Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (22 page)

‘We’re still tied down defending our borders, even though the war with the K’Soth is over, correct?  We know that the Empire is tearing itself apart in a civil war that the Shapers caused, just like they did the war with the Commonwealth.  Why don’t we give the K’Soth the means to detect our mutual enemy?  It would act as a good will gesture to cement the ceasefire, and would reduce the possibility of a Shaper dominated Empire launching a fresh attack against our northern border.’

‘We don’t share intelligence data with the enemy, Admiral Chen,’ said Cartwright.

‘No wait, she has a point,’ said the President.  ‘It would give the Navy far more ships to use against the Shapers if we could stop worrying about the K’Soth.  Mr Forrest, could this be achieved?’

Deputy Director Forrest shifted uneasily in his chair.  ‘Yes, it could.  We do have a back channel to the K’Soth via the Esacir.  However we’d have to be very careful that the data didn’t fall into the hands of the Shapers.  The situation in the Empire is a real mess, there are two broad factions, but each contains a number of clans all settling old scores and from what we know, it seems that the Shapers appear to have infiltrated both sides.  We have contacts with the more liberal elements in the Empire, but even they have been heavily compromised in recent months.  It’s something we could look at though.  Admiral Chen’s suggestion is basically a sound one, from a strategic point of view.’

‘Please do.  Now, about this proposed plan of attack: where do we even start?  Which systems are still ours and which have gone over to the enemy?’

‘That is far from clear,’ said Admiral Cartwright.  ‘Admiral Hawkwood, if I may?’ Hawkwood indicated for him to proceed. ‘The Navy has intercepted messages broadcast by the traitor Admiral Morgan from the moon of Orinoco in the Achernar system.  He states that he has set up an alternative seat of government in the system for what he calls his “Freedom Alliance”.  He also gave a list of systems which he says have declared for his new regime, rather the Commonwealth.’  With this, Cartwright called up a map of the Commonwealth on one of the screens on the wall at the end of the room. A great number of systems in the southern portion of the Commonwealth had been highlighted with pulsing red icons, forming two large spheres roughly centred on the Achernar and Spica systems.  ‘What is not clear at the moment is whether Morgan is telling the truth and if he is, what proportion of these systems have populations who are either directly under the sway of the Shapers or have been coerced or manipulated into supporting the actions of their local administrations.  We also don’t know the enemy’s exact deployment, nor do we know the proportion of ships who have genuinely been enslaved versus the ones who are merely mistakenly acting under illegal orders.  Again, we need better intelligence data, something the new scanner modifications should be able to assist us with.  Safe to say however, that systems for about ten light years beyond the Beta Hydri – Delta Pavonis line should be considered contested space and all systems further out should be viewed as enemy territory.  My intent is to make a number of thrusts into enemy held systems and try and break their hold on these regions, before attempting to take back Achernar, but we need more intel.  We need to know which systems are being held and used to supply the enemy before attempting to cut off Achernar and deal with Morgan and his “Freedom Alliance”.’

‘So in other words, our hands are tied until we have better intel.,’ said the President and steepled her hands.  ‘Deputy Directory Forrest, what about the CIB’s assets in the renegade systems?  What information do we have from your agents?’

‘Nothing that can be relied upon at the moment, Madam President,’ said Forrest, shaking his head sadly.  ‘It has become clear to us that many of our agents have been compromised, captured or have even gone over to the enemy, willingly or not.  Unfortunately we lost a number of our agents following false information that was submitted by other operatives.  We’re in the process of recalling our agents and initiating a screening program to weed out those who have become hosts to the Shapers.’

‘Presumably those who fail to comply with the recall order can be written off as having been implanted by the enemy’s agents?’

‘It is possible, though as Admiral Chen discovered, there are a number of personnel within the Commonwealth armed forces and the intelligence community who have been swayed by Admiral Morgan and have sided with the Shapers out of their own free will, seeing an alliance with the enemy as the only way that humanity can survive.  We could be dealing with many enemy agents and double agents within our ranks.  The CIB is not secure Madam President, though it pains me greatly to admit it, and the information that we have regarding the enemy is not reliable.’

‘Very well,’ said Sorenson.  ‘Admiral Cartwright, you have permission to begin moving fleet assets to forward positions as long as defence of this system is not compromised.  We’ll reconvene to discuss our next course of action once we have more information.  Thank you everyone, that’s all.  Admiral Chen, if I could have a moment?’

As the others in the room gathered their things, President Sorenson moved around the end of the table and approached Chen.  She shook Chen warmly by the hand and beamed at her in admiration.

‘It’s good to finally meet you, Admiral,’ said the President. ‘I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.’

‘Thank you Madam President,’ said Chen, a little taken aback.

‘You did a hell of a job defending Earth.  We all owe you a debt of gratitude.’

‘I was just doing my duty, ma’am,’ Chen replied modestly.

‘Yes you were, to the highest standard.  Mark my words, your bravery will be duly recognised.’

‘Ma’am, it was the Nahabe who saved us in the end.  I made a stand, but we couldn’t have won without them.  If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be standing here.’

‘Maybe, but these are dark times, Admiral Chen.  The people need heroes, someone to look up to, someone to give them hope.  Winning wars isn’t just about guns and ships, it’s about morale, it’s about giving people the will to fight.  My father taught me that.’

‘Your father, ma’am?’

‘Sorenson’s my married name.  President Cook was my father.’

‘He was President during the First K’Soth War.’

‘He was, and he never gave up no matter how bad things got - and they did get very bad before the end, - and neither did the people, thanks to him.  I hope to live up to his memory.  Did you have any relatives who fought in that war?’

‘Yes ma’am, my grandfather was a captain in the Navy.’

‘And I bet he’d be proud of you, Admiral Chen.’

‘Yes,’ said Chen, looking at the President of the Commonwealth smiling back at her. ‘I think that he would.’

They were about to leave when there was a commotion in the corridor outside.  An aide, breathless from running and clutching a document, had collared Admiral Hawkwood and was hurriedly trying to explain something to him.  She saw Hawkwood turn and re-enter the room.  Everyone else in the process of leaving did likewise and began to resume their seats.

‘What is it?’ said the President. ‘What’s going on?’

‘It’s Haines,’ said Hawkwood.  ‘We received an encrypted emergency transmission from a distress beacon in the Achernar system.  He’s alive.’

Chapter 13

              Deep in the asteroid belt, squadrons of ships from the
Shining Glory
moved like bright schools of fish amidst the scattered metal-rich rocks.  The graceful fighter craft were using their weapons to smash the larger boulders into more manageable chunks, which were then moved by the tractor beams of heavier utility vessels into the waiting maws of two ore harvester vessels, whose flat, disc shaped bodies and long, manipulator arms gave them the appearance of giant, glittering crabs as they fed the raw material from the asteroids into their gaping loading bays to be broken down into their constituent metals.  A long stream of ejected waste material issued from the back of each craft as stone and ice were discarded.

              The mineral content had puzzled the crews of the harvester craft.  A lot of the rock being discarded was of types not commonly found except within the crusts of planets.  There was sedimentary rock here in abundance as well as deposits formed by volcanic action.  There was also an awful lot of water mixed in with the various types of stone and metal, indeed entire mountains of ice had been spotted floating amidst the rocks, gleaming blueish white in the light from the binary.  Complex carbon compounds were also in abundance.  Clearly there had once been a planet here and something catastrophic had happened to it - that much was clear.  The distribution of the asteroids in their orbit and their dense concentration into a crescent shape rather than being evenly spread in their orbital path around the parent star also pointed to the event being the relatively recent past, geologically speaking, though exactly how long ago it was difficult to say.  Perhaps a rogue body had passed this way and collided with this one, shattering it into a billion pieces?  This close to the core, the skies were densely packed with star systems and such events must surely be more common than way out in the relative safety of the spiral arms.

              It was then that they began to find the remains of artificial structures amidst the tumbling rocks, regular forms that could not possibly have occurred naturally, shapes formed from purified metals half melted by intense heat.  It wasn’t until they cracked open one particularly large boulder and discovered the remains of an underground bunker, perfectly preserved within like an insect in amber, that they found the bodies.

              Katherine placed her hand against the glassy, black surface of the building and gazed up at the symbol carved into its surface.  The details of the carving were still clear and sharp, the building itself almost pristine after ten thousand years and a nuclear bombardment.  The alien script formed a double line underneath a circle emitting rays that touched the stylised figures that were arrayed before it.  She stared at it, wondering what it represented.  A holy symbol of some kind, that much they had deduced from its presence in the temple that Steelscale had discovered, but anything more was still a mystery.

              ‘Rekkid,’ she said. ‘What does it say?  The line of Progenitor script, can you read it?’

              ‘Ah, yes I can actually,’ said Rekkid, shaken from his trance-like state as he too scrutinised the carving.  ‘Hmm.  Their use of the Progenitor language contains some inaccuracies with regard to the grammar, as though the carvers were not native speakers, but as far as I can render it into English, the inscription reads: “Fortress of the Soldiers of the Sacred Way” or something similar, although the word that they’ve used for “way” could mean a number of other things.  In any case, this is, or rather was, a place filled with holy warriors, and I’m assuming that it wasn’t built by the Progenitors.’

              ‘But it doesn’t belong here,’ said Steelscale.  ‘This building: look at it.  It’s so different to the others in this city.’

              ‘You’re right,’ said Katherine, pressing her palm against the smooth, shiny surface.  I don’t know what this material is.  It feels like glass to the touch, but it’s obviously far stronger than that.  It’s been used in these great blocks to construct this fortress and there’s barely a mark on it, when the rest of the city lies in ruins.’

              Rekkid was hunting around on the ground, searching for something amid the dirt.  Eventually he found a tiny chip that had fallen from the fortress wall and popped it into his sample analyser.  He looked at the result and furrowed his brow.

              ‘This stuff is exactly the same as the base material used by the Progenitors to construct their mega-structures such as the Dyson Sphere we excavated,’ he said.

              ‘Is this a Progenitor structure?  Did the locals build their city on top of an ancient site, do you think?’ said Katherine.

              ‘I’m not sure.  The analyser places the age of this sample at over four billion years old, but this doesn’t look like Progenitor construction to me.  Everything that we’ve seen constructed from this material so far was seamless, as if it had been grown in one piece.  This ziggurat is very neatly constructed, but it’s made from separate blocks, albeit very large ones.’

              ‘There’s also the small matter of the age of the star system,’ said Steelscale.  ‘If this planet was in any way habitable four billion years ago, I’d expect the stars in this system to be rather older looking; as it is, they look like any other yellow dwarf star in the middle of its life cycle.  I’d suggest that we check with the ship.’

              Katherine looked closer at one of the blocks where a piece near the edge had fallen away, cracked by frost or flying debris during the bombardment, revealing the side of the adjacent block.  Though almost perfectly flat, it felt rough and unfinished, with a definite pattern of shallow ridges in contrast to the almost mirror-like sheen of the outside face.

              ‘These blocks were definitely cut to size,’ she said.  ‘Come and feel this.’

              Rekkid stepped over and ran a fingertip over the rough surface and nodded in agreement.

              ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Something has been used to saw through this.  Maybe they found some Progenitor ruins and used them as building material?’

              ‘Like the churches in Europe built out of ancient Greek and Roman buildings?’ said Katherine.

              ‘Something like that, yes.’

              ‘It still doesn’t explain why these people were using the Progenitor alphabet as well as their own,’ said Steelscale.

              ‘No it doesn’t,’ Rekkid replied.  ‘There’s something here that we’re not seeing.’

              ‘We need to get inside that building,’ said Katherine. ‘If it’s this intact on the outside, the interior could also be well preserved.  Maybe we’ll find the answers we’re looking for inside?’