Into the Light by Jane Wallace

The door punched in. ‘Fire!’ yelled Sevin. The sturmganger caught in the cut-out fell into the room. Sevin rushed forward still shooting. Confused by the lack of response, he looked out of the doorway and into what seemed like a wall of black ice. The troop of morphs which filled the corridor outside had seized up. The couple of sturmgangers stuck between the petrified robots were taken out by shafts of laser from behind Sevin.

’Got ’em!’ said Cantor. ‘Bet they weren’t expecting that!’

‘Good work, Captain. Keep it clear.’

He left Cantor and Kristil to guard the entrance and returned to the masterboard where Hauki and Lauden were enjoying the retribution being meted out by Coalition troops and the Corazon on the paralysed morphs.

‘Look!’ said Hauki, pointing to a screen on the far left which showed two Coalition skydrives in land mode rolling past the city limits on the main thoroughfare into the city. ‘Farqui’s on his way.’

‘Looks like Regis is doing okay, too,’ said Lauden, indicating footage of the space port.

‘Thank the gods,’ said Hauki. ‘How’s it going outside?’

‘They can manage now the morphs are down,’ said Sevin. His eyes rested on her wounded hand. ‘I suppose we should contact the eye in the sky. I have a digi, do you have a channel that’s still secure?’

‘Of course. They didn’t get anything out of me,’ she said, bridling at the suggestion.

‘I didn’t think they would,’ he said, passing her his gadget. ‘Get hold of Reverre and tell him what we’re doing.’

Sevin joined Lauden who had kicked aside Olav’s corpse and was tinkering with one of a pair of workstations integrated into the briefing table.

‘There’s some hot stuff here,’ he said. ’They didn’t get time to lock it before we jumped ’em. It’s all classified, check it out.’

Like on Vehement, the briefing table here also had a viewer veneer. The two-metre space showed a virtual shelving unit full of files, all stamped with the insignia of the Gharst Galactic Guard.

‘Open that one.’ Sevin pointed at a bulging folder marked with runes which meant ‘in progress’.

As Lauden touched the icon, a myriad of reports, plans and maps fanned out from the dossier, all in Gharst.

‘Don’t mean nothing to me,’ said Lauden with a rueful smile.

Sevin fixed on one document. ‘Project Infinity: Ultrasound ignition for fusion-fission reactor,’ he read out.

‘Sorry, can you like translate?’

‘What about this one? It’s something to do with stellar portals, I don’t know what the other words mean. Cache it, as much as you can. We’ll have to read it later with a dictionary.’

‘Sevin!’ called Hauki. ‘Colonel Reverre for you.’

He took the digi. ‘Sevin.’

‘You took your time,’ said Reverre.

‘It’s done now,’ he replied calmly, not rising to the bait.

‘Just as well, there are further obstacles to surmount.’

‘Obstacles? We’ve just cleaned up.’

’You may not have noticed, being offline for so long, that when Lieutenant Colonel Regis initiated the attack on the space port, four Gharst battlecruisers escaped. They have returned. The fleet is now under attack.’

μ

‘We can’t just sit here and do nothing.’

An hour later, fresh from securing the palace, Regis was still on an adrenaline high. Agitated, he looked for support around the officers who leaned against the wall or sat on odd bits of furniture in the cleaned-up Gharst Central Control. No-one met his eyes.

‘Our orders are to stay on the ground and prepare to repel a potential air invasion, sir,’ said Hauki.

‘While they’re getting slaughtered in space?’ Regis threw up his hands. ‘We must be able to help them somehow.’

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Lauden chewed on a fingernail and Cantor stared the cracks in the linex flooring while Hauki rebandaged her hand. Kristil watched the lowest row of screens which Sevin had reconfigured to show visuals from the extronet surrounding the planet. Even with the basic graphics, it was clear that the Coalition ships were struggling to fend off the enemy battlecruisers.

‘You’re sure there’s no offworld defences?’ asked Regis, looking at Sevin as if he was personally responsible.

‘I’m sure. Nor is there any ground-to-air capability with enough range, we’ve checked.’

‘And the Corazon have nothing? Not even from pre-Occupation?’

‘The Gharst took everything down to the last nano,’ Kristil said. ‘They were thinking of taking the scenders at one stage, till they figured it was too dangerous to land the scoops on the surface. Stupid gruts.’ His eyes strayed to a flickering of red and green on the monitors. ‘Hey, something’s going down.’

’All the gods!’ cried Cantor. ’They’ve taken out the Victory!’

‘What?’ said Sevin. ‘Let me see.’ He strode over for a closer look. The third Coalition ship had vanished from the screens.

‘I can’t watch this,’ said Lauden.

‘We can’t let this happen,’ said Sevin, turning back to the room.

‘Like what can we do? We ain’t got no ships,’ said Lauden.

‘Perhaps we could use the skydrives and the supernovas together, you know, like a mini-fleet,’ suggested Hauki.

’Too small, not enough firepower,’ said Regis. ’Two of those battlecruisers are what they call heavenly castles, the new S-class himmelslott. They’re supposed to be indestructible.’

‘Nothing’s indestructible,’ said Sevin, staring at the Corazon leader. ‘Commandante Kristil, what did you do before you were a freedom fighter?’

Kristil showed his eponymous teeth. ‘I was in mining like every other Joe Mo. Ain’t nothing much else to do on Gridon. Why d’you ask?’

‘Just thinking about those scoops up there. They’re unmanned, right? I didn’t see any personnel onboard the one we passed on the way down.’

‘Sure, it’s way too risky to have people up there. The raw material is totally unstable. We lost a lot of workers that way in the old days.’

‘The scoops use magnetic fields to attract the particles into a central bin where the antimatter is collected and the scrap is filtered out, is that right?’

‘Like a big ol’ vacuum cleaner.’

‘And they offload the antimatter particles into the torus node by reversing the direction of the fields.’

‘Yup, instead of sucking, you blow,’ Kristil said, grinning.

Sevin disregarded the double entendre. ‘What happens if the scoops did that outside of a node?’

‘Well, there’d be the most almighty explosion. You read the science books - antimatter would crash into matter and like, you know, kaboom!’

‘Like a huge bomb?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Where are the scoops controlled from?’

‘The Actiran plant, that’s the operations hub.’

‘And someone is there day and night, monitoring it all?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’d better call them then.’ Sevin held out his digi to Kristil.

‘Huh?’

‘You’re going to call the plant and tell them to give us access to the system that controls the scoops. Lauden can get us in via the local grid. Right, Sergeant?’

‘Er, I guess so,’ said Lauden.

’Battle of the giants,’ said Sevin. ‘Let’s see those heavenly castles take on a super scooper or two.’

ν

All they heard of the explosion through the thin atmosphere was a sigh. After the sigh, there was a fireball, and after the fireball burning parts of the Victory flew past them like handfuls of orange and red confetti.

Fleet Commander Brodie turned away from the porthole with a growing sense of inevitability. The destruction of the defender came as no surprise. Victory had been low on power even before the himmelslott engaged them. The two heavy battlecruisers seemed to sense this, playing it like a cat toying with a mouse until it wearied to death. There was little to do for the two lighter destroyers that accompanied them. The heavenly castles had far greater reserves and could afford to soak the Coalition ships with relentless beamer fire until their defences ran out. It was a matter of time before Vehement and Valiant capitulated too.

Brodie watched Reverre across the flight deck. The colonel was shouting at the weapons officers, or woffers as they were known onboard, to fire faster, a pointless exercise as their beamers were hardly scratching the surface of the castles. He sat down heavily in the captain’s station and wished he hadn’t. The energy shield indicator was wavering on the 45 per cent mark. If Reverre kept up this rate, they would soon be as exposed as the Victory had been.

Brodie pinched the bridge of his nose feeling very tired. The data feed of combat statistics from Valiant tickered past on the bottom of his viewer in a meaningless blur. The yells from the woffers and the crashing of enemy beam breaking up in the protective shell faded out. He had hoped for a neater conclusion. He wasn’t worried for himself, he would be alright, but it was the crew who would suffer and that wasn’t part of the deal. They had two options and soon he would have to select one of them: death or surrender. They were essentially the same as the Gharst considered surrender to be a mortal sin deserving of capital punishment. It was going to be about degrees of dying. Either they would slug it out to the end and suffer the same fate as Victory, or give in to the Gharst commander and bear the consequences.

He decided they had to keep going, until the end, whenever that came, which could be minutes or seconds away. He grabbed the chair arms as an almighty wallop struck the starboard bow. The ship reeled, objects sliding off worktops, crew members flung to port. Vehement regained its course with a bump. Brodie sighed and hoped for the end to be quick.

The comms handset chirped. He snatched it up. There was a squealing of a scrambler being activated then the connection was clear.

‘Fleet Commander? It’s Sevin.’

‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘We had a little local difficulty. It’s resolved now.’

‘I’m pleased to hear that because it’s getting sticky up here and we could damn well use a bit of help!’

‘That’s why I’m calling, sir.’ Sevin outlined his plans.

Brodie laughed out loud when he heard the idea. Then he thought about it.

‘Do it,’ he said. He put down the handset and yelled for Reverre.

‘Change of strategy,’ Brodie told him. ‘Divert all remaining power to the main drive. We’re going to cut and run – towards the radiation belt – and take the damn gribs with us!’

ξ

‘They are not going to fall for it,’ said Regis. He stood with Kristil looking over Lauden’s shoulder at indecipherable icons and plot lines on the briefing table.

’They will. They will because they’re so damned arrogant they think they can’t lose. Look, they’re not even trying.’ Over by the screens, Sevin pointed at the pictures of Valiant and Vehement being pursued by the four Gharst ships at a leisurely distance.

‘Maybe they’re not sure what Brodie’s doing.’

‘Maybe. But they’re still following him.’

Regis glanced at Kristil, who looked away, then scowled because there was no-one else to share his concerns, Hauki having taken Cantor to stand the troops ready.

‘They can only get within two hundred kilometres of the belt before it sends their instruments haywire. They’ll have to turn back, straight into the line of fire,’ Regis added.

‘That will be close enough,’ said Sevin. ‘The Gharst aren’t looking at the scoops, they won’t see them as anything other than a navigational hazard. By the time they notice, it will be too late. They’ll never be able to turn those heavenly castles around fast enough. It’s all in the timing. Speaking of, how you doing, Sergeant?’

‘Getting there, sir. These things are real slow though, I’m telling you.’ Lauden said, painstakingly steering two scoops off course.

‘Can you get them there in time?’ asked Kristil.

‘We have to,’ said Sevin. ‘Where are you, Lauden?’

‘Just out of the belt and getting going.’

‘Get another couple lined up. We might need back-up. How long till the first two reach loco?’

‘About 12 minutes.’

Sevin checked on the Coalition ships’ progress, Regis and Kristil joining him. Valiant and Vehement were closing in on the pre-arranged co-ordinates fast, too fast. The plan was to pretend to flee and entice the Gharst ships to an area near the radiation belt so they would be in range of Lauden’s scoops. If they arrived too quickly, the welcome party would not be ready.

‘Do it in ten,’ said Sevin. ‘I’ll try to delay the fleet.’ He untangled his digi from his belt and hailed Brodie.

‘This is Skychief, go ahead,’ Brodie responded.

‘How long to loco?’ Sevin asked.

‘Five minutes twenty at the current speed.’

‘Can you slow it down? We need more time.’

‘I’ll do what we can but I warn you, we’ve got enough power to keep moving but the shields are empty. If they catch up, we can’t defend ourselves.’

‘Copy that, Skychief.’

‘Don’t push us too far, Sevin. Out.’

Sevin dropped his hand to his side, keeping hold of the digi. The Coalition ships were nearing the edge of the belt and getting picked up by the extronet cameras. Now, ahead of the fleet, the sweep of plasma could be seen, shining like faint starlight. Brodie kept his word, the fleet started to slow but the Gharst ships maintained their speed. In a few minutes, Vehement and Valiant would be within range of their beamers.

‘We’re getting some speed up on the scoops,’ said Lauden.

‘How much longer?’ said Sevin.

‘Four minutes at least.’

Sevin massaged his forehead. This was too tight. Brodie was on the digi again.

‘We’re trapped between them and the belt. They’re in range. I can’t go any further without risking the ships.’

‘We’re doing our best, just hold on.’

‘Make it quick.’ A terrific smash caromed through the digi and then a series of clacks as Brodie dropped his handset.

’Lead ship’s started firing,’ called Regis. ’Direct hit to Vehement.’

Sevin heard Brodie screaming at the pilot to retreat into the belt. ‘Speed it up Lauden,’ Sevin urged his junior.

‘Nearly there, nearly there!’

Onscreen, Valiant was trying to dodge the powerful beamers of the largest himmelslott as Vehement limped into the fringes of the sparkling mist.

‘Thirty seconds, hold on,’ Sevin shouted down the digi. He was calculating how much time Brodie could really spend inside the belt when two scoops trundled into view on several of the monitors.

The Gharst ships stopped firing.

‘They’ve seen us,’ said Kristil.

‘What’s the range between us and the Gharst?’ said Sevin.

‘Four hundred k and closing,’ said Lauden.

‘Keep going.’

Sevin’s digi made a despairing crackle. He ignored it. The Gharst ships stayed motionless.

‘They’ll have to do something soon or there’ll be a collision,’ said Regis. ‘What happens if they fire at the scoops?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sevin. ‘This has got to be close enough. Go on, Lauden, empty it!’

Lauden hit a button on the touchpad.

‘The ducts are open and the fields are in reverse.’ He looked over to where Sevin and the others stood. ‘Is anything happening?’

‘Er, no,’ said Kristil.

The camera on top of the scoop recorded empty space.

‘What’s antimatter look like?’ Cantor asked Kristil.

‘I dunno, I never saw it.’

’Try the second scoop,’ said Sevin. Again Lauden slammed reverse load, but there seemed to be no effect. Sevin clutched at his hair. The Gharst formation hung over the belt like silent vultures. He could see the cannon rotating on the himmelslott’s broadsides, lining up the Coalition ships in its sights.

‘I don’t get it, I followed the protocol exactly,’ said Lauden.

‘Did you release the traps before diverting the flow?’ asked Kristil.

‘Yup,’ said Lauden, watching a white light traverse the Gharst fleet. ‘Did you see that?’

‘No, something’s screwed up the visuals though,’ said Kristil. The entire wall had cut out. After a few seconds, half the screens rebooted. ‘Ah, that’s weird. Where’d everybody go?’

The screens showed open space or scoops going about their normal business. The Gharst ships and the rogue scoops seemed to have disappeared.

‘They can’t have just vanished,’ said Sevin.

’I can see Vehement and Valiant, they’re okay,’ said Cantor.

Sevin pointed to a form limping near a comms satellite. ‘‘There’s one of the defenders, where’s the others?’

Kristil started chuckling. ‘They’re gone, Major, you vaporised them. The one you see is trying to get away, the others weren’t so lucky.’

‘No, it can’t be.’

‘For real.’

‘We did it!’ cried Regis.

‘What took it so long?’ Lauden asked, coming over to join them.

‘The particles must have taken time to travel through the vacuum of space. They didn’t meet anything along the way so we didn’t see anything until they hit the ships,’ said Regis.

‘So how come it didn’t take out our old boats as well, huh?’

’I guess being in or near the belt acted as some kind of force wall that protected them,’ said Kristil. He flung his arms around Sevin who stiffly accepted the embrace. ‘Congratulations Major, you just liberated my homeworld.’

ο

Two days later, Sevin was lying fully dressed on his bunk with one eye on a recorded game of flickball. He was ostensibly taking a well-earned break. The Gridon campaign was over as far as the fleet was concerned. The Corazon, under Commandante Kristil, had reinstituted the former government and were busy shoring up the planet’s defences. They had already signed up to the Coalition’s pact to defend the Altan and Charis systems against the Gharst.

Sevin yawned. The celebrations the night before had carried on late. Special Ops were the saviours of Gridon and could do no wrong – they certainly couldn’t buy themselves a drink. Sevin smiled as he remembered some of Marik’s antics at the Trough, Reverre and his goons looking on sourly from the corner. There was still a question over how Sevin had ended up with the wrong code for the secure channel. In the debriefing, Brodie had claimed it was a clerical error on the part of Reverre’ staff. Sevin wasn’t so sure it was a mistake. But until he had evidence to the contrary, he would have to accept Brodie’s explanation.

Turning off the flickball, Sevin forced himself to return to the task of sifting through the cache of files Lauden had downloaded from the main server in the Kraton. It was laborious work, sorting the chaff of old memos and inventories from the wheat of recent troop deployments. The ‘in progress’ folder was patchy too. Some reports, such as those on teleportation or a new source of energy derived from photosynthesis, were highly theoretical. Others were more promising, like the Infinity project. The language was so technical Sevin could hardly understand it. It was some sort of nuclear fission and fusion engine for long-range spacecraft that appeared to be catalysed by sound waves. As the scientific terms piled up, his interest waned. He decided to pass the cache to Brodie and let his analysts see what they could make of it.

There was one thing he needed to do first.