Battleship Furiosa (18 page)

We made it.

Commander
Higgins exhaled with relief. He'd checked up on the details
for the Serpentis System since arriving on the ship. It was nothing
particularly special, with a white-blue star that bathed the system
in a cool, depressing light. What had caught his eyes was that the
system contained just three planets, all of which sounded dreadful.
Two were completely uninhabitable, Serpentis I a molten rock, and
Serpentis III a frozen block of ice. The second planet was
something else, though, and he was fascinated to see what had
happened since Alliance explorers had been allowed to visit it a
decade earlier.

What about the others?

He looked
back to make sure the Vipers had also made it through. For
a second, he thought something had gone wrong, and then they were
there, travelling in a wide formation, their elegant wings extended
to bathe in the solar winds. It was difficult to gauge their scale,
but he knew from the computer that they were about the same size as
the Alliance destroyers, and intended to form much of the same
function. That might be because their designs had been created
based on experience learnt at Alliance shipyards.

"Excellent," said the General,
"Give me a full tactical assessment of the system."

Commander Higgins glanced at the
central display and the mapping data. With each passing second, it
filled out with the star at the top. He exhaled slowly upon
realising they were alone.

"General."

The voice came from one of the
many senior officers. This one was almost as old and scarred as the
General, and could only be the second-in-command. He paused for a
second until the name came to him. There were many great and famous
officers in the Byotai military, but one in particular stood out
among the rest, a warrior of such skill that many Alliance officers
knew his name.

Captain
Krammer.

The Byo
tai was one of the many Byotai captains to have stayed on
since the Biomech War, and had seen a meteoric rise until reaching
his current position aboard Furiosa. Just looking across at the
titanic officers sent a chill up his back. He'd never expected to
stand in the presence of such powerful figures. The Captain pointed
to the star and then a number of waypoints. As with Honorius, he
knew few human words, and it fell to the translator to allow
Commander Higgins any chance of understanding what was
happening.

"There's no traffic, and the
navigation beacon at Serpentis II is still
broadcasting."

The General uttered a guttural
sound and then pointed to a shape near the second planet.
It looked like a moon, but the schematic quickly
increased in size to show something he'd never seen
before.

"Since the
insurrection, we have lost contact with many systems, even
out here in the Deadlands."

As his hands moved, a blue
outline appeared around the orbital facility. It flashed as each
section was drawn in greater detail, and increasing its size and
complexity.

"Make contact with the garrison
at the Super-Max Correctional Facility. It would be helpful to
confirm their allegiance, and their status."

Another officer,
this time a younger looking male Byotai,
signalled to the General.

"Sir. I've already received an
un-encoded broadcast from the Super-Max Facility, and it
is...unexpected."

"Well?"

Commander Higgins strained his
ears as he tried to identify key words before the translator could
do its job. Luckily for him, the officers and crew spoke slowly and
clearly enough for the device to do its job, else his task aboard
th
e battleship would have been made
almost impossible.

"General. The message is from
the
group calling themselves the People's
Militia. I believe they may be related to the group we have met
before."

Before the translator could even
finish, the aged leader made an irritated clicking sound from the
back of his throat. He shook his head and then uttered something
very close an angry shout.

"The message says they have
liberated their comrades and burnt the entire facility."

General Honorius again snorted
with derision. He then walked towards the unit and examined it
carefully. As he reached out, the model shifted about so that he
could view it from different angles.

"I see. In that case, encode a
reconnaissance drone and prepare it for launch. We will leave one
behind to perform a full, localised assessment for our
records."

Captain Krammer pointed to the
facility, in particular, the long docking arms that extended out
into space. The unusual design gave it a shape much like the body
of the mythical Kraken.

"General. If anybody remains, we
will have to act. We cannot leave people behind, whether friendly
or hostile. We will need to send troops down there. It could be a
ruse."

The aged warrior snorted.

"Perhaps you are correct,
Captain. But what is left behind does not concern me today. We have
neither the time, nor the capability to make a difference. That is
a fight for another day."

He lifted his nose and
opened his mouth, cooling his body for a few
moments.

"
Now,
how much further is it to the Karnak Rift? We have to reach Makos,
and fast. I cannot afford to waste a minute more than necessary
here. Who knows what danger Makos is in?"

The General closed his eyes, and then
tilted his head towards Commander Higgins.

"
Until
we have mobilised all of our forces, including the contingent
commanded by Makos, we must rely upon the goodwill of our
allies."

He turned his eyes
br
iefly towards Commander Higgins and
then back to the central display. One of the senior officers
brought up the waypoints in the star system and pointed to their
final destination. The planet showed as bright blue on the unit,
while the planets followed their usual elliptical orbits around the
star.

"Just over three million
kilometres past Serpentis II. We came out of the Rift in a position
much closer than expected. We will pass the orbital Super-Max
Facility over Serpentis II within twenty-four minutes, and then use
its gravitational pull of the planet to assist our acceleration to
the Rift."

Commander Higgins was known among
his officers for his keen mental arithmetic, and he quickly
performed a number of calculations in his head. Part of officer
training in the Alliance military was navigation and engineering,
and one of the key subjects shared between these was mathematics.
Every single officer was expected to be able to navigate by the
stars, and to perform fuel and distance calculations on paper. It
was an odd, somewhat archaic way of training, but there were many
occasions where the ability to solve both simple and complex
mathematical problems with limited access to electronic machines
and computers.

"That's almost ten hours if we're
pulling
single-g
acceleration."

The General looked at him and
chuckled.

"Commander. Our newest ships are much,
much faster."

Commander Higgins rose from his console
and walked into the centre of the bridge. Both he and the General
looked at the formation of four ships, and their course near the
star.

"We will be there in...four point three
hours."

Commander Higgins'
eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"You're serious? That means
altering our acceleration
when we reach
the planet to slingshot and then maintaining five-g for just over
four hours. Is that even possible?"

The General nodded.

"Yes, it is possible, but only
with our newest ships. That is why only the four of us are here.
Any more and we would be slowed...like an anchor pulled behind a
sea ship. Yes?"

Commander Higgins nodded politely
at the reference. It meant little to most people, but one thing it
did was to let him know that the Byotai had done his homework.
There were many that considered the Byotai to be aloof and little
interested in the world of humanity. But as the Commander looked
about this ship, he could already see changes that had been made in
the last few years. The Byotai might seem conservative and
isolationist, but he'd seen them adapt to changes quicker than
most.

Yeah, they make
changes a
ll right.

M
uch of
the battleship was ancient, but a great deal of the bridge had been
updated in the last refit, and there were even Alliance influenced
changes, the most significant the central display system used on
board Liberty Class Destroyers. The Byotai had been quite taken
with the elegance, and the ability for it to be shared among
multiple officers. They had borrowed the idea, and then updated it
with their own tech to produce what he now saw at the heart of the
bridge. It was an effective system, and as a convenient consequence
made his own job aboard the alien ship much easier. He heard
something to his right and twisted about to listen more
carefully.

What was
that?

Captain Krammer growled and grumbled,
but the translator completely failed to translate more than a
handful of words. Commander Higgins looked to the General and shook
his head.

"I didn't get a word of that."

The
General ignored him for a moment as a number of lights
blinked on the central unit. His officers moved about to check them
while he bellowed more orders. Finally, he looked back and
grunted.

"What? Yes, we can to it,
for short duration flights of up to ten
hours...or so."

He pointed to the mapping view and ran
his hand along their projected route.

"We will alter our course once
past the Super-Max over Serpentis II. We cannot change our heading
or velocity until past its orbital position."

At that point
, his eyes shifted back to Commander Higgins.

"So make sure your pilots are
ready to launch. We must pass within twenty kilometres of the
facility, perform a partial rotation, and then activate our main
engines. This will take us directly between two of the largest
mooring spars. We will be vulnerable for a period of
time."

He turned away from the Commander
and spoke more quietly to his kin, before looking back at the
Alliance officer.

"This is where we will be
at risk. If I were to launch an attack, it would
be here. If I had the time, I would follow the secondary route and
completely bypass the facility, but that will add six more hours to
our journey. Events have conspired to put the Super-Max Facility
directly into our flight path."

He snorted, much to the Commander's
surprise.

"It is time I do not have, and neither
does Makos."

Commander Higgins was already
looking at the detailed diagram of the facility. It was truly
gigantic, a spider's web of habitation blocks, docking arms, and
solar panels.

"It is massive."

He spoke quietly so that the
others did not hear. Even so, the Captain moved closer to him and
noticed he was looking at the underside of the station. The Byotai
made a noise, and one of his junior officers approached, spoke for
a moment, and then bowed slightly towards Commander
Higgins.

"My Captain would like to know what you
are thinking."

Commander Higgins also bowed,
mimicking the act just performed by the younger officer.
Before he could speak, another officer
interrupted him, one of the tactical officers that also doubled as
communication specialists. He didn't know his name, but he looked
almost as old and wizened as the Captain. His voice was slower and
much clearer, making the translator's job that much
easier.

"General, contact from one of the
docking arms. It's faint, but it appears to be an Imperial distress
transmission."

The G
eneral listened and then signalled for the officer to
return to his post. Commander Higgins heard all of the conversation
but shook his head as the Byotai walked away.

"Well?" asked the General,
"What are you thinking, Commander?"

"Sir. I have doubts that this
facility has been abandoned. The habitation sections look intact,
and every single outer door and airlock appears closed. Then we get
the signal, but only when we move close enough."

The General waited for his
junior, and then launched into a long speech that took just seconds
for the officer to explain.

"The fusion powerplant is
off-line, as is the automated defence
grid."

Commander Higgins pointed to the
underside of the facility where the design was sleeker and easier
to view.

"
How do
you explain the small heat blooms along this section?"

Captain Krammer looked closely
and hit a button to enlarge the view. The changes in temperature
were modest, but they did cover large sections of the station,
especially in the incarceration blocks.

"Who knows?
Maybe they left loyalist prisoners behind. Or our people
have been forced to retreat inside the station."