The interior of the Sciontrar was not silent. Blake was attuned to spaceships, wherever and by whomever they were built. He sensed the underlying thrum of the battleship’s immense gravity drive and when he touched the walls, he could feel the vibration and imagine the desire of the engines to be unleashed, to test themselves against the Sciontrar’s extraordinary inertia.
It wasn’t only the engines Blake heard. There were other sounds – he noticed a series of booming thumps, coming from above and below. It was the sound of heavy-duty mechanical reloading arms pushing missiles into their launch tubes in preparation for firing. The Ghasts had diverted to pick up the people from the stricken ES Abyss, but it hadn’t stopped them keeping up their bombardment of the Gate Maker.
Blake was on the verge of guessing at a direction, when he heard heavy footsteps coming from the right. He headed towards the sound and stopped short when an armed patrol of Ghasts emerged from a side passage. In the flesh, they were bigger and broader than he imagined they’d be. Blake wasn’t a short man, but against the Ghasts he felt distinctly under-sized. The aliens wore uniforms of pale blue, which covered their grey skin everywhere apart from their heads. Each member of the patrol had thick, black hair and their faces, while human in many respects, were an equal part alien.
“Captain Blake?” asked the lead Ghast, his voice scratching out through an interpretation module fixed to his shoulder. This one was pushing eight feet tall and held a mean-looking repeater in one hand. There was no threat in his manner, only curiosity. Out of politeness, Blake lifted his visor and positioned it on top of his head.
“Yes. Your Tarjos invited me to the bridge.”
The Ghast grinned, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. “We will take you there.”
Blake’s escort took him through the Sciontrar at a fast walk. The journey wasn’t far and Blake guessed that the central docking bay was intentionally placed to allow easier access for the crew. On the way, they passed a number of other Ghasts wearing uniforms of different colours. Some carried devices which may have been analytical tools. Not one of them talked or offered a greeting.
The group of seven went upwards in an airlift. The Ghasts remained silent, though there was no attempt to intimidate their guest. Afterwards, they passed through a small room and entered a short corridor which ended at a wide flight of steps. These steps were difficult for Blake to ascend - the height of the risers didn’t help, but in reality, he knew his reserves of strength were failing. There was a door at the top, made of a featureless grey alloy which gave every impression it was five metres thick. With barely a pause, it whisked open, revealing that it was, in fact, closer to nine metres thick. The Ghasts evidently didn’t like the idea of having anyone break in, and, given the capabilities of the Oblivion class battleships, it seemed wise that they didn’t take any chances.
Blake took in the sights – the Sciontrar’s bridge was relatively compact when taken against the overall size of the vessel. It was a rectangular room, twenty metres along its longest wall and fifteen along the other two. The blue light was more subdued here and it blended with the pastel colours of text and images upon the many operator consoles arranged evenly around the plain metal floor. Blake estimated there to be twenty-five Ghasts in here, each of them staring intently at a screen or panel. They spoke little and the loudest sound was a humming which had no visible source and which reminded Blake of air conditioning or cooling fans.
Only one of the Ghasts was standing. This one had a uniform of a deeper blue with no other adornment and had his back to the door. The alien turned at the sound of arrival and strode amongst the banks of consoles towards Blake.
“Captain Charles Blake. I am Tarjos Nil-Tras of the Sciontrar.”
The Ghast was seven-and-a-half feet tall and broader than most of his fellows. Like the others, his musculature was natural, rather than honed in the gym. He waited for a response.
Blake didn’t know if he was expected to say something in particular or make a specific gesture of greeting.
“An impressive spaceship,” he said, trying out the compliments route.
“It is,” said Nil-Tras.
“What of the Kalon-T7?”
“It did not survive the encounter with Ix-Gorghal.”
“I am sorry.”
“They did what was necessary.”
“How did you get here?”
Nil-Tras’s eyes glittered with internal conflict. “The same way you managed. Our projection was less accurate than yours and we have been on a fruitless hunt through a series of nearby solar systems.”
“How did you know to come to the Helius Blackstar?”
“A signal from one of your old monitoring drones reached your Fleet Admiral and from there to my Subjos. I was glad to hear you made it so far.”
“I hope the Vraxar despise our persistence.”
Nil-Tras gave a short bow of his head to signify agreement. “Come.”
With that, the Ghast returned to the front of the bridge and stood directly before a bank of many screens. Blake caught up and his eyes jumped from screen to screen. Each display showed a feed from one of the battleship’s sensor arrays, most of which were capturing the bleak emptiness of space. The largest screen showed something else.
The Gate Maker was visible in the centre of the display. The discharges of blue had vanished entirely, and the greens had become so dark it was difficult to distinguish them from the background. Still they fired, their span and frequency noticeably stronger than the last time he’d seen them. Blake felt as if he was watching a million different limbs pushing and tearing at the fabric of space and in a way, he knew that was what the Vraxar were doing.
“The Gate Maker vessel appears to have bottomless wells of power with which to repel our attacks,” said Nil-Tras. “We are running low on ammunition and not one of our missile waves has penetrated its countermeasures. Our Vule cannons are not affected, but they cannot fire for extended periods.”
“How long until you can fire the anti-shield incendiaries?”
“We call it the Particle Disruptor,” laughed Nil-Tras. “A dramatic name for a weapon which requires in excess of thirty minutes to recharge.”
“How long until it’s ready?”
“You were just in time. Look over there.”
Nil-Tras raised an arm and pointed at a console to one side, which had three Ghasts seated in front of it. Blake wasn’t practised in the alien language and he was unable to decipher the symbols covering most of the screens. The most important part didn’t require an understanding of the speech. He saw a graph with a long Y-axis, against which a thick green bar was making steady upwards progress.
One of the Ghast crew spoke urgently and Nil-Tras responded in the alien speech. Blake detached the earpiece from his visor and pushed it into his ear in time for it to interpret the rest of the conversation.
“As I told you, the enemy vessel’s power discharge has stopped its rate of increase, Tarjos,” said the Ghast.
“How long until it is finished?” Nil-Tras responded.
“I think it is already finished.”
“Then we are too late?”
“Fifteen seconds until we can fire the Particle Disruptor,” said another Ghast.
Blake found he couldn’t take his eyes away from the gauge. At the same time, he detected a high-pitched whine which passed the threshold into audibility and rose in time with the power meter of the disruptor weapon.
Another of the Ghasts joined the conversation, his voice emotionless in spite of the significance in his words. “There is a new area of ultra-high gravity, centred upon the Vraxar spaceship. It is increasing exponentially.”
“[Translation uncertainty: Shit or Crap] we can’t allow them to complete their mission,” said Nil-Tras. “Disengage our energy shield and activate lightspeed transit towards the enemy. We will ram their shields at our highest speed.”
“It is too late, Tarjos,” said another of the Ghast crew. “The new gravity
will crush us immediately.”
“If that’s what it takes,” snarled Nil-Tras.
“The Particle Disruptor represents our greatest hope, Tarjos. We cannot fire it if we are crushed.”
“Five seconds remaining.”
“In that case, we wait.”
In those last few seconds, the whining abruptly turned into a howl of incredible anger. The bridge of the Sciontrar shuddered and Blake fought for balance. He wasn’t sure if any of the crew announced the weapon’s discharge. They didn’t need to – the Particle Disruptor emitted a low bass thump which ground remorselessly through his body. Everything went quiet, leaving Blake’s head pounding.
The main screen showed the result. The Particle Disruptor’s beam lanced through the green-black sparks and struck the Gate Maker’s energy shield. Moments later, the Vraxar ship was held within the ferocious plasma fires which spread rapidly from the centre. Blake found himself willing the Ghasts on, hoping their weapon would be as effective as it was before.
“I had concerns,” said Nil-Tras, sounding anything but worried.
“About what?” asked Blake.
“I wondered if those emissions of energy jumping from the enemy ship would interfere with our Particle Disruptor.”
“No sign it happened.”
“Their shields have yet to fall.” Nil-Tras switched to giving orders. “Resume missile bombardment.”
“The gravity is too much – they will be disabled before impact.”
“Resume.”
“Acknowledged.”
“What are the readings from the enemy vessel?”
“There are no fluctuations, Tarjos.”
“We may lack the required capability to complete this task.”
“The Vraxar spaceship has destroyed our missile wave before the gravity could do so. The Sciontrar’s ammunition stocks are below twenty percent.”
“Keep firing.”
The plasma surrounding the Gate Maker began to dwindle, its brightness reducing and becoming patchy in places. Blake ground his teeth together, producing a scraping sound he could hear clearly in his head.
“The new wormhole is stabilising with a diameter of twelve hundred kilometres,” said one of the Ghasts.
“First power fluctuations detected in the enemy vessel,” said another, with no more emotion than if he’d been reading from a shopping list.
Blake was unable to keep quiet. “It’s working!”
“What about their energy shield?” asked Nil-Tras.
“It is failing.”
“The enemy countermeasures have destroyed our second and third missile waves.”
“They’re not helpless yet,” growled Nil-Tras.
“The wormhole is no longer stable. It is fraying at the outer edges and its diameter is reducing. Now eleven hundred kilometres across.”
The fourth wave of Ghast missiles crashed into the Gate Maker’s shield. Many of the warheads were destroyed by the gravity so close to the centre, but more than two hundred warheads detonated against the Vraxar shield, creating a subdued cloud of heat and energy. Blake had seen the explosive force of the latest Ghast Shatterers and he could only imagine the reserves of the Gate Maker if it was able to maintain its shield through everything being thrown against it.
“The enemy shield is gone.”
“Excellent,” said Nil-Tras.
“The wormhole is collapsing, Tarjos. Our missiles should be more effective.”
It was the beginning of the end for the Gate Maker. The bolts it spat out with such raw energy seemed to shrink inwards, becoming brighter and greener as they did so. Without an energy shield to stop them, the fifth wave of Ghast missiles plunged into the armour plating of the Vraxar ship. Even lacking an energy shield, the Gate Maker was enormous and the detonations only extended over a fraction of its surface.
The Sciontrar may have been low on ammunition, but it still carried thousands of warheads. Nil-Tras ordered them launched in tight waves of three hundred, with the high-yield Shatterers in between. Waves six and seven caused extensive damage and the Ghast sensors were able to filter out the plasma light in order to show the patchwork of deep craters beneath.
“They don’t seem interested in escape,” said Blake.
Nil-Tras’s expression gave the first discernible indication of concern. “No, they don’t. They are doing everything they can to maintain the new wormhole, even though it means the destruction of their spaceship.”
The eighth wave of missiles reached its target. Blake already knew the Gate Maker was designed with defence in mind and he saw how tough it was with or without its shield. The vessel’s hull was a pocked mess of burning metal and some of the craters were hundreds of metres deep. It seemed impossible it would hold out for much longer.
Blake guessed the reason behind their stubbornness and he didn’t like it. “They want to hold the wormhole open long enough for their fleet to come through.”
“It’s crumbling,” said one of the Ghast crew. “They don’t have time to bring many others.”
The words triggered something in Blake and he felt his body pump a vast quantity of adrenaline into his veins. “Maybe they only want one ship to get through.”
“One ship?” said Nil-Tras. “That is an outcome I will settle for.”
“Not if it’s what I’m thinking it is,” said Blake, with growing alarm.
“The Vraxar ship is on the verge of destruction. Soon the wormhole will collapse entirely.”
“A fission cloud has appeared at the wormhole and there is a trail of positrons, Tarjos. Something came through.”
“Where is it?”
“First estimations suggest it was ejected many millions of kilometres beyond.”
Blake was aware of the principles – to get through a wormhole, you got as close as you dared, launched into a lightspeed jump aimed directly at the centre and then, when you’d come out the other end, activated a second lightspeed transit to escape the gravity of the wormhole. The Vraxar had got something through and it would likely emerge from lightspeed somewhere in the vicinity.
“The Gate Maker is shutting down, Tarjos. I suggest we cease fire and conserve our ammunition.”
“Not until that wormhole is gone.”
Blake took little satisfaction watching the final throes of the Vraxar spaceship. It remained in the same spot, no longer a perfect sphere, with chunks of it beginning to separate. With its structural integrity gone and its power source depleted, the weight of the still-collapsing wormhole pressed down upon it. The Gate Maker was enormously dense and it resisted the tremendous forces.
It ended with little drama – the wormhole collapsed into nothingness, leaving the ruined Gate Maker behind as a record of events.
“Is it a threat?” asked Nil-Tras.
“I do not believe it is, Tarjos. Its power source has failed and there are many breaches through its external plating.”
“Leave it, then. We will give our scientists the opportunity to study what remains.”
“What came through?” asked Blake.
“We do not know. We captured details of its fission cloud, though its proximity to the wormhole will make it difficult to interpret the data.”
“There is an approaching vessel, Tarjos. It is attempting to suppress its inbound signature.”
Blake knew what was coming. “Ix-Gorghal! We need to get away from here.”
The Ghasts were a practical race. They didn’t waste time looking startled or blurting out useless questions. One of their navigational team, who was sitting within two metres of Blake, simply reached out and pressed an indentation on his console. The Sciontrar entered lightspeed, a fact Blake only recognized through years of experience.
“They will follow us, Tarjos Nil-Tras.”
The Ghast seemed entirely unfazed by the notion. “We will deal with that when the necessity arises. Come with me, it is time to eat.”
Nil-Tras’s response was not quite what Blake was expecting. Neverthel
ess, he went along with it and followed the Ghast captain to an alien replicator. A minute later, he found himself holding a huge plate covered in several different-coloured pastes, all of which smelled like mushrooms. This abrupt change of pace couldn’t dispel the unease he felt about what exactly it was the Vraxar sent through the wormhole.
With the encouragement of his host, Blake sampled the contents of his tray and discovered they tasted exactly like they smelled.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The room was dark enough to reflect the mood of its occupant. Fleet Admiral Duggan remained in contemplation for some considerable time – long enough for Cerys to surreptitiously scan his life signs for anything of concern.
Eventually, Duggan reached forward and pressed the switch on an old-fashioned lamp which his wife had given him years ago. He preferred modern furnishings yet didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her he hated it, nor could he bring himself to drop it repeatedly onto the floor until it broke.
The lamp had a low-power bulb which failed to illuminate the entirety of his office and created deep pools of gloom in the corners. His eyes were as sharp as ever – a blessing he never overlooked – but he didn’t wish to risk damaging them by working in such poorly-lit conditions.
“Cerys, turn on the overheads,” he said.
The lights came on, filling the room with the Space Corps’ not-quite-perfect copy of natural daylight. Duggan squinted until his eyes adjusted.
His desk was covered in folders, each containing a report from one department or another. The news was a mixture of good and bad, and Duggan wished he could live to see just one day where the news was completely and utterly neutral.
He picked up his copy of Captain Blake’s report on the recent mission. In spite of his slight over-exuberance when it came to captaincy, Blake was nothing if not thorough when it came to his documentation and the folder was thick.
Duggan skimmed over it for the third time, occasionally giving a half-smile at the details. Blake had acquitted himself well, even though he’d lost one of the Space Corp’s most capable warships. Sometimes the result was worth the cost and there would be no punishment in this case.
God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3) Page 24