Cornerstone, page 5
“I already checked,” said Turner. “None of the accessible flight records contain information about a vessel large enough to have transported a Sagh’eld destroyer.”
“I guess the knowing wouldn’t be much use anyway,” said Lanson. “All we’re doing is poking around the periphery, hunting down scraps that won’t tell us what’s happening here at Cornerstone.”
“I doubt that’s one single thing anyway, Captain,” said Matlock, peering at her computer screen. “A facility of this size is probably researching dozens of new tech lines, and doubtless collaborating with other facilities throughout the Human Confederation.”
“Had I not seen how they run things here, I’d have been more inclined to agree with you,” said Lanson. “I reckon there’s hardly any communication in or out of this place, and I’ll wager all of it is monitored.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Matlock conceded.
Lanson looked more closely at the computer screen. “Tell me how you’re getting on with that terminal.”
“Not well, Captain. I’m denied access to most of the base data systems, and the few I’m not locked out of aren’t relevant to us.”
“Keep looking – it’s not as if we have anything better to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
A few hours went by. Neither Matlock nor Turner unearthed anything new or interesting. Lanson found much of his attention taken up by the military news channel he’d called up on the wall screens.
While the information was tailored for its audience – meaning the channel focused on the positives – it was clear the Sagh’eld were pushing the Human Confederation hard. Eventually, there’d have to be a negotiated peace, likely with terms highly unfavourable to the HC.
The alternative was defeat, and Lanson didn’t want to imagine what that would mean for humanity. The Sagh’eld weren’t exactly bloodthirsty, but they were certainly ruthless.
Drawing his attention away from the news, Lanson returned to the window. Outside, the day was fading to evening and stars had appeared in the deepening sky. For a time, Lanson stared at infinity, though his mind was elsewhere.
“Captain?”
“What is it, Sergeant Gabriel?” asked Lanson, turning to look at the other man. The squad’s comms pack bearer – Private Stacie Wolf – was standing there as well.
“I know my squad and I have served under you for a long time, but I thought I’d remind you that if we need to get out of here, Private Wolf can flood that door panel with enough emergency codes that it’ll open, regardless of what’s been done to lock it down.”
Lanson smiled. “Thanks for the reminder, Sergeant. I guess there’s a good chance they already put my command codes onto an excluded list, so it might be useful to have an alternative.”
“An alternative we’ll never need to use,” said Gabriel, deadpan.
“It’s always wise to know your exits, Sergeant. Even when you’re only taking a shit.”
“Flooding the lock will send out an alert, so we should keep it for when it’s needed, sir.”
“Absolutely.”
“A few of my squad are ready to turn in, Captain. Do we have your permission?”
“Go ahead,” said Lanson.
Nearly twenty hours had gone by since Lanson had awoken from four hours of fitful slumber on the Gallivant. Suddenly, he felt exhausted.
“I think I’ll grab some shuteye myself.”
Although Lanson wasn’t expecting foul play – at least, nothing like a surprise raid by armed Cornerstone troops in the middle of the night – he nevertheless accepted Gabriel’s suggestion to post a watch. Leaving his sergeant to handle the details, Lanson headed for the room he’d chosen.
The privilege of rank meant he wasn’t bunking with anyone else, and Lanson sat on the edge of his white-sheeted bed, having placed his suit helmet and gauss rifle on the floor beside him. He hardly noticed the other furnishings – a desk, a chair, a storage trunk, and a locker, along with a desk communicator and a wall screen – and he sat for a few minutes, asking himself what he made of the day’s events.
Thinking always went better with a clear head, and Lanson rolled onto the bed. He didn’t take off his flight suit, since he was just as accustomed to it as he was his own skin.
Lanson closed his eyes and sleep came in moments.
SIX
When he rose the next morning, Lanson showered and then entered the mess hall. It was still early, but Commander Matlock was already here, along with Sergeant Gabriel and his squad.
Lanson exchanged greetings, ordered a coffee from the replicator and then stood in front of the window. The planet’s sun was just climbing over the north-western horizon, and it looked as if it was going to be another fine day on Lorimos. Fine, that is, for folks able to go outside and enjoy it.
The activity on the landing field hadn’t appreciably lessened, and the base lifter shuttles were continuing to unload the cargo vessels parked east. Overhead, the destroyer hadn’t moved.
Eight hours of solid sleep had refreshed Lanson’s brain, and his thinking was clear. Yesterday, he’d been grateful to have made it to a facility where the Gallivant’s repairs could take place. Today, he wanted answers about why he and his crew had been treated in such an unexpected fashion.
A cube-shaped comms station with a keypad and a screen was fixed to one of the mess room walls. Lanson used the device to request a channel to the main comms station on Cornerstone.
When the channel request was accepted, he spoke to an officer in the comms hub and asked to be put through to the base commanding officer, or, failing that, a senior officer capable of answering some questions.
“I’ll pass that on for you, sir,” said the woman in the comms hub.
“What does that mean?” asked Lanson irritably.
“I can’t put you through to anyone. I’ll send on your message.”
“Who will you send it to?” asked Lanson. “And when will I receive a response?”
“I can’t answer those questions, sir.”
Lanson persevered for another few seconds, but it was apparent he wasn’t getting anywhere. In the end, he cut the channel.
“No luck?” asked Matlock, who’d been paying close attention.
“I’ve been stonewalled, Commander. The comms officer promised to get in touch with the right people, but it was clear she has orders specific to how our requests should be handled – and those orders mean we don’t get to speak to anyone directly.”
Lanson looked around the room. “Private Wolf,” he said, beckoning her over.
Wolf had been sitting at a table, studying the readouts on a tiny screen connected to her comms pack. She rose and came across the room.
“Yes, sir?” she asked.
“That comms pack can be modified to operate outside of its intended parameters, right?”
“Yes, sir. What kind of intended parameters would you like it to operate outside?”
“If I asked you to open a comms channel to a specific person, could you do that?” Lanson knew she could, since he’d seen her do it before.
“If you gave me the order sir,” said Wolf. Her brow creased in thought. “I’d have to make a link to the comms hub using an emergency identifier, which would allow me to bypass the usual protocols that prevent a channel being forced open. However, I’d ideally need to know the channel code for the person you want to speak with, since I won’t have access to a list of names.”
“Ideally?” said Lanson.
Wolf smiled. “There’s no way to link the channel code with the person – not using this comms pack in any case – but every time a channel is forced open, it reveals a priority number for the person on the other end.”
“So you’d have to force open every channel on the base and then look through those priority numbers to find out who has the highest rank?”
“Not exactly, sir. The computer in the comms pack can be programmed to automatically hold open a channel once it finds one with a sufficiently high priority number.”
“How long until someone in the comms hub figures out what’s going on and shuts it down?”
“That depends on how much they’re on the ball, sir.” Wolf’s smile widened to a grin. “But it doesn’t matter if they block the first emergency identifier, since there’s a way to make a comms pack generate new ones.”
“Which means the only way to stop us bombarding the comms network would be to send personnel to this mess area and force us to desist,” said Lanson.
“That’s about the long and short of it, sir,” said Wolf. “Of course, it’s possible there’s an officer working in that comms hub who has a few tricks of their own.” She shrugged. “Maybe.”
Lieutenant Turner had been listening to the conversation. “I worked in a comms hub for a couple of years before I was promoted to warship duty,” she said. “The hub personnel either had ambitions and they moved on quickly, or they had no ambitions and they stayed put. I learned a hell of a lot more in my first three months on a warship than I did in those two years in the hub. I doubt there’s anyone here with the expertise to stop us quickly.”
“Thank you for the input, Lieutenant,” said Lanson.
“Are you ready to take this kind of direction action, sir?” asked Turner.
“Not yet,” said Lanson. “I’ll wait a few hours to see if we get a response from someone senior on Cornerstone. In all honesty, I don’t see why we’d be a high priority for the base commander. I just don’t like being locked up without somebody having the good grace to tell me why it’s happening.”
“And there might be a genuine reason for taking steps to prevent us learning anything about the research here,” said Matlock, who’d also taken an interest in the discussion. “But like you said, it’s only good manners to let us know.”
Lanson returned to one of the seats which looked out of the window. The prospect of spending four weeks in this room wasn’t in the least bit appealing and he itched to take matters into his own hands. The only trouble was, any action would only anger the senior officers on the base, and might lead to the Gallivant’s crew being forcibly removed from this gilded cage and placed into a cage with grey metal walls and no creature comforts.
So, despite Lanson’s certainty that this confinement was of dubious legality, he resolved to remain patient for a while longer. It was entirely possible that a senior officer would contact him soon and explain the situation in a such a way that would allow Lanson to accept the behaviour of the Cornerstone personnel.
A few hours went by, and nothing happened of any note. It was clear the soldiers were already restless, and Lanson was feeling it too. He’d never been the kind of person to sit on his ass, even during his sporadic periods of shore leave, and it was now apparent that even a single day in this mess area was more than he could handle.
Late afternoon came and nobody from the base got in touch. Lanson used the wall unit to contact the comms hub again. He spoke to someone different to last time, but the outcome was the same – a promise to pass on the message, but no clear promise that there’d be a response.
An hour later, Lanson spotted another spaceship descending from the upper atmosphere. It was almost dark now, but the incoming vessel glowed dully from the speed of its approach, making it easier to spot.
“Coming in fast,” said Lanson, tapping Matlock on the shoulder and drawing her attention to the window.
“Where’s it going to land I wonder?”
“There’s another spaceship coming with it,” said Lanson, narrowing his eyes.
He grabbed his suit helmet from where he’d left it nearby and dropped it over his head. His fingers snapped clips into place and the seal tightened around his neck. The suit helmet had a built-in sensor with a zoom facility, along with a night enhancement mode. Lanson switched on both the zoom and the enhancement, and stared at the nearest of the two spaceships.
“It’s a fast transport,” he said.
The 250-metre vessel was already rotating into position to set down, and Lanson judged its landed position wouldn’t be too far from the window through which he was watching.
Shifting his attention to the accompanying vessel, Lanson determined from its shape that he was looking at a destroyer. The warship decelerated and came to a standstill at a similar altitude to the destroyer which had been there since yesterday, and a little farther east.
“There’s got to be something important on that transport,” said Matlock. “Maybe that’s why the base commander was so jumpy about our arrival.”
“Because we came here at just the wrong moment,” said Lanson. “Not much we could do about that.”
Most of the Gallivant’s personnel were standing to watch, and Lanson stepped right up to the window so that his view wouldn’t be impeded. The transport landed – or at least established a hover a few metres above the landing field – about five hundred metres north. It was a vessel of a type Lanson had only seen a few times before, but he knew they were used to carry valuable cargoes from place to place.
Presuming that something was about to be unloaded, Lanson looked east and west for signs of incoming vehicles.
“They must be bringing the cargo past us somewhere nearby,” he said. “I can’t see enough to decide which way they’ll transport it.”
“Maybe they’ll pick it up with a shuttle and take it to wherever it’s going,” said Abrams. “Which, let’s face it, is going to be the research facility.”
“It’ll depend on the cargo’s mass,” said Perry. “The research facility roof didn’t look like it was designed to accept the arrival of large or heavy objects.”
“Let’s wait and see,” said Lanson, continuing to watch.
Several events, all of them bad, happened within a short space of time.
Dozens of white streaks – missiles - raced through the semi-darkness at a low altitude and travelling at incredible velocity. Tracer lines from the Cornerstone ground repeater batteries chased them across the sky, without appreciably thinning the numbers. Before either of the two HC destroyers could react in any meaningful way, they were engulfed in plasma detonations of such intensity that Lanson snapped his gaze away, with motes dancing across his retinas.
A half-second later, the visor on his helmet had darkened in automatic response, and Lanson turned back to the window. Now, he could see the shapes of the two destroyers within the receding blasts. The easternmost warship was accelerating vertically, with its remaining hull repeaters directing sporadic fire in the launch direction of the missiles. Meanwhile, the second vessel had managed to launch a few missiles of its own. It was impossible to be sure, but Lanson thought the warship was on the brink of failure.
“From the size of the explosions, those were Gorlan missiles,” said Matlock. The window deadened much of the sound, but she was taking loudly to be heard. She made a grab for her suit helmet.
“Shit, that means we’ve got a Tagha’an heavy on our doorstep,” said Lanson. “Or worse.”
A second wave of Sagh’eld missiles came over the horizon and the ground repeaters punched a few more of them into pieces. Hundreds of piercingly bright specks drew Lanson’s attention back to the two HC destroyers. The warships had deployed shock drones, and many of the Gorlan missiles were drawn off course onto these fake targets.
The countermeasures might have been enough to blunt the effects of this missile wave, but they could do nothing to prevent gauss attacks. Two huge distortions appeared suddenly on the flank of the nearest destroyer, and massive sections of its hull armour were torn free.
Without warning, the lights in the room dimmed almost to nothing. Simultaneously, the software running on Lanson’s suit computer froze, and then the suit computer itself shut down and went into an immediate reboot.
“Shit,” said Lanson. He wasn’t sure what was happening to his suit, but then he saw the fast transport thud down onto the landing strip. “A scrambler!” he said in realisation. “The Sagh’eld shut down the transport and we were caught in the periphery.”
Lanson didn’t need his suit’s night vision enhancement to see that the destroyer struck by both the enemy Thak cannons and Gorlan missiles had suffered enough punishment. The warship was on its way down, albeit not in freefall, and the shuddering of its failing Rodos drive was audible through the window.
Only a few seconds had passed since the beginning of the engagement, and already it looked as if it was over. The forces deployed here at Lorimos – assuming there were no more than the three warships Lanson knew about – had no hope of defeating a Tagha’an heavy cruiser. Perhaps there were more than three members of the local fleet, but equally, the Sagh’eld might have a dozen of their own warships arrayed against them.
The enemy wanted whatever was on that transport, and they likely wanted the contents of the research facility databanks to go with it. Lanson had no tools with which to stop it happening and the frustration of it was almost more than he could handle.
He opened his mouth to give an order – not even sure what he was going to say – when the growing darkness outside was dispelled by a white-orange glow that rose into the heavens. Moments later, light was joined by the sound of a hundred overlapping cracks of thunder.
“Incendiaries!” yelled Lanson.
He looked around for somewhere in the room that might offer protection, but there was nothing. Remaining upright before the window, Lanson waited to find out if his death was to come by means of incineration.
SEVEN
The thundering faded and the light receded, though it didn’t entirely vanish. Lanson’s mind had started to piece together a likely explanation for his survival.
“The Sagh’eld must have dropped their incendiaries on the base to the south of us,” he said. “They didn’t want to hit the fast transport and we’re close enough to it that we weren’t caught in the worst of the fires.”
