God Ship (Obsidiar Fleet Book 3)

by Anthony James

  The Vraxar didn’t bother with verbal sparring. It cut the comms channel, leaving Blake in no doubt as to what it intended.

  “Fire everything we’ve got!” he shouted. “Aim our particle beams at that stasis tower!”

  The Abyss lacked the sheer grunt of the Sciontrar, but it was equipped with Estral-designed particle beams which were able to penetrate energy shields and Blake hoped they’d be enough to disable the hold on the two warships.

  Hawkins clearly wasn’t expecting the command but she reacted with admirable speed. “Front and rear overcharge firing. They have both struck the stasis generator. We’ve fired missiles from every single one of our launch tubes and the Bulwarks are set to auto.”

  On the sensor feed, the tower which was holding the Sciontrar and Abyss in place looked tiny in comparison to Ix-Gorghal. When the two overcharged particle beams struck its surface, they lit up only a fraction of the whole, indicating the tower was, in fact, huge.

  Blake was ready and he pushed the heavy cruiser’s gravity engines to full. The bridge walls shuddered as they had before and the ship remained trapped.

  “That tower is massive,” said Blake. “It’s going to take more shots to knock it out.”

  “Its output fell twenty percent and then stabilised,” said Quinn. “I have no idea how many times we’ll need to hit it.”

  “The Sciontrar is launching,” said Hawkins. “Let’s see what they’ve got.”

  The Ghast battleship was a little newer than the Abyss and it was certainly more advanced. Missiles poured from its tubes, flooding the sky in their thousands. Its particle beams flashed in rapid succession, snaking across to Ix-Gorghal’s energy shield. Energy spikes from its disruptors triggered the instrumentation on Blake’s console, even though the Abyss wasn’t a target. On top of it all, two hundred or more Vule cannons sprayed white-hot streaks of metal onto the Vraxar shield.

  “That’s one mean bastard of a battleship,” said Ensign Bailey in wonder.

  “They’re charging up their incendiary launcher,” said Quinn.

  “It needs to be quicker than last time.”

  The suddenness of the attack had evidently caught the Vraxar unawares and Blake guessed Tassin-Dak was accustomed to controlling affairs from his seat in what was certainly one of the most powerful spaceships in the universe. Even so, it didn’t take long for Ix-Gorghal to offer a response and when it arrived, it came with expected brutality.

  A pair of huge cannons were housed on the upper-front section of the Vraxar ship. There might have been more, but Blake didn’t have time for a close inspection. The first cannon fired a massive projectile at near-lightspeed. A ball of hardened Gallenium crashed into the ES Abyss’s shield. At the time of impact, Blake’s eye was on the power gauge for the energy shield. To his astonishment, the bar dropped from 95% straight to zero. He swore.

  “That takes out our overcharge capability, sir,” said Hawkins.

  “I know, Lieutenant. That’s a kick in the teeth for us.”

  It was grim news – Blake was relying on getting off a few more shots from the overcharged particle beams in order to shut down the Vraxar stasis tower. Now it was going to take miracle for them to escape.

  “The Sciontrar took a hit from the second cannon, sir,” said Quinn. “Their shield is holding.”

  “They’ve got more Obsidiar than us,” muttered Blake.

  His eyes flicked to a new sensor feed, this one showing an uncomfortably close view of the endless depths of a huge-bore cannon. He felt sure the Vraxar could have turned a thousand extra weapons onto the Abyss, yet they seemed content to take an unhurried approach. Overconfident bastards, he thought angrily.

  “We can’t take another hit,” said Hawkins.

  It seemed inevitable that her statement was about to be tested. Before the Vraxar cannon could fire for a second time, a third spaceship burst into local space, dropping out of lightspeed a few hundred kilometres away and carrying enough speed to cross the intervening space between itself and Ix-Gorghal’s shield in less than a second. The Kalon-T7 crashed into the energy shield at an enormous speed. The Vraxar ship was huge, but the Cadaveron was dense and with incredible inertia. Where it struck the enemy shield blue-green zig-zags of energy burst away, crackling with fury.

  “How on earth is their shield holding after that?” asked Hawkins.

  “They’re diverting power!” yelled Quinn.

  Blake reached for the control bars and realised he hadn’t relinquished his grip from the last time. At maximum thrust, the ES Abyss inched forward.

  “Come on!” shouted Pointer.

  It wasn’t enough. Ix-Gorghal had so much power in reserve it was able to maintain its shield as well as keeping the human and Ghast ships locked in place, even with the cascade of missiles raining continuously upon it.

  The Kalon-T7 pulled away laboriously from its place of impact. The Cadaveron looked nothing like its previous form – its nose was flattened and spread, and the vessel was a thousand metres shorter than when it arrived in the Dranmir solar system. Its attack had angered the Vraxar and the two immense cannons rotated in their turrets, each one firing at the Ghast heavy cruiser. The first projectile crumpled against the Cadaveron’s still-intact energy shield. The second broke through with scarcely-reduced velocity. The massive Gallenium slug punched a vast hole in the Ghast spaceship, leaving a crater several hundred metres across and deep. Blake had no idea if the crew had survived and he had no time to investigate.

  The two cannons rotated once more, one of them aimed at the ES Abyss.

  Before the Vraxar could fire, the Sciontrar launched its plasma incendiaries. The familiar beam of pulsing blue light jumped across to the enemy’s shield. The incendiary spread out rapidly from the point of contact, racing like an unstoppable tide until Ix-Gorghal was engulfed in the centre. Blake watched, one hand keeping the left control bar jammed at the far end of its runner. The shuddering of the engines became a howl and still the Abyss lacked the power to break free.

  “Try the short-range transit again!” he shouted.

  “That stasis beam is blocking the launch,” said Quinn. “We’re not going anywhere while it’s operational.”

  Ix-Gorghal was now completely lost within the incendiary fires. The flames reached their peak and began to recede, dwindling slowly at first. Blake experienced a sensation of utter, helpless frustration when it appeared if the Vraxar would have enough in reserve to withstand the plasma clinging to their energy shield.

  “They don’t like it,” said Quinn. “Something’s happening to that tower – they’re diverting power from it!”

  Blake dared to hope. He closed his eyes and poured the strength of his will to the task of defeating fate. Freedom, when it came, was sudden and jarring. The ES Abyss didn’t creep forward, tugging at the invisible shackles, rather, it burst free in a surge, accelerating with its usual vigour.

  “Yes!” shouted Blake.

  “The Sciontrar has broken away as well, sir!” said Cruz.

  “Get us away from here!”

  “Activating SRT,” said Quinn.

  At the exact moment of transition, a projectile from one of Ix-Gorghal’s cannons smashed into the rear section of the ES Abyss, ramming its way through fifteen hundred metres of solid Gallenium, before friction heat and the density of the spaceship brought its progress to a halt. The single shot caused enormous damage to the engines and missed the life support units by a short distance. It wasn’t the harm done to the engines which was the most catastrophic result of the cannon strike. The last few metres the projectile travelled through the heavy cruiser’s solid hull brought it into contact with the Obsidiar core which was hidden in a room deep inside. The massive slug crunched into the pitch-black cylinder of Obsidiar, shattering it and breaking its connection with the rest of the warship.

  It wasn’t enough to disable the heavy cruiser and the ES Abyss entered a reduced lightspeed state and limped its way to safety.

  In the momen
ts of realisation at what humanity faced and how lucky they’d been to escape this encounter, the crew said nothing. Blake remained in his chair, his hands still gripping the control rods even though the warship’s processors now had complete charge of the journey. The mission had been a success of sorts, he reflected. Unfortunately, what they’d learned showed the depths of the challenge ahead. It wasn’t going to get any easier.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After two hours at lightspeed, Blake ordered a switchover to the gravity engines. With noticeably more vibration than usual, the ES Abyss exited into an area of space which contained absolutely nothing. The heavy cruiser’s rear quarter was a mess of crushed metal and there wasn’t a single display on the bridge which didn’t have some kind of warning light flashing.

  The time since their escape had been filled with desperate efforts to establish some kind of connection with the Obsidiar core. In the end, the crew were forced to admit defeat – the Abyss’s backup power source was gone and they had no hope of fixing it themselves. It was a devastating blow.

  With the entry into local space complete, Lieutenant Quinn activated the stealth modules. The energy shield wouldn’t come online, no matter how hard he tried to tap into the main engines. The stealth modules alone took a vast amount of energy to maintain and the heavy cruiser’s engines took a big hit in output, with some of the gauges stuck at seventy percent instead of one hundred percent. Blake ignored the mess on his console and explained the reasoning behind this unscheduled stop.

  “If we can read a fission cloud, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ix-Gorghal has a similar facility and I don’t want to lead them straight to a Confederation planet,” he said.

  “What if they follow us to here?” asked Quinn.

  “You will take us back to lightspeed the moment you detect an incoming fission signature, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do we have any idea what happened to the Ghasts?” asked Blake.

  “I can’t reach them, sir,” said Cruz. “They’re either at lightspeed or they didn’t make it.”

  “We’re still on backup comms?”

  “Yes, and will be until we reach a shipyard able to complete a refit.”

  “The primary comms aren’t robust enough,” grumbled Blake. He couldn’t do anything about it at the moment. “Can we reach Fleet Admiral Duggan? I want him to hear this directly.”

  “There’ll be a long delay,” said Pointer. “It’ll work if you’re patient.”

  “I think I have a better way,” said Cruz. “We’re close enough to Monitoring Station Sigma to use it as a comms booster. We give them our slow speed signal and they send it onwards using their fully-functioning main comms systems.”

  “Do it.”

  It didn’t take long to establish a connection to New Earth Central Command Station. When Fleet Admiral Duggan spoke, he sounded dog-tired as though he’d denied himself sleep in case he missed any important news. The line clicked and hummed as the signal routed through Monitoring Station Sigma and there was a delay of a few seconds which took Blake a while to get used to.

  “Captain Blake, I was beginning to worry,” said Duggan.

  “With good reason, sir. Ix-Gorghal is a lot bigger than you thought it was.”

  “I received an updated estimate. Tell me it isn’t six hundred klicks from nose to tail.”

  “It’s slightly more, sir, and it’s going to take a lot of firepower to bring it down. I’m sending you the sensor recordings we took – I’m sure you’ve got hundreds of people ready to study the details.”

  “Did you suffer losses?”

  “No losses, though we’ve taken extensive damage. The Abyss is still functioning, but it’s not as fast as it was.”

  “You’re operational?” pressed Duggan.

  “Yes, sir. We’re operational.” Blake took a deep breath. “We’ve lost our Obsidiar core and the energy shield won’t come online.”

  Duggan swore. He wasn’t interested in the financial cost – it was the major reduction in the ES Abyss’s effectiveness that hurt. With an effort, he calmed himself.

  “If it’s gone, it’s gone and we’ll have to deal with it - the Galactics were built tough and the energy shield was just a bonus. Now, tell me what happened to the Ghasts in all this.”

  “We were lucky to have them and they performed admirably. I don’t know if they escaped from the engagement with Ix-Gorghal. We didn’t run out on them.”

  “I will speak to Subjos Kion-Tur and find out what he knows.”

  “They’ve got a weapon which is designed to knock out energy shields. It’s slow to fire but it’s what allowed us to escape.”

  “I’ll make sure the Subjos is aware of its effectiveness.”

  “There is a lot more you need to know.”

  “A way forward?”

  “If we can capitalise. There are two opportunities and I need your guidance on how to proceed, sir. The Vraxar still have the ES Determinant – it’s in the hold of a cargo vessel which went to lightspeed when I threatened Ix-Gorghal with an imaginary Obsidiar bomb.”

  “You captured a model of their fission cloud?”

  “We did, sir. It’s not a perfect copy, since we had sensor interference.”

  “Have you obtained an estimation of their destination?”

  “Not yet, sir. We’ve been at lightspeed and haven’t had many dedicated processing cycles to spare unravelling the fission cloud model, since we’ve been attempting to reconnect the Obsidiar core.”

  “What is the second opportunity?”

  “There is a Vraxar called Tassin-Dak in command of Ix-Gorghal – I got the impression he might be one of the original race and he certainly talked with authority. He dispatched what he called a Gate Maker spaceship, which has the sole purpose of creating a portal for the remainder of the Vraxar fleet to come through. You’re already aware the Neutralisers can do it at a pinch but I don’t think they have many remaining in Confederation Space.”

  “I know of one.”

  “I have a feeling it’s the last, sir. At least until this Gate Maker does its job and brings the rest of the fleet in. Apparently, we’re a stepping stone to the Vraxar’s real target, which is a species called Antaron. Tassin-Dak thinks they’ll be as difficult to overcome as the Estral.”

  “He’s already written us off as a challenge?” asked Duggan bitterly. “Even after you destroyed a hundred of their warships at Cheops-A?”

  “I think we’re small fry to them – an interesting diversion before the real fun starts.”

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter what they think. If we kick them where it hurts often enough, the message will eventually get through.”

  “Which path would you like the ES Abyss to take, sir?”

  “The ES Determinant holds details of our planets, whilst this Gate Maker you describe is the Vraxar’s route to Confederation space.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The channel went silent apart from the clicking and humming sounds. Blake waited patiently while Duggan worked through the possibilities.

  “Captain Blake, how long will it take the Abyss to determine the destination of the two Vraxar ships?”

  This was information Blake had already obtained in advance from Lieutenant Quinn. “We got the best look at the Gate Maker, sir. There’s a chance we’ll have a good enough idea of its destination in the next six to eight hours. Their cargo ship will be harder for us – my engine man believes we might require twenty-four hours or more. Perhaps significantly more.”

  “The problem I have is that the ES Abyss is once again the closest of our warships to the action.”

  “We want this, sir.”

  “Can you send your fission models to Monitoring Station Sigma? They have a lot of processing power which should cut hours off the modelling time.”

  Blake glanced over to his comms team to find both officers shaking their heads. No chance, mouthed Pointer.

  “We lack the bandwidth,” said
Cruz in a loud whisper.

  With a nod of his head, Blake relayed the news. “We can’t transfer the data easily or quickly, sir.”

  “That leaves me in a very difficult position. I would like to bring you back home and extract the data into a dedicated processing unit. Unfortunately, you are several days from the closest facility, which is more time than I am willing to waste. All of this means I need to send the ES Abyss along one road or the other, with the knowledge that your heavy cruiser is the only repository for such valuable data.”

  “I have discussed this with my crew and we have not been able to come up with an adequate compromise, sir.”

  “Which way to proceed?” mused Duggan. “We know the least about this Gate Maker. If they have only one on Ix-Gorghal and we destroy it, we may slow down the Vraxar advance significantly while we build up our own forces. If, on the other hand, we find and destroy the wreckage of the ES Determinant, it will remove the enemy’s ability to locate our planets.”

  “Delay their ability,” said Blake. “They found us once and they’ll find us again. They need a fleet to conquer and without anything to support Ix-Gorghal it will be more vulnerable to a strike using overwhelming numbers.”

  “It sounds as though you have already made your own mind up, Captain Blake.”

  “I think I have. If we find and destroy the Gate Maker, we cut Ix-Gorghal off from its support. If the Vraxar have only a handful of warships in Confederation Space, even with knowledge of our planets, they will find it harder to overcome us all.”

  “An optimist would tell you there are times when both answers are right, whilst a pessimist would say the opposite. Whichever side you fall it doesn’t matter, since in both cases you need to make a choice. If you think the Gate Maker is a priority, please calculate where it has gone and, assuming the ES Abyss is the closest warship to the destination, pursue and destroy it.”

  “Yes, sir. And we’ll get to work on finding out where they took the ES Determinant straight after.”

  “It’s as much of a plan as could be expected. Please put it into action.”