“Good choice – it’d take them four hours to exit our five-million-klick safety perimeter at their maximum sub-light velocity,” said Fredericks.

  The shuttle’s ternium drive required almost ten minutes to prepare for a lightspeed transition. When it happened, the vessel disappeared from the sensors on its short return journey to Basalt.

  “Signal those warships outside our perimeter,” said Flint. “We’re departing as well.”

  “I’ll need some coordinates for that, sir,” said Fredericks.

  “I’m sending them to your console, Lieutenant.”

  “Got them.” Fredericks went quiet for a few seconds. “That’s the Evia system, sir.”

  “You know about it?”

  “Some.”

  “Set a course. Like I told you – I’ll explain what I can once we’re on our way.”

  “Coordinates entered. The navigational computer tells me it’s a five-day journey.”

  “Start the warmup.”

  “Yes, sir. The warmup has started.”

  “I’m letting Lieutenant Vance know it’s time for him and his platoon to buckle up,” said Becerra.

  Flint nodded in acknowledgement. At the same time, he listened carefully. Since the engagement with the Kilvar, this was the first time the warship’s propulsion had been put under any kind of stress. A whining started alongside the usual smooth drone of ternium and Flint listened hard to see if it would change. After thirty seconds with his ears cocked, his mind started playing tricks, such that he was no longer sure if the whining should be present or not.

  A coarser note intruded and Flint watched the monitoring needles carefully. Aside from the erroneous readings which had been present with the engines at idle, the other gauges were exactly where they should be.

  “Do you see anything that has you worried, Lieutenant Fredericks?” Flint asked.

  “I don’t see anything, sir, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried. I’ve got a good idea why we’re heading to Evia and I’m not sure the Firestorm is ready for it. Hell, I’m not sure we’re ready for it.”

  “What’s at Evia?” asked Lieutenant Bolan.

  “I’ll leave the telling of that one to the captain,” said Fredericks.

  “Later,” said Flint, his tone indicating he didn’t want to hear any more questions.

  Another minute passed and the engines became loud enough to make normal conversation difficult, not that anyone was saying much. Flint glanced at Maddox. Her face was set and her lips tight together. She looked his way and her gaze spoke volumes.

  “Forty seconds and we go,” said Fredericks. “No visible concerns so far.”

  “It’s going to stay that way,” said Maddox, like her words could make it happen.

  “Thirty seconds,” said Fredericks, his voice almost at a full shout. “Shit, got something on the…”

  His voice was drowned out by a sudden, furious roar from the propulsion. It came from nowhere, a visceral thing which made Flint want to hide in fear. He gritted his teeth and his eyes roved across the instrumentation. Several of the readouts which he thought were calibrated were now telling him all manner of crap. Or at least he hoped it was crap. If not, the propulsion was about to enter superstress again.

  The roaring vanished and was replaced by the familiar cavernous inhalation sound which Flint well remembered from before. It made him feel like he was being offered a glimpse behind the hidden veil of the universe at secrets his mind couldn’t possibly comprehend. “Shut it down!” he yelled.

  Either the warning came too late, or nobody heard. A sickening lurch heralded the transition into lightspeed and Flint braced for what he felt sure would be pure agony.

  The pain came and to his incredible relief, it wasn’t as bad as he anticipated. His head thudded, his fingers went numb and every muscle ached.

  Only two standard deviations worse than a kick in the balls, he thought sourly, remembering the old saying.

  He uttered a few curses, which helped, though not much, and judging by the sounds coming from elsewhere, it was a method popular amongst other members of his crew.

  “Lieutenant Fredericks, please report,” said Flint, his voice far louder than he intended.

  Then, he realised - it wasn’t that his voice was loud, it only sounded so because of the comparative lack of noise. He listened and the propulsion was little more than a whining hum, though with an enormous background depth of bass.

  “Just pulling myself together, sir,” said Fredericks. “Damn that was rough.”

  The aftereffects of the transition receded a little and Flint did his best to focus on the command console. The data he saw wasn’t making sense and either the calibration of the remaining instrumentation was out, or something had gone drastically wrong with the Firestorm’s lightspeed transition.

  The sensors were offline – that much he could see from the darkness of the bulkhead screens – which meant the transition had definitely taken place. Other than that, Flint didn’t know what was wrong.

  “Tell me what happened, Lieutenant Fredericks,” he said.

  “I’m checking, sir. We went into superstress for approximately three seconds before the transition and it’s played hell with some of the gauges.”

  “Are we in superstress now?” asked Flint. Another question came. “Is it even possible for the engines to be superstressed at lightspeed?”

  “No and yes, respectively, sir.”

  “You need to find out what caused that, Lieutenant.” Flint listened again and tried to get a sense of how the warship had responded to the brief entry into superstress. Aside from the unusual engine note, there were no red lights on his console to indicate the Firestorm was descending towards a state of failure. In fact, everything was – on the surface – quite serene. Flint wasn’t convinced. “If you don’t find answers, we’re exiting lightspeed.”

  “Give me five minutes, sir,” said Fredericks. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  Five minutes wasn’t long, but still Flint wondered if he should just call off the journey. While the safety manual was clear on what action he should take – and five minutes poking around wasn’t included in the prescribed response to a potential emergency - a lot was riding on this mission and he didn’t want to bring a premature end to proceedings. Also, Flint had a feeling that Fleet Admiral Recker was taking a chance sending him to Evia, rather than choosing from the pool of more experienced officers, and he was determined to show that trust wasn’t misplaced.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” he confirmed.

  Fredericks came up with the answer in less than sixty seconds. “That new control software we installed…” he cleared his throat. “The beta control software. It was designed to run an early ramp-up on the propulsion for the purpose of data gathering.”

  “What do you mean by data gathering?” asked Flint.

  “It was to test the viability of putting our engine modules back into superstress – engine modules that should probably be removed and destroyed at the earliest opportunity. Instead, we’ve been given new software containing routines designed to fire us into superstress again.” Fredericks was nobody’s fool and he stared hard at Flint. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on, sir, but I don’t think the rest of the crew have an inkling what we’re heading into.”

  “I promised I’d tell you about the mission once we entered lightspeed,” said Flint. “First, I’d like to you to confirm that we’re not about to break up and scatter parts of the Firestorm across a few hundred billion kilometres of space.”

  “There’s nothing to indicate a current or imminent failure, sir,” said Fredericks. “The monitoring tools are all out of whack as you can see. Maybe some of them can be cajoled into giving a correct reading again, but I can’t guarantee accuracy. The Firestorm needs a long time in the dock.”

  “I’m not holding my breath,” said Maddox. “Anyway, sir. This mission.”

  While Flint still wasn’t entirely confident the Firestorm was in a fit state to be travelling at lightspeed, it was time to give the crew an explanation. He climbed from his seat and faced them.

  Chapter Four

  “The Ancidium was a spaceship, but on a far greater scale than anything the alliance has ever encountered,” Flint started. “To all intents and purposes, it was the home world to the Lavorix. It was an invulnerable construction yard capable of producing warships faster than anything the alliance was capable of - then and now - and the Laws of Ancidium were built within its hull. Fleet Admiral Recker and his crew took it out of the equation twelve years ago.”

  “Taking something out of the equation isn’t the same as destroying it, sir,” said Maddox.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Flint. “Currently, the Ancidium is locked in a combined stasis field and death sphere, with a four-million-klick diameter.” He let that sink in.

  “How did it end up in stasis?” asked Lieutenant Bolan. “And what’s a death sphere?”

  “Superstressed ternium is what created the stasis,” said Fredericks. “That’s what I heard.”

  “You heard right. The warship Gorgadar created both the stasis and the death sphere,” said Flint. He aimed his gaze towards Bolan. “A death sphere is just what it sounds like, except it’s not fatal to humans and Daklan – only to the Lavorix as far as we know.”

  “So the alliance has left the Ancidium in stasis for all this time and now we’re flying out to take a look at it?” said Garrett.

  “I don’t know too much about what happened in the past, Lieutenant,” said Flint, “But I can guarantee you we haven’t left it alone these last twelve years. The fact we haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean anything. Some things are best kept quiet.”

  “Do you really believe that, sir?” asked Maddox.

  “In this case, and given what I’ve been told about the Ancidium, putting it on the news wouldn’t have been advisable,” said Flint. “Though I admit I’m not convinced one way or another.”

  “So we’re going to the Evia system, and that’s where the Ancidium is frozen in time,” said Fredericks. “What’re we going to do when we get there? And why only us, especially given how the alliance has a massive fleet of warships?”

  “We won’t be going it alone, Lieutenant,” said Flint. “We’ll rendezvous with other ships from our fleet at Evia. They’re due to arrive a few hours before we do.”

  “You didn’t tell us what the plan is, sir,” said Becerra.

  Flint tried not to grimace. “We’re going to pay the Ancidium a visit, assuming it isn’t destroyed.”

  “We don’t know if it was destroyed or not?” asked Garrett. “Seems like we’re lacking intel.”

  “Yes and no,” said Flint. “I’ve been told that when we aim our sensors at the stasis field, what we’ll see is an image of the Ancidium exactly as it was at the time the sphere was created – so it’s a snapshot of the past.”

  “That means we don’t really know if the Ancidium is destroyed or – potentially – fully operational should the stasis field ever fail,” said Fredericks.

  “Fleet Admiral Recker believes the death sphere will kill any remaining Lavorix in the event the stasis field collapses,” said Flint. “And he believes most of the enemy are already dead as a result of his engagement with the warship.”

  “We’re going to try and forge a way through that stasis sphere, aren’t we?” asked Fredericks. “All these new options on the control software are designed to cause a partial stasis collapse, so we can get up close.”

  “That’s a good outline of the basics, Lieutenant,” Flint admitted.

  “Why do we need to dig up the past?” asked Lieutenant Bolan. “What’s the mission goal?”

  “The Lavorix and the Kilvar fought for hundreds of years that we know,” said Flint. “A war can’t last that long unless one side has a counter to the other.”

  “We’re hoping to find what kept the Lavorix in the game for so long,” said Maddox in understanding.

  “Exactly,” said Flint. “Fleet Admiral Recker told me the Lavorix were probably on the run when they stumbled upon the HPA and the Daklan. They were also rebuilding their fleet – bigger and better than before. Enough that maybe they could have resumed their war with the Kilvar. Had things not turned out so badly for them against the alliance, this would have all been different.”

  “We’d have been extinct,” said Fredericks. “Everyone knows what the Lavorix wanted. They planned to fine-tune their extractors and point them at each one of our planets until the life had been drawn from every living organism in the alliance.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Lieutenant,” said Flint, suddenly not sure what he did mean. “I’m just saying that the Lavorix were one set of bad guys, who were the only barrier between us and another set of bad guys.”

  “Then they should have left us well alone,” said Fredericks. “Damn, I lost friends at Ivisto. Good men and women.” He swore again and he was clearly fighting to hold his anger in check.

  “We all lost someone to the Lavorix,” said Becerra softly. “I know I did.”

  Fredericks exhaled, his anger dissipating. “You’re right, Lieutenant – we all have memories. It just seems like I have so damned many of them.”

  “This might be our chance to collect some of what the Lavorix owe us,” said Flint. “Everything the Lavorix learned about the Kilvar is on the Ancidium and we’re going to take whatever we find.”

  “Which means a boarding expedition,” said Fredericks. He gave a short laugh. “Which explains the presence of Lieutenant Vance and his platoon. He’s going to need more soldiers.”

  “And he’ll have them,” said Flint.

  “You mentioned a rendezvous, sir,” said Garrett. “Exactly how much backup will we have?”

  “Twenty warships,” said Flint. “They’ve been called in from worlds believed to be at a lower risk of Kilvar attack. They’ll be bringing plenty of troops with them.”

  “Even twenty warships’ worth of soldiers won’t be enough to storm the Ancidium,” said Fredericks. “And that’s assuming most of the Lavorix are already dead.”

  “If it isn’t working out, we’re to leave the Ancidium in stasis,” said Flint. “This is meant to be a rapid response to a tough situation.”

  “Maybe too rapid, huh?” said Maddox.

  Flint had similar thoughts and wasn’t sure on which side he fell. Fleet Admiral Recker had forged success in the Lavorix wars through decisive action and he was bringing that approach to this new war with the Kilvar. The only trouble, as far as Flint saw it, was that Recker might be assuming everyone else had the same chance of success as he did. Maybe when the Lavorix attacked, he was just the right man at the right time.

  “We’ve been given the order,” said Flint. “The officers who issued these orders – and remember the Daklan are in agreement – have ten times the experience of warfare than all of us combined.”

  “And that really can make the difference, sir,” said Fredericks. He tapped a finger against the side of his head. “I’ve met the Fleet Admiral a few times.”

  Flint waited for Fredericks to continue. The other man remained silent. “And what?” asked Flint eventually.

  “I liked him,” said Fredericks with a shrug. “If this is his plan, let’s get on with it.”

  “It sounded like you had doubts, Lieutenant,” said Flint, struggling to understand exactly what his engine officer was trying to convey.

  “I’ve got plenty of doubts,” said Fredericks. “If I backed down when I was afraid of something, I’d have been killed on Ivisto. We’ve been trusted with this mission and that means we’ve got to do whatever we can to turn a good result.”

  “I agree,” said Becerra. “Though I still don’t know exactly what we’re going to do when we arrive at Evia.”

  “The plan is to use the Firestorm’s exium module to create a tunnel through the stasis field surrounding the Ancidium,” said Flint. “Then, we fly to the enemy warship and look for a way inside. Fleet Admiral Recker says there’s an opening through the vessel’s armour and that might be our best point of entry. If not, we have other methods.”

  “Such as?” asked Maddox.

  “One of the annihilators at the rendezvous has been fast-track fitted with a Terrus-V. If that doesn’t work, we’ll be using the destroyer cannon.”

  “The destroyer cannon that our onboard diagnostics believe has failed,” said Maddox.

  “It fared well enough against the Kilvar fleet, Commander.”

  “And we only have one mesh deflector. It’s showing an amber warning light,” she continued.

  “I guess the big uncertainty underlying all of this, is whether the Kilvar will discover what we’re doing at Evia,” said Fredericks. “I bet they’d give anything to lay their hands on the Ancidium – or what’s left of it.”

  “I’m sure they would, Lieutenant. That’s why we won’t be hanging about. The Firestorm will be last arrival at the rendezvous - we’ll receive an updated briefing and then get started. If the Kilvar show up, that’s when we have to make the snap decisions.”

  “Does that mean you’re in command of the entire mission, sir?” asked Becerra.

  “No,” said Flint. “We’ll be taking orders from Admiral Aston.”

  “Admiral Daisy Aston?” said Fredericks.

  “One and the same.”

  “Well, well. It’s a small universe, isn’t it?”

  “This is the same Admiral Aston who used to fly with the Fleet Admiral?” asked Bolan.

  “I see you’ve been paying attention during lessons,” said Fredericks. “If Admiral Aston is here for the mission, our chance of success just went up.”

  “I hope so,” said Bolan.

  Fredericks sighed. “We have five days to learn how these new propulsion options work so we can play our part. I hope RL Moseley included some documentation.”

  “I wouldn’t bank on it,” said Maddox.

  “I’m not.”

  The conversation died off and Flint let his crew get on with their duties. He was sure they had many questions waiting to be asked, but for the moment they required time to absorb the information they’d been given. No doubt before these five days were up, Flint would be hearing a lot more from his crew.