Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three)

by Worth, Dan

  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.

  ‘This had better work,’ said Isaacs as he watched the bright speck fade into the distance.

  Everyone held their breath, watching the tiny dot on the ships’ sensors power upwards into the sky.

  ‘Any second now,’ said Steven, speaking into the comm. ‘Everyone look away. Best not to trust the photochromic filters where AM warhead explosions are concerned. It will still be blindingly bright even if they work.’

  There was a flash. It was indeed eye searingly intense. It was brighter than anything, brighter even than the Achernar sun that hung over this little jungle moon. Even through his tightly closed, averted eyes, Isaacs could still see the patterns of veins behind his eyelids as they were illuminated by the light from the explosion. There was no sound, it had yet to reach them, but when he opened his eyes he could see the bright after effects of the detonation in the upper atmosphere and the rapidly spreading shockwave as it parted the clouds above. He heard Anna whooping over the comm. from the turret control station.

  ‘Directly over the city. Right on the money!’ said Steven. ‘Bastards never knew what hit them. Okay go, go! Hit it!’

  Isaacs, his vision still half obscured by the green after image that the explosion had caused, pushed the throttle forwards and the Profit Margin sped towards Bolivar City, her engines roaring in the morning sky, the Unholy Matrimony following closely behind as a thunderous crack split the sky.

  Shaper ships were now toe-to-toe with Chen’s fleet, and though her ships were firing back with everything they had, they were fighting a losing battle. The Nelson was now badly damaged, her shields near collapse and her bows and port flank battered by enemy fire. She had lost nearly all of her escorts and her crew were struggling to control the massive carrier. The Leonides was in a similar predicament, and though she had got her shields back online, the carrier had taken severe damage in the interim and was operating on one engine. Her escorts had taken terrible punishment trying to shield the carrier from the enemy and were down to a single destroyer and recon cruiser. The Churchill’s group too had taken its share of casualties. The carrier had lost half of its forwards turrets and was venting atmosphere from a dozen places due to a combination of enemy fire and the effects of two of her escorts being destroyed in close proximity to her. The shattered remains of the destroyer Alexius Comnenus and the missile frigate Themistocles were now locked together in death and were burning from hundreds of internal fires fuelled by their atmospheres. The other carrier groups had suffered similar losses. Chen’s fleet was now depleted by a third and half of the ships equipped with spatial distortion weapons had been lost, the Shapers wisely treating them as priority targets. The Shaper destroyers had fanned out, circling the Commonwealth fleet like a pack of wolves and picking off ships at the edge of the formation, whilst the enslaved ships faced the Commonwealth fleet head on. The other group of vessels, meanwhile, had grown weary of trying to purs
ue the Order of Void Hunters. The Nahabe were still making hit-and-run attacks against the much larger fleet and, although they had successfully destroyed over twenty additional vessels, they had done so at the price of three more of their own. Now the Shapers jumped away from their harrying opponents and sought to bring both fleets to bear against the Commonwealth ships.

  The comm. crackled into life and a voice, horribly familiar, began to speak.

  ‘How does it feel to stare death and defeat in the face, Admiral Chen?’ said the voice. ‘How does it feel to know that you have lost?’

  ‘Admiral Cox!’ exclaimed Chen.

  ‘Surprised to hear my voice?’ said Cox. Chen didn’t reply. ‘I thought so,’ Cox sneered. ‘You are as naive as you are stupid if you thought that you could kill me so easily or defeat our fleets. You may have won the battle, but you have lost the war, as they say. Now we have brought overwhelming force to crush your pathetic resistance. You should have joined us when we offered you the chance, Admiral Chen. Now I shall enjoy savouring your defeat.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ spat Chen.

  ‘I already have,’ said Cox. ‘Perhaps if I capture you alive, we can go there together?’

  The transmission was cut off. Chen realised that her heart was thudding in her chest.

  ‘I can’t believe it. I saw his ship torn apart,’ she said incredulously.

  ‘Admiral, I’ve traced the source of the transmission,’ said Singh. ‘Cox is aboard that gigantic vessel that’s powering the wormhole portal.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said McManus. ‘He’s just trying to get you riled up so you’ll make a mistake.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Chen, as the Shaper vessels closed in and unleashed a fresh barrage of ravaging fire against her ships.

  She knew that she was staring death in the face. They were badly outnumbered and outgunned. It was a miracle that the Churchill hadn’t been destroyed so far, but it was only a matter of time. A furious exchange of fire had erupted between her ships and the enslaved fleet and ships on both sides were succumbing, but there were simply too many enemy ships to cope with, and the rampaging Shaper vessels, sooner or later, were going to deliver the death blow. She could satisfy herself with the knowledge that they had gone down fighting, that they had, perhaps, evened the odds in order for Cartwright’s fleet to unleash its devastating attack by drawing off a portion of the enemy force, but even so, his ships would be outnumbered almost ten to one, and still the Nahabe had yet to show themselves. She turned to McManus.

  ‘I’m sorry, Commander,’ she said simply. ‘We did what we could. It’s been an honour.’

  ‘You too, ma’am,’ McManus replied. ‘But this isn’t over yet.’

  ‘I very much think it is,’ said Chen, sadly.

  Fifteen Shaper destroyers were now targeting the Churchill. They swept around as one, and then dove towards the carrier, weapons primed.

  Singh peered at his console.

  ‘Admiral, our sensors are picking up a nuclear detonation in the upper atmosphere of Orinoco. It’s right over the capital city!’ he said in astonishment.

  The Shapers were now in range, but they did not fire. On they rushed, but they seemed uncoordinated, somehow, as if stunned by a sudden blow. The enslaved craft had also ceased fire, and drifted drunkenly seeming unsure what to do.

  ‘Admiral, the inhibitor field is off! I don’t know what, but something’s happened to the enemy ships,’ said Singh, excitedly.

  ‘It must be something to do with that explosion on the moon. Jump! Jump! All ships jump immediately!’ yelled Chen into the comm. ‘All squadrons break off! Get out of here now whilst we still have the chance!’

  The two ships flew low over Bolivar City. It was a ghost town. Sensors confirmed that there was no movement in the streets below, and everywhere there were signs of violent struggle.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ said Isaacs glancing at the display as he flew.

  ‘No idea,’ said Steven . ‘Dead or enslaved, I guess, but it’s odd. I wonder where they took them all?’

  ‘We should be cautious,’ said Isaacs. ‘Anna, fire up those turrets and stand by.’

  ‘Roger that,’ she replied

  The centre of the city lay ahead. Isaacs approached the Assembly House and then banked the Profit Margin and began to circle. In the streets around the classically styled edifice were thousands of bodies. They lay everywhere in the open. Although it was difficult to tell from this height, they appeared physically unharmed, other than the awful modifications that sprouted from some of them. They were not lying still, however. Many could be seen spasming as if seized by some kind of fit. Isaacs circled until he started to see concentrations of enslaved military around the Assembly. They lay slumped at their weapons, collapsed inside their revetments or half-in, half-out of their vehicles. He brought the ship around until it faced down the long boulevard that ran up to the Assembly House steps, slowed to a near stop, and then opened fire with the Profit Margin’s weapons.

  The weapons of the starship shredded the defenceless troops. Heavy calibre rounds from the ship’s twin rail cannons slammed into them, pulping bodies and flipping over smashed vehicles, striking the flawless white marble of the steps and sending stone chips flying. Searing energy beams licked over them too, as Anna joined in with fire from the ship’s ventral turrets, igniting bodies and vehicles alike. The Unholy Matrimony joined in also with rockets fired from underneath its stubby wings and heavy calibre rounds from gimbal mounted gatling guns that tore bloody trenches in the massed enslaved. When the firing stopped, there was nothing left of the enslaved soldiers but bloody, charred rags and the burning, twisted remains of armoured vehicles and heavy weapons.

  ‘Nice work, let’s head on in,’ said Steven.

  ‘What about the others, the enslaved civilians?’ said Anna, over the comm. as the two ships now flew low over the roof of the Assembly.

  ‘Too numerous. We don’t have the ammo or the time to deal with them. Hopefully we can get in and out before they come to.’

  ‘And how long will that be?’ Anna replied.

  ‘Too soon,’ Steven replied, as the Profit Margin and Unholy Matrimony started to descend onto the VIP landing pad inside the Assembly House’s courtyard.

  Chen was down to fifty percent of her force. As the Churchill emerged from its emergency jump, she realised that many of the vessels under her command had not made it, having been too damaged to jump quickly enough, or at all. The Shapers had recovered from whatever had temporarily stunned them and had quickly re-activated their drive inhibitor fields. The Leonides and the Anzio were still trapped at their previous location, along with five destroyers, three missile frigates, and all but one of the remaining modified recon cruisers and their thousands of crew. Even of those ships that had made it, many were badly damaged. It was doubtful whether they could withstand another encounter like the last one.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ said McManus. ‘How are we still alive?’

  ‘Someone detonated an anti-matter warhead high in the atmosphere of Orinoco, right above Bolivar City,’ said Singh. ‘The city was showing high concentrations of Shaper signatures – though no longer - and it’s the seat of Morgan’s self styled regime. It is safe to assume that it serves as a Shaper node in the system. My guess is that the EMP that resulted from the blast has temporarily knocked out that node and greatly disrupted the Shaper network in this system for a moment.’

  ‘Agent Harris, it has to be,’ said Chen. ‘My god, he saved our necks. I wonder if that was the intention?’

  ‘It may only be temporary,’ said Singh. ‘The two Shaper groups that split up from the main force to engage us have joined up and are attacking our ships still trapped at our last location. The Anzio is going down with all hands...’

  ‘Jesus, get out of there...’ breathed McManus, willing the trapped ships to jump clear.

  ‘Those enemy ships ‘ll be headed this way any minute, once they’ve dealt with the stragglers,’ said
Chen.

  ‘Wait, there’s something else!’ said Singh. ‘I’m picking up new contacts in the vicinity of our trapped ships.’

  ‘More enemies?’

  ‘No, it’s the Nahabe! I’m detecting the ships from the Order of Void Hunters and two hundred other vessels emerging into real space. Sensor readings indicate no warp signatures. They must have used their translation drives to jump straight into the battle. I’m seeing gunspheres and ten vessels of a larger class that we haven’t seen before! They’re opening fire on the Shapers!’

  ‘About fucking time!’ yelled McManus, flooded with relief.

  ‘At last,’ said Chen, realising that they might have a chance of surviving after all.

  The comm. crackled. It was the Nahabe commander.

  ‘Commonwealth ships, this is the Speaker from the Nahabe vessel Uncaring Cosmos, Commander in Chief of the Holy Fleets of the Nahabe. We come to you now to turn back the darkness. Death to the World Killers! Death to the enemy! It is time to end this!’

  ‘It’s good to see you, Speaker,’ said Chen. ‘You and your ships are most welcome.’

  ‘We will attempt to free your vessels from the grasp of the enemy, Admiral,’ said the Speaker. ‘The bravery of your people is an example to us all. It is that bravery that persuaded my government to intervene at last. Too long have we remained in isolation. The civilised races of the galaxy must stand together against barbarism.’

  ‘Have we met before, Speaker?’ said Chen as the Churchill’s sensors displayed the Nahabe fleet charging headlong into the midst of the enemy fleet and laying about them with weapons of terrible force as they attempted to extricate the trapped Commonwealth ships.