Without a secure attachment to a tank, Webster was fated to waste as much oxygen as he was able to utilise. But then, he didn’t see what other choice he had.

  Webster had counted twelve tanks before the lights had gone out which worked out at six tanks each. That equated to maybe twelve to fifteen hours of air if his calculations were correct.

  Webster managed to find a tank almost straightaway; he literally bumped straight into it. By getting a finger inside the helmet’s seal, he was able to squirt oxygen upwards. He knew that it was working because his face mask immediately started to fog up. It wasn’t a great system but it would have to do.

  He could hear Dalbiri scrabbling about in the dark but decided to leave him to it. The thin suit came equipped with an oxygen adaptor so as long as he didn’t panic he should be alright.

  While he should have been encouraged by his find, the lack of gravity and the dark had been starting to have an effect. All he could think about was what was going to happen once the tanks had been exhausted. Even if he did manage to outlast Dalbiri, he didn’t much fancy being the last one alive: dying of suffocation while the room slowly transformed into his coffin.

  But then, the lights had come back on and, rather than waste more oxygen, he decided that he’d take his chances with the suit. The suit would, like Dalbiri’s, have a connector for the oxygen tank and he reckoned that even with him sealing the holes front and back with his hands, it would be a much more efficient use of the oxygen than what was currently available. The only problem was that, in order to put the suit on, he was going to have to take the helmet off.

  But the air quality inside the helmet was already starting to degrade so, after taking a few preparatory breaths, he went for it.

  Only, as soon as he’d removed his helmet, he found that he could breathe more or less normally. It was a strangely heady mix, containing slightly more oxygen than he was used to. He made a mental note not to overexert himself and then hung there, breathing shallowly, fully expecting the oxygen to cut out at any time.

  In fact, his thoughts had been so consumed by the oxygen situation that he barely noticed when the gravity generators started to assert themselves.

  He laughed when the lights came back on because sitting in the middle of the room on a pile of scientific equipment, was a thick roll of electrical tape.

  Webster turned to survey the room they were trapped inside. Dalbiri was kneeling over on his right.

  “Okay. So where does that leave us?”

  “I don’t know and, to be honest, I don’t much care either. We’re alive and that’s all that matters.”

  “You won’t be saying that once you start getting thirsty.”

  Dalbiri scooped a plastic water bottle up off the floor and held it up for Webster to see.

  “Yeah, yeah, very good. But that changes nothing – we’re still prisoners.”

  Dalbiri unscrewed the top and took a sip. “Which would suggest that someone is holding us against our will.”

  “Yes. This ship.”

  “Is that your take on all this, then?” Dalbiri asked. “Taken hostage by some kind of hyper intelligent ship?”

  “Yes. Some sort of Artificial Intelligence.”

  “We don’t know that,” Dalbiri pushed himself up off the floor and went to have a look around. The room was a mess and looked totally different to how it had looked previously. The floor was level, for a start. “Are you suggesting that all of this was down to some kind of automated response?”

  “Makes sense, doesn’t it. After it crashed, the ship would have lain dormant, waiting to be recovered. Its priority: to try and protect the integrity of its systems.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Dalbiri threw out his hands. “It would only reactivate once it had achieved orbit?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Which sort of makes sense up to the bit where the Heimdall opens fire and this thing retaliates.”

  Webster screwed up his face. “The ship was simply defending itself. Surely, that’s what you do when you’re attacked.”

  “One hell of a defence though – the Heimdall never stood a chance.”

  Webster went over to the wall where the door had been but could find no trace of it now.

  He turned back to Dalbiri.

  “Back to my original question, then. Where does all that leave us?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  EPILOGUE

  Winterson had been awake for three hours while the doctors had fussed over him. Having already lost their captain, he figured that they weren’t about to lose their admiral as well, though it had been touch and go at times. He’d had two medical teams in attendance for the first two days, one to treat his burns - which were substantial - while the other team, headed by a thoracic surgeon, had tried to minimise the damage done to his lungs.

  He was pretty sure that he’d already lost his left eye. It was still bandaged up, so they hadn’t actually removed it but whenever he brought up the subject his medical team found some way of subtly changing the subject. His entire left side was swathed in bandages and his recovery would involve a long list of corrective surgeries, though for the present, the burns people were satisfied with his progress. Their biggest concern was that Winterson would fall victim to a secondary infection which could potentially kill him.

  An eventuality, to which, Winterson had already resigned himself.

  The impact from the first explosion had taken a terrible toll on his internal organs but the surgeons were trying to stay upbeat. One of his lungs had collapsed and was still a long way from returning to full capacity.

  What he found most difficult about his treatment was the fact that he was supposed to rest his vocal cords. With everything going on, the idea of him lying there in silence seemed ludicrous in the extreme though, as his doctors never tired of telling him, if he failed to allow his soft passages time to heal he’d never speak properly again.

  Just as he was about to go to sleep, part of his nursing team reappeared and preceded to take various readings. Lying there while they went about their business, the faces of some those they’d lost kept appearing to him.

  Fifty-eight people had perished when The Naked Spur had been hit, the deadly wash of radiation burning through the ship, destroying metal and flesh indiscriminately.

  He was yet to learn the numbers for those on board the Charles W Morgan but the look on Captain Wilde’s face at the end would stay with him forever.

  “Admiral, you have to do something. You have to help us.”

  He must have dozed off momentarily because when he came to he found brevet Captain Randall Kerrigan standing at the foot of his bed. He was surprised to see that he’d gone to the trouble of wearing his dress uniform, complete with cap. The uniform had been tailored to disguise his rather blocky physique, especially his too short arms. Winterson considered Kerrigan too much of a ‘bruiser’ to fit the ideal of what a Confederation captain should look like but Winterson was out of luck. He was going to have to work with what he had but the thought that someone like Kerrigan would be assuming command of The Naked Spur seemed absurd.

  The thing was that Kerrigan knew it, too.

  He’d spent the last twenty-three years honing his skills in preparation for an opportunity such as this. He’d struggled just to make commander as, despite having a reputation for being efficient, he lacked that necessary creative spark – plus, his brusque nature won him few friends. As the years slipped by, there must have been times when Kerrigan must have despaired of ever winning his own command.

  He’d served aboard The Naked Spur for four years now, first as head of tactical before stepping up into his current role as executive officer, but no one could have foreseen this sudden rise to power. Transformed, overnight, into the direct representative of the will of the Confederation. Final arbiter of the fate of the entire ship and everyone on board.

  “I sent…” Winterson’s voice was small and hoarse. He sprayed his throat before trying again.

  “I sent for you two hours ago.”

  “My apologies, admiral,” Kerrigan’s salute was faultless but there was no hiding the glint of insubordination in his eyes. “As you’re no doubt aware, we’ve had our hands full.”

  “Don’t forget,” Winterson said sourly. “I’m still your superior officer.”

  That seemed to take Kerrigan by surprise. He’d thought to have escaped Winterson’s scrutiny by now.

  “But, sir,” he indicated the equipment surrounding his bed. “You need to concentrate on making a full recovery.”

  “Yes, and in the meantime I want two view screens ,” he pointed to either side of his bed. “Here and here. One should provide a permanent feed to the Ops Room.”

  “We’ve had to shut The Operations Room. Everything’s been transferred to the bridge.”

  Winterson nodded. An oversight on his part. He’d have to do better if he wanted to stay on top of the situation. “The bridge, yes. And I’ll need a tablet. To message you directly.”

  Kerrigan’s face was a mask.

  “Why, of course, sir.”

  “Good. See to it.”

  “I’ll get onto it straight away. But what about your doctors? Won’t they have something to say about all this? I understood there was talk of them intubating you.”

  Yes. And that way, I couldn’t talk.

  “I think not,” he gasped, a flare of pain surging in his chest. “Now, a brief update.”

  Kerrigan stiffened, affecting to look straight ahead as he delivered his report.

  “You’ll be pleased to hear that the assault on the Odin was a total success. She’s been completely destroyed, leaving us in pursuit of both Tyr and Thor. We’re still unsure of the scale of the damage sustained by Tyr but she seems to be operating on limited power. That makes her our next target. We hope to be in a position to engage her within the next few hours.”

  “And the Sloth Gun? Have we found another capacitor?”

  “We’ve got search parties out on all ships. You never know, sir, we might get lucky.”

  “And Tigris? Any word?”

  “Actually, sir, there is. Seems that the Heimdall’s been destroyed.”

  “What!” Winterson lunged forward only to be pulled back by his various wires and attachments. “You tell me this now!”

  Despite his frustration, his words came out barely above a whisper.

  “Sorry, sir. We’re still waiting for confirmation from the Montezuma though the captain of the Peter the Great was quite adamant: Heimdall has been destroyed.”

  Winterson, though desperate for more details, was too exhausted to press the matter further. Instead, he simply raised his hand in acknowledgement.

  A look came over Kerrigan’s face at that moment. It was a look Winterson had become all too familiar with of late.

  Pity.

  But then it was gone, replaced by simple embarrassment.

  “Sir, I know that we haven’t seen eye to eye on things in the past but be assured that I fully intend to give this post my all.”

  Winterson bared his teeth.

  “Enjoy it while you can, Captain Kerrigan.”

  Kerrigan’s cap gleamed under the lights. “Aye, sir. I intend to. Will that be all, sir?”

  Winterson would have happily left it at that but he was forced to smother his own resentment and move on.

  He reached across to his bedside table, his hand closing on a piece of antique parchment.

  The orders were sealed but that was no matter. Winterson knew every word that was written there.

  As he accepted his orders, Kerrigan’s spine straightening incrementally.

  Winterson remembered being handed a similar piece of paper on the deck of the McAllister twenty years earlier.

  His first commission.

  It wasn’t a moment he was likely to forget.

  Kerrigan didn’t open them straight away, taking time to study the seal. He must have fantasised about this moment countless times and was keen to demonstrate just the right level of restraint when underneath he must have felt like screaming and punching the air.

  There was a slight cracking sound as he broke through the seal.

  At thirty-nine, Kerrigan must have doubted that this moment would ever come. So, to have achieved it now, in a conflict which no one could have anticipated, must have made it all the sweeter.

  Kerrigan pressed a hand to his tunic while he scanned the document.

  Apart from the names, the words had changed little in the last five hundred years.

  Kerrigan cleared his throat.

  “I, Randall Boyce Kerrigan, am hereby directed to accept the role of commanding officer aboard the USDC ship The Naked Spur. I swear to despatch my duties faithfully and honestly against all enemies and to obey the orders of those officers set over me.”

  His eyes met Winterson’s at this point.

  “By order of Admiral James Tiptree III, Chief of Naval Operations.”

  Then, when he’d finished, his face a little redder than when he’d started, he re-folded his orders and, tucking them under his arm, saluted.

  “Admiral Winterson,” he said stiffly. “I assume command of The Naked Spur.”

  In order to return the salute, Winterson had to pull his arm free from a mess of wires.

  “Captain Kerrigan,” he said. “You have command.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  CRY OF WAR

  BOOK 5

  R.L. GIDDINGS

  “When you are weak, practice looking strong. When you are strong, practice looking weak.”

  Sun Tzu

  ©R.L. Giddings

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  PROLOGUE

  3037 PRIME STANDARD

  THREE YEARS AFTER THE END OF THE LONG WAR

  Sigrid Ardent grabbed the rail and pulled, propelling herself along the Euclid’s central shaft and towards the main Von Braun wheel. The simulated gravity the wheel provided made it the perfect place to hold the press conference. Today was the culmination of all they’d been working towards, she just wished that she felt a little livelier. She’d been too excited to sleep the previous night and had had to spend far longer in make-up this morning than usual.

  The poles which branched off to the various parts of the wheel were just ahead of her and she had to consciously orient herself to see where the press team were in relation to her. Luckily, they were right below her, though ‘below’ was a somewhat relative term. The stage, conspicuous now with its bright studio lights, was thick with technicians making last minute preparations. She allowed her momentum to carry her forward, snagging the relevant pole with one hand so that she could swing out and down.

  In ten hours’ time they would be broadcasting to millions, perhaps even billions, of people and she was filled with nervous excitement.

  Partly that was to do with the anticipation but largely it was to do with sheer relief. All the years of preparation would soon be at an end.

  She and the other council representatives had spent the last three days prepping for this with the team from Apex firing questions at them. While the council was supposedly fully autonomous, the reality was that Apex, as their main investor, had a power of veto on virtually everything. And that had proved to be a nightmare when it came to the presentations.

  Every question they asked, no matter how straightforward, was designed to elicit two completely different responses: a simple answer aimed at reassuring the public and another more cryptic one aimed at placating the company’s vast legion of shareholders - the paymasters who lurked in the shadows. The trick was to try and satisfy both audiences without seeming to contradict yourself. Even apparently innocuous questions had to be handled in such a way that they avoided revealing the level of political in-fighting a project such as this had necessitated. Ardent was well used to the level of interrogation favored by the main newsfeeds but this kind of increased scrutiny she found particularly arduous.

  After three days of endless cross-examination, she’d begun to feel that she was losing her sense of perspective. It would be good to get back to normal, whatever that was.

  For the majority of journalists who they’d be facing, this would be the biggest story of their careers. Each one of them was looking for that one defining question, that one line of enquiry which would open up the story, immortalising it for generations to come. They’d risked a lot to be here, not least by traveling through an unstable worm hole. Wormholes were, by their very definition, unpredictable. They could stay in place for thirty years or they could disappear overnight. If this one were to collapse now they’d be stuck out here forever.

  Ardent had seen the figures. Traveling back at roughly ten percent of speed of light – a snail’s pace in intergalactic terms - would take slightly less than two hundred and twenty years.

  Everyone here was heavily invested in this thing being a success.

  Which didn’t explain why it had taken so long for the Confederation to officially recognise the project.

  It wasn’t like they wouldn’t benefit hugely from Apex’s investment. But they had remained largely dismissive of the idea that they should invest in the project themselves as costs had continued to soar. And Apex’s investors had been far too wary of upsetting such a powerful potential ally to press their case.