallen the Gorgadar and therefore they’d be wary about coming too close. On the positive side, this time it would be the enemy doing the running and that would hopefully bring opportunities for Recker to exploit.

  “Commander Aston, what does your preliminary search through the weapons menu show?” She’d had a few minutes before the Gateway opened, but that was it.

  Aston looked up. “Some of it you know from earlier, sir. We’ve got missile launchers – 180 clusters of twelve, just like the Aeklu. We have a single, non-adjustable nose-mounted particle beam which is currently showing offline, an Extractor – again showing offline - and something called a decay pulse. That one’s offline as well and I think it’s linked to the Extractor. I don’t know why they’re connected.”

  “Is there anything on this damned ship that’s functioning?” asked Recker.

  “I think everything’s in full working order, sir. Apart from the original crew, of course. The Gorgadar’s onboard systems have been set up in a completely different manner to those on the Aeklu – if I had to guess I would say the technology is much more advanced.”

  “That’s the same feeling I get,” said Recker. “The trouble is, more advanced doesn’t necessarily mean better.”

  “This is the prime Law of Ancidium, sir,” Aston reminded him. “Of course it’s going to be better.”

  “Point taken, Commander. Can you figure out how to activate the weapons?”

  Aston thumbed over her shoulder. “You might need to speak to Lieutenant Eastwood about that. He already told us that the Gorgadar’s propulsion is something new. These weapons are tapping into it for power and since there’s none being made available, they’re showing offline.”

  “I’ll speak to him,” said Recker, climbing from his seat.

  The pilot controls for the Gorgadar weren’t difficult to understand and he felt he could spare a few minutes over by the engine station. He crossed the bridge, glad the soldiers had taken the Lavorix bodies away before the Gateway opened.

  “Commander Aston sent you, did she?” asked Eastwood with a gruff laugh.

  Recker immediately picked up on the other man’s mood. “You’re excited about something.”

  “Damn right I am! I’ve just this moment found something – and it might be incredible!”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  Eastwood’s station was fitted with a single curved screen, which was almost two metres wide. Tables, charts and diagnostic outputs covered the display and the language module in Recker’s helmet placed an overlay inside his visor that attempted to replicate the visual data. The result was far from perfect - the alien symbols flickered rapidly and the processor utilisation gauge for Recker’s suit computer nudged up to ninety percent.

  “These numbers here relate to our current propulsion output,” said Eastwood, poking the screen unsympathetically hard. “The ternium modules aren’t in an overstressed state, so the output is recognizable. High, but recognizable. Now watch this.”

  Using his index finger, Eastwood moved a slider on his panel from one end of its runner to the other. At once, the background engine note deepened to a pulsing, regular beat that Recker could feel in his bones.

  “The numbers went up,” said Recker, playing dumb.

  “We just switched into low overstress,” said Eastwood. “Watch again.” He pressed a grey button, flush to the panel and just beneath the slider.

  The pulsing ended, but the depth of bass intensified to almost below the threshold of hearing.

  “And this is with the propulsion running at idle!” said Eastwood, loudly over the increased background noise.

  “The particle beam came online!” said Aston. “Its secondary status is modulating.”

  “Any idea what that means?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about the other weapons?” asked Recker.

  “They’re not available, sir.”

  “I’m not finished yet,” said Eastwood. “Look at this.”

  Recker turned and the expression in the other man’s face was enough to instil fear and excitement. It was the same feeling he always got when he knew something monumental was about to happen.

  “What else is there, Lieutenant?”

  “I don’t quite know, sir.” Eastwood hovered his finger over a second button, this one identical to the first. “This button activates superstress mode.”

  “What will happen when you push it?”

  “The Gorgadar didn’t come with a manual, sir.”

  “Do it.”

  Eastwood pressed his finger confidently on the button and the bass of the propulsion fell away. In its place was a sound th
at made Recker think of a dying man’s last breath – of air escaping through a part-constricted throat, yet magnified infinitely until it came from all around, both quiet yet unavoidably present and impossible to ignore. His body reacted, tightening his skin

  “What the hell?” said Eastwood.

  At first, Recker thought his engine man was expressing surprise at the change in propulsion sound, but then he noticed that Eastwood was staring intently at his screen, with his eyebrows raised so high they’d vanished from sight above the window of his helmet visor.

  Recker leaned in closer and the language module did its work. The numbers had increased, but without a point of reference, he didn’t understand what they represented. On the right of the display, a huge table of digits was changing rapidly and it was this table which had got Eastwood so interested.

  “This is incredible, sir!”

  “I need specifics, not exclamations, Lieutenant,” said Recker. “What have we got and how can we use it?”

  “I’m examining the readouts, sir. I need a moment.”

  “I’ve got one green light out of two on the decay pulse!” said Aston. “I’m not sure what else we need in order to activate the weapon.”

  “What about the Extractor?” said Recker. “That’s our best chance for an easy win over the Ixidar.”

  “Offline,” said Aston. “I think there’s something else…” She brought her face closer to her screen.

  “What is it?” asked Recker.

  “I’m checking something. I’ll let you know if it’s important, sir.”

  “Fine,” Recker muttered, turning back to the engine station. “Lieutenant Eastwood, I need you to tell me what this superstressed propulsion state means.”

  “I don’t have a definite answer for you, sir. However, I’ve got an idea and I’ll show you what I think.”

  Eastwood entered a query on one of the keypads and a profile diagram of the Gorgadar appeared on the screen. He entered another query and several square areas – taking up much of the warship’s interior – became highlighted in blue. Other, much smaller areas, became highlighted in red.

  “See the readouts from these blue areas?” said Eastwood, pointing at his screen. “They’re exceptionally high, but consistent with the overstress output levels we saw on the Aeklu. However, we’re unable to draw on the power of these modules any longer.”

  “Why not?” Recker’s curiosity hadn’t gone anywhere and he tried to make sense of the data on the screen. Understanding would come with time, but he lacked Eastwood’s skill and experience when it came to interpreting propulsion readings.

  “Because all the output of these blue modules is being channelled into the red ones.” Eastwood was building to something, that much was clear. “The readings from these red modules are like nothing I’ve come across before. I’d say the original ternium modules have changed into a completely new state.” He blew out a pent-up breath and paused, like he wasn’t sure what to say next. “Their output indicates a step-change from not just ternium, but from overstressed ternium as well. These superstressed propulsion modules could likely power every single planet in the alliance without the drain causing so much as a flicker on the needle. Unfortunately, there’s a problem. Or maybe there’s a problem.”

  Recker might have lacked Eastwood’s experience, but he had plenty of intuition when it came to technology. “The output from these overstressed blue modules is what’s holding the superstressed modules stable,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. I think that’s exactly what’s happening.”

  Eastwood poked the same button on his console. For a time, nothing happened, but then the red modules began turning blue, one by one, over the course of twenty seconds. The final module went blue, turned red again and then back to blue. The two men stared at it.

  “That one didn’t want to switch off,” said Recker.

  “Which is what I feared,” said Eastwood, his expression pained. “I don’t know if the Gorgadar is an experimental warship as such, but I’m convinced the Lavorix haven’t totally mastered the superstress.”

  “Do I need to ask what might go wrong?”

  “If even one of those modules went critical, I think we’d be facing an event that makes the Dark Bomb look tiny in comparison,” said Eastwood.

  “So what did the Lavorix hope to achieve?” asked Recker. “I can understand the pursuit of technology, but it’s not something you test out on your capital warship.”

  “I’ll keep digging, sir. If we had HPA hardware installed on the bridge, I’d find the answers a lot quicker. As it is, I’m dealing with the language module delay as well as an unfamiliarity with the hardware.”

  “The Gorgadar isn’t likely ending up in a maintenance yard anytime soon, Lieutenant. What you have here isn’t going to be changed out for HPA kit.”

  “I know it, sir,” said Eastwood. He looked suddenly tired and then his face hardened. “My home is on Basalt. I didn’t say before, but I’m going to become a grandfather in a couple of months. I heard about it back on Ivisto, but kept my mouth shut in case my good news somehow stirred up a million bucketsful of cosmic shit that came and landed on us.”

  “Congratulations on your news. I thought you didn’t believe in luck.”

  “I tell myself that, and mostly it’s true. But this is different – this is family and my daughter’s got a baby coming. Suddenly there’s no separation between them down there on Basalt and what’s happening up here in space.”

  Recker rested his hand on Eastwood’s shoulder. “You’re in the best place to help them, Lieutenant. And you’re the best man to do it.”

  “I’ll get back to the console, sir,” said Eastwood. “This isn’t going to figure itself out.”

  The short conversation gave Recker a greater sense of resolve – it was a reminder of exactly what was at stake. When he talked numbers – the billions who were killed on Fortune, and the millions on Tokladan – it lost any sense of meaning, like an amorphous blob of people had vanished from the universe. The pain of it was there, but it wasn’t so easy to relate. Sometimes it took a real in-the-face example of the consequences to drive home the reality.

  He returned to his seat and found Aston staring at him in the way she always did when she was reading his mind. This time, she kept her thoughts to herself. Still, she had something else to say.

  “I made a discovery.” Aston’s smile was one of uncertainty. “And I think I know what killed the Gorgadar’s crew.”

  “Tell me.”

  “When Lieutenant Eastwood switched the propulsion into superstress, the Extractor module powered up but without giving an option to target and fire. I ran a check on the list of tie-ins and discovered that it’s linked to something else – another module called the destabiliser. That destabiliser was charging up – slowly charging up - while the engines were in superstress.”

  “Any idea what it does?”

  “It’s been fired several times before, sir, with no indication what the results were. I can’t be sure from the data when the last discharge happened, but it produced an error log.”

  “What does the error log say?”

  “It’s just technical data, sir – numbers and codes. The fact that the log was produced at all is what got my interest.”

  “You think the Lavorix fired the destabiliser at RETI-11 and something went wrong.”

  “There’s a chance of it, sir. We’ve assumed a Kilvar weapon created the death sphere and killed the crew. What if it was something the Lavorix did to themselves?”

  “Keep digging,” said Recker.

  “Will do. I’m not sure what else I can find – I’ve searched through the data arrays, but the Aeklu’s command codes don’t provide full access. I think the original crew had their own unique codes that allowed them to activate the destabiliser. On the other hand, maybe I just need to figure things out.”

  “Sapphire station is fitted with a few Obliterator processing units,” said Recker, “But it took mon
ths to crack the Aeklu’s control core. I doubt we’ll manage it any quicker on the Gorgadar.”

  Unexpectedly, Aston grinned. “You could go search through the corpse pile the platoon made when they dragged the old crew off the bridge. If you can locate the former captain, cut off his finger and press it against the security pad on your console.”

  “Doesn’t that only work in the movies?” asked Recker.

  “Hell, no!” said Aston. “The movies got the idea from real life.”

  “I appreciate the effort to lighten the mood, Commander, but we’ve got a Law of Ancidium to destroy,” said Recker. He relented and smiled in return. “After that, I’ll order Sergeant Vance to take his hedge shears to that dead alien’s hand and if it works, I’ll buy a hat and eat it.”

  Aston smiled in mock triumph. “You’re on! If I’m wrong, you only have to eat three-quarters of the hat.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  The levity made Recker suddenly giddy with a combination of emotions. Here he was, commanding the pride of the Lavorix fleet and preparing to take on the might of the Ixidar. Success against the last enemy-held Law of Ancidium would open the way to a shot at the Ancidium itself. A final victory against that might allow humanity a period where the stars once again offered freedom, rather than promises of endless death.

  Chapter Three

  Hardly more than an hour after arriving in the Kobin-15 system, Recker judged it was time to leave. His crew lacked the muscle memory necessary to carry the Gorgadar through a skin-of-the-teeth encounter, but those instinctive reactions required long-term exposure to the hardware. Still, they could operate the Lavorix consoles adequately and every one of those crew members had seen enough combat that their minds would not be constrained by the limitations of their hands.