by Worth, Dan
They found themselves in a long corridor, dimly lit since all sources of power had been knocked out by the EMP. The interior of the Assembly House was strewn with bodies. Men and women lay in twitching heaps everywhere. They sprawled with vacant, open eyes and slack expressions, their skulls pierced by Shaper parasites. Few showed signs of heavy modification. These had been the luckless citizens that had been overwhelmed by the Shaper swarms flooding into the city a few days previously. The teams stepped cautiously around the recumbent enslaved, watching for signs that they were about to wake up. Four marines lugged the anti-matter warhead between them, whilst the rest of the Hidden Hand and naval personnel spread out to cover all possible routes of attack as they made their way deeper into the building.
‘We need to find somewhere suitable to put this thing,’ said Baldwin. ‘Split into groups of four and see if you can locate the Shaper node. I want to make damn sure we kill that thing and that it doesn’t survive in some sub-basement level somewhere.’
‘What are we looking for, Commander?’ said one of the Hidden Hand.
‘You’ll know it when you see it, trust me,’ Steven answered for Baldwin. ‘It’ll look like your worst nightmares arranged into a nice neat pile.’
‘Roger that.’
‘Meanwhile, I need to find to Haines,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve memorised the layout of the building. The stairs up ahead should take me down to the cells. I’ll call for backup if I need it.’
‘Go find the old man for us, Agent Harris,’ said Baldwin. ‘We’ll rendezvous back at the ships.’
With that, Steven headed off at speed down the body strewn corridor before disappearing down the stairs.
The Nahabe fleet was still tearing into the remains of the Shaper group that had surrounded the stragglers from Chen’s fleet. The enemy were outnumbered more than two to one and the Nahabe made short work of the enslaved ships, before concentrating on the much smaller number of Shaper destroyers that had been leading them. Miraculously, the Leonides had survived, though the carrier was severely damaged and was drifting without power to its engines. Meanwhile, Cartwright’s fleet was still trapped between the main Shaper force around the portal that was still reeling from the anti-matter strike and the newly emerged group of around three hundred Shaper craft that was bearing down on them from the rear.
‘Admiral Cartwright, this is Chen. You have to jump away now! We have to retreat before the Shapers trap your ships and destroy them! We have lost fifty percent of our forces and as we feared, the Shapers are indeed able to conceal themselves from our sensors. It’s a trap, we must withdraw!’
‘No,’ said Cartwright, firmly. ‘We cannot retreat, because we have no reserves left to reinforce us. We have to finish the job here and now. I have just had word from Admiral Hawkwood; he has engaged the Shapers in the Solar System and is fighting a dogged defence, but it does seem as if he is going to lose. Earth is already bracing itself for an enemy landing. We’re also about to lose both the Santiago and Chittagong systems. General Shale has reported Shapers landing in force in the region of the monitoring array and we have already lost contact with our anti-matter production facilities. If we can, we need to get in close and destroy the portal before trying to take down that ship. The AM missiles were knocked out of hyperspace by the Shapers’ inhibitor field and were shot down before they reached their target. We have nothing left for a stand off attack. I am ordering the strategic missile destroyers to withdraw. Our only available option is a combined close range assault against that capital ship.’
‘It might be possible,’ said Singh, cutting into the conversation, the urgency of the situation causing him to disregard protocol for the moment. ‘Those arms that hold the ring contain massive energy conduits that feed the ring from the ship’s reactors. If we can direct fire against them it might allow us to shut down the portal and damage the enemy ship at the same time.’ His eyes flicked to his instruments. ‘Wait... new contacts! An additional Shaper force has appeared fifty thousand kilometres below Orinoco’s southern pole. I’m seeing around four hundred ships of various types including superdestroyer class vessels.’
‘We have to go now, in that case, before those ships move in to engage us,’ said Cartwright. ‘We need the Nahabe to shield us from that force before it reaches us.’
‘Acknowledged,’ said the Speaker, who until now had been merely listening in to the conversation. ‘Laying in jump co-ordinates. We will place ourselves between this newly arrived force and your ships.’
‘Good luck everyone,’ said Cartwright. ‘One way or another, this is the final throw of the dice.’
Chen simply nodded in acknowledgment and then gave her orders.
‘Helm, lay in jump co-ordinates. Take us in danger close to the Shaper dreadnought. All batteries stand by to fire as soon as we emerge. Chen to all ships, stand by to jump on my command if you are able and prepare to engage the enemy.’
Haines could see nothing in the blackness of his cell. It was windowless, and after the lights had suddenly gone out he had been plunged into absolute darkness. It had been completely quiet too since then, but he fancied that he could hear distant voices, human voices echoing down the corridors to his cell door.
There was someone outside in the corridor. Booted feet rang on the laminated concrete.
‘Admiral Haines!’
Someone was calling his name.
‘Admiral Haines, this is Agent Harris of Special Operations Command. I’m here to get you out of here! Can you hear me?’
‘Here!’ cried Haines in the darkness, relief flooding through him. ‘I’m over here, son! Over here!’
The footsteps came closer. Knuckles rapped on the metal door.
‘That’s the one!’
‘Just a second sir, let me get you out of there. Move back away from the door as far as you can.’
Haines did as he was asked, dragging himself across the bare concrete to the farthest corner of his cell and covering his face with his hands. There was a sharp bang and the door flew open on it hinges. Haines uncovered his face and saw a figure standing in the open doorway wearing combat armour and clutching a rifle.
‘Am I glad to see you,’ said Haines. ‘Thought I was gonna die in this fucking cell.’
Steven looked down at the bedraggled figure dressed in a torn naval uniform, wasted from malnutrition and sporting several weeks of growth on his usually clean shaven features.
‘Let’s get you out of those chains, sir,’ said Steven, unclipping a compact plasma torch from his belt and getting to work.
‘What happened to the Shapers all of a sudden?’
‘EMP. We set off an AM warhead above the city. It’s stunned them temporarily. The Navy are in-system too, sir. There’s one hell of a battle going on up there.’
‘Good. It’s about time. Who’s commanding?’
‘Admiral Cartwright and Admiral Chen, sir.’
‘Chen?’ Haines started to laugh. ‘I feel better already.’
Steven cut the last of the restraints and helped the older man to his feet.
‘Time to leave,’ said Haines. ‘You got a gun I could borrow?’
‘Sure,’ said Steven, reaching for one his spare pistols.
‘Just in case, you know?’ said Haines and shot him a wicked grin.
The marines reported back to Baldwin within a matter of minutes. They had found the Shaper node in the building. It had not proved difficult to locate. A mass of flesh and alien machinery was heaped in the middle of the floor of what had been the debating chamber of the Achernar system’s government. The members of that government had been fused together into a pulsating mass, their anguished faces, pierced by black, wormlike tendrils and crystalline growths, were still visible in the midst of the obscenity, screaming silently in their torment. The node was surrounded by a carpet of the black, segmented things that the Shapers used to overwhelm and enslave their victims. They did not move as the assault team approached, and neither did the ranks of bodie
s that had been sitting in the rows of seats that ran around the chamber. Perhaps they had been sitting here as if in thrall to this vile thing. Now they lay slackly, their expressions vacant.
The marines set the warhead down in the centre of the chamber as the rest of the Hidden Hand assumed defensive positions, scanning the room for any movement. One of them opened a locked panel on the device’s casing and inspected the display inside, then closed the panel once more.
‘Warhead is set for remote detonation,’ said the marine.
‘Good work, let’s get out of here,’ said Baldwin, as the bodies in the room suddenly all stood up in one synchronised motion.
Cartwright’s fleet emerged from their jump into the teeth of the enemy guns and immediately opened fire with all weapons, carving a swathe through the enslaved ships. A second later, the Nahabe craft emerged from hyperspace in the path of the Shaper fleet approaching from below the ecliptic and initiated a punishing exchange of fire. The two fleets of alien craft began to tear into one another in a blinding storm of exotic energies. But it was not enough. Still more ships were emerging from the portal, and the Shaper fleet that had appeared behind Cartwright’s ships had now jumped in close behind him, trapping his vessels between themselves and the main force around the portal. Chen’s depleted fleet was still inbound.
Nevertheless, Cartwright’s fleet pressed onwards, desperately trying to bring their weapons to bear against the portal, but it was a futile gesture. There were too many ships and too much debris obscuring the Shaper dreadnought for them to get a clear shot, and the battering that the carriers were receiving made it near impossible for them to align themselves correctly. Spatial distortion cannons fired, going wide of the mark or tearing destructive furrows through the massed enemy craft, but failing to find their intended target. The vast weight of fire being directed against his ships from all sides simultaneously collapsed shields in a matter of moments, and then Cartwright’s ships started to die.
The Churchill emerged from hyperspace just in time for Chen to see Cartwright’s ship, the Trafalgar, ripped apart from bow to stern by a massive internal explosion as her escorts died around her in the firestorm. Dozens of ships were going down, their charge having turned into a suicide attack as the Shapers closed in for the kill Desperately, some of the crews tried to ram their vessels into the enemy ships, those that succeeded dying in the midst of massive fireballs that tore apart friendly and enemy vessels alike. But the Shapers had overcommitted to attacking Cartwright’s fleet. A gap had opened in the enemy formation, a gap that Chen could exploit. Cartwright had paid the ultimate price, but his sacrifice had given her a chance.
‘Helm! Take us in to attack the portal! All ships, concentrate your main guns on the arms of the enemy ship. All other batteries, fire at will!’
The Churchill and the battered remains of her fleet powered forward, guns blazing furiously at anything and everything that came close. Chen saw everything happen as if in slow motion: the hundreds of ships fighting and dying all around her, the carrier’s remaining escorts succumbing to punishing levels of enemy fire, the fireballs of exploding ships and the intersecting lines of thousands of beam weapons being unleashed by both sides piercing the darkness, the weapons fire that blazed from her ships, battering the enemy and the destructive energies that the enemy hurled back at them.
God, that ship was big. It floated, terrible and beautiful at once, its strange, alien shape appearing for all the world as if it had been carved from a massive iceberg. It was as white as a blizzard, as cold as winter, as cold as death, and it dwarfed the Churchill that now raced towards it, turrets blazing madly.
‘Take aim at the arm directly ahead!’ ordered Chen. ‘Aim and fire!’
The Churchill shuddered as her spatial distortion cannon ripped apart a tunnel of reality between it and the arm that sprouted from half way up the Shaper vessel’s bows and curved around to grasp the edge of the portal. The impact shattered the arm in one go, scattering massive chunks of crystalline hull material and unleashing an explosive torrent of energy that ballooned outwards from the broken limb as the two severed parts began to separate. Chen felt a thrill of excitement, perhaps if they could sever more of those great arms...
Then the Shaper dreadnought returned fire. A hurricane of fire blazed outwards along its forward quarter, hammering the Churchill with incredible destructive force. Her shields collapsed, her forward section was ripped open and the spatial distortion cannon on her belly was torn off in an instant. The deadly barrage continued, tearing off chunks of the hull and venting her atmosphere and crew into the freezing vacuum. The ship was being flayed. Searing energies scourged her engineering section, severing power conduits and destabilising the reactor.
‘I’m losing control!’ cried Goldstein at the helm. ‘She won’t respond! Main engines are offline and I have fifty percent of manoeuvring thrusters inoperative. Backups are not responding!’
‘This is the Chief,’ said Kleiner in engineering. ‘I’m trying to shut the reactor down, Admiral, before she goes critical. Coolant systems are severed.’
‘She’s going down,’ said McManus. ‘This is it, Michelle. This is the end of the line. We have to abandon ship.’
‘And go where?’ said Chen. ‘Our escape pods will be shot down as soon as they escape the ship.’
The Churchill was drifting now, still heading towards the gigantic enemy craft on a collision course, shedding debris and venting atmosphere from a dozen points. Even though she was dying, the doomed ship kept firing with everything she had left in a gesture of defiance.
‘How does it feel, Admiral Chen?’ said a voice over the comm., as the massive vessel loomed ever closer. ‘How does it feel to face death?
‘Cox,’ said Chen, with disgust. ‘I suppose that you have defeated me after all. You took your time about it.’
‘You caused me pain when you destroyed my ship, Admiral Chen. Immense pain. It was the pain of being exposed to fire and the cold, burning, rupturing vacuum of space. That pain has made me strong! I fed on it, relished it! Now you will experience pain like you cannot imagine, and I have you right where I want you.’
‘We’re going in!’ cried Goldstein, desperately using what resources she had left to slow the Churchill’s approach as the carrier slid ever closer to the Shaper vessel.
‘All hands: brace for impact!’ yelled McManus over the comm. and the crew began to strap themselves in or hang on to whatever they could.
Goldstein had done her best. The Churchill struck the hull of the Shaper vessel at a shallow angle, sliding sideways across the vast, crystalline surface. The impact tore the rear half of the vessel off as it struck an outcropping on that vast plain, scattering ship’s innards and crew into the vacuum as it sheared off. The middle and forward sections hurtled onwards as the vessel’s reactor, contained in the severed aft section, was finally breached and exploded in a nuclear fireball that killed everyone still alive in there.
The remaining chunk of ship slid on for some distance, until it too struck a sharp outcropping on the Shaper vessel’s hull that impaled its belly, opened ten decks to space and brought the shattered remains of the carrier to a final, bone jarring halt.
Steven never saw the gunman. There had been only slumped bodies before on the way in, and the basement levels where the cells were was empty, but now there was an armed man standing behind him. Before he could react, the shot caught him in his right shoulder as he spoke to Haines in his cell, the projectile round piercing a weak point in his armour between the back plate and the shoulder guard and embedding itself in his flesh. Crying out in surprise and pain he was thrown forwards and collided with the wall. Haines, his movements slow from his weeks long ordeal, was slow to react. Nevertheless, he managed to dive back into his cell and out of the line of fire. As Steven lay gasping in pain on the concrete floor and Haines looked in horror at his would be saviour now cut down in front of him, he heard a familiar voice.
‘Going somewhere, Geor
ge? You disappoint me. After all we’ve been through together. How can you run away in our moment of triumph? I want you to see something before you die: the destruction of your navy, and the final surrender of the human race.’
It was Morgan.
Chapter 58
The Arkari fleet was assembled in the Orakkan system. Thousands of vessels floated in formation, waiting for the order to attack. The Sword of Reckoning, Fleet Meritarch Lorali Beklide’s command ship and two hundred kilometre long dreadnought, sat at their heart, one of dozens of such ships, surrounded by squadrons of destroyers and smaller cruisers as well as thousands of smaller fighter craft that buzzed about the larger vessels like shoals of bright fish. At the front of the fleet lay the massive Executioner Cannon, its reactors fully activated and energy capacitors fully primed and, before the cannon, hung the slender bracelet of the Arkari portal, joined to the stars either side of it by slender vortices of directed plasma.
Beklide stood at the centre of the Sword of Reckoning’s bridge, a panoramic view from the ship’s bows projected across the front wall of the chamber, whilst other projections showed her incoming data from the cannon and portal and the status of the other ships.
‘All ships are ready, Meritarch,’ said the ship. ‘The Executioner Cannon reports all systems operating normally and the weapon is ready to fire. The portal has its target locked in and is go for activation. Intelligence reports heavy engagements in Commonwealth space between Commonwealth ships and the Shapers. We have also detected the activation of what appears to be a wormhole portal similar to the device now before us.’
‘Then we don’t have a lot of time,’ said Beklide.
‘No,’ said the ship. ‘We do not.’
‘All ships, this is your Fleet Meritarch,’ said Beklide. ‘It is time to strike back at our enemy. It is time for them to taste pain and loss. They claim to experience no emotion. We will teach them the meaning of fear! We will teach them that when a free people are roused to anger then there is no force in the universe that can stop us! It is time to cut the rotten heart out of this galaxy once and for all! Activate the portal!’