Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (98 page)

              ‘Unlucky bastards,’ said McManus grimly and shook his head.

              ‘We can’t continue to take losses like that,’ said Chen, aghast at the loss of five vessels only minutes into the engagement.  ‘Or this thing will be over before we’ve even started.’

              ‘Admiral, a second enemy fleet of around two hundred craft has broken away from the main group and is headed this way,’ said Singh.

              ‘They’ve taken the bait,’ said Chen.  ‘The more ships we can peel off from the main group, the greater chance Cartwright has of getting through.’

              ‘And the more chance we have of getting killed.  They’re trying to trap us between the two fleets,’ McManus commented.

              ‘Time until Cartwright’s fleet emerges from hyperspace?’ said Chen.

              ‘Five minutes, ma’am,’ Singh replied.  ‘Enemy craft in the main group have taken up defensive positions relative to his approach vector.  The first group of enemy ships that attacked us is coming about.  Looks like they’re preparing to jump towards our position.’

              ‘Helm, how long until we can jump?’ said Chen.

              ‘Energy reserves are depleted, Admiral,’ said Goldstein. ‘That second jump so quickly after we arrived used up everything including the reserves.  It’ll be just over three minutes until we can jump again.  The older carriers will take even longer.’

              ‘Both of those fleets will be here by then,’ said McManus.  ‘We’ll be sitting ducks and outnumbered four to one.  It’s about time those Nahabe stopped skulking around the system and joined in.’

              ‘Yes, I know.  All ships, this is Chen, every carrier is to launch all fighters and bombers.  Clear the flight decks.  Have them rendezvous five hundred kilometres above our position, relative.  They are to attack enemy ships as they emerge from hyperspace, but leave the Shaper vessels to the warships.  Meanwhile, all ships are to tighten their formations.  We can’t afford to let Shaper craft in between our ships again, after what happened in the Santiago system.’

              ‘Circle the wagons, eh?  Good idea,’ said McManus.

              ‘In addition, all ships are to go into full reverse thrust.  It will lengthen the time that it takes the enemy to close with us once they have emerged from their jump.  It won’t buy us much time, but anything is to our advantage.’

              McManus began to relay her orders to the flight deck.  Deep in the bowels of the ship, the crews of the
Churchill’s
squadrons, already suited up, rushed to their waiting and fully armed craft, already in position to be moved onto the vessel’s launch catapults.  It was a scene repeated within every other carrier in the group.  As the nimble craft started to launch in pairs from the bows of the ship, Singh again noticed something on his instruments.

              ‘Admiral, some good news:  The Order of Void Hunters has de-cloaked and is attacking the first group of ships.’

              The comm. crackled.  ‘This is The Lord Protector of the Order of Void Hunters. 
Churchill
, we are engaging the Shapers.  Death to the enemy!’

              Chen called up a view from the ship’s cameras in her HUD.  Sure enough, the spherical shapes of the Nahabe craft could be seen sweeping past the first group of enemy ships at great speed, concentrating their fire on particular ships as they rushed past in what looked like a hit-and-run attack.  Half a dozen of the mismatched enslaved vessels succumbed to the withering streams of energy and were torn apart in moments, as were three Shaper craft, but it was not without a price.  The sheer weight of fire thrown back at the small group of Nahabe craft was overwhelming, collapsing their heavy shielding and tearing chunks of ablative armour from their massive hulls.  One vessel succumbed.  The
Silent Moon
was torn apart in a fountain of energy that cracked it open like an egg. 

The Shaper vessels reached out with their drive inhibitor fields, seeking to snare the Nahabe craft in their grasp.  The Nahabe ships deployed countermeasures, freeing themselves from the trap and jumping away, engaging their stealth systems to hide from view, although the Shapers were still able to detect vague traces of their presence in the vicinity and began to search for their elusive attackers, who by now were preparing for another run.

‘That’s bought us some time,’ said Singh.  ‘We only have to face one group for the moment.’

‘They still outnumber us two to one,’ said McManus, keeping his voice low as he spoke to Chen.  ‘I’m all in favour of the Nahabe helping out, but what about those cryptic messages they sent about aiding us further?  Actual details would have been nice about when they plan to show up.’

‘It’s not their way,’ Chen replied.  ‘Besides, perhaps it helps to maintain the element of surprise.  What if someone found out and alerted the Shapers?’

‘Well they’d better turn up bloody soon, is all I’m saying.’

‘Enemy ships are now ten thousand kilometres away and closing!’ cried Singh.

‘All ships, prepare to fire!’ ordered Chen.  ‘Same drill as before, target the Shaper vessels as a priority.  Fighters and bombers, prepare to strike at the other vessels.  Get inside their shields and do as much damage as you can!  Good luck everyone.’

Just over fifty Shaper destroyers led a force of around one hundred and fifty assorted enslaved vessels of dozens of different types.  Again, the Shaper craft were in the vanguard with the less sophisticated vessels trailing behind them.  They emerged from hyperspace in perfect synchronisation, a vast wall of ships that was now bearing down on the Commonwealth fleet, half its size.  Chen watched them rush closer, saw the numbers next to the targeting icons in her HUD count down.  Her fighter and bomber squadrons dove towards the rear of the pack, hundreds of tiny specks descending towards the lumbering vessels, heading towards their vulnerable engines with torpedoes primed and ready to fire.  The enemy ships were almost in range, their weapons charged and already targeting the Commonwealth ships.  Chen held her breath and then gave the order to her ships to fire everything they had at the approaching enemy.

The concealed hangar doors opened and the
Profit Margin
taxied out into the sunlight, the
Unholy Matrimony
exiting behind it.  The two craft were now heavily laden with Hidden Hand and Navy personnel and their equipment, plus the anti-matter tipped missile now clipped to the all purpose hard point on the
Profit Margin’s
belly.  Isaacs mentally adjusted for the difference in weight, and then eased the craft into the sky on its AG motors before hitting the main engines and powering the craft into the air.  .

‘We need to set that thing to detonate about two hundred kilometres above the city,’ said Steven, leaning over from the co-pilot’s seat.  ‘Any lower and the blast will flatten the city and also the EMP effects won’t travel as far.’

‘Sure,’ said Isaacs, entering targeting information into the ship’s weapons systems.  ‘What about us, won’t the
Profit Margin
take a hit?  If it can take down the Shapers...’

‘Launch the weapon from over a thousand kilometres away and we should be okay.  Just keep the shields up.’

Isaacs kept the ship low, hugging the treetops to avoid detection with the
Unholy Matrimony
following closely behind.  The jungle rushed by below as he wound the craft between steep-sided, heavily forested hills swathed in strands of morning mist that had yet to burn off with the heat of the day.

‘What if the Shapers spot it and shoot it down?’ said Isaacs.

‘The weapon will still detonate,’ said Steven.  ‘As soon as the containment fields inside the weapon are breached the anti-matter will come into contact with matter and annihilate itself.  If it’s close enough, it will still do the job.’

‘Good job,’ said Isaacs.  ‘We’ve only got one of them ready to fire.’

The Commonwealth ships unleashed their barrage of fire from their spatial distortion cannons, and ships died.  The Shaper ships leading the attack again took the worst of it.  Chen’s crews were getting better at aiming and firing the new weapons, and all of the shots from the carriers landed on target, ripping apart six enemy destroyers and crippling a seventh.  The combined fire from the Commonwealth destroyers took down three more ships and badly damaged two more as the fighter and bomber squadrons now descended upon the rear of the enemy group like a swarm of angry hornets pouncing upon a slow moving herd.  The small craft dodged and wove through the barrage of defensive fire that erupted from the aft sections of the enemy vessels and which took down many of their number with weapons both familiar and strange.  They ran the gauntlet of criss-crossing beam fire, arcing energies and explosive flak barrages and more. Some fell prey to the enemy defences and spiralled out of control to smash into the enemy vessels, or they exploded in an instant and deposited their pilots into the freezing vacuum.

Charging through the enemy shields, the remaining ships swept in close to the skins of the enemy craft and unleashed a hail of torpedoes into them, targeting engines or other strong energy signals that belied the presence of reactors or capacitors within their unfamiliar hulls, before moving on to strafe turrets and other likely looking targets and then peeling away, desperately jinking to avoid the fire that tracked them, plucking more of their number from the skies.  Those that survived the initial attack run rejoiced to see a handful of the strange enemy craft explode violently as engines detonated and containment fields were breached by the hail of warheads, whilst explosions rippled across the surfaces of several more craft as turrets and sensor blisters were amputated by the weapons of the small, speeding ships.  The Commonwealth pilots steeled themselves, and brought their craft around for a second run against the rear of the enemy fleet.

Nevertheless, despite the effective fire of the Commonwealth warships and squadrons, the enemy losses were but a tiny fraction of their massive fleet.  Out of around two hundred vessels, over one hundred and eighty remained, and now the Shapers returned fire.  The
Plataea
was the first to die.  Twenty Shaper destroyers concentrated their fire against the carrier and its escorts, collapsing their shields in moments and shredding the
Plataea’s
upper decks, ripping the bridge section apart, leaving the carrier bereft of its command staff and out of control, even as energy beams bore down into its innards and broke the back of the vessel.  Three of its escorting destroyers met similar fates.  The
Jean Barte
blew apart entirely as its reactor core went critical, whilst the forward section of the
Milvian Bridge
separated from the vessel’s superstructure.  The
Henry VIII
took a battering which overloaded its shields and collapsed them catastrophically, leaving the ship defenceless, and it was torn apart by the enemy. It finally exploded in a ball of fire that disabled the cruiser
Vimy Ridge
, as the vessel took the brunt of the blast on its starboard flank.

Another volley of spatial distortion fire from the Commonwealth ships smashed three of the destroyers that had taken down the
Plataea
and damaged two more vessels as the enemy fleet rapidly closed the distance.  The Commonwealth ships now unleashed every possible weapon at the attacking Shaper vessels, a near futile gesture except where the Shaper vessels’ shields had collapsed.  Beams of energy stabbed out against the darkness, impacting against shields and crystalline hulls.  Two more Shaper craft were heavily damaged this way, but their comrades returned fire, taking down two destroyers and a cruiser from the
Leonides’
group and badly mangling the bow section of the carrier.

‘We can’t repel this kind of firepower,’ said Chen.  ‘Helm, how long until the jump engines are available for use?’

‘Our jump engines are ready to go, but the Jupiter class carriers are unable to jump yet, Admiral, and the Shapers are already deploying inhibitor fields.  We’re stuck here until they release us,’ Singh replied, despondently

‘Which will be never, unless we force them,’ said Chen.  ‘All ships, redouble your efforts to take down those Shaper craft.  Helm, lay in jump co-ordinates to take us out of here, five million kilometres towards the centre of the system and relay to all ships.’

‘We can’t keep running forever,’ said McManus.  ‘Where are those damn Nahabe?’

‘Admiral, this is Captain Diaz of the
Leonides
. We won’t last long against this.  We have lost all forward shields and a number of systems are failing us.  Our jump engines will be ready in sixty seconds.  You have to get us out of here!’ Diaz sounded desperate.  The shrilling of alarms could be heard in the background as he spoke.

‘Acknowledge, Captain.  We’re working on it,’ Chen replied firmly.

‘What the hell do we do about those inhibitor fields?’ said McManus.  ‘The Nahabe can escape them, why can’t we?’

Enemy fire began to assault the
Churchill’s
group, depleting the carrier’s forward shielding even as it fired back at the attacking ships which by now were only tens of kilometres distant and closing.  The destroyer
Salamis
went down in a hail of fire, the explosion from its death throes washing across the carrier’s upper shields and scattering chunks of debris that collided with nearby vessels.  More vessels at the rear of the enemy group were succumbing to the Commonwealth squadrons, but the numbers of fighters and bombers were now depleted by a third and some of the enslaved craft had deployed their own squadrons of fighter sized craft to counter the Commonwealth pilots.

Space between the two fleets was shrinking rapidly, and was criss-crossed by a fire storm of weapons discharges that licked and tore at vessels on both sides.  Chen’s forces were making a brave stand against the enemy, but they were losing.

Holding the
Profit Margin
steady in the jungle swathed canyon, Isaacs double checked the targeting data he had entered into the ship’s system and, taking a deep breath, squeezed the trigger that would release the anti-matter missile. There was a thud of release, then a roar, and he saw the weapon streak upwards into the sky on its compact fusion engine, which mercifully left no contrail behind it.  The missile rapidly vanished from view, accelerating through the mach numbers as it climbed.