Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (40 page)

‘Put him through Ensign,’ Chen replied.  ‘Let’s see what lies he has for us now.’

Doyle’s face appeared before her once more. He still wore that hunted look.  Chen knew that it was all an act.

‘Admiral Chen, this is Doyle.  What are you doing hanging around for so long.  For God’s sake, woman!  Can’t you just come and get us?’ he said, a pleading, desperate look in his eyes.

‘My apologies, Admiral.  I was erring on the side of caution.  I have no wish to needlessly endanger the lives of the crews under my command.’

‘I can appreciate that, Admiral Chen.  But you really should come as quickly as possible.  You really should join us...’

The last sentence she heard whispered inside her skull at the same time as Doyle mouthed the words.  It was a sibilant scratching at the back of her mind.  She knew the voice alright.  Doyle started to smirk.  He suppressed a giggle.  Chen felt the horror rising within her even as Singh called out to her.

‘Contact!  Bearing forty five by ten, distance: five million kilometres and closing.  Still within hyperspace, it’ll be here in seconds! Ship type doesn’t appear to match any in our database. It’s much smaller, but it’s Shaper alright.’

Chen felt the adrenaline rush of combat spur her into action.

‘All ships, this is Chen.  Jump immediately to the fall back waypoints.  Bring all weapons to bear on inbound vessels but do not linger to engage!  Defensive tactics only until you can make the jump.’

‘
Churchill
, this is
Shadow in the Void
,’ the voice of the Lord Protector boomed over the comm.  We will engage the enemy and cover your withdrawal.  Death to the world killers!’

The Nahabe were disregarding her orders!  The
Shadow in the Void
began powering her weapons and moving off to meet the inbound ship, de-cloaking to present a more obvious target.  Singh had more bad news for her.

‘Admiral, I’m seeing more contacts emerging within the asteroid field, seven craft now bearing down on our position.  The ships around Nantou are moving.  Three are staying with the human transports which are now powering their jump drives and moving out of the brown dwarf’s gravity well, the rest are coming this way.’

The first of the inbound Shaper craft had emerged from hyperspace now. Chen zoomed in the display on her HUD and saw a sleek, needle nosed shape moving with tremendous speed towards them.  It was much smaller than the Shaper vessels that they had encountered so far, far smaller than even the two Thea class cruisers currently under Chen’s command, and it to be appeared to be highly manoeuvrable.  Chen saw the Nahabe ship open fire with its main guns at the darting shape as her own vessels began to turn away and power their jump drives.  The Shaper craft deftly dodged the arcing beams of energy that spat from the massive, segmented hull of the gunsphere.  It wasn’t returning fire.  It was simply heading straight towards the Nahabe warship.  It was then that Chen had a horrible realisation.

‘It’s not a ship,’ she cried.  ‘It’s a missile!’

There was a blinding explosion. 

As the
Churchill
turned away, Chen caught a glimpse of the
Shadow in the Void
.  A vast chunk had been blown out of the ship’s spherical hull, like an impact crater gouged out of a planetoid.  A huge shell of debris and unleashed energies was fountaining out of that terrible wound.  But the Nahabe ship still fought on. 

Other missiles were now emerging from hyperspace on all sides.  Some headed straight for the fleeing vessels, whilst three others appeared to have halted some distance away, out of range of the guns of the Commonwealth ships.  Through the ship’s external cameras, they could be seen opening like pale flowers.  Goldstein raised the alarm.

‘Admiral, we can’t jump!  Those things: they’re projecting jump drive inhibitor fields.’

‘Not again!’ spat Chen and swore under her breath.  ‘All ships, engines to full.  We need to move clear if we’re to jump.’

There was another searing blast from outside: the
Shadow in the Void
had succeeded in shooting down one of the missiles as it streaked in, but three more were on their way.  Chen tried not to think about what would happen if one of those things hit the
Churchill
.

‘Shaper destroyers inbound!’ said Singh, alarm creeping into his voice.  ‘We have only minutes to get clear.  Admiral, the drive inhibitor fields projected by those Shaper devices intersect, but I think if we destroy two of them we should be able to jump clear.’

‘Even one would help...’ replied Chen, pulling up a display of the data from the ship’s sensors.  The Shaper devices had arranged themselves in a triangular formation about her ships.  Red shaded spheres denoted the limits of the effect of their fields.  One lay almost directly in their path.  It was out of range of the
Churchill’s
particle beam turrets, and there was no time to launch fighters and bombers to deal with the devices.  Fortunately, that was not Chen’s only option.

‘Gunnery, prepare to fire the spatial distortion cannon,’ Chen ordered. ‘Helm, line us up with that Shaper device ahead of us and keep her steady for a long ranged shot.’

Goldstein, intent on her controls, simply nodded quickly.  Chen, meanwhile, kept an eye on the sensor data being fed to her: those destroyers were rapidly closing the distance to her ships.  They didn’t have a lot of time.  The
Churchill’s
movements seemed to be agonisingly slow.

‘The ship is now lined up with the target, Admiral,’ Goldstein reported. ‘Holding her steady...’

‘Fire!’ Chen ordered.

There was a shudder through the deck.  A brief ripple distorted the stars beyond the ship’s bow and the distant glimmer of light reflecting from the shattered crystalline parts of the Shaper device.

‘Target killed!’ reported Singh.  ‘No time for celebration, Admiral:  two Shaper missiles emerging from hyperspace below and to aft.  One is headed for the
Dulles
, the other is heading straight for us. 
Shadow in the Void
is attempting to engage.  She has closed the distance between us to twenty kilometres aft.  I’d say that she’s trying to cover us with her weapon batteries.’

Chen noticed that the remaining two Shaper drive inhibitors had changed position.  They were now to either side of the
Churchill
, overlapping their fields and keeping pace with the ships to prevent them from leaving.

‘We’re sitting ducks until we take down those things,’ said McManus grimly.  ‘We need to engage them and at least let the cruisers depart.’

‘Brace for impact, missiles aft!’ cried Singh.

From the external cameras, Chen saw the flash of bright darting shapes for a split second, highlighted by targeting icons.  She saw the gunsphere’s weapons track the inbound missiles with their intersecting beams.  There was a brilliant flash as one of the warheads detonated prematurely, touched off by a grazing wound from the gunsphere’s weapons.  It was the one that had been heading straight for the
Churchill
.  The
Dulles
was not so fortunate.  The second speeding missile, almost as long as the cruiser itself, impacted the underside of the vessel’s superstructure, instantly engulfing the vessel in a massive explosion that ripped it apart from bow to stern.  The blast would have been sufficient to cripple the
Churchill
, but of the cruiser, there was nothing left except a shell of expanding debris and energy.  The
Appleton
still powered ahead, unscathed, though her crew were severely shaken by the sudden death of their sister ship and comrades.

‘Jesus H. Christ...’ muttered McManus.

‘
Churchill
, this is the
Shadow in the Void
,’ said the voice of the Lord Protector over the comm.  ‘I do not think we will last long against this barrage.  We have sustained moderate damage, the vessel’s ablative armour took the worst of it, but the Shapers will send more missiles, and their vessels will be here soon, and then we will all die.’

‘We need to split up,’ said Chen.  ‘Attack the inhibitor device to port, whilst we go after the one to starboard.’

‘It will leave you dangerously exposed. The devices are still out of range and we must close the distance.  More missiles are inbound as we speak.  Many more of those things have awoken within the asteroid belt.  We will not be able to cover you.’

‘It’s our only chance,’ said Chen.  ‘Do it, before they send more of those devices to pin us here!’

‘Very well, Admiral,’ said the Lord Protector. ‘Moving to engage target.  Out.’

‘Helm’ said Chen.  ‘Bring us about to engage the device to starboard.  It’ll try to retreat, but it can’t leave the range of our main gun without allowing us to escape.’

As the ship swung around, she could hear McManus talking to Captain Trent aboard the
Appleton.
  Trent was becoming frantic, having spotted six more missiles inbound to their position, each of which was capable of destroying the
Appleton
with a single hit.  The cruiser was still heading on its original course, now at a tangent to the
Churchill’s
own. Her engines were at full, emitting a bright spear of plasma from the rear of the vessel.  If the Shaper devices pulled back to avoid annihilation and keep the
Churchill
and the Nahabe gunsphere from escaping, it might give the
Appleton
the chance to escape.

Unable to manoeuvre quickly whilst deployed, the drive inhibitor device ahead of the
Churchill,
having learnt that the carrier was quite capable of engaging it at unusually long ranges, was nevertheless on the move.  As the carrier approached, the device began to move in a lazy arc as the massive vessel tried in vain to track it and bring its main gun to bear.  Chen watched the stars slowly wheel beyond the bridge windows.  She realised the futility of what they were trying to do.  The fixed main armament of carriers was intended for taking down larger, more ponderous targets, not picking off smaller vessels at long range.  That was the job of fighters and bombers, and they had not time to launch either.   She should have launched some earlier and risked leaving a few behind.  They were running out of time and the carrier was just too cumbersome to catch the Shaper device.  Engineering reported that they were bypassing the safety limits to feed more energy from the reactors to the manoeuvring thrusters to increase the carrier’s rate of turn.  The missiles were getting closer.  They had spread out to attack from all angles.  The Shaper destroyers powered through hyperspace towards her ships in a loose arrow shaped formation, like a pack of sharks.

‘The Nahabe have destroyed the other device!  The gunsphere is coming about to assist us.  Thirty seconds left until the second wave arrives!’ said Singh.

‘Admiral, the
Appleton
is requesting permission to jump. They are clear of the inhibitor field,’ reported Andrews.

‘Yes! Tell them to get out of here!’ replied McManus, urgently.

The Shaper device hovered tantalisingly in their sights, almost directly in front of the
Churchill.
  The carrier’s Arkari spatial distortion cannon fired once more, and missed.  Chen shifted uneasily in her seat.  It would be some moments before the cannon recharged for another shot.  She could feel those ships and missiles coming for them.  She wanted nothing more than to flee.  She could hear the Shapers whispering inside her head, mocking her.

‘Twenty seconds!’ reported Singh, panic creeping into his voice.  ‘Admiral, the Nahabe gunsphere is closing rapidly on our position.’

‘Come on...’ growled McManus.  ‘Hurry it up, you coffin wearing freaks...’

Still the carrier tried to catch the Shaper device, in a vain attempt to target it.

‘Ten seconds!’ cried Singh.  ‘Shaper destroyer class vessels emerging from hyperspace, two hundred kilometres to starboard.  They are powering weapons!’

Chen saw the iceberg forms of the Shaper ships as they began to swim into view in normal space.  They were cold and terrible.  Energy began to crackle along their bows.  Then her zoomed in view through her HUD was suddenly eclipsed by the battered moonlet of the
Shadow in the Void
, its wounds still bleeding atmosphere and debris.  Beams stabbed out from that enigmatic vessel, annihilating the elusive drive inhibitor device.  Not a second too soon.

‘Missile warning, six warheads!’ Singh exclaimed.

‘Jump!’ yelled Chen.

The
Churchill
and the
Shadow in the Void
vanished into hyperspace. Their exit was marked a split second later by a searing explosion as six warheads detonated at the exact spot where the two warships had hung a moment ago.

Chen sat back in her chair, and suddenly realised that she was drenched in sweat.  That had been far too close.  McManus exhaled at length, as though he had been holding his breath.

‘I thought that was it,’ he said.  ‘I take back what I said about the Nahabe.  We’d all have been wearing coffins if it wasn’t for them hauling our arses out of the fire.  Bloody brave, those chaps.  I’d tell you to remind me to buy that Lord Protector a drink, except that they don’t indulge.’ He added darkly.  ‘Assuming they made it, of course.’

‘Well done everyone,’ said Chen to the bridge in general.  ‘You did me proud, as always.  Commander, in my office.  Mr Singh, you have the bridge.’

Chen sank heavily into her chair and, resting her elbows on the top of her desk, massaged tired eyes that had been staring almost unblinking at combat information the entire time that they had been in the Matsu system.

‘I fucked up.  We should never have jumped into that asteroid belt.  The crew of the
Dulles
paid the price for that.  Stupid fucking rookie mistake,’ said Chen bitterly.

‘If we made a mistake, it was to trust the Nahabes’ readings too much,’ said McManus.  ‘They showed that field as clear.  Jumping in to hide your exact position in the sensor clutter of the rocks was a sound tactic based on the information that we had.  You were trying to make this look like a cautious rescue mission, like you were trying to find somewhere to lurk and observe.  Doing something like that is a standard tactic, based on standard sensor technology, until now.’