Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Read online

  “Green lights across the board, Captain,” came the reply from the COMOP station. “Ready to detach.”

  “Release umbilical, and prepare to clear moorings,” Klade instructed.

  “Aye Sir.”

  Outside, in the cavernous docking area, the tunnel connecting the ship to the station interior released its latches and withdrew. Anchor gantries also released their grip, and swung back towards the inner surface of the dock. The sounds travelled through the hull of the ship and reverberated up and down her corridors.

  “Detaching,” said the officer at the helm. The floor shuddered briefly and the view of the docks began to drop in the forward view ports.

  “We’re clear of the berth,” COMOP reported.

  “Under way. Coming up to port speed, beacons are thirty seconds away,” said Helm.

  “Take her out gently, Helm,” Santani said. “The harbour-master at Kosling is a serial complainer.”

  “Entrance beacons are forty seconds away.” Helm corrected, dialling back the power to the manoeuvring thrusters.

  “Better.”

  “Standing by to take over gravity functions,” said Klade.

  “Final confirmation from harbour control; the way is clear. Exit profile has been received.” COMOP said.

  “Take us out.”

  Hammer left the pier behind, passed slowly from the docking area into the egress channel, and slid onward towards the exit. The darkness ahead grew wider with each passing second, fringed with the guide lights of the aperture and the blinking entrance beacons, until the boundary passed by the view ports and abruptly disappeared astern.

  Helm looked up from his station. “We are clear of Fort Kosling. Laying in a course to the rendezvous.”

  Klade ordered the ship to take over from the station’s directional fields. “Gravity normalised.”

  Santani stood and walked towards the view ports, scanning the space outside with her eyes. The star field wheeled gently before her, slowly at first but with gradually increasing speed as the battleship nosed towards her destination.

  Following the direction of the turn, she found what she was looking for: three silvery splinters, hanging hundreds of kilometres away in space. The rest of the task force, awaiting the arrival of Hammer. Clearly Admiral Pensh’s reinforcements had arrived as scheduled.

  At first it was imperceptible, as Hammer began to push with her main engines and started to close down the distance between them. But after a while the three slivers were growing noticeably larger. As the gap narrowed, distinct profiles could be made out. There was Sai, also a heavy battleship, albeit the Huntress-class and much more modern than Hammer. Beside her ran the Dagger, a relatively broad destroyer bristling with gauss guns and point defences. Beyond them both, slightly above their plane but partially eclipsed from Santani’s point of view, the graceful lines of a carrier’s double hull revealed the third ship as the ICS Stiletto.

  Santani smiled, admiring the small task force.

  “Message Stiletto Actual, Captain.” COMOP said.

  She walked back to her station and flipped her holo into position. “Open the channel.”

  “Aker, good to see you again.”

  Santani saluted briskly and her posture stiffened. “Admiral Pensh, I didn’t realise you would be joining us.”

  “Try not to sound so disappointed, Captain.”

  “Apologies, Admiral. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. We’re lucky to have you alongside.”

  He smiled. “At ease Santani, before you do yourself a mischief.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  “We will be making a bound jump from here to the gate at Aldava, then an unbound relay jump to our final destination. See to it that your crew are prepared for the last leg; it’s quite a distance to make in one jump but I don’t intend to delay us by hopping the entire route.”

  “Of course, Admiral. We’re fully prepared for some turbulence, in fact we’re quite getting used to it.”

  “Good form. Jump interval at Aldava will be one hour, barring the unforeseen.”

  “Yes, Admiral.”

  “As you were,” he said, and the channel closed.

  Santani drummed her fingers on the armrest of her chair. “That sneaky son-of-a-bitch.”

  Klade raised an eyebrow. “Captain?”

  “Caden. He didn’t tell me the admiral would be heading this expedition.”

  “Would he have known?”

  “Yes. Oh yes, I’m sure of it. I suppose he thought that would be incredibly funny.” She balled her fist, then raised her voice to call out to the helm. “Bring us into formation with the others. Ready for jump.”

  Klade gestured at his holo to send a ship-wide message. “Now hear this. All hands, prepare for jump. I repeat: all hands, prepare for jump.”

  The other three ships now dominated the forward view, and Hammer moved to position herself alongside Sai. The four began to accelerate, moving as one, headed for the Kosling gate.

  In an empty expanse of the system, far removed from the plane of Kosling’s five planets, the gate began to stir. Its formation lights were drowned out by the glow of the luminous strips that indicated a wormhole was forming. Vast collimator rings vibrated with the invisible surge of building power, focusing their energies and channelling them into the gravity needle that jutted out and away towards dead space.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Then a spark in the blackness, tiny, barely noticeable against the cosmic backdrop. The spark became a burning crack, then a network of cracks, writhing and smouldering and ripping outwards, the space itself tearing open between them.

  The light faded, and the barely perceptible perimeter of a perfect disc remained. The event horizon rotated, and through it subtle parallax made the distant constellations appear to shift.

  The ships continued, wheeling around to meet the wormhole head on, and still in formation they crossed the event horizon.

  Their journey to the Deep Shadows had begun.

  • • •

  Santani waited for the wardroom hatch to close behind Klade before she spoke. Behind her, filling most of the view port, the murky orb of Aldava crawled by slowly, scant strips of dirty green the only indications of habitability.

  “So,” she said. “Tech and Systems. Were you able to speak to them before Eyes and Ears stepped in?”

  “Yes, Captain. My contact was able to look over the sensor data and pass her findings back to me.”

  “Which were…?”

  “Unfortunately she wasn’t able to do much more with the data than I did myself. The results were ambiguous, to say the least.”

  “Anything new to add?”

  “Not really. She said it was impossible to determine what caused the spike in the readings. As I suspected, irregularities in the power flow could be to blame.”

  “But what if they weren’t? Did she offer an alternative explanation?”

  “Exactly what I told you initially: if those readings were genuine and accurate, there was something in the Herros system when we arrived. Something with immense mass, which jumped away as we jumped in.”

  Santani pursed her lips thoughtfully. She was not yet sure what the full implications of this information were. Certainly it would seem there had probably been a vessel of some kind near Herros prior to their arrival, but why? If it had been involved in the attack, why flee when Hammer arrived? Presumably, whatever it was, it had been more than a match for the small fleet that had been tasked with defending Gemen Station. Hammer then should not have posed much of a threat to it. If conversely it was just a scout, left behind to see how the Empire reacted to an attack, why flee instead of hiding to observe? And why would a mere scout have such a large mass profile? None of it made any sense, and that troubled her greatly.

  “What are the chances of readings like this occurring again, assuming they were caused by random power fluctuations?”

  “Well it’s the first time I’ve ever seen them,” said Klade, “and I’
ve served on Hammer for five Solars. So I’d give a very low estimate indeed.”

  “Can you use the readings as a template to prompt an automated alert from the sensors?”

  “I’m not sure I follow, Captain.”

  “What I want is to be alerted immediately if the sensors ever provide similar readings.”

  “Yes, I believe that should be fairly straightforward.”

  “Excellent. Make the necessary changes as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll see to it at once.”

  “Thank you Mister Klade, that will be all.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, and left the compartment.

  • • •

  Caden had left Eilentes and Throam conducting their weapons drill in one of the training areas on a lower deck. With only an hour between the jumps, he had not wanted to spend such valuable time doing something he was quite confident with. Besides, in his opinion there was not much he could do in the space of an hour to gain any real lasting benefit. He suspected that the other two were only doing it out of boredom. That, and the fact that at every turn they seemed to be finding opportunities to spend time in each other’s company.

  He reached the quarters he had been assigned, and entered. For some reason nobody had bothered to explain, they were different to the ones he had been given during the Herros mission. He was not surprised to find the compartment followed exactly the same layout and shared precisely the same décor and furnishings.

  He sat down in front of the guest access holo, identified himself to it, then tapped in the commands to request routing through the local gate. After a long pause the holo replied that it was now linked to the Aldavan network. He tapped in a unified comms address, and waited for the network to relay his call via micro-wormhole.

  When the call was picked up, it was a much younger man who stared back at him from the shimmering display. Younger, but noticeably tired-looking.

  “Midget,” Caden said.

  There was a slight delay before the reply came. “Ugly. Where are you?”

  “Out near the Deep on a mission: same old.”

  “Of course you are. Anything to stay away from here, huh?”

  Ah. So it was going to be one of those conversations. Caden kicked himself mentally for believing that just once, his brother might seem pleased to hear from him.

  “You know how it is, Lau. I have a lot of responsibilities out here.”

  “Yes, and I have a lot of them right here at home.”

  Caden ignored the barbs on that comment. “How is she?”

  “How do you think she is? The same as usual.”

  “Is there anything you need me to send?”

  “No, we’ll do fine. The proconsul’s people are mostly living up to their word. The visits have stopped, but we get looked after.”

  “Well that’s good,” Caden said.

  “Is it?”

  “If it isn’t, then just say so.”

  Lau stared back at him for a long moment, then sighed. “What do you think it’s like being left behind to look after a grown adult?”

  “Not this again. We’ve been through it before Lau. You don’t have to stay.”

  “Don’t I? Do you think she’ll be looked after properly if I leave it to someone else? Do you think she’ll be happy?”

  “I don’t think she ever knew how to be happy.”

  “Shows what you know.”

  “I know her better than you do,” Caden said, now irritated. “You don’t know what it was like when Father was away.”

  Lau’s face dropped yet further, and Caden felt instantly ashamed. His younger brother had been conceived shortly before the Battle of Chion. Lau had never known their father.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  Lau pursed his lips. “Well I did. I’ve probably spent more time with Mother than you ever did, definitely longer as an adult.”

  “I’m not getting drawn into another contest.”

  “It’s not a contest, I’m just stating the facts. Sometimes she’s happy. You’re just never here to see it.”

  “I can’t help that and you know it.”

  “Why not? Come and spend some time on Damastion.”

  “I can’t. At least, not right now.”

  “She asks me where you are, and most of the time I don’t know what to say.”

  “Okay, I get it. I’m on mission right now, and there’s nothing I can really do about that. We’ll have to talk again when I’m done.”

  “Promise you’ll call.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. How’s Rendir?”

  “He’s the same as always.”

  “You’ve not broken this one yet then.”

  “I’ve never broken a counterpart, Lau. It wasn’t my fault the last one was a psychopath.”

  “Well you say that, but remember I’ve lived with you before. I know what it’s like listening to you day in, day out.”

  In the corner of his eye Caden saw a flash in the distance, far off to starboard. He looked out of the port hole and saw a new wormhole forming outside Aldava’s orbit. The holo display flickered for a moment, then stabilised.

  “We’re about to depart,” he said. “I should go.”

  “Don’t forget,” said Lau. “When you’re done, call me. It’s high time you came home.”

  “I will.”

  The stars began to swing across his view as Hammer and her companion ships turned to face the distant event horizon.

  “Heard it before, Ugly. Try to keep your word this time.”

  “Take care of yourself.” The screen blinked out as he was talking; Lau had cut the connection from his end.

  Caden lay on his bunk in preparation for the jump. He could tolerate only so much discomfort in the space of an hour.

  — 09 —

  An Empty Echo

  Caden stepped off the ramp of the shuttle and trod the crumbling earth of the furthest planet to which he had yet travelled. CC-60125-E, less formally known as Colonisation Candidate Echo; the fifth planetary body out from the star catalogued as 60125. He had already agreed with the others that they would just call it ‘Echo’ for the sake of simplicity. If anyone ever did terraform this godforsaken place, they could argue over more appropriate names for it on their own time.

  The land was dry and inhospitable, desolate and plain. Small turbid seas supported a primitive microbial ecosystem, which in turn managed to supply breathable oxygen to the atmosphere. Save for the flat endlessness of it all, the landscape reminded Caden of the plateau he so frequently visited in his dreams; only the inoffensive sky and the lack of distant mountain ranges were markedly different. He shivered.

  A rushing noise sounded in the air, and he looked up to see the MAGA lander that Stiletto had deployed to the surface in support of his mission. The dropship swept down at a low angle, swooped over the landing site, then circled before coming to rest not far from his shuttle.

  Caden watched as its outer hull skinprinted to mimic the surrounding landscape. Olive, cream and khaki patterns — left over from whatever planet the dropship had last visited — were replaced by dull browns, ochre, and greys. Vapour hissed from an exchanger to the rear of the craft, and the main hatch was popped from the inside.

  Boots crunched on the powdery surface as soldiers of the Mobile Air and Ground Assault forces filed from the landing craft, fanning out in groups of four. Caden lost count at fifty, and guessed that an entire platoon had come down to the surface to support them. Talk about overkill. After the last of the riflemen and squad sergeants had jogged down the metal ramp, a disinterested-looking lieutenant strolled casually after them.

  It was not the lieutenant who drew the eye, even with his oddly stiff bearing and world-weary expression; it was the Rodori who towered more than head-and-shoulders over his human comrades, cradling a general purpose machine gun as if it were a sleeping puppy.

  Caden had never worked with a Rodori before. He had seen them, certai
nly, but never so close. From his school days he remembered that although they superficially resembled the reptiles of Earth, they were not truly the same in any biological sense; except of course for the fact that they were cold blooded.

  He took the opportunity to study the alien while the sergeants barked orders and organised their squads. The most obvious thing about the Rodori was the sheer size of it; he — at least, Caden presumed it was a ‘he’ — was not just a solid third taller than all of the humans, but much more heavily set. The slow, deliberate movements were suggestive of dense bone and muscle, of huge weight being pushed around by tightly coiled strength. He noted that the adapted MAGA armour was thicker and more complex than that worn by the humans, which contributed to the overall impression of bulk. The weapon the Rodori carried was generally only used by men while mounted on a tripod, yet the alien lifted it effortlessly.

  When the troops moved closer he got a clearer view. The Rodori’s broad face was split by a wide mouth, which bristled with neat, narrow teeth. His large black eyes had orange irises, with pupils which were elongated laterally. The head was much larger than that of a human, hairless, and covered in scales. Not leathery or horny, but the smooth, iridescent lepidosaurian scales of a snake, in hues of brown, tan, and red wine. He saw there were larger scales on the crest of the skull, while those on the face and throat were paler and so tiny as to appear almost as a continuous surface. Stencilled on the breastplate of the Rodori’s armour, on the left hand side, he could make out the word ‘Bruiser’.

  The Rodori began to talk in a series of long guttural consonants, and even before its link translated for him, Caden realised he had been staring.

  “Something I can do for you?”

  “Excuse me, Private. I’ve just not been up this close and personal with a Rodori before.”

  “Most people keep a safe distance.” With that the alien rumbled past, slinging the machine gun on to his shoulder as if it were a stick.

  Caden became aware that Throam and Eilentes had also left the shuttle, and were standing behind him. He turned to Throam and pointed after the giant. “That guy makes you look tiny.”