The God’s Titan

  Forged Alliance Book 2

  Anthony James

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Evia

  Other Science Fiction Books by Anthony James

  © 2021 Anthony James

  All rights reserved

  The right of Anthony James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Illustration © Tom Edwards

  TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Chapter One

  High over the ruins of the Amber military base, an armoured shuttle hung motionless in the air, its engines droning like a hive of agitated bees. The transport’s side door was open and Fleet Admiral Carl Recker – the lone occupant - stood in the doorway, one hand on the vertical rail to keep himself from falling.

  The rain fell, as it often did on this area of planet Basalt, and the wind blew the droplets in stinging needles that left Recker’s unprotected hair and face drenched, and his cheeks red with the cold. It also reminded him what it was to be alive. And if life was worth living, then it was also worth fighting for.

  He inhaled deeply, holding the chill air in his lungs, and surveyed the destruction below. The fires – caused by the Kilvar attack only a week ago – were extinguished, though a dense smoke clung low to several of the worst-affected sections of the base. More than a hundred structures had been hit by missiles or reduced to molten sludge by the enemy particle beams and the search for both living and dead amongst the twisted walls and torn alloys was ongoing. Until that search was over, the rebuilding couldn’t begin.

  The ever-increasing tally of the perished was a sobering indication of what faced the human-Daklan alliance and thinking about it made Recker grind his teeth.

  In the distance, the Pioneer flew across the western edge of the base, a fifty-billion-ton battleship among a thousand shuttles. Above the clouds and out of sight, many other warships flew on patrol, their ternium drives operating at reduced output following the Kilvar’s deployment of an unknown weapon which had temporarily shut down not only the local fleet, but the entire base as well.

  The surprise attack by the aliens had been a sobering lesson in how intergalactic warfare could be as straightforward and unfair as a game of rock-paper-scissors. The Kilvar came with rocks and the alliance fleet kept on making scissors.

  Late in the day, when the battle had seemed lost, the experimental exium prototype had been stirred into the mix, and that was rock, paper, scissors and stasis-field-generating disintegration cannon all in one, as well as being seemingly impossible to control and incomprehensibly dangerous.

  Now, the Firestorm – the only exium-equipped warship in the alliance fleet – was stationary and crewed by a team of volunteers twenty billion kilometres from Basalt. Should the Kilvar return, that crew were instructed to do whatever was necessary to destroy their attackers, even if that meant losing the Firestorm.

  The exium module itself remained entirely stable, and soon, Recker knew, he’d be required to make a decision on what to do about it. Adding to the difficulty was his near certainty that the Kilvar had a method of locating exium across vast distances. Worryingly, several of his theoretical mathematicians were beginning to whisper that those distances might potentially be infinite.

  Regardless of the truth, Recker was fully aware that if he ordered a return of the exium prototype to Basalt, then doubtless the enemy would, at some unpredictable moment, return for a second attempt to steal it. As yet, he wasn’t ready to deal with a fleet of near-invulnerable Kilvar warships.

  One part of Recker believed the right decision was to simply recall the Firestorm’s crew, put the warship into permanent lightspeed, and then forget about it. And yet, he had a stubborn streak a lightyear wide and that stubbornness insisted the exium belonged to the alliance, not to whichever damned alien species turned up and decided to make it theirs.

  The reminder alarm on Recker’s portable communicator buzzed to let him know the thirty minutes he’d allowed himself out here, undisturbed, were over. Talking and planning had their place, but sometimes the only path he found to clarity was complete immersion in the death, the smoke and the stench of burned flesh. Recker had never kept himself aloof from the realities of war and he wasn’t about to change. Not now, not ever.

  Stepping away from the doorway, Recker returned to the shuttle’s cockpit and piloted it the few kilometres to the landing pad outside the command and control bunker which was now his home.

  Hurrying across the rain-pelted concrete, Recker entered the single-storey, reinforced surface building through which the airlifts were accessed. Human and Daklan soldiers were everywhere and Recker greeted them as he went by. Following his entry into one of the lift cars, he descended two thousand metres to the first of the three subterranean levels.

  Minutes later, he was back in his office, where he found his personal assistant, Lieutenant Christy Garber, waiting for him.

  “You forgot to turn on your comms receiver, sir,” she said.

  “No I didn’t,” said Recker, taking the comms unit from his pocket and removing the channel block.

  Garber narrowed her eyes. “You look exhausted, sir. Coffee has its limits.”

  Recker was exhausted and it was increasingly difficult to pretend otherwise. He crossed to his desk. His new office was cramped, spartan, too bright and with an artificially pure smell from the air conditioning. The technology it contained was limited to a single desktop communicator and a large screen on the left-hand wall. Recker didn’t need anything else.

  A silvery injector tube lay on the metal surface of his desk and he picked it up. “Frenziol-15,” Recker said with distaste. “I can’t bring myself to take it.”

  “Maybe you should, sir.”

  “I’ve had enough of boosters, Lieutenant.”

  “In which case, it’s time you went to bed. You’ve had less than twelve hours in total since the Kilvar attack.”

  “No boosters,” said Recker, slamming the injector onto the desk. “I’ve got a meeting with Admiral Ivinstol.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Garber. “It starts in less than ten minutes.” She hesitated. “Have you had any ideas?”

  “My head is swimming with them, Lieutenant, and many I have discussed with you and my team already. I keep returning to one or two of those ideas, and I would like to see what Admiral Ivinstol thinks about them.”

  “He’s an intelligent…man,” said Garber. The Daklan didn’t refer to themselves as men and women but most humans found it comfortable using the familiar terms.

  “Admiral Ivinstol has led the Daklan for a long time,” said Recker. “And they don’t suffer fools.”

  “Is there anything I can get you before the meeting begins, sir?”

  “I’d like another coffee, please.”

  Garber nodded once. “Yes, sir.” She exited the office through the single metal door, which opened with a hum of concealed motors.

  With a few minutes remaining before his meeting, Recker approached the viewscreen and touched one of the buttons on the control panel. The screen illuminated with a sensor feed from one of the newly deployed orbital satellites.

  “Basalt,” said Recker, allowing his gaze to linger on the sphere of blues, greys and greens. The satellite’s sensor arrays penetrated the cloud cover easily and the feed was sharp enough to convey the windswept anger of the planet’s largest ocean. In the grand scheme of things, Basalt was temperate, but it could also be hostile.

  Recker stared for a short while and then touched the control panel again. The feed changed and this time he saw the distant star, Reldus – a faraway speck of brightness, its energy output magnitudes beyond anything the alliance could produce, yet not nearly enough to heat the farthest planets in its orbit.

  The door opened and Lieutenant Garber returned, with a coffee, an orange juice, a nutrient block, and a steak sandwich, all balanced on a tray.

  “Prison rations?” asked Recker, pointing at the murky green block which he knew contained a careful balance of everything the human body needed. He also knew it tasted like unsalted bean curd with a faint, yet unpleasant hint of fish. Whichever lab designed the nutrient blocks, they’d done an outstanding job at engineering all the fun out of eating.

  “You’ll feel better once you’ve finished it, sir,” said Garber encouragingly.


/>   “You don’t believe that for a moment, Lieutenant,” said Recker, picking up the steak sandwich and taking a bite. It was a replicated version of overdone, but not bad all the same.

  “I’ll leave you to it, sir,” said Garber. “And if find that nutrient block hiding in your bin when I return…”

  Recker laughed – Garber’s value came from much more than just her efficiency. “You’re keeping me from my meeting, Lieutenant.”

  Once again, Garber left the office and Recker returned to his desk. A real time FTL comm channel to the Daklan home world, Terrani, was arranged and waiting for him to connect. The meeting was due to begin in two minutes, which was enough time for Recker to finish half of his sandwich and the orange juice.

  He entered the comm channel and stood in front of the viewscreen. Admiral Ivinstol was never late and Recker wasn’t expecting today to be an exception. The feed on the wall screen was now one of an office somewhere on Terrani. Recker saw a background array of basic furniture – a desk, an unpadded chair, a communicator, and, in one corner, a purple-leafed plant. Admiral Ivinstol was not interested in the trappings of his position and the contents of his office reflected that.

  “Fleet Admiral Recker,” said Ivinstol, stepping into the sensor’s viewing arc.

  Admiral Ivinstol was broad and tall, and wore a combat suit without the helmet. At sixty-five years of age, he was sixteen years Recker’s senior, though his dusky red skin displayed few signs of age. His hair was unaffected by grey and his green eyes burned like embers.

  Returning the greeting, Recker nodded at his opposite number in the Daklan military. “We have much to discuss.”

  “The combined fleet is mobilised,” said Ivinstol. He spoke the HPA tongue perfectly, though his voice was rasping and deep, like that of every male Daklan. “However, our issues are many.”

  Recker and Ivinstol had spoken at great length about the Kilvar, yet a clear strategy hadn’t emerged – at least nothing more elaborate than putting warships into the skies and doubling efforts to scout and detect wherever it was the Kilvar had come from. Twelve years of scouting before the attack on Basalt hadn’t been successful, and Recker had no reason to believe it would start paying dividends now.

  “Have you obtained consensus on the matter of exium production?” asked Recker.

  “We Daklan will not be shackled,” said Ivinstol. “The die is cast and the Kilvar have attacked. Now we will respond with everything we have.”

  It was the answer Recker had anticipated and the only surprise was that it had taken the Daklan so long to achieve this unanimity. He remembered the start of the human-Daklan wars and how the aliens had committed hard and fast, catching the HPA unawares.

  “I value our alliance, Kolius,” said Recker, referring to the Daklan by his first name. “Most of all, I value the Daklan’s skill in war and your aptitude for new technology. However, in this instance, I wonder if a degree of subtlety would be the wiser option.”

  Ivinstol grinned. “We Daklan know subtlety, though we may not favour it.” The grin faded. “What do you suggest?”

  “Until we have learned how to control exium, its use is limited. We could produce additional modules and install them onto our warships, only to find we are unable to harness the propulsion superstress. By that time, we may have drawn in a hundred Kilvar warships rather than just a handful.”

  “We have not yet proven the Kilvar can detect exium,” said Ivinstol.

  “That’s right,” said Recker. “And I’ve seen the results of the atomic scans performed at Tibulon before the enemy attacked. Those scans detected no emissions and no signs of decay from the first exium module – at least nothing our monitoring tools could recognize.”

  Ivinstol smiled grimly. “And yet, the Kilvar found their way to Tibulon and then to Basalt.”

  “One of my analysis teams constructed a probability model and whichever way they manipulate the data, the results come out the same – the most likely explanation for recent events is that the Kilvar can detect exium,” said Recker.

  The Daklan also had probability analysis teams, but they were less well-funded than their HPA equivalents. “So wherever we produce exium, the Kilvar will arrive,” said Ivinstol. “Are you suggesting we lay a trap?”

  “Not a trap,” said Recker. The ideas which had been swirling around suddenly dropped into place. “Even if we laid such a trap, we would be required to create another reactor bomb like the one on Tibulon and at best we might destroy a few enemy warships.” He breathed in while he considered his next words. “Besides, I’m convinced the Kilvar will not let us be. We have shown we can create exium and we have destroyed their warships, albeit with effort. The Kilvar will return and next time it will be with overwhelming force.”

  “And despite what you say about their detection of exium, I would not bet against an attack at other alliance worlds,” said Ivinstol.

  “That’s my firm belief,” said Recker. “If we are to fight this war, we must first learn how to combat the Kilvar and secondly, we must learn how to find them.”

  Ivinstol’s expression darkened and he drew back his lips, exaggerating the curve of his fangs. “The Lavorix had these answers. Be careful what you suggest, Fleet Admiral Recker.”

  “Do we have a choice?” asked Recker. “Either we sit back and wait for the Kilvar to return, or we take control of our destiny.”

  “Control is a word that is easily spoken.” The Daklan rarely looked worried about anything, but Ivinstol’s expression was deeply troubled. “Can we take this risk? We might inadvertently offer the Kilvar the greatest prize of all.”

  “Or we might claim that prize for ourselves,” said Recker. Even as he spoke the words, he felt a tremendous unease at what he was suggesting.

  “If I were to choose between the greatest of known dangers and the greatest of unknown dangers, I would choose the former every time.” Ivinstol burst out in raucous laughter. “Not that I would call any of this known.”

  “Then it’s settled?” said Recker.

  Ivinstol nodded once. “The decision is made. For good or for ill.” The Daklan’s expression hardened into defiance. “We will not be spectators.”

  The meeting continued for a time. Many specific details could not be agreed yet, and the meeting closed with a new one arranged for the following day. When Recker touched the button to switch off the viewscreen, he felt utterly drained.

  His office door access panel buzzed. It was Garber, and Recker told her to enter.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” she asked immediately.

  “The plan is made,” said Recker. “The Ancidium.”

  Garber understood – or at least she understood enough, and the colour drained from her face. “Is it the only way?”

  Recker shook his head. “It’s not the only way, Lieutenant. But it’s the way we’ve chosen.”

  “Can we…?”

  “I don’t know, Lieutenant. If we can’t, then we’ll choose a different way. I need some time to think.”

  Garber left the room again, leaving Recker alone in the cold light of his office. For a time, he could only stare, while his mind spun with the dangers and the possibilities. Eventually, he activated his desktop communicator and started putting things in motion.

  Chapter Two

  Life onboard the alliance’s lone exium class heavy cruiser Firestorm should have been dull for Captain William Flint and his crew. Orders were for the warship to remain within ten thousand kilometres of coordinates provided by high command and that left little scope for exploration or excitement.

  Acting as a direct counter to the dullness was Flint’s knowledge that the entire vessel was rightly classed as a Priority 1 threat, with propulsion that could potentially enter a state of irretrievable and critical superstress which might generate a catastrophic explosion, a death sphere, or, more likely, a non-decaying stasis field, trapping him and his crew in zero-time for an eternity.