Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (72 page)

‘How long until it’s working?’ said Gunderson, gazing at the man levelly.

‘All being well, sir, I’d say two hours for the work.  We’ve almost finished fitting the new components, but we’ll need to calibrate the array afterwards. Our experience on the arrays in the Solar System were that it took about an hour, though I’d expect a little longer with this older equipment. However, you’re just in time for the first power on, before we go ahead with the modifications.’

‘Very well.  Let’s see what we can see.’

As Rollins and his team got to work with the final checks, other technicians began to drift into the control room in handfuls and report back to him.  Soon, the room was half full of people, conferring in groups or studying equipment or simply waiting expectantly for the array to be tested.  Eventually, the display that filled one wall began to come alive with test messages and then finally, as the array was brought up to full power, a series of status reports from the various components that comprised the complex hyperspace monitoring array.

Gunderson watched.  The messages on screen meant little to him, but he could tell from the mood of the technicians that things seemed to be going well.  There was a faint thrumming now, that he felt through the floor and walls rather than heard, as the long dormant systems came to life.  After a few moments, the messages on the display vanished to be replaced by a map of the Santiago system.  There was a pregnant pause, and then icons denoting the ships in orbit began to wink into existence.  There was a murmur of satisfaction and relief from the assembled technicians.  As the array’s power built steadily, it reached further out into space, and the view on the screen zoomed out accordingly until other systems were visible, and until the Santiago system was a simply a single dot amidst dozens of others.

Eventually, after about five minutes, the array had reached full power, reaching out into hyperspace for a hundred light years in all directions.  As Gunderson watched, the display began to be peppered with icons denoting the presence of ships, first dozens, then hundreds and then thousands of vessels.  The array began to scrutinise them, interpreting their engine signatures to provide an estimate of their speed, heading and class.  Those on the move provided the clearest traces, their engines working at full power broadcasting their presence with clarity, whilst those whose engines were idle and ticking over were more difficult to detect.

Gunderson began to see patterns in the traffic.  In Commonwealth held space, traffic was moving along the established lanes, but of course no civilian vessels that he could see were passing into the zone now claimed by the Freedom Alliance.  Within enemy space, however, it was clear that civilian traffic had been drastically reduced.  A few lone traces moved here and there, but the bulk of traffic was composed of military vessels or civilian freighters with naval escorts.  The pattern of traffic had changed too.  Where one would expect to see ships moving along the haphazard web of routes between the principal systems, all of the ships appeared to be following routes that converged in the Achernar system.  There were already a large number of former Commonwealth Navy vessels there.  Gunderson ordered Rollins to focus the display on that particular system.  As Achernar grew ever larger on the screen, it became clear that most of the vessels were clustered around the moons of the sixth planet that formed the economic heart of the system, and there was something in orbit around the moon of Orinoco, massive but indistinct, that the array was unable to identify, but which was putting out energy spikes that reverberated through hyperspace.

‘Mr Rollins,’ said Gunderson, his gaze never leaving the screen.  ‘Patch this data through to the
Churchill
. Admiral Chen needs to see this.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And hurry up with those modifications.  We need to see whatever the hell the Shapers have in store for us.’

Shale’s APC, along with two others, had pulled over at the head of the refugee convoy where the two recon gunships sat on the highway’s asphalt surface.  The convoy was moving south again, the queue of vehicles stretching off into the distance in both directions, head and tail lights blazing against the darkness. Shale’s men were now shepherding vehicles onto the one carriageway, to prevent an almighty head on collision with the armoured units moving in the opposite direction and which were now being likewise diverted onto the side of the road where they could pass by the civilian vehicles.

Shale stepped out of his vehicle, flanked by a squad of troopers, into a night filled with the whine and roar of hundreds of engines, as his own units passed by metres away and the civilian convoy shuffled forwards.  The civilians’ vehicles were entirely wheeled types - family cars, trucks, buses and so on.  All were packed with frightened looking people and their belongings. A number of the vehicles were pock marked with bullet holes and scorch marks from energy weapons and fearful faces peered from the windows as they passed. 

On the tarmac in front of the gunships stood a small huddle of people, guarded by the rangers who had arrived in the gunships and four men in flight gear clutching side-arms.  One, wearing a captain’s insignia, stepped forward and saluted Shale.

‘Captain Irving, sir.’

‘At ease, Captain.  What do you have for me?’

‘Sir, this is Estelle Marchand, mayor of San Domingo and her aides.  She was travelling near the head of the convoy and made herself known to us.  She should be able to fill you in on the situation in the city.’

‘I see,’ replied Shale.

‘They’re clean, sir,’ said Irving, detecting the note of caution in the General’s voice.  ‘Sergeant Liu’s men scanned each of them twice to make sure,’ he said nodding towards the groups of rangers then added. ‘These civilians are human enough.’

‘Okay.  Good work, Captain.  Let’s see what they have to say,’ said Shale and, flanked by his men, stepped forward towards Marchand.

‘General Shale, Third Army Group.  I’m hoping you can fill me in on precisely what is going on in San Domingo.  We’re preparing to secure the city.  Anything you can tell us may be useful.’

Mayor Marchand, a middle aged woman dressed in a rumpled trouser suit and wearing a tired expression, eyed him warily.

‘Third Army Group?  Who are you taking your orders from, General?’

‘From Earth - from President Sorenson our Commander in Chief.’

‘It’s so hard to tell which side everyone is on.  I’m afraid the Governor has sided with Admiral Morgan, President Morgan, I should say.  This system is now a member of the Freedom Alliance.  We have been under attack for the last day.  By whom, it is difficult to tell.  The Governor has been claiming that we are being assaulted by forces loyal to Earth, not that I’ve able to see him for some weeks, but the things that have been happening over the last day or two...  I don’t think that they’re the work of the Commonwealth.’

‘Ma’am, we are assaulting this world, but to liberate it and secure it against the enemy.  From the start, we have endeavoured to avoid civilian casualties.’

‘And who is the enemy, General?  To me, they look like your own men.’

‘This is, regrettably, the case.  Admiral Morgan is a traitor.  Those who act under his command do so misguidedly, or because they are the host bodies for alien parasites.  Either way, we will show them no mercy.’

‘This is all a little...’

‘Perhaps if you tell me what happened here, from the top.’

Marchand exhaled wearily.

‘What can I say?  Santiago is a pretty quiet system, most of the time.  Once we were a frontier system, and now the frontier has moved on.  We make our money growing crops for export, and the Army pays substantial sums to the planetary government in compensation for letting them use much of the south for training grounds.  Bar the odd training exercise, nothing much has happened here for years, then Admiral Morgan announced that he was setting up an alternative government in Achernar, and our planetary assembly voted to side with him.’

‘The people weren’t consulted?’

‘No.  Not even I got to hear about it until after the fact by watching the news, like everyone else.  Since then, none of the local politicians aside from those in local councils have been seen in public and suddenly Governor Escobar goes and declares a state of emergency and our streets are awash with troops.’

‘What troops?’

‘The ones that had been shipped here for a training exercise that same week.  Then, suddenly, there were naval vessels in the system and all traffic with the rest of the galaxy was cut off.  Those that attempted to run the blockade were shot out of the sky and declared to be escaping Commonwealth agents.  Some people on San Pedro station said that they’d seen other ships, alien ships in the space around the planet too, until everything went quiet.  We haven’t heard from the orbital for over a week now. All comms are down.  Anyway, we continued in a state of lockdown with little happening until a few days ago, when all hell broke loose.’

‘So what changed?’

‘I’m guessing that your impending arrival must have been the catalyst.  I’d been trying to get some sort of explanation for the situation from the planetary government and from the Army commanders on the planet and no-one was replying and then they started snatching people.’

‘Snatching people?’ queried Shale.

‘Yes.  There’d been some arrests following our declaration for the Freedom Alliance.  Enemy spies, we were told, but there was a steady stream of arrests in the days that followed.  It seemed that anyone who spoke out against the government or who asked awkward questions was being silenced.  I quickly learnt to keep my mouth shut.  Then they started rounding people up en masse.  Army units would block off a whole district of a city, or a whole town or village, and start loading people into trucks or trains at gun point.  Any who resisted were shot.  We first heard about it happening in the more outlying communities, and then they moved on to larger towns and then the capital.  That’s when the panic started.’

‘What explanation was given?’

‘None whatsoever.  People were taken away and never seen again, except...’

‘Except what?’ said Shale, prompting her.

‘Except that they
were
seen again, some of them... but they weren’t... they weren’t the same people.  Something else was looking out through their eyes, and they didn’t recognise or even react to those who had known them.  We even heard reports later on of people being rounded up by civilian mobs, not Army troopers, dragged away by people who had been their neighbours.  People tried to resist but... Then you arrived.  We saw the battle in orbit and thought that maybe someone was coming to rescue us.  That was when I gave the announcement to flee into the countryside and head south to where you were landing and maybe we could save some people from what was happening.  Those that tried to flee in AG vehicles were shot down like flies by Army air units.  Those of us in ground vehicles have been attacked from the air, but we stood more of a chance since at least we could abandon our vehicles and run into cover if attacked. Truth is, I still don’t understand any of it myself,’ she said and shook her head sadly adding, incredulously:  ‘Alien parasites, you say?’

‘Yes ma’am.  We are currently at war with an alien race known as the Shapers, who operate by using the bodies of others as hosts for their vile creatures.  Morgan has sided with them.  Many others in the military have been enslaved by them.  By the sound of things, your fellow citizens have also fallen victim to them.  I need to know how bad it is.  How many people are still alive in the city?’

‘Honestly?  I don’t know.  It’s possible that some people may still be holed up there.  But I wouldn’t hold out much hope, General.  My advice?  You want to flatten the city from orbit with everything you have.’

Chen digested the information she was being fed.  The results of the array’s initial scan were displayed in her vision via her HUD monocle.  She zoomed the graphical representation of the systems south of their position in and out, rotated it, examined the extrapolated trajectories of the ships that had been detected and tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

It made no sense.  The Shapers appeared to be abandoning systems and consolidating their forces around Achernar, as a mass of freighters and their warship escorts converged on the system.  Of course, this observation was based purely on the movements of former Commonwealth vessels now enslaved by the enemy.  The Shaper vessels themselves were currently invisible to the array and would be until the modifications to it were complete.  All but one.  Chen focused on the massive object in orbit around the moon of Orinoco in the Achernar system.  It had to be the gigantic vessel that the Nahabe had warned them about.  Nothing else that she could think of could conceivably generate such a return. 

Perhaps it was all a ruse?  Perhaps the Shapers were pulling their enslaved ships back, safe in the knowledge that the Commonwealth would be able to see them, thus creating an invitation to attack apparently undefended systems?  Chen was willing to bet that within those systems would be lurking Shaper craft waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting human ships.  In time, she would be able to see what the bastards were up to.  Right now though, she needed to see what they could be plotting closer to hand.

‘How reliable is the Mayor’s testimony, General?’ said Chen.  ‘Are we to assume that San Domingo is beyond saving?’

‘She’s pretty adamant that that is the case, Admiral,’ said Shale, over the comm. channel from his APC.  ‘She’s now urged me twice to destroy the city and anything in it.  Given that she used to run the place and lived there most of her life,  I’d say that was a pretty firm endorsement of the idea of us levelling the place.’

‘We can’t destroy a city on the testament of one woman, Admiral,’ said McManus, obviously alarmed.

‘I realise that, Commander,’ said Chen.  ‘Which is why I don’t intend to do it unless we’re sure.  Nevertheless, I do have the
Themistocles
standing by on station above the city.’