Incursion Read online

  But Davies had missed the tangible change of atmosphere in the hangar, and he turned to find Stansfield and Vernon standing behind him, listening to him speak.

  “Sir,” said Davies with a slightly green expression.

  “I concur with your thinking, Davies. I suspected as much when Colossus was destroyed. I agree with you, it would make sense for the technology around the portal to be scanning for Royal Navy signatures. Permission granted to strip down one of the shuttles and send it in remotely to the portal. How long until you can make this happen?”

  “If I assign enough engineers to the team, within the hour, sir. Will you be waiting for Woodhall’s response from the Admiralty before proceeding?”

  Fernandez couldn’t have been more obvious about his body language if he’d had his fingers crossed behind his back.

  Stansfield gave him a steady look. “Let me worry about Woodhall and the Admiralty, Lieutenant. In the meantime, make your preparations. I want the second shuttle ready to go through immediately after the first. If we prove the theory, we take Vengeance through. I’m not waiting here like a lame duck. Let’s get those shuttles launched into space, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Stansfield had barely finished the sentence before Fernandez began assigning the teams to their respective shuttles and the preparation process had begun.

  He was as good as his word. Only an hour later, the test ships were been manoeuvred into the front of the launch hangar. Everything useful had been stripped from each vehicle to the extent that they were basically skeletons, a simple metal framework carrying only its means of propulsion and anything else that couldn’t be removed without welding or cutting.

  “Conway, I’d like you to remote-control the shuttles,” said Fernandez, “You’ve got a good handle on getting through that portal already. Besides, there wasn’t even a scratch on your SEV, you’re my favourite safe driver at the moment.”

  Davies shared a meaningful glance with Mason and Kearney. It was clear Fernandez knew bothing of Conway’s past.

  “I’d like to attach monitoring equipment to the front of the first shuttle, sir,” said Davies. “I want to know what’s firing on the other side of the portal. We need to understand what we’re dealing with here.”

  “I think you’re right,” Fernandez replied. “If we start to gather data about their armoury and overall ability to fire on us, that at least gives us some kind of advantage if we end up getting into a scrape with these guys.” He gave the nod, and his engineering crews rushed off to locate some monitoring equipment to be lashed to one of the seats of the shuttle.

  After another fifteen minutes, the shuttle was ready for launch, with Conway sitting at a remote console deep within the launch hangar. Fernandez, Charlie Team and a group of eager engineers gathered around the monitoring screens to watch the operation. With the sure confidence of an experienced pilot, Conway took the first shuttle out and guided it towards the part of space where the portal had been.

  “How long do we have to wait?” asked Conway, staring at the stars from the cruiser’s viewpoint.

  But before anyone could answer, the portal observed its regular opening times and obliged them by opening, right when they were expecting it. As before, it began with a bright white dot in space, then quickly expanded to create the wonderful array of dancing colours that they had all marvelled at previously.

  “Sending in shuttle one,” said Conway. “Distance of four kilometres and closing.”

  “Look!” Davies erupted. “There are monitors on this side of the portal,” he said, pointing at one of the screens. “They know we’re here already. Those contraptions around the mouth of the portal, look at them, they’re talking to each other!”

  “We’re getting all of this on the bridge,” Stansfield’s voice came over the intercom. “Do you see the purple lights flashing on those units? They know the shuttle’s there, they can sense us.”

  “Two kilometres,” said Conway. “Damn, look at those things, you can see them transmitting data to something, they look like they’ve gone into overdrive!”

  “How are they sending data through the portal?” wondered Davies, leaning forward. “We lost all contact with you guys after you passed over.”

  “Conway, go faster,” said Ten. “If they’re going to blow up that thing, let’s at least get it through the portal so we can see what they’re throwing at it.”

  “Taking the shuttle to maximum acceleration now. By the look of those devices, we’re about to get a big bang any moment. Let’s hope it’s fast enough.”

  Conway pushed the shuttle as fast she could make it fly, directly towards the heart of the portal. Using the close monitoring that the shuttle gave them, they were able to see the array of lights of the monitoring devices as they detected the intruder, confirmed its size and shape with each other, then transmitted that data to an enemy unknown.

  As the shuttle entered the skin of the portal and began to disappear within its centre, there was a massive explosion. The shuttle was belched back out of the portal, smashed to smithereens by whatever had shot at it from the other side, and all that was left in space was a cloud of debris from a Sol shuttle that had just taken its final flight.

  12

  “Dammit!” said Fernandez. “We’re no wiser than we were beforehand.”

  “We have evidence to support our hypothesis, sir,” pointed out Davies. “Our modern ship was destroyed, just as we predicted.”

  “I’m going in on the second shuttle,” Ten said. “We need to recover the monitor, and if we get a glimpse of what they’re firing at us, we have some hope of defending ourselves.”

  “And what if we’re wrong about the shuttle signatures?” Conway asked. “You’ll end up as a piece of floating space junk just like that first shuttle.”

  “I’m happy to take the risk,” said Ten. “I like to know what I’m shooting at when I go into battle, so I want that monitoring equipment back if it’s out there.”

  “Get yourself on board the second shuttle, Marine X,” Stansfield’s voice came over the intercom once again. “Lieutenant Woodhall is in conversation with the Admiralty as I speak, and I do not want that man hindering our operations. The sooner we can get this done, the better.”

  “On my way, sir,” said Ten, needing no further prompt. Still wearing his power armour, he checked his oxygen levels, ensured his helmet was still operational, then ran over to the landing platform and strapped himself into the second shuttle.

  The craft was old and battered, like it had just been retrieved from a scrapyard. It looked like it had seen much better days, and had all the signs of a craft that had served Sol well. No sooner had Ten strapped himself in, the burners fired, and Conway launched the ship into space. Ten got some sense of what it must have been like for Hunter being towed along the back of his SEV.

  The engineering team had left very little but the shell of the shuttle. It was much like taking a trip on a bed frame, but this bed frame had a pair of blue burners at its rear and was hurtling through space at speed towards that portal.

  Looking down at Vengeance below him, Ten thought he saw the ship begin to move. Until now, it had sat there in space, idle and static, safely monitoring at a distance from the mouth of the portal. But now, even whilst distracted by the shimmering lights of the fissure, Ten was certain that it was turning to follow him. Surely Stansfield wasn’t planning to come in directly after him? That showed an enthusiasm for engagement that put even him to shame.

  His musings were interrupted by Conway. “You sure you’re happy for me take you through?”

  “No reason not to,” Ten replied. “I’m certain that Davies is right about this. Well, I'm mostly certain, anyway. It's a risk someone has to take, so let's just crack on, shall we?”

  The second shuttle moved slowly through the mouth of the portal. The bridge crew on Vengeance, Conway and Ten monitored the sentinels to see if they had sensed his movement, but all was as it had been with the SEVs. As far as these d
evices were concerned, he was invisible.

  “Going through,” said Ten, his voice crackling as the massive interference from the wormhole disrupted his comms. The moment he passed through the portal, the channel went abruptly silent.

  “Okay, I’ve lost control, he’s on his own now,” Conway said. “You’d think that a man could get too much excitement in one day!”

  “Are we moving?” Davies asked, looking up from his screens in the hangar.

  “The admiral is moving us closer to the portal,” said Fernandez. “I’m not sure what the old man is up to, but my guess is he’s playing cat and mouse with the Admiralty.”

  “Just how close?” Conway asked, frowning hard.

  “Don’t ask,” said Fernandez. “I think the minute Ten comes back with the shuttle intact, Vengeance will be heading straight through the portal. Stansfield has had itchy feet for days, ever since the Admiralty lost Colossus.”

  The portal hung on the vid screens, a giant mess of colour against the blackness of space.

  “Come on,” said Davies, as if he might pull Ten home by sheer will alone. “Don’t let me down.”

  The minutes dragged on. The hangar was quiet, every eye focussed on the screens, waiting.

  “How long do we wait?” someone asked, but nobody answered.

  And then the colours shifted, and the battered nose of an ancient shuttle nudged slowly out of the portal. There was a cheer in the hangar as the tension broke.

  “Did you miss me, Vengeance?” said Ten as the shuttle cleared the portal.

  “What took you so long?” asked Conway.

  “Well, I didn’t I stop for tea and biscuits, if that's what you're worried about,” said Ten. “The monitor had been ejected, just as we planned, but it took me a while to find and snag it.”

  Charlie Team and the engineering teams watched as the shuttle made its way sedately toward Vengeance.

  “It’s as you said, Davies,” said Ten over the radio. “It has to be the signatures. There wasn’t one moment of recognition from those devices, we’re completely invisible on the other side of the portal. They can’t detect us.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Davies calmly, as if he’d never had any doubts about his hypothesis.

  “We have a connection to the monitoring equipment,” said Fernandez. “Downloading the files now, I’ll let you know what happened to that first shuttle as soon as we can.”

  Fernandez was excited. The retrieved files would give them a glimpse of the hostilities that waited for them on the other side of the portal.

  Stansfield’s voice boomed out across the loudspeakers positioned throughout the battleship as he made a ship-wide announcement.

  “Vengeance crew, this is what we waited for. This is why we lay hidden for so many years in this part of space. I’ve seen enough to convince me that it’s safe to go through that portal and that our need to proceed with our mission is urgent. I’m not waiting for it to open up again in another three hours. We cannot risk the future of our planet by sitting out here in space and idly waiting.

  “I’ve given the order for us to go through. We’ll be at action stations alert until we are safely on the other side. Five minutes until we enter the portal. We don’t know what’s waiting for us out there, but whatever it is, I trust that the crew of Vengeance will be more than up to the challenge. Stansfield out.”

  “We’ve got our footage, ladies and gentlemen,” said Fernandez. “It’s being rerouted to my console now.”

  Ten powered down the shuttle so that he hovered in space between Vengeance and the portal, and waited for the file to hit his HUD. It was there in a moment, and he braced himself, eager to get a first glimpse of their foe.

  The poor-quality footage showed the view from the front of the first shuttle as it emerged through the portal. The moment it did so, the sentinel devices began to scan the entire ship, and the camera was ejected, flying away from the doomed spaceship.

  Moments later, before the shuttle was even fully through the portal, it was blasted by some remote device outside the camera’s view. The shuttle was destroyed, and they watched as it was pushed through the portal, back to where it had come from.

  Then everything was silent, the portal shrinking as the camera moved slowly away, and nothing else happened until Ten’s ship appeared. Fernandez zipped back to step slowly through the images.

  “Not a lot to go on there,” said Hunter.

  “As far as I can see,” Davies picked up, “those devices scan whatever goes through the portal, then something else destroys it. They’re gathering intelligence as well as wrecking our toys.”

  “Yes, but it’s the signatures they’re detecting,” said Kearney. “They’re only as good as the technology they’re made of. If they’re not looking for us, they’re not likely to find us.” She had been quiet for some time, as was her way. She was a Marine who performed better in the silence, but like the rest of the team, she was anxious to know what they were dealing with.

  Stansfield’s voice came over the intercom. This time he spoke only to the team in the bay and to Ten, still sitting in his shuttle. “We’re about to go through the portal with Vengeance. Marine X, I’d like you to follow us through and join us on the other side.”

  “Acknowledged, sir,” said Ten. He moved the shuttle out of Vengeance’s path and positioned it so that he’d be able to enter the hangar as soon as they passed through the portal.

  On the bridge, Woodhall blustered around, demanding that they cease their mission immediately.

  “The Admiralty will be issuing a direct order not to enter the portal until more research and surveillance has been completed,” he shouted at the admiral. “That order is being sent in an encrypted message to you right now. If you go through that portal, you will be disobeying a specific directive. I’m sure that even you, with your rich history of military achievement, would not want to put all that at risk, Admiral.”

  Stansfield held out his data slate and stared directly into Woodhall’s eyes.

  “So you’re saying the order will arrive at any moment now, direct to my slate?” Stansfield took a step forward so that he was mere inches from Woodhall. “I agree, Lieutenant Woodhall, that once I receive your rumoured order, I’m bound by Admiralty regulations to obey it,” he hissed. Then, without looking away, he asked more loudly, “How long until we’re through the portal?”

  “Passing through at the moment, sir,” said the midshipman at the navigation console, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. “A few minutes at current speed.”

  Stansfield looked at his slate and held it up for Woodhall to see.

  “It seems we’ve just lost all communications with Sol. I would be delighted to obey their orders, but due to the technical interference caused by passing through the portal, I’m unable to confirm that the order was in fact issued,” hissed Stansfield, his eyes burning with the light of madness.

  Woodhall opened his mouth to speak, but Admiral Stansfield held up his hand and cut him off. “Take a deep breath, Lieutenant, and unclench your arse-cheeks. You're along for the ride now.”

  13

  As Vengeance slid through the swirling colours of the portal, all radio communications on the bridge fell silent. For the crew, it was an eerie sensation. Crackles of conversations between them and Sol had punctuated every hour of every day, and the termination of contact felt very much like losing a safety blanket.

  Having put Woodhall back in his box, for the time being at least, Stansfield took the conn from Vernon and began to monitor their progress through the phenomenon. He was hungry for information.

  “Place the portal view on full screen,” he said. “I’d like to get an idea of how they’re achieving this.”

  “Initial analysis suggests the ability to harness and sustain a massive power source, though how it’s being done beats me,” said Lieutenant Yau.

  Davies was analysing the stream of data from Vengeance’s sensors at a console on the deck.

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sp; “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he murmured. To his knowledge, Sol was nowhere near capable of a technical breakthrough of this magnitude.

  Stansfield opened a channel to Fernandez. “We have attack craft ready in the bay, yes?”

  “Two attack craft readied and primed, sir,” said Fernandez from the launch hanger. “I have Conway, Mason, Kearney and Hunter in the old Raptors, and ten of our own people on standby in the HR2s. Raptors use old Sol signatures, that’s our safest response strategy if we encounter any problems.”

  “Agreed, Fernandez. Stay at action stations until we’re through safely.”

  Ten’s voice came over the comms unit. “Hey, don’t forget me out here on this floating bed frame.”

  “What do you see out there, Marine X?” asked Stansfield.

  “Nothing worth reporting, sir. There are no signs of alert or defensive action. Vengeance is passing through unseen, I think we’re all good here.”

  The ship moved slowly through the mouth of the portal. The crew was tense; every factor that could be monitored was being examined by engineering, defensive and science teams.

  Ten had significantly more movement capability than Vengeance, so he used the time to check out the guardian devices that had detected – the ones that had caused the destruction of Colossus and the first test shuttle.

  The massive hulk of Vengeance was able to pass through without them batting an eyelid, though still the guardians floated there in space, waiting, watching, seeking. For some reason, it made Ten uneasy.

  “Might go off at any time,” muttered Ten. Colossus had been a significantly larger and more capable ship than Vengeance, yet whoever had created this wormhole had made light work of the Navy’s newest ship. Vengeance would be no match if it came to a game of whose weapon is biggest?

  Then the portal began to shrink, and Ten sat up in his seat. “We may have a problem, Vengeance, are you seeing this on the bridge?”

  “Affirmative, Marine X,” Stansfield replied, intently focussed on the task in hand. “We’re seeing fast and sudden portal contraction. Current estimates at a five per cent reduction in circumference. Can I get a projection on how long until total closure, please!”