Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three)

by Worth, Dan

  ‘Something the matter, Mr Singh?’ said McManus.

  ‘Yes, unfortunately,’ said Singh. ‘We’re getting a weak signal from the Shaper vessels around Nantou, but they’re indistinct. I can’t read the Shapers aboard the Constantine at all. The technology works, but only just. Using our sensors I can tell that there are Shapers in this system, but I wouldn’t want to rely on this equipment to pinpoint their position.’

  ‘That’s just not good enough,’ said Chen, frowning. ‘Andrews, put me through to the cruisers again.’ Trent and Hardaker appeared in her field of vision once more. ‘Captains, we’re seeing the results. They’re a little disappointing, to say the least.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ replied Hardaker. ‘Our technicians are working to clean up the returns, but it seems that our equipment just isn’t sensitive enough to work over the same ranges that the Nahabe are able to achieve with their more advanced systems.’

  ‘Very well. Get it done. Chen out.’ She sat back in her chair and sighed. ‘Put me through to the Shadow in the Void.’

  The Lord Protector appeared after a few seconds. Chen noted that once again the creature was dressed in its full suit of combat armour. Its angular, tank-like form filled her vision.

  ‘You seem to be having some problems, Admiral,’ said the Nahabe. ‘These initial tests have proved a little disappointing.’

  ‘Yes, they have.’

  ‘Would you like my engineers to speak to their counterparts aboard the cruisers?’

  ‘That would be very helpful, yes,’ Chen replied.

  ‘At once,’ said the Lord Protector.

  ‘We can’t achieve the same level of detection range as yourselves,’ said Chen. ‘It may be that our equipment simply can’t function over such a distance. We may need to head deeper into the system to verify that these new sensors are of any use at all.’

  ‘Are you sure that this is wise?’ said the Lord Protector.

  ‘We need to establish the effective range over which we can reliably detect Shaper vessels, plus, if we want to maintain our cover that this is a search and rescue mission, it’s what we would logically do next. Furthermore, I’d like to get a look at what the Shapers are doing around the brown dwarf, Nantou.’

  ‘That is not within our mission parameters,’ warned the Lord Protector.

  ‘All the same, it wouldn’t hurt to get a look at what they’re doing over there if we get the chance and I believe I have command authority. I intend to jump to a point fifteen AU equidistant from Xinbei and Nantou within the system’s asteroid belt. It would look like we’re cautiously closing in on the Constantine using the belt to mask our exact position, but it should allow us to also test the cruisers’ sensors at shorter ranges. You will of course accompany us as fire support and we can use your fully working and more powerful sensors to avoid any nasty surprises.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the Lord Protector, although Chen got the distinct impression that the creature remained to be convinced of her plan.

  A few minutes passed before the cruisers signalled to the Churchill that, with the assistance of the Nahabe technicians aboard the Shadow in the Void, they had made adjustments to their modified hyperspace sensors to increase their resolution and sensitivity. However, it seemed unlikely that they would ever achieve the same sort of results as the Nahabes’ own instruments. With the work complete, the four warships jumped in formation to the co-ordinates provided by the Churchill’s helmsman, Ensign Goldstein. They emerged within the depths of the vast asteroid field that lay between the orbits of Nantou and the fourth planet, Yilan. The belt was the remains of another planetary body that failed to form, the rocks stirred from ever coalescing by the vast gravitation reach of the two gas giants. The Shadow in the Void’s sensors had revealed no Shaper craft present within the field before they had commenced their jump and a second search of the area once they emerged from hyperspace again confirmed this. In addition, the Shaper craft around Nantou had so far failed to move beyond the reach of the brown dwarf and its complex system of moons.

  Once more, the two Thea class cruisers activated their modified sensor arrays and began to sweep the system. Singh scrutinised the results as they came in.

  ‘This is looking a lot better, Admiral,’ said Singh, rubbing his bearded chin. ‘The Shaper vessels around Nantou are clearly visible. The Constantine too shows up clearly as being occupied by Shapers. We can clearly resolve the lines of communication passing between the various vessels.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Chen, nodding.

  ‘So it was a question of range after all,’ McManus commented. ‘How far do you think we can see, Mr Singh?’

  ‘Twenty five AU seems to be the maximum,’ Singh replied. ‘I can see the Shapers’ comm. signals heading out of the system and they fade out around this point. It may be possible to extend this, I suppose, with larger and more sensitive arrays, possibly with more ships working together. There’s something else though... there’s a fleeting return from the asteroids. I can’t pin it down... oddly it only appears on the readings from the cruisers, not from the Shadow in the Void. It could be a false return from the asteroids - many of them are of high metallicity. I’m working to clean it up.’

  ‘Do so Mr Singh, we don’t want any sudden surprises. Can you take a look at those ships around Nantou and tell me what they’re doing there?’

  ‘The majority of the vessels are standard bulk transports of varying types, mainly of human construction. The Shaper vessels seem to be forming an escort, but it looks like the transports are all loaded with magnetic containment crates. We’re too far away to scan within them, but I’d say that the Shapers have just raided the AM collection arrays around Nantou. They’re forming up into a convoy. Looks like they’re preparing to leave the system.’

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed McManus. ‘Do you think the bastards are building a bomb?’

  ‘It’s very possible,’ said Chen, darkly. ‘After all, it would be the perfect revenge for what I did to them. Maybe they think that wiping out a few population centres will cow us into surrendering.’

  ‘And there’s nothing that we can do to stop them,’ McManus commented. ‘If only we had more ships to take them on.’

  ‘Yes, but we can watch where they go. Mr Singh, keep an eye on those ships for me. When they jump, I want you to extrapolate their destination. Admiral Cartwright needs to know about this.’

  It was at this moment that Ensign Andrews interrupted.

  ‘Admiral, the Constantine is hailing us again. It’s Admiral Doyle.’

  ‘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 c
an 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 large
r, 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.